Books on the Coffee Table

Greetings all, I met a friend of mine the other day for a coffee and a chat about spirituality and all that! (it's something I do). I used an analogy to best express my thoughts and my view on it all. I kinda lost her, which is understandable, as the deeper the chats go the harder it can be to express yourself properly. Sometimes we censor ourselves deliberately, other times we just get lost down one of the rabbit holes we stumble upon. I spoke about the books on a coffee table, I think I actually said the books on a shelf but you understand the image I'm trying to conjure. Imagine, if you will the book is called "Your Divine Nature". The question that arises is "what is it doing on yer coffee table?"
Is it there because you dip into it on occasion when you're relaxing? Did you put it there to signal to your friends that you're into that sort of thing? Or is it there because you happen to be reading it right now?

Some people like to rub things in your face, be it their physicality, their sexuality and yes, even their spirituality. The things that belong to others, can be important, but not necessarily to you.  YOUR physicality, YOUR sexuality, YOUR spirituality is all that really matters. It is after all, only you that can practise them. A closed book on a coffee table isn't being read at that moment, therefore it is of no use. What I'm trying to say, (yes I appreciate I fell into one of them aforementioned rabbit holes) is you don't need a book about your divine nature, ever. I believe that humanity and spirituality are linked. Like Yin and Yang, intrinsic and giving rise to one another. I am no more spiritual when I climb up a mountain and chant (also something I do BTW) than I am when I go down the CO-OP for my fucking almond milk. My very humanity is the foundation for my spirituality, and that is the only thing that I should rub in someone else's face. YOUR humanity is the only thing that could only ever be important to someone else, all the time, every time.

I explore my humanity and therefore my spirituality through movement and the use of my body. I am fascinated by such things, maybe I have a freaky fetish but I get right into it? Mechanics, movement, grace, power, motion and emotion. I like to watch male gymnasts on the rings, those dudes don't even have six packs they have ten-packs! The strength and poise of a female dancer, the wonderfully triangular and symmetrical back muscles that ultimately you just want to touch, so you can feel that it's real. It is creepy in a way I know :) but the potentiality of the human body and by extension the potentiality of human spirit is one enormous puzzle I want to solve.

I mentioned sexuality earlier, you're probably wondering what that's all about? Same goes for me, sex is a wonderful exploration of our human nature through our bodies and when done right gives great insight into our divine nature. To me the throes of passion are not so different from the throws of Sanda! Each requires a commitment that leaves you vulnerable, a tangle of body and limbs, a courageous moment between you and another, and ultimately someone being on their back :)

 Joking aside, I do mean it, it is only in our most private moments that the majority of us reflect most deeply. It is there we find our most divine nature, but it has always been with us. Sad to think that many never experience themselves beyond looking in a mirror. We are humans and we are better than that.

Find your own practise, it may not be the same as anyone else's, but who cares? It's only for you and it is only you that will find it.

Journeys

I have recently returned from the beautiful and historic lands common to the major monotheistic religions, the lands of Samaria and Judea. In truth I am still reflecting on an amazing trip. It is said that great journeys begin first with a single step. I would contest that even before that, we envisage the final step. We think of the possibilities and the endless variations which our journey may lead us to. This inturn motivates us to take the step in the first place. Journeys don't necessarily need to be just geographical. They can be emotional, spiritual, physical or of any other countless reason. Ultimately, just like Combat Arts they promote growth and expansion. Some plan and plot every detail of the journey linking the steps in the most efficient way, others are happy to toss a stick in the air at a fork in the road, and walk whatever path fate may deem.

Expansion and growth are very important motivators; I travel both internally and externally to seek out humanity in its best form. I have never been disappointed yet with the things I have seen, discovered, revisited or met for the first time. There are many reasons people move from point to point or place to place but we mostly do it because it feels right. The act of seeking out humanity elsewhere, creates humanity in the very effort of doing so. Generally humans delight and thrive in change. Some prefer more gentle or subtle forms of change, others are happy to just go for it.

If you have been too tired of late to try something new or  maybe take on a new challenge, then maybe your energy has stagnated? Maybe you've been standing still too long? I recommend you move, move your body, move your outlook, move your base of learning. Not only will you see something different you will also feel something different. You have access to new energy always.

The best thing about movement in a concentric world is that you can only travel so far before you start coming home again! Destinations and goals are excellent of course but the space between is often where you find the real value.

Wherever you want to go in life or in body or in spirit, I wish you safe travels.

Relax Harder, strive with ease.

We are very complex creatures with all sorts of stuff going on in our heads and in our hearts at any given time. We are living beings that reflect, engage and often ignore the living world around us. Our bodies are made of elements found in distant galaxies but our consciousness stems from deep within. While half the globe sleeps in a wintry embrace in the dead of night, the other half goes about its day in glorious summer heat. Some people are dog people, some people are cat people. We are all different but not all separate. We all breathe the same air but many of us have forgotten just how important and life-affirming that can be. When we are in the city we breathe superficially, normally just enough to not die, yet when we visit a forest we take big deep gulps of air to draw in all the serenity. That is an energy transaction. The difference is it's free to us. When we have a lover in our arms, we squeeze them all the tighter and inhale their scent. That is another energy transaction. It happens when we take what is outside and bring it inside so that we can relish it. It reassures us of our very existence and in our confirmation of life we find tranquillity. Oxygen has a profound impact on our bodies and on our minds. The autonomic nervous system lies deep within, generally doing its job of keeping us alive without our conscious input, but receives its signals from the environment around us. It is made up of two branches: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. Like the Yin and the Yang or in this case, the yang and the yin, the two branches work in tandem to keep the balance. The sympathetic nervous system triggers our fight or flight responses vital in times of crisis, the parasympathetic system deals with all the other processes, sleeping, eating and healing. Whilst one inhibits the other excites. A small dose of stress is good for the internal system, but any sustained period of stress allows the sympathetic nervous system to rule. This has a detrimental effect on your health as it includes the suppression of your digestive system, your immune system and (god forbid) your libido. Obviously our bodies need to be oxygenated to live and thrive, but we also need to cultivate a tranquil atmosphere in which to thrive in. It is easy done, take the time to breathe and make the effort to consciously do nothing more. See where your mind goes. It doesn't matter where your body goes but it would be wise to take it outside to the forest, where life is unimposing yet everywhere. It's a bit like what's going on inside you right now. Magic still exists, you just need to look in the right place.

Martial Arts and Alternative Facts

We are now in a recognised era of "alternative facts". Truth is the Martial Arts have been in that era for a much longer time. This is a very touchy and controversial subject but it would be remiss of me to shy away from it. To be honest  however, I have never actually cowered from it before, and have made my views fairly public about the misnomer that is "Self defence". At the foot of the page I will link a video for you to look at. I want you to appreciate that this is not an attack on any individual and by no means an attack on someone's level of skill. Infact the video I have chosen to highlight, does the opposite, it shows this particular practitioner to be very skilled indeed. In a previous blog post I have written about how it is important to distinguish between Martial Artists and Fighters. To be clear, I advocate any type of training regime over any type of non-training regime, but we must appreciate that people have a vast spectrum of motivations for engaging in Combat Sports. At one end of the spectrum we have self perfection at the other we have self protection. The vast majority of people seek to find a sweet equilibrium between the two. They are however very different,  although not mutually exclusive by any means. What you can watch at the foot of the page needs to be called out for what it is for fear of misleading. It's a very slick marketing device with fairly decent production values (it does feature interlacing artefacts, but I only spotted that because as a cinema technician that is my day-job). It is not reflective of self defence and should not be associated as such. Again I stress this is not an attack on a clearly skilled individual but be aware that it is a very skilled practitioner in "demo-mode" it is not reality. There is very clear compliance from the training partner allowing for the showcase of individual talent. There is also an element of rehearsal, which I'm not against that either, I've done enough demos over the years to appreciate the need to polish a performance for lesser educated eyes. Using the reference of Bruce Lee in the URL is a fairly callous method of affecting people into that weird submissive type of psychology that we all hold about ourselves ie Bruce Lee was a figure that illustrated physical potential that most of us aren't living up to. So we have this guy as a substitute and by extension a martial system that can make us that way. All fine and well until you understand that the silky fancy moves he executes are well practised and polished and affected as a scenario on a compliant almost docile partner. This for me in a nutshell is the problem with Martial Arts and the ranking system. You are supposed to perform various previously agreed upon scenarios to show how good you are, even though it may not only be contrived but actually detrimental to your health ie taking a gun from someone. It ultimately leads to a false sense of accomplishment and people putting stock in utter bullshit. Watch the video further, into the sparring portion. Again I feel I must state that him doing 1 min rounds against 65 people is admirable and certainly a challenge which illustrates his skill further but look at the the array of technique on display now in comparison to the mad shit he was doing before. It is not forthcoming, he has sought safety in the good old whacking and smacking. He has done this because it is the safer and more efficient method. Not only that but it is the default setting of real people! Through experience we  all learn that risk management, then threat management then (god forbid it be required) crisis management is the real challenge.  This is a much better three step process to safety that we should aim to understand moreover than performing highly adroit fine motor skills under stress. The latter doesn't fuckin' work. If you want to learn how to defend yourself, then learn how to fight. Spar and compete. Hand to hand, toe to toe, tooth and nail. Learn how to punch, learn where and when to punch and above all be prepared to develop the c*nt inside you! It is the vital resource which can tip you to victory. A huge list of techniques will amount to fuck all in terms of self protection. Find a few that work, drill them. Understand the concepts of genuine combative flow and it will serve you much better. Understanding concepts in turn will allow you more freedom of technique. By all means train as many techniques as you want, learn your martial alphabet and create new words but be aware that sometimes a simple "Fuck you" gets the point across perfectly well. Stay safe and don't get stupid!

The Bruce Lee of Krav Maga

A Sermon on Spirituality

Following on from last exciting instalment, I thought that tonight I would write about spirituality. Have you ever been on a night out with friends or a loved one when suddenly the thought occurs "I am actually at the end of my personality for today?" You are perhaps an introverted extrovert, or an extroverted introvert or maybe your soul is just looking for something else? That something else is what I call, your spirituality. I am not a fan of nomenclature as I may have written previously, and even less of a fan when it comes to labelling spirituality:  "I am a psychic medium soul retrieving Shaman, with level 10 skills in Rainbow sorcery"
Good for you. Keep up the good work, whatever that work entails. I am a very spiritual person and offer my respects to anyone who openly speaks of their spirituality but I suffer from internalised scepticism and statement like the one above, I usually find very hard to swallow. That is the problem with spirituality, it is easy to rubbish. That is why it shouldn't be thought about as a separate thing. In my experience and understanding, often the ones that talk so much about it; who easily define it, are either lacking a true understanding of it, or who are outright phoney (#notallmediums #notallshamans.)

I have followed spiritual teachings all my life, brought up by Christian parents I moved on to devour books about Buddhism, eastern philosophy, paganism then more modern philosophies, biocentrism for eg. I even battered around with Atheism for a while, but it didn't suit my desire for answers. I finally settled where I am now, which is not easy to define (see what I did there?) I have my practise which is both a moving meditation, in the form of Tai Chi and Boxing, and I have my still practise which involves surrendering my human sensorium to our more profound celestial nature. Fuck me, you might want to read that sentence again! Anyway, joking aside I use my spirituality to try to relate to not only others but to myself and my place here in our big glorious confusing as fuck planet. I do this because I see it as a catalyst for improving life and because I believe it to be absolutely inherent to our existence. I use my spirituality to also explore my masculinity. The idea of my spirit and the idea of my maleness for me go hand in hand. I have recently been reading Grayson Perry's "The Descent of Man" which allegedly tackles the operations of masculinity. I was told by a good friend that Grayson Perry is a very insightful artist/film maker so the book would be worth a read. It's not! It comes from the same repugnant idea that men are incapable morons that stumble from one disaster to the next, psychologically scarring people in our wake out of nothing more than insensitivity. There is no insight, only recycled misunderstandings of the things that drive a man. As a man I find safety and comfort in results. My exploration of spirituality and of combat sports has provided me with results. These results have made me feel comfortable in my masculinity and driven me on to explore more. Yes no doubt my maleness has pissed people off along the way, and of course I don't necessarily get it right all the time but I have aimed to do it with virtuous intention, both for myself and for others. It is natural for a man to want to fight, not toxic. It only becomes toxic when we fight for the wrong reason. Understanding spirituality gives you a better chance of having the right reason. Until next time, peace and love and have a look at this woman doing yoga at sunset! It has something to do with spirituality.........

A Sermon on Physicality

It's Sunday, so I thought I'd preach the benefits of a physical lifestyle. Not only that, but why meditation or mindfulness are intrinsic to it. I firmly believe that any human expression which involves the body is  by nature an extension of our spiritual self. Be it love making, power lifting or punching someone upside the head, if it involves a physical act then its root lies in spirituality. It is the human condition to exert ourselves to express our place in the world, through dance, movement, conflict or even on a more subtle level, simple gestures. All of these are extensions of our idea of self and therefore link back to what our beliefs may be, what we want to be in the world and how we develop interplay with our fellow humans. It blows my mind when I think that movement is effectively either a concentric or eccentric phase across muscle tissue that is sparked by a tiny bioelectrical pulse which is created deep inside the mind. Where that pulse begins who knows? Any extreme that the human body is capable of reaching, in any individual, is designed in the mind first and executed accordingly. We, as humans, are pretty amazing as are all species on our shared planet.

Physicality, much like learning a language, is vital to the core of  human existence. All the things that put people off physical effort usually lies with the processes at the beginning. The idea of doing anything for the first time comes with the burden of not knowing what to expect. Will it be hard? will I be able to do it? will I make a fool of myself if I fail at? I can't be arsed eating right, I can't be arsed getting up early, it will change my routine, it's all too hard, too much time wasted we think! Here's a truth for you, if you aren't doing those things now, you're wasting your time already, missing out on ways to express yourself fully. Getting started is genuinely the hard bit. Then it changes in time, your brain actually changes in time. The cognitive processes called executive functions improve, attention, memory, cognitive flexibility, reasoning, problem solving skills all improve. The brain and the body are so closely linked that physical training basically improves mindfulness. Most importantly inhibitory control gets better tuned and you can override habits, forming new ones, healthier ones. All of a sudden all those questions that first arose when you set out have been answered and you start thinking differently about what you are capable of. Stay motivated folks and keep the faith!

The Science of Violence

I was born in 82 I arrived too late for Bruce Lee and way too early for UFC. I don't fall into the "Millennial" category and when folks talk about the current generation they aren't referring to me. I'm a bit of a middle child of history. I grew up with cartoons like He-Man and Thundercats, I was around for the second outing of Joe 90, Stingray and Captain Scarlet my childhood still filled with good guys and bad guys. The journalists of my epoch have been concerned and reported about everything up to and including cold wars and warm winters. In Martial Arts my generation missed out on the icons but I believe we got something better. In my lifetime huge leaps in progress have been made around Sport Science, sport performance and efficient training methods. Throughout history we have been interested in the enhancement of all these things but it is during my time we really got a hold of the subject matter. Despite this the combat sports were very slow to take on the new ideas. When was the last time you did resistance training to improve your technique? I think this is what we mean when we refer to the "Old School". Back in the day there was a much greater emphasis placed on pure tenacity, doing something because it hurt. If it hurt it had to be good for you and built character? Don't get me wrong, I fully understands the need for the occasional blow out and character building, but as I gain more and more experience in more efficient uses of time, coupled with my long lasting injuries, it is natural for me to pause and think was it all truly worth it? Structured progressive overload is the only true method to develop the body. You can do something a million times over but will receive no benefit beyond a certain point. The human body adapts relatively quickly and will plateau. Doing something for the sake of doing something or because it hurts isn't really the best way to consume your time. Progressive overload also hurts, but by including the structured rest time and safe exercise technique it really is the way to go for improvement.
I think martial arts were particularly slow to take on board the science of it all. This is endemic of a pastime that holds a certain psychology and prideful outlook. It is steeped in tradition and although I do put great stock in tradition I wouldn't do it to the detriment of progress. It wasn't so much unable to jolt itself into the modern methods more unwilling to. That being said, there are many traditional practices which have fallen by the wayside, left untaught by instructors who did not fully understand them which also hindered the progress of MA. What I refer to here, in this blog is beyond those things and refer purely the physicality of combat sports. The basis for any human system of combat is grounded most firmly in human athleticism. You can defeat an opponent with a better strategy but if your strategy doesn't have to take into account failings or frailty on your own part then your strategy can be all the stronger. Work your body, make it better, your strategy becomes all the easier to execute. The science of violence is a beautiful thing to gain an understanding of. Moreover into the realms of self defence, the greatest misnomer within Martial Arts, where we can actually teach people useful things by using the science or psychology of conflict resolution and verbal de-escalation techniques. Science and strategy are like Yin and Yang, if you really want to see results from your Martial Arts I suggest you strengthen both.