Martial Arts in Anger
In my software development career, in anger was a phrase that meant you were developing a program or a process out of frustration with what was available. I share my mindfulness martial art practice out of a similar frustration.
The trend in martial art practice is to stress combat effectiveness. Publications, videos, and teachers stress the art’s brutal nature, claiming that it was born in combat and violence. For certain, martial arts are combat training, but unless you are preparing for war, there is no need for that training to be brutal, or even violent. This is not the twelfth or even the nineteenth century when personal disputes were decided with duels to the death.
So, it is in anger that I approach the definition of martial arts and the reasons to practice them.