In the past I have struggled to explain my philosophy to students and other people that may have some vague interest in what I'm up to on my country retreat. They can't grasp how one minute I'm talking about yoga, which they deem to be a peacful non-violent pursuit and then in the next breath I'm talking about choking someone out within my Jiu-jitsu practice.

 

I try to help them to understand by reffering them to obscure (as far as they're concerned) books of classical India or martial arts manuals. I tell them to read "this" part of the Torah or "that" part of the Rig Veda. I ask them to compare Arjuna's experience with God to Jacob wrestling with the angel.  I mean, I'm normally talking about some pretty far out stuff... Magik (that's right, with a "k") and mysticism... while promoting movement, yoga, martial arts and combat as a way of understanding the universe and its mysteries in depth.

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All this rarely works so I try to come at it from a historical point of view... but I ain't no historian. And even if I were, there's so many versions of the historically relevant moments that I'm trying to reference that I get lost in research and different takes on... oh... the Indus Valley conquest by the Aryans. Or the creation of Vinyasa yoga vs meditation.

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We're talking about things that occurred thousands of years ago. There's people that devote their lives to this research and even they haven't got to the bottom of it. So I decided it doesn't really matter. I am always reading and continuing to learn but I have created a pretty strong image of how I think these practices evolved and why. And so I have composed a series of short stories that I hope explain my position on all these things... or at least make a good start. They are not pretending to be historically "accurate" (whatever that means in this context anyway) They simply serve as a tool... like all fiction, to help us evolve our ideas and understanding.

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I hope they help.

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1ST STORY COMING SOON.