People train in martial arts for a variety of reasons. Most will reach points when their original reasons seem to not fit or aren't as important anymore. It is those moments that the person has to decide to either stop training or find a new reason. If it's a new reason, they also have to make the hard decision as to whether the current art they are training in fits this new purpose. If you ever get the chance to meet anybody who has trained in a martial art (or variety of arts) solidly for more than 10 years, ask them if the reasons they continue to train are the same as when they first started. Compare that to someone who has only been training for a handful of years or less. For those who have kept to their training, they all will talk about changes in perspective, in understanding, and how this has evolved their continued enthusiasm and purpose for training. You can also hear about when they struggled, reached plateaus and walls, and kept going until a new level was reached that changed everything for them.
Those moments are transformations, in my opinion, and they are as natural as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
The root of the word 'natural' is 'nature'. Nature is all about transformation, of change. Seasons carry life and death, birth and change. Nothing stays the same. Even the rocks themselves change. Just look at the evolution of the Grand Canyon. At one point, it started with a trickle of water on a rock.
Sometimes transformations can be blossoming life, of vibrancy and newness. Or, it could be of decline, aging, and all the changes leading to an ultimate death.
I have been training since the mid-1980's, the exact date being long forgotten. During this time, I have always carried an intense passion for martial arts and training. But, I have also changed, experienced many transformations that have altered my perspective, my understanding and the purpose of why I keep going. I have spent a lot of time training with other martial artists and styles outside my Bujinkan path, partly out of my own personal interests and partly because I have always felt I needed to see what I do from a different "filter" - and gain some new skill sets along the way.
Our Soke is truly an amazing martial artist! Over the decades, I also have seen Soke and the Bujinkan itself go through many transformations. Yet, they were never some random, whimsical series of changes. Looking back at how all these have manifested, I can clearly see how these transformations really are more of an unpeeling of layers, of clarifying higher purposes for training, more about a lifestyle than a set of skills, and more about a way of approaching ourselves and life that promotes and embraces natural change as the only constant.
People expect transformations to always be about newness and feel good stuff. Yet, as I described with my parallel to nature, transformations also involve decline, aging, and all the natural changes that lead to a death. We all go through these. Everything goes through these. We are left with the choice to either embrace them and 'keep going', to fight them, or just give up. To fight them is kin to fighting nature. It's impossible. Nature wins eventually. Just look at the aged Hollywood stars who spend countless dollars getting all the plastic surgery they can to hold on to a youth that has long passed. Are they looking natural, or something unnatural? In the end, they are still going through the transformations of aging and the more they fight it, the worse they look.
Yet, I know many who have accepted their age and are quite beautiful in their naturalness. They embrace the transformations they are going through, even when those changes aren't exactly "feel good" or convenient. Oh how we take for granted the benefits of youth, the innocence, the health, the "forgiveness" our bodies can give us in our choices, the energy that seems limitless at times, the tight skin, full head of hair, clear vision and hearing, good teeth, bodies and minds strong and vibrant. But, we also take for granted the benefits of our older years, too. The wisdom, experience, perspective, maturity, and grace of having experienced life. The finding of the slower rhythm of life that allows you to fully enjoy the little things. The peace that comes from getting out of the 'rat race'.
In my long pursued martial arts path, I have come to learn that, for me, life and martial arts are really the same. The same transformations I have experienced throughout my training are mirrored in the transformations I have experienced in my life. Or is it that the transformations in my life are mirrored in the transformations of my martial arts path? Is it the martial arts that change or do I change? Of course, it is I who changes and, with it, my values, perspectives, purposes, and definitions. But, in many occasions, it is my martial arts and life that seem to change first and, through it, I reach another transformation.
That tipping point of awareness, whether life and martial arts - or my self - initiates the change and causes the transformation of it all. That is a point I am at right now. For if the martial arts path isn't what truly changes, but only myself, giving way to a new transformation of my martial arts path, then am I in complete control of my transformation? If martial arts and life are synonymous with each other, than does this mean I also am in control of my own life's transformations?
And, how do I know whether my 'transformation' in life and martial arts is natural, or just my selfish attempt to fight nature? Am I trying to cover up natural transformation in my life and martial arts through some symbolic form of plastic surgery?
I have been delving deeply lately into the reality of violence, predators and the legal system that ultimately surrounds it. In my last blog post, I shared with you some of the experiences I have had in my past that involved these things. Yet, when I started in martial arts, my reasons had more to do with fantasy than reality. I wanted to the the next ninja or samurai, fighting off armies of enemy soldiers and gaining fame and glory on the battlefield. I was in to sport martial arts because I liked the competition, the challenge - and the win. As I grew into a man and took on careers in law enforcement, military and investigations, a lot of these early fantasies stayed with me. They were a fun escape from the reality I lived. So, I kept training and playing in my own world as a form of entertainment and stress relief. Although the skills I learned helped me in the dangerous aspect of my real world, high risk employment, I was still very much training to satisfy the dream world I had created.
I look back now and I can't help but blush in embarrassment! But, we all have been there. I believe all martial artists start out living some kind of fantasy that is removed from their real world. Many still continue this duality even into decades of training.
At some point, I began to question the effectiveness of what I was doing and to see the ridiculousness of the fantasy I had created. I began to see others in my martial art (and others in different arts) as being foolish, convinced that they wouldn't last 10 seconds in the 'real world' of violence. I became skeptical and even bitter at times, pointing a judgmental finger and being ignorant of my own foolishness.
Yet, I kept training in the art that has been with me since those early years back in the 80's. I kept showing up, putting on the black keikogi training uniform and split toe Japanese tabi shoes, and 'pretending' to fight off attackers with a variety of medieval Japanese weaponry. The fantasy changed, but yet I still lived in a new fantasy of sorts. I still left the outside world at the door and stepped into my dream world as I walked on to the mat. But, my language and attitude changed. I saw things differently. Kata became academic subjects, to be studied for their content and reinterpreted into skill sets that apply to modern uses. I would train with a Japanese sword, then change it for a mock firearm. I took classical jujutsu techniques and applied them to modern style knife attacks (not the lunging extended stabs and slashes common to Japanese martial arts). I even took up cross training in different modern arts to try and understand this feeling I was searching for.
I was looking for something. I couldn't tell you what it was. But, the feeling was compelling.
Then, the art I trained in transformed. The teachers and friends I train with began changing how they moved and it far more reflected what Soke was doing. But, was it a transformation or did my own change allow me to "see" what was already there? At any rate, the newness was refreshing. The vibrancy was electrifying and stimulating. I felt like a kid again, enjoying my training with passion. But, even better, the seasoned self found direct application to my own past experiences, as it all fit what I knew to be real in regards to violence.
But, I have to stop there and be honest for a second. I still have my doubts, my struggles, with the question of whether this that I am going through is a natural transformation - or am I again trying to stuff Botox into my understanding, to try and hide or stop the natural change that should be happening? If so, then nature will eventually win. But, at what cost to my life and martial arts?
So, I keep training. I keep going. I try to stop pointing fingers and making judgements, because I have learned that when I do, I stop growing. I also know to stop pointing fingers at myself, too, because I am organic and evolving. How I am today is not how I will be tomorrow. I am getting older and, with that, all the natural changes that come with it. My body is not as forgiving. My health, although really good for my age, is still not as good as it was in my youth. My perspective is greater, as I have lived through many experiences and learned so much.
But, I feel that I continue to have a kind of innocence, about life and my martial arts path. My innocence is in the realization that I really don't know. I don't know what is truly around the corner for me. I don't know if what I am doing is natural or not. I don't know if I am just a fake tanned, Botox filled, artificial human product of my own plastic surgery.
All I know is that I am always compelled to keep going, in life and in my martial arts. I can't put a finger on exactly what it is I am after, because I no longer carry the fantasies of my old martial arts beginnings. For me, right now, I seem to be in pursuit of a feeling. That's it. A feeling. Exactly what that is, I can't describe. It's as elusive as trying to describe a deep emotion. Because that's really what it is - a deep emotion. It's as deep as the very essence of who I am.
And I guess that's how I see transformations as being like an unpeeling. I seem to be reaching to connect to this deep emotion in some way. Maybe that is my own essence, the root or core of "me", and all my pursuits, all my transformations, are simply layers of revelation.
The path of martial arts is a path to nowhere, having a beginning but no end, until the day we die. Maybe that's what death is, at the end of our road, the final transformation where the last layer is removed and we finally exist as one, unfiltered, with our deep emotion.
I don't know. But I do know that I plan to go to the dojo this week, like I have done every week, to put on the black keikogi uniform and split toe Japanese tabi shoes, and train with my friends in a variety of fantasized combat situations.
Maybe this next class will hold a new transformation.
