The Philosophy of Martial Arts

[Music]

what is martial arts

unlike other sports and physical arts

martial arts is unique in its physical

abilities

say for example we take swimming

swimming helps you develop the core

muscles of your trunk

let’s say for example football or

hawking

they are primarily focused on the

strength of your lower body

building the muscles of your lower body

in martial arts

we do punching kicking

grabbing rolling punching helps develop

the

upper body strength kicking the lower

body strength

and grabbing and rolling that’s part of

wrestling

helps to develop the core or your trunk

muscles

so in effect it causes an all-round

development

it helps to build strength stamina

speed flexibility endurance

coordination so on and so forth

coming to martial’s philosophy again

unlike any other sport or physical

activity martial art has its own unique

what philosophy the philosophy used for

a philosophy is meant

to make your life better to make you

a good human being

martial philosophy helps you to build

self discipline

self-control willpower

these are all aspects of self-discipline

which are very very important

self-discipline is required to

make sure that you handle your work your

workout

and your recreation in equal balance

self-control is required so that you are

able to harness

negative emotions like anger jealousy

etc will power is very important to be

built so that you can push your mind

your body to its extreme and get maximum

performance

so that was the aspect of

self-discipline

second aspect of martial art

philosophy’s benefit

is material logic now materialogy

we will be covering by lao zhu and sanju

where laozi lao zoo also called as lousy

is teaches you the art of getting

success

and sun tzu teaches you how to deal with

adversity and get the better of it

the third aspect of martial philosophy

which is very useful

is spirituality so spirituality is about

the science of being happy how do you

stay happy

so zen teaches you to stay in the

present moment

to stay happy irrespective of the

vagaries of your routine life

so let’s go a little more deeper after

we have covered the

the you know the basis of what’s the

philosophy what’s the introduction we go

to

a little bit about who started all this

who started martial arts

so bodhidharma a monk

he was an indian prince who walked on

foot from

kerala all the way to china and he is

known as the founder of martial

arts and then now what is zen

zen is one of the earliest known

philosophies of martial arts

what does zen teach you zen teaches you

to be

in the present moment to relish the

present moment

there is a very nice quote on

by zen which is called muy mushri which

is

one thought one action no mind

when no mind refers to no rumination

if we take this example and we apply it

in martial arts

in martial arts like for example if

somebody attacks me

so that’s an attack i will defend

and i will attack back that becomes a

counter attack

in this entire instance there is no room

for rumination

it’s thought and action i

okay the attack coming towards me i look

at it i defend

and i act if i sit down to think about

it

i’m gonna get hit so there is no room

for

rumination in martial arts it’s you have

to act

it helps you to build your reflex

immediately

similarly if you apply this concept in

life

it’s one thought one action no mind that

means you don’t ruin it

you don’t ruminate about the past you

don’t ruin it about the present

but you’re living your life in the

present moment

that’s the zen philosophy which is very

very applicable to martial art and to

life the second most influential

philosophy that we are looking at in

martial arts uh is from lao zoo

now laosun was a chinese philosopher he

is very well known

for his concept of teaching you balance

or taoism

it’s it’s written in a book called

etching

you may have heard about this thing

called yin yang

the yin here is a circle with two halves

the circle represents the balance within

you

and in the world around you if we look

at

the application of this yen young

balance in martial arts

it focuses on balance of your inner and

outer

so if you look at outer it’s going to be

strength stamina

endurance and if you look at the inner

aspects we’re looking at calmness

resilience

so ability to balance both these are

extremely important

in martial arts if we

use the same thing in

life so balancing your outer assets and

inner assets becomes essential so outer

assets could be

all the things that drive you towards

getting more money

power status we balance that with your

inner assets

of health fitness family

peace of mind if you’re not able to

balance these two

there’s going to be lot of

this harmony in your life

laozi explained taoism and yin yang in a

very

nice quote he spoke

tau gave birth to the one the one

gave birth to yin yang and yin yang gave

birth to

all things

so that’s lao zoo next most influential

philosophy is by sanzu

now sanju was a chinese general

he is very popular for the art of war

he is the man who teaches you that only

hard work doesn’t work

you also have to use strategy you also

have to overcome adversity by being

smart

so if we apply this example in martial

arts

if you get into a fight with a stronger

man who has

maybe twice or twice your amount of

strength price is right there

your size if you battle your strength

along with his strength if you wanna

fight strength on strength

you’re not going to be able to match it

so you have to use

a strategy or a tactic to overcome this

big obstacle

this big opponent so

it could be something like a hard use

your hardest weapon

on the opponent’s softest target

similarly if you apply this example in

life

you learn to work hard no you learn to

work smart

so you work smart when when many a time

you’re working very hard and you’re not

getting

not eating the results we have to sit

down and think okay how can i go around

this i have to be smart about it

and that’s how you’re going to be

overcoming the adversity or the problem

at hand

sanju had a quote which was very popular

i’ll just speak about

one line about it if you know yourself

and you know your enemy there’s no fear

in 100 battles

so knowing yourself knowing your enemy

no fear in 100 battles

means you are able to understand the

whole picture

the second most influential philosophy

in martial arts has been given to us by

bruce lee

one of the most popular martial artists

of all times he was also a very known

philosopher

the philosophy attributed by bruce lee

being summarizing it in three points

keep it simple keep it direct and be

open minded

simplicity is what what is simply

simplicity means use less resource

you know of the example like too many

cooks spoil the broth

so similarly in martial arts he said

you don’t try to accumulate too many

you techniques few techniques and master

them

here very popular quote to to that

saying i do not fear a man who has

practiced

10 000 kicks once but

i fear the man who has kicked one

kick ten thousand times

so simplicity is you try to use as few

resources as possible

directness directness is the principle

where you go straight

to your target you don’t go in a

roundabout fashion

in martial arts there are many examples

he came up with the concept of an

intercepting fist which is a straight

punch

you stop everything with a straight

punch in life if you look at directness

example

many times we get diverted we are

looking we are working focusing on one

particular task

there may be a phone call there may be

somebody come

and address okay you know you want to

distract here distract there are 100

distractions

so we try not to get distracted and we

focus on to our paths

and we also go to the path directly if i

have to work towards say

studying for an exam i study and i pass

i don’t go around it by

10 different ways the third

concept is of being open-minded

now being open-minded is very important

to be able to

break out of tradition to be able to

come up with out-of-the-box

solutions

we are sometimes led by our past

conditioning our past

experiences or maybe it has been handed

down to us by somebody

so we tend to get influenced by that and

and you know walk on that path but it

may not necessarily be the path designed

for you you may have to find you may be

able to find a better path for yourself

if you’re open-minded

and you keep your past conditioning

and keep an open mind about newer

aspects you may

try new methodologies and see if they

work and maybe

it will actually be better

these are different aspects of

zen above laozi about sun tzu

about bruce lee whose philosophies play

a very very important role in martial

arts

to make you a better human being to help

you to keep focused to help you to

understand that there is

uh you know you have the confidence to

handle your

life to re-handle your issues

i hope this influences you to take up

martial arts

for your journey there’s a very nice

quote by buddha

it’s a long quote i’m just gonna give

you the the gist of it

do not believe in anything simply

because you have heard of it

do not believe in anything simply

because it has

been found written in your religious

books

do not believe merely on authority of

your teachers or others

do not believe in tradition because they

have been handed down

for many generations but after

careful observation analysis

if you find it within reason and

disconducive for the good of

all then you should accept it

and live up to it with that

i end my talk