The Way of Least Resistance

Our Wu-Wei Dao syllabus at the Academy of Traditional Fighting Arts contains physical prerequisites for grading. The first reaction I tend to get from more mature students is one of horror.  I guess that is understandable: the older I get, the less I like the idea of having keep up with 20-somethings.  I guess I feel a bit like some ancient police sergeant having to do an obstacle course in under a certain time. There are the usual arguments I face - like "I'm learning martial arts skills - not training to be an MMA fighter, a law enforcement officer or soldier.  Why the heck do I need some kind of physical test?" And the answer is: "You don't." We have plenty of students who train in our non-grading classes - in particular my Chinese arts class.  There we don't have any gradings at all.  I teach certain techniques and coach students in developing their skill in these techniques.  And all of this is done without any reference to a particular p...

Introduction When I was in my instructor's dojo back in the '80s, we trained annually with the head of our parent organisation at his geiko and gashuku (intensive training courses and camps).  During these our "headmaster" would often speak about the need to "transcend the physical" at some point in our martial journey.  But he never really explained exactly what he meant by this. After a few years, and a few more gashuku, it became clear that he was speaking of some kind of "metaphysics": ie. something "supernatural" or "beyond our current scientific understanding". Yet whenever I observed our headmaster during training, there seemed nothing remotely "transcendent" about him: he did the same stuff we did, namely basics, kata, applications, weapons - just with the odd parlour trick thrown in (like the " unbendable arm "). It's now quite clear to me that many, many other schools' headmasters s...