Thus, if you talk to people about the martial arts, if you watch movies about the martial arts, if you read books about the martial arts, it doesn’t work. The only thing that works is to actually find a teacher and learn them. To put on a uniform and step onto the dojo floor and find out how they really work.
Interestingly, they don’t work the way they work in the movies. Bruce Lee makes it look so cool, but he had two arts, one was a movie art for the camera and creating the WOW in the audience, and the other was designed for combat. These two arts don’t even resemble each other, they are greatly different.
When you take yourself onto the mat for the first time you are walking into a strange, new world. You won’t know what to do, you will actually be a in a state of awe, and you will have butterflys in the stomach. You will learn how to dress, tie the belt, and the manners necessary in this strange, new world.
The fun starts when the instructor shows you your first moves. Everything you do is going to seem unnatural, weird, but it is really just unfamiliar. You’ll do everything wrong, you’ll even be confused by such simple concepts as right and left.
Eventually, you’ll be able to do those techniques, and you’ll face off against a real opponent. Oh, Lord, you have to actually block and hit somebody, and throw them to the ground! How in heaven’s name are you going to do this without looking like an idiot?
Time passes. You keep at it, and things start to make sense. The techniques and forms become workable, and even able to be applied in the great chaos of freestyle.
And you learn that the most important lesson of the dojo…you won’t learn anything if you don’t start. What’s that old saying…a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And the single step you took, through the dojo doors and onto the mat, will end up being the most significant and important step you will ever take in your life, for this is the step that brought you discipline, good health, confidence, and the ability to take on and defeat any problem in life.
