CULTURE OR COMBAT?

 By Phillip Starr

I believe that in order to truly understand a given martial discipline and perform it correctly, one must have a firm grasp of the culture that gave it birth. This will necessarily involve some substantial study as well as introspection, which is something that many (perhaps most) martial arts devotees loathe. But just as the various punches, kicks, and/or throws belong to a given martial form, so the does culture from which it comes. And to truly understand the essence and spirit of that martial art, you must likewise understand its mother culture.

There are those who argue that understanding the culture isn't at all necessary, or even important. Most of them will assert that the purpose of the art is self-defense; it was/is intended for combat. Period. It's a rather shallow approach to such a deep subject (as martial arts) but nonetheless, it's the position taken by many practitioners (consciously or unconsciously). Such people can never truly understand the spirit of their chosen art and may very well be doing it incorrectly as a result.

I'm not necessarily inferring that you need to spend time living in the country/culture from which you art came, but you need to study and absorb the culture as best you can. This is something I realized when I lived in China for 3 years. I had spent more than 50 years training in Chinese martial arts and I figured I had it all sorted out. Not so. There was a lot more to Chinese culture than I had ever imagined and my exposure to it changed the way I practice my kung-fu.

As Westerners, we tend to “Americanize” (or “British-ize”, or whatever else) the manner in which we see, understand, and consequently practice, the martial disciplines of the East. It's only natural for us to do so and it's also true of Eastern folks who take up Western activities, whether it's baseball or anything else. And it actually changes the way in which we (and they) practice said activities.

Learning to speak some of the language of the culture in question is very helpful. You don't need to become fluent, but being able to converse on a very basic level with people who are native to that culture is very useful and conducive to really understanding the culture. Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa, a Canadian-born Japanese gentleman who served as president of San Francisco State University and later became a U.S. senator, was a linguist who made a statement that has stuck in my mind ever since I read it in his book,, “Language in Action.” He said that we cannot conceive of things for which our particular language does not have a word(s); we are, essentially, hindered in our mode of thinking by the language we speak! I have found this to be true. So, by learning other languages we not only enable ourselves to speak to foreigners; we expand our minds!

To really understand the culture of a country and why they do what they do, I think it's necessary to learn something of the language because then you'll learn how they think! And that will impact how you see and practice your chosen martial art.