True martial arts are dying!

 

We spend a great deal of time advertising and marketing the benefits of the martial arts – discipline, confidence, self-defense, courtesy, integrity, perseverance – but is it all hype?

 

I think this is due, largely, to our focus on "sport" & "competition" and making money in our society.  There is a great deal of emphasis placed on what someone has "won".  It is often used as a measure of their success.  Sadly, their technical abilities don't translate to daily life success.

 

Now, I'm NOT saying that sport or competition is bad.  I am saying that the by-products are often negative.  I remember back to when "Full Contact" was the name used and martial artists fought hard to win the fight.  At that time, martial arts spoke respectfully about their opponent and showed their respect at the start of each round.

 

Today's martial sport seems to have more trash talking and peacock strutting than respect and integrity.  I've heard the comment several times from more sport-oriented peers that "The mat doesn't lie."  The problem with that is the lack of insight into the rest of the world.  If everything can only be settled "on the mat" then I don't think you've learned your art very well.  I wouldn't deny that some of them are very good and talented fighters but is the world only about the fight?

 

I know there are all kinds of analogies using sports to compare how business is done and how to be successful.  That's a very superficial viewpoint though. Yes, there is competition between businesses for clients/customers.  That's not the point.  If it's only about the competition, send your best fighter over there and beat them up. That doesn't really happen, right?  Here's where the real benefits of martial arts training comes in.

 

Businesses survive and grow based on their ability to problem solve.  This is either for their clients/customers or in their processes to operate more effectively.  This is based on martial arts (even combat) principles and strategies… but NOT the physical techniques.

I won't limit this to just the martial arts though.  How many NFL players have spent time planning out their touchdown "celebration"?  How often are players strutting around after making a great play? Isn't that what they're paid to do anyway?  If you really look at it, the true competitors are the ones who were not only greatly successful but understated.  How often did you see Emmett Smith spike the ball after a touchdown?  I don't recall any.  He'd hand the ball to an official or just drop it, then head back the huddle.  You can see similar examples in the NHL with Wayne Gretsky and Mario Lemieux.  Their outstanding knowledge of the game allowed them to utilize their physical skills.  This understanding of the "real" game has made them successful in business as well.

In response to the article on True Martial Arts Are Dying is an interesting comment because there are two sides of the sword when we discuss this. If you are lucky enough to know a master who has trained in the Temples of China, and has carried their art over to this country you will learn that their entire life is martial arts. It can be found in their paintings, their business, and their religion. At this point martial arts is very much alive. When we have masters that are great and they close their hands, chances are they disperse the art among two or three people. Those people go on to teach and train in the art. But they are not the same as the first original master. The art begins to loose it's originality. It becomes less pure because other teachers add their own ideas. The art is not dead, but it just modernized. Many students of martial arts today have a tendency to be interested in fancy moves and lack the desire to question what they are really doing. Some of the teachers of these martial arts schools don't know what they are teaching. If you don't understand the move how can you use it. If you don't wonder how your art came to be, then it has no value. It's in those karate schools that cause martial arts to die. It takes the breathe of a true master to keep the art and style alive. I find in older martial art students, the interest to learn about the arts. Perhaps we have a quieter mind that makes us research out our style. Let's hope the style we have studied has merit. Because it's those empty styles of karate that have no prior lineage that are best left to the short term karate student who are in it for the belts and drop out never to return. That is where the martial arts die off. But, as long as there is a constant connection to the anceint lineage with instructors who have the passion to connect their students to the knowledge I feel martial arts just might beable to live on for a while longer. But it will be up to us to keep it alive.