Six years ago I was a freshman at UCLA taking every opportunity to learn something new. From South American history to Semitic languages, my mind was continually blown by the limitless things there were to explore at a world class university. Since I’d always been a kinetic learner and active person, that curiosity extended to the recreation classes at UCLA as well. When a friend of mine showed me capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that incorporated music and dance, I signed up the very next day. Little did I know that this first exploit into martial arts would turn into something much bigger than I could have imagined. By graduation, I’d tried my hand at capoeira, krav maga, kung fu, and ninjitsu- and I was hooked.
Gozan Ryu ninjitsu became a particularly special art for me. The instructor made a great impression on me as somebody who was confident yet humble. This was a guy who knew exactly what he was talking about, but he didn’t need to prove how tough he was to anyone. He just taught what he knew, and he let the art speak for itself. And as he did so, I started to pick up on the unique philosophy of this art. Ninjitsu seeks understanding of human behavior- what we do, why we do it, how to read other people and your surroundings and how to use all of that to your advantage. The art itself is practical, recognizing the world for what it is and encouraging its students to test their limits so that they can do what needs to be done (whatever the situation in life may call for). But most importantly, I perceived that ninjitsu had a heart to it, an underlying thread of compassion to suggest that although this art could and would be as violent as the enemy that rose against it, the ultimate goal was not to win or even to pursue a fight- but rather, to be as ready as possible for any fight before it ever began.
And so, although ninjitsu was the last art I tried at school, it has been the one that has kept me coming back. Even when I entered “the real world” with a full time job, I found ways to manipulate my schedule so that I could get to my ninjitsu class, if only for part of the time. For two more years I continued to go to the class and train any way that I could manage. Over time, I noticed that the concepts I was learning in ninjitsu class started to crop up in the area of my life that I least expected it: my faith.
Just as college had opened up a period of personal exploration of academic subjects and physical activities, it had also initiated my personal exploration into the spiritual realm. Although I’d grown up in a Christian home, I had never really understood why we believed the things that we did, or how or why my life was supposed to be any different because of that. But I was willing to try to find out. A very caring girl on my floor took me to at least four different churches until I found one that I felt comfortable with. And so there I was, 18 years old thinking I knew who God was and that I had things figured out with him, and then a young pastor from a local start up church completely threw me upside down -in a way that no martial artist ever could- by preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard about Jesus before- I’d heard about him all my life. But this was the first time that my ears were opened to it, that my mind was opened to it, and that my heart was opened to it. I can’t describe what happened any way other than that I knew that what he was saying was true. I was a desperate sinner who needed Jesus’s love and forgiveness, and when I asked Jesus for that he graciously gave it to me. And my life has never been the same since.
So now I have Christianity and I have ninjitsu, two seemingly unrelated things...and yet I’m finding that the two are not so entirely distinct as I had presumed. There are so many ways that the lessons learned in martial arts can be applied to living out the Christian faith. This blog is my humble attempt to explain how. What is expressed here is my own collection of thoughts, musings, observations, anecdotes and lessons that relate to fighting, faith, and fighting the good fight of faith :) All are welcome to join and to question, and I hope that you all will enjoy reading this much as I enjoy writing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment