Anger. Adrenalin. Satisfaction. Pain. Offence. Fear. There are many possible emotions in a fight, but they have no place there, according to traditional martial arts training. Certainly fear doesn’t – fear freezes you, slows you down. Your heart races, but your mind panics and stands still. Anger doesn’t freeze you, but it makes you reckless, which will ultimately only result in injury, in pain, in defeat.
How do you cut off your emotions in a fight? Well, fights happen fast. Very fast. Bruce Lee could reputedly punch at the speed of a bullet (this is fairly plausible – Wing Chun is known for its speed). You don’t have time to think, to consciously process what your sight, hearing, skin are telling you. Which is why you train your body to react, to think for you. It can do so much faster, and without emotion, than you can. The Japanese term ‘muga’ is a state of alert passivity – the calm before the storm – in which the body is aware, all senses working at full throttle, but the mind is calm and waiting. It’s not stressed, but relaxed. Ready. Not waiting because that implies expectation, and most traditional Eastern martial arts are born of philosophies that discourage expectation.
Developing this state is a slow process, but hardly a difficult one. We do it when we learn to drive, to throw, to catch. At first we have to go slowly, thinking consciously about the physical actions required. Eventually, our bodies know the procedures so well, they don’t need us to think about them. They just do. And while a fight is more unpredictable and therefore more complex than playing catch, the principle is the same: don’t think, don’t lock up your muscles with tension, just relax and be ready.
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