Where did the concept of stillness in martial arts come from?
Since about the turn of the Millenium I have found that when people got introduced to me as Martial Artists it no longer meant that we had as much in common as before. Thing is- my life with martial arts has become much easier when I had learnt about mindlessness and mindfullness. If you asked me about it back in those days I would have said that it was a Zen concept that got applied in Japanese martial arts and that training without it would amount to making useless movements. In Japanese the state of mindlessness is known as mu-shin ("no mind"). In the beginning it was uncanny for me to understand, but I loved how it worked. Now I still get amazed at a new generation of martial arts students who don't know how not-thinking can help you in a fight at all... But yeah... I am old-school like that... Well- Maybe Okinawa had someone like Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid movies to teach that with his Karate... Thing is, however, that Okinawan Karate is Te in its undilu...