Subject: Friend, Know Your Enemy--Know Yourself

ISSUE #307   GUIDED CHAOS NEWS     Endorsements
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KNOW YOUR ENEMY--KNOW YOURSELF
The Required Mindset for Continual Advancement and the Proper Context for Viewing Adversaries
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By Yosef Susskind, GC 4th degree

The Summer Reading Series

The Summer Reading Series is a conversation between students of Guided Chaos and major texts on martial arts, close combat, and the warrior mindset. The reading list will be pulled from Colonel Al’s private collection. “Summer reading” is something we did in grade school; it doesn’t evoke images of Orde Wingate reading Plato on his way through Burma. A more appealing title might have been “The Professional Development Series,” or “Conversations with Seminal Martial Arts Texts.” In fact, both of these titles contain a mistaken assumption that can infect the way we approach the art, which will be explained below.
Our Love/Hate Relationship with the World of Martial Arts

Before we were students of Guided Chaos, we were all martial arts enthusiasts in one way or another. Something inside us gravitated to martial arts, otherwise we would never have sought out GC. Once we began understanding the principles of GC, we realized that most of the martial arts that we thought were cool, that once filled us with awe and wonder, were mostly showmanship—all “art” and no “martial.” At that moment, our relationship to the world of martial arts became one of love/hate.

We disdain the dog and pony shows of scripted demonstrations, the broken concrete parlor tricks, and the ultimate contest of two ‘bros’ fervently mounting each other to establish dominance. And yet, many of us still watch UFC; many of our youtube histories would reveal searches for all manner of martial arts videos, and many of us are still intrigued by the idea of touching hands with a Tai Chi master or one of the top Systema practitioners—just for the experience.
Principles vs Styles; Guided Chaos and the Study of Other Arts

The problem arises when students of Guided Chaos start to believe that delving into other arts will add to the sum of their Guided Chaos training. It will not. The reason is simple. Any true art or science is made up of principles, and is not merely a compilation of instances or techniques. Guided Chaos is a set of principles, and those principles are either true to physics, human physiology, and the dynamics of violence, or they are not. An encyclopedic knowledge of the techniques practiced in other arts cannot add to or take away from the principles of GC.

Students who have not cultivated a fundamental understanding of the principles think that studying other “styles” will increase their skill. They fail to see that most arts are just that: styles. They are a set of instances, of techniques and flourishes. Their teaching reveals no new principles, nor any significant refinement of old ones. Even more substantive arts are often plagued by one misconception or another, making them incongruous with real life combat (something combat martial artists are well aware of). Seeing the techniques of other arts can stimulate our martial imagination and lead to creativity; we may try out a movement or come up with ways to defeat it, but all these are mere instances, and subservient to the principles.
Guided Chaos and Classic Martial Arts Texts

Again, the principles of Guided Chaos are either true to physics, human physiology, and the dynamics of violence, or they are not. The texts we will be covering will address the principles of warfare. We will draw parallels between the principles of our art and their explanations. Their explanations will be a useful mirror for GC students working to understand the principles of our own art. These texts will not introduce new principles. If GC was missing a fundamental principle of warfare, the art would be fundamentally flawed, and ineffective in combat.

Because these texts do not add to the principles of Guided Chaos, I merely call them “summer reading.” This is to prevent people from taking them too seriously, and believing that these or other texts contain some untold secrets that are missing from GC. We will examine the explanations and imagery that the authors use, and apply them to the principles that we contend with daily.
Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings

In the introduction to The Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi writes:

"From youth my heart has been inclined toward the Way of strategy. My first duel was when I was thirteen, I struck down a strategist of the Shinto school, one Arima Kihei. When I was sixteen I struck down an able strategist Tadashima Akiyama. When I was twenty-one I went up to the capital and met all manner of strategists, never once failing to win in many contests.

After that I went from province to province dueling with strategists of various schools, and not once failed to win even though I had as many as sixty encounters. This was between the ages of thirteen and twenty-eight or twenty-nine.

When I reached thirty I looked back on my past. The previous victories were not due to my having mastered strategy. Perhaps it was natural ability, or the order of heaven, or that other schools' strategy was inferior. After that I studied morning and evening searching for the principle, and came to realize the Way of strategy when I was fifty."


This passage speaks to the profound humility and introspection that was required of Miyamoto Musashi to gain a true understanding of the governing principles of strategy. By the time he started shaving he had made a lifestyle out of slaying prestigious swordsmen. He made a hobby of killing them in spectacular fashion, including crushing their skulls with a wooden training sword rather than meeting steel with steel. At thirty he had known nothing but victory. In his place, any one of us would have assumed that we knew all there was to know about sword fighting—which is to say we would never have begun to discover “the way of strategy.”
Searching for the Principle

Musashi realized that despite his victories, he had no deeper understanding of the principles of swordsmanship than many of the masters he killed. Without this level of insight and reflection, his growth as a martial artist would have been finished. He would have remained a simple, if talented cut-throat. It took him twenty more years, studying “morning and evening,” “searching for the principle,” to “realize the way of strategy.” In the Book of Wind, Musashi lists the misconceptions that are the warped foundation of other schools of swordsmanship. He concludes that none of them are the “true way.” If he had not spent the years between thirty and fifty discerning the principles of combat, he would have been nothing more than the best sword-swinger in a group of guys who didn’t understand what sword fighting really was.

It is essential that students of Guided Chaos develop a fundamental understanding of the principles early in their training. This knowledge will act as their guide during the countless training challenges to come (those of us who have worked to advance in the art know these challenges well). While we may grasp the fundamentals, our understanding of the art will never be complete. Anyone who thinks they understand the art in its entirety is lost in a twisting rabbit hole of delusion. There are depths upon depths to the art. I know this because Senior Master Al still gets his mind blown when he picks the Grand Master’s brain. If Al can be awed by what he doesn’t know about the art, then the art is a far deeper well than we can begin to appreciate.

The Required Mindset for Continual Development in Guided Chaos

In order to continue to advance in the art, we must be able to have our minds blown time and again, and to put the pieces back together into an increasingly nuanced whole. The moment someone thinks their conception of the art is complete, their understanding becomes ossified. No new teaching or experience can shatter their preconceptions; instead, all teaching and experience is either forced into the old mold, or disregarded. Until their mindset changes, their development in the art is done. All of their assumptions, bad habits, and idiosyncrasies, which might have been polished away with deeper development, become codified into what they think the art is. They may be able to whup ass, but they are just a sword swinger, and not a student of the way.

Let us take a lesson from Miyamoto Musashi and practice the art with deep reflection. When we realize that our understanding and mastery of the art is, and always will be, a work in progress, we can continually reform our conception of the art with greater subtlety, and practice the art with greater creativity. We must retain the ability to have our minds blown.

Victory without Principle; The Young Miyamoto Musashi

Since the victories of Musashi’s youth cannot be attributed to understanding the principles of combat, he must attribute them to natural ability, the order of heaven (forces which he has no knowledge of and no control over—what we would call “luck”), or that his enemies were trained in the wrong strategy. As students of Guided Chaos, we are beneficiaries Grand Master John’s experience and reflection, and are trained in the principles of combat. We can and must trust the principles to see us through the moment of truth. I do not fear the mistaken teachings of other schools. I do not fear my enemy’s supposed accomplishments, or whatever story he tells that makes him a badass. That being said, I recognize that regardless of my enemy’s knowledge of principle, I may be contending with the young Miyamoto Musashi.
The Virtues of My Enemies

I never discount my enemy’s natural ability. The principles of Guided Chaos are a measure against those of greater natural ability, and thus they implicitly recognize that natural ability—size, strength, speed, dexterity, and a taste for blood—cannot be discounted. Miyamoto Musashi was uncommonly large in medieval Japan, and uncommonly strong. He wielded two swords as easily as his own two hands. An enemy like that must be treated as an existential threat, regardless of their training.

I never discount that luck is a factor, meaning that given the right circumstances, anyone can kill anyone—especially when they mean to kill. An untrained enemy can still do the right thing. They may do it out of sheer instinct, or simply by accident. My enemy may get lucky. I may get unlucky. If I catch a flying bottle to the back of the head, or get shot through the eye socket with a .22 short, if my knee goes out or I get pushed into my own blade, that’s the “order of heaven,” and I have to deal with it. Thus any enemy is an existential threat. While I do not fear the black belts on his wall, the medals on his chest, or the felonies on his rap sheet, I never forget that my enemy can kill me.

The last reason Musashi proposes for the death of his rivals is inferior strategy. If I have greater mastery of the principles of combat than my enemy, I will likely kill him. The moment I deviate from those principles, I will be consumed by them. If I am off my game, whatever the reason, even for an instant, my enemy may seize on it and kill me. Thus any enemy can kill me if I am not ‘on my game.’

This brings us back to the subject of other martial arts. Like Musashi’s Book of Wind, we assert that many schools suffer from fundamental misconceptions. This is not to say that their students cannot be dangerous individuals, with enough natural ability to make their techniques work, especially on less talented opponents. Like Musashi’s early duels, their victories are not the result of principle. We reject their strategy, without forgetting that they can be dangerous—if they are gifted, if they get lucky, or if we deviate from the principles.
In Conclusion

We have addressed two elements of the proper mindset for GC students through the lens of Musashi’s introductory passage—one point on how we approach our art, and one point on how we view our enemies. Firstly, in order to continually develop in the art, we must never believe that our understanding of the principles is complete, so that we remain open to having ‘our minds blown.’ Secondly, we must never buy in to our enemy’s backstory. No matter what their training or experience, the principles of combat remain the same. At the same time, we never forget that anyone can kill anyone, so anyone who means to hurt us is an existential threat. This concludes the first entry in our Summer Reading Series.

Copyright 6/23/2017
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