Martial Arts

The Dao of Martial Arts

Martial Arts (Wu Shu) includes a vast array of exercises and skills, from the actual use of ancient armaments on one extreme to the purely abstract play of such games as chess and go (or, in Chinese, wei qi). One's extended hand can be used like a spear, and the sequence of attacks and counter-attacks used in sparring or actual combat is as much involved with strategy as is a chess game, so Kinkaju will focus this discussion on the unarmed martial arts, with the understanding that it may need to be elaborated or extended at points by going into these several more specialized areas.

Regardless of whether the individual combatant has learned sumo or savate, the fighters involved share a common physiology and neural system. There are, of course, differences in the body of the sumo champion and the savate champion, but they are differences of degree and not kind. Similarly, the minds of the chess champion, the golfing champion, and the wrestling champion are all built on the same model. Just as the golfer must learn to maintain perfect control of hirz body despite the peaking pressure of the crucial stroke of the championship match, the martial artist must learn to keep equally perfect control of hirz body -- especially in a life-threatening situation.

It is not surprising to find similarities among all the martial arts, since they are all designed by human beings for fighting human beings. It is also not surprising to find differences among the martial arts based on both preferences and tradition, and on the differences in individual characteristics that make one style more suited to an individual than any other.

Even before inter-continental travel became convenient and economical, it would be hard to isolate most martial arts as the unique product of one time and place. Legend has it that Bodhidharma taught the monks of the Shao Lin monastery the fighting arts of hirz native India. Japanese karate, jujutsu, and aikido all use techniques that were doubtless imported from China. For instance, Shotokan karate acknowledges that it incorporates two different streams of kata (formal exercises), one based on Shao Lin, and one based on Sho-rei (nei jia (southern Chinese "interior culture")) schools. Japanese Shorinji kempo (Shao Lin Si quan fa) is a modification to suit Japanese sensibilities of the original Chinese Shao Lin style.

On the other hand, each person's martial art is hirz own. On the down side, it incorporates all of hirz mistakes and inadequacies. On the up side, it is the perfect adaptation of martial arts principles to hirz unique neural system and general physiology.

Kinkaju will use one kata from the xing yi (motion + meaning) school to illustrate some of these ideas. 'E has selected this kata both because it is likely otherwise to be lost (it appears in no book on xing yi that Kinkaju has ever been able to find), and in order to honor one of Kinkaju's first teachers, the late Mr. Chen Mei-Shou. (Kinkaju begs the instruction of other of Mr. Chen's students such as Mr. Tim Tackett should there be errors in this kata.)

For now, just a couple of Kinkaju pix digitized from VCR tapes. See pictures.

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