Why, Why, Why?

Why study kung fu?

To defend oneself? To get fit/healthy? To learn to fight? To build discipline? To build confidence?

All these things can be done without kung fu training, and I have known kung fu artists who had not successfully done any of the above.

So, why study kung fu?

Kung fu and other martial arts have a reputation for being able to instill in their practitioners strength, discipline, confidence, etc., but they do not in and of themselves accomplish anything.

A martial artist can be a great humanitarian or a bully, a wise sage or a con artist, a mentor to children or a convincing illusion of one out to sign them to three year contracts.

The secret is not in the martial arts themselves. The secret is in your approach to the martial arts, and the instructors approach to the martial arts.

At one point, my motivation as a martial artist was to get good at kung fu. At this time I believed in the illusion that being good at kung fu meant I was a good athlete/philosopher/humanitarian/leader/etc.

At one point my motivation was a dedication to "the art" I wanted to perfect the art in myself, then perfect it in others. Again I believed in the illusion that the art itself would do all the work.

If you don't believe there is an illusion out there, go browse some martial arts school websites, most of them will tell you all about the "benefits of training in the martial arts" but if you ask the instructor, "How does martial arts training teach each of these benefits?" will they be able to answer?

So what am I doing to break free from the illusion?

First of all I fight hard to stay off the pedestal. Lots of martial arts students want their teacher to be Yoda. Sorry I guys I am a flawed and fallible human being.

Second, I want to use martial arts training to teach other important things. Training for each belt test with a long term goal of obtaining a black belt can be used to teach goal setting. Repeating a drill over and over again not only improves the drill, but teaches one how to practice for any other achievement. Memorizing a sequence of 200 movements teaches that we can accomplish bigger things than we thought we could. Training for "self defense" teaches us to always practice self defense even in our eating habits.

Third, I must remember that HOW you train your kung fu decides what you get from it. If you train only for fighting, you will learn only fighting. If you train only for fitness you will get only fitness.

If you approach Kung Fu as a holistic analogy for everything you do in life it can be a revolution in your life.