Martial Arts are of a shifting nature. This seems the core reason traditional martial arts practice is a boredom killer. Even in those early days my systems, Isshinryu, creator was constantly shifting how he practiced his karate. It seems to be the nature of how one pursues the study of martial arts.
All to often we find, in the West, a pension to remain steadfast in specific practices, i.e. always doing the same fundamental technique the exact same way as supposedly taught by the founder and creator of said system. But is this the true nature of martial arts or any combative discipline? I submit that the answer is no.
If we look at how the older guys, the masters who created the systems to begin with, practiced, trained and taught their systems we see a constant flux in what was taught. In a true martial arts training system there is not standardized method of teaching any group of persons. That type of training was inherited by the military who brought it home to the West and by the influences of the school systems who had to deal with large numbers of students removing the one-on-one method of training and teaching.
After all, when our military brethren trained in the fifties and sixties they were greatly influenced by the Japanese/Okinawan need to implement martial arts, i.e. karate, into the school systems circa early 1900's. Since that was the primary exposure to the masses of a watered down system of karate, etc. for the youth it took hold and had strong influences on how it was taught to gaijin or foreigners.
You have to ask yourself, did those masters truly pass on the system to the gaijin or was it a means, a strong need, to gain acceptance to the occupiers who had lots of money to pass around and with the after effects of the war meant food on the table and economic stability. After all, my system's creator became a wealthy man with the contracts he obtained with American servicemen assistance to the special services system. This is not a disparaging remark but rather a life requirement - you want to eat and feed your family you do what is necessary to achieve that goal.
Is this possibly how we lost the shifting nature of martial arts. Take a read at the Mokuren dojo, i.e. "Hang on and be Dragged to Death!" He provides some interesting thoughts on the process that is the normal nature of martial arts and is the inspiration for my thoughts here today.
I find it beneficial when you consider the chaotic shifting nature of combatives or self-defense. If that teaching model seems to shift and flux to a seemingly chaotic teaching method when our minds struggle toward some semblance of stability we should then look underneath that shifting and we just might find that what does not shift are the universal fundamental principles of martial systems leading the whole system. The way some technique is done may shift according to new information, the new times, the new requirements toward defense and the new perceptions of the sensei and his or her disciples.
The world shifts and changes constantly, that is the nature and the basis for the yin-yang principal - the core universal principal of all life the permeates every thing done in nature and is seen in our microcosmic world of martial systems.
When someone shifts according to the nature and present moment it becomes an improvement and also becomes a frustration to the student trying to grasp the new just when they feel they are starting to understand the old. Again, take a look and the underlying universal fundamental principles of martial systems involved and you may find that both the old and new are based on the same, exact and unchanging set of principles.
Accept the true nature of all martial systems, the shifting nature of the art while embracing the true nature that lies beneath all the flux and changes. The same exacting universal fundamental principles of martial systems - of life - that is the systems true and standard teaching of any and all systems.
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