By C.S. Thompson

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I have been practicing combative arts for more than a decade, beginning with a Japanese stick-fighting art, followed by modern foil fencing and, for the past nine years, historical European swordsmanship. Ten years is not a lot of time in terms of the traditional martial arts, but it is perhaps long enough to have a taste. I have also been composing poetry for twenty-two years now- not the confessional free verse most people associate with the word, but the rhymed and metered poetry of the classical tradition. As an exponent of both the art of the sword and the art of the word, I have been able to experience artistic expression in two seemingly opposite forms- one direct and sometimes severe, and the other subtle and evocative.

My life has been shaped by these arts I practice, and I've become convinced that they represent in nearly perfect form a balance of forces. This balance has been recognized and honored since ancient times, only to see its elements almost completely divorced from each other in modern society- except for the cliche of the "warrior poet."

The tradition that lies behind this cliche has a lot more to it than tacky romanticism, reflecting an ancient concept of the art of living that is just as valid now as it ever was. It isn't about learning to kill people with archaic weapons, and it isn't about the maudlin self-indulgence that makes so much poetry a thing of mockery.

It's about living beautifully and also spiritually, experiencing all of life as an expression of grace. It's about being at home in the chaos of the world, moving fluidly through its changes with dignity and humor. It's about learning to see and to say the truth, and being genuinely alive every single day.

A lot of people associate this concept with Asian philosophy, or with a stereotyped pseudo-philosophy drawn from martial arts movies and other fiction. But there's nothing uniquely Asian about the concept- it has a long pedigree in Europe as well.

Our concept of the Renaissance Man derives from the Courtier of Baldassare Castiglione, who believed the perfect gentleman should have the following qualities:

To play well at fence upon all kinds of weapons."

The Renaissance Courtier, in other words, was expected to be both a scholar and a fighter, at home with either a paintbrush or a sword in his hand. A similar list of qualities was expected of the Renaissance woman, bearing in mind the prejudices of the era. Castiglione himself was a composer of Petrarchan verse.

Sir Philip Sidney, the great Elizabethan soldier and courtier who died in combat at the Battle of Zutphen, asked the readers of his Defence of Poesy to give the art its due:

"(I)n the name of the Nine Muses, no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the reverend title of 'a rhymer;' but to believe, with Aristotle, that they were the ancient treasurers of the Grecian's divinity... to believe, with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry, which of purpose were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be abused; to believe, with Landin, that they are so beloved of the gods that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury. Lastly, to believe themselves, when they tell you they will make you immortal by their verses."

Clearly the greatest warriors of the European Renaissance saw no contradiction between the sword and the brush, and even valued the study of both as being essential to the development of a complete human being. But this ideal is much older than the Renaissance- the legendary Fianna warriors of ancient Ireland, for example, were required to master the Twelve Books of Poetry before their full initiation into that elite unit. And this idea was quite thoroughly developed in the East. The House Code of the Hojo Soun, a major military clan of the samurai era, has this to say:

In classical Chinese culture, a cultivated human being is said to be a master of the Five Excellences: poetry, music, medicine, painting, and martial art.

The notion may seem anachronistic and even bizarre in the modern world, but is that a sign that it is truly useless or that we have lost something essential to the art of living? Martial art forges the spirit and poetry expresses it, creating a balance of forces between action and contemplation, allowing us to live a complete and fulfilling life. So let us examine these complementary paths.

The qualities of a well-trained mind are the same as those of a well-forged blade: strength, flexibility and a keen edge. The advantage of all three is easily demonstrated. Life is filled with both dangers and disappointments, and anyone without strength of spirit can expect to be crushed by his circumstances. Yet those who are too strong are invariably brittle- like a blade that is too stiff, they can be broken by too much pressure. A well-forged blade is both strong and supple, capable of bending as the situation requires and yet returning to true. Our thoughts are filled with self-created illusions, images conjured up by our own fear and wishful thinking. Only a keen mind can cut through these illusions, separating truth from falsehood like the sharp edge of a tempered broadsword passing cleanly through its target.

There is a whole industry devoted to "self-help," a curious concept that presupposes that the reader is damaged, sick at heart somehow and in need of fixing before he can even hope to live a normal life. No one who has seen very much of the world is without such damage. But I prefer to start on higher ground. The goal here is not merely to become more functional, or only to live a "normal" life. It is to forge a heroic spirit, one capable of what the ancient Gaels referred to as "high deeds and humble pride."

It might seem a little quixotic to even speak in such terms in the modern world, but I’m not talking about some juvenile fantasy or role-playing. The heroic life is simply a different way of experiencing the everyday world, viewing it not through the lens of small-minded fears and ambitions but with a different goal entirely: to be the best and most fully human person you are capable of becoming. This is not just a leisure-time activity or a case of narcissistic self-indulgence; still less is it a matter of useless existential navel-gazing. The point is not to imagine that you are a mythic hero or to visualize yourself as an idealized warrior. That would only be another illusion. The point is to actually break free, to transform yourself into something greater than what you have been so far- and then to do so again. To keep doing so over and over again until the moment you die, each time achieving a deeper and more integrated understanding of both yourself and the world. The quest to become truly human and truly free can transform this world of struggle into something wonderful. As Helen Keller once said, "Life is either a great adventure or it is nothing." For many millions of people in the world today, it feels more like "nothing," a mediocre and colorless world filled with tepid disappointments and unlived dreams. How, then, can anyone disregard their own development, leaving it to the random effects of unpredictable circumstance? Most of us are not happy and never satisfied. The decision to live deliberately is the decision to be free, to embrace the great adventure instead of settling for nothing.

So how can the spirit be forged as a blade is forged, tempered into something strong and supple and sharp? There are many different ways to begin the process, but one of the best is to pursue a martial art, a physical discipline that hones the spirit through direct and practical challenges. This is philosophy in action, theory welded to practice in a unified whole. Many people practice the martial arts for self-defense, but that is only one small aspect of their purpose. Most people will have few encounters with random violence, but there are other enemies we all face every day- enemies such as despair and boredom and egoism, self-indulgence and apathy, malice and greed. "He who conquers himself, conquers an enemy," as a Gaelic proverb says.

This aspect of the martial arts has been distorted recently by commercialism. The philosophy most people associate with the martial arts is a joke, a caricature of an Asian sage mouthing enigmatic platitudes on a mist-covered mountaintop. This cartoonish image has bred a certain skepticism, an unwillingness among some martial artists to be drawn into philosophical discussion. But the association of physical and spiritual discipline is not a new one, either in the east or in the west. The philosophical academies of the ancient world were also gymnasiums, where the lessons of combative training were applied directly to daily life:

"In the gymnastic exercises suppose that a man has torn thee with his nails, and by dashing against thy head has inflicted a wound. Well, we neither show any signs of vexation, nor are we offended, nor do we suspect him afterwards as a treacherous fellow; and yet we are on our guard against him, not however as an enemy, nor yet with suspicion, but we quietly get out of his way. Something like this let thy behaviour be in all the other parts of life; let us overlook many things in those who are like antagonists in the gymnasium. For it is in our power, as I said, to get out of the way, and to have no suspicion nor hatred." (Marcus Aurelius)

Studies have shown that the psychological benefits of martial training derive primarily from the discipline of training itself, so to a certain extent it shouldn’t matter much whether you choose to examine the philosophical connections of the art you practice or not. However, I believe there is a level at which you can benefit from such an examination. After many hours of disciplined practice, giving some thought to the things you’ve learned can help you integrate them into your spirit at a deeper level. Theory without practice remains merely theoretical, and practice without theory often amounts to nothing more than physical skill. But theory and practice combined can produce transformation.

There are many different martial arts that can help with the process. Selecting a martial art involves several factors, including what sort of instruction is available in your area, the reputation and character of the local instructors, your practical needs (such as self-defense or fitness) and your body type, as well as your personal tastes and interests. I have personally found the study of swordsmanship to be most rewarding. According to Tai Chi practitioner Scott Rodell, the swordsman strives to achieve a very special state of mind: "calm and cool on the outside, as if admiring a beautiful landscape, while inwardly poised like a tiger observing prey, ready to pounce at the first opportunity." This is a perfect example of what I mean by a "balance of forces."

Of course the sword will not help you with muggings, nor with bar fights or any other directly practical purpose. As Shaolin practitioner Gene Ching wrote, the swordsmanship of today is "art for art’s sake. Modern practice is solely for the cultivation and expression of the human soul. The sword can reveal all that is noble and despicable in humanity in one well-aimed stroke."

The great Italian swordsman Aldo Nadi once said that the fencer in action is a free man.

He was talking primarily about technical freedom, the ability of a skilled combatant to do whatever he wants because he knows how and when it should be done. But the statement can also be given a wider application.

When I’m walking down the street during the day, my mind wanders. I’m very rarely just walking down the street. I’m also thinking about the phone bill and how I’m going to pay it, a conversation I had with a family member the night before, the line that would express exactly what I want to say in the story I’m writing- any one of a thousand daily things. And how many of those things are in some way heavy.

But there is no room for any of that on the fencing strip. Your opponent is front of you, and he means to hit you. You can see it in the almost visible energy that radiates from his stance, in the aggressive glittering of his eyes behind the mask. You can feel it in the broken rhythm of his advance against you. He holds a weapon in his hands, and he means to strike you with it. If you don’t want to let that happen, you must strike him first.

In the fencing bout, you are there and nowhere else. There’s no time for anything else. To disassociate is to be hit. And so the world of your thoughts and fantasies must disappear, leaving only the reality in front of you- your opponent’s blade.

It doesn’t happen overnight by any means. But it begins to grow in you over time. You start to fence as if you weren’t tied down by your illusions, as if there wasn’t anything to hope or fear but only the moment and what needs to be done in it. You start to fence as a free man.

To live.

Once you’ve tasted that exhilaration, you won’t ever want to stop. However, there is more than one way to experience this, and a martial art is not the only sort of discipline that can create it. The most important thing is simply to find a practice and devote yourself to it, allowing it to reshape you as you make it part of you. The discipline of training is a Spartan thing, or it would work no magic. Whatever discipline you train in, you must strip down to the bare essentials.

When a lot of people say that they don't like poetry, what they really mean is that they don't like bad poetry. And most poetry, after all, is bad. It's not an easy art to do well, and especially not for those attempting free verse, despite the apparent simplicity of that formless form.

Poetry is language concentrated, the essence of language- words and images boiled down until they're thick with meaning, layers of thought and emotion in every line. You don't achieve that kind of magic by just "expressing yourself," spewing out a random stream of thoughts and feelings. Like anything else worthy of being called an art, this skill must be learned. The good news is that it can be learned. In fact, it used to be taught.

Until the twentieth century it was expected of every educated person that they be able to compose a competent verse when occasion called for it, and people were taught how to do it. You can teach yourself. There's no way to teach inspiration, of course, whatever that is. The special quality of great poetry is a type of genius, a flash of insight that cannot be forced. But you can give yourself the tools to be ready for it. You can learn how to express your thoughts and feelings in potent language.

The easiest way to do this is to study the ancient tradition of formal verse. That may seem like a contradiction, because most poetry written today is in the free verse mode. But when free verse was still a revolutionary form, its adherents were all trained poets, men and women fully competent in formal verse styles, who then went on to write poetry without rhyme or meter. The free verse they created was quiet and elegant, employing sound rhythms of great subtlety. It was still poetry, though of a new kind.

Unfortunately, something happened in the decades that followed. Generations of poets were weaned on free verse, and went on to compose their own examples without any understanding of formal meters. The vast majority of it was indistinguishable from prose, though it usually lacked the clarity of good prose. They had put the cart before the horse.

Free verse is not the easiest type of poetry to write well- it's one of the hardest. It should probably not be attempted at all without a thorough grounding in traditional verse forms. Once you have learned your craft and learned it well, so that you have the ability to write decent verse in any meter, then you might be ready to write poetry without meter.

This probably sounds like an extreme statement, but ask yourself this. When was the last time that you went to a poetry reading and heard anything comparable to the great poets of the past? Anything that could move you like Blake or Wordsworth, Rilke or T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost? That may be a little unfair, because poetry of that quality is rarely found, and has always been a rare find. But have you heard anything that even sounded like the same species of creature? Poetry has been redefined to mean other than what it used to mean, no longer "the best words in the best order" but just a random catalogue of personal feelings. If you want to become a good poet, you must set the bar higher. Don't be content with mediocrity. Learn your craft.

In the early years of your practice of poetry, your primary goal will be technical skill. The first step, then, is to learn that skill, and the best way to approach it is through simple imitation. In classical Chinese poetry, it is said that a poet who studies the Three Hundred Poems of the T'ang Dynasty will need no other teacher:

Read a lot of poetry, and read only what you really like. Read as widely as possible within the range of what you really like- which will expand over time. When you want to compose a poem, select a poem you like and copy its meter. You don't need to know what that meter is called, or anything about its official rules. That comes later. Simply count out the number of syllables in a line and write your own lines to match that count, trying to make the rhythm of your words flow as smoothly as in your model. If the poem you're imitating has a rhyme scheme, feel free to copy that as well- but avoid, at all costs, a forced rhyme. Forced rhyme is where you use any unnatural or awkward phrasing to make the rhyme work, and it's a sign of the amateur.

This stage of pure imitation should continue for some time, until you can compose original verse on any subject and in any meter. At this point it is time to learn how meters actually work. There are a number of good books available on this topic, and after you've worked through them your technical repertoire will be essentially complete.

This is generally the stage for breaking it down, attempting experiments even if they produce nothing valuable, and bending the rules of verse or even breaking them. First you build up the form and then you bend it to the breaking point, emerging with a complete command of the tools at your disposal. If you can pass through this difficult phase, you will have achieved technical mastery, a prerequisite for poetic maturity. In the years of imitation and technical study, there may have been moments of spontaneous brilliance, the inspiration that comes from nowhere and cannot be accounted for.

But such things cannot be planned and can scarcely even be hoped for- they either happen or they don't.

Poetic maturity is something else entirely. This refers to freedom, to clear and honest expression and above all to simplicity. Having entered on the road of simplicity through the complexity of form, you are finally ready to express yourself and to do it well. You may or may not ever reach this stage, but that's not important. What's important is the pursuit of the art, which will enrich your life, even if you never taste true inspiration. Because poetry is a sacred thing, considered the Queen of the Arts since ancient times, and for very good reason.

Just as the art of the sword demands mindfulness and rewards disassociation with defeat, the art of poetry requires a concentration that cannot be anything less than mindful. Your ultimate goal in writing any poem is insight- to tell the exact and perfect truth about a particular thing, in words so carefully chosen that they could not have been otherwise. If the poet is not mindful and present, then there is no poem, and if the reader is not mindful and present, then there is no poem. According to the great spiritual teachers of both East and West, the experience of mindfulness is the experience of enlightenment, the complete reality of the present moment. Poetry demands exactly that of both poets and readers, creating (when everything works) a moment of truth.

Crossing blades with an opponent, you face the truth. Either you will be hit or you will not; there is no ambiguity. And in a moment of confrontation with the spirit of poetry, you face the same dilemma.

Will you be able to see the truth? Will you be able to speak it? And can you take the consequences?

In this great adventure, spirit is needed, a spirit that can be forged through training and refined through Art. This Way is not effete or self-indulgent- it is genuine living.