Despite what the title may seem like, I'm not going to write about the film starring River Phoenix or anything like that. This is going to be about how we feel while we fence. I noticed on Wednesday that we feel different things when fencing a variety of opponents. When I first began fencing, I became nervous around anyone wearing a white jacket or breeches. Since I have now fenced a variety of opponents, I don't really feel anything when I fence people. I feel calm, in a way. I only begin to feel pressured in a competition, in a DE. When I feel pressured, I tend to increase the pace a lot, but this leads to wild parries and bad footwork more often than not. Very rarely, my adrenaline kicks in. I can't really say for sure when this happens. I think that I get energised when I am fencing someone who I subconsciously want to do well against.
We don't always get emotional while we fence. There are also times when we have various states of fatigue. Since my injury, I become tired more often, but I always try to work to the best of my ability. In my opinion, there is tired, fatigued and empty. Tired is when we feel a slight nagging feeling in our muscles, telling us to slow down. Fatigued is when we feel drained, and feel as if we can't go on anymore. Empty is a feeling that I have only had twice in my fencing career. It occurred for the second time on Wednesday. It happens when you bypass tired, and then appear at fatigue. My legs were seriously aching, but I kept telling myself that fatigue is a message, and messages can be ignored. I pressed on, and I hit empty. It was very strange. I couldn't actually feel anything, and I felt as if I could keep on fencing for hours. Nothing seemed to be tiring anymore. Perhaps the strangest thing was that I wasn't thinking. I mean that I was thinking as in: functioning. Whenever my opponent attacked me, I was able to respond very quickly. After the fight, this feeling promptly left, and fatigue set in. Empty is very weird for me, but it is also very good. Maybe this forms the trance-like meditation that Buddhist's and Samurai seek for. If it is, I have only seen a glimpse of it. Or maybe I was just exhausted. Who knows?
1 comment:
Good to see you posting again Chris and this particular post is a very interesting one indeed. My comments here come based on my own understanding and as each of us perceive the universe in a different way may not match everyone else's understanding!
You write of a trance like state that meditation brings to Buddhists and Samurai of old. Technically trance states only occur in some types of meditation, such as transcendental and Mahayana variants where mantras are chanted repetitively. These disciplines are designed to remove the practitioner from the everyday and elevate them to a 'greater state or level' of consciousness. Zen buddhist practice, which is more traditionally linked (not alwas accurately - they also quite liked Mikkyo sect Buddhism) to the Samurai is actually designed to make you MORE aware of the everyday surroundings. During practice the Samurai was looking to attain a state of Zanshin or 'lingering/remaining' mind which would allow him to be minutely conscious of everything around him. This in turn ultimately leads to state of 'no mind' or Mushin where reactions are instantaneous and emotions are superfluous. Traditionally it takes long years of practice to get this far but it can also be found spontaneously for short durations by anyone. (Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself' is often regarded as an account of an enlightenment experience).
These experiences are fleeting and rare in the occasional practitioner and can often be associated with extreme experiences and also with exhaustion. Obviously only you know what happened to you but there are certainly indications in your writing of a fleeting state of Zanshin, sometimes described as the 'dropping off of body and mind'. It is a state truly useful for sportsmen and warriors alike and on a physiological level may be an evolutionary adaptation of our brain or something more 'spiritual'. It is up to us all to decide on our own interpretation of our own experiences after all. Not for nothing is 'great doubt' one of the first precepts of Zen. Question everything!
If you are interested in the religious beliefs of the Samurai I would recommend "The Samurai and the Sacred" by Stephen Turnbull as a very good read. Sorry for the long comment - but it's an important subject!
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