I've rarely gotten drunk. But I love the notion of drunkenness. I don't swear a whole lot in public. But profanity springs from my lips much more freely than prayer does.
Reality just seems more, well, real when it is lived on an intoxicated blasphemous edge — whether this be conceptually philosophical or crudely physical. Neat and tidy sobriety isn't congruent with the cosmos' natural wildness, though we humans do our best to smooth rough edges and tame savage beasts.
At the end of this post I've included an excerpt from a chapter in Daniele Bolelli's terrific book, "On the Warrior's Path: Philosophy, Fighting, and Martial Arts Mythology (second edition)."
Now, if you're tempted to stop reading because your interest in martial arts is slim to nonexistent, give this post a chance.What we're talking about here is an issue that goes way beyond martial arts: is the straight and narrow a more productive path than a curving and unrestricted way?
If you read the excerpt from Bolelli's "Sacred and Profane: Combat Sports as Athletic Philosophy" chapter — and I hope that you do — be aware of your reaction to the two contrasting instructional styles he describes in such an entertaining fashion.
This likely will be an indication of what sort of spiritual, religious, moral, mystical, or philosophical teachings and practices you're most attracted to.
Admittedly, Bolelli features some extremes. But few of us are precisely balanced at a mid-point; it's natural to tilt one way or the other (for example, how many people are so perfectly bi-sexual, they're equally attracted to both sexes?).
I bought the second edition of Bolelli's book, even though I'd already read the first edition (and blogged about it in "Bruce Lee's Taoist life lessons") because two new chapters sounded intriguing to me.
I'm glad I did the Amazon deed. Bolelli is much more into martial arts than I ever was, but we share some common experiences and attitudes on both the philosophical and fighting fronts.
I talked about this in a 2004 post where I congratulated my martial arts friend, Dave, on his black belt accomplishment. (I'm in a black gi on the right; Dave is next to me, in blue; Warren Allen, our instructor, is in the middle, in back.)
After almost nine years of traditional Shotokan karate training where everyone had to wear a plain white gi (and only females wore a t-shirt under it, which helps explain my habitual t-shirtless look), I much appreciate Warren’s hang-loose Taoist attitude toward the dojo dress code. Discipline is needed in the martial arts, but dressing exactly alike doesn’t teach anything except rigidity.
It’s interesting that my changeover from the linear, dogmatic, structured Shotokan training to the Pacific Martial Arts circular, eclectic, flowing style has pretty much paralleled a similar change in how I approach meditation and spirituality. I’ve become much less rigid in my philosophical/metaphysical beliefs during the years I’ve been trying to achieve a similar openness in my martial arts training.
My new Church of the Churchless site reflects this creedless creed mentality.
Daniele Bolelli's comparison of contrasting uptight Shotokan and hang-loose Jujitsu classes rang true to me. I trained for nine years in a traditional Shotokan dojo where we practiced the sort of rigid discipline you can read about in the extension to this post.
When I switched to the eclectic Pacific Martial Arts style, the training was just as tough and demanding — more so, in fact — but not as anal. This meshes with Bolelli's description of the Brazilian Jujitsu class he observed, a martial arts style that I learned just enough of to know how much more I had to learn about it.
Anyway, read on for an interesting take on whether sober is better than drunk, and sacred better than profane.
(If you'd rather watch than read, check out Jackie Chan's classic "Drunken Master" on Netflix; it can be watched instantly for free if you have a Netflix account; from about 1:20 to 1:27 is a generally comedy-less look at drunken-style kung fu.)
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