Unlearning invincibility 🤲🏽

Many of us enter the world of martial arts with aspirations to be stronger, to build confidence, to feel safer. At least those were my goals when I began my martial arts journey at 18. 

In all honesty, I think a part of me hoped to banish fear entirely 🫣.

Back then, I assumed that if I trained hard enough, these newfound skills would make me somehow invulnerable—both physically and emotionally. If I could master every technique and dodge every punch, surely I could avoid feeling afraid.

Training was also a way to challenge the narrative I inherited—that being a small, brown woman meant constantly feeling vulnerable. Learning martial arts was and still is my act of defiance against this collective narrative.

Training has undeniably made me feel stronger, more confident, and physically powerful. However, these feelings, like all states of being, are transient. You can feel all these things, but they don't erase fear completely. The truth is, we can never get rid of fear. Fear, a primal signal of danger, is essential for survival. It's kept us and our ancestors alive for generations. 

Another difficult truth is, we can't predict every scenario. The world will always hold some level of risk, and the pursuit of absolute safety is impossible. I realized that while martial arts enhanced my ability to handle physical threats, feeling safe was not about being able to control every encounter. It also wasn't about the absence of fear, but about nurturing an inner trust and belief in my own resourcefulness. 🌱  

This insight marked a shift in my journey. Instead of only focusing on acquiring more physical skills, I began to pair this with cultivating trust in myself—in my own abilities honed through consistent training, and in my body's wisdom, intuition, and instincts. This inner resourcefulness is a trait that lies within us all. We all have the capacity to figure things out, acquire new skills, or to simply, ask for help.

Because while we'll never live in a perfectly safe world, our capacity to adapt and think creatively in challenging situations—to navigate through life's uncertainties—is unlimited. It's what our ancestors undoubtedly did, and what we're striving to cultivate within ourselves now. 

And here’s the thing too, our ancestors didn't operate under the belief that to fight guaranteed survival. In fact, they were acutely aware that engaging in battle often meant accepting the possibility that they, and their tribe, might not survive at all. This understanding, as we explored in last week's session on the legacy of uprisings in our history, was a constant throughout much of our collective past.

Our warrior ancestors were intimately familiar with the fragility and preciousness of life because they lived in a bladed culture. Remember, Kali was originally a bladed art, and tribal life revolved around it. Warriors were constantly reminded of their mortality, their lives perpetually in the balance, often at the edge of a blade. 

When you understand that you're not invincible, then everything becomes sacred.

So while I began my martial arts journey with the expectation of becoming fearless, the journey instead has taught me that I can be fierce in the face of fear, and embracing vulnerability allows us to experience the full depth of what it means to be human. 🤲🏽

We might come to martial arts full of ideas of what we'll gain on the journey, but it's important to remain open to what our practice wants to teach us.