Do martial arts influence life or vice-versa?

Do our life experiences influence our attitudes to martial arts? Or, does our martial arts training influence the way we react to life experiences? What comes first – chicken or egg? This question was raised in my mind recently by FredInChina’s comment to my last post in which he said he was looking forward to seeing how my recent experiences in Cyprus would influence my martial arts.

I have just written a post for my Student’s Eye blog in Martial News (this will appear in the May edition) in which I looked at how Funakoshi’s guiding principles could help people cope better in a crisis such as the one I experienced recently in Cyprus due to the volcanic ash cloud. I was certainly thinking in that post about how some of the Ways of martial arts can be applied to general life experiences.

When we read about martial arts, particularly books that focus on the Do aspects of martial arts we are encouraged to take the ‘self-improvement’ lessons out of the dojo and into our general lives. There is definitely a feeling that our martial arts studies should influence the way we cope with all that life throws at us and hopefully to some extent that is what happens.

However, I can’t help thinking that life experiences also influence our attitude to martial arts. For example, if you have been on the receiving end of some extreme violence and want to know how to deal with it if it happens again you may decide to learn a martial art. The martial art you choose may be heavily influenced by the need to learn self-defence quickly. This may motivate you to choose a reality based system and to have no real interest in the Do aspects of martial arts.

On the other hand, if you are like me and have never been in a fight or even witnessed one close up and don’t feel the risk of experiencing street violence is very high on the agenda then the Do aspects of martial arts may assume a greater level of importance. Life experiences do influence our choice of martial arts.

I have no doubt that martial arts can help us to develop positive character traits and challenge us to examine our motivations, desires and behaviours but it would be naïve to suggest that this is the only medium through which we can develop ourselves. The Japanese knew this only too well. They have developed many Ways to self-improvement, martial arts just being one path.

I came to martial arts at the age of 45. My character was already pretty well developed through other means – my upbringing, experiences of nursing and teaching, working at a marriage, having children etc. I think martial arts just taps into what was already there. I feel a strong affinity for the lessons being taught in martial arts. They reflect the person I already am and so provide me with a medium through which to express and explore my character further. I’m not sure it will change me in any drastic way just fine tune me a bit more.

But what about a young person? To what extent can martial arts influence the character of a maturing mind? Martial Arts clubs often offer ‘salvation’ for the undisciplined, shy or bullied child. Can a child’s character really be ‘rescued’ in one hour a week? There seems to be many a boxing club that claims to have taken a boy off the street and given his life structure, order and purpose. I’m sure this is true but I’m also sure that it has as much to do with an instructor becoming a substitute parent and role model as it has the boxing skills. I think for most young people though it is the characteristics that they bring to martial arts in the first place that determine whether they will be a good martial artist or not. Good character development in a child is something that needs to be addressed at home – day in, day out. I think martial arts training will have a minor influence for most children. Or am I being overly cynical?

Do you have any stories of children or young people being ‘turned around’ by their experiences in martial arts? Or any stories of how your life experiences have influenced your martial arts (or vice-versa)? I’d love to hear your comments, or better still, why not write your own post on this subject?

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Home Sweet Home!

I am finally writing a post from UK soil! We were successfully repatriated last night and touched down at Manchester airport about 12.45 am. We finally got home at 3am this morning to find my lovely neighbour, Sarah, had left a carton of milk and two loaves of bread (one white, one wholemeal because she didn't know which we preferred - she's so thoughtful) on our doorstep. It was a welcome sight because we were starving and thirsty so we indulged ourselves with hot chocolate and toast at 3.30am!

 

On reflection, I don't quite know what to make of this volcanic ash crisis that has crippled air traffic for over a week. It seems that many people are criticising the British and other European governments for a complete overreaction to the situation by imposing a blanket ban on flights over European airspace. This obviously had knock on effects around the whole world. I don't know whether it was an overreaction or not - this type of situation has never arisen before but all I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't on the first plane to fly through the ash! I'm glad that mine and other people's safety was put before the needs of commerce and industry. No doubt over the coming days the 'ash crisis' will be debated vehemently by politicians and others and lessons will be learnt for when the second volcano on Iceland erupts!

 

The people who have been caught up in this event will no doubt reflect on their own experience of it and whether they handled themselves in the best way. I certainly met people who had a knee jerk reaction to the situation, who panicked a bit or got caught up with their own importance and thought their need to get home more urgent than others. We all had valid reasons for needing to get home - jobs, school, exams, family or social responsibilities but I'm not sure any of us was any more 'urgent' than anybody else.

 

This became apparent when we were told there were 6 standby tickets on the 5 flights that had been arranged for yesterday which the people who were not due to be repatriated until today could take (at a cost of 200 euros per seat). Only people with pressing medical needs (i.e people due to have life saving operations in the next few days) were allowed to apply. Being an important 'big wig' didn't cut the mustard!

 

However important we think we are, we are all just cogs in a wheel and the wheel will keep turning without us for a few days. There was no real need for people to book 2 or 3 flights at a time to increase their chances of getting home quicker (yes that happened), or to charter a private boat at a cost of £8000 (yes that happened too!). Some people went to extraordinary lengths to travel by land and sea at great personal expense - for what? It wasn't as if people didn't have access to phones or the internet to communicate with people, to re-arrange things, ask colleagues to cover, let people know what was happening, or just to work from where they were stranded if their job permitted it. In exceptional circumstances people are generally very tolerant of your absence for a few days and compensate for it. None of us is indispensible!

 

Perhaps if more people took up martial arts they would develop the mental strength that would enable them to cope well with a crisis like this and have a greater sense of self and less ego which clearly drove them to behave a little irrationally? It was clear from about Monday that the crisis was probably only going to last days rather than weeks.

 

My life and the lives of my family will no doubt get back to normal pretty quickly now, so next week I will return to my usual style of martial arts blogging. I'd like to thank everyone who had followed by blog over the last few days and left me such supportive comments. I'm sorry I didn't reply individually to most of them but I really did appreciate the things you have said.

 

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Stranded in Cyprus - Coming home!

Usually when you have completed your holiday you 'come home' or 'return home'. However when your return is delayed because of a crisis you don't just 'come home', oh no, you get 'repatriated'. Sounds rather melodramatic doesn't it?

We are being repatriated this evening. Our repatriation flight is at 9.30pm local time (7.30pm UK time). Which means we will arrive back at Manchester airport around midnight (UK time). It's quite a relief to have a time-scale to work to. It means we can just relax the rest of the day and enjoy the hotel facilities. However, we are confined to barracks - not allowed to leave the hotel premises in case things change at short notice and our flight is brought forward. We have been told to check the notice board every couple of hours for updates so it does feel a bit like being on probabtion and having to report in regularly. At least they don't want to electronically tag us so they know where we all are!

Although we are a bit sad to be leaving, we've settled in pretty well now, it will be nice to get home for the weekend and have a couple of days to get back to normal before a new working week. My eldest son is clearly getting a bit bored because his Maths teacher e-mailed him some advanced maths questions (integration apparently) this morning and he's done them already!

It may now be possible for us to attend a karate seminar on Saturday that we thought we would be missing (although we would have to travel all the way back to Manchester to do it!) so we will have to see how we feel about that on Saturday morning. I'll also be able to go to my kobudo class on Sunday evening - my instructor was supposed to be on a jujitsu course in Norway this weekend but he's e-mailed me to say that's cancelled because of the volcano so the class will be on.

Hopefully I will next be updating you from the comfort of my own home!

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Stranded in Cyprus - Now on 'semi-standby'

Lots to tell you today! It has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride yesterday and this morning with hopes raised and then dashed and then raised again.


Yesterday we made the decision to buy a small netbook computer since getting access to the hotel's computers was getting almost impossible unless you were prepared to queue for ages or get up at 6am. Our rep. recommended a small computer shop to us that was a bus ride away and we set off to find it. The guy in the shop was really helpful and so now I am writing this post on a new MSi U100 netbook computer in the privacy of my hotel room! My husband has been talking about getting a new netbook computer for a while now and I've been subtley putting him off since he already has one. Walking back to the bus stop he said 'I knew it would take something like a volcano before you'd let me buy one'. So my husband might be to blame for the volcano errupting - the lengths some men will go to get their own way!

Yesterday was a day of meetings and updates. We started the day with high hopes of good news about flying home since British airspace had re-opened only to find out that it had closed again due to more ash. The worst thing about the day though was that a holidaymaker's 'aparteid' developed in the hotel. People on a 'flight only' basis from the travel company's point of view were all downgraded and moved out to low grade self-catering accommodation whilst the 'package holiday' people were told to stay in the hotel on full-board arrangements. The flight only people weren't too happy about moving out with 1 hrs notice, especially as couples were being expected to share accommodation with other couples! Many of these people were refusing to leave the hotel, preferring to be sent to a higher class of self-catering accommodation across the road from the hotel. So a stand-off began between the reps and the 'protesters' which lasted about an hour.

The atmosphere was a bit ugly in the hotel at this point so we decided to go off into Paphos for lunch. It seemed to be all over by the time we got back and a sense of calm had come back over the hotel again.

A happier thing that happened yesterday was that it was my wedding anniversary - 19 years! I didn't expect to be spending it in a luxury hotel in Cyprus so that was an added bonus. Had we been at home my husband would have been in London all day and I would have been at my drama club in the evening so we wouldn't have seen each other all day!

There have been all sorts of knock on effects for people as this situation continues. Many people's single trip travel insurance has expired so whether that will affect insurance claims I'm not sure. Fortunately we have annual multi-trip insurance. Some people have run out of medication. One chap I spoke to yesterday had run out of some rather specialised medication and had been sent to the local private hospital. They were able to assess him but unable to dispense the medication so they sent him to the local state hospital which he said was bit 'third world'. They had the medication but said it would cost him 1000 euros! He came back without
it and spoke to the rep. She clearly has a magic wand because later in the day he told me he had received the medication free of charge under the European reciprocal health arrangement. Another woman is quite heavily pregnant and is being made an emergency by the airline so she may get home today!

The meeting this morning was very positive. Apparently the 'Wednesday' people i.e people who should have flown last Wednesday, flew home last night at short notice and arrived safely at Newcastle airport (should have been Gatwick but at least it's the Uk). The 'Saturday' people have been told to pack immediately as there are 5 flights leaving paphos for the Uk this evening. We are 'Sunday' people and have been told to check for updates every 2 hours and to stay around the hotel.

It's not likely we will fly today but the situation is changing by the hour so we have to be on 'semi-standby' just in case spare seats are available on any of the planes.

Actually we'd quite like to go home on Friday now (finish the week off here, get back to school and work next Monday) but I suppose beggars can't be choosers!

I might be able to give a further update later today - if I'm not on a plane!

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Stranded in Cyprus - hope on the horizon!

Okay I've got to be quick today - even at 6.15am there is a queue for the computer!

Things are looking a bit more hopeful for getting home. Britain is opening it's airspace today and so some planes may take off today. However, I think we are in a queue - there are at least 2 plane loads of people before us just in this hotel so it could still be a few days. Hopefully we may get some idea of timescale today at our morning meeting.

The atmosphere was a lot more chilled yesterday in the hotel. Most of the moving around of people seemed to be finished so people were slipping back into holiday mode again - including us, well, after we'd done all the laundry anyway! (running out of undies!).

We have been so well looked after by our tour company First Choice who I can't praise enough. A lack of information is usually the most frustating thing in these circumstances but we have had twice daily bulletins and it makes the world of difference to know what is going on. So well done First Choice. Other people have not been so lucky and have had a much worse time of it with their travel companies. I heard of one family who were given 1 hour to check out of their hotel with no-where to go! How can they treat people like that? People who are having to re-book their own flights are complaining that the costs are doubling in front of their eyes as they try to book online! I believe that during the war it was illegal to profiteer during a crisis - what happened to society's morals? I know they will argue it's market forces - supply and demand and all that but people are really struggling financially.

Some good news on the exam front for my son - his French teacher has e-mailed to say she will postpone his oral French exam for a week and she has sent him some revision materials - he will be pleased with that when he wakes up in about 2 hours time!

I'm going to get ready for breakfast now - hopefully I will have news about getting home to share later (if I can get on the computer!)

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