Episode 489 - Martial Arts is More Than Physical
In this episode, Jeremy talks about the other aspects of martial arts and when Martial Arts is more than physical.
Martial Arts is More Than Physical - Episode 489
As of this writing, the world is facing a global threat that affects almost everyone including us, martial artists. How can martial artists face this "non-combative" situation? In this episode, Jeremy gives us the other side of martial arts which includes the skills of patience, discipline, and leadership. He gives advice on how your martial arts non-physical skills can help you cope up with the current situation. Listen to learn more!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download it here.
Hello everybody, welcome! This is whistlekick martial arts radio episode 489. Today, were talking about when martial arts is much more than physical. My name is Jeremy Lesniak, your host on the show founder of whistlekick and everything we do at whistlekick is in support of the traditional martial arts. If you want to know more about what we do, go to whistlekick.com it’s our digital hub, it’s the place to find our store and everything else we do. And if you check out the store use the code PODCAST15 that would get you 15% off anything you find there from uniforms to apparel to gear, we’ve got it, we’ll sell it to you at a discount. Martial arts radio gets its own website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com nice and easy. This show comes out twice every week and our goal here at whistlekick is to connect educate and entertain traditional martial artists throughout the world. If you want to show your appreciation for what we do, you can do a number of things. You can make a purchase share in episode follow us on social media, tell a friend, if you pick up one of our books at Amazon leave us a review somewhere or support our Patreon: patreon.com/whistlekick. Patreon is the place where we post exclusive content and if you contribute as little as five dollars a month, you’ll get access to it.As I record this we’re facing a global challenge, a pandemic and one of the things that support about the episodes we make here is that they’re not only relevant for some certain period of time. You’ll notice in the guest interviews were not talking about when things are going on or what day it is or anything like that because I want people to be able to enjoy these long into the future. But I’m going to break that rule just a hair right now because it’s important that I set the tone for those of you that listen to this soon after it comes out. But it is my hope that this episode is just as relevant, maybe without the context, but relevant long into the future. Martial arts is much more than physical. I think anyone who’s been training more than a few classes knows that it’s mental, it’s emotional and for some of us it’s even spiritual. Our training, it hones our skills, our bodies, makes us stronger and faster, more resilient, but it also hones our minds. And this current situation that we’re facing, its pretty good example of how the benefits of martial arts training are relevant in non-combative situations. I was just about to say non-self-defense situations but I think you could make a case that right now, with everything that’s going on I’m recording this on March 25 and a lot is going on. A lot of people are fending for themselves in ways that are very real, very scary, and a different kind of defensive skill set is needed for those of us facing this. And it’s a skill set that, I’ll be honest, a lot of us don’t put much priority on. When we talk about reality-based self-defense or any of those similar subjects here on the show, we tend to talk about physical altercations. That’s not what’s going on right now. Hopefully, at no point in this challenge are we going to face that but who knows where this goes or how it goes.But that’s not what we’re talking about today. Today were talking about three specific skills that I see are very relevant right now that I would imagine most martial artists are more equipped for than your average person. First up, patience. If were stuck inside for long periods of time or greatly restricted with what we can do and where we can go. Being patient is important. Most martial arts classes have some kind of format that require some patience. Having to wait for things, having to wait for your next rank, wait for your next test, wait for your next movement. Having to hold a certain stance and wait to be told you can come out of it. Traditional martial arts really puts a priority on patience and developing that skill, that ability to sort of meditate in place for shorter or longer periods of time depending on the school and the format and all that. Even if you’re not great with your patience, martial arts is likely made you better. And if you need help, what I do, I try to focus on the smallest bit of time that I can handle. When I think about this stuff that were facing and I don’t want to get too specific because everyone’s facing it differently and has different ideas of how to look at it and I don’t want to corrupt you with the way I’m looking at it but when I look at this challenge overall, it becomes much simpler to think about things in small periods of time. What am I doing right now at this moment? What am I going to do 15 minutes from now? Not what am I going to do next week, or next month, how am I to get through this but how my going to get through the next 20 minutes. What’s the next project on my plate? What’s the most important thing I can tackle with the resources I have available and that’s what I work on. And that this patience. If I’m sitting there in a horse stance and holding that, I’m not thinking about how long are we going to be here, I’m thinking about I’m holding that stance right now I’ve held it all the way up until right now and I’m going to be able to hold it that next 10 seconds and maybe I’ll count backwards from 10. And if I still have to hold it maybe the instructor hasn’t told us how long were holding that, I’ll give myself another 10 and when 10 becomes too much, it becomes five and when that’s too much it’s one. Maybe I’m noticing my breath or my heartbeat but I break things down into a small enough block that I can handle that that I know I can be patient through that.Next up discipline. If you’re in a smaller space in your use to maybe around more people than you are used to, discipline becomes important. The discipline to not go to the pantry every 10 minutes because you’re bored. The discipline to take a breath, to pause before you speak to your children, or your spouse or whoever else is around because your frustrated near frustrated and everybody’s that cabin fever and they just want to go outside, or go somewhere, or do something they haven’t done for the last 14 days. Having the discipline to model behavior that others will look to, which ties in to our next one, but to be aware and let your actions fall in line with what you know is the right thing to do at that moment. To be disciplined in your mind in your words in your thoughts and in your actions. And even if you’re not willing to do that for yourself, in doing it for others you are showcasing great leadership and this is the third one.We don’t talk a lot about leadership within the martial arts but what is leadership? More so than communicating, what is needed, what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, sounds like martial arts to me, martial arts instruction. And even if you’re not a high rank student, you’re not teaching others, you’re still modeling behavior for the students behind you. The students that are newer than you. You are showing them how to act. You are being a leader. Maybe you’re not the best leader but you can still show some leadership qualities and give some hope and some sense of stability to those around you and I think that might be what’s needed most right now. When we look at the way people are responding to a lot of these challenges, it looks to me like these are actions of people who obviously are scared but don’t have stability. If someone in their home someone around them is telling them— hey this is going to be okay, follow my lead, I’ll get you through this, becomes a lot easier. And those of us who have spent time in martial arts are more likely to be strong leaders. Now maybe as you’re going through this experience, you’re wishing you would pay more attention to the opportunities to develop these skills in your training, most likely your missing training overall, I know I am. I know many many of you are, I’m hearing from you getting a lot of emails and DM’s right now but it’ll be okay. Whether or not you train on your own that your choice. Whether or not your school comes back, I don’t know. But I know that you have the opportunity practice with these skill sets right now. And the more effort you are willing to put into them, the more it benefits those around you and yourself. How often do we get to train and immediately impact the lives of those around us. So often we think about self-defense and we have these fantasies of saving other people. This is your opportunity to help people right now, right now, right in your own home, or right in your own community. Whether it’s virtual or not, modeling this behavior— being patient, being disciplined, being a leader is needed right now more than any other time I’ve ever seen. And when it is time to train again and to get back to practice in some semblance of normal life, I hope you will put a little bit more value on training these skill sets. Because like any and all martial arts skills you can improve them, you can train them, you can teach them, you can tie them together.I’ve said from almost a one martial artist are better people because of some of these things that we work on and I hope that all of you out there are proving me right. I know everything I’m saying is proving me right and I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful for all of you, I’m thankful that you give me this outlet talk because without it, I wouldn’t be is disciplined, I wouldn’t have the patience, I certainly wouldn’t be in a position to show any sort of leadership but because you listen I get the chance to work on all three of those so thank you. Thanks for listening.Now if you go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, you can see a transcript, maybe want to share this episode, entirely up to you but remember, we’ve got all those other episodes. If you’re not sure what to do with your time, 488 other episodes, photos, links, videos, transcripts, tons of stuff for you to chew through. And if you’re down the sport what we’re doing here whistlekick you’ve got a few options— you can visit store and use the code PODCAST15, you can leave a review, buy a book. Check out everything we’ve got on Amazon, maybe the Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick and if you see somebody maybe putting up a video or somebody in a photo rocking some whistlekick apparel or gear shout them out, tag us. If you have suggestions for guests or subjects, let me know jeremy@whistlekick.com and our social media: @whistlekick everywhere you can imagine. We will get through this together. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.