Emotional Content not Anger

[Alan Armstrong]

Bruce Lee said this to his student "Emotional content not anger" in the movie 'Enter the Dragon'

What emotional content do you use?

[Zaine]

Passion, joy, excitement, etc. It's about controlling the impact that negative emotions can have. MA can be good at teaching this, provided you have a teacher who has taken this principle to heart. It's not about never feeling anger, but about channeling that anger into something better.

[Alan Armstrong]

I view the emotional content with anger can have it's value's (not many) just that it is an emotion that can exhaust itself quickly.

Anger is an explosive emotion that needs plenty of fuel to keep it fired up. Staying all fired up not only wastes energy it can also send a person's blood pressure through the roof causing a heart attack or aneurism.

Anger with a bad temperment when fighting mad causes tunnel vision. An experienced fighter can take advantage of this anger quality of an inexperienced opponent very easily.

If anger is always connected to fighting, then every time a person gets angry they may want to fight.

We all get angry, for martial artists anger management should be mandatory otherwise all that training will be reduced to educating those with real ma potential in to a fighting thug.

This anger negativity list could continue in to infinity...

[sensei8]

Good topic, Alan Armstrong, thanks for starting it!!

The emotional content that I rely on, and have my entire MA career are...

Mizu No Kokoro [Mind Like Water] and Tsuki No Kokoro [Mind Like the Moon]!!

One principle teaches one how to be, and remain, calm. One principle teaches one how to keep focused. Both principles steadfastly teach one how to control anger.

In Mizu No Kokoro, disturbed water affects a clear mind, and a disturbed water doesn't properly reflect images, and this is a poor way to defend oneself.

In Tsuki No Kokoro, clouds block reflections, and a clouded mind can't properly interpret clearly, and this, too, is a poor way to defend oneself.

The explanations that I've written above, are just generalizations, and I don't want to dabble deeply into either because to do so would take more than a few paragraphs.

"Emotional content; NOT anger!!" Pretty straight forward, from Bruce. Anger gets in the way of everything that's important to ones own self-defense. You want to see Mizu and Tsuki fall apart, well, anger will destroy them both faster than one can blink!!

Can one effectively defend themselves if their emotional content isn't contained, and not allowed to go astray on every whim and conflict?? Sure, why not?! Anything's possible!! I believe that it's quite possible based on knowledge and experience, and how it's utilized within ones muscle memory: Automatic reactions based on muscle memory within ones knowledge and experience come into play.

After all, Bruce spoke about this possibility quite well...and from Enter the Dragon as well, in scenes before "Lau's time"...

"I do not hit; it hits all by itself!!"

Contain your emotional content; you contain the fight!! Lose your emotional content; you lose the fight!!

Imho!!

[bushido_man96]

I like Bruce, but I don't think he was always on the mark. Some of what he did in movies was just for show...

I do think that anger can be as useful as any other emotions. It has its place, like the others. Like anything, it needs to be controlled.

[Zaine]

I agree, anger in fighting, or even sparring, is incredibly debilitating. It can also cause us to associate anger with the need to fight, which causes even more problems down the line.

Anger is an explosive emotion that needs plenty of fuel to keep it fired up.

I know everyone is different, but this isn't true for me. A little kindling can go a long way, and I spent a large portion of my life training myself to let go of the little things. I would assume for most people this is true. However, despite needing fuel to continue, it does not take much to flame up. I also find that people will find ways to stay angry out of some sadistic need to do so. People are weird.

[sensei8]

Anger, imho, begets mistakes, and mistakes made too often because of anger aren't compatible with being effective whenever needed.

[Alan Armstrong]

In ancient times (in China) when a Shaolin monk was ready to venture in to the outside world and out of the confines's of the monastery, there were tests, physical and emotional.

Jumping straight to the emotional part of these tests. As we are all fully aware of the Shaolin monks physical abilities.

A Shaolin monk needed to sit in a room while the master would tell a very sad story; presumably the most tear jerking heart wrenching story ever told.

Then the Shaolin monk was told another story, a very happy story, that would be undoubtedly playing with the monks heart strings.

If the monk showed any emotion while listening to the two stories, the monk would not be allowed to leave the temple.

The idea of these physiology tests were intended to see if a monk had emotional problems such as anger issues or temper tantrums.

Would not be very responsible allowing psychotic monks running about the country side that have been trained in a 1001 ways to kill!

To be a master it is not only physical abilities that count it's also having emotional self control, mastery over oneself.