By Dan Miller
When Kyle with Budo Brothers asked if I was interested in writing an article for the magazine, I am not going to lie and tell you that I was excited about the prospect. I was even less thrilled when, after I cautiously inquired about what it was that he wanted me to write about, he suggested that I simply introduce myself, and you know, talk about my journey as a martial artist. Simple enough, right? After all, there tends to be a formula for these sorts of things, in which I start by listing my black belts, maybe causally insert several of my accolades, and, if that all goes well, subtly drop a few names at your feet where you can see them. Tack on a few paragraphs that offer themselves forth as pragmatic, whether socially, technically, or otherwise, and bring it all home with some words of encouragement… and if I am lucky, maybe even hide a few words of wisdom. Then, if I have done my job, you might follow me on the socials, where I can then go about trying to sell you on my methods, or at least, get you to buy a keychain or something. And, naturally, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with this approach, save, of course, that I am terrible at it. I know, I tried.
Alright, so then, how am I going to go about this?
Well, probably the way that I have come to do anything, which if I was being honest, doesn’t really bode well for something even remotely resembling convention. So, buckle up, this is gonna get a little weird, and more than a little dark and uncomfortable. However, in the end, if I have played my cards just right, I trust that, beyond the overt awkwardness that is inherent within, it can find a way to speak to you some of the truths that all warriors know, but are rarely able to say.
Alright, here it goes. Let me tell you about my journey through a lifetime of martial arts, yes, but first… well, first I am going to tell you about the wolves. The year was 1988 and I was in the first grade. The school I was attending at the time had been visited that day by a biologist who had been researching the migration patterns of wolves via the use of radio collar. At that time in my life, I had been living in a small ranch house that stood quite literally out in the middle of nowhere, so hearing about wolves made me a little nervous. As a result, after the presentation was done, I was one of the first kids to raise his hand during the question and answer period where I nervously inquired if there were any wolves where I lived. Seeing the worry in my face, the biologist kindly reassured me that, no, there hadn’t been wolves in that area in many years, and even if there was, there was little to be afraid of as wolves tend to avoid humans. I can still remember feeling the wave of relief wash over me. No wolves, no worries, right?
Later that same day, after my mother had come to pick me up after school, I went about telling her about the cool presentation, with the wolves, the radio collars, and the antenna array used to find them via the frequency of blips. The faster the blip, you see, the closer they were. It kind of reminded me of the hot/cold game in which you would close your eyes and your friends would yell out “warmer!” or “colder!” at a rate dependant on direction and proximity to the chosen target. And, if I was honest, it was fun to imagine serious adults running around and playing this game with a pack of wolves. Oh, and more importantly, I told her the good news that there were no longer any wolves to be afraid of near the ranch. Now, for reasons I cannot even pretend to fully understand, my mother would go about taking offense to this particular notion and would go on to rebuke me, as, according to her, there were indeed wolves nearby. She would insist that she had seen them with her own two eyes. Without missing a beat, I reassured her, still very much bright eyed and grinning ear to ear that, no, she was mistaken because the man who had told me so was a real biologist, and that this meant that he knew a lot more about the subject of wolves than she did.
And this? Well… this would prove to be a mistake, as before I could even know what had happened, the car had skidded to a stop on the gravel road and my mother was marching around the car in a spitting rage. Once she got to my side, she opened the door and having grabbed a painful handful of both shirt and skin, drug me out into the darkening jaws of winter. After I had tried and failed to squirm my way free of her monstrous grip, she ended up slamming me against the side of the car, where she screamed a question into my face, something along the lines of “who do you think knows more about wolves, me or that idiot biologist?” Without missing so much as a beat I defiantly told her that perhaps the scientist was the one who knew more than she did. Her response? Well, after she was done punching me in the stomach, she threw me headlong and tumbling into the ditch, where I lay gasping in the dirty snow having had the wind knocked completely out of me. It was there that I could only watch in horror as she got back into the car and started to drive away. Still not fully recovered, I started sprinting toward the car, but as I got closer, all she did was roll down the window so that she could inform me that I was about to find out first hand about the wolves. And, with that, she sped away in a fury of gravel and snow, leaving me standing alone on a winter road at night without so much as a jacket. Now, I have no idea how long I stood out there, but it was long enough to watch the skies go from being painted in the cerulean blue streaks of dusk to the heaving itself into an ocean of deep purples and blacks. It had become full-on night.
Most of what I remember about that road, was the reality of being a little boy having been forced to face the endless crush of darkness. That is, I remember the absolute feeling of sheer terror. I still think that was the hardest I have ever cried, as I cried so hard I could barely even stand. I could see nothing, after all, and if the wolves didn’t eat me, I was certainly going to die of hypothermia. Did I mention I was in grade one? What is that, like six years old? Well, sadly, this story isn’t over yet. It gets worse. You see, my mother eventually did come back, and when she did it was clear that during her little sabbatical from parenthood, she had been drinking. Heavily. She told me to get into the car, and then once I was there curled up on the front seat, she then scream at me incoherently until we got home. When we had finally arrived, my house was full of people. The crowd was, as it always was back then, full of rough types. To put it mildly. And while that was always its own issue, this fact would actually make me breathe a little easier as I thought that having other people around would force my mother to tone it down a bit, at least enough that I could go and hide somewhere until morning. Instead, however, my mother took me into the middle of the living room and threw me down on the floor where she went on to tell everyone the story about how I, being the insolent piece of garbage that I was, thought that the presenter at school somehow knew more than she did about wolves. They jeered, and hollered, and reaffirmed my mother’s sage opinion, that yes, indeed, there were wolves aplenty round these here parts.
So, in an effort to make an example of me, and to no doubt show everyone how her “parenting“ style that would eventually make a man out of me, stood me up in the middle of the room and once again asked me the question of do I think the biologist actually knew more about wolves than she did? And so, what choice did I have? It was a test. I looked around the room and then I told her, and everyone in that room, that the biologist knew a thousand times more about wolves than she did. And, if you have been paying attention to this story at all, then you probably can guess how well that went for me. Yeah, not well. Somewhere between getting beat and tossed around like a rag doll, I found myself back outside, standing on top of a single-story staircase that descended out into the darkness beyond. Somewhere during the ensuing struggle brought on by my sheer panic and rabid anger, I had ended up getting thrown down the stairs. I still remember looking up at that door closing, my body twisted by pain, and being driven by the most profound sense of fear, scrambling up those steps in an attempt to get back inside. It was here, that my reaching for the door would prove to be a grievous error, as my mother while attempting to slam it shut, failed only on account that my hand had made it into the doorjamb. I screamed in pain as I pulled back my mangled fingers. And so, I stood there sobbing like an earthquake as the darkness poured in around me like ink spilling over, the gaping wound in my hand streaking the snow at my feet with blood. I begged to be let in, of course, but the only response I got was a rabid screaming about how I was going to be left outside until the wolves finally finished me off. I cannot tell you the sort of fear that a child in that situation is capable of feeling. I cannot even hint at it. What I can tell you, however, is that everything changes after an experience like that, and what little remained of my childhood that night is still out there somewhere wandering some cruel backroad in a failed attempt to get away from the wolves hidden within, and ultimately, as, the undulating darkness. At some point not too terribly long after, a woman who had been witnessed all of this had decided that she had to do something and slipped out without notice where she took me in through the basement door and snuck me into my bedroom. There, she did her best to bandage my hand, while trying to tell me that everything was going to be okay. Alas, all was for naught, as before she could even finish the rudimentary wound dressing, my mother had burst through the door. And? Well, I sat on the edge of my bed forced to watch as my mother beat my would-be rescuer within an inch of her life. Right there, in front of me, all for daring to try and help me. And? And well that was the night that I learned about the wolves.
I wish I could tell you that the above story was only an isolated event, or that everything would eventually work out for me and my mother, but, alas, neither are true. Not by a long shot. My mother sadly struggled with her own deep-seated trauma, which led her into a plethora of substance abuse and mental health issues. She would later take her own life on my nineteenth birthday.
While telling you such a story might seem more than a little odd, if not even a little off-putting, I hope that it is not, if anything, out of place. In fact, I would go so far as to trust that you, the discerning reader, and in all likelihood, martial artist, can find all that you need to know in order to understand why someone like me would go about spending their entire lives obsessed with the martial arts in the way that I have. It is here, that I can now tell you where it really is that my expertise has been rooted, and that is fear. I have known what it really means to be destroyed by it. To be rendered powerless and without hope. I know what it is like to stand facing the deepest darkness and, very unlike the heroes and gods of our culture, then fail to hold it back and be forced into watching it run rampant and destroy all that is good. I tell you this for the very simple reason that I want you to believe me when I say that an authentic martial art practice has the potential to completely transform a life unlike almost anything else can. I know this because I am this. It is my story. And flowing from it, I have seen that story become the story of many.
To me, the martial arts aren’t a hobby, or a pastime, or even, a career. They are the bridge between everything that I am to everything that I could be. And, the chasm that it crosses? Well, there flows everything that I fear. It is this fundamental dynamic within reality that the martial arts point us toward, in that everything of value can only be found beyond everything that we fear. So, on the path to becoming warriors, we do not strut across this bridge, we must keep our hearts steady, as to see ourselves clearly and admit our vulnerability. It by this vulnerability, after all, through which our potential must arrive. This is the path of the warrior. And, while the world does not need to tell any more stories like my own, it just so happens to be true that, now more than ever, she is in desperate need of warriors. Men and women who are willing to be weak before they go about trying to present themselves as strong. The truth is, we all suffer, and we are all afraid. I wish I could tell you that the world was kind to the authentic heart, but you know that is a lie. Regardless, if we do not find a way to set about this task of transforming our own suffering, then we are condemned to the work of transmitting it. So, may you find that warrior bridge, and with it, the courage to approach it as you really are, so that you may become every inch of all that you could be.
- Dan J Miller
