The intentional intense study of the traditional martial arts has been of paramount importance in my life. It has enabled me to become strong enough to deal with the life path decisions I have had to face over the years and it has enabled me to be strong enough to enter into my own Spiritual Discipline.
Part of that strength is physical, but the majority is not. One of my greatest lessons was when I learned that the mind is a great slave, but a terrible leader. One way to think about this is if one is sparring with a partner and a kick comes your way; you cannot wait for the mind to make a decision. You must act, NOW. If you wait for the mind to decide and react, you get hit. If your Spirit is in charge you will already be responding before your mind is aware of the threat.
The times we share on the floor training are times when our Spirits, or our Souls are engaged. You know when you can trust a sparring partner, and when you can't. There is no middle ground. That is Spirit/Soul knowledge and it supercedes mental knowledge. My mind may say that I can trust that individual, but I have learned which voice to listen to. I encourage everyone that trains in martial arts to learn to listen to their Spirit. Your Soul always knows.
The physcal aspect of the martial arts is extremely important. When I had my own school in Seattle Washington I would tell prospective students "Go to several schools. Watch a complete class in each school. Watch how the instructor interacts with the students. Watch how the students interact with each other. At the end of the class, if you feel the instructor is good, go ahead and ask the instructor any question you want. Then leave without signing anything. Then sit for a moment or so and ask YOUR HEART if you want to go on a journey with that instructorsheart.
The important thing here is to learn to ask your Heart/Soul a 'Yes ~ No' question. It can answer that correctly. A 'why' or 'what' question is automatically a mental question, which means you are relying on the mind, not the Soul.
In a very strong truth my martial arts instructor, Grandmaster Yi, said that "there is no one martial art that is better than any other." It is how hard you train and what you bring into that training that will make the difference. That is why I say that the techniques taught in any given style do not matter as much as what is happening with the heart. But at the same time, the techniques do matter. And that is the dilema we all face.
THIS IS MY ANSWER TO THAT DILEMA.