The Yin And Yang of Healing Arts And Martial Arts – A Self-Defence Perspective

Last weekend, I was privileged to be asked to do a presentation on energy and healing at a cancer fundraising initiative called, "Cup For Cancer". However, you're probably wondering what would a guy who teachings self-defence know about the healing aspects! Well, it just so happens that I really do have a fascination for the healing arts. However, it is always somehow related back to my field of preference, namely self-defence, as you will see.

In my presentation, I explained that the healing art is used to balance my martial arts side. I imagined it like the Yin and Yang symbol that represents balance through duality. As much as I am fluent in the martial arts, I too need to be balanced with the healing arts too. With this understanding, as well as my natural inclination to rather heal than hurt people, I explained that I studied a number of healing arts, including acupuncture, Applied Kinesiology and Kyusho Healing. Furthermore, by understanding how to heal a person, in reverse, I would also be able to use that knowledge to hurt a person more efficiently and more effectively!

I thought it would be beneficial to open my presentation with some traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) concepts, one of which forms the bases on which all TCM which is built on, namely that the body has the natural ability to heal itself.  For instance, acupuncture treatments uses needles directed at certain nerve points to open up or unblock "chi" blockages and thereby allowing it to once again flow through the body and restore balance back to it. Now, there are many skeptics out there that would doubt the existence of chi. I explained it as energy, or the electrical impulses that the body generates through its nervous system and sustains life. I even went and called it the "Force", in recognition of the source of energy that both the Jedi masters and Sith lords are able to tap into in the Star Wars universe! I further went on to explain how this chi or energy is directed by the mind, and more importantly, through intension (or as per TCM, by "Yi'). This was important to highlight as it explained the powerful the connection between the body and mind is. With the risk of sounding too new-age guru-like, "what he mind can conceive and believe, the body can achieve"!

This brings me to my Applied Kinesiology studies. Applied Kinesiology is used in the complementary health or natural medicine field, and is defined primarily as the use of muscle testing to identify imbalances in the body's structural, chemical, emotional or other energy. It also gives us the ability to tap into the subconscious mind and understand what sabotaging beliefs hold us back from achieving our goals.

As you can imagine, this all started to sounds freakish, cult-ish and witch-crafty to my audience! Rather than just give theory, I then proceeded to demonstrate how energy can be practically applied in both a healing and martial application. For the healing demo, I used acupuncture points (without needles, hence acupressure) to remove an audience member's headache within 60 seconds. Thereafter, I again used acupressure to help another audience member by relieving her sinus congestion.  Then, to demonstrate the powerful link between the mind and the body, I went on to test how strong another audience member’s belief was in her weight-loss goal. Simply put, what her conscious mind said was not congruent to what her body believed it could do. Using some very simple kinesiology techniques, I was then able to remove a goal-sabotaging belief and thereafter, allow her to truly believe in her goal at a subconscious level!  True, for many, that last demo may be a bit too much to accept in their conventional mind-set, however, I was able to show this through kinesiology’s muscle testing techniques which gave them physical evidence of what I was doing. The next best thing would be to actually have that audience member reach her goal weight in 6 weeks (Cathy, I am keeping my eye on you)!

On the martial side, I wanted to illustrate how energy can be enhanced when applying a wrist lock on someone. The nice thing about the martial application of energy is that it induces pain! And with pain, one is able to gauge when there is more energy or not - More energy = more pain! I went on to illustrate that energy really is just electricity and that there are ways to move from positive and negative poles, to grounding and ungrounding of this energy – all of which are basic principles of electricity! Again, with the help of an audience member, I was able to illustrate this with a simple wrist lock and induced pain via the nervous system (and not due to the tightening of the joint in the wrist lock).

The objective of my presentation was really to provide some understanding how interlinked all of these concepts of healing arts, martial arts, chi, energy, and the body and mind are. This is particularly true for the self-defence that I teach as it incorporates all of the above mentioned concepts as we goes through an understanding at a subconscious level are you be willing to defend yourself in the direst of situations. Once we can past that mental hurdle, the physical skills training will enforce those positive beliefs and enable the student to defend themselves when or if the need arises in those situations.

To conclude, I can’t stress enough the importance of having the balance between Yin and Yang, the positive and the negative, the healing and the martial arts. Neither is good or bad, but TOO much of either can be detrimental to your physical, mental and spiritual well-being in the long run.

Till next time.

Be EDUCATED. Feel EMPOWERED. Live a FULLY-ENGAGED life. 

P.s. If you are a Facebook user, please download my 1st eBook entitles, 120 Practical Self-Defence Tips" FOR FREE! Do so by liking the Defence Unlimited Page, and clip on the "120 Self-Defence Tips"! Click here to go there immediately! 

Other resources:

This blog post is written in honor of my teachers: 

John Kehoe: http://www.learnmindpower.com/about_john_kehoe/

Dr Frans Kromhout: http://www.franskromhout.co.za/

Dr Michael Lan: http://www.jing-an.co.za/

Evan Pantazi http://www.kyusho.com/

Gary Rooks: http://www.kyusho.com/

Jim Corn: http://www.kyusholibrary.com/JimCornBio1.html

Mark Kline: http://www.kyusholibrary.com/MarkKBio1.html

PAIN is a great teacher: Kelly McCann’s “Kembativz” (Combatives)

The weekend of 12-14 Sep 2014 with Kelly McCann can only be expressed as a reality-check! In a nutshell, it was hard-hitting, simple, but brutal.   McCann is an ex-Marine, combat veteran, and just one hard-hitting Modder-Flugger! No excuses, just plain pain. And pain, is a great teacher. Do it right, or get killed. Aggression, explosive power and simplicity was the name of the game.

Michelle Washington was McCann’s training partner, and all I can say is this lady has my absolute respect! Besides taking McCann’s hard-hits the entire weekend, I could see the warrior-spirit in her eye that said, “mess with me at you own peril”. Beauty and brawn couldn’t come in a better package than Michelle. 

One of McCann’s stories during a break was about a question he was once asked about the techniques in combatives:  “What do you do once you've mastered all the moves? Simple. Just learn to hit harder”.  There is no need for more elaborate moves or techniques, just mastering the basics and learning to use them as effectively as possible. My assumption is that these are to then be done with more power, more times  and at the correct moments in combat.

Over the 3 days, we explored a variety of defensive and offensive strikes using the fist, arms, feet, knees and elbows. On their own, they would be definitely cause an opponent pain. However, in combination, with the correct combative mindset, they could be absolutely devastating. One of the nice quotes from McCann goes on to say, “Fighting is 90% mental and 10% technique”.  I couldn't agree more. In combatives, one has to cultivate the correct mindset. It is a very different mindset from that of martial artist. Quoting McCann, “Martial arts is what you do WITH someone. Combatives is what you do TO someone.” Now if that doesn't embody what combatives is, then I don’t know what would!

"Keep it simple, silly”, said McCann. Looking back at my own personal Taekwondo training and experience, I could never perform a 540 degree jumping kick. As beautiful and as athletic as this kick is, it is technically very difficult and I never mastered it.  As much as I wished I could then, I know now that it would be of little use to me now in combat - simplicity is key.  McCann emphasised keeping it simple and using gross motor skills (big motions). This way, it will be easily recalled and performed when under pressure. He further went on to say, “combatives is sloppy”.  From a personal development perspective, this correlates nicely with a quote on success– “Success is never graceful and exactly the way you want it. It gets messy, but the results are still a success.”

The training was brutal. There was the bare-knuckle sparring that resulted in lots of swelling, bruising and a fair amount of blood from a number of cut eyes, torn foreheads and ripped ears. Then there was the debilitating knees and kicks to the inside and outside of thighs that left even the most hard-core of fighter squirming like babies. Lastly, the mental toughening was probably the most exhausting as it pushed physical pain boundaries to new levels. All in all, the training was indeed more about cultivating the correct mindset rather than perfecting physical skill. What struck me most, was the sincerity and passion that McCann conveyed to his students throughout his instruction. Never once did I feel that this man was on an ego-trip, If anything, he was the most humble man there, who could probably flatten anyone of us without breaking a sweat! 

On a side note, it was interesting to note that on day 2, there was an attempted theft of one of the participants cars. He noticed this from the 2^nd floor of the building where we were training in and promptly notified us. Unfortunately for this this thief, he picked the wrong day and group of people to try and steal from. Besides being hard-core fighters, most of the participants were armed (being either safety-conscious citizens or law enforcement officers). About a dozen or so participants rushed out with fully-loaded weapons, and ready to take our combatives training to a new level! Fortunately for the thief-wannabe, he got away before being caught by any one of us.  McCann and Michelle must have thought this quite amusing. However, they did say that they felt that South Africa needed this kind of training to prepare it for the daily crime that we face. This incident was evident again of that need. 

To conclude, this was probably one of the hardest, most brutal, and most enjoyable weekend training sessions I have ever been on. McCann and Michelle, with their experience and skills, were the perfect teachers to instruct this type of course.  With their guidance, and the assistance of my fellow “blood ‘n sweat” -brothers and sisters, I was able to face my fears of pain and inadequacy, as I am sure, many other participants were able to do so too.  I am truly grateful for the knowledge and experience, and something that I will be incorporated into my toolbox and regular self-defence training.

McCann’s final words to us were: “Be good. Live a good life. We all eventually die… but not today...” (…"Memento mori…sed hodie non...”)

For more information on Kelly McCann’s combatives, refer to www.kembativz.com.