Geoff Thompson: Writer – Teacher – Martial artist

A man once spent an hour bragging to me of his fighting prowess, how he held an eighth dan in karate, a sixth dan in Ju-jitsu and a fourth dan in some other exotic style of martial art that I had never heard of. He had the trophies on every shelf, lapels lined with worthy medals, and belts (of the black variety), well, he had them hanging from every pair of gi pants he owned.

I have many times found myself in such company, listening to tall-tale telling (how fast their style is, how technical, how awesomely powerful) and hearing of ‘unique fighting systems’ and ‘devastating new styles’ which (invariably) are hailed as the only ‘real’ art, with the added assumption (or shold I say accusation) that everyone else (but them) has got it wrong – oh, so wrong.

Invariably, after suffering a short assault, I find myself thinking, ‘Yes, you’ve got the paperwork, but can you have a fight? Outside the chip shop on a weekend, can you have it? Can you take what you have learned in the controlled arena and make it work for you in real life?’

They know the talk, the jargon, and they can demonstrate the demonstration, but none of it means shit if you can’t make it work outside the chippy on a Friday night.

Now I am not the highest-ranking martial artist in the world, and I have no doubt that there are people out there right now that could talk me under the table when it comes to technique and lineage. But let me tell you, when it comes to real combat I have been around a few corners. And the things I have learned from my very rich experience I can definitely and categorically make work for me against the Neanderthal that wants to try and flatten the world with my head (if not all of the time, certainly the majority of the time).

The late (great) Bruce Lee felt that many arts had become so ‘crammed and distorted’ by their own dogma, so self-important about their superiority over other arts, so caught up with their own classical mess that they had forgotten their purpose. People focused so much on demonstrating the superiority of their art over others that their art became superior to others, but only in demonstration.

Everything comes through the physical. No one gets to peak Everest without first going through base camp. So, if the art is authentic, it will bring its practitioners higher consciousness, but only through harder contact. If the art is synthetic, then higher consciousness will be replaced by higher ego, developed through hardly any contact at all.

Certainly not any contact with reality.

Knowing twenty systems and taking weekend courses with popular gurus does not a warrior make.

You can always tell warriors. They don’t reveal themselves in their saying, rather they reveal themselves in their being.

Being a pragmatist I notice these things.

And lately I have noticed it again. This time in the world of spirituality.

It would seem that a new classical mess has been born.

I recently listened to a podcast conversation between two of the world’s top spiritual gurus. Two men that, actually, I greatly admire. They were talking about the nature of consciousness and God and the spiritual development of the species throughout the ages. The conversation was esoteric but quite nice. In fact, these two men were wonderful together, mutually appreciative and obviously very well-versed in all things celestial. They talked about (and complemented) each other’s work, what they disliked about the work of other people whose work contradicted their own and how they found it difficult to comprehend why many so-called learned men and women had apparently learned so little.

Much of their dialogue was in the language of eastern religion, the language of academia or simply the language of their own categorised school of thought so not everything they said was crystal. But what was clear and what I did then (and what caused me to abort the listening early) was this; these two spiritual behemoths talked an awful lot about the superiority of their own development (or the development of their system) and an awful lot more about how underdeveloped so many other systems were. They talked very little about God, or about how to make God a practical part of your everyday life. They also delighted in being acknowledged by one-half of the current crop of flavour-of-the-month gurus whilst simultaneously being angered at the criticism accorded them by the other half.

I was only five minutes into the conversation when I started to get that uncomfortable feeling in my gut (isn’t there an important charka there somewhere?) that told me I was back in familiar territory, that I had heard all of this before, in the higher (middle and lower) echelons of martial arts. Perhaps I had already learned all I needed to learn from these two lovely, learned characters. It was right back to belts and grades and accolades and… well, you know the story. So I wondered if (actually, I was sure that) I was listening to the wrong people. I mean, do we really care and do we really need to care about names and labels, about grades and accolades, about being recognised or about being dismissed?

I only ask this because I have often found myself chasing similar impostors, only to be disappointed when below the façade of gold feet, I found brass.

I do not claim to be free from ego (this article would not exist if there was no ego), and certainly I am no expert in technical and terminological religious dogma, but let me tell you, when it comes to the life lived, I have some time behind the wheel. And the things that I have learned from my very rich experience I can definitely and categorically make work for me when I am at my weakest and need to be at my strongest.

So when the conversation becomes foreign with terminology and the words are religiously verbose and the teachers don their parade medals, I neither spin nor toil, because whilst I certainly do not understand much, I understand enough to feel God. In that place of feeling, the world of academe, and the world of honours and acknowledgment, shrinks into insignificance.

I am not the highest-ranking spiritual aspirant in the world, and I have no doubt that there are people out there right now that could talk me under the table when it comes to the technical and the academic. But let me repeat, when it comes to the grist, I have felt God. I have felt Him. And the things that I learned from my moments of clarity I can definitely and categorically make work for me out side the chip shop of life, if not all of the time, certainly most of the time.

Be well.

Geoff Thompson