Spirituality – Martial Arts and Spirituality (Christopher Hein) (Part 2)

Martial Arts and Spirituality

Your spirit shows itself when you stop putting things off. Without fearing what is about to happen, simply being in the moment, naturally. We’ve all had the experience of getting up in front of a crowd to give a talk or present something. Maybe we allowed ourselves to be intimidated by the crowd, kind of shinking inside of ourselves. Not being the best showman we could be. We didn’t have the “showman’s spirit”. We didn’t allow ourselves to do as well as we could. We just didn’t have enough “spirit” to make the best presentation we could. Spiritual practice’s are those that teach you to except what is happening and who you are in order to let yourself, your spirit, shine through. When you are coming from a spiritual place you are acting without fear, worry, doubt, or any kind of dependence on what will happen next, you are simply being you, right now.

Understanding spirit, and spirituality in this way; its connection to the martial arts is undeniable. Martial situations are ones that require strong spirit. If your spirit isn’t strong you’ll never get through extreme difficulty’s. If your spirit isn’t strong it’s impossible to come through tragedy and not be a victim. And for these very reasons Martial practices make wonderful training grounds for the spirit. Lending the martial arts to being a wonderful spiritual practice. Most religions and non-martial spiritual schools have to add practices in order to train the spirit. Challenges and difficulties must be faced in order to strengthen your spirit. Non-martial spiritual traditions add things like: abstinence, fasting, tithing, worship, routine, strict moralities etc. in order to challenge their practitioners. Martial practices however have a built in set of challenges: fighting, physical fatigue, and habitual practice are the necessities of a martial method. Practices like these make simple sense in the martial arts. You never have to ask, “why do I need to be in good physical shape”, “Why do I actually need to test my skills against someone”, or “why do I need to train so much”. The reasons are clear, if you want to be good, you’ll have to do these things. You must use your spirit to get through these rigors, this trains the spirit. It’s hard to hide behind lies, and clever excuses, if you’re not training hard, it’s clear that your spirit is not in the practice.

The great thing about spiritual training is that it will naturally start to spill over into the rest of your life. When you honestly take on training in the martial arts, you take on a spiritual practice that makes you a stronger person. Dealing with things directly and honestly starts to be much less challenging. When you willingly participate in physical conflict, dealing with the grumpy bus boy suddenly isn’t a big deal. When you force yourself to joyfully except vigorous exercise, doing yard work is no problem. A strong spirit is useful in all facets of life, and will do far more for you then make you a good fighter.

You must pay attention to this. You must actually make Spirituality a practice. If you fight simply because you’re mad, or “want too” you’re not training your spirit. You are simply giving in to an indulgence. If you show up at your Dojo and simply go through the motions, you’re not training your spirit. If you get excited and feed your ego every time you pin someone, or give them a big throw, complaining every time you are thrown, you’re not training your spirit. You must stay ever mindful, taking care in all of your training. This will make your practice something phenomenal. Something that will strengthen your spirit, and increase your martial ability. Eventually there will be no more “spirit of giving”, or “fighting spirit”, because everything you do will involve spirit. Giving you something we could all use a little more of in our lives, Joy.

Christopher Hein

Luc Paquin