Involuntary Meditation

Have you ever been driving in your car and starting thinking about something then suddenly realize that your at your destination but have no idea how you got there? Im sure we have all done this at some point. I know I have many times. You pull up in your driveway and think, "Man, what did I just do?". You don't remember making your turns, shifting gears or anything. You just slipped away for a serious day dream. In any case, you made it and you made it safe. You may have also exprienced this phenonminon during other activities in your life. I like to call it "involuntary meditation".

What is meditation?

Meditation is not the ability to completely clear your mind and think of nothing but the ability to focus your mind completly on one thing or thought. When we think of meditation we often think of people sitting down, breathing and going off into lalaland. I am not discrediting the benifits of doing such a thing but I believe that true meditation is more active. The samurai spoke alot about a state of mind known as "mushin" or "no mind". This is the highest accomplishment of a martial artist or warrior. The ability to exclude all thought and allow your body to attack/reflect all on it's own. Another term for this state of mind that you may be more familiar with in the jiu-jitsu world is "auto pilot", as Rickson Gracie has stated. To me this is the most pure form of meditation, letting your body guide your mind instead of your mind guiding your body and better yet, to do it without trying. This is where I get the term involuntary meditation. Like the example of driving, you do it without thinking about it. You do it involuntarily. The driving example is agreat example of mushin because the whole time you are in that state of serious reflection, you are still driving. Chances are, you are driving better than usual.

Involuntary Meditation and Jiu-Jitsu

When jiu-jitsu is trained properly, this is actually a common accurance. It does,however, take a while to get to a point where can experience this. In order to experiece this involuntary meditation you must first

1. Have enough techniques to cover all the basis.
2. Have good timing with your techniqes.
3. Be able to effectively link those techniqes together.
4. Feel comfortable in every situation.
5. Be able to stay completely relaxed.

Bruce Lee has been quoted saying, "Having no technique as technique." or "Having no way as way.". In order to apply such a principle you must first be exposed to many techniques. Not only do you need to be exposed to them but you need to have completely ingrained them. They must be part of you. To have no techniques is to first have all techniques. All meaning alot. To have no way you must first have many ways. It is a training process. You can not teach yourself to be mindless. Mindlessness comes through rigorous training and just happens. Once again, it is involuntary. There will come a time in jiu-jitsu when you are grappling and you submit your partner but have no idea how it happened. You can sit back and review the process in your mind to learn from but in the moment you were of "no mind". To clarify "no mind" we have to remember that it doesn't mean absolutly no mind. What it means is that you are so focused on one thing that every thing else is gone. In the case of grappling, you are so focused on your sense of touch and and movement that nothing else is required.

How can you achieve this?

The five points made above are the most important. You must always practice with those five points in mind. Let me expound just a little more on the five points. This time I am going to re-list the five points as steps.

1. Build a solid foundation of basic principles and techniques. "Core Techiques"
2. Drill individual techniqes in very specific situations. It is important to teach your body what the right situation is to use certain techniques.
3. Start drilling the techniques together. Instead of drilling one technique, drill two at the same time and see which moves tend to work best together. Be as creative as you wish.
4. Put yourself in bad situations or positions your less comfortable with. Just practice defending the position. Stay calm and let whatever happens, happen. Do this enough and you will be comfortable there and then be able to escape much easier.
5. Steps 1-4 allow for you to truly relax. The sooner you practice this the better though. When you grapple, make it your only priority to relax. Don't worry about what happens. Only worry about whether or not your relaxed.

If you practice focused on these 5 points in mind, your day will come. You can't force yourself to enter into involuntary meditation while you grapple, it happens all on its own. When it happens, you have just reached one of the greatest aspects of jiu-jitsu. You wll begin to see the true beauty of the gentle art!