Category: Sports/Recreation Publisher: Kevin Brett Studios, Inc.
ISBN-10: 0981935001
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 240
Copyright: November 15, 2008
ISBN-13: 9780981935003
Martial arts are indeed a unique art form. Through martial arts, the potential for human development is unlimited. It is in the endless, shapeless void of self-improvement, enlightenment and the quest for inner-harmony and strength that the martial artist finds his medium of expression. That medium is himself and his character.
The Way of the Martial Artist provides a conceptual framework for studying and understand your journey through martial arts and the development of your skills, strategy, character and spirit as a martial artist.
Success in anything begins with a dream, but to achieve that dream you must first adopt a mindset for success. Learn how to develop a concrete action plan to identify your goals and begin to achieve them with black belt determination. Leverage your existing positive qualities and talents into a toolset for success that can positively change every aspect of your life. With commitment and determination, anything is attainable!
Supplement your dojo training with new knowledge, skills, techniques, strategies and life lessons.
Understand how to combine your newly improved skills and strategy in the ring, and on the street.
Learn how to develop strength, inner-harmony and excellence in martial arts and in everything you pursue!
Find your passion and pursue it with the same techniques all successful people use to achieve your own endless string of life successes!
Find answers to questions that all martial artists ask during their quest for excellence, purpose and enlightenment.
Learn what it means to mature into a servant-warrior (even if you are not a martial artist) whose focus is on serving a purpose greater than yourself.
Includes a detailed seven levelframework for martial arts study that highlights essential skills in everything from close-quarters combat to wilderness survival, first aid, grappling and weapons to techniques of camouflage, concealment and character development.
Learn how to develop a determined black belt mindset to enrich your life as a martial artist and a human being and excel at both. Join the ranks of warriors throughout history who not only mastered their art, but found ways to serve a cause greater than themselves. Through martial arts, your potential for human development is unlimited.
Excerpt
Preface
This book is for anyone who has a desire to achieve excellence in the pursuit a dream or some lofty goal. The techniques, qualities and methods in this book will help you frame out the elements of your vision and understand the personal qualities and character needed to achieve it. Even if you are not a martial artist, you can still learn and develop the qualities I speak of when I talk about warriors achieving success. The same qualities that help warriors achieve success in their art and in life can help you with any type of challenge or goal. The best part is that if you follow this guidebook to these essential qualities, studies and techniques, you will also find along the way that success is about more than just you. Helping and serving others along the way to achieving your own personal goals reflects a level of self-realization that many overlook in their quest for that often-elusive thing called success.
Martial arts is simply one path toward achieving excellence and this book is a study in what makes a martial artist; what drives one and how that experience equips one to take on new life goals and achieve virtually anything he might set his sights on. My purpose in writing this book is to open doors for you as a fellow martial artist or simply someone who wants to understand better how to develop a black belt mindset.
Many non-martial artists are always fascinated with how we are able to set and achieve a difficult goal such as earning black belt rank. If you are looking to deepen your understanding of martial arts and understand how you can evolve, then this book will give you that. While there are many cookie-cutter martial arts schools willing to take your money and hand you a black belt in twelve to eighteen months along with a seriously false sense of accomplishment and self-confidence, a serious black belt can and should take years to earn. Earning a black belt is a process of maturing in technique, strategy and character. When your maturity and character have reached a higher level, then you may join the ranks of black belts and begin your real studies! Suffice it to say, that journey requires that you have or develop some serious perseverance and make an equally serious commitment to achieve that worthy goal of self-improvement.
So what’s the point? The point is that once you have climbed that mountain, you are ready for anything. I will teach you how to understand techniques and training concepts and how to evolve and combine them into effective tactics and strategies. You will learn how to approach an opponent in the ring or an assailant on the street with confidence that the techniques of your style of martial arts will work when strategically applied. Even for non-martial arts endeavors, many of the concepts have great applicability if you take time to consider their utility outside of the study of martial arts.
Most important is how you mature as a person. We often talk about maturity, character, principles and virtues as good things, but do we really know what we’re talking about. This book provides those essential insights to help you understand what they are and how to develop them. We all seek a type of inner-peace and harmony in our modern multi-tasking, internet-driven world. We want to feel confident and calm under stress and we wonder if there is more to martial arts and the pursuit of human excellence than simply working up a good sweat. We all wish to realize our potential in many endeavors in our life’s journey.
Through martial arts, your potential for human development is unlimited. It is in the endless, shapeless void of self-improvement and enlightenment that the character of a martial artist is shaped and forged through the fires of our will. Begin shapeless; strive to form your own shape; then lose that shape and return to shapelessness. Then you may assume any shape you wish. This is how you will achieve goals. Success is about constantly sculpting and shaping yourself until reality matches your dreams. This book is about the journey between those two points.
Many students spend years wondering when they will feel like they have acquired some greater understanding of this often mysterious and misunderstood art. They wonder when they will feel like they have learned the secrets of the masters. In this book, I have provided insights and perspective for many questions that all martial artists ask who seek to understand the mystery and fascination of human development through martial arts. Maturing as a warrior and an honorable member of society is a noble goal that will take a lifetime and even partial success will enhance your sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Even outside of the pursuit of martial arts, we often struggle to understand human character, emotion and the quest for self-improvement. We all set goals. Some of us succeed. Becoming a black belt is an admirable and challenging mental and physical goal. Much determination and perseverance is required and completing that journey only prepares you to begin the real adventure and set ever-higher goals for yourself!
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The topics I cover are not necessarily bound to particular techniques of punching or kicking. The following pages are concerned with issues that are universal to all styles of martial arts. Beginning students must learn techniques, but they must also begin to exercise their minds and begin to learn, understand and appreciate how to apply techniques, develop strategy and improve their skill levels and their understanding of their art.
Many martial artists are attracted to the physical techniques of the martial arts and never evolve beyond that physical level to gain much insight into effective strategies and honing their cognitive processes. The history, tradition and spiritual aspects of martial arts and the martial psyche captivate many martial artists, but they fail to develop a mastery of the physical and technical aspects of any system. Some martial artists are gifted, balanced and focused enough to develop good skill, good strategy and good spirit.
This book provides practical insights and guidance that martial artists at any level can use to improve in all three essential areas by beginning with understanding key terms and concepts and how they build upon each other. You should not study the specifics of any given style of martial arts to the detriment of understanding how to think about and analyze your progress, development and maturity as a martial artist. This book is a guide to help you progress in the study of your chosen style.
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I have not developed strategies and concepts superior to or even on a par with the great masters. What I have attempted to do is to capture and synthesize some of the insights gained in my own training and those imparted to me by my fellow martial artists. From these I have put together what I consider some of the most important topics of strategy, training and personal development to the student of martial arts who is interested in success. I view these principles as simple truths with universal martial application.
I do not know all that I would like to about the topics in this book, simply that they require further study by all of us. As you begin or continue your training, consider these topics and refine your understanding as you evolve into a martial artist. Keep notes on your progress, discoveries and understanding and in those notes, you will find the seeds of deeper knowledge.
I have tried to keep many of the descriptions high-level so that the student will not get lost in the details. Some of the topics are rather abstract and may require reading more than once and serious reflection. We are all students regardless of rank or years of experience.
Read these passages often and consider them when you train, compete and defend yourself. Some of the passages and thoughts may come across sounding rather Yoda-esque. Hey, it worked for Luke Skywalker! Really, the phraseology is often quite simple, but the concepts are at the core of this art and the pursuit of excellence.
This work is simply my way of expressing what I have perceived to be the essence of martial arts and the spirit of being a martial artist. Train hard and with good spirit, because you are the next generation of martial arts.
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