NON violent Martial Arts

[Mike NSW]

We all hear about Instructors and students telling their friends and family that martial arts has more to offer a student then the acts of violence. But what are they??

The idea here is for you guys to post some of the things you have learned/inherited from your martial arts training that has effected your life on a personal level and does NOT reflect violent behaviour what so ever.

We all know the easy ones:
*Strength
*Confidence/over confidence
*flexibility
*Accuracy/ co ordination
*Balance

I'd like for everyone to go a bit deeper than that (if there is a deeper side). Maybe a personal experience of some sort, a philosphy or a life altering technique (and there are many types of techniques that aren't physical).

[southpaw0727]

Martial arts has made me reailize that there is more to life than me, a greate lesson to learn young.
Sure I do martial arts because I enjoy them , but i enjoy watching someone come in not able to do one pushup, or maybe extremly shy and watch them gain confedince because there doing things they didn't know they could do. To me now that is more rewording to me than me learning something new, I have learned to put people in front of me.
The second thing that I used to do was go to a punching bag when I was mad. I was teaching myself to associate anger with violance. I read an article on jet le and he said that he didn't pracitce martial arts when he was mad for that reason. That got me to thinking about what I was doing, so instead I focus on my breathing, and deal with what made me angry.

[Rathryn]

To me martial arts is also a coping mechanism. Whenever things tend to get out of hand emotionally, I hammer away at a punching bag.
This is a drastic improvement over my older habit of using brick walls, etc. Far less self-destructive to say the least.

[southpaw0727]

I bet the bag is far less self-destructive than a brick wall.

[Rathryn]

Yeah, it means I can actually roll my own cigarettes within an hour after hitting stuff... big improvement.

[Mike NSW]

So do you use martial arts as a means to 'control' your aggression or as an excuse to 'release' your aggression?

[Sylexis]

I agree with everything listed in this post, there are many things to glean from martial arts besides the knowledge of fighting. One thing that comes to mind would be the loss of the need to prove oneself.

When I was a child, my mother (a black belt with her own students) taught me several basic self defense moves, and we practiced them over and over and over. As I grew up, the knowledge that I was fully capable of hurting someone and defending myself if I had to, removed my need to prove I was tough.

I don't know if I am wording it right, but I'd sum it up as the study of martial arts is a way of expanding your mind to look at a bigger picture beyond what is simply in front of you.

It is not about winning a fight to prove I can win, it is about diffusing the fight before it even starts, even if no one notices that what you did, was a victory in itself.

[Scott Blaydes]

One of our dojo mottos comes to mind for this topic, and in particular your post.

To restrain our physical abilities through spiritual attainment.

[larry nicholson]

Very well put.