• No style is greater than the other; the greater style lies in the combination of all and every style.
• This is emptiness in martial arts. As a whole it is limitless, continuing endlessly.
• Openness, emptiness, always room for changes, always room for new.

Analogy of Emptiness

• The wine is made in a barrel and left to age. After a period of time the barrel is emptied and ready to be used again, except the wine/alcohol that is absorbed in the oak barrel does not pour out. When you learn something new, your mind will be filled. You absorb the knowledge, then empty your mind for the new again.
  If you do not empty your barrel, you will be stuck with just one wine. If you lose your taste for this wine, where will this leave you? It leaves you with no choice, because you have limited yourself. Everything is always changing, your moods, tastes, surroundings.
  You have to be empty in order to absorb change; once you are holding, - (being full) there will be no room for the new.

Emptiness = absorbing, but never holding.

• Martial Arts as a Wholeness, all styles being as one to be none. This is true martial arts.
  One can never comprehend martail arts as a wholeness, but one can spend a lifetime learning martial arts as a wholeness.
• There are no limits to mankind, just as there is no limits to the martial arts.
  Man can create the destiny of his own being. His own being can be limited or limitless, it depends on himself.
  A limited man can know everything that he is limited to, but he will not exceed the limits of his knowledge.
  The limitless man knows that he will never know everything, because what he does not experience he will create.
• All martial art systems are good, as anything that expands your knowledge is good , if you are open minded and willing accept the new. Even if it is against what you have been taught or have discovered, to learn the opposite to what you have been taught is only learning the Yin to your Yang or vice versa. If you do not wish to learn the two opposites and what's in between, you will never be complete. This is being of whole.
• There is no one system or style that is better than the other. They could be total opposites; one hard one soft. The master of the hard style says: "My way is better. I will explode through my opponent so fast and hard he will not have a chance to react." The master of the soft system will just reflect the attacking bull with a circular turning technique, striking him as his weight carries him past. Now, which system is best?
  This is only using your right leg to kick and your right arm to strike, because your left feels and looks awkward. This is a restriction that is limiting yourself. It is looking at your left side with closed mind.
  One should never approach anything with a closed mind. Empty your mind of it's negativity and be free of mind, free of limits. Start training with your left side for it is equal to your right. This will make you more complete, because two opposites make a whole. This is an example which complies to most everything.
• If someone does different than you, does that make him worse or better than you?
  There is only one proper way to tell. Practice it his way until you have developed the technique properly and then choose. This gives you the opportunity to sit on top of the fence, free of mind. Would you climb back down your side and be limited, or would you climb down the other side to be limited?
  The lesson is to stay on top of the fence and to always have the freedom of choice. A mind that is free and empty will make it's own choice instantaneously upon action. But if the mind is limited, there will be no choice...only one way.
• When you watch the faults of a certain style or form and you see no practical use for it, do you mock this style with a closed mind, or do you open your mind and try to understand? You might not able to understand through trying, so let it be absorbed, and one day the light will shine upon you and you will understand.

This article was reprinted from the Freestyle Book of Philosophy cc. 1984 National Freestyle Martial Arts Organization

By Daniel Verkerke