“What I have in my heart and soul – must find a way out. That’s the reason for music.” ~ Ludwig van Beethoven
Many years ago, a friend of mine told me that when someone asked Beethoven about the meaning of one of his Symphonies he said something to the effect of ‘If I could put that into words I would not have had to write a whole symphony!‘ And while I haven’t been able to verify that exact quote, the inner significance is expressed by this other quote of his, in which he refers to music as a way to express, or communicate, what was in his heart and soul.
This is monumental to me. Through experience I have become keenly aware of the fact that only a very very small subset of our experiences, feelings, emotions and even intuitive thoughts can be expressed in words in the common language. Beethoven, like many talented musicians before and after him, had a desperate need to express himself. And words couldn’t cut it.
Does this ring a bell to anyone? This is exactly what Bruce Lee said Martial Arts was to him. “Honestly expressing yourself,” he claimed.
Human Experience
It goes back to same basic human phenomenon. The fundamental need to communicate, to express ourselves. This is why we love hanging out with people that listen and love the things we do, because we can express ourselves to a higher degree than normal. This is why writers write and this is why painters paint. There is fire and passion at the heart of being human and we must let that out, one way or another. Words are good, and good conversation is great. But words can also constrain the immensity of our emotions. There are other ways to express ourselves, and the Arts have always fulfilled this mission. There was art since there were humans, as evidence of prehistoric art shows us consistently.
Just like painting can be practical, so can Martial Arts be practical. Back in the day before photography drawing was the only way to reproduce scenes, likenesses, and other practical matters. For example, in the transmission of knowledge, in school, in journalism. Using drawing and painting as an Art, though existed before and after the period of time in which it was used for practical reasons, but it didn’t contradict it. Art is a superset of practicality. Not a whole different thing. The same with the Martial Arts. Thousands of Martial Artists start their practice because of a very practical reason. And that is perfect! Those reasons are good and make up the goals of those practitioners. Maybe self-defense, maybe fitness, perhaps sport or competition, etc. But there is an inner reason that most of us love and enjoy that keeps bringing us back to the training and yet it is rarely something people are consciously aware of. The goal of deep communication and self-expression.
Deep Conversations
Have you ever experienced that when you have a deep conversation with a friend about a topic you end up discovering your own point of view and knowledge about this topic better than before your chat? In other words, the act of communicating, the act of having a dialogue, showed you something about yourself that you were not aware of before. If you are a musician, you probably remember what it felt like when you first played with other musicians. It’s a whole other experience, way harder but also way more satisfying. And in the process of playing with others, you find yourself, as a musician, in a whole new way that wasn’t easy to access before.
Think of two BJJ practitioners rolling on the ground. No matter how much they have trained by themselves, how many BJJ books they have read, how many chats about the practice, how many podcasts, etc. BJJ does not truly become real until that moment in which they are rolling in the ground with someone else and they are discovering themselves in the process. That’s when you know how you react to pressure, how sensitive you are to movement. That’s when you have any chance of getting better.
I have often had the joy of practicing drills with my Teacher George Lee that involve a high degree of tactile sensitivity. One of the best known drills that accomplish this is the practice commonly called ‘sticking hands’ or Chi Sau. There are many others though, some of them much less well known. Why are these practices so tremendously enjoyable, to the point of being practically addictive? Regardless of their level of practicality (and like everything, it depends on how something is practiced to determine how practical it can be, depending on your goals) it is enjoyable because it is a dialogue that you could never have through words. The act of communicating through increasingly more subtle tactile signals is simply amazing. Yes, in the process of doing this we are learning tremendous lessons (to let go, to not be greedy, to not muscle against a stronger opponent, and many more) but above all, we enjoy this because we are learning about ourselves while we ‘dialogue’ with someone else. Like a mirror, we see our face only through the use of an external reality to ourselves. The eye cannot see itself without something to reflect it.
I remember practicing this with my Kung Fu Brother Dan Munkus. After training, many a time we stop to reflect on what makes this training so enjoyable. And one day we came to the conclusion that the level of dialogue that occurs in this setting is simply staggering. So much can be said in a Chi Sau session (or any other Martial Arts drill from any other System, mind you, such as my BJJ example earlier) that would be unfathomable to express in a normal conversation about daily life.
Martial Arts = Communication
Any form of dialogue and expression is appealing to us, and deeply needed. But another reason for the appeal of Martial Arts is the use of a tremendously important sense that we often ignore. Think about your average day. Most of your interactions with the reality that surrounds you, as well the others around you, is through two of your five senses: the sense of sight and the sense of hearing. Yes, when we eat we are, hopefully, delighting ourselves through the sense of taste. When we hold hands with our significant other we are experiencing the pleasure of the sense of touch. But by and large these interactions are a small percentage of our normal day of work and routine. Technology, which has so overwhelmingly taken over our lives, is exclusively auditory and visual (with a minimal component of tactile experience through the haptic system of your smart phone). Think about social media – endless steams of stimuli purely from the visual and auditory systems. And the same goes for Television for those of us that were raised years before we even had smart phones. Or computers! This is also why in the 2020 pandemic so many people struggled with working via remote video chat systems everyday for more than a year. When you are a on a video call with someone you can only see and hear them. There is no sense of the other person in 3D. You can’t shake their hands, there’s no physical awareness of your position in reference to them, and yes, you cannot smell the room, the ink of the markers on the whiteboard, the garlic in the chicken box that someone brought in to the conference room. We were made with five senses to use them, and we delight in using them. It’s our nature.
This is another reason why Martial Arts can help us so much. They bring us back to the sensory experience that surrounds us, and even though both the visual and the hearing senses are extremely important in Martial Arts, so is the tactile sense. And even more important in close range. You can react through tactile sensitivity, and practice, way faster than you could ever see or hear an action in close range, when you are ‘in contact.’
Once we focus on this dialogue we realize something magical happens: we are also listening to the others. The enjoyment of communication is in its two-way nature. We learn to listen as much as we learn to express. We find ourselves only through a series of exchanges. To be open to those exchanges we need to listen. Our ChiSau doesn’t work if we force our way, we need to listen intently and react. The same for the BJJ groundwork. The same in life and society. In an era in which people are very divided in political and social matters, we must, more than ever, be willing to listen to others without judgement. Only this will bring harmony.
Does reading about food satisfy your hunger? You can learn about food and it can be a very helpful endeavor, but in the end what matters, and what brings you satisfaction, what is indeed the reason for your very survival, is that you eat.
To know more about this and other Martial Arts and Life topics, you can view my Vlog and Podcast as well as these Martial Journal related articles: Juggling for the Martial Arts: Supercharge Your Skills by Andrew Zerling and Positive Psychology in the Martial Arts by Jonathan Snowiss!
Francis can be contacted at francis.cordon@gmail.com, he is also an active Martial Arts YouTube Vlogger as well as the co-host of the Martial Arts Podcast ‘A Thousand Exits.’
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