Hi Everyone
Well I have had a nice Sunday morning and early afteroon so far today. I spent a few hours sparring and went out to lunch with a good friend and had some great conversation. We discussed a many of things but the main theme was always about martial arts and the dedication to it. Or the dedication to life
There is two ways you can do martial arts now a days. One is to take the martial arts as a part time hobby. This is nice for people that are looking for an actibity that teaches self defense, charachter building, and physical and mental disicipline. The second way to take martial arts is a way of life. Martial Arts as a way of life teaches you to apply the benefits above but also provides you a way of living. You are not just learning to fight in the martial arts. There is so much more.
when you choose to make martial arts a way of living, you are choosing to improve your quality of life. You are choosing to improve the quality of life for others too. A true martial artist makes choices that not only effects how they live their lives and how others choose to live their lives. We lead by example.
Dedication to Martial Arts(Life in General) involves living a healthy lifestyle. In the physical sense this means you are choosing not to put anything into your body that will negatively affect your mental growth or physical health. Choosing to eat the right foods, not to abuse legal or illegal drugs, and not to allow alcohol to control your life. This choice affects not only you but your family and s as well. You are a big influence on them and you need to make the smart choices for everyone, directly or indirectly.
In the mental sense, you are making a decision to learn and practice self discipline and to expand your mind. Self Discipline is the process of having the ability to do the rights things as much as possible whether you feel like doing it or not. Too many people do not have control over their own minds. Making the dedication to expand your mind is an lifelong journey. You choosing to never stop learning. Learning everything about yourself from within and expanding to the outside world. Seeking knowledge that will make your life better and to enrich others. Lifelong learning is essential because if you stop learning, you are no longer breathing. One cannot stand still in life, either you move forward or you are moving backwards. Also learning to control your emotions especially negative ones is extremely improve. This allows you to see life and all its’ situations from a clearer prospective and allow you to make better decisions.
Back to the physical sense, you learn to train your body to be physically fit, flexible, and healthy. We train our bodies to endure physical stress so we can live a longer and more productive life. We will ensure that we are able to do physical activities at an older age compared to others who have not took care of their bodies. Our physical training allows us to do everyday tasks with greater ease. Our bodies also allow us to become weapons if the need to protect ourselves or others from physical harm only.
One of the most important things I beleive that we get out of your martial arts training and the dedication to our lives in general is the power and responsibility to influence and help others in a positive way. We need to choose to do the right things when it comes to dealing with others. We need to reach out and help out our fellow man. This can be done through volunteering time to help with charities, donate to charity, just being someone’s friend, being a good parent, being a positive role model to someone else, trying to make a positive example in the community, and so much more. A lot of people make the choice not to do these things as they make themselves vulnerable to the perception of others.
Making a dedication to life your life better also involves avoiding a lot of negative behaviours that we humans sometimes have. For a few examples, one must not be a bully to others. people should avoid purposely hurting others physically, mentally, and emotionally. Never lay a hand on another person outside of training for the purpose of physically hurting them outside of a self defense situation where your life depended on it. One must never lose control of their emotional or physical state where you can hurt someone in the physical, mental, or emotional sense. Not knowing the difference between right or wrong is a dangerous thing.
Being dedicated to martial arts as a way of life our a way to live your life better is a continous life long journey that has no end. It can be very difficult as life if full of challenges, both positive and negative ones. Every single person has to choose their own path and live by it. One must try to live their life without worrying about judgment. If you are making the right choices and are being a good person, only positive judgments matter and the negatives don’t. Most judgments are based on a person’s character and not their actions until their actions are based on their character.
so to sum up everything, live your life in a positive way in the physical, mental, and emotional sense. Continue to expand your mind, and treat everyone without hurt. do the best you can at these things and remember we all make mistakes, it’s how you choose to deal with the makes that will lead you do a positive or negative path in life. Choose the right path for you, your life ones, and the global community we live in.
Master Jonathan Field