Martial Arts is a lifestyle not just combat training

[Empty Hands]

You mean I don't have to be ashameed about my ice cube collection?

Don't be ashamed! All of us pizza eating, late partying, 5-sinful-icecubes-in-a-coke swilling freaks are too kinky to care. :whip1:

 

[CoryKS]

Take my pr0n, take my ice cubes, but if anyone touches my coffee it's go time.

 

[JasonASmith]

Sorry for the thread hijack there, but I couldn't leave that one go...
This is good topic, I'll have to consider my response for a bit, will return soon...

 

[Carol]

Hmmm, Carol...
That's quite an interesting look into your private life...
Now I want to know what you DO with them, in your spare time, you know, when your not suffering from the Silat training...:wink2:

Well, I'll go on record saying that what I do with my ice cubes is legal and only done within the privacy of my own home. Other than that, hey man, that's my business. :lol:

 

[Carol]

Don't be ashamed! All of us pizza eating, late partying, 5-sinful-icecubes-in-a-coke swilling freaks are too kinky to care. :whip1:

Put 'er there, my brotha! :highfive:

 

[Adept]

No Drinking
No Smoking
No Pizza's, burgers and cold drinks
No Late Night Parties
No Pornography

Well damn. Now what am I going to do with my spare time?

 

[CoryKS]

Well damn. Now what am I going to do with my spare time?

I suppose there's always hot dogs and heroin.

 

[exile]

I don't know what you people think about it. But I personally feel most people relate martial arts only to combat training. TO me its a Life Style. I always dream of living in Hawaii, waking up at five o clock in the morning and practice Tai Chi. Awesome isn't it.

Is it?

I made few rules for myself and always advise other beginners to follow them too. Here are these rules,

No Drinking
No Smoking
No Pizza's, burgers and cold drinks
No Late Night Parties
*No Pornography

* Purity of mind is very important. As once a shaolin monk said , If you want to be a good fighter, You must have a pure mind.

I consider myself a beginner. But the above rules totally changed my life.

How nice for you!

 

[Cirdan]

You perverted ice cube freaks! Will somebody please think about the Children!!! :waah:

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

I don't know what you people think about it. But I personally feel most people relate martial arts only to combat training. TO me its a Life Style. I always dream of living in Hawaii, waking up at five o clock in the morning and practice Tai Chi. Awesome isn't it.
I made few rules for myself and always advise other beginners to follow them too. Here are these rules,

No Drinking
No Smoking
No Pizza's, burgers and cold drinks
No Late Night Parties
*No Pornography

* Purity of mind is very important. As once a shaolin monk said , If you want to be a good fighter, You must have a pure mind.

I consider myself a beginner. But the above rules totally changed my life.

Meh. To me thinking of martial arts as "a life style" as such is the result of a loss of perspective. We are not martial artists first, or Christian first, or Democrat/Republican first, or even white/black/whatever first. We are human first and foremost, and everything else comes after that. Placing a fact before that in your perception will only result in elitist or snobbish attitudes.

As for martial arts being about more than combat training, martial arts is one of two things to a person, often both:
1. Something you do because you love it
2. A means to an end.

You either do it because it makes you happy, or because it is of use to you. So stating that a martial artist should live in such and such a way is pointless.
What makes someone a martial artist is that even if martial arts offered no obvious benefit to them, they would train anyway because they love it.
Codes, rules, and and ways of life are not needed for that.

 

[Xue Sheng]

No doubt. However, the quote from the original poster was "As once a shaolin monk said , If you want to be a good fighter, You must have a pure mind." This quote says nothing about reasons for fighting, only that having a pure mind was necessary in order to be a "good fighter."

WHAT!!!! you don't think Attila the Hun was of pure mind

Oops, my bad, I see your point, sorry about that :asian:

 

[Kacey]

I don't know what you people think about it. But I personally feel most people relate martial arts only to combat training. TO me its a Life Style. I always dream of living in Hawaii, waking up at five o clock in the morning and practice Tai Chi. Awesome isn't it.
I made few rules for myself and always advise other beginners to follow them too. Here are these rules,

No Drinking
No Smoking
No Pizza's, burgers and cold drinks
No Late Night Parties
*No Pornography

* Purity of mind is very important. As once a shaolin monk said , If you want to be a good fighter, You must have a pure mind.

I consider myself a beginner. But the above rules totally changed my life.

As has been said - if it works for you, great! But the above has nothing to do with martial arts.

Has TKD changed my life? Certainly: it taught me discipline, the self-esteem that comes with mastering a difficult physical skill, the value of being part of a community of people who all enjoy the same activity, how to use my mind to control my body instead of letting my body control my mind, the ability to stand on my own instead of following another person, and provided me with a moral code that helped me become the person I wanted to be; farther into the journey, I became an instructor, and discovered that teaching was what I wanted to do with my life - which is what motivated me to go back to school for my teaching certificate, something which, quite likely, would never have happened otherwise.

Do I smoke or watch porn? No... but it had nothing to do with TKD. Do I attend late night parties? I can't remember the last time I did... but that's because most of my friends are parents, and no longer hold late night parties... and even if they did, I get up at 5:30 to go to work, so staying up late is often hard for me. Do I avoid junk food most of the time? Generally - but that's for my overall health, and not due to anything in TKD. Do I drink? Yes, I do - usually 3-5 drinks per week, one per night... but that's my concern, and I don't drink and drive. Do I drink cold drinks? Yes - I keep them in the fridge... but that's because I prefer water and soda cold, and keeping milk in a warm location is a much greater health risk than drinking cold liquid. These are lifestyle choices I have made for myself - and I don't recall any of them being directly - or even indirectly - related to 20 years of TKD.

 

[Sukerkin]

Chaps and chapesses!!

Give the poor fellow a break :lol:.

Okay, to fully admit to the irony of this, I am pleasantly wrapped around the contents of a fine bottle of Wolf Blass Yellow Label at the moment (after a very nice Chinese curry), but three pages of lambasting a new members first post is a bit much don't you think .

 

[exile]

Chaps and chapesses!!

Give the poor fellow a break :lol:

I'm willing to give pretty much anyone a break, on one measly little condition: that they don't go around giving pious gratuitous advice on how to live to people many of whom probably had been training MAs (among other things) before the advice-giver was born. :wink1:

 

[Carol]

I'm willing to give pretty much anyone a break, on one measly little condition: that they don't go around giving pious gratuitous advice on how to live to people many of whom probably had been training MAs (among other things) before the advice-giver was born. :wink1:

You mean its OK to...you know...use ice cubes?

 

[exile]

You mean its OK to...you know...use ice cubes?

Ummm... uh... well... whew... .... OK, since you put it so directly, Carol...

YES!!! :EG:

 

[Empty Hands]

You mean its OK to...you know...use ice cubes?

Only with the lights out and your clothes on. Remember, God is watching you.

 

[JasonASmith]

Meh. To me thinking of martial arts as "a life style" as such is the result of a loss of perspective. We are not martial artists first, or Christian first, or Democrat/Republican first, or even white/black/whatever first. We are human first and foremost, and everything else comes after that. Placing a fact before that in your perception will only result in elitist or snobbish attitudes.

As for martial arts being about more than combat training, martial arts is one of two things to a person, often both:
1. Something you do because you love it
2. A means to an end.

You either do it because it makes you happy, or because it is of use to you. So stating that a martial artist should live in such and such a way is pointless.
What makes someone a martial artist is that even if martial arts offered no obvious benefit to them, they would train anyway because they love it.
Codes, rules, and and ways of life are not needed for that.

Allrighty then, I'll go with that...
Good response!

 

[Cryozombie]

I look at it like this... if you are talking about martial arts from the warriors perspective, my opinion is as follows...

A warrior, who fights on the battlefield can expect to live a short life... so when he is not plying his trade, or training, what has ge got left but Drinking, Whoring, and gambling? Look at the military... I certainly remember what it was like... others do as well.

I think that, although I have no direct evidence on hand, historically speaking thats probaly on the money... I recall stories of the greek and roman soldiers acting in these fashions... probably quite a few others as well.

So, For my money... I go with the Drinking, whoring, and gambling.
​

 

[Andrew Green]

Only with the lights out and your clothes on. Remember, God is watching you.

What's this about some God character spying on people when they are enjoying themselves in private? He sounds a little shady, isn't there a commandment against that sort of thing or something?