For about one year now I have been teaching an Integral Martial Arts class at the Ridley Sports Club in Ridley, PA.   What has been most interesting about the class is that the practitioners and students are not actively knowledgeable about Integral Theory, yet they understand its suitability and application to the martial arts.  For me, Integral Theory has become a framework to explain pretty much everything.  For them, it’s this crazy stuff that Sensei talks about which they file away in their mental files.

This is not a bad thing, necessarily because it gives me great opportunity to explore Integral Theory in “normal” settings, i.e. where people are not primarily concerned with lofty things like Consciousness or The Universe… they just want to do some karate and have fun.  It also keeps my own head in check, which brings me to this Integral Martial Arts class log.

As often as possible, I will be logging classes as they happen and putting my thoughts down here.  This is an exercise for myself but could also serve as a practical case study for what happens when you try to use Integral Theory to teach a martial arts class regularly.  Hopefully this can shine light on other people’s own attempts, or maybe help change the attitudes with which martial arts are taught.

The class log is different from the Integral Martial Arts blog on the front page where I talk more philosophically about general concepts.