Sports and Fighting 3

Sports and Fighting:

The discussion to the introductory post was great: enlightening, intelligent, spirited and courteous. I commend all who participated.

William's remarks are insightful, and I note that one of his early comments contains the resolution to the dispute on the subject of children displaying courage 'without training.' As he points out, this is not quite so: they train for it all the time.

This is why children day dream of being great warriors and standing against (insert enemy du jour). They are training their mind to choose options in frightening situations. The enemy they are facing is both “real” and a surrogate for other frightening things that they will have to overcome in life. Hence, this applies not just to the warrior aspect, but to every aspect of life.

However, my own sense comes closest to the one Doc Russia put forward. Training in armor can create and nurture courage, if it is done correctly. If it is not -- if the spirit of the thing is lost -- what follows is of no use.

Doc points out the importance of training for stresses in excess of what is probable, so you can minimize your concerns in the event. By the same token, training should emphasize that the way to end the stress is victory, and only that. Anything else is destruction: of the reason to train, of the chance to nurture the virtue being sought, and of the spirit of the man.

G. K. Chesterton wrote of courage:

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

Miyamoto Musashi, in his Book of Five Rings, pointed out the error of the fighter in the video below -- and the virtue of the victor there.

When a warrior draws his sword the main intention must be to cut the enemy down. There is no reason to change your grip when you strike the enemy. When you have forced the enemy to lose control of his sword because of your parrying thrust, do not change your hand position.... Likewise, when you put aside the enemy's sword, or block the enemy's strike, you must be intent on following up with a powerful attack to win the fight. The martial arts are not a game to see who is stronger and who is faster. You must mean it when you strike the enemy. If you do not, you will certainly get hurt.

The martial arts are not the only sport in which this matters. It occurs also in horseback riding. When a horse panics, there is a fatal voice in the head that says: "Stop. Let go. Get off." If you do, injury or death await. The only chance is to sit deep and ride it out.

Even then, of course, the world may prove too strong for you. Yet that is the only chance: and it is the spirit that the fighting arts, and any warrior's sports, must train.

This is part two in the series. There will be another, but before we move on, let's talk about this.