First things, First

Hello everyone!

Welcome to The Game of Dō, a blog about how you can use principles from games and martial arts to improve your life! My name is Daniel Williams and I started this blog because I wanted to share what I know about both activities and how they relate to each other. 

The Martial Arts and Dō 

A martial art is an art that teaches techniques that can be used to defeat an opponent and improve oneself. When Americans hear the term "martial arts", they usually think of Asian arts such as karate, taekwondo, and judo. However, European arts like boxing and wrestling are very much martial arts as well. Every martial art has its own set of goals, but each art has its students work towards improving themselves and trains them to defeat opponents in some way. 

In my writings here, I will be focused specifically on dō styles. Dō (pronounced like "dough") means "way of life". Thus, dō  styles focus on training students to be better at and happier in all aspects of their lives.

Games, Sports, and Dō

I realize the that the "true" distinction between games and sports is hotly contested by some people, but, for the purposes of this blog, let's just assume these things:

• A game is an activity with a set of rules and a defined goal. Games are usually played "just for fun".
• A sport is a game that requires the performance of complex physical actions that can only be effectively accomplished by those with "lots of practice"

So would I consider the martial arts I train in to be games or sports?  They do have many of the same components- rules, defined goals (belts), complex physical actions, they're lots of fun to learn, etc. We also have competitions, just like you might do with a playing a game or a sport. However, the key thing that makes what I and my peers do not a sport or a game is the awareness that our styles are dō arts- that they exist not to entertain us, but to make us better and stronger people- physically, mentally, and spiritually. 

But you can use the dō mindset at any time, on any activity. You just need to look inward and ask yourself- "What am I doing right now and how is helping to make me a better person?"

A martial artist can do this while training to discover how what they are current working on is benefitting them. A gamer can do the same exercise while playing their game of choice to become better at winning. To become a happier person, any person at any time can look at what they are doing right now and just ask "How can I use this moment, whether it's good or bad, to make myself better and happier in some way?" 

I hope you found this post useful and that you enjoy reading it at least as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

I'll be back soon with a the "rules" of the Game of Dō.

Until next time,

-Daniel