Omamori Engraving:

無 Mu 

病 Byuoku

息 Soku

災 Sai

Meaning: Take the breath of life and remove yourself from potential Calamity. 

In the martial arts world, it is commonly said that you have to calm yourself and not be ruled by your emotions when you must act. In Libre Fighting, the opposite is said. One must embrace one’s emotions (anger included) as fuel and motivation to act. Both side are true. How so? Isn’t it “either/or”? How can you embrace anger, for exmple, and supress it at the same time? By “taking the breath of life” so to speak, or in essence, “breath and be focused on your present circumstance”. That is the key to any situation. As the engravings on the omamori braclet that was given to me says, take the breath of life and remove yourself from calamity, or what it essencially means to me, “breathe and focus, be present in the moment so you can prevent bad shit from happening and get out of any bad shit that IS happening”. See, it’s not bad to feel emotions, even strong ones. Emotions can a great motivator to get things done. I believe what martial artists and warriors of old meant, was that to be ruled by your emotions and let it overflow and overtake you is bad. That you must keep your feeling in check when you feel them, remain focused on your goal while constructively using everything you feel for the betterment of your health and goals (which a number of them I’m sure have used in their lives just as much as they have used it in combat and war).

Just as a serpent coils and flows, take life as it is, change when change is necessary, but strike only when you have full control of yourself. Or if snakes aren’t your thing, try imagining a bow and arrow. A true bow is flexible, supple, and relatively dynamic in the range that it can be bent. It is pulled by a string and held together. The bow bends as the arrow is placed and the archer is positioning to fire. But only when the target is placed, everything is aligned (angle of the arrow’s trajectory included), and everything is focused in that one moment, does the archer release. And in that moment, an unflinching arrow is shot. Open to the wims of the environment, but deadset on hitting the mark.