What is a warrior as it applies to martial arts? I've pondered this question in various ways for the last thirty-five years of my martial training. I would like to share my concept of what that is, based on my life experience.
Webster's Dictionary defines “warrior” (derived from the French word “were”: to war) as one of two possibilities: 1. A fighter. “Someone who takes part in or is experienced in war." 2. "Somebody who takes part in a struggle or conflict.”
Having studied with a Shaolin master for ten years, I felt he helped me understand the first definition: he wanted warriors able to handle conflict, and yet at the same time I felt he was trying to teach us a deeper definition. My study with a Taoist teacher really clarified for me what that is. And for me—yes, a warrior is somebody who takes part in war or conflict—but for myself and the vast majority of Kung Fu students, our lives are that war or conflict. There is no more difficult opponent than ourselves and our lives as we see them. So to be a warrior is to engage in the struggle of life whatever that battle may be. To be a warrior is to search, grow and learn techniques to resolve the conflict inherent in living. I am reminded at this point of the words of the old Hsing I master, Wang Ji Wu, who said that, “All of the struggles in his life were to teach him the Kung Fu of living.”
I have come to realize that all the things I have learned in Kung Fu (whether they be physical, mental or spiritual) are ways to have the warrior attitude of meeting and resolving conflict in as beneficial a way as possible. Now I understand the reason for all the repetitions, struggle, pain, joy, decades of stance training, developing a personal philosophy, positive attitude, etc. These things leave behind indications of what we have become just like a warrior bears his physical scars. These intangible things create (among others) personal power, strength of character, spiritual and energetic presence. So warriorship to me had nothing to do with what style you study or how good you are physically, but how well can you resolve those conflicts in as beneficial a way as possible, and acquire the Kung Fu of living.
Miles Coleman has been in the arts for more than thirty-five years. He is a black belt in Fu Chen Kung Fu, a splinter style of Ark Wong's Five Family System. He has a master ranking in Gao Family Taoist arts with training in Hsing I, Bagua, Qi Gong and Taoist practices. He is an herbalist and acurpressurist.
When I was 12 years old, in 1967, my parents took my sisters and me to a love-in. It was the time of the anti-Vietnam war movement, and my parents were both involved in doing what they could to end that war.
We spent the day listening to music and speeches, dancing around, eating...what people did at love-ins. But late in the afternoon, as we were preparing to leave, we noticed a knot of people forming under a tree. My father immediately started to walk over to see what was going on. There was a slightly built guy, maybe 20 years old, wearing a USC sweat shirt, with a much larger guy standing over him, demanding that he remove the shirt. "You're not on the football team, and you don't deserve to wear this shirt. Take it off, right now, or I'll take it off for you!" The smaller guy pulled the shirt over his head and held it out.
My father, who was bearded and stocky (he looked like a cross between a Hell's Angel and Allan Ginsburg) inserted himself right between the two guys, grabbed the sweat shirt, tied it around his own neck, and looked up at the football player, grinning.
"I'm not on the team, either," he said in that low voice that always meant he was serious. "Would you like to take it off of me?"
The football player looked at him for a minute, reconsidering his options, then muttered something and walked away, his buddies following him. My father untied the shirt from his neck and handed it back to its original owner. He put a hand on his shoulder, then turned and we all left.
My father never went to war but fought injustice his whole life wherever he found (and even sought) it, and he taught his three children to do the same. I would never hesitate to call him a warrior.
Jamie Blair has been involved in the martial arts for a number of years. She is still improving her Tai Chi Short Set.
To be a warrior is to listen. The soldier inching through the forest listens for a twig crack, a hushed rustle, a whoosh or motion. But when he is safe and secure, warm and fed, he only listens a bit. At that time, in those missing seconds, the warrior listens like the general scans his map when everyone else is asleep. Listening is a deepening, the hot chocolate rolling down the throat, the muscles relaxing after electric tension, the skin still tingling alive after a near fatal fall. Even in safety the itch is there, the private whisper of the tune beneath the wind and the smell of burnt wood and salt in the nostrils. The warrior rests, head on arm, with a darkness outside while dreaming the light within.
David Sterkin, "sometimes
writer" and admittedly "a bit reclusive," has published horror and science fiction stories. He's
lived in Baltimore, Atlanta and some California towns. At present he
practices Tam Pai. He finds the Chinese martial arts perfect for a writer's
life "just as scholars before me did."
Tunnel vision. Perhaps not the most often thought of concept when the word “warrior” enters the conversation. Nonetheless, a warrior is one who is able to focus 100% of his or her being on the conflict at hand. Life throws at each of us a barrage of enticements. Many of the options in life are good, or appear to be so. A warrior makes it his life to pursue, not all the good options, but what is best. Many times the best option is one of self-denial or sacrifice. Would I be wrong to suggest that a warrior invests his or her life in something larger than himself or herself? One who wars only for what is in his or her best interest is rarely considered a great warrior. If I am the end of my efforts, the end of my efforts I’ll be. There is a song that says, “With fear as my friend, I walk the thin line for you.” I think this contains a great deal of what I believe it means to be a warrior. Pursue what is the best way to serve those who are important to you, and then pour 100% of your being into it.
Stan Meador has been in the martial arts for 24 years. He is a third degree black belt in Karate and first degree black belt in Aiki-jutsu. His martial studies are not limited to the Japanese arts, but they have been most available to him.
I've really enjoyed reading people's responses to your question “What is a Warrior?” Given the way human society is structured, it makes a sort of sense that people who pursue war arts (martial arts) will have spent some time thinking about this subject. However, I do not think this is really a good thing.
You see, the only response that really gets to the heart of the matter at all (to my mind) is the one in which the author's father steps in and offers his body up to physical violence. Being a warrior is, necessarily, about violence. Think about it this way: picture the Hutu warriors who enter a Tutsi village (as just one of a myriad of examples in human history – take your pick), rape and murder the inhabitants, and move on, maybe leaving a few maimed bodies and souls to tell the tale. Now picture those survivors. And picture those who died under these circumstances. The first group are undoubtedly warriors. They live through and for war. They are not the disciplined (at least relatively) modern soldier. They are something more elemental. They are warriors.
But the people who died under their attacks also confronted great challenges. I'm sure they were also 100% “in the present” at the moment. They were fighting for their lives, They were experiencing horror that gave them a great deal of tunnel vision.
And the survivors. They are now facing challenges and the conflict of having been themselves at the time of their attack. They face the conflict of their own memories as they think of their lost loved ones, their lost limbs, their lost wholeness. These people share many of the things my fellow martial artists attribute to warriors, but I do not think they are warriors. I do not think they would like to be called warriors either.
We contemporary martial artists are by and large not warriors (there is a minority). Some of us are police officers, soldiers, bouncers, and fathers or mothers who step in to save a fellow man's dignity and well-being. We learn skills that can be used to great effect in fighting. We CAN kick some ***. But that does not make us warriors in the perspective of the pictures I painted above. The vast majority of us do not even fight, even occasionally, in our lives.
We practice arts that were developed by and for warriors. Some of our arts were developed for soldiers. Many of our arts have been developed to the point that they are also beneficial to health. They have an aesthetic quality to them. They are fun, even as they are hard work. We build our characters through this discipline. We develop strength of technique and of will. We picture the warriors of the past, the great ones, the heroes, and we hold them up as mental images to follow. But that does not make us warriors. We must not slip into the easy world of fantasy and mistake warrior metaphors for being warriors. It's bad for our self-understanding.
Andrew Shinn is a student and teacher of traditional Chinese wushu under Paul Sun (mostly Praying Mantis and Long Fist). Has a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Asian Studies from Temple University, and a master's in Political Science from the University of Washington. He lives in settled in Seattle, where he continues to teach and practice.
I can’t remember who said this but I heard it a long time ago and the words stick in my mind: “ A soldier is not the same as a warrior. A soldier is someone who fights, and may even fight well, but hasn’t yet developed his heart. A true warrior has suffered, and has developed a compassionate heart.”
There are many ways to be warriors. As a woman and a single mother in this culture, all of my battles have been with worry, desperation, and fear, rather than with armies. Of course there is the endless anxiety about material things—how to make enough money, how to work without leaving my kids home alone, and what if the car breaks down? But the bigger battles are with the inner demons; will I be a good enough parent, can I love them enough to make up for a missing father, in my exhaustion and confusion will I notice if one of them is hurting?
To this day, I often lie awake at night wondering if whatever crisis one of my (now grown) sons is undergoing is because I failed to instruct them about something critical. I remember the time my then 18 year old burned his hand badly by impulsively unscrewing the radiator cap of an overheated car. He’s a musician and almost lost the use of his hand. I spent many nights chastising myself for having forgotten to teach him about this. And there was also the guilt of thinking that if his father had been around he would have learned about the danger of hot radiators from him.
This may all seem ridiculously neurotic to some of you. But there is no martial skill that can rival the fierceness and loyalty of a mother. And if there’s any truth to this idea that to be a warrior you must have learned wholeheartedness, there must be many a mother out there who qualifies with honors.
Narrye Caldwell is a martial practitioner, acupuncturist and contributor to the PLUM web site.
