My Personal Journey from Martial Art to Spirituality

When I first practice martial art, my goal is to be stronger and better. A fighter is the one who can defeat his opponent, the better martial artist is the one who can punch and kick harder and faster, with better stamina, and agility. But as my learning progress its way in martial art, my knowledge and experience from this all punches and kicks world entry point has lead me into a vast exploration about fear, courage, attitude, self, enemy, ego, philosophy, culture, heritage, wisdom, humanity, religion, and finally enlightenment respectively (Note that I don’t mean to say that I am enlightened, but I explore about enlightenment). Well not a clear cut respectively but you get the picture.

Some backgrounds about my pursuit in martial art

Why is it that I want to learn martial art in the first place?

 First: because I was introduced and taught about martial art early in life. Most of my grandpa’s generations had at least some amount of knowledge and experiences in martial art, some even master the art skillfully, and my own grandpa from my father’s side master the Tai Chi Chuan. Down to my father’s generation things may not as extreme as a Kungfu Sifu, but at least almost all of them were involved in martial art at some point of their life; my dad practices martial art vigorously throughout his youth and early adulthood; I have two uncle that reach black belt in karate; others are either practice karate even though not until black belt, or have no martial background but known as a fearless fighter in his young age (the eldest of them). So there you go, a long list of martial blood is encoded in my gene and or like the martialist used to say, “It is in our blood”.

Second: because despite of being taught the way of courage early in life, I was kid with a fearful heart. I thought I was brave, until I learned that I wasn’t, I realized that I was afraid of being bullied by street kids, I funnily refuse to run by pride, yet am freeze-handed to strike a hit, and I was afraid at plunging myself in the middle of kumite competition when I was still a brat. But I refuse to bow to that condition, so there I was fighting my fear with years of practice all the way to a point where some bruises and small lacerations around the lips and eyelids, and painful joint injury of the jaw are a common thing after each fighting practice yet I feel nothing, and I have known to refuse to bow down to extreme pain even after a major direct hit to the abdomen out of pride, and also stubbornly open the defense of my head even after dealing with a major hit. I plunge myself in the pursuit of the strength and honor in the way of the warrior (Bushido).

The turning point

But there is a critical point in my martial journey that makes me see martial arts in a different way, a more philosophical way, and that is when I first met my Karate master from BKC a few years ago. In summary, he taught me that martial art is not just about punches and kicks, and not just about tradition and art, and certainly not just about pride and winning, but about attitude, a way of life, and wisdom, and that a true master is the one who have total physical and mental awareness that he can deal with any conflict with the slightest or no violence at all, and hence it makes me reconsider about the true goal of martial art itself and makes me – like it or not – to explore about which things are important to me and worth to defend till the necessary violence and which things that don’t. And of course it didn’t stop there, the surge of curiosity flows like a tide wave that it gives me no choice but to question about why are those things are important to me, and why some aren’t. In the end all those questions lead to the ultimate question about what is the purpose of live itself, and what is the meaning of Truth, hence all the reading about philosophy, religion, great old tales of wisdom, ancient ways like Tao, Zen, and about enlightenment.

Yet I was not alone in this transformation of a greater purpose of martial arts. I was within a brotherhood that values the old wisdom of martial arts just as I am. And the fact that some of them trained in different kind of martial arts like Aikido, Jiujutsu, Kyokushinkai full contact karate is also beneficial for the knowledge that is being taught to me from these various kinds of martial arts has been a very helpful catalyst toward a grander view of martial arts wisdom and eventually sprang toward spirituality (Particularly Aikido).

Well that is a quite far deviation of my original intention to learn about martial art. I never even thought that some punches and kicks will lead me this far. But actually, after a careful observation, I conclude that for a serious and I mean really serious martialist (or at least those who are serious enough to explore about the deep value and history of the martial way), it is inevitable that the pursuit will eventually brought them to the path of spirituality (How deep will it be is a matter of personal preference). Because our forefathers of martial arts are indeed masters of life philosophies and great teachers of religions like Bodhidharma – a Buddhist – the founder of Shaolin Temple, and Zhang San Feng – a Taoist, and a Tai Chi Master – the founder of the Temple of Mount Wudang. And from Japan, all great samurai – who in time had eventually developed the empty handed martial arts like Aikido, Jiujutsu, Judo, and Karate – are greatly and vigorously educated in Zen meditation, and Zen wisdom, where Zen itself – originally called Chan in Chinese – literally means meditation that developed from Buddhism at Shaolin Temple. 

One of the most famous modern time great martialist that had walked more or less the same journey as I am and had transform in his purpose on martial art is Bruce Lee (also known as Lee Xiao Long/Lee Zhen Fang) – yet I fully realized that I am still dwarfed compare his achievement and far from thinking myself even close to him. Anyone who knows him from movie alone will think that he is all action fast punch and kick guy. Few know that after years of martial art training under master Ye Wen (or Ip Man) he eventually recognize the greater value on martial art and decided to enter a four-year education in philosophy at the University of Philadelphia.

Intermezzo: My objection toward the degrading value of martial art

Most modern martial arts practitioners pursuit health, self-defense, achievement and social activity, and I have nothing against those who fall in this category. But heck, the even more modern practitioners  have downgrade the high value of the art that was first founded by the ancestors of martial arts into petty ideas like life-style, looking cool, mating screening candidate, and so on, and so on. So I personally think that those who practice martial arts in the former ways, even though not a true martialist, but a sport athlete, they still have the right to be honored. But those who practice in the later ways are gymnasts, not martialists. It’s okay to be a gymnast, but it still saddens me that the value of true martial way has in practice degraded so low in this modern age.