Martial Arts Article: From the fighting Father!

I STILL await all your honest opinions!

And Now - An excerpt from an excellent book..... This really stirs the soul!

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up (Ecclesiastes 3:1-3)

Four of the boys at training

tonight are preparing themselves for their first fight at our forthcoming

Christians vs. Lions promotion, scheduled for only three weeks hence. All

of these lads are boxers.

Three of those four – Joel, Daniel and young Dave – are friends,

finishing their last year of school together. They are a great example of

how guys from different ethnic backgrounds (Australian, Latin American,

and Lebanese respectively) can still be the best of mates. The fourth guy,

Louis, is an enormous Islander man. I’m not sure whether he’s Tongan or

from the Cook Islands, but he’s a gentle giant really. He reminds me of

Mahendar – a regular here at the Youth Centre. They’re both big, black and

burly, but with gentle hearts. Louis has a few years on the other boys who

were there tonight. He’s a natural in the ring, and plays the role of the

older brother very well indeed.

These four boys are the cream of our crop in the fight club at the

moment. They are all capable pugilists, but more than that, they are each

a good embodiment of what our club is on about – courage, integrity,

self-discipline and teamwork. This isn’t to say that none of them have

ever been troublemakers. Indeed, I’ve got a court appearance coming up

with one of the boys, scheduled for shortly after his fight, and he’s on

quite serious charges. Even so, I’ve seen nothing but positive growth

since he joined the club, and I’m hoping for positive results both in his

fight and in his court case.

What is it that makes fight training such a powerful tool in the

molding of young lives? There was a time when I thought of fighting as

just another form of sport. I have come to believe though that fight

training taps into something deep in the male psyche, in a way that no

other sport does.

When I used to talk to my old girls in the church about the problems we

had with our young people, they often used to say ‘what we need is

another war’. I always thought that that was a terrible thing to say –

that a war was the last thing that anybody wanted. And of course the girls

didn’t really want a war. They had just experienced the benefit of being

part of a community that had learnt to pull together through difficult

times. And they had seen the positive effect that soldiering could have on

the lives of young men.

I believe that men were made to fight. It’s part of our genetic makeup.

We may have managed to emerge from the jungle, but there’s still a bit of

the jungle in each of us, and pugilistic activity keys right in to those

ancient impulses – releasing the wild man within.

This theory isn’t original to me of course. It’s part of the fabric of

the Bible – there behind every great warrior-king who showed himself to be

a ‘mighty man of God’ in battle, and behind Jacob, who went toe to

toe with God Himself and yet lived to talk about it (Genesis 32)! These

were men who knew how to fight and pray and bleed and serve.

For a more philosophical exposition on the significance of fighting, we

need look no further than Plato’s Republic.

For those who haven’t read it, in the Republic Socrates explores the

concept of justice through examining both the just society and the just

individual, and then he goes on to delineate their common elements. On the

societal level he notes that a just community is made up of a number of

vital components parts: rulers who govern, workers who labour, and an army

that functions to protect them both. In the individual he finds a similar

configuration – the mind that governs the body, the limbs that do the

work, and the ‘themos’ (which is often translated as

‘temper’ or ‘aggression’) that plays a parallel role in

protecting the individual. Justice in the Republic consists in having all

of the component parts (in either individual or society) being present and

working together properly.

In the wisdom of the ancient Greeks then, the ‘themos’ is the

vital third component in the human constitution, along with the mind and

the body. Without the ‘themos’, no individual is complete, and at a

social level, no society will ever achieve a true state of justice.

It is my opinion that one of the negative legacies of feminism in

Western culture has been an attempt to deny the ‘themos’, which

seems to be more strongly present in men than in women. This has been for

the most understandable of reasons – because of the excesses of male

violence. But perhaps it’s time that we realised that trying to eliminate

‘themos’ from society altogether is like trying to eliminate

spiders and snakes because we find them distasteful. We soon discover that

the created order needs all of its creatures – even those that some of us

find ugly – if it is to function properly.

My experience with a vast number of men is that they tend to be either

functioning as doormats to their wives and girlfriends, or they’re beating

up on them. This is a reflection of the same crisis in dealing with the

‘themos’. When we attempt to repress the themos’, it often spurts

out in the most horrible and destructive of forms. When we successfully

repress it, we emasculate our men, so that they’re no longer able to stand

up for anything. Ironically, of course, such modern day men are not only

unable to offer any strength to society. They’re no longer even attractive

to the women they sought to please.

The only constructive alternative is for us to reharness the

‘themos’ and channel it creatively. We need to get in touch with that

distinctive male energy – recognise it, affirm it, and then learn to bring

it under control so that it can be put to good use. Perhaps when we are

able to do this, then we will see this country produce leaders of the

calibre of Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, or Mahatma Ghandi –

strong people of principle who stand up powerfully for what they believe

in. As it is, our leaders always seem to come across as being either

‘wooses’ or criminals or both. God knows we need some real men in

this country who know what it means to love their women, to be fathers to

their children, and to serve God and their community with their

strength!

Fight training, I do believe, is a means to getting at that

‘themos’ and learning to bring it under control. When done in the

right way, fight training can help a young person to discover who they are

and can help them to bring their futures into focus. They can then come to

see their role as warriors in this society who will stand up and use their

energy to build a better community and to fight for things worth fighting

for.

What about these boys who I watched training with me tonight? Will they

go on to become ‘mighty men of God'? I don’t know. But they’re on

the right track, and they’re further ahead now than when they first

started their training..

You have just read an excerpt from '

Sex, the Ring & the Eucharist',

a book by Father Dave, the 'Fighting Father'

To see more training articles go to:

Martial Arts Articles Site

Also slightly off topic but may be of interest to some of you, here are links to my other websites. Even if you don't have an interest, you may know someone who does.

These first two are 'Lean Manufacturing'websites. (How to improve the efficiency of your business, lower costs and improve profitability - In laymans terms!)

Lean Manufacturing Main Site

Lean Manufacturing article Site

Golfing Tips article Site

Those of you who haven't taken a look at our products lately, I would really recommend the ones below. If you want to see a full review of this by an independant critic, there is one available on the site!

Lost Secret of Jujitsu E-book package

View Details of 'Death Touch Secrets'

Applied Street Combat Video clips

Be Prosperous and have a good weekend,