Why Learn a Martial Art?

A reflection on Styles and Passing Instructors

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Tell me again, who is it we are learning to fight?

How do we justify training ourselves in the art of controlled aggression? Is there not something mutually exclusive in this phrase? Or are we just being a little pernickety? 

In the Cafe
​A: "What is it about the martial arts that attracts such weirdos?" 
B: "What makes you think we are all weirdos?" I replied. 
A:"Look at you. The way you walk, the way you look at people, the way you use your body, your posture even your hands. Everything is contrived."
B:"Perhaps it just looks that way to you."
A:"You see? You even speak in cliches."
B:"What do you mean?"
A:"Your words, like your moves are predictable, moulded by calloused  ideas and training practices. Such a soulful warrior you make..."
And so the conversation continued...

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Why We Begin Martial Arts

Many people choose to begin a class from an Interest in oriental philosophy. Others, in search of self-confidence, or a dualist world view find refuge in seeing the world as either black or white, East or West, right or wrong, victim or victor, yin or yang.
I suppose we all have our reasons. Some may look fondly back to that series of Kwai Chang Caine, others go further to that bull-slayer himself - Mas Oyama. For many, I am sure, it would have been that classic coliseum fight in Way of the Dragon between Lee and Norris, East and West, oriental and occidental, form over freedom. Hairy over smooth chested opponents!

Hello Retro 
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But it wasn't just about the attractions of the East. Back in the early 70's the United Kingdom was - culturally speaking - something of a desert. The consumerist culture had been officially launched with flares and Stickle-bricks. Little remained on the streets of Inner London that was not for sale, other than the discarded and broken hopes of previous times. 
To find meaning in this otherwise bleak moment, we all searched further afield for inspiration. Most people settled for the haircuts, postures and the songs of ABBA. Some, however, stumbled beyond the glitter and the glam and into the local dojo.
For the next decade or two I'd keep searching, flirting between styles of karate, taekwondo, fencing, judo...ending up during the mid 80's training in fusion of Chinese styles Way Lin - in East London. You may just spot me in the video below - I'm the small one with stripy bottoms, doing his best at dodging Ruben's* furious fists.
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The Internal Arts

It would, however, be my last savoury taste of a "pure" martial art. After a few unexpected clashes, I embarked on the slippery slope of the Internal Arts, beginning with Aikido and concluding with Tai Chi. 
These were Arts that taught me another definition of strength: a definition that lay not in speed nor reflexes, but in vulnerability and concession. Such an apparent contradiction proved seductive, and consistent with the history, depth of philosophy, traditions and practices spoken of in such classics as the Tao Te Ching. Ok, if I'm honest, maybe the odd roundhouse kick appealed too, as did the Chinese slippers and an occasional fling of an aluminium i-nunchaku.

Evolve Or Stagnate

As I shifted weight, from a Horse Stance to a Cat Stance, from a Gi to a black t-shirt, from a Fixed Form to a fluide shuffle - I felt the thrill of adaptability and flexibility that evolution promised. I no longer felt drawn to develop calloused knuckles, I no longer felt drawn to notions of invulnerability or confrontation. Other ideas surged forth, of power that emerged from different sources, from Vulnerability and Yielding. And in this discovery, I uncovered an alternative to the stagnant hierarchy of traditional forms and starched uniforms. The Inner arts called out against the destructive nature of competition, the stagnation of hierarchies, the rampant egoism of one path/method/school . They still do.
Not everywhere, clearly, but certainly there were some shoots of an alternative application of the arts emerging from depleted soil of those early years. There were a few green shoots resisting the fossilisation of Forms and I saw that there was little in the world that survived by staying still. Everything evolves, everything has its time, everything must die.

Back at the Cafe

"Then what have you learnt these last 4 decades pray tell?"
"Value."
"What value?"
"Exactly. What value indeed. A word that appears without meaning in this fleeting breath of life. In in a world in which every reference to value has been dug up, removed, hijacked, camouflaged or left to decompose..."
"Meaning?"
"That we now need, more than at any previous time, to recognise that when we condemn another, in truth we condemn ourselves. When we "win" through attack or invasion, in truth we have already lost the war."
"That's it?"
"Doesn't sound much I know. But it's a conclusion that reverberates through all time: That the real art of fighting is found, without fighting".

*R.I.P Ruben Joseph: Of the Way Lin School

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