Path of the Spiritual Warrior:
-Karma of Ring Fighting-
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The following is an excerpt from Lindsey Wei‘s forthcoming book ’Path of the Spiritual Warrior: Life and Teachings of Muay Thai Fighter Pedro Solana‘ to be published by Purple Cloud Press very soon:
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I asked Kru in conversation one day, “Does anger come out in the ring? Does it help?”
He responded, “Either anger or fear will come out. But the whole purpose is to fight without anger or fear. If you cannot analyze it, become aware of it and control it, then it will limit you.”
He thinks further, “Maybe sometimes you can hit someone really hard with this, but overall I do not recommend it. In the ring when you are fighting, anger will come or fear will come. To try to stay neutral is the whole purpose, to fight without anger and without fear, to accept the result and be as aware as you can. Before entering the ring be able to deal with yourself and be conscious of all the emotions happening. That’s really an important part. The results, truly, I didn’t care. My priority was not to fight but to experience myself on a deeper level, that was the whole point.”
“I think it is valuable for a fighter to face this type of pressure.” Kru says, “I stopped a long time ago, in 2007 or 2008. I remember one of my Thai students was fighting and I was putting the gloves on him and in that precise moment I wanted to vomit. I thought to myself… maybe this means something bad. The next week, one Canadian student was fighting, the exact same thing happened. I was putting the gloves on and felt the vomit coming, I looked at him and said… this will be the last time I bring someone to the ring. I thought to myself, I don’t need this to happen a third time. That was it. It was no longer needed. Maybe in the future I would bring someone else but this person would need to be special. They would need the experience to overcome certain things, I won’t take anyone as I was doing before.”
He paused and thought before speaking, “In fighting, there is karma involved. I don’t want to come into this karma very much. I realized that it is something that when you become involved with it, it will hunt you and I sensed that being involved in fighting all the time, it will affect your life in one way or another. I didn’t want to be part of bringing people to destroy themselves unless they are ready. When I say they are ready, of course skills and endurance, but understanding themselves and why they are fighting. They must be mature inside, not just a person who has a lot of power and is aggressive and wants to fight, I don’t want to be part of that.”
“Most young people are full of power and looking to prove themselves and have an experience. Perhaps they are too young, not mature enough to realize this. It’s kind of contradictory because on one side I’m teaching full power Muay Thai hitting each other and on the other side I’m teaching about love and compassion and they are two opposite directions. For awhile I was going to stop martial arts, but I felt that actually I can use these skills to lead people from self destruction into self development.
