One of the very worst
pieces of advice ever given to the martial arts community at large
came from the lips of Bruce Lee.
"Absorb what is
useful,
Reject what is
useless,
Add what is
specifically your own."
Determining just what
is useful and what isn't is quite a daunting task and one that should
be examined closely. After all, a goodly number of today's so-called
"mixed martial arts" crowd as well as followers of numerous
eclectic martial ways state very clearly that traditional martial
arts aren't entirely applicable to modern combat or combat at all.
They believe that numerous techniques that are taught within the
traditional martial arts either don't work very well or, in some
cases, not at all. This, they say, is why they have chosen to follow
their "own paths."
Executing a correct
reverse punch, front snap kick, kotegaeshi, or o-soto-gari is a
pretty daunting task for most raw beginners who have had little or no
previous martial arts training. The new student can spend hours
working on any one of these techniques for a whole month and it still
is practically worthless in a real fight. The reason why is obvious;
to develop any technique so that it is truly usable requires a great
deal of practice over a period of time! There are no short cuts. My
teacher said that developing effective technique is like making tea.
It can't be hurried and any attempt to do so will only ruin the
drink.
It would be easy but
very premature and terribly foolish for the novice to simply dismiss
these fundamental techniques as being "useless." The same
holds true for other, more advanced techniques that he or she will
eventually learn. I'm sure that you've encountered techniques that
just didn't work at first. I know I have. Still do. But with
patience, some introspection, and lots of practice you've been able
to see how they should be done, where your mistakes were, and
suddenly they become functional!
When you learn a
technique that doesn't seem to work well for you, ask yourself,
"why?" What are you doing wrong? Sometimes the error lies
in the physical execution of the technique but sometimes it is hidden
in a less obvious place. Maybe it's your timing that's off - and
that can be indicative of a mental/psychological error or block of
some kind, can't it? Perhaps it's your approach to the application
of the technique or your approach (physical, mental, or even
spiritual) towards your training "opponent." Regardless,
the error is thine. Find it and correct it. Sometimes it's the
finding of the error that corrects it.
I was recently reading
a book wherein the author stated that a particular movement in a
basic karate form was placed there by its creator to show future
students why they should NOT execute a particular technique.
Seriously. It involved Pinan San (aka. "Heian Sandan)...the
questioned technique involves a lunging spear-hand. This is followed
by a backward pivot which is made while the performer folds his arm
behind his back in the manner of a "hammerlock." The
book's author believes that Master Itosu (who created the five Pinan
katas) was showing students that if they tried to execute this kind
of spear-hand thrust, the opponent could wrap them up in a
hammerlock. The succeeding movement then shows how to escape from
that particular elbow twist.
How absolutely absurd!
Why would any martial arts master bother to teach students incorrect
technique through a kata? This idea is beyond ridiculous.
Obviously, the author never bothered to study the bunkai
(interpretation) of this particular kata in any depth...Rather than
do that, he came up with a wild conclusion that Itosu was warning
students not to perform a particular technique in a certain way.
Were that true, it would be possible to formulate an almost endless
kata based on "what not to do..."
To say that techniques
of the traditional martial arts are not effective (in self-defense)
is a blatant display of one's own ignorance, and perhaps, one's
unwillingness to put in the required practice (which is a nice way of
saying "lazy"). In days long since past, professional
warriors (e.g., policemen, soldiers, bodyguards, and their teachers)
relied on these arts for their very survival. Back then, it was
pretty easy to determine if a given technique worked. If it didn't,
you died. Those who developed techniques that didn't work took their
failures with them to their graves. For the most part, we'll never
know what they were.
The techniques that
did work are still with us to this day. If they didn't work, they
would have been buried long ago. So, to say that the surviving
traditional techniques don't really work is, in my opinion, a
statement made by someone who has never learned genuine traditional
technique...or who is unwilling, for one reason or another, to put in
the time and training required to develop effective technique.
Beginning piano
students dare not say that the classics are worthless and no longer
functional! The masters who contributed to the creation of the
traditional martial disciplines are our Bachs, Beethovens, and
Mozarts.
To truly understand a
technique and how it should be performed correctly requires at least
10,000 repetitions. In karate or kung-fu this isn't terribly
difficult, considering that you can easily practice 100 punches each
day. In 100 days you should be able to perform the technique
correctly, more or less. That doesn't mean it can't be improved,
though.
But that's not the
same as making it workable. To be able to perform a technique
effectively in combat requires much more practice. You see, the
effectiveness of a given technique, whether it's a punch, a kick, a
joint twist or throw from aikido or judo...involves much more than
just being able to perform the physical aspects of the technique
correctly. Much. More.
Back when I trained in
forms of Japanese karate, I could not, for the life of me, get a
roundhouse kick to work. Actually, it took MONTHS before I figured
out how to do it correctly. I guess I just had a mental block and I
couldn't imagine how to do it...but once I was able to throw a
roundhouse kick, I couldn't figure out how such a kick would ever be
useful in fighting! I suppose Bruce Lee would have told me to reject
it because, as far as I was concerned, it was pretty useless...
Then came Baguazhang.
At first glance, this art seems to have about as much in common with
combat as a fish does to a bicycle. It would have been all too easy
to simply toss it away as being some sort of pointless, flowery,
Chinese bilge water. But I didn't. I stuck with it and studied
it...in depth. I examined it carefully, examined myself, examined
its strange footwork and body movements...and I practiced and then
when I was sick of it, I practiced some more. And when I had
problems making it work (which was pretty much all the time, at
first), I stayed with it and figured out WHY I was having problems.
In any given martial
discipline, at least a decade (or more) is required if one wants to
truly understand the art. The problem is that most Westerners don't
want to spend that much time in training. They want "instant
martial arts." We're accustomed to having "instant food"
(which isn't really food), "instant entertainment", and now
we want "instant martial arts." But there isn't such an
animal...never was, and never will be.
So, rather than
absorbing what you find immediately useful and rejecting what you
think is useless, just ABSORB.
