Style wars (Your shit is fake, part 2)

Following on from my previous rant about being judged on being authentic, “Your shit is fake”, here's a continuation of the same theme. I’ve titled it “Style wars”, but you could equally call it “Your shit is fake, part 2”.

Hang on, what’s that you say gentle reader. Styles? But didn’t you just dismiss the whole idea of styles in your last (and excellently-crafted) blog post on the subject? Well, guess what, like some crazy shine-eyed Mr Zen I’m going to contradict myself completely in this post and talk about styles. You see, if you’re going to talk about martial arts then you need to come up with the occasional abstract construct, otherwise it’s impossible.

As well as your aforementioned shit being fake, which I’ve already covered, another favourite argument that guys (or gals) get into on martial arts discussion boards are simple variations of “which martial art is the best?” However, most people do it without realising they’re doing it. So, you get the Internal Martial Arts (IMA) practitioner bemoaning the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) practitioners lack of longevity training, or ‘deep healing practices’ in their art, or the MMA guy laughing at the IMA guys inability to perform well in a MMA match. Forget labels like IMA and MMA - what is actually going on here is a subtle variation of the age-old question: "Which martial art is the best?". When answering "What martial art is the best?" you need to reply with "The best for what?"

Image via Wikipedia

What's the best martial art for boxing in a ring under boxing rules? Guess what, it's boxing.

What's the best martial art for fencing with a foil? Guess what, it's fencing.

What's the best martial art for fighting in an MMA-rules match? Guess what, it's MMA.

What's the best martial art for... I could go on.

The simple fact is, they are not all designed for the same thing. Take Aikido, for example. I've read, and witnessed, lots of heated conversations between Aikido practitioners about whether Aikido can actually be used in a real fight. As I said before, in one sense styles don't really exist at all, there are only practitioners, so yes, a person who trains Aikido could certainly have developed some useful skills that he/she could use in a real fight - it depends on the person and the way they train - but it's worth asking the question about what Aikido (the style) was designed for. Because it’s a “martial art” people tend to assume it was developed for fighting, but is that really the case? If you read O'Sensei's (the founder of Aikido) own thoughts on what Aikido is it becomes pretty clear that he didn't design it as a method for fighting, but rather as a vehicle for teaching certain spiritual truths, or lessons, about resolving conflict without recourse to violence, while maintaining a harmonious spirit.

Don’t believe me? Take a few notes from the guy himself in this interview :

"B: It is said that Aikido is quite different from Karate and Judo.

O Sensei: In my opinion, it can be said to be the true martial art. The reason for this is that it is a martial art based on universal truth. This universe is composed of many different parts, and yet the universe as a whole is united as a family and symbolizes the ultimate state of peace. Holding such a view of the universe, Aikido cannot be anything but a martial art of love. It cannot be a martial art of violence. For this reason Aikido can be said to be another manifestation of the Creator of the universe. In other words, Aikido is like a giant (immense in nature). Therefore, in Aikido, heaven and earth become the training grounds. The state of mind of the Aikidoist must be peaceful and totally nonviolent. That is to say, that special state of mind which brings violence into a state of harmony. And this I think is the true spirit of Japanese martial arts. We have been given this earth to transform into a heaven on earth. Warlike activity is totally out of place."

There you go - he said it, not me! Of course, some people will say, "Ah, yes, that's what he said, but from the training stories I've heard from my teacher about back in the day it wasn't like that - it was brutal!". Well, yes, that may be true, but from the many similar things the founder wrote about Aikido (I found that quote above with a 10 second Google search) I don't see how you can argue that Aikido was created for "fighting". Sure, you can fight with it, and many do, but what was that what it was originally created for? If your interest is in MMA-rules ring fighting then would you be better served by learning Aikido or learning MMA?

Do you get what I'm saying? I'm not saying you can't use Aikido for fighting, I'm saying that's not what it was created for. You can use a farmer's spade as a weapon, quite effectively in fact, but was that it's original purpose?

You can take this line of enquiry further, too. If you analyse the techniques used in Aikido you'll find a preponderance of techniques used to counter a wrist grab. In a modern day setting this can be quite bewildering. In fist fights people rarely grab your wrist, but if you look into the arts that the founder of Aikido practiced (Daito Ryu - a "cultural heritage of the Japanese warrior class with a long history and tradition") you'll find that it originated from weapons usage. If you wanted to stop somebody drawing their sword then a wrist grab would be a good way to go about it, which goes a long way to understand the amount of defences to wrist grabbing that you'll find in modern day Aikido. That's what those techniques were developed for.

Image via Wikipedia

I'm not saying you have to be all one-dimensional about this either - over the course of history martial arts have been created for a surprising wide variety of reasons, and they've also evolved into different things as time has gone by. For example, the oral history of the Chinese martial art of XingYi passed down from teacher to student is that XingYi was created for fighting with a spear on the battlefield, and it got modified to being an unarmed method of self-defence once its original military purposes was no longer of use to civilians. Of course, that doesn't mean that XingYi is useless if you don't fight with a spear on a battlefield wearing armour! Not only was it able to be modified to unarmed usage, but you can learn a lot more than just fighting with a spear from it - you can learn about yourself and nature and a whole boat-load of other stuff. Each art comes with a whole package of benefits - that's what helps them survive after its original purpose is no longer valid - e.g. nobody carries swords in China anymore, yet sword-based martial arts are still practiced, mainly for these 'other' reasons. Equally, there's more to be gained from MMA than just competing in MMA venues - you also gain other benefits along the way, such as confidence, athletic ability, facing your fears, etc...

So, the next time you practice your martial art of choice ask yourself "What was this created for?" It might lead you to some surprising insights into the nature of the movements and the way they are performed. And it might help you look outside the particular ‘box’ of your style if you intend to put it to use for something that it wasn’t, perhaps, created for in the first place.