I have long been peeking at Crazy Monkey Defence, as any faithful reader of this blog will know. I am attracted to CMD as a martial system not only due to it’s effectiveness but mostly due to its philosophy. The founder of CMD, Rodney King have just posted this article on the way of the warrior and the The Warriors Path. Although I would contend that the way and the path of a warrior are inseparable, the points he makes are well made.

I especially like the stages of the warrior

Stage 1 – Conventional Slumber: Here you have to recognize and go beyond the conventional. One is required to wake up from what is seen as the traditional. Most people are seeking some kind of experience of being ‘alive’. They may feel their life is no too dissimilar to a hamster running the wheel. Their life is in other words seen as conventional and ordinary. In seeking for what is missing in their life, they need to answer a call, that will set them on an adventure.

When we talk about martial arts, you may have decided for what ever reason, that training in it, will answer or help you capture something you feel you really need in your life.

Stage 2 – Call to Adventure: Once you begin to awaken from your Conventional Slumber you now find yourself having to either choose to go towards the change you desire (Or feel forced to embrace), which will with any risk, bring about uncertainty and fear. At this point you have to decide if you will move forward or retreat to what is seen as the familiar (Go back to what is seen as Conventional Slumber).

Stage 3 – Discipline and Training: Once you are on the road of Adventure, you begin to realize that hard work lay ahead. You now have to accept teachers of various kinds. Training and lessons are hard, requiring discipline. The training, the lessons- tests you emotionally, physically, mentally, and in social settings.

At some point when you or your teacher feels your training is complete, you now want to test those skills you have learnt.

Stage 4 – Culmination of the Quest: This is where you test yourself (Or may be forced to test yourself). This is where you step up and see if you really have what it takes to do what you trained for or have been trained for. This is not necessarily the completion of the path, but it does represents a breakthrough, and will include insight and understanding about oneself.

Anyone who understands the WAY Of The Warrior would have likely progressed through Stages 1 to 4. But just because you are on the PATH of the Warrior does not guarantee that it will be one that will positively inspire your life and those around you.No one is born a gang banger, a mercenary or a criminal. Even they have to awaken from what is seen in their environment as Conventional Slumber.The young teenage boy who has been born into a rough, impoverished neighborhood, realizes that if he just stays where he is at he will become a target and a victim to the gangs in his area. He awakens from his Conventional Slumber to the realization that he has to make a decision, to join or to live a life of subjugation.Joining the gang for better or for worse is the Call to Adventure. Adventures don’t have to be positive to be ‘Adventures’. Once this young man has decided to take up the Adventure, he is subjected to Training and Discipline. He is taught the way of the gang. How to be a gang member.Finally he has to put all that he has learnt into practice. He is required to bring his Quest to Culmination, either by stealing that car or beating, killing a rival gang member. This is his initiation into becoming a fully fledged member of the gang.
In the same way someone in the modern martial art world who seeks to compete will move through a similar path. He will answer the call, go on the adventure, be taught how to fight, and ultimately culminate the quest by fighting in the cage.

The same can be said for the mercenary and the criminal.All of these above have learnt through the Path to develop the Way. The traits necessary to use the ‘martial’ for what ever end they seek to create.But one thing separates all of the above from a true, virtues Warrior. All true Warriors after their Quest has Culminated, will Return and Contribute. In fact it is only in Returning and Contributing that he or she becomes a Warrior.

Stage 5 – Return and Contribution: The seeker, who is now the Warrior becomes the knower. In a sense the student becomes the teacher.

A Warrior returns to community. The “I” that began the Path becomes the “we.” The return shifts the individual, the Warrior from merely taking to contributing. Proceeding from this their is a loss of egocentricity. The Warrior unlike the others, the mercenary, the gang banger, the criminal, and the competitive martial artist who fights merely for his own ego, for his own glory- the Warrior brings back what he or she had learnt on the Path to POSITIVELY uplift those in his community (Or his gym).

The realization is that the journey was never about the Warrior, it was never about ‘him’, but had always been about the “we”. It was always about connection and contribution to something greater than himself. As Tick pointed out earlier, “[The] warrior [becomes] devoted to causes he judges to be more important than himself or any personal relationships or gain.”

This fits nicely into Ranger-Warrior-King that John Eldredge paints in “Fathered by God”.


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