The Martial Arts
&
One’s Health!
The practice of Martial Arts can assist and prepare a person to deal with and face health challenges. The barrier between the Martial Arts and one’s health is very thin. Both worlds complement each other.
Sanchin manifests itself in the practice of Martial Arts. Sanchin is the unity of the mind, body and spirit. Everyone has capability to train towards this unity. Karate-ka’s have to learn about and come to believe in Sanchin through lessons. These lessons are the focus of one’s ongoing journey in the Martial Arts. The practice of Martial Arts can help karate-ka’s, through tough times. Sharing one’s story may inspire and educate other Karate-ka’s as they pursue their own journeys in the Martial Arts.
A few years back, I was diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism, in a weak state of mind, and in a bad physical state as well. One may never expect to have to deal with a health challenge as severe as this, but the practice of Martial Arts played a big part in keeping me focused and healthy enough to move forward. I owe a debt of gratitude to the Sensei who put me through tough training lessons. These lessons gave one the focus and the strength to deal with health challenges.
Hyperthyroidism is defined as the over-activity of the thyroid gland. Symptoms are increased metabolism and exophthalmoses (bulging of the eyes). Basically, one’s system runs in high gear which results in burning more energy than normal. Some people may believe that one is joking when one says that there is no energy or interest in doing any activities, but the truth is that I had no energy to enjoy anything except when sitting down or sleeping. The only sport I thought myself able to enjoy was Martial Arts, and that’s when the Arts began to assist my health without me even realizing it.
After a few months of trying to stabilize my thyroid, the Doctors gave me options and there were decisions to make. First was to keep trying the medications to stabilize the thyroid numbers or try to and use some kind of radioactive treatment. The last option was surgery. Staying on the path of medicine was going to be a waste of time, and advised that with the radioactive treatment came a major chance of having a heart attack—since my heart rate was already high due to the thyroid disorder—I decided to go with the surgery.
The surgery was scheduled for the end of the year and Martial Arts training continued. Even though I felt weak, the energy was there to do Martial Arts. As all karate-ka’s, know conditioning is one of the pillars of the Martial Arts. Throughout that year my body became conditioned to go for at least 60 minutes of practice, as compared to the 10-20 minutes of practice when the hyperthyroidism began.
Through learning breathing techniques, and having training of the mind, and by taking steps with force but with little effort, I was able to build my body and my state of mind to be able to reach the highest level possible when my health was in a bad state. The big lesson was to learn how to combine the mind, body and spirit to work together and be able to conquer the necessary steps. For example, a month before my surgery, I took the brown belt test. If it had not been for the training, I would not have been able to complete the test and pass the physical and mental parts. As a reward for my hard work, discipline and efforts – I was promoted to Brown belt.
Everything came together for me because of the Martial Arts, the understanding of how everything was connected. In my training I exercised all three elements of Sanchin: the mind, the body and the spirit. How important it is to learn how one’s body works and the affects a positive attitude and training have on our lives. When we learn what our body can do in certain situations, we can take advantage of it and find confidence. The most powerful stage to conquer is to be able to control one’s state of mind. After one trains to conquer one’s own mind, one’s body follows and then one’s spirit will catch up to finalize the journey. The key word in all of this is to TRAIN.
If a person does not train, then the person cannot proceed to conquer the next step in the arts. This is the first step in redirecting ourselves to the center of our own universe, regaining our balance in our mind. We can train our bodies to the limit, but if we don’t train our minds the way we train our bodies, then we are skipping a big step. A lot of students in the beginning think that Martial Arts is all just force and body action, but as they get deep into their training, those students will start realizing that its more than just body and force. I once was told, “A Samurai is not just a warrior that knows how to use a sword, but he also knows how to work the pen. . . .” I took that to heart and kept it in a locked down place in my mind. By keeping that statement in mind, I remember that my training does not stop in the dojo, it continues in the books.
Because of my illness, my body was not in good health, but my mind was being trained at a different level than it ever had before. That’s where the intellectual part of the Martial Arts started to click. Every story that had been told to me about our Martial Arts ancestors began to make more sense and a better understanding of the past lessons about techniques, movements, action-reaction, etc. was gained.
This message is offered to the new generation of karate-ka: Take; all words of wisdom that are given in the dojo and keep them close, because there will come a time for use and there is a reason for those words. This is especially true in the Martial Arts lessons. Never doubt any movement because every movement has a reason and a karate-ka will start seeing this once one trains the mind. The Mind is the greatest attribute karate-ka’s have and one needs to become aware of how powerful it is and how much it assists one’s every moment of daily living and daily training. The main lesson here is that we as everyday students; need to train our minds in order to advance ourselves. If we do not, then we do not advance in Martial Arts or in life itself. Open the doors and let one’s mind take in everything like a sponge and be surprised at the things that are learned.
Here is a real life example of how the mind continues to train even when we are not in the dojo:
A karate-ka asked his teacher a question when he returned to the Dojo after a prolonged absence. He said “After all this time I was out from the Dojo and physical training, how come it feels like I never felt and was able to advance my training more than the regular students?” The Sensei’s answer was – “because even though you stopped the physical part, mentally you never stopped training…”