Lone Wolf or Pack Mentality

Some lessons are harder for me to learn than others. I was raised with the American ideal of “Rugged Individualism”. Work hard, count on yourself, and get things done. I learned this lesson well, as many who know me will testify. I am not afraid of hard work, know how to do many a varied task, and really have trouble counting on others or asking for help.

Martial  Arts is typically viewed as an individual type of endeavor. In fact, most of the time we hear how it is about self mastery. I am reminded of a movie Circle of Iron also known as Silent Flute,  the protagonist of the story came from no school, wore no uniform and (gasp) did not follow the rules. The movie and screenplay were originally conceived by Bruce Lee but unfinished when he died. The quest the character takes in the movie is to find Zetan, the guardian of the Book of Knowledge (supposed to contain all of the wisdom of the universe.

As you may have guessed, the protagonist finishes the quest and finds the book. I am not going to spoil the development of the story here, I mention it to simply say that this movie as well as many other documents about the martial arts stress that the journey we are on in the end is an individual journey.

Many aspects of Martial Arts cannot be learned in a vacuum.

Without getting into a lengthy debate on the virtues of Kata/Forms, historically, when developed, it was known that practitioners would not always have partners to train with. Kata/Forms were developed just for this reason so that individuals could practice alone. With that said, you can’t learn martial arts effectively without having partners to work with. Right off the bat, we have to admit that there are individual and cooperative aspects to training with the context of Martial Skills.

This brings us to a common dilemma that many martial arts practitioners are faced with during the course of their development.

Should you embody the spirit of the individual “Lone Wolf” or should you train and learn with/from others in a more social context.

The most resolute answer that I have come up with is both. There are times when you will be best served by striving for self mastery, and there are other times on your journey where it will be essentially critical for your development to work with others in a group setting. Remember, no one (with the exception of movie heroes) goes into a battle alone, take an army.

If you are building a school or business it is recommended that you build a team.

The one thing that is clear, is that if your intent is building a school or business around anything, not just martial arts, having a team is very, very important. Build your army, then attack the business plan.