Stated as simply as possible, my artistic objective is to explore my true human potential, the biological being I was born as, the member of an ecological community I remain... rather than accepting the stories, roles, and limitations ascribed to me by the dominant and globalizing culture, which tells its members that they are separate from and above nature. When I look at other animals, I see that they all train joyfully in skills of evasion, predation, deception, and combat. For example, I'll submit for your amusement this video of coyote puppies who I encountered today, about ten minutes walk from my house. Observe how they engage one another in quick little sparring sessions, how they practice charging and retreating, and grappling from both top and bottom. When no partner is immediately on the scene, one of the pups even makes use of a tuft of grass, to serve as a make-shift enemy. Note how intimate they are, and always playful, never malicious. This is how animals who aren't corrupted by industrial cultures and religions train in the skills necessary to survive dangers and thrive among the living. In my eyes, they and other animals can show us the way, and certainly I am trying to learn from them. They have no politics. Their minds are present in the life system
Friday, June 27, 2014
Lessons From Coyote Pups
Stated as simply as possible, my artistic objective is to explore my true human potential, the biological being I was born as, the member of an ecological community I remain... rather than accepting the stories, roles, and limitations ascribed to me by the dominant and globalizing culture, which tells its members that they are separate from and above nature. When I look at other animals, I see that they all train joyfully in skills of evasion, predation, deception, and combat. For example, I'll submit for your amusement this video of coyote puppies who I encountered today, about ten minutes walk from my house. Observe how they engage one another in quick little sparring sessions, how they practice charging and retreating, and grappling from both top and bottom. When no partner is immediately on the scene, one of the pups even makes use of a tuft of grass, to serve as a make-shift enemy. Note how intimate they are, and always playful, never malicious. This is how animals who aren't corrupted by industrial cultures and religions train in the skills necessary to survive dangers and thrive among the living. In my eyes, they and other animals can show us the way, and certainly I am trying to learn from them. They have no politics. Their minds are present in the life system
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Excellent post, very well said. I very much look forward to seeing more of your posts on this blog, I miss seeing them. Animals are the Kings of unarmed combat expression, if we truly wish to develop into great Martial Artists, we must learn from the animals and then go above and beyond, not below. There is playful safe sparring and then there is the time when an animal will have to fight till the death or retreat to prevent his own death. If people are interested in real survival training, they need to study animals, the Chinese knew this, that is why there is such a thing called the Animal Styles of Kung Fu.
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