 Meditation for Martial Arts
So I started up a new-to-me dojo doing Okinawan Goju-ryu Karate-do and Okinawan Kobudo and Im liking it and all that. At the beginning of each class we start with five minutes of stationary meditation, which I have experienced at other martial arts studios, but I just started to think about it today.
The thing Im thinking about is this- Is stationary, physically relaxed meditation what people need these days? I am postulating that there was less of a disconnect between most peoples' bodies and minds in preindustrial times for the reason that they simply did more physical activity and their livelyhood often depended upon being able to manipulate their body. This is as opposed to today when quite a lot of people are completely unaware of their body and their work is completely mental. The point of this is that stationary/relaxed meditation seems to me to be able to create an even larger disconnect between mind and body (and really anything that is outside you) and the benefit of this in preindustrial times would have been to have students of martial arts be able to sit down and think objectivly about something through meditation. But today our brains are conditioned to do that from childhood and it seems that what would benefit martial arts students of today more would be a type of meditation that increases body awareness (specifically I am thinking of the Zhan Zhuang Chi Kung exercises).
Anyone have any thoughts on this? I am specifically thinking about meditation and as a tool for increasing the understanding of martial arts, but thoughts from people who use it for other things would be welcome as well.  | 
