About Martial Art of Self
The Martial Art of Self is a martial arts self-awareness podcast and blog journey.
In essence, the Martial Art of Self, doesn’t necessarily have to do with fighting or self-defense. Martial Arts in itself is something that works well for me, that supports me well – a supplementary tool in this ‘greater journey’ which is the Journey to Self: Realizing who I am, what more I can become, and learning what it means to live.
A part of the Martial Art of Self process is investigating and re-defining the system and principles of martial arts, and bringing it back to (my)Self. I use martial arts to understand and expand myself as a being, as an individual.
In this personal journey, I am re-defining what has mostly become Martial Arts for me in my mind and bringing it back to (my)Self – seeing where and how I can apply the essence of it into everyday moments and things in life.
Everything that I share through the Martial Art of Self reflects my personal journey and in no way shows or is to be associated with being an expert or knowing everything that there is to know about Martial Arts or Life in general. This is not even the purpose of this process. It is, after all, the Journey to Self.
I like to think of it as the art of the martial self, a training of the warrior-within to become skilled, and trained in how to continuously become a better version of myself.
After all, I find the best starting point in life is to assume you know nothing and that there is always something to learn and expand on. From personal experience, I have come to see and understand that life is unimaginably vast and more than we can think of and conceptualize through our minds alone.
The Martial Art of Self is about Self primarily – not about Martial Arts as an external application, a status symbol or external manifestation. Yet, this definition and description of the Martial Art of Self as it stands now may be subject to change in the future as my journey unfolds. After all, this is a journey of and for Self and that is unique for each one of us and so it evolves as the self evolves.
About Me
Ever since I was 4 years old, I have been kicking, punching, and copying moves I saw in martial arts movies.
At 12, I started to develop a higher interest in Tae Kwon Do, and later on Jeet Kune Do. As for many, Bruce Lee became my idol – I must have watched all his movies, and documentaries a hundred times. I studied his work for countless hours.
By 18 I started to train in Muay Thai, and as of 2017, I am practicing the art of WCS by DK Yoo.
It was the year of 2017 that things started to become more concrete and clear for me. Martial Arts has always been about expressing myself, and not just being a combative art. Even though I would from time to time unconsciously steer away from that initial starting point of self-expression, eventually I would bring myself back to it again.
I’ve always had the feeling that martial arts are more than just the fighting, exercising, the building of strength, muscle, power and external bodily properties. But I didn’t know what to do with that feeling at the time, and as of late it has become more vivid on how to move forward with this feeling/realization.
So, the journey actually started many years ago for me but has only become more practical and real as of late. I created the Martial Arts of Self project to be a martial arts self-awareness podcast and blog journey through which I document and share my findings, realizations, and changes that come from but also contribute to my self-awareness journey.
I am excited where my journey and process will take me, even though I know that there is going to be ups and downs, challenges and successes – I have faith in myself – as we all should have – that I will find the ways and push myself when required to make the best of my journey.
This is not a pre-made journey. Rather it is unfolding as I walk it and co-create the path of it.
