The myth of Shaolin temple just reminds me of how my values have changed.
As a kid, my dream come true would have been to have been locked away doing nothing but martial arts training for years till I emerged a fighting machine who could win any fight.
As I grew up, I realize what a total waste of time and life that would have been. Far better to learn to read and write, or even dance (college I guess). Those skills make me far happier. Yet, as a kid, it felt awful to have to go to school rather than spend my time in Shao Lin.
Haha I had the opposite experience. Growing up I always liked math, science, and programming but more and more I wish I could just spend all my time doing martial arts.
Same. The older I get the more I wish I could just spend my time learning to control my body and doing martial arts and such. It'd be so much more fun.
I still hold a bit of the childish passion in even at forty. I just like moving a lot and doing things minimalistically (is that a term ?). Monk life is neat IMO to an extent.
It's weird, as I'd absolutely love to live as a monk full time. The training, the studying, everything about it. Like, if I ever reach financial independence and don't get married/have kids...that's definitely what I'm going to be aiming for.
Martial arts are not always about fighting. It also has a lot of with body control, emotional control, focus and being calm.
You don't need to practice heavy, fight oriented figures to practice martial arts too.
I'm a Zen practitioner for ~4 years, and my master is also started to mix qigong into the practices. I also dance (tango), and there's awful lot in common with qigong about body control, movement and balance.
There's an old proverb: "A good dancer is a good fighter, and a good fighter is a good dancer."
Am a drummer, sort of, the rhythm part makes my arm extremely fast and efficient; yet at the same time music most often requires you to be in a calm-like state to stay on the groove/music.
If I was a physicist I'd say both are experiment teachings about time and space.
It's also striking how it teaches you complex limb chains efficiency, that's the only way to only use the minimal amount of energy per effort. It's all intertwined.
I know that kind of concentration, or zoning out to be precise. Alertly listening your internal metronome and rest of the band/orchestra and being calm enough to trust your body and instincts at the same time. That's a tall order. I've also played double bass in a symphony orchestra, I know the stress and thrill that creates :D .
While we were chatting with our master, art and martial arts came into subject. It turns out that practitioners also practiced classic arts (music, painting, dancing, drawing, calligraphy, etc.) during their training. It's considered a catalyst and an essential part of the training, because it promotes calm, focusing and fine work. It also balances the more outward/powerful side of the energy.
As a developer, I consider coding as an art. Writing code with the same concentration and calmness both accelerates the development of the code and really settles some of the dust which practice inevitably stirs up.
Really, everything is much more connected than it seems. Please don't give up drumming.
coding can be an art but you need a special context (interesting problem, good tools, good colleagues [or your own sel]). this is when you can flow
the other art idea is interesting, because no matter the field, the sensitivity required to feel good and do good is about the same, just through different senses (finger, ear, etc).
Drumming can be as minute as painting or clockwork (and I can't give it up, I love it too much, and bear in mind, I don't even own a drumset)
> coding can be an art but you need a special context (interesting problem, good tools, good colleagues [or your own sel]).
I'm a self motivated coder TBH. My day job is HPC cluster administration (the team is also fun), and I'm interested in high performance algorithms personally. I've also completed my MSc. and PhD, and developed projects which needs high performance algorithms and methods. I currently work on problems and projects of my own and write research papers occasionally, so I'm a happy camper.
> the other art idea is interesting, because no matter the field, the sensitivity required to feel good and do good is about the same, just through different senses (finger, ear, etc).
Far east practices help someone to build some enormous power, however this power needs to be controlled. Otherwise, it's nearly impossible to put it to good use. Other arts help developing this control via extreme concentration and with the requirement of fine and refined results.
>Drumming can be as minute as painting or clockwork...
There's no doubt about that. We (the double basses and tubas) always relied on drummers consistency as a backup metronome in the orchestra. Funnily there's a triple redundancy in that part of the orchestra. Double basses, tubas and drums all listen to each other to regulate their tempo. And there's the conductor, who acts as the authoritative metronome.
I'm not sure I get the 'enormous power' part. Most of the time in my experience the power comes from understanding the subtle first so you don't waste your energy or hurt yourself.
The notion of timing in a group of people is one very magical thing. I experienced it only once (the only time I got to play with other people) and it's hard to describe in words.
Unfortunately, it's very hard to describe with words, you need to experience/feel it. For a very simple analogy, it can be compared to force in the Star Wars universe. It manifests itself as confidence to the outside world.
If it's nurtured well, and one can get rid of its ego, this force makes people humble and able. Otherwise it makes them dominant and bully-ish. Latter one is damaging to both the person and its surroundings, while the former one can be used for creation and other good deeds easily.
It boils down to facing yourself and overcoming your problems with your "self". It's really borderline impossible to describe with words. So, it brings the subject to definition of Zen. :)
Zen is something which can not be written down or told with words. If it can be precisely described with writing or words, it's not zen.
> The notion of timing in a group of people is one very magical thing.
That's amazing, where are you and where are your master and tango teacher from? I started Tai Chi among other disciplines I've been studying for 4 years and my teacher/group's master is from Ireland, who's also a tango teacher! So I'll be taking classes of that too. Do you have twitter or other social alias?
Thanks! Congrats to you too. Tango is something much deeper than dancing, esp. when you have other practices in your life. You should certainly take these lessons!
I'm from Turkey, my tango teacher is also from Turkey, and my master is from Korea. You can reach me via http://bayindirh.io
As a kid, my dream come true would have been to have been locked away doing nothing but martial arts training for years till I emerged a fighting machine who could win any fight.
As I grew up, I realize what a total waste of time and life that would have been. Far better to learn to read and write, or even dance (college I guess). Those skills make me far happier. Yet, as a kid, it felt awful to have to go to school rather than spend my time in Shao Lin.