Life Skills

Martial Arts began solely as a form of combat. It was meant to be a fighting system to defeat oppressors for both Okinawans and Japanese. One because of the dominance and oppression of conquests and the other due to its feudal history. As those concepts died out the martial arts evolved into a more esoteric form of practice, training and application. They began to take on life skills or jinsei-waza to validate, codify and create a reason to keep up the practice of the "art." 

What are the life skills involved. In those early times it involved self-control, physical and mental fitness, concentration and dedication. As the times also evolved along with the practitioners it took on additional life skill concepts and principles. It added in spiritual aspects meant to make a person better as a person who serves the family, the group and the society in which they lived. 

Jinasei-waza took on a life of its own creating a system that would turn a person into a of humility, ..... , through the forging of the body, mind, and spirit much like the tempering of steel by heating, hammering, folding and quenching with water, many times, until the impurities and air pockets and molecules - all the microscopic elements that weaken - have been beaten out. 

The life skills taught them how to remove the original way - the fighter, enforcer, racketeer, hired gun with no moral code but a response to isults, fight for his master, and to gain glory on the field of battle to a more morally oriented humility driven person who contributes to society as a whole with self, family and group as a foundation.