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This personal essay is about burden of western lifestyle and
how JSKR training can ease of this burden and
lead healthier body and mind.
Tero Heikkinen
OuluDojang Finland
Disclaimer: Following text has been written by authors own experience.
Light scientific glimpse of energy
This personal essay or story is about burden of western lifestyle and how JSKR training can ease of this burden and lead healthier body and mind.
Story begins many years ago. After long day of sitting, working and stressing I met one colleague of mine. There was also third person in the meeting who happened to carry something 100cm long, wooden ”thing”. That happened to be a mokkum. That third person happened to be the person who became my friend and teacher in JSKR.
Now we need to take a look again that burden. Of course each one of us has their own invididual lifestyle but statistically when looking the public health I can point two major complications that I found from my own life that affect greatly in long term the quality of life and health of invididual.
As a student of western medicine I’m taking look of the training of the martial arts from the viewpoint of the world that I currently live in and try to study and understand. Concepts and ideas are very generalized, all biochemical and cellular mechanisims are left out as are the references of scientific
articles.
Everything comes down energy. Without it we die. If we don’t feel well we might say that ”I don’t have enough energy to do this”. But what is this very basic energy that we use all the time? It’s called ATP and it’s fundamental currency in intracellular energy transfer. For example if our muscles get very exhausted they can run out of ATP and ATP is needed in muscle for myosin head to detach from actin. Not enough energy and muscles end up cramping.
What our body needs in order to make efficiently ATP is oxygen and for example glucose or fat. One of the problems in the western society is that people do not exercise enough. We become overweight and that can cause type 2 diabetes, that is a huge public health problem.
Also unhealthy life and overweight can cause multiple other health problems and greatly reduce the quality of life especially during senior years.
Haedong Kumdo training contains physical exercise that can be adjusted per every trainers personal level. Training can be high or low intensity or varying between them. After training one can feel happy and can be full of energy. We will return this later. What is interesting is the basic movement that will strengthen our muscles, giving us better posture and helping us to maintain our muscle condition especially if our work is office work.
But even more important change happens within our muscles. If one has overweight and risk for example for diabetes, losing weight may reduce the risk of getting ill. Also if glucose level in blood has elevated, levels might get better since muscles that are used, may take more fat and glucose from blood thus reducing risks of disease. Our hearth and lungs get more efficient and more oxygen and blood can be pumped through our body. More oxygen, more blood means more energy production in our cells. We produce more energy and become more “energetic”.
Fighting a fight that does not exist
If we then go away bit from the physical body, since feeling of being energetic or happy has one bad enemy that I want to take look into. Stress, it’s sometimes good, it’s made for our survival but too much is simply too much. In fact this again comes back to the physical body and our autonomous nervous system. Stress is stimulating our autonomous nervous systems sympatic side. It can cause muscle tension, high pulse and blood pressure we might even have problem of getting sleep. Sleep deprivation can undermine our efforts to lose weight since it can raise ghrelin levels and make us feel more hungry thus eating more.
So what is good for the stress can be for example exercise. If we traing martial arts and focus, get our mind clear we can get rid of stress. That will ease our muscles, lower our pulse and blood pressure and maybe get us better sleep. By training Haedong Kumdo we can help both our body and mind. Both are linked together and while training martial arts both physical body and mind get exercise.
During Kumbup and Kimu training one can reach clean state of mind through exercise and concentration. In everyday life one can in event of stress close eyes and return mentally in the memory of training and try to find the moment where one felt relaxed. We can train our mind with exercise and proper breathing to ease our stress.
When it comes to stress control, one can also enter nature and take a walk in the forest. Research has shown preliminary positive health effects of spending time in forest. Positive
effects can be explained for example via reduction of stress. Stress reaction is good, it has helped our ancestors in fight or flight situations. But again, long term stress can cause health issues in physical and psychological level.
Should one go to forest and walk atop of a hill or take a walk to the sea, sit down on a cliff and listen sea and meditate? I would say definitely yes since it can lower the stress, you get fresh air and things tend to clear up when you go out of your office box.
Why I train and teach martial arts
But what is the ultimate goal of training martial arts. Why I want to get rid of extra stress and have my body in better condition? It all comes back to the virtues of everyday life that I keep in high value. And those virtues are essential to become a good doctor. This can be approached by defining what I consider as a beautiful mind.
Mind needs to be calm and clear yet same time emphatic. Same time gratefulness should not be forgotten at the end of the day. Ideas, worries and expectations are one of the cornerstones of interaction between a doctor and a patient. The art of listening, seeing, feeling and doing Is essential in everyday life of a good doctor. In the time of reception one has very short time to tune up to the same level with the patient. Between patients mind must be cleared.
Is my mind beautiful? I think that there’s still work to be done. I also think that it’s impossible to get perfectly beautiful mind, since after all, we are human, not perfect.
Greatest virtue of all that martial arts train us is in my opinion patience. Nowadays we have “here, all, now” . culture where we want to get something without putting any effort to get it.
When it comes to health, there are lots of advertisement going on in television where they say that just “eat these pills and lose weight in seven days”.
In order to memorize gumbups, perform them properly one needs years of training. Every time when I train I find something to improve from my own technique. I try to concentrate and find the patience week by week find how to make it better with very limited training time. I spend most of the time teaching and there has been lately very limited time for personal training. Mental imaging of training has been in great use.
What I try to teach to my students is first of all patience and “let it go” mentality. At beginning it is ok to fail, in fact I try to teach my students so that they have training atmosphere where it is ok to try and do they best and fail. Then trying again they might do better, but it’s all about the good feeling that I want them to have after training. At the very beginning I want to emphasize that stressing about perfect performance is not the primary goal but emptying mind and getting out from the comfort zone is. I want to make them try and then if they don’t find out where the problem is, I show them and try to give them the joy of revelation. I find that gives the trainers the joy of finding that the can actually do something that they were not able to do earlier.
Future of my training - an introspection
What is my future in martial arts? From the point of my physical body I’ve already past my best years, nearing my middle age. I simply just cannot push my body and hope that it will heal itself for next day. Knees will ache so will the shoulders. Instead of just doing, I need to start really focusing on doing less and by that doing even more. Wisdom in natural body movement and giving mercy to my body will hopefully grant me next level in practising martial arts. By doing that I will also hopefully find deeper connection between mind and body.
This hopefully will also show in certain type of inner peace in every day life. Nowadays I still tend to stress about the exams in medschool or experiments for doctorate thesis. I also stress will there be many new students for next beginners course and if all the oldest students will move to different city when they graduate from university. My students are almost all university students that are at least ten years younger than me. That has also made me look backwards my own life and self. And see the first signs of my aging and realization that even I’m a student. I’m not young.
I’m an adult.
How should I look my training and my life? Looking back is not good, you always see things that you should have done differently. Looking forward, that is very familiar to me, I tend to stress and see all the negative sides, challenges and risks.
So where should I look? There’s a one story that my professor from medschool told me. Life is a mountain. Before middle age you climb and you cannot see beyond the tip of the mountain, only sky is the limit. At some point you realize that you are on the top, in your middle age and now it’s time to come down from the mountain. At the bottom of the mountain there is a tombstone waiting your name on it.
This little story has a very good point on it. Just by looking back you can see the journey that you have done with all it’s successes and failures. By looking forward you either see lots of climbing to do or your nearing death. I find that one should concentrate on the very moment, look around and see who and what are travelling on your side. Sometimes it’s wise to stop
for a moment. Take a good look of the view but not to fixate to past or the future. One should be brave enough to choose his/hers own path. We all know that at the end of the path tomb waits. But the path itself is yours to choose, you don’t need to take the straightest one to the top in a hurry.
While writing this text, I begun with more “scientific” approach of training and how it maintains our body and mind. It’s never too late to get out from sofa. But when I look back (what I should not do too long) I find that I’ve not been following my own philosophy. In a way writing this text has been a moment on a hopefully ascending side of a mountain. A short stop, looking around.
It’s good time to start wrapping up this text to some conclusion of what is the most important part of martial arts to me. It is about keeping body in condition. It’s about trying to keep my mind beautiful, calm, patient and focused. It’s about seeing the diversity of the people and how to make contact with different kinds of people.
But what it is all about it’s living in the very moment. Actions that I take should not be controlled by the events of the future that I have imagined to happen or that I do not have to control in. Acting with the best interest for each present at the current situation using my best knowledge. Doing my best in the moment with right amount of stress.
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