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INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this book is to provide a practical guide to using Martial Art strategies in everyday life; it aims to provide you with the necessary tools to analyse and transform areas in your life where fear and its related emotions operate. Central to the book is the concept of holistic self-defence, which is founded upon the principle that the primary form of intelligence to be applied to fear is one’s sense of balance.

This book will also challenge many preconceived notions of what defines Martial Art. I examine many of the concepts and philosophies that comprise Martial Art and apply old wisdom to contemporary settings. I have personally found that the Chinese tradition (mainly derived from Taoism) is the closest in essence to true Martial Art and for this reason I have based the book primarily upon Chinese perspectives and spiritual backgrounds; however, this by no means excludes other cultural interpretations, nor is it meant to depreciate their teachings.

Having spent over 22 years studying Martial Art, I feel that its true roots and its place in our daily lives has been overlooked and, to a certain extent, forgotten. In the last 30 years, Martial Art has enjoyed an explosion of popularity and although popularity is generally a good thing, it has engendered a variety of erroneous perceptions and interpretations of what constitutes Martial Art. The need for an ego massage and the lure of easy money have led to the emergence of many an unscrupulous and misguided teacher, and the mass-media marketing of Martial Art has further confounded the problem by creating fantastic images and staging fight scenes that bear no resemblance to reality. All of this has brought the world of Martial Art to a crisis point – what was once a noble and valid path for self-evolution has become a vehicle for people seeking their own materialistic and egotistic ends. However, this is not all encompassing as I have met many good and true martial artists in my time who are distinguished from their inferior counterparts by the quality of their ‘being’ and not their chosen Martial Art style.

How to Approach This Book

This book should be used as a working manual that can be dipped into on a daily basis, acting as a reminder and general guide to those of you who are searching for the martial way. It is also a good idea to read it from cover to cover to get an overall picture of what the study of Martial Art should include.

I am using this book to present Martial Art to you as a tool and, like all tools, it will only be meaningful to you when you use it practically in your life. This does not require you to go out and start conflicts in order to fulfil your training. In fact, the truth of conflict and its associated fears is that it is a part of everyday life that we are continually affected by – we are often attacked from within by our own negative thoughts and attitudes towards ourselves; conflicts arise between people who love each other; fear exists between people who work together; people, whether consciously or unconsciously, send negative thoughts or ‘vibes’; and there is always a possibility of physical intimidation which, while relatively rare in most people's lives, is increasing in all our lives all the time. If you embrace the fact that attack in some form is integral to our lives, then you will start to see our training from a much wider perspective. By the time you have finished reading this book you should have gained an understanding of the nature and effects of fear in your life. Moreover, you will have a good understanding of the strategies that could be employed to overcome the debilitating effects of fear and aggression.

If I appear to repeat myself during the course of this book, it is because some points need to be reiterated before their significance can be realized. The process of conscious repetition is essential to Martial Art, for it is only by repeating carefully (practising) a particular move or aspect, that your body, mind and spirit can begin to embody the underlying principles. It is because of this that delving deeply into the spiritual ramifications of this kind of work is beyond the scope of this book. It can take you to that door, but it will not open it very far. This is primarily because a very thorough grounding in the physical and practical aspects is needed before we can truly experience the spiritual benefits of Martial Art.

You are reading these words now for a reason; perhaps this book caught your eye on a bookshop’s shelf, perhaps somebody gave it to you because they felt that it could help you with particular situations that you are experiencing. Whatever the reason, it is important that before you start grappling with the ideas and concepts in this book, you are clear, as much as possible, why you are interested in the martial path and what you wish to gain from studying it. The true martial path is not a particularly easy one since it will ask you to face things in yourself that you would perhaps wish to keep in the dark, and it demands that you slowly bring your ego into perspective and allow a more ‘human’ being to take control of your life. This process requires you to be open to the relationship that exists in you with the things that part of you would most like to avoid, namely areas where pain and fear operate. Because of this fact, there will be times when you meet great resistance in yourself to forging ahead and keeping the process going. Remember that you are investing your energy and attention back into yourself and by so doing strengthening yourself at the very core of your being, thereby becoming more effective, stronger and able to meet all that life demands of you. This is the real meaning and purpose of Kung Fu: to provide a tool that you can use to deal with your daily battles, whether they be against violent attacks of a criminal nature, abusive bosses, partners, strangers, or negative thoughts and attitudes within you, or perhaps just to fight for what you want out of life and to deal with the many failures it takes to make a success. Nothing that is worth anything in life comes cheaply or easily. Conflict is an inescapable part of life and always carries with it a good helping of fear and pain; it arises in our life in many different places, some suspected, some unsuspected, and awareness of the possibility of conflict is your first line of defence. If we can keep our original motivations and wishes alive, we can return to the source of our enquiry into Martial Art and strengthen once again our wish to evolve by facing our fears.

Some Preliminary Information

A Brief History of Kung Fu

As this book aims to interpret some of the original Martial Art precepts into contemporary life it would serve us well to briefly look at the roots of Kung Fu (a modern term generally describing Martial Art), for it is only by looking at its origins that we can begin to understand what its original purpose may have been. The Kung Fu tradition has a Chinese background and is inextricably linked with the spiritual teachings of Taoism. Central to the teaching of Taoism is the concept of the individual practitioner evolving a gradual harmonization with nature and the Tao (the life force that animates all things and can be found everywhere in the universe), and this is important because since its conception it has been clear that Kung Fu is about harmonization rather than domination.

The roots of Kung Fu are very difficult to trace through history, primarily because the practice dates back thousands of years, but the first writings on Chi Kung (a form of exercise that was the precursor to modern Kung Fu) date back to 3000 BC and have been subsequently added to and developed by a succession of extraordinary individuals. The Northern Shaolin Temple in China’s Honan Province existed in approximately AD 580 and was the birthplace of modern Kung Fu. Legend dictates that Bodidharma, a Buddhist monk from India, travelled to China where he had been summoned to the court at Nanking. After a brief and not very successful trip, Bodidharma started his journey home, but before reaching his destination, he came upon the Shaolin Temple. The temple at that time was being used for scholarly Buddhist studies, and the monks were engaged in translating Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Chinese. On meeting Bodidharma, the head monk refused him entry because his progressive Buddhist teachings placed less emphasis on scholarly pursuits than they did on more energetic forms of teaching. Bodidharma decided to wait outside in order to try to gain entry, and he is rumoured to have spent this time in intensive meditation. (There is some speculation as to how long he stayed there – some say 40 days, others say nine years, but I have it on fairly good authority that it was, in fact, three months.) During this time, many local people came to him for guidance, and word of Bodidharma’s wisdom spread and finally found its way back to the temple. The head monk then conceded Bodidharma’s superior knowledge and allowed him to enter the monastery (more fanciful accounts will say that Bodidharma drilled a hole in the wall with his stare). What Bodidharma saw upon his entrance disturbed him greatly: the monks were lethargic and depressed and their bodies were emaciated; the prolonged mental activity of translation was an imbalance and, as with all imbalances, was beginning to destroy them. Bodidharma explained to them that as the mind and body are inextricably linked, the relationship between them must be continually rejuvenated and rebalanced otherwise disease (dis-ease) would follow. After much meditation, Bodidharma designed a set of exercises to bring about the rejuvenation of the Shaolin monks’ body–mind relationship. These exercises formed the basis of what is now Chi Kung and Kung Fu. The Chi Kung exercises presented in this book are scaled-down versions of Bodidhama’s original series and have been adapted for modern life.

During his time at the monastery, Bodidharma also wrote several classic texts, introduced the monks to Indian Martial Art and reintroduced the concept of Chi (the ancient art of extracting energy from the air via the breath) into Kung Fu. As time went by, the monks developed a deeper connection with their body movement and so began to understand the natural laws inherent in the human body and its machinations. However, this dynamic connection to their own bodies soon lent itself to meditating on nature itself and the movements contained therein, and hence they began to experience themselves as part of nature. This had a profound effect on the development of Kung Fu, as the monks allowed themselves to be ‘taught’ by nature directly. For example, by meditating upon animals they came to understand the most natural methods of adapting to their environment and defending themselves against predators; and by meditating upon water they learned how to change the shape of their body in a continuous, ‘flowing’ manner. We can see both of these examples embodied in the original animal forms (a form is a long series of movements used for practising Kung Fu techniques), which were movements based on the animals (such as the tiger, monkey, snake and white crane) that they were mimicking. As time went on and the monks got stronger, their life dictated that they develop a direct martial application to their movements, as they were being attacked and robbed on their travels to nearby markets.

This direct connection with nature went hand in hand with the spiritual teachings of Taoism, the dominant religion in China between AD 310 and AD 580. The teachings of Taoism were well documented by Confucius (born: 551 BC) and Lao Tzu (born: circa 6th century BC), both great philosophers who preached about the evolution of man to such a level that he becomes one with the Tao, again emphasizing the importance of harmonization.

This, I admit, is a condensed history lesson, but it illustrates a few fundamental points about Kung Fu:

1 Kung Fu was originally a tool to help strengthen the relationship between the mind and the body to make the practitioner stronger in life.

2 The first purpose of Kung Fu was to fight disease.

3 Kung Fu led to a much deeper understanding of the laws of nature by working through the body.

Thus, it is important right from the start to understand that the correct study of Martial Art must have both internal (your relationship with yourself) and external (your relationship with the outside world) aspects intact. Like the two halves of the Yin/Yang symbol – separate, yet containing a small representation of the other (a spot) – these aspects must be shown to relate to each other, and helping you to understand this principle is one of the primary aims of this book. When we unlock our understanding of this relationship, we increase the use of (and the number of possibilities for using) our Martial Art training in everyday life. This understanding develops a sense of balance and by using the exercises presented in this book, it is my wish that you develop this sense and become open to the possibilities of how it can accentuate your life. The extraordinary thing about authentic Martial Art is that you work through your own body and build a relationship with it in order to understand about the power of balance through your own experiences. This direct understanding will then begin, quite naturally, to find its way into the other primary areas of your being, namely your mind and your emotions. Then, slowly, a new perception of yourself will begin to emerge where the body, mind and emotions work in dynamic harmony with each other, bringing extensive integration or ‘oneness’ with yourself and your environment.

FIGURE 1

The Intelligent Warrior

The title of this book, The Intelligent Warrior, was not chosen flippantly. The etymology of the word ‘intelligence’ comes from two words: ‘inter’, which means ‘between’, and ‘legere’, which means ‘to choose’. Thus, the word ‘intelligence’ implies a sense of balance, an ability to stand between two things and then make a decision, or the intention to take action in one direction or another; indeed, the word ‘intends’ means ‘to stretch out’ or ‘to move in one direction’. On the other hand, the word ‘warrior’ means ‘bringer of chaos or war’ and this, at first sight, might seem to contradict the word ‘intelligence’. After all, why would anyone want to bring chaos into his or her life? However, we all have both conscious and unconscious fears that affect our day-to-day decisions and actions, and bring about the same situations in our lives repeatedly. This can make us feel trapped or imprisoned at times in our lives when varying degrees of intensity or stress arise, and in order to free ourselves of these fears we must become aware of them in order to ‘open’ to them or ‘throw some light upon them’. We enter a state of chaos when we sense warring factions within ourselves, but only by seeing and accepting this state of chaos can we gradually bring some balance and understanding into our lives.

The Meaning of Kung Fu

The term Kung Fu roughly translated means time spent working on something in direct relationship to yourself so that your skill and yourself simultaneously evolve. Thus, Jimi Hendrix was a Kung Fu guitarist, Claude Monet was a Kung Fu painter and Confucius was a Kung Fu philosopher. A martial artist works on himself through the medium of his or her own body; the body is their instrument rather than a guitar or paint brush.

The art of expressing the human body was one of Bruce Lee's favourite topics. He maintained that learning Martial Art should ultimately allow you to express yourself ‘honestly’ (by this he meant to free of the confines of thought, habits, and attitudes) to be able to adapt to your environment in times of stress. Therefore, Kung Fu really means time spent working on yourself; it is a reinvestment of energy in yourself. We will deal with this principle at great length in this book, for one of the first things that must happen during your training is for you to gain awareness and control of your energy so that you do not continually dissipate it with physical, mental or emotional imbalanced states of being that are elicited by fear and its related emotions. And just as a good company reinvests some of its profits back into itself in order to adapt, survive and change in response to the prevailing climate, you as a martial artist must reinvest your energy back into yourself to become stronger and more able to meet the responsibilities that your life demands. You will then be able to defend against imbalance in yourself and recognize the effect that people and external/internal conditions have on you. This is the truth of real self-defence, and any discussion about Martial Art must consider this.

Common Misunderstandings

The Public

I have had many conversations with martial artists and the public about Martial Art, and the one thing that strikes me is that everybody thinks they know what it is. Interestingly, it is a subject that seems to provoke people into expressing strong opinions. The top-five reactions of people when I am introduced as a Martial Art instructor are:

1 ‘I better stay away from you then’ or ‘I won't get on your wrong side!’ usually said in a jovial tone and followed by a little smile as if they were the first person ever to think of such a quip. It is a tedious reaction because it is immediately assumed that I have a propensity to resort to physical violence, when in fact true Martial Art is about harmonization and not the use of inappropriate force to dominate someone.

2 Holding a bottle of beer or cream cake at a party tends to elicit the response, ‘I thought you were supposed to be super fit and weren’t supposed to consume things like that!’This reaction expresses the attitude that in order to be a martial artist you must live a life of saintliness and purity, which is rubbish because a martial artist must open up to everything, including ‘temptations’, in order to adapt. It is not a question of denial but rather a question of experiencing and discarding what is useless, one of the fundamental laws of adaptability.

3 The person immediately takes a comic fighting posture, gives the customary war chant ‘Hiiiii ya!’ and follows up with a reference to the ’70s cartoon Hong Kong Fooey. Some people deal with their fear of Martial Art by turning it into a caricature.

4 They proceed to explain what Martial Art is and tell me how they were once a black belt and that their master could do amazing feats such as walk along walls and defeat multiple attackers with a single touch of his finger. This is indicative of a particularly pernicious attitude bred in people who train in martial sport; it is an overly competitive attitude that is usually based on their own feelings of impotence.

5 They immediately adopt an attitude of subservience and over-the-top reverence for my illuminating presence. This type of person tends to want somebody else to take responsibility for them and always looks for answers from the outside instead of from within themselves.

Why have I gone to the trouble of outlining these somewhat comical responses? Because it is my belief that Martial Art, largely due to the huge media attention lavished upon it, has been grossly misrepresented and misunderstood by the public. Why is this important? Because many people, both men and women, are suffering from a lack of teaching to help them cultivate their warrior spirits truly and fully.

Martial Artists

The media is not solely to blame for this. So-called martial artists themselves also perpetuate misrepresentations. Three of the most current misrepresentations are:

1 The Internal School. The main culprits here are people who do T’ai Chi in satin suits and funny slippers in the park on Sunday. They proliferate quasi-Eastern mysticism that preaches about Chi, the importance of yielding and how you can use your energy to redirect your opponent’s force and cast aside knife-wielding maniacs with the calmest of demeanours. These people are playing a very dangerous game because a real street encounter with someone who actually wants to do physical harm is a brutal business and your training must reflect this. The internal side is essential in Martial Art but is impotent unless accompanied by the external.

2 The External School. People who practise in these types of schools believe that training for martial sport is the same as for Martial Art. One of the greatest crimes that the Western world has committed towards Martial Art is imbuing it with a sense of sport. All over the West, ‘martial artists’ compete for glittering trophies, glory and adulation in Martial art competitions when in fact scoring points in a tournament has very little to do with either real self-defence or developing the finer sensitivity inherent in artistic training – a mugger is not going to recognize the fact that you have just scored three points for tapping him in the ribs. If you only train for scoring points then that is all that will ever emerge when you are in a real situation. Training in this manner also tends to engender arrogant mental and emotional habits that can spill over into your daily lives. This school of training has come about largely because the Western world’s first real introduction to Martial Art came via America and so was filtered through their powerful sense of sport. We will deal with this topic in more detail later.

3 The Street Fighter School. This is proliferated by people who see themselves as ‘hard’. Their attitude is that Martial Art has to be as aggressive as possible because street fights are so bloody and brutal that you can only win if you are ‘hard’, and think that the best way of training is either for you to beat people up or to get your fellow students to try to beat you up. From one point of view, this is probably the safest of the misrepresentations and the closest to the truth but it is two-dimensional and these people are dangerously missing the point: actual physical confrontation for most people is fairly rare, but conflict exists everywhere. It can also be a very dangerous attitude to take because it increases Yang energy (aggression, anger etc.), which increases the chances of you starting an unnecessary fight and getting hurt or seriously hurting your opponent, consequently increasing the chances of ending up in prison with plenty of time to contemplate what you have lost. I therefore reiterate my point that physical confrontation for most people is a fairly rare event, but conflict is a natural part of life and is present much of the time.

The Media

The misrepresentations proliferated by the media are too many and varied to go into here, but the most dangerous are the ridiculous types of fight scenes we see in movies today. These lengthy scenes comprise bodies flying, jumping and running along walls, and I am sorry to say that real street fights are never like this. Instead, they tend to be brutal, messy and quite short. It is important to understand that the roots of Martial Art are very far away from the acrobatics and gymnastics portrayed by the entertainment industry. Moreover, you must be clear in your mind what it is you are training for; if you want your Martial Art training to have an effect in your life then you must spend time studying the situations and scenarios that you may encounter.

The Difference Between Martial Art and Martial Sport

So, having looked at some of the more common misrepresentations of Martial Art let us now look at what it actually should be. As mentioned previously there is a great difference between Martial Art and martial sport; in fact, most things described as Martial Art are actually martial sport. Martial Art deals with the art of expressing the human body and develops man's innate sense of harmonization, adaptation and exploration. Martial sport, on the other hand, is far more concerned with domination and emphasizes winning as the primary objective; this can have a very detrimental effect on those who practise it as it breeds a very limited two-dimensional perception of the world. It does not teach the human being how to evolve or how to accept Yin and Yang with equal respect or how to accept winning and losing with the same spirit.

Nor does it teach of the presence of the third dimension: balance. The tradition of Martial Art teaches us how to respect our bodies and exercise them in a manner that will preserve them in older age. Martial sport uses the body as a vehicle for glory and utilizes high-impact exercise to get the quickest results possible. The martial sport practitioner seeks material affirmation of their worth as a martial artist, which might include building bigger muscles, acquiring as many trophies as possible, wearing the most elaborate clothing or breaking the most boards. This is a highly dangerous form of training as it tends to build a false image of oneself and bring an overestimation of one's abilities. If correct focus is not taught, the mind will learn to daydream repeatedly seeing itself always as the “star” of one's own show, but anyone who has a modicum of experience in street fighting knows how crippling this image of oneself can be. The pure barbarity of real combat wipes out this illusion mercilessly. The most common effect when faced with an actual conflict is that the practitioner will freeze and engage in negative internal conversation about how they should be doing better or what friends are thinking of them. I have seen many skilled martial sport practitioners freeze and be reduced to the most basic form of body mechanics when faced with a drunken, little delinquent who was not afraid of violence.

Another aspect of martial sport, which I personally find astounding, is that so many practitioners end up with serious injuries, which can never really heal. These include destroyed knee ligaments, broken and arthritic hands, various back injuries, detached retinas, fallen arches, and breathing problems caused by broken noses and poor posture. Such injuries usually occur in competitions or regular training that allow full-contact sparring or from trying to attain a material goal such as large muscles or the next coloured belt. By training in this way, the wish to learn how to defend oneself ended up with the practitioner being even less able (due to injury) to defend himself than when he or she first walked in the dojo’s (Japanese word for training room) door.

It is also true that training in martial sport tires the body and makes it age quicker. It takes many years to build something of quality and authenticity, and your body is no different. Remember that the term ‘Kung Fu’ means time spent working on yourself (which means body, mind, and spirit), so patience and perseverance need to be cultivated in the practitioner in order to build a quality ‘vessel’ or body that is integrated and whole.

Key Concepts in Martial Art

An intelligent warrior should begin cultivating the ability to express themselves from the inside outwards, not to seek an image of themselves from the outside in, as if looking in a mirror, or imagining yourself as if playing a role in a movie. Similarly, they must cultivate an understanding of discipline as a self-imposed (or by a teacher) set of parameters that helps attain goals, and not as an outside force beating them into shape or a bitter pill that has to be swallowed. The Chinese use the analogy of pruning a tree, for if it is pruned correctly it will bear greater fruit in the spring; so too, if we curb some of our overextended branches (such as putting a stop to engaging in negative emotion or thought) we will gradually develop more internal power. Martial Art should work to develop the body in a holistic manner in accordance with nature, which means evolving the body, mind and spirit harmoniously so they gradually can manifest as one force.

To understand this further we could represent this in a symbolic form, as symbols were originally used to bypass the intellectual functions and represent to the unconscious mind the ideas in question in an energetic format (see Figure 2). The dot in the middle of the symbol represents the centre or Tan T'ien, the point that we are first trying to stabilize so that everything else can orientate itself around it. The three circling tadpole-like shapes represent the primary energies: the body, mind and spirit. These are dynamically represented for they are continually moving in a cycle of imbalance and rebalancing. The circle that encompasses the Tan T'ien and the three energies is the outer level of your body, which includes your skin, eardrums and eyes. It is at this level that vibrations from the outside world actually enter your inner world. The energy of the body deals with our physical nature and encompasses the physiological, biomechanical and biochemical aspects of your body. The energy of the mind represents your thought processes and other functions controlled by the cerebrum. The energy of spirit deals with the emotions and a gradual refinement of emotional reaction into feeling. The Chinese character for spirit does not lend itself to direct interpretation into Western language; however, in the context of this book I will use the word spirit to represent our emotional energy rather than in any ‘spiritual’ context. Having said that, Martial Art should at some point lead us to a spiritual dimension. It is not the scope of this book to deal with this in depth, but it is common sense that our bodies are part of nature and they have been built on the same laws that this planet and universe have been built on. It therefore stands to reason that if we build a connection with our body and bring it more into accordance with the way nature intended then we should begin to resonate with life on a much larger scale. Whether you call it God, The Great Spirit, Allah, Vishnu or the Tao, the awakening to life on a much larger scale is part of the very roots of Kung Fu.

FIGURE 2

The symbol is also what is known as a paradoxicon in that it stimulates the balance between foreground/background perceptions. When looking at the symbol you may perceive the three aforementioned tadpole-like shapes or you may perceive a three-bladed Shurikan (throwing star). This stimulation of the mechanics of vision is essential in Martial Art training and is a subject we will return to.

Now that we have clarified to some degree what Martial Art is and is not, we can begin to approach the question of authentic self-defence. The following introduces some key concepts that I will refer to at various points throughout the book.

The Holistic Concept of Self-Defence

At the heart of this book lies the practice of holistic self-defence (from the Greek word ‘holos’ meaning ‘whole’, and related to the word ‘holy’), which is a viewpoint that allows us to look at self-defence from a very wide perspective and one that is in accordance with the laws of nature. The key concept in holistic self-defence is the principle of ‘homeostasis’, a term used by the medical profession to define the natural healthy state of an organism. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition for homeostasis is: ‘The ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes.’ We can understand from this definition that a continual process of balance is essential for the maintenance of health. Holistic self-defence looks at the concept of homeostasis not only in the body (as is the focus of Western medicine) but also in the realms of thought and emotion, and it expands to encompass the status quo or ‘outer’ conditions of our life. Another way of putting this would be that practising holistic self-defence protects you from actual physical attacks, negative thought, negative emotion, viruses, poor posture, addictions and anything that will throw the body out of balance.

We all have an internal balance that allows us to hold together an external balance that could be seen as the status quo or homeostasis of our life. During our daily life we are constantly making decisions, which are followed by actions to maintain our homeostasis. For instance, we plan ahead with money so that we do not end up homeless, we try to see friends and family to fulfil our emotional needs, and so on. This does not mean a homeless person has no balance, it simply means that the homeostasis they maintain in their life is different. However, from time to time something of a much larger magnitude may enter into one's life and throw it completely out of balance requiring some form of ‘re-action’ or rebalancing. Examples include losing a job, the death of a loved one, a partner having an affair, winning the lottery or getting a promotion. Imbalance can occur from both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ events, and sometimes we even need to consciously disrupt the balance of our life in order to move on and grow (for instance, taking the risk of quitting your job in order to set up your own business). The essential point is that the process of rebalancing through a sense of balance is our primary tool for self-defence, and that our bodies are continually engaged in this process of homeostasis on many different levels; moreover, it is, and has been, one of the keys to our ability to adapt and survive. In this way, an extremely negative person could be viewed as a virus entering your life, which you may or may not catch a similar illness from, or somebody trying to strike you could be viewed as a disease trying to gain a hold of your body, which you repel and so keep yourself in balance. In The Science of Homeopathy George Vithoulkas writes:

…every organism possesses a defence mechanism which is constantly coping with stimuli from both internal and external sources. This defence mechanism is responsible for maintaining a state of homeostasis, which is a state of equilibrium between processes tending to disorder the organism and processes that tend to maintain order. Understanding precisely how this defence mechanism works is vital, for any significant impairment of its function rapidly leads to imbalance and finally death.

Vithoulkas (1986: 16)

To understand and strengthen this defence mechanism is very much in keeping with the philosophy of Kung Fu (time spent working on yourself). It calls one to practise proactive health, to strengthen the ground on which influences fall rather than trying to destroy and control influences that we deem threatening.

The Fight-or-Flight Repsonse

Throughout the course of this book I will refer to the fight-or-flight response. This response has been evolved over countless millennia and is triggered instinctively by the body (via the autonomic nervous system) when it perceives it is under attack. Some of the reactions that make up the response are as follows:

 Increased metabolism, heart rate and breathing (to increase energy levels).

 Surge in CO2 production (to prepare for increased intake of O2).

 Release of natural adrenalin, morphine and cortisol into the body (to increase power and control of pain).

 Stomach begins to shut down (to make more blood available for the muscles), which tends to cause nausea.

 Pupils dilate (to increase visual acuity), which has a tendency to interfere with our visual perception.

 Release of coagulants into the bloodstream (to stop bleeding if cut) – prolonged exposure can cause heart attacks in later life.

 Blood is pulled away from the skin’s surface (to stop excessive bleeding), which may cause leg tremors and cold sweats.

 Blood is routed away from the frontal reasoning part of the brain into the more instinctual parts located towards the middle (brain stem) of the brain.

One of the most significant points about this extraordinary instinctual defence mechanism is that it is fired when the body perceives it is under attack. This means that even if the threat is not remotely life-threatening (as when we watch a scary movie) the body will still fire the fight-or-flight response to some degree. This is the major cause of what is popularly known as stress and can, over a long period of time, have serious repercussions on our mental, physical and emotional health. The fight-or-flight response was designed for real danger, for sudden spurts of intense life-preserving activity; the body throws itself out of its normal homeostasis in order to protect itself better, and then returns fairly quickly afterwards to its normal state, which it can generally deal with quite well. However, what we see prevalent in today’s society is much less intense reactions spread over a longer period of time, and the body cannot cope well with this. The threats that might set the response off in this case might be an abusive boss or partner, money problems, bullying, anxiety about the future, regrets about the past, phobias or low self-esteem. An Intelligent Warrior must become extremely familiar with the fight-or-flight response (the body’s most powerful response) because it has a huge effect on our homeostasis.

Proactive Health and the Cyclical Nature of Health

The correct practice of Martial Art strengthens our ‘constitution’ by the practice of proactive health and understanding the cyclical nature of health and disease in the body. Western medicine spends a lot of time, money and effort researching and hunting down new microbes, bacteria, viruses, etc., and then developing powerful drugs that kill them. This obsession has blinded them to the fact that it is the constitutional susceptibility (the already existing weakness in the body, mind, and spirit) of the victims that creates fertile ground for disease to exist. This blindness leads to the deployment of increasingly toxic drugs, which themselves are becoming a significant public health menace and disturb even further the fine balance that nature has created in our bodies.

Proactive health means working at the maintenance of your health or homeostasis on a regular basis whilst you are in good health, so as to strengthen your immune and other self-defence systems in the body and therefore lessen your susceptibility to illness. This is a fundamentally different attitude to waiting until we get sick and then going to the doctor and asking them to heal us. Over the last 30 years people have generally become a lot more health conscious and are joining gyms, taking up jogging, modifying their diets or perhaps learning to play a new sport, but although this is a movement in the right direction, a greater depth of understanding is possible through the practice of holistic self-defence where each part, body, mind and spirit are strengthened. For instance, your body must always be exercised in relation to the Law of Gravity (see here), if you go jogging but are not aware of a misalignment in your spine or foot you will soon cause injury there; if you do not train your mind to focus correctly during exercise you will cultivate a dangerous split between your mind and body caused by daydreaming; and desiring the next material affirmation of your superiority (trophies, belts and so on) or cultivating the emotions of winning over losing will have a severe impact on the evolution of your emotional life.

Understanding the cyclical nature of health and disease is one of the keys to maintaining a steady input of energy into our homeostasis. For example, if a person walks with a slouch, they may not notice any detrimental effects to their health immediately, but because this slouch causes a slight compression of the ribcage, their breathing is always mildly impaired. If this slouch occurs only once it will not be dangerous, but if it occurs repeatedly over the cycle of years it will cause serious disease in later life. Proactive health uses the same simple understanding to strengthen homeostasis in the body – for example, if by building awareness to your spine you gradually learn the correct positioning for it and then gradually encourage a movement to the correct upright position at times during the day, over the cycle of years you will then defend yourself against ill health brought on by bad posture.

We could equally apply this concept to poor mental and emotional habits – for example, if patterns of negative thought present at a young age are left unchecked, they can cause serious mental-health problems such as depression later in life, but by learning how to focus and quieten the mind at intervals during the day, we can protect our mental health. Equally, excessive feelings of guilt can spread like cancer. Proactively rebalancing our emotional life can protect us from the hoards of doctors trying to shove antidepressants down our throats (for a nice commission).

This simple concept of cyclical health is significant because it means you can work proactively on your health at any time in your day, for example, whilst sitting at your desk or waiting in checkout queues or bus stops, and so on. The Intelligent Warrior in this way makes a decision to become involved in the maintenance of their health at various times of the day. By cultivating this attitude, we begin to bring our Martial Art training directly into our life and so return to the original precepts of Kung Fu.

Action/Reaction Cycle

In Meditation (see here) we use our awareness to practise bringing together the perceptions of our inner and outer worlds, sensing them together as one whole. Our growing sensitivity to this allows us to study the living relationship between our inner and outer worlds. In terms of self-defence, the link between the two is achieved in this order: an event occurs outside ourselves that our senses interpret; the senses turn the impression into an electrical impulse that is transmitted to the brain via the electrical conductors, the nerves; the brain then , interprets and compares this signal based on previously perceived impressions and then manifests a reaction back through the body in response to the original stimuli. In classic action/reaction fashion, the “world” reacts back to us in a particular way based upon our reaction, which then makes us react again and so the cycle perpetuates. This is the living relationship that continues whether we like it or not. For much of the time it revolves in the background where we do not notice the subtle ways in which we are pulled off balance by various influences, and thus we are unaware of the equally subtle ways that we express our imbalance. Frequently, we carry these reactions around inside us from one environment to another. For instance, when you have a bad day at work you may “carry it” with you home where you continue your negative reactions in the form of being irritable to your partner. The cycle could also just as easily originate from a negative association within oneself, such as suddenly recalling from memory a missed opportunity, which in turn makes you manifest negativity outwardly (by perhaps frowning or cursing). The process of Meditation can build sensitivity to this ‘natural’ cycle of human behaviour, and by so doing can become one of the ways that we consciously participate in the process of homeostasis. Moreover by practising Meditation we begin to understand the action/reaction cycle from a more energetic viewpoint, sensing the stimuli as just energy vibrations coming in via the senses and then in turn sensing the vibrations of our own reaction, this frees us from being caught up in the details of a particular reaction and allows sense of the flow of energy between us an the opponent (stimuli). In this way an Intelligent Warrior stands balanced between their inner and outer life in the knowledge that this is the only place where they can truly effect their life. It understand the cycle from this more energetic perspective it would be valuable here to return to the previous symbol (see Figure 3)

The intersecting arrows represent the three dimensions of the outer world: left to right, forwards and back, up and down. To fully represent this you must imagine the symbol as three-dimensional, with an arrow coming out towards you, so to speak, from the page, or moving into the page. The outer circle is the circle of your awareness where approaching influences are picked up at an early stage.

FIGURE 3

Whenever an influence (which could be an attacker, a virus or a hefty unexpected bill) enters the body it disturbs the body’s homeostasis. Sensing that it is being attacked the body will go into its instinctual defence mechanisms, the fight-or-flight response, the strength of which will depend on the intensity of the situation (see The Principle of Relativity). If the body’s centre is weak then severe and prolonged imbalance will occur, which will lead to illness and possibly, indirectly or directly, death. However, if the connection with the body’s centre has been developed then it will be strong enough to hold the circling energies of body, mind and spirit in its orbit, allowing a quick and speedy rebalancing or healing to occur.

On a lighter note, an influence could be an inspirational work of art, the focused love of somebody near you, some valuable information gleaned from a book. In such cases, the influence is ‘food’ for your higher self, which helps you to evolve a finer sense of balance and therefore increase the homeostasis between your body, mind and spirit.

Higher Health

The concept of higher health was expressed quite clearly in Chinese medicine and is where the healing process is not only seen as restoring balance after illness but also as a means of evolving the individual into a higher state of ‘being’. Moreover, the energy we use to continually heal ourselves from all kinds of disease is not available for this higher purpose. However, participation in the action/reaction cycle allows us to make different choices at critical decision points and so cultivates the Intelligent Warrior within.

The Principle of Relativity

When your body receives an impression of an attack, it will instantaneously react with the fight-or-flight response and, depending on the nature of the impression, will react with different levels of intensity. Generally speaking, the more extreme the attack the greater the reaction. So when dealing with the concept of self-defence we must understand the scale that these reactions can fall into. The attack does not necessarily have to be a physical attack against you; it could be something on a smaller scale such as verbal abuse or negative thought. As you can see from Figure 4, at one end of the scale there are life-threatening attacks, including attacks with weapons or by multiple opponents. At the other end of the scale are the ways in which we attack ourselves, including negative and depressive thoughts. Initially it may not be clear why we need to study such a wide scale but, as you will see later, we respond to many of life’s minor conflicts with our instinctual fight-or-flight response and we can gain valuable insights and experience of ourselves in such situations, which will help immeasurably to deal with the more intense reactions of extreme situations.

FIGURE 4

Principle of Resonation

The Principle of Resonation is one of the governing principles of vibration that I will refer to frequently throughout the book.

The principles of sound dictate that the vibration of any object is communicated through the atmosphere in waves. Each note of the musical scale vibrates at its own frequency, thus each sound wave is shaped uniquely according to its pitch. When two objects with similar pitches are in close proximity to each other, such as two guitars, the vibration purposely caused on one – say, the plucking of the B-string – will cause the B-string on the second guitar to also vibrate (with less intensity) because it resonates at a similar level. This principle is also known as sympathetic vibration and it relates to holistic self-defence in two basic ways:

1 Being in close proximity to someone who is in an emotionally agitated state will tend to make you resonate a similar state (this is similar to when someone has an ‘infectious’ laugh).

2 If you develop a certain quality or skill in the body (such as a sense of balance) it will tend to resonate a similar quality in the mind and emotions. The Chambers Dictionary (1994) uses this example in its definition of the word ‘resonance’: The complex of bodily responses to an emotional state, or of emotional responses to a situation.

Internal Conversation

Internal conversation is a subject broached by almost every system of Meditation that I have studied. Awareness of the continual conversation that churns inside our heads and the gradual conviction of its totally habitual nature is one of the first goals of Meditation. Internal conversation has a tendency towards negativity and being judgmental. Gaining a certain degree of freedom from internal conversation is essential for the Intelligent Warrior for internal conversation prevents us from receiving the impressions from the outside world directly. For example, something someone says triggers (action/reaction cycle) an association in your mind and you immediately start engaging in an internal conversation about it. This means that you are not only taking in the impression of the person talking directly but also listening to your own conversation, which is likely to lead you to lose track of what they are saying.

Internal conversation is also sometimes known as associative thinking because it uses associations to self-perpetuate. For instance, you are reading these words when suddenly your stomach grumbles, you tell yourself you are hungry and deserve a break, you start to think about what you are going to eat, perhaps imagine going to your favourite sandwich shop and recall bumping into an old friend the last time you were there, recall some of the things you used to do when you were younger, think ‘What a long time ago that was, is it really 10 years?’, ‘What have I done with that time? I should have taken that other job…’ and so on. At the same time, you sat in exactly the same place trying to read. If left unchecked this associating will go on relentlessly from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep and rob us of many experiences and opportunities available in the present moment.

Internal conversation walks hand in hand with daydreaming and provides a running dialogue to the pictures thrown up by your mind. As mentioned previously, there is a tendency for this habitual talking to turn negative so our daydreams can end up with a picture of ourselves begging on the streets or something equally catastrophic! The Intelligent Warrior must learn to protect himself or herself against internal conversation because it burns a tremendous amount of energy, destroys self-esteem and has a tendency to increase in intensity when in a stressful situation.

Attachment, Detachment and Nonattachment

The concept of attachment, detachment and nonattachment comes directly from Taoism and is basically another expression of balance in that attachment can be seen as the Yang principle, detachment as the Yin principle and nonattachment as the balancing force between them. When a conflict or powerful event occurs in our life it makes us react. Our reaction then tends to polarize into either Yang (attachment), where we become obsessed by the occurrence, cannot stop talking or thinking about it and may even take some rash action on account of this, such as accusing someone of something before we have all the facts. The opposite reaction, Yin (detachment), is where we try to deny that the event ever occurred and pretend that the problem does not exist – for example, many people get into serious financial difficulties because they are afraid to face up to mounting debts and so avoid, for instance, opening any credit card statements. What these two reactions have in common is that they burn a lot of energy and stop you from seeing the event in an objective light, in turn stopping you from taking the appropriate action, which always involves an intelligent decision. Nonattachment allows you to sense these Yin and Yang perspectives simultaneously for in reality an Intelligent Warrior needs them both. The Yang reaction teaches us not to be blasé about events; it is the power by which we take action on something and gives us the strength to ‘grab the bull by the horns’. However, without the sensitivity from the Yin perspective, which teaches us to hold back perhaps to gather more information or to read the situation fully, we will be in danger of becoming a ‘bull in a China shop’ and making a particular situation a lot worse than it was to start out with.

The way to practise nonattachment is always to move into the present moment, for it is only here that you can pull your energy away from the imbalanced reaction. This is one of the skills developed in the practice of Meditation. By doing this we learn to become more sensitive to the Yin and Yang reactions within ourselves so that eventually any small fluctuation is sensed. A good working example would be when an experienced poker player makes himself or herself very quiet inside and enters into the present moment in order to read the tiny reactions (called ‘poker tells’) given off by the other players that give away their bluffs or inability to conceal excitement over the cards they are holding. This allows the Intelligent Warrior to know ‘when to hold them and when to fold them’ as the country singer Kenny Rogers would say!

Another helpful way of visualizing this essential concept is to look at Figure 5. Here we see our Yin and Yang reactions represented in a waveform, which tends to be how emotional reactions operate – we go up but at some point there is a corresponding low. Moreover, each situation will make you react in a slightly different way (for instance, even the most aggressive bouncer may try to avoid a confrontation with his wife when drunkenly stumbling in late after work!).

The key to nonattachment is firstly to ensure that when you are up (Yang) and taking direct action on something you remain aware of the Yin principle. For instance, be sensitive to the effect you are having on the situation. Secondly, make sure that when you are down (Yin) you to try to find the Yang energy. For instance, the classic Yin reaction is depression and, as any experienced therapist will tell you, the key to relieving depression is to take action. So, instead of getting depressed about money problems, for example, face them and take action to rectify the situation.

FIGURE 5

Nonattachment does not mean that you suppress your reactions – reactions are part of what is to be human and are necessary for life – but it does mean that you become more sensitive to them in order to sense earlier when you are being pulled off balance. This is represented by the smaller waveform that is close to the straight line (the point of balance) and is a much finer level of vibration or sensitivity. In this way, you learn not to commit so much energy to your reactions, which will in turn allow you to pay more attention to your goals.

Preparation for the Unexpected

As mentioned earlier, we must always keep in mind what it is that Martial Art is training us for. The aim of this book is to gain an insight into how Martial Art strategies and practices can help you in everyday situations. Therefore, we must learn how to prepare for this eventuality. One of the main differences between martial sport and Martial Art is the fact that in a sport conflict situation (for instance a tournament bout) you know where, you know when, you know how (what rules) and you know whom you are going to fight. A real situation, on the other hand, very often means that you do not know any of these things. Martial Art should teach you to be prepared for the unexpected and then to be able to adapt almost instantaneously to the conflict as it unfolds. I once witnessed a cyclist riding down the road in a busy city centre, quite obviously daydreaming about being somewhere else. As the cyclist rode down the road, a careless van driver (who was about 10 metres away) opened his door and the cyclist continued towards it, saw it just in time, then reacted instinctively by swerving. The cyclist missed the door but his overreaction meant that he lost his balance and came crashing heavily to the ground.

This story illustrates very well what a real conflict situation is like. The cyclist was daydreaming and not living in the present moment. This state of ‘waking sleep’ tends to be extremely common in the average human being and because of it, the cyclist was not aware of the door opening soon enough to recognize it and make a controlled evasive manoeuvre. Instead, it was left to the cyclist’s reflexes, operating at a much finer level of recognition, to perform the manoeuvre. However, he over steered due to his body’s adrenaline reaction and consequently his balance was destroyed and no further riding technique was possible. The situation happened totally out of the blue – one minute the cyclist was daydreaming of holiday beaches or winning the lottery and the next minute the cruel reality of life almost literally slapped him in the face. His inner state changed with lightning speed from one of habitual daydreaming to one of extreme fear. In that split second his whole life and state of being had changed, perhaps not forever but certainly for the near future. This is exactly what happens in any unexpected situation.

So, we must first build a robust state of awareness so that opening doors, depressive thoughts, abusive parents or bosses, or physical attacks do not surprise us and we become aware of their presence at the earliest opportunity. We must then build a presence that is strong enough to deal with the situation, as opposed to an absence (a symptom of which is the aforementioned daydreaming). Then and only then will we be able to rely on any technique that we may have learned to deal with the attack.

The Four Main Areas of Study

Having studied Martial Art now for over 25 years, it has become clear to me that there are four main areas of study that need to be addressed. These areas make up as it were the anatomy of a martial artist. They are each linked and interdependent on one another, and provide a different perspective of the same picture. A practical understanding of each area is essential if one is hoping to study Martial Art authentically. The four main studies are:

1 Meditation: This is really about the relationship you have with yourself and it opens the lines of communication between your mind and your body via sensation. This develops a state of awareness sensitive to both the inner (Yin) and outer (Yang) aspects of your life and strengthens the balance between your body, mind and spirit; I will refer to this balance as your presence. Awareness and presence form your first and second lines of defence respectively.

2 Chi Kung: The practice of Chi Kung harmonizes breath and movement. It is, if you like, a moving form of Meditation. It develops internal energy, strengthens the natural breath processes and develops freedom of movement. Chi Kung enables you to meditate whilst moving.

3 Martial Science: This is the study of body mechanics and the laws that govern human aggression. It is the study of techniques and their applications. It introduces various strategies based on common patterns of attack. By studying Martial Science, you will learn how to meditate whilst in relation to another human being.

4 Martial Art: Martial Art trains your ability to express yourself in all kinds of conflict situations. This is the culmination of the previous areas of study. It allows you to find areas in your life where you can apply your self-defence skills. Martial Art enables you to meditate whilst dealing with real situations in your life (as opposed to the artificial setting of a dojo or gym).

An Energetic Language

An Intelligent Warrior needs to develop an energetic language, a communication with his/her own body that allows them to experience their study from the perspectives of the body, mind and spirit. It is only by working from this perspective that we can make the written word come alive, and the process of embodiment can take place. Over time, Westerners have become increasingly more divorced from their own bodies; they view it from the outside, looking back at themselves as if in a mirror and asking questions such as: ‘Am I desirable?’ ‘Are they better than me?’ ‘Are they better looking than I am?’ This is a symptom of a materially based society, and in such a society, it is inevitable that we start to see our own bodies as material objects and begin to have attitudes towards them. This in turn may bring feelings of isolation, of separation from ourselves and the world around us; we are wary of people, suspicious of ulterior motives, anxious about the future or afraid of being alone. In this way we become strangers to ourselves, always commenting and judging with our internal conversation and becoming increasingly vulnerable to one of the most powerful fears in man: the fear of loneliness or from another perspective the fear of not being loved. We have lost the ability to sense our bodies from the inside, to connect, appreciate and celebrate the feeling of life itself within us. Therefore, perhaps the greatest benefit of studying Martial Art is to regain the ability to connect with one's own life and the energies that animate it.