3 Martial Arts Meditation Techniques
It is not possible to build a strong body if you don’t have a strong mind and in order to reach your full potential as a martial artist, you must first begin by training your mind. Meditation increases awareness, focus, and discipline which are all imperative to becoming a successful practitioner of the martial arts. Here we discuss the link between meditation and the martial arts, as well as 3 meditation techniques to become a better warrior.
The Importance of Meditation in Martial Arts
Michael K. Raposa notes in Meditation and the Martial Arts that all martial artists should use common forms of meditation in order to compliment and improve training techniques and become better warriors in combat. According to the Chinese, the martial arts are a pathway to spiritual enlightenment or the Tao and Tai Chi master Shi Ming stated in Mind Over Matter: Higher Martial Arts that the process of refining one’s consciousness is crucial to higher training in martial arts. This refinement of one’s consciousness can only be achieved through meditation, in order to reach a condition in which the body and mind are fused as one – spirit and matter united.
Self-Control and Discipline Meditation
Negative thoughts can quickly become a hindrance during martial arts combat and may become your biggest weakness as a martial arts practitioner. Meditation should be used to clear the mind of such negative thought, as by observing the mind, the warrior becomes aware of hidden negative emotions such as sadness, anger, jealousy, and hatred which can then be discarded. Self-control and discipline meditations will also help to sharpen focus – which is also beneficial for online blackjack – and focused, disciplined martial artists are created through sitting still and focusing the mind. One way in which this type of meditation is taught is by breathing deeply and deliberately while sitting or standing and focusing on unshakable thoughts of empowerment.
Chi Breathing Meditation
No matter which kind of martial art you practise, all of them contain exercises which require deep, abdominal breathing with an exhalation which lasts longer than the initial inhalation. This type of breathing is necessary to circulate chi or energy throughout the body. The San Francisco Theological Seminary’s Professor James Noel states that chi is meant to flow in a “circular fashion along the microscopic orbit”. What Noel means by this is that chi should flow from the top of the head down to the coccyx or soles of the feet, and then back to the head. It is thought that excess chi is stored below the navel in the belly and the Chi Breathing Meditation technique is used to circulate and become aware of the levels of chi within the body.
No-Mind Meditation
‘No-mind’, also referred to as bunkai, is a mental state largely associated with Japanese Zen Buddhism and as Professor Noel explains, in this state of mind the practitioner perceives no opponent, but rather becomes both the warrior and opponent. In this way, the practitioner is then able to perceive which moves will be made in battle, before a single move is made at all. No-mind meditation is the basis of all Zen meditation techniques which involve emptying the mind of all thought and is used in martial arts to develop intense discipline and patience.