Out of the Shadow - The value of Martial Arts in the Process of Individuation

People undertake the practice of martial arts for a variety of reasons. Chiefly among them:

-to learn how to defend themselves

-to get in shape

-to keep healthy

-for cultural/spiritual cultivation

I always caution against questioning the validity and efficacy of a given martial art over another. Likewise, I try my best to discourage people from believing that studying martial arts makes them safe. The expert practitioner doesn’t fight, because he keeps away from trouble. It takes years of training to become effective fighters, and even then there is no guarantee that something won’t go wrong. You can be as seasoned a fighter as it gets, it’s never a good idea to try your luck in hand-to-combat on the streets, particularly against stronger and heavier opponents. I’m referring in particular to women fighting against male aggressors. You train in a world of rules with people that are law-abiding citizens. When you go up against people who in a world with no rules and have chosen not to abide by the law, things can go sideways very rapidly. That’s precisely why Sunzi says that the greatest battle is the one you don’t fight.

Getting is shape? Sure, but there are other ways too that, and they are equally effective, if not more. The same applies to keeping healthy.

Where martial arts truly excel is as mediators for personal growth. And yet, it still needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt.

Over the course of the years, I’ve grown increasingly suspicious of masters and institutions promoting the notion of “secrets”, “mysteries” and so forth, embedded in Japanese martial arts, as if martial arts were a matter of initiation à la Western Esotericism. This is a tendency that seems to be more prominent in certain European countries, Italy among them.

I personally adhere to a more reductionist perspective. I like my opinions to be grounded in facts and empirically-verifiable sources. That’s a difficult thing to achieve when discussing the effects of the practice of martial arts on the long-term psychological development of human beings. So here’s an deeply personal and rather emotional opinion on why it’s a good idea to take up martial arts, particularly if you are a child.

 

Schoolgirls training in Naginata

The basic purpose of martial arts is defeating your opponent. It’s true for every combat system, be it armed or unarmed, across time and space. So what is the educational value in learning to fight? In dealing with techniques that can be used to throw an opponent to the floor, dislocate a joint, break a bone, cause loss of consciousness, and so forth?

The answer is: the exact words “can be used”.

They can, but they won’t. Why? Because while you’re learning to do these things, you also learn to practice them is such a way that guarantees the safety of your training partner. You come to know the consequences of their unchecked use. You become aware of what you can do if you use your body in a certain way. To put it differently, you come to terms with the fact that with your training, under the right conditions, if you’re really angry, if you become possessed by incontrollable feelings, you could hurt someone.

Violence is frowned upon in our world. So why is our world so fraught with violence? The answer is: because pretending that violence doesn’t exist doesn’t solve the problem. Also, because saying that violence isn’t good doesn’t solve the problem either.

Research indicates that on average males tend to be more aggressive than females and that male aggressiveness reaches the top at around age 15, and decreases steadily to stable levels at around age 27. However, if you there is a way to face that aggressiveness head on, to focus it, put it at the service of your own growth, that which could potentially be a problem becomes an actual asset.

 

Schoolboys training in kendō

The reason martial arts focus aggressiveness and re-orient it in a direction that’s beneficial for your growth is that, in Junghian terms, practising hand-to-hand combat or armed combat leads to confronting and integrating the Shadow.

Jung believed encountering one’s Shadow, the unconscious part which we usually try not to meet, because that’s where the dark aspects of the human nature reside, is an essential stage in the development of the individual. Bringing the Shadow “out of the shadows”, so to speak, and integrating it inside one’s self is the key to the process of individuation, which he defined as the process of becoming a fully developed human being. Martial arts offer the opportunity of encountering the Shadow in a controlled environment and gradually integrating it by becoming aware of one’s potential for excess and violence, at the same time, one’s ability to choose not to commit excess and violence.  

By practising martial arts, you are in fact practising movements, techniques and strategies that were developed originally to wound or kill your opponent. However, you also practise restraint. You become aware of your strength, your own vulnerability and, more importantly, of your own potential. This way, you exercise real freedom and real choices, because you know and understand, theoretically as well as practically, both aspects of the practice.

Comprehending your own ability to do terrible things, accepting that you’re not an angelic being incapable of evil, but an average person with the same probability as the guy next door to misuse his or her strength, is a sobering realisation and an unparalleled motivator to act as a force of good.

Yagyū Munenori spoke of the life-giving sword and the life-taking sword in his book Heihōka densho. As an instrument, a sword is designed to kill, but as a tool moved by human will informed by established ethical norms, it can and should be put at the service of virtue. The practise of martial arts shapes and educates the individual and, in doing so, shapes and educates the society in which the practitioner lives and acts. 

 The core reason for the introduction of Kōdōkan jūdō, kendō and naginata in Japanese elementary and middle schools before and during WWII is that their value for the physical and psychological cultivation of human beings, both male and female, had been recognised and championed well before the rise of Militarism in Japan. It is true that part of the reason was also the desire to strengthen the identity and the sense of pride in the nation's own history and values after the successful wars against Qíng China (1894-1895) and czarist Russia (1904-1905), but that should overlook the fundamental ability of martial arts to act as a mediator for the encounter and with, and the integration of, the Shadow as part of the process of individuation.

 

Physical education at school: kendō

I sincerely hope that the practice of martial arts becomes a familiar sight under the guidance of capable and virtuous masters and teachers, especially in schools, and especially in primary and secondary schools. Just as Master Kanō, along with many others, had managed to achieve for the Kōdōkan jūdō. To this end he had developed the Seiryoku zen'yō kokumin no kata, today curiously absent from the practice of Kōdōkan jūdō both in Italy and abroad.

Perhaps the time has come to rediscover the Master's thought, and comply with his vision.

 

Emanuele Bertolani

gasshō _/\_