(You can listen to this article on the podcast here.)
If you don't care about doing martial arts for self-development or self-improvement that's fine. Not everyone engages in a practice for the same reasons. We can both do the same thing with different objectives in mind.
For those of you that have a desire to improve yourselves you can use all sorts of different things to do this. The martial arts is not the only tool. However, it's probably something that unites the two of us as something we both enjoy.
This is like the story of Cook Ding from the Daoist work known as the Zhuangzi. The butcher's "way" in this story just happened to be his method of self-development. Committing yourself to just about any practice with honesty and integrity can be a method of developing yourself.
Whether that happens to develop you into a better person is a deeper more complicated question we'll address at another time. Not all "self-development" actually results in you being a better person. I've seen the martial arts used to just make a bad person worse.
So for those of you who are left who do want to work on self-improvement and want to use the martial arts as a tool toward that end. How can we go about doing this? There are three intertwined methods that can apply to a variety of practices.
Paying Attention
The first method is to simply improve your ability to pay attention. I often refer to this as "awareness." This can apply in a couple of different areas. From focusing and understanding on what your instructor is saying and teaching. To understanding what your opponent is doing out on the mats or in the ring. To being aware of your surroundings enough to identify a threat before it attacks you.
Without the ability to focus on both what you and your opponent are doing, you won't be able to address the challenges that come your way.
Naturally, this ability to be aware of a challenge, threat or problem before it overcomes you can apply to many different areas of life.
Confronting Challenges
Following on the awareness of the challenge, is then making a plan to handle that challenge. While some people may be able to spontaneously address challenges as they come with little to no forethought... for the rest of us mere humans, it is far more effective and increases the probability of success when we can recognize a challenge, make a plan and then head into dealing with the challenge better prepared and equipped for success.
If you know your training partner is particularly successful in a certain area (which you discovered by paying attention) then you can spend some time focus training in that area to better address your area of weakness. Better equipped with your training you can then move forward to confront that challenge and overcome it.
Again, this is naturally a process and skill that can be very useful in just about every other area of life.
Inform Future Action
Finally, as a capstone to these, the lessons learned from both paying attention and confronting challenges can be applied in a way that alters your behavior moving forward.
Going through the process of having become aware of a particular challenge, taken action to deal with it and then overcome that challenge can become a skill in and of itself that can improve your ability to become aware and confront future challenges... in all areas of your life.
As you become more adept at understanding your challenges and how to overcome them in the martial arts, so too can that skill be applied to your relationships, family, and work.
You Probably Just Did It
If you read this article (or are listening to the podcast) and realized (that is become aware) that this is an area you'd like to work on. Then you can start confronting that challenge of how to tackle your ability to live a philosophy of self-development through the martial arts. Moving forward then this can inform your future actions as you go about the day.
Surprise! You just performed the process which we've been discussing.
For all the words I can speak or articles I can write. No philosophy has value that is only an intellectual exercise or matters of discussion. You have to live it. Daily.
I'll leave you with the idea that practicing your philosophy is always better than preaching it.
Listen to the podcast "Walking With The Tengu" at: https://anchor.fm/walkingtengu for analysis and thoughts on how classic works are meaningful to the modern martial artist.