If you’ve been training in the martial arts long enough to go deeper that the initial excitement of learning something new, you’ve probably had cause to answer the question, “Why do you train?”.
Whether it came from a curious friend or if you’ve had the self-awareness to ask yourself, we want to know that we’re training for a good reason. So what keeps you coming back to the mats, class after class, belt after belt, bruise after strain?
It’s not a difficult question to answer, at least not on a superficial level. There are stock answers about how training makes us fitter and stronger, about how we enjoy the company and social aspect of the dojo or the enjoyment we get by progressing in a chosen field. But for me, these answers seem too small; they lack the depth and complexity of how I really feel, which is much harder to explain.
They’re all good reasons; valid reasons as well as having the added virtue of being true. But still, the same sentiments could be applied to many sports or hobbies. We could just as well be talking about a yearly membership to the local gym. And that feels too much like a betrayal to our art. There’s something more about the martial arts, something that requires a deeper answer that is harder to put into words.
Ive been training for 22 years and I know that it’s not the fitness or the companionship that keeps me on the mats. I know I don’t have to train in the dojo to maintain my fitness, I have a home gym that’ll do the job. I know I can have camaraderie without spending time with like-minded pyjama-warriors, I could just spend my evenings in the pub.
And as for learning something new and enjoying the progress, if you reach high enough; well, it’s fair to say that the process slows down, it’s an inevitable and essential part of developing a deeper understanding. Once you’re into the world of fine-tuning your art, progress becomes a lot harder to measure. I’m ok with that, maybe I even like it, but if I was training for the dopamine-rush of new experiences, I’d have to look elsewhere. So that’s not really it either.
I’ve thought long and hard about why I’m still training when so many others have moved on. I’ve wondered about what difference there is in those few who have stayed around. Are the few of us just stuck in our ways; bound to the familiar and slaves to our inability to move on?
Maybe, but I don’t think so.
I actually think its faith that keeps me hitting the mats. I think its faith that has given value to my practice and reward to my effort.
I’ve found faith on the mats.
And that realisation hit me like a palm-strike to the face. It woke me up.
Before I start to sound too ‘preachy’, let me be clear, I don’t mean I found faith in the sense of religion or in the worship of a deity. I think faith in its truest form is undefinable. After all, once you define faith, you narrow its meaning and you confine it’s ability.
Hell, maybe faith isn’t even the right word to use, but it’s a pretty good start. ‘Faith’ is a big word, with a lot of implied and imbued depth, and that’s just what’s needed to describe the martial arts.
Faith lies beyond both the intellect and beyond the physical, though not in isolation of either of these things. To those I teach, I try to build layers of training. The initial student must learn to practice their technique on an intellectual level, they must build a strong foundation in the understanding of a technique.
Then the training can become something truly physical; knowledge giving guide to a more intense physical practice. The mechanics and application of a technique; the body learning to become strong, precise and effective.
These levels of training are relatively easy to teach; they can be explained and then demonstrated, learnt and copied. But then comes the level of the master, which is the level of intuition. And that’s so very much harder to make someone understand and develop. This is the level where technique steps out of the mind and moves away from the control of the physical. For lack of a better description, it is the training of the spirit.
From mind, to body, and then into the soul; faith finds its place in what we practice.
To be functional and healthy, faith must be informed by both the intellect and the physical world. But when we reach this level of training, we try to leave conscious thought behind. Technique must flow, movement must be natural, the mind must be still.
It is no easy thing.
But in those rarest of moments when mind, body and soul are truly connected, there can be found the purest form of peace and the most natural state of existence I have experienced.
It is within those moments where I found faith. In my art and in myself and in no superficial way.
And therein lies the true power of the martial arts; the strength to experience and live inside fundamental moments of faith. To have reached inside ourselves and let go. To test our knowledge and trust our body through our practice.
Over the course of my life, I’ve put my faith in relationships, in god, and even in various man-made systems and processes. I’ve hero-worshipped and I’ve lost myself in dreams. I’ve been hurt and let down by all of them. They were the wrong sort of faith and that’s my lesson to have learnt. Typically we think of faith as something esoteric, something believed rather than something tangible, but in the martial-arts is where reality meets the mystical.
Traditional training is not just the balance between real-life and the spirit, it is the connection between the two.
Faith has the power to lead us out of the mundane, out of the ordinary. It empowers us to give more and believe in something bigger than ourselves. Faith gives us purpose and belonging.
I think I’ll always be training. I love training with like-minded, passionate people. I love learning and developing my skills. I even love the bruises. But it’s the desire to experience those pure moments of faith that keep me coming back to the mats.
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