Martial Arts & Materialism/Dualism

[stamenflicker]

This thread doesn't have to apply only to martial artists. I suspect that there are other sports where this "feeling" happens. I'm just curious to hear someone's take, especially people in throwing arts, or aikijujitsu arts.

And we don't have to hash the materialist / dualist debate anymore than we've already done on this forum.

OK-- here's my long-winded question.

Our bodies are conditioned (and I believe over thousands of years) to respond to threats and pain in certain ways. Our reflexes seem to demand us to do things likes duck a punch or step away from it. We auto-correct ourselves when we are out of balance. Anyone who has advanced in marial arts has seen this, and watched bodies respond in what seem to be automatic ways.

Most of the throwing arts and aikijujitsu are actually built on these automatic responses. If I want you to exert energy to the right, I tap you to the left slightly. You auto-correct your balance and thereby exert the energy I need to do a throw. That's why a 90lb weakling can toss a 300lb man across a room-- he's using the energy of the 300lb man. Simple physics.

What is not simple is transitioning to an advanced student. Advanced students condition themselves to "overwrite" the instinctual or reflexive response in order to not provide the opponent energy. You've probably heard the phrase "become nothing" or "become like water" in people who have advanced training. This seems to smack of dualism. I'm not talking about the choice to merely raise your hand or tell yourself that you will now run faster. It's more like teaching your body to do the exact opposite of what it was wired to do.

Eventually, a person can become quite good at not giving energy. It is not just second nature, it becomes completely natural-- reflexive even. When this happens you have executed the technique perfectly. In these moments, and admittedly for me are not as frequent as I wish they were, you "feel" as though you have utterly emptied yourself of cognition. Your body is actually doing a reverse or opposite response without making yourself think about it. The dualist experience is gone and you feel like one unified machine albiet in a completly unnatural motion.

I think because this experience is so unnatural, many chose to call it spiritual. But its not supernatural. Its happening right there in the material world. But it is classic mind over matter, and at the same time it is not mind over matter-- it's become a reflex.

I'm curious if others have experience with this either in martial arts or some other sport in which you sort of "rewire" your central nervous system.

What is really going on here? And would it support a dualist or materialist world view?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Seek ye the cerebellum/prefrontal motor programs, if you dare, cackled the old man from scene 27.

 

[Jekyll]

"Be like water" is a Bruce Lee-ism taken from the Dao De Ching. Put in context it's talking about finding the path of least resistance, overcoming the hard by flowing around it and wining by putting yourself below the others.

It was originally intended as general advice in running a country by stealth through good self management and unassuming control, by extension it is taken as a guide to good self management and occasionally bits cross over to the martial arts.

It also contains excellent advice on how to fry fish.

Martial arts clearly supports materialism, just look at that footage of the empty force guys being rugby tackled by Australians on Youtube.

Edit: That wasn't as helpful as it should have been. In the tai chi I do no one actually bothers to talk about this, but my teacher's teacher sells books where he talks of it as intelligent use of force. You're just trying not to overextend yourself and get caught. Think of as years of practice in trying not to do anything stupid.

 

[Dancing David]

I think there are a number of answers, there is no actual duality between the mind and body. The mind is an effect of the brain, which is part of the body. There is a conceptual perception of the duality of the two but it is a concept, not an actuality. When the body is trained then the reactions are much faster and the thoughts and emotions are less likely to cause a conflicted reaction.

 

[Bikewer]

There is a paralell in music training that may provide some light; one that applies to other disciplines as well.
Research has shown that in the early stages of music instruction, where the student is learning to properly handle the instrument and to read music, certain particular areas of the cerebellum "light up" with glucose use.
However, as the student becomes more advanced, and sight-reading and instrument manipulation become more fluid, these processes are taken over by different areas of the brain. They become increasingly automatic.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that this process goes on with any learned activity.
This coupled with the demonstrated subliminal processing that goes on, might lead to the commonly-observed situation with advanced martial artists (or musicians, or whatever) that seem to "anticipate" every move of the opponent, and to seem almost "psychically" aware of attacks and such.

 

[cgordon]

I have no idea what you're on about, but I have trained in classical Japanese jujutsu and weapons for some 30-odd (some very odd) years. What you're talking about sound pretty normal to me. One of the first things I teach new students is to walk. Not R foot L hand, L hand R foot; but L foot L hand, R foot R hand. It's reprogramming and it makes some folks almost nauseous. However, it works.

As for dualism and such, I'd say that if you go into a dojo worrying about such things, you're probably going to be disappointed.

 

[stamenflicker]

As for dualism and such, I'd say that if you go into a dojo worrying about such things, you're probably going to be disappointed.

Quite the opposite for me, I've found the experience to be very fruitful in my training. I teach aikijutsu and trying to find good metaphors during instruction is fun. I can only assume that our responses to threats are a conditioned reflex, and thereby capable of being altered as we progress.

 

[alfaniner]

... One of the first things I teach new students is to walk. Not R foot L hand, L hand R foot; but L foot L hand, R foot R hand. It's reprogramming and it makes some folks almost nauseous. However, it works...

"Works" for what? Looking like Jack Webb from "Dragnet"? (He always had a very unique walk.)

 

[cgordon]

Quite the opposite for me, I've found the experience to be very fruitful in my training. I teach aikijutsu and trying to find good metaphors during instruction is fun. I can only assume that our responses to threats are a conditioned reflex, and thereby capable of being altered as we progress.

THat's cool. There are as many reasons for doing budo as there are folks doing it, and as many reactions to the training. As always, the YMMV law applies.

Which ryuha of aikijutsu?

 

[cgordon]

"Works" for what? Looking like Jack Webb from "Dragnet"? (He always had a very unique walk.)

It has to do with the theory of application of power in our system and somewhat with breaking down old habits in order to teach new ones.

 

[Dancing David]

It has to do with the theory of application of power in our system and somewhat with breaking down old habits in order to teach new ones.

One of the reasons I practiced aikido was to learn to use the left side of my body. As a child I didn't hardly use my left arm, it functions well, I just acted as though it wasn't there. The symmetry of practice was very useful to me.

 

[l0rca]

Martial arts clearly supports materialism, just look at that footage of the empty force guys being rugby tackled by Australians on Youtube.

Link?

 

[Wudang]

Google on "yellow bamboo" and "bullshido"

 

[Beerina]

"Works" for what? Looking like Jack Webb from "Dragnet"? (He always had a very unique walk.)

I'd prefer people look like Morgan Webb from Tech TV G4.