Please note that this site is in a state of continual growth. There is and will always be, much more to do and much more to add. If you would like to know more about how to use that which you have learnt as a martial artist to improve every aspect of your life while this site is still being built, please email me . The link is near the bottom of this page. But please return to this site to see how it has grown.
Dragonheart.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Dragonheart web site. I hope that those of you
who pass through here, whether Martial Artists or not, will find
something of real and lasting value, something that you can use
to improve every area of your life.,
We can, all of us, become more. We can, all of us, achieve more. We can, all of us, become more effective in every area of our life. All we need is to really WANT TO. If you REALLY want to, YOU CAN. It really is up to you, but to do it, you have to go about it the right way and the right way, as every martial artist knows, is to do it Nature's way.
One of the most basic Laws of Nature is that everything that
is not growing is dying. There is no option, no court of appeal
and no way to avoid it. The Laws of Nature are very strictly
enforced and the penalties for breaking them can be very harsh
indeed. In case you doubt the truth of that rather blunt
statement, consider the Law of Gravity. A simple experiment will
suffice. Go to the top of the highest building you can find and
jump off the top of it: QED. So, from the very start we have to
accept that we either work with the Laws of Nature or suffer the
consequences. As we have no choice in the matter, the best
possible, and in fact the only rational, course of action is to
do that which we have to the best we possibly can.
Although we may not have seen it quite in that light, those of
us who have studied and practiced the Martial Arts have already
begun to grow ourselves and our efforts will have brought
undoubted benefits. However, far too many Martial Artists
concentrate purely on the physical and to concentrate
purely on the physical aspects is not only to miss the point entirely but, far more important in real terms, is to rob yourself of the posibility to achieve and attain more than you ever thought possible in your life.
Most people understand that we only get out of anything what we
put in to it. For real growth we need to work on the mental and
spiritual (inner/higher) aspects of ourselves as well as the physical. The more
we grow, the more we become. The more we become, the more we can
put into every area of our life and the more we put into every area of life, the more we get out of every area of life. It's all very simple.
This is just one of the ways that we can benefit by working with
the laws of nature: there are many others.
Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the world. Archemedes.
Through their training, Martial Artists have already begun to
develop the tools they need to improve their life.You can, if you really want to and are prepared to make the effort to do so, move your world. What is needed
are the techniques by which they can apply them and that is the
purpose of this web site.
A LITTLE HISTORY:
The history of the Martial Arts holds many of the clues we
need to understand and to see our way forwards. The true
beginnings of the Martial Arts are lost in the mists of time and
are surrounded by myth and legend. What is known and can be
placed in an historical context is that, however they arrived
there and that in itself is the subject of legend, the Martial
Arts were nurtured and developed in the temples of ancient China.
One of the most famous temples was the Shaolin (or temple in the
wood, shaolin means 'small wood') in Hunan province. Legend has
it that Bodhidharma, originally an Indian prince from a warrior
caste who renounced his title to become a wandering priest,
brought both Buddhism and the eighteen exercises that were to
become the basis of their martial art, to the Shoalin monks. It
is believed that the Shaolin monks developed the philosophy of Ch'an,
better known to the West in it's Japanese transalation as Zen.
The other temple famous for it's Martial Arts was the Wa Lum in
Shantung province. Whereas the Shaolin were Bhuddist, the Wa Lum
were Taoist. Buddhism and Taoism were the two major religeous
philosopies of the time and it was these which lay at the very
core of the beliefs of the fighting monks and the development of
the martial arts.
Tao or Do, means 'Way' and our journey is in pursuit of 'The
Way of the Warrior', to grow,develop and to begin to
use the'Life Warrior' with in us.
A LITTLE UNDERSTANDING;
'He who overcomes others is strong,
He who overcomes himself is mighty'
OK, let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to
start, and it all starts with you. If it
is accepted that you can only get out of life what you put into
it, the natural extention of that is, that you can only get
something real for yourself out of life
if you put your real selfinto
it. So here we have the first problem, do you have your real
self, do you know what your realself
actually is and do you know how to put your real
self into getting those things that you want (or think
that you want!) out of life?
Thr first injunction given to WAY travellers by the sages, the wise men and women throughout the ages is and always has been, KNOW THYSELF and that is where it all begins.This requires of you a degree of honesty with yourself but then, if you can't be honest with yourself, who can be. Now that is not to say that you should be unduely harsh in judgeing yourself, in fact you shouldn't judge yourself at all. What you need to do is to measure yourself . To get a true measurement of your strengths and weaknesses. Don't sell yourself short. Where you are weak, determine to improve and strengthen yourself; where you are strong, rejoice in your strength. This is harder than it might seem. It is all too easy to damn yourself for being weak even in areas where you're not weak. It is all too easy to ignore your true strengths. It is also all too easy to ignore your failings. What you have to be at this beginning stage is completely honest with your self.Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses.But above all BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF you owe it to yourself!
None of us are perfect and to expect perfection of yourself is to be unnecessarily unfair to your self.That is not say that you shouldn't strive for perfection. Just as in our martial arts training we strive to perfect our techniques, knowing all the time that there is always is and always will be room for improvement, so we should aim to always work for our own self improvement.
Look to see what you could be, look to see what you could achieve. Set yourself targets and be pleased with any steps you make in the right direction. Accept from the very outset that there will be times when you seem to be going backwards and you will, but as long as the overall movement is continually, however slowly, in the right direction, then you are winning and if you are winning, even if only by a little bit, you are growing and that is in itself a major achievment.
Now, having made an honest assessment of yourself, what is it that you need to improve every area of your life? The answer is simple, COURAGE, FOCUS, BALENCE and SELF DISCIPLINE all those attributes that you have gained as a Martial Artist. All you need now is to know how to use them.
'Karate is not about fighting; Karate is about truth'
Gogen Yamaguchi
THE FIGHT FOR LIFE:
IN THE BEGINNING: THE SECRET OF LIFE
During our Martial Arts training we learn forms (Kata in japanese,Hyung in Korean),an increasingly complex series of movements that teach us the basic techniques and how to apply them.The first move of the most basic of Forms is a block. That first movement although simple and easy to learn, when used by a master of the Art, becomes the most effective of Martial Art defences. The first move in the FORM FOR LIFE is also a defencive action. This first basic move of the FORM FOR LIFE is the most vital defencive lesson it is possible to learn. If you can learn and practice it, it will immediately improve every area of your life. So now, with no further ado, the first movement of the FORM FOR LIFE.
There are some things that it is not possible to talk about directly and so, in order to explain the First block, it is necessary to tell a true story:-
There was a man who had a party trick. He would hold his hand in the flame of a candle until the flesh cracked and burnt. When people who witnessed this asked him, as they frequently did, "doesn't it hurt" the man's answer was always the same. "Of course it hurts" he would reply, "the secret, IS NOT TO MIND THAT IT HURTS".
Wrapped up in that story is one of the greatest sectets of life.
If you can learn this simple lesson, you will build a defencive structure around your life that will protect you from even the worst 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' that life can throw at you. No one,no matter who, is all strong. No one, no matter who, is impervious to pain. No one can avoid some pain in their life. Pain, mental, physical, emotional and spiritual, is an important part of life, through it we learn and grow, we can even use it to our advantage if we don't allow it to control us and that in itself is one of the major secrets of life and the pursuit of happiness. The crucial thing is how you respond to it.You cannot avoid it so you have to deal with it. If you can learn to recognise the pain but at the same time accept it and NOT MIND THAT IT HURTS you will begin to take control of your life in ways that you never even imagined and that's only the beginning.Apply it to all areas of your life. Stuck in a traffic jam? Don't get hot, agitated and grow an ulcer like most of the people around you, just don't mind that you're stuck there, it won't clear the traffic but it will make it easier for you to handle. People complain about the weather, especially in England where complaining about the weather is almost a tradition. People take it personally as if God is purposly doing it to them. If I thought that by complaining I could change the weather I would whinge and complain with the best of them, but I can't so I just accept it. It requires nothing more than a change of attitude but it works wonders. This may seem hard, in some ways it is but it becomes easier with practice, all it takes is courage and self discipline; but then those are things that you have already gained as a martial artist!
As with all martial arts techniques, this first move from the Form For Life improves with practice and the more you practice it in all situations, the more adept you will become at useing it. As you become more adept at useing it, the more effective it will become for you. In addition to that, as your ability to use the block improves, you will find growing within you a new level of quiet self-confidence and from within this new self-confidence you will begin to find a new inner strength and with this will come greater reserves of a new courage and self discipline which in themselves will already begin to bring major changes into every aspect of your life including the martial art from which you started this journey.
COURAGE:
Real Courage is not the total absence of fear as so many people sem to think.We live in a world that has many genuine dangers,very few people, if any' ever manage to avoid them enirely. A person who is completely without fear at some time or another is not courageous, they are foolish. Any person who does not feel fear from time to time simply hasn't realised the full scope of the problems they face. A person who never feels fear, far from being courageous, is foolish. They are a danger to themselves and a danger to others. Real Courage is feeling the fear and yet still doing that which needs to be done despite the obvious dangers involved.
SELF DISCIPLINE;
True self discipline is the ability to know what needs to be done and to do it at the time that it needs to be done whether you want to or not.
THE SELF-DISCIPLINARIANS PRAYER
GRANT ME THE COURAGE TO CHANGE THAT WHICH I CAN,
THE STRENGTH TO ACCEPT THAT WHICH I CANNOT CHANGE
AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO.
.
A WORD OF WARNING:
These techniques work but, just as our physical
Martial Arts techniques can be used for good or for bad purposes,
so too can the higher techniques. If you follow, develop and
learn to apply these techniques, they will work for you. How you
use them is up to you and your own concience. But
be warned, every action has an effect; we reap that which we sow.
In the development of this page, I intend to compile a list of links to other martial arts and personal growth pages. If you would like your own web site added to the list, please enclose details in my guestbook.
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