MA/SD/WSD/RBSD/DT training are tools to develop character traits and skills within yourself, they do not automatically instill them.

Can the martial arts be used for character development? Of course. The aspects of self-discipline, focus, perseverance, self-control and patience that you must develop to advance in the MA are integral components in personal development and success in life -- no matter what the endeavor. It should be noted that although the martial arts can help develop them, these life skills are not sole property of the MA. These traits have many different manifestations and applications outside the martial arts. Which is to say you can -- and will -- find them everywhere in life. The martial arts do not own them nor are the MA the only way to get them.

Self-reinforcing thinking
A very wise person once said that life is 10% what has happened to us and 90% the value we assign to it.

Unfortunately, if that 90% doesn't have a positive value assigned to it, dealing with the negative emotions, thought patterns and self-esteem issues that arise is a major challenge. Realistically, what we mean when we say this, isn't that the issue is impossible to get over per se, but that the assumptions, defense mechanisms and behaviors we come up with to cope with that issue tend to keep us trapped in a cycle of dysfunction. Most of the time, it's not the incident that is the problem, it's how we try to cope with it.

In fact, a large part of that 90% can be some very bizarre mental gymnastics and behaviors that, while we think we are addressing the 10%, we are only reinforcing the 90%. While that might not sound like much of a problem, it can become a major self-deluding trap. Blaming the 10%, people do not realize that it is the 90% that keeps them trapped. Sometimes just an ongoing cycle of trauma drama, failure and disappointments, sometimes an escalating spiral of alcoholism, drug addiction, violence or bizarre, dysfunctional behavior. Often, over time the collective arising from the 90% become more problematic than the original issue.

Putting it simply, we must be careful that the things we do in hopes of fixing a problem, neither exacerbate the original or themselves become a larger one.

Unfortunately, many people, who decide for themselves what is necessary for them to crawl out of the hole of their 90% take the approach "We have to get out of this hole boys! Dig faster!"  

That is because often the solutions that we come up with are based -- not in what it would take to grow beyond our limitations -- but what that 90% tells us. Therefore our so-called "solutions" often reinforce our beliefs instead of helping us overcoming them.

People who believe that MA/SD/WSD/RBSD training give them what they need to overcome personal issues are deeply trapped in this kind of 90% thinking, because they are not seeking different perspectives or objectivity. What they are getting is information that reinforces that 90%.

And you can't think outside of a box if you don't realize you are in one.

Return to top of page

Taking internal bearings
One of our favorite Albert Einstein quotes is: The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

One of the more common missteps people who are trying to solve problems make is that -- functionally -- they don't step outside the 90%.

Instead of seeking an external, unrelated and more functional perspective, they often latch onto something that is familiar. In doing so they seek to extend their 90% in that direction. This isn't solving the problem, this is just heaping other issues on top of it. For example, someone has been bullied and feels inadequate. These feelings of inadequacy often fly in the face of reality. What they fixate on and base their feelings on is the fact that they did not suddenly rise up and become an uber-warrior to defeat his/her tormenters.

To begin with that is pride talking. Unless they were physically assaulted there is no concrete damage. The emotional damage, while real, is entirely subjective. What's more it is entirely based on personal interpretation. That is to say the value the person assigns to it. This is far more a slippery slope than you might at first think. One person may shrug off an incident and keep going. While another will fixate on it and ascribe it overwhelming value and significance. This is why subjective emotional  damage is such complex issue. An event that would emotionally destroy one person will have very little effect on another, whereas another person would be infuriated. And yet we are talking about the same event. These people are largely reacting to their 90% assumptions, thought patterns and world views. By this we mean several things.

First, their emotions -- the manifestations of which are largely a result of how the 90% is structured -- are one form of reaction to the event. That last statement can most easily be explained using the analogy, "Water is shaped by circumstances. A river, a lake, a glass or a water pipe, all hold water, but it is the container that determine what shape the water takes."  Like water, emotions are channeled, suppressed and manifested by how your 90% is structured. How well or how poorly structured that 90% is will have significant effect on your emotions. The more extreme reactions will be engaging in what Daniel Goleman refers to as an "emotional hijacking"(1).

In our defensive tactics training we have a saying "Pain and emotions are motivational messages. When we feel them we feel that we have to act." However, emotions are not the unstoppable juggernauts that many people believe them to be. While there are many people who claim "I can't help how I feel" this is not true. Our feelings are significantly controlled and influenced by what we think. Our thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, habits and neurological pathways form the container of the water of our emotions. There is a substantive argument to be made that much of our emotional states and behaviors boil down to "habit." And habits are learned, carefully nurtured and continually reinforced.

Furthermore, just because emotions are motivation messages doesn't mean we have to act. Just because you feel an emotion doesn't mean you have to do what it tells you. Unfortunately, many people learn coping strategies in life based on letting their emotions run rampant. To them, their emotions are the most powerful force in their lives and they mistakenly believe that by letting their emotions run they, by extension, this gives them a degree of power.

What these kinds of people fail to realize is as strong as their feelings are, the structures that they are channeled through are, in fact, stronger. We're not talking about the dam bursting when pressure gets too great. In fact, comparatively speaking seldom does the damn actually burst. People don't climb clock towers with sniper rifles all that often. Usually spillways and floodgates are opened, sending water down well-established and carefully structured pathways. What seems like a new crisis is often just another incident in a long established pattern of behavior. One that will leave the dam intact and able to allow pressure to build up until the next time.

Long term behavioral patterns of trauma dramas, failed relationships, constant conflict, job hopping, failure to get promoted, chronic low self-esteem, anger and drug/alcohol use takes on entirely different perspective when viewed this way.

There is no way to effectively express to the average person how ferociously humans cling to our internal structures. We view the world through our 90%. Putting that in practical terms our 90% determines our version of reality.

Now that begs a really big question: Is what we are emotionally reacting to what is really happening or something in our 90%?

This is a mind boggling question. Because our emotions can make it seem as real as being burned alive from the inside. Emotions can hit us like internal tidal waves. Forces that seem to engulf our entire beings. And by extension all of reality. You can be so focused on something that it is temporarily the sum of reality. To you, nothing else exists.

But does the world really go away? Does reality suddenly shift you into another dimension? Let's use the idea of an orgasm as an example. While you are experiencing an intense one you can be oblivious to the world. But do you come to in a different place? Are you somehow transported to another location? Or do you find yourself in the same location after the orgasm? While this may seem like a silly example, often an emotional hijacking is very much like an orgasm in that it temporarily blinds us to external circumstances, but those circumstances do not suddenly cease to exist because we are otherwise focused.

But just because we are otherwise focused does NOT mean that we are incapable of action. Which is why it is critical to a) recognize your own emotional state, b) know that your 90% may or may not be accurately reflecting what is going on and c) that is going to effect your emotions and by extension, your actions.

Second, how do you cope? Are you actually doing something to fix the problem or just giving into your feelings?

Displacement or redirected behavior is a well known psychological phenomenon. Whether it is "kicking the cat" or getting drunk after getting yelled at by the boss, people often find ways to cope with their emotions that are not particularly beneficial. While many coping strategies are beneficial (such as physical exercise) one must always remember that the means we deploy to handle excessive emotions are not solving the primary problem.

If after a bad day at work, you step onto the mat and proceed to do power kata for two hours, you WILL feel a lot better. But the source of the problem at work still remains. Hopefully though you now will be calm enough to rationally and reasonably think about ways to resolve the problem. That's a positive manifestation of a coping strategy, but the same thing applies to going out and getting drunk. Now the problem is still there the next morning, you don't have a plan AND you're hung over.

In many ways we can look at the Magical Thinking people engage in about MA/SD/WSD/RBSD in the same way. It is an ineffective coping strategy that while it makes them feel good at the moment, doesn't give them an effective means of fixing the core problem. Instead of calming them down so they can rationally address the problem that is creating the stress, it's like going on a drunk. They step into the dojo/ school/ academy/ seminar and all of sudden they become a deadly, killer kung fu commando. A secret and lethal master of an art that gives them power of life and death over mere mortals.

Like someone who goes on a drunk, this rush of power and imagined control doesn't calm the person down so he/she can research and develop a means of solving the problem. Often, and unfortunately, the MA/ SD /WSD/ RBSD organizations and forums become an escape. A place where the person doesn't have to engage in critical thinking, self-analysis or confront personal issues. Why should they? In that "world" they are powerful, in control beings.

At least they think so.

The need for other points of view
What we have been saying here isn't that the study of the martial arts is worthless. Far from it.

What we have been saying is: If you want to learn the martial arts, go to a martial arts instructor. If you want psychotherapy, go to a psychiatrist. If you want spiritual advice go to a priest, rabbi, iman, shaman or monk. If you need medical help, go to a doctor. If you want legal advice, go to a lawyer.

In short, if you need something, go to someone who is qualified to provide that service. There's a reason such people are professionals. And being a professional means a whole lot more than just being paid to do something. It includes knowing a whole lot more about a particular subject than you do and having a set of behavioral and professional standards and behaviors. Do abuses still happen? Of course they do. We live in an imperfect world. But you stand a far better chance of getting quality advice and service from someone whose profession is a particular subject than what you'll get from your martial arts or self-defense instructor.

If you have issues you need to work out, don't try to fix them using solutions you think are best. Remember, it's the 90% that isn't working in the first place. That's the same part telling you what a great idea that solution is. How reliable is a solution it comes up with going to be? Or is it more likely going to send you off on an expensive path that keeps it's cherished assumptions and core beliefs intact?