The martial arts tend to have no shortage when it comes to loud, flamboyant personalities. While ego might have its place in life (especially when it comes to certain marketing and publicity strategies), it should also be kept firmly “in its place”, and never allowed to cloud the vision and judgment of a person to the extent that it all becomes a bit too much “about them” and not enough about the martial art itself.
A short spell of surfing on the web will easily demonstrate what I mean by this: It is possible to come across a lot of martial arts sites where the first page is completely dominated by a certain personality striking several poses, both alone and with others. Usually, this page will be quite a long, drawn out affair, and will include a great deal of information about the particular individual themselves, and also (hooray!) something about the actual martial art they are practicing as well. As you scroll down this page, you will, no doubt, be absolutely amazed at what this instructor has managed to accomplish in their lives, and be suitably impressed by their extensive list of achievements and qualifications.
Now that you have perused the home page of this website, and have come to know a little more about the meek, mild mannered and humble individual it belongs to, you feel ready to press on and explore the site a bit further.
You press the “About us” button, so you can learn a little bit more about the club itself, the association it belongs to and the type of training they offer. Immediately, you are greeted by yet another photograph of the instructor, either grinning warmly in a welcoming way or, (more often than not), standing sternly and gazing out at you with steely eyes. You begin to read the information, which tells you about how young they were when they first started training, and their early experiences being trained by numerous top-class instructors.
It goes on to explain that this club had been opened by the instructor as they had been told by those same top-class masters that he/she was the best student they had ever had and it was important to share this rarest of gifts with others in order to demonstrate the “proper” way martial arts should be practiced and taught. The rest of the page is, again, filled with some more photographs of this instructor being trained and receiving certificates and awards from various people.
“Okay”, you think to yourself, “maybe I should just try another button”. You click on the “News” section this time and are surprised to find out just how much is going on. ‘Sensei receives rare honour”, “Sensei awarded 20th dan by Jedi grandmaster” and “Sensei speaks about the importance of humbleness and humility”, etc. Then you see a special subheading proudly displaying the legend “click here for video”. In anticipation, you click on this and are redirected to a video featuring this instructor explaining how, although s/he is one of the bestest martial artists that have ever lived, and has won over a thousand “Death matches” in the “tough backstreets of his/her hometown” (actually, probably a farm cottage in rural Wales) they have never allowed (nor would they) their superior talent to “go to their head” in any way, shape or form, and still considers themselves to be completely “normal” and just “like everyone else”. As I always say “theres nothing like modesty” and, sure enough, this is nothing like modesty.
Exasperated, you glance once again at the navigation bar in the hope of finding what you are looking for. Surely it cant all be this shallow and meaningless, you must have missed something. And, as you stare unbelievingly at your computer screen, you can see that you have, indeed, missed the most important tab of all entitled: “About your instructor”!
This is a very sorry state of affairs indeed, and in no way reflects the meek and selfless attitude a warrior should always try and display. But, in a way this is to be expected, as these people are, quite obviously, not any type of warrior.
Nor is their massive ego trip solely confined to the web: If one is curious enough to visit their club you will see that most, if not all, that goes on in and around it will tend to revolve around them, with their students being little more than simpering psychophants who dance around their false idol, hanging on every word they speak, swallowing every opinion expressed and readily adopting any “philosophy” muttered. It is easy to identify these people, as their martial arts have become an “unhealthy” obsession rather than a positive way of life.
The few hours a week they spend training actually defines them, as they have allowed themselves to become completely brainwashed. Consequently, their lives are now no longer truly their own. They now eat, drink and sleep the dojo and the doctrine that is spouted by these megalomaniacal instructors. The only people they mix with (outside of work) will be people from the club and, even when they are not together, they will probably spend hours at the computer chatting about what they have done/will do next lesson upon the clubs blog, saying how great everything is. Literally every scrap of their spare time will be occupied by their martial arts, with the only authority figure they will ever listen too being the instructor themselves: And thats just the way this egocentric person likes it.
So, we can see that while the instructor themselves might have some very serious issues, the students have a much bigger ones, as they are gradually becoming more and more dependent to the point of obsession, and this is never a good thing.
A martial arts instructor needs to have good technical competency, reasonable teaching ability, a strong personality and good leadership skills. But, they also need to realise that it is about the art, not them. And about their students, not them. As instructors, we exert a huge amount of influence upon our students, and there really is no way of telling exactly how far this reaches into their lives and what effect it can have upon their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
As yamabushi, we need to always remain true to ourselves, and not be too swayed by what other people may say about us, lest we come to lend these opinions credence and actually start to believe we really are something extraordinary and terrific for, as the legend goes: “There be monsters”
The Mountain might stand with it’s head high in the clouds, but it’s feet always remain firmly rooted to the ground. There is no need to “bring someone back to earth” if they remain in constant contact with it. Our job is to become better than we are and to be all we can be, and to help our students do the same by setting them the right example and leading them in the right direction.
While meekness, mildness, humbleness and humility might not be part of every warrior tradition, they are most certainly a part of our own mountain warrior tradition. Indeed, these are qualities we should clothe ourselves in and wear every single day of our lives. For, It is said that the first step to becoming truly wise lies in recognising, understanding and accepting that we actually know nothing at all.
Just as kindness becomes power and gentleness becomes strength, so too, does the admission of our ignorance become a gateway to attaining true wisdom.