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Interview with Stephen Morris and FamilyMartial Arts Practitioners
Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 1999 / June 2000
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I
sat down with the Morris family and friends in the Eastern Accents
restaurant on Main Street on a Saturday afternoon in August of
1999. They had just come from their weekly class at the
nearby Asian Martial Arts Studio. I had met Erin Morris a
few days earlier at the same café, and was impressed by her energy, as
well as by the intensity of her attention or awareness of the
moment. Talking to her, I was reminded of William Blake’s
famous aphorism: “Energy is beauty.”
Still a high school student,
Erin was not only active in martial arts, but was also a cross-country
runner and horse trainer, as well as talented writer and
musician. As she recited her long list of activities, I
wondered whether her martial arts training had something to do with the
quality of her attention and energy, and this was what I set out to
discover in my interview with her and her family.
“I’m involved because I was
raised to be involved,” Erin said. “I didn’t have much
choice. But I stuck with it because I love it. My
mother was still nine months pregnant with me when she was doing her
aikido rolls in class.”
“No, no,” her mother
protested. “I was eight months pregnant when I stopped, and
I wasn’t doing the rolls.” Erin’s mother started in martial arts in
1978 with Tai Kwon Do. “She kicked butt,” Erin proclaimed
proudly. She had always been physically active, and a friend
of hers was in a class, and convinced her to start. “I met
Laura when she was already a black belt in Tai Kwon Do, and I had been
doing karate, Okinawan karate, for about a year,” Stephen
said.
I asked how they would
explain the martial arts to someone who didn’t know anything about it.
“Basically, the martial arts is something that evolved from being pure
combat-oriented self-defense technique to a method of self-improvement
and cultivation of the self, physically, mentally, and spiritually,”
Stephen replied. “Like anything, you get out of it what you
put into it. Essentially, we use the martial arts as a
mirror to examine ourselves.”
Stephen offered a brief
history of the martial arts, focusing on their development in Japan,
which had the greatest impact on molding them into the form in which
most people practice them today. “There was a big shift in
Japan from samurai times,” he explained. “All the arts that
we study were called jui jitsu forms, which means fighting
arts. What we now study as judo was originally jui
jitsu. There was a transition from the jui jitsu arts to
what became do, which is from the Chinese word Tao or the Path, using
them as a path to self-awareness and self-enlightenment. It
doesn’t have to be martial arts. In the Japanese culture you
can use anything—the tea ceremony, or calligraphy—to reach the same
goals of self-awareness.”
I was having trouble
understanding how such activities could be used as what Stephen had
referred to as a mirror. “It forces you to look at yourself
on a deeper level,” Stephen said. “When you’re doing judo or
karate, or you’re trying to improve your technique, you’re constantly
becoming aware of your failings or weaknesses. You can
either choose to not see those, pretend they don’t exist, or if you
have the correct attitude you look at them [as offering] a chance to
improve.”
“A lot of times you’ll go
through the same mistakes over and over again,” their friend offered,
“but you’ll ask yourself: ‘Why is this happening? Why is
this happening?’ And you may not get the answer right
away. But eventually it will come, and it will come in
surprising ways.” I pressed him for an
example. There was a brief silence at the table, and then
Erin spoke up. “Sometimes they’re hard to
notice. A lot of times it’s like just another step along the
way of maturing. There aren’t usually any startling
revelations that suddenly just come to you. It’s a lot more
subtle than that.”
“Instead of mechanically,
physically just trying to do it correctly,” Laura elaborated, “I’ve had
to figure out that I needed to develop a feeling and a sensitivity for
what I was doing.” Her point seemed to be that this practice
could make one aware of having to bring that same sensitivity to bear
in other aspects of one’s life.
“At the higher level of
competence in all the martial arts, they tend to have the same goals,”
Stephen said. A good martial artist, whether they’re in
judo, aikido, or kung fu, once they reach a certain level, they have
certain abilities in terms of being able to move and
balance. But each of the martial arts has their own
specialties and their own points of departure in how they reach those
goals. In karate, in the beginning, we focus very much on
linear power and force—kicking and punching in straight
lines. In aikido, we focus on circular motion, redirecting
that linear force, moving in circles, and spherical
motions. But also, in a way, aikido needs to have force in
linear fashion, and karate needs to flow in a circle, as
well. So they start from seemingly contrary positions, but
at the higher levels they blend all these principles together.”
I asked if there was a single
spiritual principle that was at the heart of martial
arts. “The Japanese tradition of martial arts drawn heavily
on Zen Buddhism,” Stephen explained. The qualities of inner
reflection are very important, spiritually as well as
physically. If you want to improve yourself, you have to be
able to look at yourself honestly. The whole idea that it’s
an individual quest is opposed to a Western monotheistic religion that
puts God up here, and you’re always trying to please
God. The Buddhist tradition is that divinity is within you,
and you’re trying to discover it.”
I commented on the sense of
energy and balance that I felt they all possessed. “That’s
one of the things that you really work to achieve,” Erin
replied. In the ancient times, back in Japan, you’d spend so
many hours per day training in martial arts and then you’d have to
learn to balance it with the rest of your life, with outside chores,
and family. The whole thing is about achieving an inner
balance within yourself that helps you to cope with that life outside
the dojo.”
I observed that there were
other spiritual groups that use contemplation techniques for the same
purpose. “Can the martial arts be likened to a contemplation
technique?” I inquired. “Absolutely,” Stephen
said. “The kata forms that we practice are really, at the
highest level, considered moving meditations.”
I thanked the family for the
interview, and decided to follow it up with a visit to the Asian
Martial Arts studio, which was just a couple of doors
down. I asked to speak to a representative of the studio,
but was told he was out. I left my name and number, and
called back several times, but never succeeded in getting an
appointment. Various other affairs came up, and I didn’t get
a chance to complete the article I had planned.
 Ten
months went by. It was now June 2000. I like to
finish things that I start, and the uncompleted article was nagging at
me. I decided to visit the Asian Martial Arts studio
again. The studio was virtually empty when I
arrived. The place had an immense parquet floor that shined
as if just cleaned and polished, and there were several large, framed
plaques with Chinese calligraphy on the walls. No amount of
cleanliness, however, could mask the very palpable odor of
sweat. A young black man in a sweat-soaked T-shirt greeted
me, and smiled broadly as he looked directly into my eyes and pumped my
hand vigorously. After I explained my purpose, he handed me
off to another young man who was equally friendly.
“I’d like to do a brief
interview with a representative of the studio and take a few pictures,”
I said.
“Let me just check on that
for you,” he replied. He disappeared and came back in only a
few seconds. “I don’t wish to appear rude,” he said, “but we
can’t grant you an interview at this time.”
“Not at this time? How about later?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” he shook his head.
“I don’t think you
understand. I would submit the article to you beforehand…”
The young man seemed
discomfited. “Perhaps if you submitted a formal request,
along with a business card…”
I told him I would do so,
left, and returned within an hour with a typed letter and
card. This time, there were a number of people milling
around the entrance to the studio. A very tall, beefy young
man with a short ponytail stepped in front of me.
“Who are you looking for?” he demanded.
“The young man I was talking
to earlier,” I replied nonchalantly, refusing to react to his
intimidating demeanor.
“What did he look like?” Again, I was struck by the belligerent tone.
“Well, he was short…and
friendly…” I stalled, looking around the hall. Eventually, I
spotted him. “There he is!” I exclaimed. As I
started chatting with the young man I had spoken to earlier, the giant
skulked away. I left the letter and card, and he promised to
call me back by the next day. The call came only a few hours
later, however, and again the response was negative.
“I’m sorry,” the young man
said, over the phone. “The director will not allow any
interviews or pictures.”
“But I’m prepared to write a
very flattering article,” I protested. “Perhaps if I speak
with the director, personally…”
“That’s not possible.”
“Can you even tell me the director’s name?”
There was silence on the
other end of the line. “The mysterious director must be a
megalomaniac,” I thought to myself. A wave of anger washed
over me.
“You said earlier that you
didn’t wish to appear rude,” I told the young man. “But this
really is rude. There must be something wrong with this
director of yours.”
I hung up, amazed at the
feeling the call had generated in me, and determined not to drop the
matter. I thought of Stephen Morris, and decided to call him
to see if he had any pull with the director. There were four
people in the phone book with that name, so I decided to ring them up
one by one. I was lucky on the first call. A
young woman, whom I suspected was Erin, answered the phone.
“Is this the home of Stephen and Laura Morris?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Are either of them in?”
“No.”
“Whom am I speaking to?” I inquired.
There was some hesitation on the line. “This is Erin.”
“Oh, hi,” I
said. “I don’t know if you remember, but I interviewed your
family last August…”
“Oh, god, yes,” she sounded surprised.
I explained to her my recent
experience at the dojo. “I don’t understand it,” I told
her. “I’m so impressed with most of the people that are
connected with that place. They seem very spiritually
aware. You can’t help notice the light in their
eyes. And yet there are a few that come off as total
jerks! That director—I haven’t even met him, but…”
“Yes,” she replied. “He’s a very unpleasant man. That’s partly why our family left that particular dojo.”
“You don’t go there any more?”
“No. At the moment, we just attend classes at the ‘Y’.”
I was intrigued by this
development, called back later in the evening, spoke to Stephen, and
arranged to meet him at the ‘Y’ the following weekend. When
we sat down, he took up his explanation of the martial arts where he
had left off.
“When you think about the
martial arts,” he began, “there’s a dialectic involved. In
the traditional martial arts, they speak of a specific martial art as
being either external or internal. An external martial art
is more focused on linear power. A classic external martial
art would be karate, where you kick and punch and develop power in a
straight line. Judo and kung fu are also considered external
martial arts. The more sophisticated the art gets, the more
circular the motion becomes. Typically, in Asia, a student
would start with an external martial art. It’s very good for
learning about power and balance, and it’s good for physical
fitness. And then, if students were serious and continued
with martial arts, they would begin to learn more of the internal
martial arts, which have to do with circularity and redirecting
power. Rather than generating your own power, you’re
learning to redirect an opponent’s power back against
them. Classic internal martial arts would be aikido in Japan
and tai chi in China. These are both very circular in
nature, very defensive.”
“It’s
funny,” I replied. “There was a question that I wanted to
ask, but you may already have answered it, in a way. I’m
interested in what extent the martial arts are a spiritual
discipline. In our previous conversation, we agreed that
anything could be a spiritual exercise, even doing an
interview. Still, there is an aspect to the martial arts
that is almost like a spiritual path, but there is another aspect that
is more like a sport. This is one way that the dichotomy you
mention is immediately evident to me. And then what struck
me just recently was my visit to the martial arts studio. I
met some people there who had such an amazing presence, it just bowled
me over. These were very spiritually charged
people. But there were also a couple of people who were just
skulking around like bouncers in a strip club. They just
gave off a completely different vibration, if you understand what I
mean. It seems to me that this reflects another aspect of
this dichotomy. It’s the same thing with any spiritual
path. There are all sorts of people who join for all sorts
of reasons. Not everyone is really going through the same
process or getting the same thing out of it.”
“You’re absolutely right,”
Stephen agreed. “That’s the other aspect to this
external/internal dichotomy. Why do people
train? Some people train in the martial arts for external
rewards. They want to win a competition. They
want to get their black belt. They want to reach a certain
level of validation. They want physical fitness so they can
feel powerful. And then there are people who train for
internal rewards. Every day that I go on the judo mat, it’s
true that I’m contesting with other people, but my real opponent is
myself. I’m striving to improve my own technique every day,
regardless of where I am in comparison to other people.”
“So, it seems to me that if a
person were oriented more toward the external rewards, there is a point
at which they do become very powerful, but powerful for themselves
alone.”
“Absolutely. And
that’s sort of the dark side of the dark side of the martial
arts. That power, without control, is very dangerous.”
“Right. But I’ve
found that it’s just as true of a spiritual path that doesn’t involve
physical training. You’ll find that there are people who are
in it to gain power for themselves, in a very subtle way.”
“It’s like being a
businessman without any ethics,” Stephen observed. He
shouldered his gym bag, clapped me on the shoulder, and departed, while
I gathered up my own equipment. |
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Date Submitted:
7/17/01 |
Copyright Information:
Copyright © The Spiritual Traveler, 2001 |
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