James DeMile (left) with Michael Banaag
This is a guest post from Michael Banaag:
Michael Banaag had the honor and privilege to start his martial arts career at the age of 13 under the guidance and tutelage of Sijo James DeMile, founder of Wing Chun Do/DeMile Defensive Tactics. He would go on to become not only the youngest certified Black Belt and Certified Instructor that DeMile would personally award those ranks to, but would develop a close friendship with DeMile that lasts to this day. While continuing his training with DeMile, Michael also began training and receiving instruction from Ronald Ogi (one of DeMile's original students and direct student/close friend to the late, great Professor Wally Jay of Small Circle Jujitsu), and developing a close friendship with him as well.
More recently while still maintaining a close relationship with DeMile & Ogi, Michael has had the pleasure & honor of training and interacting with Master Steve Smith of Fook Yeung Chuan, and learning from Jesse Glover and his group in Seattle. He also is one of the first Official MovNat Certified Trainers in the world, receiving that honor and training from the founder of MovNat, Erwan Le Corre. Today while continuously focusing on his own growth and development, Michael teaches a small private group (and some individual lessons) out of his garage a mixture of what he's authorized & certified to teach: his experiences training in MovNat in addition to the Gung-Fu from DeMile's lineage.
He can currently be reached via email at structuralselfdefense [at] gmail.com, or visiting www.structuralselfdefense.com
MovNat founder Erwan Le Corre
Six LIFE LESSONS I Gained from Training with Jim DeMile (in no order of importance)
1. The Martial Arts is a tool to help you feel better about yourself as a person, not solely because you can defend yourself, but because you see your own personal growth in something "tangible." For example: something physical – and it proves to yourself that you CAN learn, you CAN do something you put your mind to. You CAN learn to be "good" at something.
2. Martial arts can be for most just a blip in their long life – it's not the main thing. For students it doesn't provide financial support, yet what it does provide is something personally enriching – especially due to the camaraderie and experiences gained through the interaction with others who are also striving for the same goal and helping each other grow towards achieving that goal. Respect that it IS not a major part, but respect that it CAN have a major influence.
3. Generally speaking, people join martial arts because of insecurities. With that in mind, if all you are good at is Martial Arts, you become one dimensional. It's okay to be passionate about the martial arts, but if your excuse for only being good at martial arts is because "it's the only thing you're good at," then you still have insecurities that the martial arts failed to help you overcome. But that's actually very common, because most martial artists are not interested in overcoming their "demons," they're interested in overcoming someone else. Which is the problem with competition…"competition breeds a focus on others weaknesses [1st and foremost], rather than focusing on your own [1st and foremost]." (that is a paraphrased quote from Erwan Le Corre).
4. How everyone interacts with each other is directly proportional to how confident they are with themselves, or an aspect in their life. Work on your confidence and you will be able to interact with others better. But it shouldn't be a situational confidence (i.e. I'm confident b/c I can "kick your butt") because that's NOT true confidence! If a person has the confidence to defend themselves, but doesn't have the confidence to speak in front of a large group for a board meeting, or ask someone out on a date, they just have situational confidence…weak confidence. One needs to develop TRUE confidence – where they believe in themselves under any contextual demand.
5. Martial arts is like religion. Too many people argue over which religion is best, or why one religion they found really doesn't work for them. But sometimes it's not the religion, it's that person's experience with the Priest or Pastor they had at that particular church where they didn't do the job that the person was looking for. Same for martial arts. Even in DeMile's lineage, someone will say that what DeMile teaches doesn't work, but unfortunately that's based off the experience that they had with an instructor in a lineage that let his ego get larger than the time he should've been spending training. Is it really that a style sucks? Or is it really that the person you interacted with "representing that style" sucks? The key to suggesting what someone should train in is not to suggest a style, but to have them really pay attention to the teacher of every school they interact with. Teachers help guide one to be a good practitioner, not "styles."
6. Legacy is not carrying on teaching what was taught to you technique by technique in it's exactness. Unfortunately, everyone teaches with their own flare to it. So therefore, I've found, that legacy to me is carrying on the INTERACTION you have with your students. I will not remember Jim DeMile solely and most importantly for the techniques he taught. In reality, I will remember him for the more meaningful times. The numerous week long visits spending the night at his house. His wife, Irene, teaching me how to cook. The laughter we shared when I was first learning how to swim with a snorkel and I "almost drowned" because the tube never got out of the water when I first inhaled. Or him being at my wedding and sharing life lessons with me. That's what real legacy is. At your death bed you will not remember your techniques, you will remember the love and friendship you shared with others and that was shared to you. I will not be thinking of greats in their specialties like Randy Couture, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Bruce Lee, or Tiger woods when I die. I will think about the love and friendship I experienced from those close to me.
7. (This is more from my life theme lately:) Everything is movement. Don't master just martial arts – master movement. As Erwan Le Corre says "Be well rounded; with sharp edges."
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This entry was posted on June 5, 2012 at 12:19 am and is filed under Martial Arts and Training, Quotes and Articles with tags Erwan Le Corre, guest, James DeMile, Michael Banaag, MovNat, Wing Chun, Wing Chun Do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
