” By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.”
-Saint Augustine
While Saint Augustine was undoubtedly speaking of faith and religion, his words ring true of any group or relationship you are a part of. Being faithful to something means to be true to something, to support it and possibly even be called to defend it. It means to never doubt your loyalty to the idea nor its loyalty to you. It is based on trust and respect. How does this translate to martial arts?
When you join a class of martial arts, you are not just joining a group of people studying a particular subject. You are joining a group of people that are like minded in that they are trying to better themselves. That group becomes a sort of family, all of you working together towards a common goal, in this case, the mastery of the art you are learning together. Staying faithful to that means to support and work towards making not only yourself better, but those around you in the class. It means that you do not go around looking for ways to undermine or disrespect the school or the other students. There are some who believe that learning another martial art is breaking that faithfulness, but I see it this way, as I’ve done it myself: It is only breaking the loyalty if you take from one school and give to another without the permission of either school. It is also disrespectful to bring anything you’ve learned from one class and try to tell the other class how much better it is or what have you. If you are seeking a way to undermine the art that you and others are learning together, you are breaking their faith in you as a student.
This may sound harsh and maybe even a bit confusing at times, but in our world, there are literally thousands of martial arts styles and schools all trying to gain new students, some for the sake of keeping a business running and some to simply keep the martial arts traditions alive. Most are somewhere in between. It is imperative that you find a school that you feel puts as much effort in training you as you put into learning what they have to teach. Your faithfulness in their ability to do that will allow their faith in you as a student to grow and they will work that much harder to help you better yourself through martial arts.
This is a lot to think about, so I will end today’s discussion here. Until then,
Train hard,
