Hi,
I've been looking up the benefits of Martial Arts on Google, and it's the usual this that and the other.
The best answers I've gotten online was through forums, like a guy who mentioned that after 3 months of training in martial arts he no longer had road rage.
Does anyone have any experience they want to share here?
I think it'll be good motivation for people intending to get into Martial Arts, when they hear some concrete benefit... You'll be doing God's work...
Thanks in advance!
Excellent questions!
What has martial arts training done for me?
In my first few years (I started at age 46), I received the following benefits:
1) Lost weight.
2) Increased cardiovascular fitness.
3) Learned the basics of the style I was studying (Isshinryu Karate).
4) Began to gain confidence that I could defend myself from some forms of physical violence.
As I continued to train, I believe I have benefited from martial arts in the following ways:
1) I got my breathing under control as I worked out. More importantly... I learned more about the importance of proper breathing as it pertains to many things, including my martial arts training. It also pertains to life in general. Everyone who is alive breathes, but very few people breathe properly; they've never been trained to do so for the most part. Breath control is basic to proper martial arts training; it informs everything.
2) I began to explore stance training. Every form of martial arts has stances. Some are rigidly described and trained, others are looser and more-or-less ignored. What is seldom explored is how small changes in stances affect everything else. Like breathing, finding the proper stance is locked into proper training. Unlike breathing, stances are personal. Not in the larger sense but in the smaller sense. One learns the basic stance and then must experiment to make it work for the body mechanics their personal body type.
3) I began to explore the importance of transitions. Moving from one stance to another must be done with speed, precision, and power, but must also include the above-mentioned breathing and stances. Efficient body movement becomes part and parcel of the training itself. This is best understood by remembering the martial arts movies we have all seen where the hero simply shifts their body to avoid a punch or a kick. This is simplistic, but it shows a fact; body movement and transitions are as important on their own as attack and defense with arms, legs, and other body parts. The first rule of karate, they say, is "Don't get hit." Transitions are the ticket to a deeper understanding of how not to get hit.
4) Focus, or in Japanese, 'kime'. Focus is the ability to pay attention to the parts of a fight that matter and to pay less attention to the parts that do not matter. A simple example is keeping attention on body movement and not looking at the opponent's head or eyes; they feint a move but do not make that move; you are not fooled because you were not giving your attention to their traditional cues. A poker player would call it a 'tell' that an opposing player has. It is focus that allows the mind to begin to process the chaos that is a fight and keep track of what is happening that matters. This is not always intuitive, that's why magicians fool people; they know what the eyes track by nature. Focus is a way of finding the truth behind the movement.
5) Controlled relaxation. Not everything is done with tenseness. The term 'Chinkuchi' has been described as the tenseness of the muscles upon impact. But the important part of that phrase is 'upon impact'. As one explores movement in general, and power generation, one begins to appreciate that being tense at all times leads to exhaustion and less power, not more. Controlled relaxation is not simply being a limp noodle, rather it is learning to flow and move efficiently, which normally requires that the muscles be loose and relaxed, but to bring together the specific groups of muscles and body structure alignment at the right place in the right moment to effectively transfer energy explosively. Relaxed hands move fast; upon impact they 'power up' to provide the rigid structure required to transmit core power to the target.
6) Balance as a key component of martial arts training. While this is taught early and often as "a person's unbalance is the same as a weight," it is only deep examination and exploration that begins to highlight the small and subtle ways in which balance can be gained or taken. It is not the gross movements that are the most effective, it seems to me, but rather the small and intentional movements that either confer balance or take it away. As one begins to understand the absolute importance of good body mechanics, one must also explore the corollary, which is what happens when good body mechanics are turned into bad body mechanics with a nudge or a push or a twist. A simple example would be what happens when a simple and seemingly gentle push in the midsection changes a person's posture only slightly, learning them the tiniest bit forward, and then this unbalance is exploited with a powerful punch or kick. After much experimentation (and having been the subject of same), I can say that there is much to be learned here, and that these tiny details can make a world of difference in overall effectiveness.
Now, having said all of that, there are benefits for me that go well beyond martial arts itself.
I find myself more often trying to apply the lessons I have learned in martial arts to my personal and business life. Keeping my balance on the mat also can be useful when trying to keep one's social or philosophical balance in a meeting at work. I know it doesn't sound like it, and I'm admittedly not very good at it yet, but I have learned enough to know that I should be doing it more.
Think about it. "Don't get hit," and "keep your balance," and "controlled relaxation" and "breath effectively" and "focus on what matters" can all be applied to nearly every aspect of real life outside of self-defense and martial arts.
This is why I have mentioned to people on Martial Talk that I find I am becoming more interested in the 'do' or 'way' of karate then I am the 'jutsu'. I find I am upon a path. I like being on the path. The path has no end, no goal, in life, one simply moves along it. I am currently doing a very poor job of applying what I am learning in martial arts to other aspects of my life, but I am at least awake to the understanding that I should be doing it.
So that's where I am at. A karateka who studies karatedo. What have I gained? It might be better to ask what I have not gained. My life is very different now than it was before I started on this path. I believe I will never return to being the person I was before I started training. And I would not want to.
