A Message To My Martial (Arts) Brothers
This is what I find so ironic (and sad). This whole push to be seen as tough, rugged, with an extreme lifestyle slant of hyper-tattoos, grimacing faces, Pit bulls and beating chests. There is a segment of the fight community trying so fucking hard to be edgy, to be counter culture, to stick it to the Man — yet they don’t even realise that far from being any of that, they are enslaved.
A great part of civilised Western society has pushed back against these antics, and antiquated behaviour. There has been for a long time, an expectation that this is what Men are all about — brutish, infantile, aggressive, and war mongering. Carrying on like this, especially in the world of martial athleticism (because I don’t see anything Art about it) isn’t showing anyone you are counter culture, but rather enslaved by the stereotype itself. It’s the mindset of a slave not a Warrior!
If you want your primal energy to surface in a way that is truly counter culture, that truly sticks it to the Man, and shows your dissatisfaction with the status quo — then the way you achieve that, is in a way they wouldn’t expect you too. In other words, show mindfulness, instead of anxiety. Show peace and calm, instead of violence. Show equanimity, instead of aggression. Show compassion, instead of divide and conquer.
This doesn’t make you weak, a fag, a pussy, a wimp. You all have it wrong.
Everything you so desperately don’t want to be labelled as, the rest of the world thinks you are anyway. You don’t show that you are counter to the ‘culture’ — by becoming everything that culture expects you to become and be!
