Author Archives: Josh Simon

Now that I am a little over a month into teaching my newly minted Integral Martial Arts class in Ridley, Pennsylvania, I am learning first hand how overwhelming it can be for the teacher. If you read the literature on Integral Theory, the generally accepted view of when something is considered “Integral” is if it includes consideration and honors all Stages, States, Quadrants, Lines, and Types. The abbreviation for this is AQAL, standing for “All Quadrants All Lines…etc.”

What I can tell you is there is a significant difference between gazing at your navel to map out an Integral curriculum that honors AQAL versus figuring out how to TEACH AQAL and actually include AQAL on a day-to-day basis for a 1-hour class.… Read more...

Next week I will be starting a new adventure teaching an Integral Martial Arts class as the Ridley Sports Club in Ridley, PA. This is my first crack and teaching a truly Integral school. My friend Nathanael Chawkin and Sunstone Yoga gave me an idea for using wrist bands in addition to belts as a means of tracking student progress. Belts will be a traditional market for tracking progress within class while the wrist bands track progress OUTSIDE of class. This is a work in progress and will be evolving as things get clearer for me.

This is a draft of a sheet given to students about the OUTSIDE of Class work:

Integral Martial Arts – OUTSIDE The Classroom

Martial arts can be a powerful vehicle for self-development.… Read more...

Perhaps you have watched dozens of cheesy Kung-Fu flicks that used to air on Saturday afternoons, or perhaps you are an avid Pay-Per-View fan of the UFC. Maybe on top of that you have read a few books on martial arts techniques, some of them with pictures. Whatever the case, through those different media you are looking at the “face” of martial arts. You are looking at The Physical outward trappings. All of these things that we traditionally think of as “The Martial Arts” that deal with punching, kicking, killing, maiming, and all that other good stuff are real. There are hundreds of books written on them by dozens of teachers, and many people make their living off of teaching these physical techniques to students.… Read more...

So now let’s look a little bit at Martial Arts from the Social “quadrant” or perspective.

From this view, Martial Arts is about you and I, together. “You and I” could mean literally you and me. It could also mean you and your school, you and your opponent, you and your web forum and other blog readers. Ultimately, it means you and the rest of the world. You and I make a “We”. All I have done here is simply rename the “We” quadrant in Integral theory as the “Social Perspective” to describe the aspects of Martial Arts that are social.… Read more...

As I write, I realize how difficult it actually is to encompass so many possibilities on a meager blog. In my last post I proposed a series of questions that one could think about while doing Martial Arts from the Personal perspective. I can think of more, but what I want to do here is use some of these questions to broaden the scope of what constitutes Integral Martial Arts.

In the first post on the blog I introduced how Martial Arts can be understood from different Stages or Levels, although I did not detail how I think every single Stage understands training.… Read more...