Bolelli - On the warriors path: fighting, philosophy, and martial arts mythology

To Elizabeth Han.

Thanks to martial arts I met a woman who is far more wonderful than any ideal woman that my notoriously hyperbolic imagination could conceive. On the very first day I started teaching martial arts, she was there. Having fewer moral inhibitions than a bug, I immediately and shamelessly began courting hermy wisest decision to this date. Life has not been the same since. Every day I wake up, I look into her eyes and learn something about beauty, passion, and joy.

If martial arts had given me nothing else, meeting her would have been more than enough to justify all the hours, weeks, months, and years spent training.

Since no words are strong enough to thank you for how you make me feel, Ill keep this short and will try to make up for it with kisses and massages.

The words giving thanks dont convey the insane appreciation I have for some of the individuals I want to give thanks to right now.

First and foremost, to Franco Bolelli and Gloria Mattioni. They are the two people who taught me how to be who I am (even though, if forced to take the stand in a court of law, theyll probably deny any responsibility). I really couldnt have fallen in better hands. They are not only two adorable parents but two masters of life. I owe them everything, and perhaps even more.

To my grandparents for being so damn amazing (by the way, is this the wrong time to ask for another slice of tiramis, pleeeeeeeease, Grandma?).

To my martial arts teachers: Dominic Stefano (artist, surfer, deadhead, black belt in four different martial arts, and friend; I thought teachers like him existed only in dreams), Larry Wikel, Daniel and Jonathan Wang, Tim Cartmell (who is by far the best martial artist I have ever run across), David from D. G. Boxing, Eddie Martinez, and all the others who taught me something even if just for a day (especially big thanks to Mike and Heiner from Sawtelle Judo, Jiang Hao Quan, the immortal of Monterey Park, and Paolo Antonelli).

To my martial arts friends Roberto Bonomelli, Claudio Regoli, Triet Vo, Leo Hirai, Kolja Fuchs, Felicia Federico, Al Herrera, and Willard Ford.

To Julio Perez and James Weddell.

To the memory of Shannon Richardson and Ray Running Bear Allen.

To Troy Johnson, for being an all-around great guy and for giving me my first teaching job.

To Richard Grossinger, Jess OBrien, Anastasia McGhee, and Erin Wiegand from North Atlantic Books.

To Richard Strozzi Heckler, whos my long-lost twin.

To Jeff Hendricks for his great feedback/editing help.

To anyone who ever smiled at me.

To Alessandra Chiricosta e Bruno Dorella.

To Pietro, Aronne, and Rocco.

To Lorenzo Cherubini, for his Mi Fido di Te, which, in an unlikely combination with the Adagio by Albinoni, provided the soundtrack that helped me write the chapter On Failed Friendships, Martial Arts, Nietzsche, and Self-Perfection.

To Tom and Alexa Robbins. I love you guys. Without doing anything but being yourselves, you remind me of the way I want to live. By the way, many thanks for turning me on to Ikky, my newly found hero and philosophical role model.

To John (or was it Li?) Schroeder, Andrea Zingoni, and Marina Mattioni.

And to Elizabeth (hey, head back to the dedication page, you greedy bastard, you already had your share!).

The seeds of the present volume were planted with a book I published in my native Italy in 1996, when I was twenty-two years old (thats what happens when you dont have a girlfriend for too long ). For reasons that are well beyond my understanding, the book turned into an instant classic loved by martial artists as well as by people who could not care less about martial arts. What was supposed to be a simple translation from Italian into English soon took on a life of its own, and the result is what you hold in your hands at this very moment. Although I have tried to remain as faithful as possible to what was written at the time, too many years have gone by and I have changed far too much to leave the book exactly as it was. For this reason, some chapters have been heavily rewritten while others are entirely new. To be more precise, the first eight chapters of this edition are a reworked, translated version of the original Italian book, Chapters 911 were written directly in English for the first edition of On the Warriors Path in 2003, and the last two chapters were recently written for the second edition. Chapters 911 differ from the main body in that they mix the wild, free-flowing style that characterizes the rest of the book with a more academic approach. This is why these chapters include citations and a separate bibliography while the others do not. Sadly, the academic world seems to think that if something is occasionally lighthearted, is not written in an obscure jargon intelligible only to four dusty scholars scattered around the world, and is not completely irrelevant to anyones life, it is not serious work. To those scholars who hold this view, I offer my apologies, but Im afraid Ill be forced to shake your academic coffins since I firmly believe that fun is not the antithesis of serious. Rather, fun is only the antithesis of boring.

The success of the first edition of On the Warriors Path and the prodding by North Atlantic Books editor Anastasia McGhee are the forces behind this second edition, which sports two entirely new chapters (Chapters 12 and 13). Both in terms of style and topics, in these chapters I return to my roots with a more personal, direct approach. It is my sincere hope that you, my readers, can have as much fun reading this as I had writing it.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

All of the techniques handed down from my teachers appeared completely anew. Now they were vehicles for the cultivation of life and knowledge not devices to throw and pin people.

Morihei Ueshiba

I f you dont believe that the martial arts have anything to do with American Indian rituals, surfing, globalization, Tom Robbins novels, the destiny of the world, the beauty of nature, and our way of perceiving reality, call my bluffread on.

A philosophical book about martial arts is not good business. While many martial artists would rather have somebody hammering on their toes than read a book without pictures, most educated and sensitive people dont see any connection between their own lives and martial arts. But this is precisely my reason for writing this book. An unenlightened social tendency pushes us to become specialized in one field, or at most two fields, and forget about the rest of the world. There are brilliant scientists who dont know how to massage a beautiful woman; artists who cant run in the mountains; businessmen who dont have any idea about how to play with kids; housewives who are unable to shoot with a bow and arrows. Restricting our horizons is encouraged in order to seek perfect efficiency in only one activity, avoid dispersing our energies, and dedicate ourselves to a well-defined career. This is how experts are born and life dies. These goals, in fact, are fitting for an assembly line, not for human beings. Specialization is a spiritual diseasea contagious virus of the personality that is hard to escape from. It forces us to limit the range of our choices and vivisect our global vision to the point where even the most ecstatic experiences lose life and magic; its like killing a splendid animal only to place it in a museum.