What is the purpose of Martial Arts?

If you are an old friend to Ninpo and to traditional Martial Arts welcome. If you are new to this world thank you and congratulation for taking this important step to find out more about who you are. Many people look to Koryu Budo (traditional Martial Arts) to find a powerful system of self defense. True self defense is so complex it will take decades to understand. What is really needed to protect your life? It's a very interesting question and during your life the level of protection and the ability and skill needed will change.

For those who understand great thoughts and try to live with great deeds will agree that mastering yourself and understanding yourself is far more difficult then defeating an enemy. The journey of Martial Arts is a "Quest", to find out who you are and what you can become. Martial Arts gives you traditions and etiquette to survive within a world you create. I like to tell the story of life being like a pond. When you have peace and balance in your life your pond is calm. With the waters calm it will cast a perfect reflection. With this perfect vision you can make better decisions. With peace you can also see deep into your pond due to the clear water. So you can see all aspects and people in your life clear as well. This gives you a very deep vision and awareness to be anywhere at anytime to help all aspects in your world. If you make poor decisions you will know right away. For there will be ripples on the water and your next decisions will be clouded and harder to see. Like a rock thrown into the peacefulness of a natural pond. This stone will ripple the surface water distorting your reflection (affecting your vision). As it falls through the water it will make all things that live beneath the water nervous and hide in confusion. This shows the parallel to your life. When your pond is calm everything on the surface and beneath the surface in your life is also at peace. But when you live in un natural ways it is a force that effects all aspects and everyone in your life. But we are not done. The rock hits the bottom and makes the water cloudy, affecting everything around you and now you can not see with clear vision and you can not react to the surroundings putting you and everything in your life at risk. As the ripples reach the banks or outer reaches or your world those effects are felt as well. The waves crash on the shores and the support you once had in peace is now weathering away making all your connections in life unstable and clouded with the sands of the shore.

Your life like the pond can not recover right away and in some cases may never fully recover without permanent damage. Only time living in a natural balanced existence will life slowly return to the new state of what is now known as normal.

So why this story when one seeks martial arts? If you do not learn how to master yourself how can you defeat someone who has? If you have not forged your soul and body with the knowledge of thousands of years of tradition and warfare, how can you defeat someone who has? If you have not been challenged and tested and have been corrected by true masters how can you defeat someone who has?

Ninpo is a way of life. It is not a hobby or a social club. It is the clearest of mirrors, and it will show you who you are, it will give you visions of what you can be. By looking at the men and women who have walked the path of a spiritual warrior and have accepted its challenges. Along this journey you find out who they are, you understand more about the world you live in. You understand that fighting for the sake of ego and to prove something to a world who actually could careless is the thoughts of youth and the uneducated, those who lack maturity. If a warrior fights he does so in the act of protection and self-preservation. To defend peace is to protect ones family and county. It is an act to protect life itself, to never take it without just cause. This does not mean that a warrior is not prepared to fight, to kill or die. Just that they seek a preconditioned peace in every opportunity. Life is short and during your time here you have only a few chances to really use your skills of combat. But you have everyday to use your skills for utopia and eternal peace for all mankind. When someone attempts to destroy this utopia and has brought harm to the world, it may be our obligation and responsibility to defeat this evil in the world and do our duty as a warrior of freedom and balance.

If you feel you need help to protect your dreams, and you feel a need to find a common bond with others who seek the truth in themselves for the sake of the future you have found home. But it will not be easy, it will not be natural and in any birth there will be pain. It will be the endurance of this sacrifice that will unlock the vision and fortitude to find yourself and happiness.