COMPOSURE
Establish calmness within yourself during difficult or stressful situations and don’t give in to immediate reactions. Staying calm will help you think about the situation and analyze the consequences of your every action.
Martial arts helps establish this tenet by placing the student in a safe and controlled environment in which they must maintain their composure when tensions rise physically and verbally.
Why Composure
A major component for martial arts is composure. It’s one of the foundations of teaching and learning martial arts. An aspect of composure is to focus on breathing because it helps calm the mind. It helps the body relax during a moment of intensity. Martial arts does have this benefit of teaching composure because of the atmosphere that students are put through. Not everyone has this environment to practice in, but they can focus on the stance and their breathing anywhere and anytime.
The Stance
This stance invokes composure by having balance in your stance and closing your eyes while your hands are together in front of you with your arms outward past your hips (waist high). This stance requires calmness and collectiveness because your body is absolutely still with your eyes closed, and it takes effort to maintain this balance. This gives you time to listen and hear your breathing. It gives you the time to focus on your own thoughts and the sounds that surround you.
Performing the stance
This stance helps you associate with composure because it gives the practice and time to think about what’s happening right then and there. This stance helps enforce your balance and posture because it requires thought and collectiveness of your body and mind to maintain.
Place your heels together and point your toes out in a V shape.
Place your open hands with fingers together, thumbs out, and overlapping. Your left hand should be on top of the right one, with your thumbs interlocked and hidden underneath your hands.
Place your open hands with fingers together, thumbs out, and overlapping. Your left hand should be on top of the right one, with your thumbs interlocked and hidden underneath your hands.
Keep your shoulders and back straight.
Look straight ahead, but close your eyes.