In ancient Greece, physical exercise, including combattives, was seen as an integral part of learning. The same can be said of many 'Eastern' philosophies.

Has anyone here been lead to studying a philosophy after learning a fighting style, or visa versa?

Not exactly. I have a black belt in Aikido. I found that the learning process in a martial art brings many of the basic questions of philosophy to the front of one's experience. It is very odd experience and difficult to explain.

DC
http://www.digitalchicken.net

I was always inamored with Eastern philosophy and martial arts, even as a child. I had a hopeless crush on Bruce Lee fro about the age 6 on. In college I took some course in Far East Asian Art history and South East Asian History. I have studied Tai Chi, briefly engaged in Choi La Fut Kung Fu, as well as studied Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, Kick boxing and yoga. I started studying the Eastern Philosophies about the same time I began Tai Chi. Over time I became more interested in the philosophies and my studies in the martial arts became more intense as well.

My martial arts training somehow helped me understand those philosophies better, although (as DC has said) it's difficult to describe why that happened. It seemed it happened with such fluidity and gradualness that I cannot choose a distinct point in which the understanding occured.

I have not been able to take classes in a while and I sorely miss it. The mind/body/spirit connection is very important to the martial arts student. It is when these things are out of balance that ones character suffers. Exercising strengthens the body, as well as the mind and a strong mind and body develop a strong spirit!
Brighid

I did 4 martial arts. 5 if you count the month of Judo.

I tended to focus on Hybrid forms of Karate, and some classic, but I did kickboxing too. Whilst Kickboxing and ordinary Karate don't go much into the philosophy, the Hybrids tended to.

BTW anybody recognise this as a specific style? Fight. 1 Meg flash download.

EAGLE CLAW!!

That cartoon reminds me so much of making cartoons in the margins of my textbooks in school.

where can I see more of those things?


--Dave