What is Mastery?

In 1999, when I reached the ranking of “master” in our martial art, I hoped I might feel complete. Instead, I felt a kind of panic. I had spent years training technique, discipline, and chasing greater skill — and yet the question rose up immediately and uncomfortably:
What is mastery, really?
And more importantly: Was I truly a master and if not, how can I get there?

I remembered the concept that often in life you don’t get the rank you deserve but the one that your teacher hopes you will work to deserve. I felt this was obviously the case for me.

I’ve always believed that a martial arts master should first be a master of themselves. Effortless competence, yes — but competence in life as much as in combat. And yet i was painfully aware that the certificate on the wall didn’t mean I had arrived. It only marked the beginning of a deeper search.

You might have heard of these four phases of performance.

1. Unconscious incompetence.
   The blissful ignorance phase — you don’t know how little you know.
2. Conscious incompetence.
   Awareness dawns. You now see the vastness of what you don’t understand. Many never reach this level; rituals and belts can actually protect students from realizing how little they know.
3. Conscious competence.
   Skill, precision, and thousands of hours of practice. You can perform well — but effort must still be applied. Execution is dependable but still in the realm of effort.
4. Unconscious competence.
   True mastery. Actions arise effortlessly, without thought. The body responds before the mind narrates. This is the flow state — the state the internal martial arts were designed to cultivate.

This fourth state is the real subject of the inner journey in our martial art. How do the internal arts train it? How does it relate to the nervous system, the brain’s default mode network, and modern psychology? Why is effortless, intuitive action so rare — and how can it be reliably trained?

But in 1999, I didn’t have those questions clearly formed yet. I simply knew I wasn’t in that fourth stage. Hanging my master certificate on the wall, I felt the sharp truth: I was consciously competent, but nowhere nearly unconsciously competent. I wanted to understand the way forward — not just for myself, but for my students. This cognitive dissonance was the beginning of my journey into the deepest parts of myself and the discovery of concepts and mastery that could be my own, and not just quotes I spoke from my teacher. I learned to lean into what was genuinely innate to me — rather than trying to perform mastery as something borrowed.

What I eventually came to understand is that mastery is not something you arrive at — it is something you practice being.The rank on the wall didn’t make me a master. What it did was remove my excuses. It forced me to look honestly at the gap between skill and embodiment, between knowledge and presence.

Along this journey, I changed how I trained, how I taught, and how I understood the purpose of martial arts itself. This is the foundation for the transformational goals we hold for the young and old in our community — something far beyond belts, sashes, and the next form.