ATTITUDE

Attitude is everything. Overconfidence will get you killed. Mishandling fear will get you killed. Irresolution will get you killed. Your mind is your greatest weapon. This is a matter of strategic thinking, not tactical thinking.

• Tactics are a matter of feel.
• Strategy is a matter of mind.
• Commitment is a matter of will.

Attitude is a combination of all three. Thinking-awareness and feeling-awareness are two different things. Both are part of attitude. Mental focus is a product of attitude. When you are focused on destroying the enemy, not focused on yourself, you function more efficiently and more effectively. In this way you channel your fear outward rather than inward, turning it into a weapon.

Many people believe that because you are a black belt, you no longer “fear.” Only an idiot has no fear before a violent confrontation. A martial artist experiences fear just like everyone else. The difference is what he does with it. Fear is your friend. Fear produces adrenaline, helps prevent you from becoming careless or overconfident, and increases your awareness. A martial artist recognizes his fear, channels the fear, and unleashes it outward, so that the more frightened he is, the more dangerous he becomes. The untrained mind, lacking outward focus, will turn on itself, and crumble you inward. On a very elementary, almost comic book level, it’s the difference between, “Uh-oh, I’m in trouble,” and, “Man, are you in for a surprise!” Or the classic paratroopers attitude, “They have us surrounded, the poor bastards.”

In combat, many heroic acts are motivated by fear of letting your men down. Fear of failing to do your duty is often stronger that the will to simply overcome your fear. Love conquers fear. Heroism is often the product of love. One will risk one’s life despite great fear, to save one’s child, wife, or friend. Fear of the shame one will have to live with for behaving cowardly, can be greater than the fear of death. An action that looks “fearless” to an observer may simply be motivated by a fear of something greater than the apparent danger. Fear is a positive emotion. Use it well.

Butterflies, a pounding heart, weakness in the knees – these are not signs of weakness; they are signs of surplus energy, an inner surplus. They are indications of a preparedness for violence. A weak mind, an improperly focused attitude, will feel these things and collapse inward, focusing on these physical manifestations of fear rather than on destroying the enemy. Internalized fear is the mind-killer, the spirit killer.

Make friends with your fear. Use it. Control it. Exploit it. Let it wash over you and through you, charging every fiber of your being. Turn your fear onto your enemy, and let it be the fuel that drives your attack. Let your fear explode upon your enemy. Never ignore it. Do not fear it. It is the early-warning radar system that will protect your life, or the lives of others. Controlled fear is a focused energy of tremendous power. The more focused and controlled it is, the more deadly you are.

Once a student reaches a certain level of expertise in his fighting skills, once he has reached competence in technique, his training escalates to another level. This level is rarely found in any martial arts school, yet is absolutely critical in a fighter’s development. He graduates to the school of fear. Only the most committed student is capable of handling this level of training. Most, regardless of their skill level, cannot emotionally handle training of this intensity. Every time they come to train, they must be prepared to face their fear. It is a difficult time for both Master and student, because this is that critical point where even the most well developed relationship is likely to fail. This is where even the best students quit. Sometimes even friendships of many years end right here. Overcome with shame, the student resigns, or even disappears without further contact. Very few are strong enough emotionally to handle this level. Like pushing the bird out of its nest, it is a difficult thing for the instructor, falling under the category of tough love; because even though it is likely that the relationship will end before this level of training is complete, it must be done.

This level of combat, the level of intensity and emotional stress, become an onslaught upon the student’s physical and emotional being. Injuries are common, even essential. One must be able to fight while wounded, ignoring pain and fear, to maintain focus on the destruction of the enemy. This is one of the hardest of lessons. The student is repeatedly attacked on every level, until he is just about to crack. Then he is given a way out, an opening to exploit. To find it and capitalize, he must maintain his focus. He must conquer his fear so as not to close his inner eye. Its not only that he cannot quit. Simple stubbornness is not the issue. He cannot crumble from within. He cannot lose his focus. Every time that he succeeds, he comes a little closer to conquering his fear.

Belief is meaningless. Recognition through hindsight is everything. Believing you can control your fear, and actually doing it over and over are two very different things. This is a capability a student cannot assume. He has to know.

If emotional control is not mastered, at critical moments in a conflict, you will lose your edge. A poor attitude, a weakness of self-control, can result in an onslaught of tension, rigidity, and loss of focus. According to “Murphy,” this will of course happen at the least opportune time. You must repeatedly expose yourself to fear in order to gain mastery over it. You must develop your WILL. This is learned, not congenital. The will to win must be a constant. It means that no amount of punishment, no amount of effort, no condition is too tough to take, in order to win. That is attitude. Training means driving yourself longer, harder, and faster than required, all the time. Ordinary effort will not tap or release the tremendous stores of energy in the human body. Extraordinary effort, combined with highly emotionalized conditions and true determination to win will release those adrenaline reserves. It’s like a valve that you can learn to open at will, but only with enough practice.

Fighting should be done with the heart and the head, not with the hands and the feet. It is true that during the time of actual combat, one does not think of how to fight but rather, of the weakness or strength of the enemy, of possible openings and opportunities. Fighting can only reach the level of art when performance of skill is automatic and the cortex is free to think and to associate, to make plans and to judge. The higher nerve centers will always retain control and will act when necessary. It’s like pressing a button to start or stop a machine.

On the surface, there is nothing obscure about a warrior. The goal of a warrior’s training is, without slacking off at any time and without confusion of purpose; to polish the mind and attention, sharpen the eye that observes and the eye that sees, and to know real emptiness as a state of being, in which there is no obscurity and the clouds of confusion are all cleared away.

Embracing that mentality, taking straightforwardness as basic, taking the real principled mind as the Way, practicing the martial arts in the broadest sense, thinking correctly, clearly, and comprehensively, taking emptiness as the Way, you see the Way as emptiness.

Emptiness is totality. There is no such thing as the ultimate guard in Trezza-Ryu. There is no ultimate specific strike or kick or combination. It is only a matter of understanding its effective qualities in your heart and mind – this is what is essential to martial art. This is the fundamental truth of the Way.

“The way of the Samurai is in death.” To master combat, you must accept death. Only by accepting death can you control your emotions in combat. Destroying the enemy must be more important than your life. This NEVER means carelessness. This is an emotional state in which your own death is not a factor. The most efficient way to victory is ALL. Destruction of the enemy is ALL.

One can never be the master of one’s self unless all psychological hindrances are removed, maintaining the mind in a state of emptiness (fluidity) purged of all preconceived notions and anxieties. The more you learn the more you realize how much you don’t know. Sartori is to be consciously unconscious, or to be unconsciously conscious. That is the secret. The act is so direct and immediate that intellectualization finds no room to insert itself and cut the act apart.

Conscious thought decimates fluid perfection.

The spirit is, no doubt, the controlling agent of our existence. This invisible “center” controls every movement in whatever external situation arises. It is thus flexible, mobile, unfixed, never “stopping” in any place at any moment. Preserve this state of spiritual freedom and non-attachment as soon as you assume the fighting stance. Be “master of your house.”

Trust in your training and your will. Whenever possible, use the periphery of the kill-zone to study the style of your enemy before deciding what method might beat him. Time is a luxury not always provided – so when you get it, do not waste it. Once attack is initiated, all technique is forgotten. The unconscious must be left alone to handle the situation. The technique will assert its wonders automatically or spontaneously. To float in totality, to have no technique, is to have all technique. That is the Zen of combat. Your knowledge and skill are meant to be “forgotten” so you may function effectively and comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction. Do not become a slave to learning or technique. Any technique, however sound, becomes a weakness that can become a disease when the mind is too attached to it.

Recollection, intellectualization, and anticipation are fine qualities that distinguish the human mind from that of the lower animals. But when actions are directly related to the problems of life and death, these properties must be relinquished for the sake of fluidity of thought and lightning speed of action.

“Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend
techniques so that the art becomes an artless art,
growing out of the unconscious.”
* Daisetsu Suzuki

Make the tools see. All pure movements come out of emptiness. This dynamic aspect of emptiness is the mind. Purity is action with nothing between itself and its movements. Sharpen the psychic power of seeing in order to act immediately in accordance with what you see. Seeing takes place with the inner mind – wholly and quietly alive, alert, and aware, ready for whatever might come.

See with your senses. Mushen. No-mind. Sartori.

That is the secret…

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