The Thing of Mastery

I broke this Blog Post up into two parts because as I was writing this I realized I had to prep the battlespace so to speak or what I describe later may not make much sense.

Okay, here we go.

On Mastery

“Master all things.”

• Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

Miyamoto Musashi spoke more on training than probably anyone but more importantly, he had an understanding of how it related to all things that as far as I’m concerned is second to none. In all things, he sought Mastery of the Thing whatever that thing was, whether poetry, art, or sword fighting he sought to master it. But more importantly, he understood that the path or Way was through Mastery of oneself. In this post, I’m going to rely on the sage words of Musashi because it really doesn’t get much better than that, and try to steer it towards how we develop Mastery in the body for martial purposes.

Master All Things

In Warrior Flow, because we’re only concerned with self-preservation by winning the battle we define Mastery as follows:

Mastery - an intuitive understanding of all things and how they work (i.e., within the known laws of physics and human physiology) and how to "create" as well as continually "improve" and "self-correct". It is the proper application of the concepts in the proper context or framework that, cultivates an intuitive understanding and allows people to perform creatively and effectively under chaotic, stressful conditions that have differentiated humanity’s great warriors from the enemies who lay at their feet. "Mastery and control of body yield Mastery and control of mind and vis a vis…" To achieve effortlessness in thought and action. (Note: In order to achieve Mastery requires a method of learning that allows us to enter into Flow.  Reaching the state of Mushin, Warrior Flow, etc., can only be achieved by having our attention focused on whatever we are doing in that moment and when the stakes are high. "We learn by being in the now and flow when there are high consequences." – Steven Kotler)

Since, in a real situation, anything you do can get you killed especially doing nothing. Our philosophy is so “do” something and either return with your shield or on it! Warrior Flow is all about Mastery, but Mastery not only by moving in ways that give you the combative advantage to crush the enemy or neutralize them before it becomes a problem... “for you”. But Mastery in thought, in perspective, in moral certainty, in moral will, in perfect clarity, in how you train, and why.

“The way is in training…”

• Miyamoto Musashi

Like I’ve said, Warrior Flow is a different art, a different philosophy, a different vibe altogether.

“Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie.”

• Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

I love this quote because it really sums up much that is wrong in the martial arts world. People wanting to bend reality to their idiosyncrasies and create false realities and then when the world kicks them in the balls they act surprised. Really?

In order to develop Mastery, I believe there are a number of other qualities you need to develop in to focus your mind in the right direction as you train in the fashion I'm going to describe later on. I define them as follows:

Moral Certainty- The ability to sum up a situation and take action with near-perfect confidence, without thought or hesitation, or irrational fear, with little regard for the consequences to yourself. It is also that deep-seated feeling in body and mind that once you make the decision to fight there is no hesitation in your ability to "take action" with the "moral certainty" that you’re in the right. The key is it is less about avoiding a fight or confrontation at all cost but instead focusing on fighting if and when you have to.

Perfect Clarity – to clearly and unambiguously see a thing as it is for what it is in truth without moral judgment and understand or as well as possible with absolute clearness. To be able to take action based on what needs to be done in the moment without hesitation and without prejudice and doing what must be done. This is the ability once you have all the required information or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics.

Perspective - a particular attitude or mental view toward or way of regarding something; as well as the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance. How this plays with regard to combat is significant because both our perspective and our perceptions are filtered through our knowledge, experiences, sense of being, capabilities and wisdom or intuitions. 

With this understanding, you can see why Mastery without them is not in my view achievable because you need the proper perspective and mental focus to drive your body to develop what is necessary to develop yourself. But there is also something else…

The Lottery is Random… and I’m Not So Sure About That.

“Respect the gods and Buddhas, but do not depend on them.”

• Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings

There is a mentality in the martial arts community a belief where on the one hand we can control everything in a fight. You see this in many what I call fight by the numbers martial arts systems where they teach techniques in the absence of any sense of dynamic movement or do drills and attack scenarios without framing things in proper context as to why they do what they do the way they do it. This way of thinking is naïve at best because it is one that assumes that the enemy doesn’t get a vote. That he doesn’t have an external influence or will on the battle. Bad news folks, he does and the sooner you understand that the better. The enemy always gets a vote if this were not true we wouldn’t launch surprise attacks or drop bombs on people from 30,000 feet. But now I’m going to talk out of the other side of my mouth so to speak.

Because it needs to be said…

Randomness

The quality or state of lacking a pattern or principle of organization; unpredictability. In the common parlance, randomness is the apparent lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination.

With this definition of randomness or random, I want to focus on the key phrase here and that is “the apparent lack of pattern or predictability”. I’ve spoken on this before however in the context of how it affects your ability to develop Mastery it is important to understand that this notion that these events are random and not interrelated when engaged in mortal combat is to throw things in the hands of fate or leave it up to the divine will of the gods.

“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren.”

• James 1: 13-16 KJV

Even in St. James we read that man can be drawn away by his own lusts. Meaning to say that “the Devil made me do it.” is a copout and utter nonsense because to believe so is to believe we have no will of our own and not responsible for our own actions. Nonsense!

My friends, if you are to develop a level of Mastery in your abilities. Then you need to understand a few things here and that is no matter how chaotic, no matter how confusing, when you are engaged in battle that shit is not random. A fight is a relationship where there is a communication between two antagonists, even when there is no physical contact, a dance of death. You see what we normally call “random” is not truly random, but only appears so from our perspective. The randomness we perceive is a reflection of our ignorance about the thing being observed or experienced rather than something inherent to it and if you are to develop Mastery you need to get this straight in your head.

“There ain’t no such thing as a damn coincidence if that shit happened it was supposed to.”

• Jack Sparks, USMC (ret), Commanding Officer 25^th Marine Regiment

If there was one thing you could count on from Col Sparks was the blunt honest truth and if the baby’s ugly he going to say so. But his statement is dead on. Things only appear random from a perspective not knowing or understanding how a thing happened. However, if you buy into the notion that a fight, combat is no more predictable than the lottery, you will close off your mind as well as your ability to learn to develop Mastery. If you accept the understanding that it is not random you can then start to ask better questions as to how a thing happened and discover how to get ahead of movement and not let it happen in the first place. In essence, it will allow you to focus your training on where it should be.

The key is you want to train yourself to think and move Creatively, which is a completely different thing. This is why in Warrior Flow we eschew any talk of randomness, talismans, Ouija boards, or techniques that are no more reliable than the flip of a coin. For us, the definition of “luck” is “where preparation meets opportunity”.  

Mastery Comes at a Price… the Butchers Bill Must Be Paid…

 “…the only way I’m leaving here is in a body bag!” -  Officer Candidate, Marine Officer Candidate School Class No. 139

If I remember correctly his name was Candidate Rigby, but I remember when he said that, we were in formation about the third week into the course. We were all being asked how bad we wanted to become Marine Officers and GySgt Gardner asked him in front of the Company Commander for the Class, Major Winter,

“How da gone bad do you want this Candi-dirt? Huh! How bad?”

Yelling at the top of his lungs as he used the affectionate word to describe us not as Officer Candidates but “Candi-dirt’s” which as GySgt Gardner once described as a lower form of creature than even a maggot Marine Recruit at Boot Camp.

Rigby replied, “Sargent Instructor the only way I’m leaving here is in a body bag!”

Gunny Gardner then stepped right up to him at uncomfortable man distance close enough to literally almost kiss him. And asked him, okay he didn’t ask he yelled in his face spit flying and all,

“And why do you think that you would have to die before you leave here?”

Rigby, now yelling back with Gunny Gardner in his face,

“Because the Candidate was NPQ [not physically qualified, my emphasis] last year and sent home and would rather die than to be sent home again…Sargent Instructor!”

The Company Commander then stepped forward looked him in the eye and said,

“I wish I had a thousand like you son.”

Talk about Perfect Clarity? Perspective? It doesn’t get much clearer than that. He made it through by the way and went on to become a CH-53 Helicopter Pilot.

Folks, I ain’t going to lie, in order to attain Mastery there is a price, a price in terms of time, effort piled upon effort, and commitment but there is also another price to pay, the surrender of oneself to the truth. There are no shortcuts. Now to be fair there are ways to train more effectively and efficiently because I’ll be honest with you there’s a lot of stuff people do in training, stupid shit in some cases that is just a waste of energy and the ultimate currency “time”, but there are no short cuts. My point is the butcher's bill one way or another must be paid.

None of us knows how far we can go in our abilities but we damn sure won’t get there training without focus or pretending we’re going to absorb it via The Force. The other thing is you have to know what it is in order to attain “it” (i.e., focusing on the thing to develop the thing you want).

You have to put in the work and the effort, you must become relentless in your pursuit and if you fall get up, if your sword arm fails you use the other one if the flesh feels as is it were being ripped from your bones learn to work around it and fight! You must develop the focus and singlemindedness of purpose to develop your body to the nth degree. To be determined to return with your shield or on it.

Now, when I talk about developing Mastery I’m not just talking about developing skills or techniques but even before that a level of physical and mental control in the body when all that you do is but a focus of your will when you go into action. When Miyamoto Musashi talked about mastering all things I don’t think people realize that he was, based on all that I’ve read about him probably speaking quite literally. In the last two Blog Posts, I already spoke about how to master movement in even the little things so I’m going to start there and work my way outward.

Down the Rabbit Hole

“When one has developed practical knowledge of all skills of the craft, eventually one can become a master carpenter oneself.”

• Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

In Greek Mythology, the ferryman of the underworld Charon demands payment for the transfers of souls from their loved ones who still reside in the world of the living or else you could kiss your loved one’s soul goodbye. As far as the ancient Greeks were concerned even in death there was a price to pay. The same can be said of martial development.

“The more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war.”

• COL David Hackworth, USA

I always loved COL Hackworth and I always enjoyed his books and no-nonsense approach to training for war. One of the things in Warrior Flow that I often discuss in my workshops is this thing called “Interoception” and its importance in developing the proper Mastery over oneself. Putting it into practice is hard because it requires both an internal look at how you move your body as well as what’s going on between your ears.

I don’t know for sure who said this some say it’s a Samurai quote others have attributed it to the Spartans, a moot point as far as I’m concerned because it is none the less true. Remember, our minds are always eavesdropping on what we say to ourselves and like I’ve told my wife before, “I can talk myself into anything”. So be careful what you tell yourself lest you want it to become true these things can be self-fulfilling and Warrior Training is no exception to this. You’ve got to take the deep dive to see what lies beneath to peel back the layers, the fear, the resistance… the bullshit. You can lie to me but you can’t lie to yourself and think you can get away with it.

Think of interoception as the feel, of your body, but introspection or looking inward as to how you perceive and think about what you feel and what it means. This is where the inner voice has to come in and your powers of honest evaluation and observation are developed and put to use. This is hard shit because such internal looks come at a price where we often find out how we do a thing is not the way we thought it happened. This is where you have to learn to disagree with yourself and change your mind.

Like I said there’s a price.

Well, that’s it for now because this was getting kind of long. In my next installment, I'm going to get into the essence building the Warrior Flow foundations towards "Mastery". 

Thank you. 

     Al Ridenhour

     CEO, Creator Warrior Flow™

Al Ridenhour is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marine Corps with 28-years of service active and reserve with multiple combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also served as a Law Enforcement consultant to the NJ State Police Special Operations Section, NJ Transit Police Operations Section, The NJ Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, the FBI Philadelphia Bomb Section, and subject matter expert to the US Department of Homeland Security's, Explosives Division. With nearly 40-years of Combative Arts experience, he is recognized as a self-defense expert worldwide and is highly sought out for seminars, workshops, lectures, and special individualized training.  He is the author of "Warrior Flow Mind" (2019), Co-Author of "Attack Proof: The Ultimate Guided in Personal Protection (Human Kinetics, 2010) and the Co-Author of "How to Fight for Your Life" (June 2010).

For more go to https://protectyourself.mykajabi.com/

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