BE FORMLESS

Once a great man said: "Be like water, my friend..." in the case of a Teacher or of a Leader, we can never preconceive any ideas until we are sure to have listened to your team, to your staff, to all the intervenient that can give a good input on your choices. But then, we must BE OURSELVES... people that try to be someone else, can´t maintain a different persona for long.

That’s why we must be water. If we have to flow, we flow, we continue with whatever obstacle we find and BECOME the way, BECOME the route to overcome the obstacles and the problems… but if we must crash, we will have to crash and bring it down with force.

Whenever I talk about Martial Arts, most people ask me about which Dan and which Belt was I in. And this happens especially about Karaté. Most of these people unknowing that in Capoeira there’s also different cords (not a bet, but cords with different colors to show your level), in KravMaga there´s the school symbol with different colors, and so on. This is to say, that in each Martial Art there’s a differential between the level of the student or of the master.

In my life, I never had been interested in achieving the top of any martial art. Never had the dream of culminating any of the many, many, many interests I’ve came across. Why? I got bored too soon, I try to live the most of the things I try, I concentrate in absolving as much as possible almost in a sick kind of way… I breath, I eat, I dream of that thing, until it comes repetitive over and over and over again, so I understand there´s nothing new to give me… just consistency. Doing the same thing someone invented a millennium ago, was not my objective, though I respect the effort it takes to evolve in Karate and in other Martial Arts that live that way.

In Martial Arts and in most things in life, if you want to be THE BEST, or if you aspire, or need to be THE BEST, you need consistency. You need the have a plan. You need to maintain your objective, your goal and never back down. The objective must be so powerful in your life, so overwhelming that will give you strength to continue and to prevail. Personally, I never found one. Never found something so gigantic inside of me that would erase all else.

Which was what most of times, happened to me. I loved Karate, until the day I was in a Karaté match with someone better than me. He won. I saw my mistakes, and got to the conclusion that there was no way for me to get better at that point. I got unsecure/unsure with my knowledge about Self Defence. One touch was one Ippon. I could take that Ippon and continue fighing… which was strange. It’s very difficult to take down someone, with one touch like that. So I tried Capoeira (the only Martial Art I got my hands on, in such short notice…).

Capoeira brought me another difficulty. In my opinion too much equilibrium was at stake, if you fell down once, you had a problem. And you had to be physically fit all the time. And training a lot, and having a group of friend, and so on.

Then came MuayThai and Boxe (same teacher in both classes), in Gracie Barra Lisbon. This kept my interest for over 2 years, not because I was learning new things, but because it was fun to hit that hard and good for letting out steam and stress. Now we had a hard hitting, hard defending, stable stance style that could make me feel somewhat secure about how to defense myself without putting me in more harm’s way. But still, it was made for ring fighting, not street, not everyday problems, but great fun and great challenge.

That was when Krav Maga came to action. My favorite for over a year, and made great friends specialized in Krav Maga… It had it all: hard hitting, hard defending, sometimes simultaneously… great stance, great equilibrium, great common sense… in MY opinion the BEST way to feel secure in the streets.

NOW I’m doing my first steps in a newer style/method of Personal Defence… KEISY. Not a style for military situations, nor security… I´m not going to talk about it right now, not my objective at the moment. My idea is to concentrate the effort on having NO SHAPE.

IT’s very difficult to live this philosophy. I’m having difficulties myself… the shapes of “my kind of professional work” or “the best type of teacher” or “what is expected”, is a very difficult obstacle to FLOW with.  

I shall try to talk more about the way Martial Arts and Professional Life can conciliate one with another... philosophically speaking.