The Modern Martial Artist.

Discussion in 'Other Martial Arts Articles' started by Vanir, Aug 15, 2004.

  1. Vanir

    Vanir lost my sidhe

    ...cannot afford to be politically unaware, in an age of global terrorism and continuing social concerns. But what does this mean? Where does true, contemporary martial arts begin?

    It means someone less skilled can kick your **** when they believe they are right moreso than you. One link in the collective martial arts philosophies chain. When someone is more desperate and brutal, and more prepared to be so. When someone is invigored with extreemist zeal more inherently.
    The simple truth is an experienced combatant automatically has tremendous advantage, regardless of skill training. And individuals on the political outside live in perpetual combat, including some whom enjoy to frustrate, bully, orchestrate confrontation with and outright attack others. People your average martial artist might find necessitate their intervention at some encounters.

    One of the manners in which such a person might kick the proverbial martial artist's **** would be in the realm of social acceptability. Don't be mistaken, this is a tricky and whimsical issue for any of us to face.
    A thug is already a thug, he doesn't lose anything by acting as such. A martial artist however can lose his inherent character dealing with one ignorantly and become as much the cause of a frown for onlookers. Do that too many times and you can find yourself looking down the wrong end of a courtroom by actually having done the right thing, such as defending someone or yourself. It's all relative once it becomes a story you know.

    Never get baited. Keep paranoia at healthy levels. Always remain aware of appearances, as a peripherary consideration when interceding in the activities of others, regardless of the circumstance. Always keep a solid grounding in whom you are as a person. These few things may help a little.

    But it's not just in virtual reality the dangers lay. Another way a thug may kick your **** is, again psychological but quite real, by dissipating your ingrained will to fight, as it were. A hard luck story in a few words ("I just got out of prison"). Distracting your demeanour (pleading an invented case of wrongdoing to you as though you were the school principle). Outmatching your intent ("After I knock you out I'm going to cut out your eye-balls and eat them"). Claiming greater knowledge ("Yeah, I've seen you around").
    These ploys are usually followed by a sudden and immediately brutal attack or chronic bullying. The assailant is likely to perform far more strongly than they otherwise would've, even the skilled martial artist could sustain serious damage much more quickly than you might've expected.

    Don't listen to the statements of a potential assailant with too much effort. Once you have decided to approach a potentially violent individual or are yourself approached by one and choose not to prudently leave, you have no care as to a personal relationship with them but to achieve a very specific objective, one that will usually be drawn out by them, as if instinctively to test your resolve. Be patient. Remain confident and stick by your initial decisions regarding the circumstance. You have your training among your tool case and those are what you shall be using should you be required to. Nothing from an adversarial individual but their absence is required by you.
    And never let one convince you otherwise, even for an instant.

    How are these things politics? It is an interesting observation that politics are these things. It is a word which describes how different human psychologies interact to achieve personal objectives. "Using psychology" is politics. Religions are politics. Nations use politics. Different ones interact through the political forum (ideally).

    When your political party is in office, you are quite ideologically right without trying. However in real terms "office" may simply mean prevailant. In a Liberal government one may find themselves in a Labour environment specifically (a local Union meeting), where capitalist Anglicanism might not go down so well as say, nationalist Socialism (with a deference to whomever is in power).
    Or similarly, a Conservative Republican might feel a little out of place in a room full of Liberal Democrats (what with the shotgun, white hood, walking cane and all).

    Of course, even among martial artists themselves are politics. Chinese vs. Japanese, Korean vs. traditional and new wave vs. everybody. Pacific martial arts, Middle Eastern, South American, African. English martial arts, as mentioned openly lay in parliament today, moved from the jousting field to reside among the Houses of Lords and Commons. I'd go plainly as far to speculate an English martial artist is a man with a white wig and a writ from the Attorney-General. Attack him on the streets and you might find yourself being raided by the Federal Police on a weekly basis for the next 20 years, or otherwise simply held under the open terms of "Her Majesty's Pleasure" at prison.
    Don't laugh, it actually happens although under extreme circumstance. Occasionally it happens under mistaken circumstance.

    Here's a thought to consider: after you leave the dojo where are you, in 7th century Feudalism or a 21st century Democracy? I've already spoken extensively about understanding the law and self defence in contemporary societies. It's also important to understand one's own political nature when levelling a psychological system from another place or time into a contemporary, democratic society. But don't be too concerned with labels, where you fail to care one will be assigned to you by dictionaries.

    Scary the power politics has in the martial arts forum, isn't it? One might say it is an integral element.
    So where does martial arts begin in a contemporary society? Playing your guitar. Preparing your dinner. Walking down the street (careful about that one).

    If you're a "quiet type" of person you're likely to attract some degree of playful harassment by "expressive" individuals simply doing normal things. Maybe your parents feel this is a natural levelling to an ideal medium character for people to entertain in society. Everybody should have certain (decided) amounts of thoughtful and outgoing natures in order to be natural or healthy. In fact this concept (aside from being self-contradictory), is to acquiesce in relation to community politics and it is nobody's decision to make but yours. This is known as "democracy" and was quite a departure from medieval, Feudal politics.
    Before you say, "But my parents aren't using Feudal nor any other politics in saying such things," remember that politics only describes things which already are. Knights, Earls and Serfs at no time decided, "Let's create a political system which we will live by, called Feudalism."

    If you're a "good worker" sort of person, you're likely to find yourself the subject of jibes and over-competitiveness when accomplishing tasks more "intelligent" people simply know nothing about. Maybe your parents feel this is simply the nature of things and society is built on people sharing their skills for common goals. Once again this is a political decision to acquiesce at doctrine and a personal decision, as nationalism (or Conservative Republicanism) need be, according to democracy.
    And before you say, "But my parents vote Liberal/Democrat," are they right or left-wing? Extreme or fundamentalist? Conservative or liberalist? Leaning on policies?

    We've already discussed the scenario of being attacked on the street but these are some of the reasons conflict may appear at work, in your neighbourhood or at a public congregation. It does no good not to be aware of them.
    You might say that it is unreasonable to be intolerant of competitive social behavior as it is associative to human societies, however in part the reason democracy has developed in prevailance is because all people do not reside in similar circumstance to each other. One might say it is intolerance for independance which causes these conflicts at the first instance.

    How serious do these politics get? Let's call it an explosive concern. Allowing your own harassment is inviting trouble for others later on and doesn't help a nation do anything but stagnate in high school social structures for the general majority. Not being able to do anything about it is a psychosis waiting to happen. And doing the wrong thing about it can be worse than doing nothing.
    Columbine is definitely an over-reaction. 9/11 is definitely another issue. But abuse does happen at a regular basis and is ever a hair's breadth from social acceptability. Parents abuse their children failing at their inherited job. Bullies take out their beatings at home on those luckier than themselves at school. Success can be turned into victimization at a moment's notice and either way it's entertainment. And all exist to serve...us. A vagrant's just an image of a man on a street corner unless your experience runs to the personal and then you're corrupted so nobody needs to listen to you anyway.

    Whether or not it's a pleasant consideration, real live human beings are starving to death and their intestines are suffering presences they were never designed to whilst most of us subject them to it over no more than political egotism. It's not just that we don't think about it, it's that when we do we argue about it and that's no more than the arrogance of not caring one way or the other.
    A child complains of sexual abuse in the hands of religious fundamentalists and society assigns them under the care of a fundamentalist institution specializing in child care (a questionable friend once suggested to me, "Where do you think degenerates advertise for successive victims? They're degenerate, not stupid"). And then when they grow up we demand they not waste our precious recreational time whingeing about it but rather just "get over it" or have a neatly packaged lawsuit. The watch word of the early 21st century.
    Columbine and 9/11 just aren't that far removed from "Western societies" as people had always assumed. That is, we are not so far removed from they in daily routine. Truth is by the time such individuals involved came to perform their terrorist/mass murder they probably didn't honestly think anybody would find anything at all wrong with their methods, just the shock of their seriousness. Their preparedness to personally act.

    A multi-faceted gem, is not politics? You, the martial artist, whom might intercede in the aggression of a co-worker or a violent transport passenger, you already exist in this realm whether you like it or not. No black-belt exemptions exist.

    Nevertheless, about here's where we take a chill pill :D
     

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