Fear is the Mind-Killer

If you ask Master Yang the most important factor in who will win a confrontation between two people the answer will be fear. A fighter who is constrained by fear has a huge disadvantage. Part of martial arts training is overcoming fear. This is a kind of spiritual training. (Note that when I use the word spirit I am referring to an asian fighting spirit concept and not some new age philosophical concept.)

I will talk later about my thoughts on spiritual training and the process of training yourself against fear, but right now I want to mention another type of fear that rears it's head increasingly in american martial arts training.

Fear of the lawsuit. If you teach martial arts in the United States one of your primary concerns is the lawsuit. The profit margins on martial arts instructions aren't high and one good lawsuit can probably shut down a school. So instructors must live with this fear, because at any time an accident could happen. An injured person might decide to sue. And that lawsuit could shut down your business and leave you unemployed. An instructor only has so much control over their students, but they end up being fully liable. Sure students sign a waiver, but you can't sign away your right to sue and it is an ever present threat hanging over the head of any martial arts teacher in the United States.

In ancient China, the training could be as brutal as a teacher wanted to make it. It was seen as reasonable for masters to beat their students, and it was not considered that horrible if a master decided to kill a student. No lawsuits meant that training was harsh and brutal.

I want to bring up three instances of how this fear works. The first two are from YMAA and the third is from the new school I am attending. Master Yang recounts a story about how a woman came in to train briefly. She later sued him for a knee injury. There was no training accident or anything, just a lawsuit from someone who trained maybe a week or two. Luckily the case was dismissed because the woman couldn't prove where the injury came from, but it gave Master Yang the bitter lesson that someone could potentially train for a week and then ruin your business.

The second story is also from YMAA, but it much more personal. Master Yang took a brief interests in competitive San Shou. He decided to put together a team and do some training. He got a bunch or people who were interest and began hard style Iron Shirt conditioning. This form of conditioning involves striking the body. Now many schools do arm conditioning and when you first do arm conditioning you come home with black and blue arms. It was the same way with body conditioning, we came home with backs covered with bruises. Unfortunately one of the people training was living with his parents and he was foolish enough to let them see his back. They immediately called the school and made some threats. The San Shou program was basically shut down, although a handful of people did continue the Iron Shirt training "on the sly", but it was not widely shared.

The third is training in the burbs. At this new school the students are a little older (more fragile) and probably a little more aware of their right to sue. So the adaptation has been to reduce physical contact. Techniques like a knee kick are done far away from the knee and the target simply drops to one knee. Throws are kind of mimiced instead of actually performed. Reaction training focuses on a thrown nerf ball and not thrown punches. It is somewhat sad and I find it a little frustrating, but I am not the one who has to find the line between effective training and safe, lawsuit-free training. The worst I have suffered is a broken arm, a handful of stitches under my eyebrow, and a back full of bruises which can't really compare with losing your livelihood.

In the middle....

Starting a martial arts blog. Why? Because I am trying to start training again after years of inactivity. In a new school things are very different, and you can't really go in saying all sorts of stuff and talking about techniques, because you are a new student and essentially a guest. So I just thought it would be nice to express some of my thoughts in a blog. A blog is also a nice place to record information you pick up over various classes.

Since I was young I was very interested in martial arts. I think it was partially because I was the only asian kid in a white town and I didn't have an asian parent readily available to give meaning to my difference. So in trying to figure out myself I tried to see what was 'asian' and one of the few answers was martial arts and food. I was slightly more fascinated by martial arts. I think it was a time in my life where I felt powerless so the idea of strength also greatly appealed to me. But I did not start training until later in life.

I think I was 18 when I first trained. I trained very briefly with a guy named Dillan who mainly wanted sparring partners. This only lasted a few weeks, but I instead ended up being introduced to weightlifting by a lifter named Keith who I liefted with for a year. This process moved me from a scrawny 120 pounds to 140 pounds in a few months.

The next year I moved to Oberlin and begin to train with a guy named Henry McCann in Isshin Ryu Karate. He was my first real introduction to martial arts and he taught me a lot, including to keep an open mind about martial arts. I studied with him for three years training in empty ball rooms and grassy quads. My last year at Oberlin a guy named Gary Yano took over teaching Karate. Henry had been a student and he moved on and got a local teacher, Gary, to replace him. The Gary year wasn't quite as good, but he did bring in another guy occasionally. I forget his name, but he was a Navy SEAL and I liked learning from him. He ended up not teaching us because I think he was a little rough with one of the students.

During my college years I also trained Aikido. The exact organization was the Aikido Schools of Ueshiba, I think. In an Oberlin program I trained six hours a day for a month and gained the first rank. It was really a great experience, although I did not continue my Aikido training.

When I finished college I was told that Gary Yano wanted to give me a black belt so I should contact him, but I found out that I really didn't care and never bothered with it. I don't really remember what rank I left with.

So when I left Oberlin I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. I contacted my old teacher Henry to ask him if he had any ideas as to where I should train in the Boston area. He immediately replied that I should study with Master Yang Jwing-Ming, whom I spent the next six years studying under.

Training at the YMAA, Yang's Martial Arts Association, was a great experience and I reached the 5th stripe. I met many people who taught me so much and provided incredibly examples. The main part of the curriculum was Shaolin Long Fist Kung Fu and White Crane Kung Fu. I also trained in Xingyi Quan for a year and was briefly exposed to some other styles like Black Tiger and Liu He Ba Fa.

After about six years, I started my Masters (Computer Science not Kung Fu) and training became difficult. I also had a serious girlfriend so times demand were greater and my emotional need to train was reduced. I also was old enough to notice that my physical abilities were declining slightly. So I stopped training. After my Masters I was living with my girlfriend and never ended up going back to train. Part of this was the long commute to the school (almost an hour) and my World of Warcraft addiction. So for maybe six years I didn't train, and my body deteriorated.

Now I miss the martial arts so I searched for a local school. I didn't need anything as serious as YMAA, but something that would wake up my body and interest my mind. I found two schools in the area. I visited both and ending up choosing one because it had a more strenuous workout. The other school focused on technique and not conditioning, and conditioning is more of what I wanted than technique.

So now I start up again on my journey with a brain full of theory and a body full of rust!