I.M.P.A.C.T. Athletes: Conception

The martial arts has its phases for the practicioner.  At first, for me, practicing form and function was the best times.  Then I had my sparring experience.  I've learned that you can tell what character attributes someone has just through the sparring; like emotional control, aggression baseline and mental discipline.  The next stage was the philisophical phase.  How issues, current events and politics can be solved with the same architectural flowchart found in training or fighting.  Breaking things down, analyzing, solving the problem and handling any residual consequences for the chosen solution.

Now, I believe I'm taking the next step.  Contribution and improvement.

Through out my experience in the martial arts, I've trained with many people.  I've learned a lot from parents, teachers, peers and students.  But most of all, I've learned the most from my children and my wife.  It's amazing how much you can learn about yourself when raising your own flesh and blood.  Realizing that we are their greatest teachers, they mimicked everything we did.  Attitude, gestures, expressions, even preferences.  Things that are reflections of ourselves.  This was my epiphany.  How can I improve myself so that they can in turn improve themselves?  The answer was obvious.  Teach them as much as possible.  But something was missing.

If you had asked me if I was going to open a school about a year ago, I would of said "No, I just want to train."  Then a training group started to get friends together and to have fun.  Then the next thing I knew, I was teaching cultural awareness using the same stories I heard while at different training camps.  That was it!  That's the missing ingredient.  Teach the culture and tradition through the martial art.  It was so obvious that I took it for granted.  Styles like Capoeira, where knowing how to play the instruments and speak some of the Portuguese language are requirements to rank.  This was what I was going to do.  Teach as much as I can about the Filipino Martial Art and culture to anyone that wants to learn.  Showing more than just lumpia or pansit.  Now I would not consider myself the ultimate resource to Philippine heritage.  Instead I consider myself someone that is available to answer questions or someone that can find the answer.

To share a quote by Bruce Lee that continues to be communicated by Guro Dan Inosanto:  "Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system."  Allow me to share one analyzation of this saying:  We need to find ways to express ourselves.  So I try to pull the essence from the Filipino Martial Arts or Muay Thai then create a tool to use to do just that.  The cultural element and the training systems will help to express yourself, not the system.  Therefore anyone will be able to find ways to express themselves culturally and individually.  Kung fu practitioners pull from the Chinese culture, Karate practitioners pull from the Japanese culture.

Not everyone is a fighter or philosopher.  Majority of us lie somewhere in between.  Some of us can even balance this really well by shifting from one to the other as needed.  Fight when you have to or have the power to understand.