Skip to main content

Learning Martial Arts

Actually the title is a misnomer. You can substitute Martial Arts with just about anything. But let us stick to martial arts for now. How does one learn martial arts?

First you need a master. Second, you need to be physically conditioned to learn. You cannot get up one fine morning and decide to learn martial arts. Well, you can, as long you know that you are committed to it. Third you need to be committed. Fourth, you need discipline. Fifth, you need to unlearn.

And unlearning might be the biggest hurdle to learning. 

Unlearn to look the person in the eye. Unlearn turning away your body when you are fighting or sparring. Unlearn using your technique rather than your instinct and then make that technique your instinct. Unlearn not to rest when you are in training. Unlearn to keep those hands up, keep the guard up. Unlearn to react and learn to drive the direction of the fight...

Unless you do this, it is not possible to learn. Rather all the techniques they teach you is focussed on getting you to unlearn these and learn the others.

And how does that happen. In a nutshell - practice. Practice by yourself. Practice with a mirror. Practice with bags. Practice in sparring. Practice in scrimmages. Practice with self awareness. Practice. Practice. Practice. There is no damn shortcut to learning something like this. And it does not happen in an instant.

It takes time, effort and lots of commitment.

And why is this important here. Read through this when you want to see a change in behaviour or culture or knowledge. Unless you create an environment where one can practice safely, that change wont happen. Unless it is sustained both at "class" and "away" it wont happen!

(And how do I know this. What qualifies me to say so? Because sometime over the last couple of years, I learnt from the good folks at ICSA. And the entire process of learning with self awareness has been meditative, to say the least.)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The power of jotting down ideas

 Long long ago, I always used to carry a small letterpad with me. To jot down ideas that might occur. Over the years, it has changed from a notepad to evernote to google keep, but the power of jotting down ideas is immense.  Small ideas go into keep.  Anything to be quickly typed goes into whatsapp as a self message.  Bigger or better formed ideas go into Google docs A few are still written, but I manage to copy them into a digital format sooner rather than later.  But the power of jotting down is immense. My google keep is an encyclopedia of ideas - most of which may never get implemented. 

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...

No conferences

Decided not to attend any conferences this year. Atleast not the typical ones I have often ranted about here. Will be both choosy and intentional about which ones to attend.  The ones to attend are the ones put up by practitioners of a craft. The rest is marketing one way or other.