This is who I am! Attaching your identity to Martial Arts

  This is normally a topic that I would cover on my Rational Zen web site, but it is very relevant to martial artists.  As humans we search for meaning and identity.  We join religions, political parties, social groups, and a myriad of other social platforms to express and identify who we are, think we are, or want to be.  We try to hold ourselves to the norms and ethos of those groups.  Generally, there is no strict structure to hang on to.  Many people claim to be Christian, Democrat, Republican or whatever but to others they are not those things at all, they have a different way of defining what it means to be those affiliations.   If you say you belong to a party, what guidelines do you use?  Someone who was a party icon years ago might seem the antithesis of that today.  So trying to base your self-identity on a mental idea or construct is a house built on sand and subject to collapse.
This goes beyond mental constructs. There was a fellow I used to work with on the road.  A gregarious Italian American who always boasted about his Italian upbringing.  Great guy, New York firefighter and hard worker. The catch is that he was adopted so really didn’t know his ethnicity.  One day there’s an email from someone on a DNA web site claiming to be a relative.  It turns out that he has 7 half siblings and that he is 50% Jewish and 50% Scottish, not a drop of Italian in him.  Culturally Italian but not genetically. I have a female friend who is an ardent Zionist, also adopted.  Hello DNA, 100% Italian. Defining who you are is a tricky thing. Neither person stopped identifying who they are culturally.
I fully admit that when I started in Kungfu I wanted to be seen as a Kungfu man.  I wanted to be a true representative of the system and school.  I couldn’t wait to bring it up in conversation about my devotion and identification with Jook Lum.  I also had zero skill or understanding but that didn’t stop me.  As I grew older and hopefully wiser, debatable, I dropped these trappings.  I understand the idea of expressing yourself through different cultural identities like martial arts or music, but they are just the cloth on the person.  Many folks have come to me over the years and told me they want to devote their lives to mantis, it’s consumes them. I gently try to steer them away from this path in an attempt to look deeper into life.  You need more to your life than martial arts.  Many years ago, I was with Sifu Mark Foon at a tournament, and we were observing the crowd.  So many guys were strutting around bragging about their martial skills and proclaiming how deadly they were.  Sifu looked at me and said, “If at the end of a man’s life all he can say is that he is able to kill, that is a wasted life.  It’s sad.  I would rather be remembered for healing and spreading goodwill. “
So many people define themselves by an era long past in their lives.  This is particularly evident in many ex-soldiers who throughout their lives will wear something that expresses that they are/were soldiers. The military was a seminal and profound experience that made them who they are today. I am sure their military experience had the greatest impact on their lives more than anything else so it is truly easy to understand their devotion to the past.  Many cannot shake this self definition and do not live in the present. My father was a UDT specialist in WW2 and he and his friends never referred to their wartime life, they just wanted a good family life. No doubt it was a strong part of their character but it wasn’t the only expression of their lives.
 Some folks carry their school colors, past sports affiliations or some other epoch of their life that they rely on for their self-identity even though these things are long gone.  I was working a job and a crew member introduced me to someone that was a blackbelt and thought we would get along well.  She carried a badge on her jacket with the karate school on it.  I asked how long ago she got her black belt and she said 15 years ago.  I was hesitant because she was clearly young and asked how old she was when she got it. She said 10 years old!  Did she still practice?  Nope, but she’s a blackbelt 25 years later.  I had an HVAC guy come to my house on a 95-degree day.  The unit was in the attic and extremely hot so I suggested that I run the attic fan for a while to help him. He was about 40 years old, 5’7” and 240 lbs., clearly in terrible shape. He said to me, standing there out of breath and sweating while just walking in from his truck, “No need I am a military man!  I can handle this”.  I asked when he left the military.  “15 years ago”.  I wanted to add ‘and 80 lbs. ago’ but I didn’t.  These folks are stuck in a self-identity that is based on when they felt most vital but those conditions no longer apply.  Thinking you can still handle yourself when you are decades from your prime is a dangerous thing.
A friend of mine used to organize the country’s biggest East Coast tournament.  Like anything else in life it is not perfect and some folks will cheat to win that coveted trophy in whatever competition.  Now understand my friend was born into martial arts, competed the world over and had several schools.  If anyone’s self-identity is going to be caught up in Kungfu identity it would have been him. The day after this tournament I was with him when he got a phone call from one of the competitors.  This fellow was distraught that his competition was rigged and he lost by biased judging. In the call he said, “Kungfu is my LIFE! I need this”.  My friend, without any hesitation said, “If Kungfu is your life, you need to get a life”.
I’m trying to convey that martial arts might be an expression of yourself and maybe your greatest passion in life but trying to base your identity solely on it is eventually going to cause great difficulties.  Like men or women who are caught up in their beauty and strength are subject to great anxiety when time takes its toll.  If you are only your body and your looks you are in for a rude awakening.  Now at 53 years into martial arts I am amazed at what I can no longer do even though I never stopped training daily. Just ask my titanium knee about it. Like anything else in nature we go through changes, let them happen. The true source of our identity is not body or belief; it is beyond both. Who is it that seeks self-identification?
The great Zen master Zenkei Shibayama said, “we are the paint brush mistaking itself for the painter”.

                                                                           Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
                                                                            (hopefully your feet are not on backwards!)