When I was in my late teens, I tried a couple different martial arts. I did a few classes in Judo and then I went on to study Kung Fu – in particular Wing Chun. I studied for about a year before moving on to study Shotokan karate. I stuck with Shotokan for about 8 years until my divorce (at which point, as you read, my life went for a serious shit spin). The reason that I mention this is that this was my first experience with meditation.
In most karate dojos (schools) the class will start with bowing when entering the dojo, kneeling, and then closing their eyes for mokuso (meditation or literally “silent thoughts”) http://www.karatebyjesse.com/the-true-meaning-of-mokuso-karates-essential-mental-tool/ The exercise was a way to turn off the outside world and turn on the world within the dojo. Inside the dojo, there are different rules. My ex-wife’s uncle was my Sensai as well as my employer at the time. I could talk to him in a certain way on the jobsite but, when we were inside the dojo, I made it very clear that he was my master instructor. The same held true for the sempai or senior students. There was a certain hierarchy within the dojo based on the bank rankings of the students. Respect was shown throughout the dojo and this often carried on as a catalyst towards respecting others outside the dojo.
A training session always started the same. We would come in and mill around. Then, when Sensai arrived, the most senior student would call the other students to attention and we would all bow and welcome Sensai. Then we would continue on. Often, I was the senior student so I would chat with Sensai about his goals for the training session and my part in his plans. When we had finished chatting he would tell me to get everyone lined up in order of ranking. Then, he would move to the front and center of the group, and kneel down to the shrine that we would place at the front of the room showing respect to the founder of the style and to our association. Then the rest of the class would kneel down and we would begin mokuso.
The meditation would last for a couple of minutes and would involve deep, cyclical breathing. I learned as my career progressed how to use this time to let go of all the stresses that had plagued me during the day and to gain focus on the upcoming training.
For those of you that have never taken a martial art, I’ll try to explain what typical training is like.
* You enter into a situation where you are asked to move your body in ways that do not feel natural. This involves doing a series of movements over and over and over again.
* You sweat and get bruises. You feel like your body will fail sometimes, but your mind wins over the fatigue and you carry on
* Just when you feel like you have mastered a series of moves, you are taught some new moves and you, once again, feel like you know nothing. You then do this moves, in addition to the previous moves, over and over and over until they become second nature.
* Then, when these movements begin to feel natural, you add some other combinations and series of movements and, once again, feel like a beginner.
* And so on, and so on, and so on.
The key to the success of any martial arts is the step by step training. No one has ever walked into a dojo knowing it all. Every person that has ever worn a black belt started out wearing a white belt and felt like they knew nothing. Every black belt spent hours upon hours doing the same basic techniques over and over again. Each time they did them, they would try to prefect them a little bit more. Karate itself isn’t that hard. What I think is hard is the mental discipline behind what karate stands for. And, in my opinion, this is why each session started with mokuso – it was the signal to the brain to turn on the switch to “grind”.
I regret that I did not return to karate. At the time of this writing,
