Martial Arts and the Guardian's Relationship with Force/Violence by Tamarack Song (edited by RedWolfReturns) When a traditional Martial Arts fighter comes to a Guardian training camp, he nearly always finds himself disoriented. There's no level playing field, and he almost never meets his match face to face as he is accustomed to do. This leaves him feeling impotent. He can't use his senses to connect with his opponent, nor does he know what's coming at him or from where. His strength and fighting skills do him little good, in fact, they have crippled him. This is because in developing his strength and skills, he has ignored the development of his innate intuitive, awareness, and defensive abilities. He stands there like a Deer in the middle of an open field during hunting season. Why is this? Because fighting arts competitions are phony. They're unrealistic because they are staged. Even so-called "no holds barred" "cage fights" are filled with artificial rules and conventions. Two People face each other. There is posturing, an adrenaline rush, and then action. The natural environment is gone, all the unknown factors taken out of the situation. There is none of the stealth or surprise that is part of a Guardian action where conflict is involved. In a Martial Arts match, fighting is the only option. In a real life situation, fighting is but one of many options. Fighting arts practitioners tend to get caught up in the artistry of their discipline and then glorify it's application. Because of this there is often little emphasis on ways of debilitating someone that circumvent fighting and cause little or no physical harm. The fighting arts practitioner, when first visiting a Guardian training camp, does not realize that in an actual confrontational situation, no matter how skilled they are at their particular art, they could be incapacitated by some of the more experienced Guardian apprentices before they knew what hit them. All of that training for artificial conflict situations would be in vain. This is because a Martial Artist has trained for a typical civilized scenario where one opponent meets another in the open, face to face, and on a level playing field, so to speak. This is the scenario of the soldier or sports competitor. The skills of the Guardian hardly come into play. There's a law of energy flow that you may be familiar with in such sayings as ‘like begets like', ‘you reap what you sow', ‘what goes around comes around'. The Hindu might call it Karma, my Father would have called it ‘just desserts'. The upshot is that we become what we surround ourselves with. Whatever we put our energy into, is likely to happen. So, if we train to fight, we are likely to get involved in fights. We have developed a conditioned response, which will be triggered in a confrontational situation. If we trained ourselves in a variety of conflict resolution strategies, we would have a menu to choose from. We could choose what might be the most appropriate — the most effective, least harmful, and least disruptive to the other Person's Path, and to our own. Some additional notes on the Martial Arts: The ‘equal playing field' approach to Martial Arts is probably a carryover from the Age of Chivalry. When two knights or even two armies for that matter, would meet each other at a prescribed time or place to do battle. There was usually an accepted training and accepted accouterments of battle and a sense of nobleness and feeling that you and your opponent were evenly matched. This has survived into fairly recent times in the tradition of the duel, and of course, in today's sporting matches. "When the Guardian operates without fear of loss or failure, he frees up tremendous energy that would otherwise be dedicated to striving for his goal. He now has a horizon that is a full circle –– he has options without limit and above all he has no enemies. Having no demands or expectations of people, he has only friends, only people who help him serve. This is the secret to turning negative energy to positive, opposing force to supportive force, anger to acceptance. "Because he is open to options without prejudice and energy without stricture, he has vast potential to find alignment with whatever comes his way and to use it in his service. Good or bad? It doesn't matter. Friend or enemy? Who's labeling? Witchcraft or grace? Energy is energy. "Some of you may be familiar with martial arts which are based not upon force opposing force but rather on allowing that which is directed at you to become you and flow through you. In this way the person who has expectation — who sees you as "opponent" — defeats himself, while at the same time helping you. He is directed, he has narrowed his focus, he is expending considerable energy in his aggression to defeat you. You are merely giving him his own energy, his own medicine, so-to-speak. Giving is receiving. "Because you are not resisting the flow — not walking in the wrong direction, as in the trail example above — you remain unscathed and refreshed. You maintain your centeredness, your perspective, and you keep your options open. It is much easier to move with the current than against it. And much more effective — you'll travel considerably more distance. Whether she expresses it as such or not, the person practicing this style of martial art functionally understands the Expect Nothing precept of the Guardian. Good chess players do also. The average chess player has an opponent, the good player has a partner. The average chess player will focus on resistance — blocking and undermining his opponent''s moves, while the good player will use his "opponent's" technique and direction to help him cross the board." "Those who have practiced a martial art or played a game such as baseball will sometimes do better in this early stage of training because both condition the practitioner to expect the unexpected. And yet, not all who are involved in such pursuits have an easier time with Guardian Training. This is because the practice of these pursuits is scheduled and follows a certain philosophy or abides by a certain set of rules." "The Native Guardian will perform his task in the most efficient and least risky way. He is not trained in a particular fighting skill or bound by its code of ethics. He seldom has to face his opponent, and does so only as a last resort. He is of no value to his People if he is injured or killed, so he stacks every odd in his favor. In living the Old Way he has become adept at the skills of snaring, trapping, camouflage, and the stalk. These skills work on Humans as well as on prey and predator. In the same way that a Native would set a trap for a Bear rather than grappling with her hand-to-hand, he would deal with a Human." "For many of us it is time to take a stand and join in striving for change. But we are not fighters in the classic sense; we have been bathed in the light of a consciousness that shies us away from our traditional forms of force and coercion... Even though we may be studying a martial art, we justify it by saying that it is defensive." Many of the movements in martial arts training are taken from the natural realm. For example, tai chi – perhaps the best-known practice – has movements with names such as "cloud hands," "White stork cools its wings," and "snake creeps down." Practitioners learn from people who learned from people who learned from people who originally learned from their animal relations. Would it not be more honoring, and perhaps a better learning experience, to go back to the source and learn as did the original masters? It is the way our ancestors learned, and it is the way of all native people – Two-leggeds, Four-leggeds, Six-leggeds, Wingeds, and Rooteds. It could serve us well and are healing and reawakening to return to this relationship of belonging, of learning from each other in a Circle-relationship way, rather than turning our back on our relations and purporting to know what they have to teach us. Is dishonoring them in this way what we really want to do? In the context of native lifeway, the practice of yoga or martial arts is redundant. Living natively already is yoga, and it is natural martial arts training. These practices evolved in compensation for not living natively, that is why you won't find disciplines like yoga and martial arts in native cultures any more than you will find wilderness areas, cities, schools or jobs. Here are some characteristics of martial arts: 1. they are practiced at a certain time and place 2. the practice is separate and distinct from regular life 3. the practice involves movements and postures that are different from regular life 4. the practice is based on a different philosophy than that or regular life These points define something as a discipline rather than a practice because discipline is needed to practice it. Moving through the woods is natural un-choreographed movement, the way we are designed and intended to move. It exercises all muscle groups, including engaging the right brain and involving senses, feelings and intuition. Choreographed movements cannot do that—they are repetitive and rote, and as such they are unresponsive to the circle of life. They are a human effort to replicate natural movement and train the person to be naturally responsive. At the same time these movements cannot be performed in a natural environment where one can be naturally responsive, because the natural environment interferes with the exercises. This is a classic civilized catch-22 situation, where our attempt to grow closer to nature (including our nature) actually isolates us more from it. When I observe the basic stances and movements being taught in martial arts classes, I see what is learned naturally by moving through natural environments. The difference with martial arts classes is that the context is missing. It is like a mother fish taking her young into a gym to teach them how to swim. They would not only learn naturally if they were in the water, but they would learn the complementary skills and awareness necessary to being a good swimmer. The quality of life of the fish who learns to swim out of water cannot come close to that of a fish who learns in her natural environment. In fact, the fish who learns artificially will be at such a disadvantage that she might not be long for this life. They are noble efforts on the parts of martial arts trainers for which I commend them. And in the same breath I must say that such efforts are not only unnecessary but stunt the growth of the individual who wishes to become fully actualized. He might become a superb martial artist, just as anyone might excel who trains in a regimen; however, he will not be his fully intended self, trained by the mother to echo the wind and shadow the shadow. I watch people in a building imitating their teacher in the practice of an exercise such as Dancing in the Clouds when just a doorway away they could be outside learning directly from real clouds. I see others practicing Golden Pheasant Stretches his Leg with the birds watching them from the nearby woods, wondering why the people are learning from another person and not from them, as in the days of old. And why are they learning a golden pheasant movement when there are none for thousands of miles? Raven, heron and eagle stand by watching, and saying to themselves "are we not good enough?" "If martial arts are a human construct that stymies my growth, what would be a native substitute for them?" some people will ask. No substitute is needed. A Native naturally trains by being a Native. You can do the same by letting The Mother train you: Her Tree children will dance you with their shadows so you can learn to become a movement within the greater movement; Her Deer children will run you through the woods so that you can learn to flex and bend with every twist and turn; her Cat children will take you through grass and brush, to teach you to move as quietly and tracklessly as a Fish through water. Martial arts are another form of militaristic training. Even with that, they still appeal to many of us who are otherwise repelled by the military, because of the eastern philosophy woven into the practice of martial arts they are truly a kinder, gentler form of militarism and yet, if you care to see them, all the hallmarks of militarism are there.