Evolution of you: why and how

[David Jamieson]

Facts: a) First post b) My forum name is a bad made up name from a short story I'm writing...so don't sweat it c) I'm a spiritual person who believes in the unseen, but I still think Jon Stewart is god *smiles* d. I only profess no rank, no school, no lineage, and no teacher...no teacher but me.
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I began my martial experience with a typical TKD tournament school. In my instructor's school, we did wall stretches, kicks, line drills until each of us felt like puking.

This shock changed me.
It ate at my habitual karma that a culture of Dr. Pepper and Twinkees had started. I become very flashy with kicks--this built an ego. I stopped eating garbage.

In our tournament school, we practiced the splits (sides and frontal). I learned that I could do the splits all the way to the ground in either. This built more ego, but also a good foundation for life-fitness. My instructor hated his results that came alive in me. He was a prime egoist. This is shock number two. Martial arts instructors are far from being perfect angels or bodhisattvas. Some are purely masters of finance-do.

When I was a yellow belt, I got in a fight with a friend over a girl. I was a believer: Front stance, left down block, tight fist ****ed at ribcage. I gave a loud "keeyaaiii," and mowed forward, striking my opponent with my punch.

He toppled.

But like in a bad Hollywood film, my antagonist stood back up.
He flew at me with rage, tripped me from my stance to the funky, dirty ground, and slapped a headlock on me. This wasn't in any of my TKD forms.

Because I was bigger, stronger, I pryed out of it, straddled him, and began to pummel his face with quick, untutored strikes. Where was the glory of forms practice?

My forms meant little to nothing--Shock three.

Shock four: Strength can be a good thing.

I saw that my training was mere sports training.
After I obtained first dan, I left the school, looking for something that would rock me hard.

And high school faded, just background noise.

College introduced me to shock number five: my Yang Tai Chi/Hop Gar sifu.
I was allowed to train with his Tai Chi class in his home, but not what I wanted at the time. I wanted the good stuff, stuff I saw in David Chin's book via Staples.

We burned standing meditation. My legs turned to jello, and I had thought I was strong; my arms quaked like a new born's; I once thought I was powerful. I learned that I understood nothing about standing.

Shock six was being allowed to train in his small, HG style class. The Yang training taught me that shivering and quaking in a stance was good. But the pain train had only begun. I was introduced to a twenty minute horse drill that would introduce me to new hilarious levels of discomfort and pain. Two hundred wrist twists; fifty spear hands; fifty crane claws to the front, slow, until your knuckles cracked into a grip; fifty at the sides until your arms became spaghetti. Five hundred waist twists meant we were ending the horse warm up.

I always looked forward to cool down...leaving the horse stance twenty to twenty five minutes later for tendon stretches, for the comfortable position of the full splits.

My ego melted, and I began learning about humility. Or so I like to think.

Shock seven was training with my teacher's Zen master.

I learned that I didn't really know how to sit properly, for more than nine hours at a time that is; I learned that I was really just a sock puppet made by my culture, that the small-I I had learned to become, was just culture...not reality. The universe, the world itself could open and swallow me and it would not make one bit of difference.

"What can you do," the Zen master asked me when I told him this mind-chatter of mine.

I was speechless.
I had no answer.

Shock eight was my realization at forty: I too will die one day. Maybe now, maybe tomorrow, maybe when I turn seventy.

Again...what can I do? This is my true life koan.

Thank you for reading.
Thank you for sharing.

Ha!

Best post today! Thanks for writing it, thanks for sharing.

[ShenZhi]

To: David Jamieson--

No problem!
Thanks to all for the hospitality.

[Taixuquan99]

Started as a kid who liked kung fu movies, took a summer of tae kwon do classes at fifteen from a guy who, I would later realize, was one of the nicest, most conscientious teachers I have met. I don't even know why I stopped going, just trailed off, but I practiced all the kicks I learned over the next few years.

At seventeen, a friend got me in to Chung Moo Quan. In that era, most of the chung moo quan guys who trained that silliness hard were looking for an order of warriors, and that group trained hard, but were taught to be authoritarian jerks, as is always the goal when driving all your students to becoming instructors. That said, I am in contact with a good number of other former members who have moved on to better things, and we all have done a good job on becoming decent folk, well, I'm marginally indecent, but not congressional in my indecency.

At my early/mid twenties, studied longfist under the teacher who I think had the best priorities of any of the teachers I've had. Never badmouthed any school, worked hard to teach right. However, I was moving around a lot at the time, so I only learned basic longfist, but I kept training some good aspects of it over the years.

In my late twenties, started six elbows. Skip.

In my thirties, started six elbows and general fight training under another teacher, learned taixuquan, focused on that, focused on usage.

Done some ground stuff, have been studying some katori, just like martial arts.

Main philosophy:

Don't exoticise it

Entrain and observe before theorizing

Remember why you did it in the first place. I didn't join martial arts because I wanted to absorb someone else's prejudices, because I wanted to say my way of push hands is best, my way of striking or throwing is best, to be special because I'm General Tso's student, etc. I joined because I enjoy it and enjoy developing solid skill at it.

[SPJ]

When I was young, I liked to go to Karate or TKD schools (there were no MMA gym back then) to watch their classes. At the end of the class, I would then approcah to a student and asked if he would be interest to spar with me when he had some free time. I could accumulate my experence very fast that way. I was very lucky to have a professonal MT guy who had a Say Hi oriental grocery store next door of my school. Everyday after my class, he would come over and I had good time to spar with him. I have always believed that the best way to develop combat skill is to get involve with people from different styles. After those days. the word "style" no longer has any meaning to me.

we are only limited by our openess.

open door policy is always better.

however, it is progressive or in stages in terms of styles vs styleless

1. in the beginning, we learn "specialized" training from each style.

2. in the middle, we integrate or assimilate, we take and keep what we want or more comfortable with and drop the rest.

3. in the end, there are no more styles, there is only you.

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