Fox Sensei
Has been teaching Chokushin Aiki Jujutsu since the early 80’s and is a
member of the Canadian Jiu Jitsu Council Black Belt Grading Board
THE ROOTS OF TECHNICAL MASTERY
By Sensei Paul Fox
Awareness, Harmony, Right Action
Part 1
In
martial arts practise, as in daily life, we are called upon to exercise our
awareness to its maximum. If we falter in our focus, we may find it impossible
to maintain mental, emotional or spiritual balance in our moment-to-moment
experience.
So, what is awareness and why is it important in the study of the martial arts, or anything else for that matter? Is it possible to develop our awareness further and how might we achieve that goal? Through this series of articles, I will explore how awareness can have a profound effect on the quality of our experience, whether we are under heavy load training in the Dojo or struggling under emotional, physical and psychological strain. We will see how awareness is the pivotal point to understanding the development and application of our individual arts and also the foundation of unifying principles that transcend individual style and form.
I
must admit that, many times I have been caught painfully unaware of critical
things in my life. My friend Janos has helped to explain this to me and he used
the analogy of a person with a paper shopping bag over their head. He says that
we can live in a world of illusion because we can only see a small portion of
what is happening around us at any given time. Because our view is incomplete,
we often make things up or infer things about the world that are just not true.
We are often uncomfortable with a “void” so we struggle to fill it with
information that makes sense in our existing and incomplete world-view. If you
picture a bag over your head with many small holes cut in the bag, you may
start to get the point of what I am talking about. You will see out through the
small holes but you will see the world in fragmented and restricted ways. In
the case of the bag analogy, we are restricted by the physical presence of the
bag and it may not take much creativity or imagination to see a solution to
this dilemma. By simply removing the bag, we can recapture our view of the
world in its entirety. In reality, it is much more difficult, at times, because
the bag that restricts our true vision is a complex construction. We often find
that personal issues, cultural influencesand natural laws all filtered through
varying levels of societal development shield us from the true nature of
things.
When
we quest for the truth, initially, it is easily found by observing natural law.
There is no denying that there is gravity or light or heat or numerous other
forces in the universe. These forces exist, even if we deny their existence and
they exist even if we are completely unaware of them. We can struggle against
natural laws all we want but it does not mean that they are not there and
acting on our world and reality. Our lack of awareness does not hinder the
action of natural law in any way. In fact, some of the most difficult things
that happen in our lives are a direct reflection of natural laws that we either
have been unaware of or have chosen to disregard.
Continued in Part 2 tomorrow...
Sensei Paul Fox, an excellent and highly respected instructor, can be reached through the following links –
Chokushin Aiki Jutsu
Sacred Journey Therapy
paul001fox@gmail.com, 705-748-3010
Sensei Paul Fox, an excellent and highly respected instructor, can be reached through the following links –
Chokushin Aiki Jutsu
Sacred Journey Therapy
paul001fox@gmail.com, 705-748-3010
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