Body, mind and ... no that will do
Published: Thu, 02/26/15
On Monday I put out a message on some Martial Art Facebook groups I am on regarding Stav Seminars for this Saturday (28th). These seminars will be about practical self-defence in the morning and basic staff training in the afternoon (links below). However, someone responded from a Historical European Martial Arts group saying that he was local, interested in HEMA training but not interested in the spiritual aspect of Stav and how much of that would be included in the seminars? He only wanted the physical side of Stav and wanted nothing to do with any of the rest. Slightly worrying really, not willing to think? Not willing to an ethical or emotional dimension to self-defence? Willing to use the body but unwilling to train the mind? I know that is not quite what he meant and hopefully he would admit that the brain is as important in martial arts as brawn but it is still a telling reaction.
Discussions about the relevance of spirituality in martial arts are not uncommon. The common response is that spirituality is of no use at all, all airy fairy stuff and all that matters is learning to hit people as hard as possible, first, and then hit them again, and again, and a few more times for good measure. And anyone who suggests that some spirituality would be good needs hitting too, even harder. I am joking but there is an element of truth here.
Prevailing western orthodoxy is scientific secular materialism. There is material reality, there is science as the source of all truth and there is no God and therefore spirituality is a meaningless concept. That means martial arts have to be completely ‘practical’, however you define the term. You can take a scientific approach to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your training and your application but there is nothing else. It means in military terms nuclear weapons and depleted uranium projectiles which leave toxic radio active residues for generations. Any ‘finer feelings’ that anyone might have in terms of love, compassion and gratitude are simply evolutionary characteristics which have helped evolutionary survival in some way so are easily explained in scientific materialist terms. (I believe that was the thesis of Richard Dawkin’s book ‘The Selfish Gene’). So there is no imperative to consider a spiritual
justification for one’s actions, just develop the most practical and effective way of destroying your enemy before he destroys you. It isn’t hard to discern a similar attitude in contemporary business and politics.
The problem with scientific materialism, the belief in body and mind but not spirit is that it is two dimensional and nothing can really exist in only two dimensions. There is past, present and future existing now. If you only have past, which is where the mind exists, only being able to remember or learn what has gone before and the present where we exist in material reality then all we can do is repeat the past today in a kind of Groundhog Day situation. That is very much what is happening in Western Society at the present time, Greek economic problems, Cold War type face off with Russia, chaos in the middle east anyone?
The spiritual is about aspiring to create something better in the future, the spirit is free to imagine, dream and reach for the stars. Inspiration, vision and human potential are the spiritual dimension of what it means to be human. For the true warrior body mind and spirit are developed together. Knowledge and training is essential, there is a profound sense of being in the body in time and space now and a clear vision of victory and an openness to inspiration on how to achieve that success.
Why is there such a rejection of the spiritual? Mainly it is an unconscious objection to religion on the grounds that religion is ‘old fashioned’, ‘irrelevant’ or ‘repressive’. Doing anything unconsciously is the behaviour of a slave not the response of a free person or a warrior.
Seminars in Crewkerne this Saturday: Self-defence http://somersetstav.co.uk/sd.html and staff training http://somersetstav.co.uk/wep.html
regards
Graham
PS If you were interested in the rune pages the last one is here http://iceandfire.org/runes/16.html and you can work backwards using the links in the sidebar, or you can navigate by changing the file number Fe is /1.html, Yr is /16.html if you hadn’t noticed anyway.