Long Term Benefits and Life Lessons of the Martial Arts

• Article BY: WILLIAM DUGGAN

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  1. Wherewithal: This is a benefit of years of practice. You learn that years of hard work give you the ability to be patient enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel for years beyond, but to be patient enough to keep working for a long term goal. This is what I mean by wherewithal. Some people go through life for the short term benefits, but really can’t cope with long range goals. Martial Arts gives us that patience to see through the short term to the long term.
  
  
  2. Lessons in Pain: If you practice the arts, expect pain. The same is true of life. If you live, expect pain. In the martial arts we make a conscious decision often times to accept pain, because it is going to happen and then the pain will be over and things will go back to normal. This overlaps in life as life throws all sorts of painful situations at you, that you will live through and adapt to and overcome and then it will be like it never happened.
  3. Ups, Downs and Stagnation: Life is filled with exactly that, ups, downs and stagnant spots. In martial arts this is a very visible and unavoidable truth. Some arts require you to spend years doing one form, then moving on only after perfecting it. There is also a period within the arts where we will make great physical strides, but mental change may not happen, then it wall all happen like a flash of lightning. The fact that we are so immersed with these theories enables us to have the patience to see this truth in life and have the knowledge and wisdom to be able accept that. That said, it also gives us the knowledge that it is sometimes us who have to adjust to promote a change from down to up or from stagnation to motion.
  4. Health Benefits/ Balance: This is kind of a no brainer. People, who are physically active, typically lead healthier, happier and longer lives.
  5. Flexibility: Although it is not always true, most systems require that the pupils become as flexible as possible to deal with the twisting, turning, jumping, kicking, rolling, et cetera. So much so, that I at 30 now, can still kick higher than my own head, and this is not uncommon amongst dedicated martial artists.
  6. Stability: We spend so much time in strange positions and transitioning from one position to the next that we gain an ability to be off balance, but so comfortable (and confident) with it that it is not off balance but complete stability.
  7. Knowledge of how to heal: In the Martial Arts we spend most of our time learning to harm, but if you pay attention, by learning to harm, you also learn to heal. They are intertwined and reversible concepts.
  8. The grand overlap: I hate to sound like Mr. Miyagi, but Martial Arts is everything and everything is Martial Arts. Martial arts teaches us so much, if you stick with it, that you begin to see that life, business, health, anticipation of future things, and experience of past, protection of self and loved one, healing and hurting, teaching and learning, learning as a teacher, and many other aspects all over lap with Martial Arts and vice versa. This concept may be hard to grasp, but the more time you invest the more likely you are to see it.
  
  
  
  9. Friendships and Contacts: We gain lifelong contacts through our friendships and acquaintances that we make in our travels and in dojos.
  
  
  
  
  
  10. Expansion of Mind: In Martial Arts we are forced to adapt our mind, bodies, personalities; as a result our minds are wired to evolve and change; to expand and contract. This is not to say that non-martial artists do not share this. I am merely saying that the exposures and experiences associated with the Martial Arts make this more possible in the mind of the martial artist. This is like saying the sniper is more likely to hit the target than the average person because he has had more experience with a weapon.
  11: Self Esteem: This is an expansion of the “Expansion of Mind”. As a result of our constant adaptation, we learn that we are capable of such constant adaptation. To bite on the military term of “adapt and overcome”, we spend a lot of time doing exactly that. The average person sees a brick; I see something to break. When I started out I could break no bricks; with technique, I learned to break stacks of bricks. I earned many aches and pains as a result, which is part of cause and effect. Brick breaking put more stress on my joints. But that is another story for another article. The point here is that we begin to learn that were are capable of either accepting our preexisting expectations or we can chose to tackle an obstacle and overcome it, and by such, we begin to rely on ourselves and gain self esteem. The dangerous part here is not to become over confident or cocky which is always a real threat, to anyone.
  
  
  
  
  12. Leadership Skills: I use this term loosely here. But what I mean to say is that the Martial Arts exposes you to many more conditions that make you aware that you are responsible for your own actions and that you must take responsibility for those results. The key to leadership is the recognition of this unavoidable truth that in some way we are all responsible for our conditions and the results thereof. “Every action has an equal or opposite reaction” no matter how mundane the effect: this is a scientific fact that has resounded through multiple cultures, religions and philosophies the world over and throughout history. The average person however has a tendency to forget this and oft takes the standpoint to pass the buck, per se. The first step to becoming a leader is to become responsible.
  13. The Chameleon Effect: I alluded to adaptation of mind, body and personality above. What I mean here, is to expand on that. In life, nothing is hard and fast and at the same time everything is hard and fast. We are forced to constantly adapt and change our expressions, our dress, our life, our outward appearance to adjust to our constantly changing environment and the impermanence of all things. Because of constant exposure of such conditions within the Martial Arts, the martial artists mind is adapted and therefore more dexterous in this sense. You quickly become a Chameleon of Life adapting to changes and looking for resolutions to problems without the cumbersomeness and stress that the average person has over simple and mundane issues.
  *** The above list is of course not a complete list, and it is of course not the end all be all on the subject. The Martial Arts are a very personal thing that is highly subjective to our own experience, teachers, fellow pupils and other factors. Everybody experiences something different. It should also be noted that some people develop more or less, and are constantly changing, so one person may see the above points, while others will not, and others may see more points than I have listed here. What I have done, is merely to list some of the major points that have affected me in my life, which I see now at the time I am writing this article. Next year my opinions may change as my experiences will have changed me. ***