"There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy."
-George Washington
Bruce Lee famously said that "A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come."
While this statement is more about our mental and emotional state while in a combative situation, we can also take the principle and apply it more broadly.
As martial artists we should cultivate a sense of awareness that carries into our daily lives.
I often tell students that we don't want to walk around paranoid, but at the same time we don't want to walk around unaware, "zoned out", or staring at our phones all day either. We want to be aware of what's going on around us, alert to our surroundings, without being hypervigilance or paranoid.
There is a balance, a "yin-yang" of awareness if you will.
When I was training Kempo in Hawaii, awareness was CONSTANTLY emphasized by my instructor. Particularly since when I first met him we were both young and spent a lot of time in bars and nightclubs (I was a bartender at the time).
These awareness skills, though hard-learned, (he was very, "hands on", in his lesson delivery ;-)) served me well working in nightclubs for 23 years.
On a spiritual level, the apostle Paul tells us that "...our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."* and that in regards to the enemy "...we are not unaware of his schemes."**.
More on this to come...
Stay aware my friends.
*Ephesians 6:12
**2 Corinthians 2:11
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