BUT I'M TRYING TO RELAX!!!

 by Phillip Starr

We've all heard it...”You have to relax” or “just relax and you'll get it.” Unfortunately, most instructors don't realize that this type of advice is actually counter-productive to genuine relaxation. I can see the guy in the back row furrowing his brows and wondering, “how's that?” Well, pay attention...

The main reason that most people can't relax is because they don't stand correctly. You may stand ramrod straight, balance teacups on your head...and you think you're standing correctly. But no, that's not it at all. Learning to stand correctly actually requires a lot of practice...as much as 2 years or more. Even most contemporary masters don't know how to do it or how to achieve it. It begins with pushing your ears away from your shoulders (what I call “tatonka”). But there's so much more to it than meets the eye.

Once you can stand correctly, you'll FEEL your body relaxing...naturally. Correct posture (truly correct) naturally relaxes the entire body. Gravity always pulls straight down; just stand and let everything “hang” naturally.

If you think, “I must relax my elbow (or any other body part)”, you'll unknowingly cause some very slight tension in that spot and/or others. Focus your mind to the top of your head (pushing the ears away from the shoulders) instead of other body parts. The harder you TRY to relax, the more tension you create. It's rather zen-like.

Once you've learned to stand correctly and true relaxation sets in, you must do it in a variety of (martial) postures. It's like starting all over again – tension finds its way in, but have faith. Using the same principles for standing correctly, your postures will become correct and relaxed.

Of course, the next step is to maintain correct posture and relaxation while moving. You're going to have to start at Taijiquan speed...and over time, speed will increase as your movement(s) become smoother (which is due to true relaxation).

This process requires maturity, devotion to DAILY practice, and time. It's going to take a while to be able to do it. Years. But that mustn't discourage you; time is part and parcel of developing real skill and that's what gong-fu is, right?

There are special exercise routines that are used to teach this. Most martial arts teachers, even the highest-ranked, don't know them. They must be taught hands-on. And they must be practiced EVERY DAY. Otherwise, they'll never “take.” Once you begin doing that, you'll soon notice changes in your posture and in your entire body. Standing feels very different. Moving feels very different. But you must keep up daily practice so that these “corrections” in your posture become habitual and you no longer have to think about them. And that takes time.

You'll also notice that your blows are much stronger; your movements are faster (without TRYING to make them faster). The way you practice your particular art is much stronger and different than it once was. This is a great secret that very few know.

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS TOO MUCH POWER?

 By Phillip Starr

In the practice of martial arts, is there such a thing as “too much power?” The simple answer is, YES! Actually, the clearer answer is, “there IS such a thing as TRYING to emit too much power.” I've been witness to this many, many times; in black belt practitioners as well as beginning students. They endeavor to fire every technique with every ounce of “power” they can muster. The end result is likely different than what you might expect.

For instance, I know one instructor who does his level best to put 100% of his strength into every punch, block, and kick. Actually, he doesn't kick much anymore; years of slamming his knee straight with every ounce of strength that he can muster has permanently crippled him. His knees are totally shot. When he delivers a punch, strike, or even a block, you can see him first “cock” it back a bit just before he fires it with everything he's got. He's a classic example of what NOT to do.

Good technique is crisp and sharp (and the elbows and knees are NEVER locked straight!). If a sword is extremely sharp, it requires little brute force to cut. If the sword is dull, all you have is a very pretty club. If use all of your strength to thrust or cut, you lose control of the weapon and you may even damage it. This holds true for all weapons..including your bodily weapons.

One of the secrets to reaching a high level of skill is to learn to use as little (muscular) effort as possible when performing a given movement. Efficiency. It's achieved in much the same way as when sculpting something out of a large, jagged stone; cutting and chipping away what you don't need. A true master's technique doesn't appear to be terribly powerful on the outside at all, but it is crisp, clean, and sharp. Perfectly controlled. Being on the receiving end of it, however, reveals its true power (which is explosive).

SO WHAT ARE YOU LOOKIN' AT?

 By Phillip Starr

      It’s a small detail, I know…but it’s also critical.  Watch a classmate, student, or even an instructor perform a given form and watch how they turn their heads just before changing directions to address another (imaginary) opponent.  Do they do it at all?  Or are the change of bodily direction and movement of the head down as one movement?

Think about it; you're engaged in mortal combat with one opponent and you knock him down. Just then, a second opponent comes up from behind you, or moves in from one of your flanks. The very first thing you'd do is YOU'D LOOK AT HIM, right? You can't know exactly where he is or what he's doing unless you see him first! So – first, you turn and look at him. THEN you move your body appropriately. Is this how you do your own forms? It should be.

Remember your mother telling you to look both ways before crossing the street? What if, just as you step into the street, a car off the one side guns its engine and tries to run you down? Would you look directly at it? I sure hope so!

And then there's what I call “peepee gazing.” This occurs when a student does a form and looks down for any reason other than striking an opponent who's been knocked down or thrown to the ground. Students often do it to ensure that their stance is just right. And it's wrong. In a life-and-death struggle, you'd NEVER do that. Well, not more than once.

And I developed a highly effective method of stopping students frm developing this nasty habit. When they did it, I'd belt out in a rather loud voice (so that everyone can hear it), “Don't look at your peepee!” It really embarrasses the guilty party. And is he or she did it again, I'd loudly order the, “...and don't look at anyone else's peepee! Even if it's a really nice one, don't look at it!” That usually solved the problem after the giggling calmed down. I have students from more than 30 years ago who still remember me uttering those immortal words in a rather loud voice. And they laugh. It worked.

To do your form without visually engaging your imaginary foes just before you act or react is an error. Many martial arts devotees, including high-ranked instructors, are guilty of it. It's a tough habit to break but without it, you're just doing a complicated set of exercises.

RULES??? WHAT RULES???

 by Phillip Starr

In 2022 (approximately), there was an astounding occurrence in the martial arts world. Because it happened in Japan, most of us still don't know anything about it. A similar event could never happen in the West because too many egos are involved, but...

Numerous well-known (some internationally famous) martial arts teachers from several different disciplines began to actually get together in a spirit of learning and sharing information. Instructors of different forms of karate, MMA, Jeet Kune Do, traditional gong-fu, traditional forms of jujitsu....all began to communicate and collaborate. This is raising the understanding of many different facets of martial arts to a whole new level.

Techniques, training methods, concepts, and principles that had never been shown publicly were revealed openly, in a spirit of friendship and furtherance of the martial arts. My senior student, Hiro Misawa, knows some of these teachers and stays abreast of many of their new “discoveries.”

One instructor believes that one of the greatest weaknesses/flaws in modern martial arts training has to do with adherence to “rules” in so far as freestyle sparring is concerned. In practice in the training hall and especially in competitions, various rules are strictly followed (mostly for the sake of safety). This can and does strangle the true nature of the art and causes practitioners to become a bit too accustomed to performing according to the rules.

He allows practitioners to practice sparring without any rules other than maintaining very strict control. No protective gear (other than a groin cup) is worn. Finger jabs to the eyes and kicks to the knees and groin are all permitted. Of course, the upper-level practitioners who participate in these sessions are extremely careful not to make contact. Several interesting discoveries have been made, and one of them is that we all tend to fight (even in a real fight) in accordance with the rules by which we practice regularly.

For example, a renowned Kyokushin full-contact competitor was rendered very confused and helpless against this gentleman's flurry of eye jabs, which were reminiscent of xingyi's “monkey boxing.” The Kyokushin fighter simply could not adequately defend himself. Why? After all, Kyokushin is famous for its full-contact, bare-knuckle competitions.

The answer is clear. In Kyokushin tournaments, kicking to the head is permitted, but strikes made with the hands are not allowed above the shoulders. This world-famous champion was totally unprepared for hand strikes directed at his face (particularly eye thrusts, even though they were well-controlled)!

MMA fighters experienced considerable difficulty as did western-style boxers; they were accustomed to fighting according to certain rules. When those rules disappeared, they became confused and unable to fully engage their opponents.

The master who conducts these training sessions emphasizes the need for control, so injuries just don't happen. And of course, this type of practice is off-limits for persons under the rank of nidan (2^nd grade black belt) and never for children; it is geared to experienced and highly-skilled practitioners only.

But it does give you pause to think, doesn't it?

PLEASE REINSTALL YOUR DO...

 by Phillip Starr

The word “do” is used in various martial art disciplines such as judo karate-do, taekwondo, and aikido, as well as numerous other art forms such as chado (the tea ceremony), shodo (calligraphy with a brush), kado (flower arranging) and so on, pronounced “dao” (道) in Chinese (and Korean) and refers to “a way”, “a path…” MANY practitioners of these arts really don’t understand what it means and if that’s the case, theirs is a shallow method. So what does this really mean?

Put simply, a “do” is a way of living. It’s not something that you practice on Monday and Wednesday evenings for an hour or so. It permeates your very being, regardless of what you’re doing; your job, brushing your teeth…whatever. It affects and improves your character and the strength of your spirit. It is always there; in your speech, in your relationships, in the quality of work that you do, in how you view yourself and the world.

Judo came from juJUTSU, just as kendo came from kenJUTSU. The same is true for karate-jutsu, aikijutsu, and numerous other martial disciplines of Japan. Jutsu (術, pronounced “shu” in Chinese, and “gisul” in Korean, 기술 ) means, simply, “technique.” In the martial arts, it refers to technique that is practiced solely for combative purposes. It does NOT refer to a way of life. Jutsu has no interest in the development of character or spirit. It is intended only for combat.

This is not to say that practitioners of a jutsu form cannot improve character and spirit through training. They can, but the teacher has little interest in such qualities. If he begins to look at improving such qualities through training, he is beginning to practice a “do.”

In China, there is no such differentiation in a given martial discipline such as we find in Japan. Wushu means literally, “martial art.” But because it’s been used for decades to refer to a performing art that combines gymnastics, aspects of Chinese opera, and martial arts, “wushu” is no longer used (in China) to refer to the traditional martial arts. They now call them “gong-fu”, which is a misnomer because that term actually refers to any fine skill that is developed through arduous practice over time. A highly skilled carpenter or painter can be said to have “a lot of gong-fu” or “really good gong-fu.”

So part of my personal mission is to establish the “do” in traditional Chinese martial disciplines. Many of them are wholly focused on being “jutsu” oriented. Learning technique isn’t easy; it takes time and a great deal of practice. But once you achieve “technique”, you must go beyond it – into the “do.”

In the art of painting, for instance, there is jutsu and do. A jutsu painter simply paints what he sees, kind of like paint-by-numbers. The end result may be an accurate depiction of what he saw, but it has no life; no soul, no FEELING or spirit. And there’s a huge difference between the two. A true artist must go beyond putting paint on his brush and simply stroking the parchment or canvas.

So I encourage you to go beyond the jutsu of what you practice. Seek out the do.

THE QUESTIONS THEY ASK

 by Phillip Starr

One of the ways by which I can determine a student’s level of understanding and skill is by paying attention to the questions they ask. Whenever they ask a particular question, I consider just how it could be that they’d even wonder about such a thing (the object of the question). If they haven’t been practicing it and wondering about it, they would never know what question(s) to ask.

Now, I’m not necessarily talking about very simple things such as “where do my feet go when I stand in a forward stance?” Rather, I’m talking about much more intricate details/principles. At the same time, I warn students not to get TOO analytical about certain movements. Being over-analytical is usually detrimental to their progress.

For instance, if a professional baseball pitcher gets too analytical about how to throw the ball, his mind gets so befuddled with small details that he’ll soon lose the ability to throw the ball as he should. The same is true for all physical activities.

BUT…after practicing his pitch may, many times, he may see a small detail…a principle…that may help him improve. And THEN he can ask his coach about it. After practicing a basic hip throw, a practitioner of judo might find a very small detail/principle that just might enable him to execute the technique more effectively. When that happens, he may ask his instructor about it.

Asking such questions was usually discouraged by instructors back in the day. China and Japan adhered closely to the tenets of Confucianism, which considered questioning one’s teacher as a form of insolence. Answers/responses were often meted out as a form of punishment. The end result was that students quickly learned to keep their mouths shut.

My own teacher, master Chen, would respond rather violently (at first) when his Caucasian student (moi) would ask questions. Admittedly, many of them were, in retrospect, rather stupid questions. I once asked about a particular movement in one of our forms…he responded by having me attack him. He struck my arm with such force that I couldn’t use it properly for the rest of the day! But that’s how we Westerners are brought up to learn…we ask questions. Sifu Chen eventually came to understand this and his responses became much less painful.

My most senior student, Hiro Misawa, will ask questions about very small, seemingly insignificant principles or movements that he’s already been working on for a while. He wants to know what I think…and I tell him. This has been a huge help to him in developing very high skills. And it helps me to better understand his level of expertise. If he hadn’t been practicing enough, he’d never have discovered enough to ask such questions…