GrandMaster Art Mason's Martial Musing

Martial Arts people are some of the most generous people I know. That is why I am doing this blog post. Please read this article below and follow the links provided. It is your chance to make a difference.

Hello Everyone,

If you look to the right of this article you will find a donation button to help a good friend of mine in Romania with medical expenses. I met this lady about 6 months ago and she helped me to travel to her country to introduce the art of Kyusho Jitsu to martial artists there.

Approximately one week ago from the date of this article she took ill with a serious liver condition. Her life is currently in danger, however the situation is improving. I arranged on Wednesday of this week for a helicopter airlift to Bucharest to save her life. Without this she had no chance for survival. However the problems still exist. The medical system in Romania is very poor and very expense. The economy in the country is in ruins.

Currently I am fund raising and taking donation to help the family with these expenses. Any and all donations are welcome and ALL the money is sent directly to the family. If you would like to help please use the donation button to the right of this article. All donors will have their name added to a card for Miky which Master Art will personally deliver to her when he returns by request of her family as soon as she regains consciousness.

Thank you for your generosity in this matter! Please see UPDATES below.

Sunday July 18th 2010 As of this writing Miky is in stable, but serious condition in Bucharest. She is currently on a machine which is cleaning her blood since her liver is all but shut down. This is LIVER DIALYSIS which will help to regenerate the liver. The cost of this procedure is 3500 euro which is NOT covered by insurances. Please follow the link provided for more information.

To donate to this cause please follow this LINK.

Also note 100% of all Kyusho DVD and eBook sales will go to this cause.

Master Art Mason

Happy Halloween Everyone,

Each year at Halloween young students will come and ask me if it is OK for them to wear their Dobok (gi) out for Trick or Treating.  Even though it is really a breech of etiquette I always say yes.  Now Halloween is a time to dress up as something you are NOT, these children are all martial artists.

As I was thinking about this today, I realized that perhaps some people see martial arts training as role playing. This can be especially true for new members, but in reality they are not role playing, they have become martial artists.

This all gets down once again to the way we think, especially the belief system that will often tell a person they are not good enough. Many times new adult students will come and talk with me because they feel ackward in class, and feel they are not really good enough to martial artists.  The truth is every accomplished martial artist in the world was once a beginner, a white belt, but we saw what we wanted and went after it.  So should you!

This applies to everything in life. I only use the martial arts as an example, because that is what I am most familiar with.  But here is the important point.

“You are exactly what you want to be…….”

There are no exceptions to this rule. Everything you are is an extension of your thinking, good, bad and indifferent.  Your reality is a result of all your thoughts to date. If you are not happy with this, then your thoughts must change to become what you desire down the road. The first step however is seeing in your mind’s eye, yourself as the way you want to be.

This has been a hard lesson in my life, but only hard because I kept getting in my own way. My belief system needed a major overhaul. The only area I had no trouble in was martial arts. This is because that fire burned very bright and hot. From my first class I could see myself in that Black Belt.

Start right now and imagine the changes you want in your life as a reality. When they appear in your mind they have been created, keep seeing them and they will manifest in your personal reality.

Everything is created twice.

This is wisdom from The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. This hangs on my wall. I hope you enjoy it.

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples: no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”

“In the struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we posses.”

“Love and compassion are necessities not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”

“A learned person will become noble only when he or she has put into real practice what has been learned, instead of just mere words.”

“Compassion and love are precious things………..they are not complicated. They are simple, but difficult to practice.”

“The purpose of religion is not to build beautiful churches or temples, but to cultivate positive human qualities such as tolerance, generosity and love.”

“Come together and think in terms of one world. What we call Buddha is warm heartedness developed indefinitely — love perfected.”

“We should think of compassion as being the preserve of the sacred. It is one of our basic human qualities.”

“From the very core of our being we desire contentment. For harmony each individuals identity must be fully respected.”

“Our planet is our house. We must take care of it if we are genuinely concerned about happiness for ourselves, our children, our friends, and other sentient beings who share this great house with us.”

“The seed for nirvana exists in all of us.”

A Zen Master is walking though the streets carrying a heavy load on this back. As he is walking he is approached by two young men. The men ask the Master, “what does a Zen Master do before enlightenment?” The Master stops walking and puts down he load and looks at the men but says nothing.  The men, confused, then ask the Master, “well what does a Zen Master do after enlightenment when he becomes a Buddha?” The Master then picks up his load, puts it all on his back and walks away in silence.

This Zen Koan is very simple. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience.  No matter what your religious background is we can all agree with this statement. What does this mean? That the road to the spiritual is found in the physical. We are all looking for higher answers, but are almost always looking in the wrong place. We must look within. Wisdom and the answers to all questions lie within each and everyone of us, if we would just be quiet and listen.

One of the problems when someone first discovers spirituality is it becomes all consuming. This happened to me many years ago also. We tend to think about developing something that is already developed. Thus we miss the physical experiences that we are here to enjoy.  How do you create the balance between spiritual and physical? By learning to quiet the mind and listen.

Some people will accomplish this by reading a bible, other by reading a sutra or many other religious texts. Some will mediate for a few minutes a day. One problem is that we often miss the reason for these practices.  The only reason is to quiet the mind so that we can understand ourselves, and thus the world we live in.

Once many years ago I visited a Buddhist monastery with some of my students.  The monk asked us if we could help them out by moving some statues in the stupa for them. We were very happy to be of assistance. After this work we were allowed to eat dinner with the monk and the other members of the monastery.

Being the senior person there from our school I ate at the table with the monk.  He told me that being a special occasions the other monks in training could talk with my student during their meal. He told me that this is normally not allowed.  Now when I heard this I figured there was some high spiritual reason for this practice. I was right, it was so that the mind was in the present and enjoying the meal, rather than being distracted with chatter. I was blow away and never forgot that moment.

What is the spiritual path? Enjoying living. If you practice martial arts, practice with all your attention. Are you a teacher? Then teach with all your attention and nothing else.  You see, it is all about doing what you are doing without thinking about something else. Being in the moment, and there are no ordinary moments.

Being spiritual is not about giving things up, it is about being mindful in the things you are doing.  Quiet your mind and enjoy your experience as a physical being.  Wisdom and happiness are your only goals. There is nothing in the past you can change, in fact it does not exist any longer. The future is like the past, it has not happened yet.  There is only this moment and nothing else. Learn to live in this moment. It is always calm and peaceful.

There is an old Buddhist saying, “You cannot step into the same river twice”. The fact is you cannot step into the same river even once.

One of the greatest benefits of training in a martial art is FOCUS.  Parents often look to martial art schools to help their children in this avenue of life.  However today I am speaking of focus with respect to adults.

Adults have as many, if not more focus issues than children do. I am not referring to their ability to focus on a task and complete it, which can also be a problem, I am however referring to the ability to focus on what is important, and discarding what is not.

The belt system in a martial art is designed to help with goal setting.  I wrote about this, in this blog article entitles Kudos to the Belt System. However keeping focused on the goal with all the distractions in life can be a challenge. Here is an example of what I am referring too.

How have you set your priorities? Are you thinking about developing yourself, or are you sitting at home watching the Simpson’s, eating a bag of chips and having a beer? Last night I was teaching the advanced class for adults in my school. I am not always available for this as I have several locations. I had a total of 6 students, 3 Black Belts and 3 Red Belts. How many could have been in class? There are currently 17 eligible and considered to be active students who could have been in class.  Many of these students were playing games and posting on Facebook.  This is a loss of focus on their part and will take a toll in their quality of life sooner or later.

This is especially true for advanced students, martial arts training is an important priority in life, at least I hope it is.  These students of the arts have often lost focus on what is important because they ‘get caught up’ in the day to day rat race of life.  Because of this the 2 1/2 hours of training each week will often go to the waste side. There lives will also often filled with stress and frustration.

Why is this training so critical? Because when we lose focus on our training we also lose focus in other important areas of our life, including our health. There is nothing more important than the time we spend on ourselves because if we don’t look after ourselves we cannot focus on other important things in our life like family and friends. People need to recharge after a hard day. Martial Art training provides this recharge.

Black Belts will often come and see me and give me the reasons why they are not in class. These are usually just excuses.  The number one excuse is a long day at work or I had to do something at home.  Well my day starts in the office at 7:30am, and goes until class finishes each day at 9:00pm.  I don’t cut out and go home, even though I could. I focus on the task at hand. When we are focused, because we are looking after ourselves, everything becomes more efficient.

I urge all people reading this, martial artists or not to take a look at your life and see where your focus is? If you feel stress in your life it is because you are out of focus. I put in 14 hours days working, but I sleep well at night, without the worries that keep so many people awake.

Where is your focus and what are you focusing on? If you are under a lot of stress, your focus is lost. If you are not a martial artist, consider it. If you are get out and train! Twice per week is not much when you consider the benefit of training and you all know this benefit well.

Martial Art training is time well spent, unlike the Comedy Network which brags about time well wasted.

This is the wisdom of Siddhāttha Gotama; the Buddha….Enjoy this video.

This is one of my favorite stories about the Buddha’s travels in India. I hope you like it.

In the countryside of India the Buddha is giving a talk on Dharma.  Whenever the Buddha talks people gather from all around to listen to his wisdom. On this particular occasion there is a heckler in the crowd. As Buddha talks the heckler is always interrupting, trying to get a rise of anger from the Buddha.  Over time the man become more and more abusive.

Finally after a long period the Buddha addresses the heckler. “Sir”, the Buddha asks, “may I ask a question of you?” The heckler laughs and replies, “Yes I would be happy to give you my wisdom”. The Buddha then says, “Sir if you have a gift to give a friend, but the friend refuses to accept the gift, who then does the gift belong?” The man thinks for a moment and states, “Well I guess the gift belongs to me. ” The Buddha smiles and looks at the man and says “Well sir, thank you but I cannot accept your gift of abuse.”

There is great wisdom in this story. Wisdom in that we need not accept criticism of others in our lives. We are free to chose how we feel from moment to moment, and no one has the power to change this.  Remember this story next time someone says something to upset you.

Common Sense, something that is so obvious sometimes we just don’t see it. When I was a child I heard the term common sense often, from both my parents. I was raised that this was an important ‘virtue’ to have in life.  The older I get, the more I realize how smart my parents were and are.

Today much of our world lacks common sense.  Overseas we have masses of people killing each other over beliefs that just don’t make any common sense.  Sometimes the stupidity is really mind numbing.  In my area of the world we have many people who also lack common sense.  Kids who take up smoking and drug use, when we know for a fact what the results will be. People eating until they can’t move, yet wondering why they are overweight. Politicians spending money that does not exist, then being given awards for their stupidity.  Is common sense dead? Personally I think it is in the process of rebirth.

As a teenager I was a misfit. Really I still am today, but now I am happy about it. When I was in high school I was tempted by my friends to smoke, drink and try all the various drugs. I will drink, rarely, never did try the drugs, it just did not make SENSE to me. Smoking is silly.

Is common sense dead? Only if we let it die! There is an old saying about practicing what you preach. I disagree with this. It defies COMMON SENSE. You should preach what you practice.  Practice common sense.  Teach common sense to your children and friends by being an example of it! This is a huge influence on anyone who sees it in your life. How do you do it? Examine your life and see were you show no common sense, then discipline yourself to change it! This means you must also reprogram many of your beliefs. Is this hard? No harder than living a life without common sense.

Great Wisdom comes from Extraordinarily Common Sense.

We can all look at our lives and find places we are living without wisdom. Common sense will tell you that you cannot fix everything overnight. If you smoke, cut down! Start reducing the amount you smoke each day. No excuses. If you have a weight problem reduce the portions you eat. Research healthy eating and slowly make these changes. Common sense will tell you that diets don’t work, but lifestyle changes do! If you are unhappy count the blessing you have in your life. Look for reasons to be just a little bit happier.

Turn off the TV and/or computer and read a book.  Write in a journal. Take a class in something that interests you. Quit taking life so seriously and start to enjoy it! – This is common sense.

Common sense will tell you there is no failure, if you fall off the path, get up and get back on. Make one of your goals to become a master of common sense.

“We are what we think, all that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we create the world.” These words were spoken by Siddhattha Gotama, The Buddha almost 2600 years ago. Jesus and Krishna spoke similar words, but we never listened to them.

There is no hidden meaning in these words, they speak a simple truth. The truth is what we think about most will manifest in our reality, plain and simple.  If we think about sickness, we will become sick, if we think about health we will be healthy. If our focus is on LACK, our lives will be in LACK. If we think about prosperity, we will be prosperous. Plain and simple, there are no exceptions.

Each and everyday I talk to many, many people. Some are parents of students, or students themselves. Others are people on the street, at Tim Horton’s and just about any other place you can imagine.  Some people are quite happy, but most have some drama to tell.

Here are different example. “My daughter is so dramatic, there is some new crisis everyday. It is driving me crazy.” “My husband or wife doesn’t understand me, there are so unthoughtful.”  “This person wronged me and I am so very angry.” “I hate this, I hate that”, etc, etc, etc.

Yet we wonder why there is so much turmoil in our lives, a life filled with 90% negative thoughts each day.  Take out the trash. How do you do this, but taking responsibility for YOUR thoughts and YOUR feelings.  Then focusing on what you want! If you focus on what you don’t want you will get more of it. Learn to not only think positive, but be positive. If you have problems with your child focus on solutions not drama. Also realize that no one can hurt you that you don’t allow too.

Another Buddhist saying is “Be Compassion to all beings, but if you can’t do no harm”. When someone dislikes me, they don’t harm me, they harm themselves, unless I return the emotion and dislike them. I instead focus and what I want.

Everyday on Facebook someone send me ’causes’ to join.  I rarely join anything because the organizers don’t see that they are creating more of the problems they are trying to solve. “Anti” this and “fighting” that.  Anti gets more of what they are fighting and no one ever wins a fight.  Anti terrorism breeds more terrorism, thoughts of peace will bring peace. Mother Teresa once said that she would never attend an anti-war demonstration, but she attended PEACE rallies.

Are you happy with your life, or are your thoughts out of control? You can change the circumstances of your world by changing the way you think. Everything, without exception in this reality has been created twice. The first time by the everyday thoughts we have.

Here are some ways to change your thinking. First, go one week without ANY negative thoughts. When you find you are thinking negatively consciously change it. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.  Internalize the concept that no one has the power to make you feel any emotion. You and you alone are responsible for your feelings. Forgive yourself and let go of negativity. After one week you will be shocked at how much better you feel and your life is!

Some people will say that this is a lot of work and difficult to do. It is no more difficult than the life you are living that is not making you happy.  Take out the trash and live only for this moment. No past, no future, no regrets, only this moment.

When you do, you will experience the joy that comes from being alive.

Now we are at the 3rd concept of the 10 Hapkido Principles. This is the principle of centering.  Often students will struggle with joint locks and manipulations, as well as throws and strikes because they are working out of their center.

In the art of Hapkido we welcome contact by the attacker. We respond by looking to affect the attackers balance, using 2 way action, while bringing them into our center, the place were we are the most powerful.

Just as the person attacking wishes to attack our center line, we also wish to bring them under control in the same way.  Centering is not just the act of bringing the attacker to our center, but also closing the ‘gap’ as well. We either go to them, or bring them to us depending on the circumstances of the technique.

As you can see the first 3 principles are work together as one. Below is a video example of all 3 principles at work, see if you can spot each one.