THE MARTIALIST MANIFESTO
Bruce
Lee wrote a famous article called “Liberate Yourself from
Classical Karate” in
which he basically called out the entire martial arts establishment. In
the
course of a single essay, he made his intentions and his attitude
clear:
tradition didn’t matter to him. Doing things the way
they’d always been done
because they’d always been done that way wasn’t
something he thought important.
Bruce Lee was a pioneer in the modern martial arts and, thanks to him,
countless people study martial systems today that are much more
effective than
the traditional strip-mall dojo curricula that coexist with those more
realistic programs. Lee wrote,
Unfortunately,
most students in the martial arts are conformists. Instead of learning
to
depend on themselves for expression, they blindly follow their
instructors, no
longer feeling alone, and finding security in mass imitation. The
product of
this imitation is a dependent mind. Independent inquiry, which is
essential to
genuine understanding, is sacrificed. Look around the martial arts and
witness
the assortment of routine performers, trick artists, desensitized
robots,
glorifiers of the past and so on – all followers or exponents
of organized
despair.
Most
martial artists and self-defense exponents would agree with these
words, in
spirit if not to the letter. The irony, however, is that many among our
ranks
venerate Lee and people like him every bit as much as the
traditionalists whom
Lee excoriated venerated tradition for its own sake. How else could Lee
have become
the patron saint of the modern martial arts if he was not being held up
as some
überauthority? How often have you seen something in
self-defense condemned or
justified on the basis of what Lee would, wouldn’t, did, or
didn’t do?
heard it said: “Well, Bruce Lee did (or didn’t) do
such-and-such, so this is
(or isn’t) okay.” This isn’t a phenomenon
specific to Bruce Lee, either. The
self-defense field, because it involves violence, is something that
involves,
attracts, and plays host to many adherents who have wildly different
levels of
real-life experience. Those that have “been there and done
that” automatically
feel they have some greater handle on the truth, on the speculative and
prescient (and therefore inexact) science of training for success in
self-defense. “You will (or won’t) encounter this
in self-defense because
that’s what I did (or didn’t) encounter,”
they will tell you, and their having
been there and done that is presented as the end of the matter.
The
same goes for those who worship at the alter of traditionalist
hierarchy. They
swoon and speak in hushed tones when it comes to Great Grandmaster Such
and
Such, who is a fifty-seventh degree black belt or sash as certified in
the
Ancient Country of Your Choice. Anyone whose belt or sash is a shade
lighter
than the next fellow’s is automatically presumed to be less
right than the man
standing ahead of him in the lineage.
The
problem with these attitudes is that they dismiss critical thinking,
reality,
and honest pragmatism in favor of hero-worship. When authority
becomes our benchmark of what can or cannot be considered
or attempted, we stop bothering to think about what we believe and
start simply
placing our toes on the lines drawn by those willing to drag a foot
through the
dirt for us. When rank is substituted for truth, we stop
daring to question what we
are told and instead become obedient followers, conforming to the
training
methodologies and techniques placed before us by those in power.
Having
been there and done that, being experienced,
or having an impressive resume of credentials does not mean one is
always or
even necessarily right. Take the
average combat veteran, for example. While the service and sacrifice of
such
men and women cannot be denied, the experiences of any one person do
not embody
the reality of war or of a given conflict for all others who served.
How many
books have you seen in the stores from those who’ve served in
or
Compare and contrast
the books by soldiers who are proud of their service to propaganda
pieces that
blame the military for the protagonists’ choices or problems.
Yet every one of
those authors has been there and done
that – so how dare we criticize?
How
do fellow veterans dare to disagree with one another, for that matter?
Even the
“experts,” the authorities,
disagree
– vehemently and vociferously – with one another.
Consider, for example, the
almost ancient arguments between, say, adhrents of Jeff
Cooper’s modern
technique of the pistol versus adherents of Rex Applegate’s
point shooting
methods. Here were men who definitely know and knew their craft, men
who are
acknowledged as authorities – yet their work
doesn’t agree. So who is right?
What credence does each man’s respective authority give his
opinion?
The
fact is that truth can only be determined by critical analysis of the
available
data, and even then it can only be determined within context, against
the limits of that available data.
Let’s
consider Bruce Lee again. Jeet Kune Do is, in most of the incarnations
I’ve
seen, a fairly athletically demanding style. What Bruce Lee could do,
many
“ordinary people” could not do. It has been rumored
by some – and I have no
idea that this is true – that perhaps Bruce did not want his
students to be
better than was he, so his training may have suffered or been altered
accordingly. Yet Lee was an authority, by anyone’s measure.
Surely he was right
in all things as a result, was he not?
As
students of pragmatic, effective self-defense, we cannot allow
authority to be
the arbiter of what is true or what we will consider. We also cannot
let it
determine the course of how we will study and pursue success in
self-defense.
Chuck Norris wrote, in one of the many iterations of his biography, of
a
low-level competitor who defeated Norris in a sparring bout simply
because he
wanted it more. Norris was overconfident and he lost. Yet who would
give the
martial arts opinions of the low-level stylist greater weight than the
opinions
of Chuck Norris? Who, when listening to both people speak in the same
room,
would even bother to consider the words of the relative novice when
Norris was
in the room and clearly an authority on the topic?
When
your willingness to consider another person’s opinion is
based on the content
of that person’s resume, rather than on the substance and
presentation of that
person’s opinion, you’ve fallen for the trap.
You’ve allowed authority to
become your arbiter, substituting it, substituting credentials and
resumes,
substituting hierarchy and perhaps tradition, for your responsibility
to
consider ideas critically. You’ve taken the easy way out;
you’ve let someone
else’s opinion be good enough for you when you should be
determining things for
yourself.
Heroes
are idols and idols are objects of worship. Something or someone
worshipped is
rarely known for its ability to stimulate intellectual growth and
development
in the worshipper. An idol is venerated rather than questioned. It is
trusted
rather than challenged. It is held up
rather than held to (a standard).
The
idol becomes the arbiter; it dictates rather than teaches.
This
brings me to the purpose of this manifesto. The problems of authority
in the
martial arts industry, of rank and hierarchy, of tradition, and of the
analogous non-traditional self-defense tribes, teachers, and schools of
thought
is one of power structure. The
self-defense industry – and make no mistake, it is an industry – is built on selling
the student a bill of goods that
includes this power structure. Any independent thought on the part of
the
student is considered heresy, arrogance, impatience, or some other
variety of
overreaching that student’s own very limited and strictly
defined authority.
This is done so that those who are part of the power structure
– from teachers,
experts, and authorities to their students, followers, and disciples
– can
maintain control and thus maintain their positions in the hierarchy.
They seek
to maintain these positions because their perceptions of power over
others
gratify their egos and are inextricably intertwined with their senses
of self.
To
seek effective self-defense requires you to break this power structure.
It
requires that you become a free agent, a ronin, a rogue. It requires
you to
become a martialist. The martialist
is not a martial artist. The
martialist
is not a traditionalist. The martialist is also not a member of the
various
reality-based self-defense tribes, cults, classes, and curricula out
there – at
least not first and foremost. No, the martialist is a self-defense
pragmatist,
a realist who is interested in only what will further his or her goal
of
success in self-defense. Anything and everything that furthers this
goal is
valid, is legitimate, is worth considering, is worth having, and is
worth
training. Anything and everything that acts as an obstacle to this goal
– every
facet of the power structure of the self-defense community that is more
concerned with form than function, more concerned with rank than
reality, more
concerned with authority than action – must be opposed.
To
be a martialist is to recognize that you are not, nor will you ever be,
the
strongest, the fastest, the baddest, or the mostest. You are a citizen
leading
a real life who doesn’t have time for the ego trips, the
power games, the belt
tests, the Internet wars, the school loyalties, the bowing and
scraping, or the
dismissing of the traditional merely for being traditional. You, the
martialist, are a critical thinker who, through practicality, ruthless
dedication to efficacy, and an utter disdain a for the martial arts
power
structure can and will maximize your ability to defend yourself.
You
will deny tradition not for being traditional, but for getting in your
way, for
caring more about tradition for its own sake than for the ostensible
purpose
behind the founding of those martial traditions. You will defy
hierarchy not
because you want it easy or because you do not know your place, but
because you
understand you as a sovereign individual and private citizen are the
equal of
any other private citizen. Your right to self-defense is inalienable.
Your
authority is no less than that of any other human being who seeks only
to
remain healthy and happy, who wishes only to protect his or her family,
who
wants only to live his life free of the depredations of
society’s criminal element.
You,
the martialist, understand that to succeed, you must refuse to play by
anyone’s
rules. You will not fight society’s predators on their terms
– nor will you
learn to fight them according to the rules of some member of the
martial arts
power structure. You will dedicate yourself to fighting unfairly, to
seeking
every possible advantage and learning every possible practical tool in
order to
succeed in a physical altercation. We live in a dangerous world. You
must be
prepared to meet those dangers realistically.
Effective
self-defense is not rocket science. It is not something that takes
years to
master. It is not something in which only the most physically fit can
become
competent. It is not the purview of only those who have scrolls of
ancient parchment
or the approval of equally ancient lineages of teachers at which they
can point
and to whom they can defer. It is not the exclusive jurisdiction of
only those
with military or law enforcement experience. It is not the sole
territory of
those with black belts and white uniforms, or those wearing black
t-shirts and
paramilitary garb.
Your
path to effective self-defense starts when you make the decision to
become a
rogue martialist, to make your own way in the martial arts. It begins
when you
choose to become a free agent who is, in the words of martial artist
Kelly
Worden, “nobody’s boy.” Once you have
chosen freedom over slavery, rejected
hierarchy for independent critical thought, and discarded tradition in
favor of
pragmatism, you will have internalized the mindset of the martialist.
You can
then apply it in your pursuit of self-defense. You can use it to
identify the
universal principles of practical self-defense as you seek physical
instruction. Those principles are yours to discover, but
they’re fairly
obviously embodied in the concepts of forward drive and aggression
coupled with
ruthless pragmatism and the willingness to preempt – in
effect, they are
embodied by the words fight unfairly.
As
martialists, we must deny tradition. We must defy hierarchy. We must
liberate
ourselves from hero worship in order to make our own way. We are the
masters of
our fates, the captains of our souls. It is up to us – and no
one, no matter
how high their rank, no matter how great their perceived authority, can
do our
thinking for us.
It
is fine to have role models. It is fine to respect those who have
contributed
much to the field of self-defense. It is fine to consider carefully and
to
weigh more heavily the opinions, conclusions, and assertions of those
who have
greater experience. It is not fine,
however, to engage in logical fallacies, such as ad
hominem attacks or appeals to authority. When we are
presented
with a technique, a training methodology, an opinion, or an argument
and our
response is to demand why or how the person presenting that argument dares to express it in the first place,
we are worshipping idols rather than thinking critically.
Friedrich
Nietzsche, in the introduction to Twilight
of the Idols, wrote,
There
are more idols than realities in the world… [T]o pose
questions with a hammer,
and sometimes to hear as a reply that famous hollow sound that can only
come
from bloated entrails – what a delight for…me, an
old psychologist and pied
piper before whom just that which would remain silent must finally
speak out.
…This little essay is a great declaration of war; and
regarding the sounding
out of idols, this time they are not just idols of the age, but eternal
idols,
which are here touched with a hammer as with a tuning fork: there are
no idols
that are older, more assured, more puffed-up – and none more
hollow. That does
not prevent them from being those in which people have the most faith;
nor does
one ever say “idol,” especially not in the most distinguished
instance.
Take
up your hammer. Sound your idols. Question authority. Consider ideas
critically. Dismiss none of them on the basis of logical fallacies. Ask
yourself: How many of your idols are hollow?
Don’t be a martial artist. Don’t be a
combatives exponent. Don’t be a
non-traditionalist for its own sake.
It’s
very easy, depending on your point of view, to assign the problems of
power
structure and hierarchy in self-defense to the various established and
primarily Eastern martial arts institutions operating in the
self-defense
community. This is a mistake. Anyone who’s spent time dealing
with the
traditionalist’s opposite measure knows that the
non-traditionalists are every
bit as bad. They have the same issues of authority and, in some ways,
their
issues are that much worse – for they pay lip-service to
denying traditional
trappings while adopting many of the same conventions, discouraging
free- and
critical-thinking students and decrying them as self-defense heretics.
Let me
give you examples from both sides of the dividing line that is the
traditional
martial arts.
I
have always thought it a curious sensation to enjoy immensely the work
of an
author with whom you often disagree. This is the emotion I experience
most
frequently when reading anything by a particular martial arts magazine
columnist, whose columns for a prominent commercial martial arts
magazine
magazine have been collected in multiple bound volumes. We’ll
call this fellow
Mr. Miyagi. Mr. Miyagi is a traditionalist. Mr. Miyagi is, in fact, an
unabashed, avowed traditionalist who makes no excuses and no apologies
for the
elitist attitudes found within traditionally founded, traditionally
practiced,
traditionally expressed martial arts. Well spoken, thoughtful, and
entertaining, Mr. Miyagi expresses, eloquently and often, the elitist
sentiments that have rendered so much of traditional martial art
irrelevant to
contemporary self-defense.
Not
long before I started writing this, Mr. Miyagi wrote a scathing
diatribe at a
popular martial arts discussion forum on the Internet. His post was in
reaction
to a discussion of the worst martial arts uniforms and poses the
participants
could find across the Web. The posting of pictures from other martial
artists’
websites, in order to ridicule the myriad sins committed by the models,
is a
popular and recurring topic at the site in question. A cynical observer
might
comment that such an activity is the most
popular pastime at this particular site; it certainly seems
to draw an
incredible amount of attention from martial artists eager to point out
everything from mistakes of technique to transgressions of fashion.
Certainly
on the Internet there is no shortage of martial artists (would-be and
otherwise) posing and posturing ridiculously. There is nothing wrong
with
pointing out egregious violations of technique or even of poking fun at
outlandish costumes and displays. When ridiculing anyone and everyone
who is
not standing solemnly in a snow-white uniform adhering to the strictest
rigors
of traditional decorum becomes a purpose in and of itself, however,
one’s
approach to the martial arts flirts dangerously with irrelevance and
petty
derision.
Mr.
Miyagi’s sneering contempt for all Westerners not conforming
to his traditional
notions of conduct and application was palpable in its scornful
vehemence. He
wrote about, of all people, Elvis Presley, whom he saw as the
quintessence of
American commercial martial arts. Such a grotesque figure, in his
garish
uniform and unkempt hair, proclaiming his affiliation with the martial
arts
(Presley studied American Kenpo with famed instruction Ed Parker),
personifies
to Mr. Miyagi what is wrong with Western approaches to traditional
self-defense
teaching. Elvis and those who venerate him (and presumably the American
martial
arts in general) are, to Mr. Miyagi, nothing but poor white trash
– a
collection of Camaro-driving hicks whom Miyagi declared in his essay to
be
shallow, profane, and pitiful in their lack of self-awareness.
So
thoroughly Easternized is Mr. Miyagi’s attitude that anything
even hinting of
the occidental in the martial arts is reason for fear and loathing. A
man in a
red-white-and-blue gi is not simply a Western practitioner of, say,
karate,
whose commercial dojo has made concessions to Western culture and
standards of
value; he is, in the mind of Mr. Miyagi, a vulgar and pathetic redneck
who
lacks the mental capacity and the depth of character to grasp the very,
very
important meaning of the traditional martial arts. Heaven help such a
tobacco-chewing, professional-wrestling-t-shirt-wearing,
NASCAR-watching
bumpkin as he stumbles to the strip mall dojo in is silken and sequined
uniform
festooned with rank and weapons patches – for he is, at
heart, not merely a
backwards hick; he is the epitome of everything traditional martial
artists
deride. He is not in the club. He
does not belong, and his heresy lies in his not belonging.
One
of Mr. Miyagi’s published essays (which I read in one of the
many collections
of these that I own) discussed the fact that there are no
observers’ chairs in
traditional dojos. Visitors are not welcome and Mr. Miyagi made no
excuses for
that. The student is, in fact, being done a favor
by being taught. He should, in the mind of the traditional
martial artist,
be forever grateful for the honor bestowed on him by his teacher. This
attitude
contrasts sharply with Western morals and values. Westerners (and,
generally,
martialists) tend to see teachers as contractors –
individuals paid to perform
a service, whose mutual benefit is in being paid to do what they love.
Westerners are less likely to take to the teacher-worship, the bowing
and
scraping, that characterize the most traditional of the traditional
martial
arts. This is the occidental attitude of individualism, of self-worth,
which
Mr. Miyagi and those like him see as ringing so hollow, of being so
false, in
the mullet-upholstered minds of those Mr. Miyagi condescendingly
dismisses as
insecure, deluded yokels.
At
the heart of this sharp divide – Eastern, traditional
abasement of the
individual in favor of conformity to ancient rules, ranks, customs, and
structures – is what I believe is truly the cause for the
rift. It is the
reason so much of traditional martial art is irrelevant to
self-defense. This
is that Easternized practitioners of these stylized, technical,
ritualistic
pursuits see them as vehicles for self-discovery and transformation.
They view
them as traditions that exist in and of themselves, more important than
a
single individual and valuable as
tradition, as a body of defined and preserved material that
is worthy of
being sustained unchanged indefinitely. They view any modification of
these
rituals and their content as cause for concern and for scorn. Worse,
they see
any departure from this body of motivations, mechanics, and mandates as
heresy.
One
who moves outside, who becomes a heretic, has committed a fundamental
sin. He
does not belong – and his persistence in fields that could be
considered
martial, or which descend from that which he has forsaken, is an insult
to
those who believe he does not belong.
Opposed
to the traditional martial arts are those who advocate pragmatic
self-defense
in some RBSD (Reality Based Self-Defense) format. Often such
practitioners
despise all tradition because they wrongly dismiss it all as unworkable
or stylized.
To such “thug-fu” practitioners, the term martial
art is itself a dirty word, conjuring up point-sparring
matches, strip-mall
cardio kickboxing classes, and other things useless for preempting,
meeting,
and defeating real-life violence. Both camps, in their most extreme
incarnations, are missing the point.
One
of the reasons martialists manage to irk so many people is that they
cannot be
easily categorized by members of the opposed camps. For years I have
published
a e-zine called The Martialist: The
Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly. I have studied
traditional martial
arts and taken much of value from them; I refuse to dismiss a technique
or a
method out of hand based on its traditional provenance. I see much of
martial
art as useful to pragmatic self-defense. At the same time, I recognize
much of
the traditional martial arts – especially those characterized
by elitist
attitudes and the elevation of ritual over reality – as
completely irrelevant
to my pursuit of success in self-defense. Thus I have no traditional
rankings
or certifications that any of these people would find impressive
– and I never
hear the end of it from said individuals when I dare to criticize their
snobbish attitudes or their utopian approaches.
On
the other side of the aisle are those whose power structure loyalties
lie with
the RBSD analogs to the traditionalists. Once, at another discussion
forum on
the Internet whose members are primarily non-traditional RBSD exponents
(in
other words, a very large percentage of them should know better, but a
core
group of whom nonetheless spend their time telling themselves how
one-percent
they are compared to the infidels and unbelievers outside their inner
circle),
I posted some pictures of my latest trip to the shooting range. The
martialist
knows that self-defense includes working with weaponry. I went to the
range to
do some articles for my e-zine, snapping pictures of the weapons and my
targets
during the process.
One
fellow expressed the idea that my groupings in these long-range targets
were,
shall we say, less than impressive. This criticism comes from within a
clique
that dominates what could be considered a particularly knowledgeable
Internet
self-defense bulletin board. The problem is that the existence of such
a clique
is counter-productive to the pursuit of self-defense, every bit as
harmful to
non-traditionalists as it is when that clique is formed within the
ranks of
traditionalists.
While
my target groupings were nothing that would excite Olympic biathlon
judges,
they were sufficient to drop a man-sized target from distances much
farther
away than I’m likely to have to shoot a person in a realistic
self-defense
scenario. Now, I could fake my results when I take pictures, I suppose.
It
would certainly make my life easier when those who constantly freak out
over
the fact that I spend my time creating productive and useful work in
the field
of self-defense go out of their way to over-analyze everything I do.
Over-analysis of still pictures is a favorite activity among such
people (who
never seem to be willing to put their own work, their own training, or
the own
results up for public scrutiny).
Call
me crazy, but I’m of the opinion that self-defense is not a popularity
contest
and is not a question of how tough a guy you want everyone else to
believe you
to be. It isn’t even about to which clique you belong. Now, both
traditionalist
and non-traditionalist power structures and cliquery are detrimental to
the
pursuit of success in self-defense. Such an attitude is more
disappointing among non-traditionalists, however, because (in
theory) non-traditionalists they have no group identity to substitute
for
realistic examination and objective analysis of a concept or method.
In
reality, clubs and cliques form within the ranks of the non-traditional
RBSD
adherents as readily as they do among the Easternized, elitist fops
populating
traditional martial arts. The solution to both is to join neither. The
solution
is to become a martialist, condemn them all, and make your own way on
your own
terms.
Like
I said, call me crazy. Even better, call me average.
I’m an average guy. I’m an average shooter.
I’m an average fighter. I’m in my
thirties and overweight. I’ve had more training than many
people but less than
many others. I’m not the best shot in the world, the best
knife fighter on my
block, or the smartest guy ever to put pen to paper. I’m also
not a novice, an
amateur, or a beginner. I won’t talk about, boast about, brag
about, or intone
ominously over my self-defense experiences – which
doesn’t mean I don’t have
them. I’m not a law enforcement officer and I don’t
believe there’s any shame
in being a private citizen. I’m not a member of the military
and I don’t
believe there’s any less value to the life of a civilian.
What
I am, and what I truly believe you must be is a martialist.
I seek, train in, and pursue pragmatic means of
realistic self-defense in real life. I don’t care about the
provenance of a
technique or a concept if it is useful to me. I don’t care
about cliques. I
don’t care how tough you are, how many people you shot when
you were a black
bag specops super warrior, how many operators you know, or who you
think you
are.
I
genuinely believe that non-traditional power structures are more
harmful to
students of self-defense than are traditional hierarchies. This is
because the
non-traditionalist’s tribal attitudes masquerade as something
akin to
martialism while completely undercutting the principles
of martialism. When the goal of being one of the “cool
kids,” of being part of the in-crowd of a given online
community or combative
methodology, is substituted for the exchange of information relevant to
self-defense, the purpose of the exercise is lost. When jeering at
someone
who’s not part of your clique – criticizing them
for things you’d not question
if they came from one of your fellows – is more important
than truly
considering, in good faith, what they have to say, the utility of the
venue is
degraded.
When
rational, substantive interaction has been supplanted by the hoots and
howls of
Internet disciples, anonymous children, balding junior instructors with
the
arrogance and hostility of high school sophomores, the result is
equivalent to
the disapproving looks of gi-clad karateka or judoka wearing timeworn
and
threadbare black belts: The principles to
which the participants supposedly adhere have been forsaken.
Just as a
soldier recently returned from Iraq cannot and does not represent (nor
speak
for) all other soldiers, just as his experiences do not necessarily
reflect the
sum total of the experiences of all other soldiers in that war, the
conclusions, the dictates, and the pronouncements of a handful of those
who say
they have “been there” and “done
that” do not constitute the last word on all
that is, all that was, and all that is possible.
No
matter how experienced the “expert,” you will find
equally experienced
“experts” with whom he or she disagrees. No matter
what the person, topic, or
pursuit, you will never be able to find someone who can do your
thinking for
you. You can never afford to suspend your own process of critical
thought. If
you do, you become one of the mindless followers, seeking shelter
within the
clique, deriding all who remain outside of it. Your membership, your
identity,
blinds you to what this has done to your ability to learn and to think.
You
have abdicated your reason. You have betrayed the goal of success in
self-defense.
This
attitude, this detriment to successful self-defense, expresses itself
in
several ways in addition to the empty derision to which I referred. It
comes in
the form of people telling me how effective is a martial art or system
I’ve
studied – when I have more direct experience of it than do
they and all they
can offer in criticism of it is their firm faith that I’m
wrong. It can come in
the form of erstwhile experts informing me of the fallibilities and
liabilities
of a particular gun or knife – a gun or knife that I own and
with which I have
trained extensively, with which they have done neither. It can come in
the form
of the “It will never fly, Orville” attitude of
those who believe you’ll turn
into a lobster-clawed, club-footed block of tofu under adrenal stress,
incapable of even the simplest maneuvers, and thus any and all
techniques not
part of the very simplest catalog of stompings and punchings will
simply fail
utterly and completely when put to the test.
At
the other end of the
non-traditional continuum are those who represent the opposite of the
knowledgeable – if arrogant and insular –
“cool kids” of Western, non-esoteric
self-defense. These are the various bitter and angry children clustered
at
troll-sites and in self-defense schools started by arrogant
twenty-year-olds.
Like their more educated, skilled, and experienced counterparts, the
exchange
of self-defense information, the process of learning, is no longer the
focus of
what they discuss or what they teach. For them, online discussion,
in-person
teaching, and the forming of cliques are done for the primary purpose
of
ridiculing anyone outside the group – not for being a heretic
or an outsider,
so much, as because the ridiculing of others makes these incredibly
insecure
and angry people feel better about themselves and about the skills in
which
they have so little faith.
At
both ends of that continuum, just as in traditional circles of
influence, the
forming of cliques is done to answer emotional and mental needs that
have
nothing to do with the topic of realistic and effective self-defense.
These are
very basic and very common human needs – the need for
acceptance while feeling
alienated, the need for affirmation while feeling insecure, the need
for
feigned courage while feeling a lack of confidence. In the forming of
such
cliques to answer these needs, however, the mission statement that
should unify
all students of self-defense is left trampled and torn on the dusty
floor of
the dojo, the kwoon, or the gym.
At
The Martialist’s online
discussion
forum, one of our participating members wrote something very insightful
about
the atmosphere we promote at the site – and what I think is
the appropriate
attitude to have as a student of self-defense:
Sort
of like Phil. A regular guy who cultivates self defense skills, is
familiar
with bare hand fighting, stick, knife, and licensed to carry a
concealed gun…
What makes us different is that we are thinking about what we are
doing,
instead of thinking of reasons why what we are doing is the only way.
Even
more interesting than this was an e-mail I received from a reader in
the
who summed up in a single message what I see as both the
“mission statement” of
The Martialist and the guiding
principles of every pragmatic self-defense advocate who chooses to make
his or
her own way as a rogue martialist:
I
have read the introductions and discussion on martialism on The
Martialist website. In brief, your argument for
martialism, as I understood it,
is:
Ignoring how, when, why, etc., one may be drawn into violent conflict,
it is
critically important to be as well equipped and prepared for it
(whether by
weapons, tools, tactics, training etc.) to maximize the chances of
emerging
from it with your objectives met. You stress the importance of
pragmatism,
practicality, and applicability in a real situation, of both physical
and
philosophical aspects of martial training, emphasising them over
approaches
that rely on being compelling, easy to absorb, concordant with popular
views,
etc.
It
bolsters my faith that among the various cliques and clubs out there
exist
individuals who understand what the pursuit of self-defense can and
should be.
As for the rest, the of the non-traditionalists mirror those of the
traditionalists. These losers
aren’t in
the club, they think to themselves, but
the uninitiated might think they are, and this we cannot tolerate.
It is an insult to our honor and our
dignity. It is a violation of the sense of elitism with which we cloak
ourselves – and that masks the very shortcomings of ego and
skill we are so
quick to identify in others.
Traditionalists
are people who, at their worst, are practicing traditional arts that
are
completely unsuitable for the delivery of physical force in a real-life
self-defense encounter. These are people who see the goals of
self-discovery,
of mental and emotional development, as the primary purpose of
practicing such
arts. This is like saying the primary purpose of driving a race car is
learning
to sit comfortably, to develop an appropriate appreciation for lumbar
support.
Somewhere in the intervening decades or centuries, the true purpose of
the
exercise has been lost.
Non-traditionalists
are people who, at their worst, are practicing systems that are
completely
unsuitable for the delivery of physical force in a real-life
self-defense
encounter – if only because what they teach isn’t
actually reaching anyone but
a select few of inner-circle tribe members who spend more time
disdaining those
not among their member than they do actually training for self-defense.
They
are so eager to dismiss anything not already in their curricula, so
quick to
condemn anything that does not come from a “modern”
source, that they remain
willfully ignorant of techniques, methods, and opinions that could help
their
students. Somewhere in all the posturing and the shouting about
reality-based
self-defense, the true purpose of the exercise has been lost.
Dismiss
the power structures of either of these groups and you’ll
quickly find yourself
making enemies. Persist in the pursuit of self-defense as a rogue
martialist,
refusing to align in the camps of either group, and you’ll
find that both the
traditionalists and the non-traditionalists look like they’ve
just swallowed
something unpleasant. The source of their displeasure and the crawling,
spiny
bug in the craw of every traditional Eastern martial artist who has
ever
snorted his disapproval of his more occidental contemporaries
– not to mention
in the gullet of every non-traditional combatives exponent who has ever
jawed
that something just won’t work when the adrenaline starts
flowing – is that
you’re not one of them. The martialist doesn’t need
these power structures and
understands how they undermine his or her search. That is the problem
and is
the attitude of the irrelevant traditionalists and non-traditionalists.
That is
their concern – membership in the clique above all else.
Self-defense
is the right of every human being – though the right to
pursue it is not a
guarantee of success. Self-defense is not the purview of only those of
with the
plainest, most traditional uniforms, nor of those with the most worn
grips on
the most-fired handguns. It is not the sole territory of only those
whose
liberal-progressive mindset leaves them to abhor and to jeer at Midwest
nor of whose combative mindset leads
them to abhor and to jeer at civilian
Self-defense is not the
exclusive domain of only those who’ve bowed and groveled at
the feet of the
smallest, most wrinkled, most silent of solemn Asian instructors, nor
of those
who’ve stood before the toughest angriest, and loudest of
black-clad RBSD
instructors.
Self-defense
is not a privilege granted by membership in a club. When membership in
your
clique becomes more important than success in self-defense, what you do
and
what you practice has become irrelevant. Your power structure has
subsumed your
pursuit of whatever you thought you were accomplishing. It has rendered
you
helpless; it has drawn you as a bitter, angry, insular caricature more
concerned with who’s “in” and
who’s “out” than with who is safer and
who is
able. It has left you insecure and transparent, pointing and laughing
at others
from the safety of a mob because this screens the low self-esteem and
lack of
self-awareness you are so quick to see in those
“unworthy” travelers who fail
to meet your exacting standards. It has left you impotent, your
affiliation and
your ignorance worn as badges of pride when they should be scarlet
letters of
shame.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES OF MARTIALISM
You are an end
unto yourself. You don’t owe anyone anything unless you agree to
accept that responsibility. Responsibilities are accepted, not imposed.
No one has the
right to violate your rights. This means no one has the right to harm
you physically, steal your property, or abuse you unless you consent to
such mistreatment.
Others’ opinions of you do not matter.
Be alert. Don’t sleepwalk through life or you’ll fail to see it when others attempt to violate your rights.
Learn to say
NO. Refuse. Resist. Stand up for yourself. When someone makes demands
you don’t wish to meet, you don’t have to make excuses or
compromises. Simply say NO. The person making demands must cope.
Be confident.
This will come with time. Once you achieve physical competence in
self-defense, you’ll find you are naturally more confident. Stand
tall. Walk boldly. Move calmly.
Fear never
arrives.” This quote is from a book called Street Ninja by the
no-doubt pseudonymous “Dirk Skinner.” Either what you fear
will never come to pass, or when it does you will be too busy dealing
with it to worry over it. Either way, channel your fear into
preparation. “Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof,”
goes another of my favorite sayings.
Take action. Do not hesitate – but don’t be reckless, either.
THE PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES OF MARTIALISM
Stay aware.
Awareness is the most important component of self-defense. Only when
you know what is going on around you can you possibly hope to deal with
it.
Focus on
everything and nothing. When you face off with someone, blur or unfocus
your vision slightly. This slightly blurred holistic vision helps you
perceive movement in the other person and makes it easier for you to
dehumanize him.
Keep your
hands up. When approached by someone whom you do not trust, put up your
hands and maintain a safe distance. Assert your personal space.
Maintain
space. Asserting and maintaining your personal space establishes a
barrier, a physical boundary, between you and the opponent.
Move forward.
Do not give ground if you can help it. You may have to back up at times
to take advantage of your footwork, but when you do, follow up by
driving forward to gain and keep the initiative.
Integrate
your hands and feet. When you start, if you are a complete novice, lead
with your hands and let your firmly planted feet form the foundation
for your techniques. As you advance, use both your hands and feet. When
your hands are occupied, kick and knee. When your feet are occupied,
strike with your hands and elbows.
Learn to use
the natural weapons of your body. These are your knees, your elbows,
your palms, the edges of your hands, and your fists.
Target the
universal weakpoints of your opponent(s). These are the face, neck,
groin, knees, and ankles. These points on most any human being are
equally vulnerable regardless of the opponent’s physical
development.
What applying these prniciples to your study of the martial arts
means is that you’ll act as a critical thinker who is beholden to no
one. That’s going to have consequences, many of them negative.
If we are to be intellectually honest with ourselves, if we are
to be truly independent, we can make no choice but to live with those
consequences. The gains outweight the liabilities.
Ayn
Rand once said that what “objectivity and the study of philosophy
require
is not an ‘open mind’, but an active mind – a mind able and
eagerly willing to
examine ideas, but to examine them critically.” Exercising your active
mind is the most critical component of living as a martialist, of being
prepared for life’s challenges and for potential self-defense
scenarios, of
making your own way in the martial arts. The active mind is the key to
awareness, the precursor to all successful self-defense (and to
identifying and
defying power structures). When you are aware of your surroundings,
when you
are aware of the ideas and the events with which you are presented, you
are better
able to cope with and respond proactively to life’s adversity. That
adversity
includes society’s predators – but it also includes
those within martial arts
power structures who attempt to limit or control you for their own
gratification (and to fulfill their own needs in pursuing self-defense
training).
Understanding
the need for and the responsibility to train and prepare for
self-defense is
the first step to martialism. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize
that it
is the beginning rather than the goal. This is natural. Once we have
decided to
train for self-defense, we believe the decision process is complete and
we need
only to persist towards the goal of technical proficiency in whatever
we have
chosen. Once we have selected our training path, we often walk blithely
down
it. Our natural inclination is to trust our teachers, to feel faith in
and
loyalty for them. In short, we are
preprogrammed to fall for power structures and to become part of them,
reinforcing them through our participation.
When
faith and loyalty supplant critical thinking, the student endangers
himself.
When blind trust supersedes the active mind, the student robs herself.
When
apologists usurp students willing to apply judgment ruthlessly and
logically,
martialists lose their ways.
What
you cannot afford to do as a student, as a seeker of knowledge, is
suspend your
thinking process. You must approach your studies – and engage
in them – with an
active mind. All the while you are training, you must ask yourself: Is
this of
benefit to me? Is it logical? Is it reasonable? Am I being treated with
respect? Am I progressing towards my goals? What are my goals? Is there
a
better way? Should I and can I investigate that?
To
train while keeping these things in mind and analyzing critically all
ideas to
which you are exposed requires your vigilant attention to the details,
tenor,
and character of your training. It requires you to ask why and how if
you do
not understand something – and to evaluate the answers you
receive to see if they
are satisfactory. You cannot afford simply to back down when presented
with an
answer; you must judge the answer to determine if it truly addresses
the
question satisfactorily.
Engaged
in this process, you may well encounter a situation in which you must
change
your training. Martialists often seek commercial (formal and informal)
and
non-commercial training in self-defense and the martial arts. It is
natural to
become quite devoted and loyal to a given school, its teacher(s), and
the
system or art imparted there. The longer you train and the more
involved with
your teachers and fellow students you become, the more difficult will
be the
choice to move on. I know; I’ve been through it myself, as have many of
you
reading this.
Nonetheless,
you may decide that the school at which you are training is not for
you. If you
are fortunate, you will leave on good terms, with you, your former
teachers,
and your former classmates understanding that while the training was
not what
you wanted, no animosity or hostility is implied.
This
will not always be the case. While I am happy to say that any
student-teacher
relationships I’ve previously enjoyed have continued happily or been
dissolved
positively (immediately or eventually), I am aware of some fellow
students who’ve
not had the same good fortune.
When
you’ve been on the inside, it is often very difficult to find yourself
on the
outside looking in. When you’ve been a member of a school, of a martial
fellowship, it is often very difficult to accept that you are no longer
considered a sibling. To suddenly find yourself considered a heretic, a
ronin,
an unbeliever, is both alienating and depressing –
particularly if those whom
you considered friends suddenly cast aside that friendship. Many
believe
friendship transcends affiliation – and they are often
disappointed to find
their “friends” do not share this sentiment.
While
it may seem like something out of a bad Kung Fu movie, be prepared to
make
enemies of the staff and student body of any school or program you
depart,
particularly if your former students and teachers have any reason to
believe
you will speak to others – any others – of your
experience among them. You will
suddenly be confronted with just what it means to be on the outside.
Prepare
yourself:
Be
prepared for your former teacher(s) to revise history where you are
concerned.
While you may believe you enjoyed a good relationship with your
instructor(s),
your departure will be seen by some teachers as an insult. They will
respond by
selectively remembering or completely rewriting their recollections of
your
time with them. You will, in effect, be unjustly vilified. Your
teacher’s
assessment of your skill level will be drastically lowered, while his
willingness to communicate publicly that assessment will increase
dramatically.
Problems you supposedly experienced as a student – perhaps
problems of which
you have no memory or knowledge and which were not communicated to you
while
training at your former school – will suddenly become major
issues.
To
hear your former instructor tell the tale, you will be the worst
possible
disappointment as a student. Your choice to leave of your own free will
may be
recast as a “failure to cut it” or some other form of unworthiness.
In short, you will be described as someone your instructor would never
have
wanted as a student, your departure retroactively presented as a favor
to the
school or as your instructor’s own idea or desire. The second home you
knew
will suddenly be the bastion of the enemy – an enemy
characterized by dishonor
and betrayal. You will feel alienated, persecuted, and maligned.
Be
prepared for your former classmates to support your teacher. It is
natural for
those on the inside to feel a camaraderie, a kinship, and a loyalty to
each
other and to their teachers. Students often defer to their instructors,
trust
them to varying degrees of blindness, adopt their biases and
preferences, and
close ranks to defend their teachers when those teachers feel
threatened or
insulted. Do not count on ties of friendship to outweigh this natural
tendency,
because they usually won’t.
You
will find that your former classmates share your teachers’ revisionist
assessment of you and that they will see any perceived affront to one
as an
insult to all. Don’t count on your former “friends” to think for
themselves. Put yourself in their shoes. If you were on the inside and
your
teacher made it known that a traitorous former student had insulted or
attacked
the school, you would bristle at that. You’d be eager to defend your
school and
your instructors. You’d believe.
Be
prepared for challenges. Those feelings of loyalty will prompt your
former
fellow students to see you as the enemy – and some of them
may act on this. If
your former school is located in the community where you live or work,
you may
well encounter your former classmates or teachers while out and about.
Some may
be content to ignore you or to glare at you. Others may take it on
themselves
to “have it out” with you and tell you off. Some may take the coward’s
path and simply mutter (or shout) insults and profanity. Be prepared
for the
feelings of persecution and injustice that accompany these sorts of
personal
attacks. Be prepared to defend yourself and avoid a physical
confrontation at
all costs.
Be
prepared to be judged not on what you’ve said, but on what others think
you’ve
said. Negativity and melodrama are powerful forces. When you’ve managed
to
anger someone who speaks publicly about his anger, the dispute will
draw
spectators – most of whom don’t care who’s done what to whom.
They are there
only to watch the train wreck. If those angry with you speak loudly and
often
enough about what they claim you’ve said to insult them, if they repeat
their
revised histories with sufficient volume and vigor, what you’ve
actually said
and done will be lost in the noise overpowering your signal.
Mischaracterizations
will be repeated as fact – and suddenly you will find
yourself in a lose-lose
scenario. You may try to address those mischaracterizations in the face
of a
hostile audience motivated to believe whatever they wish to believe, in
effect
trying to answer to their satisfaction questions framed like the
classic,
“When did you stop beating your wife?” If you refuse to address these
accusations, you will be told you can’t “handle the criticism,” or
that you don’t wish to address those questions and must therefore be
hiding
something. Either way, the power of negativity will overwhelm whatever
positive
message you try to send – or that you were trying to send.
Be
prepared for the scorn of those not involved in the dispute. Martial
arts
communities have their own networks, loyalties, and lines of
communication. If
you leave a school or a teacher and that teacher is insulted by this
departure,
be prepared for him to make his displeasure known throughout the
community,
spreading his version of events to those with whom you have little or
no
contact. If you switch to a different school or instructor, don’t be
surprised
if your former teacher contacts your new teacher and tries to “poison
the
waters” at your new home.
Don’t
be at all surprised if teachers or students you’ve never met will
respond to
inquiries about you with, “That guy? I heard he can’t be trusted.”
Don’t be fooled by the image of an instructor as someone above such
petty
mach-inations. Any teacher who is capable of taking your departure
personally
is capable of trying to cause trouble for you with those he sees as his
brothers and sisters in the arts.
Be
prepared to find your own way. The active mind is the means of
determining
ought from is. It is the mechanism through which you determine, as a
sovereign
individual, what you must do in responding to the circumstances and
events with
which you are presented. It is the tool you use to find your way, to
determine
your path – regardless of what that path concerns. Whether
you’re trying to
pick a graduate education program, find a martial arts school, buy a
car, cook
a meal, plan a travel route, or propose marriage, the active mind is
the means
through which you will do this and do it correctly.
Do
not be intimidated. Try not to feel alienated. Remind yourself that you
– and
only you – can choose your actions and take your decisions.
You are a
martialist. You must make your own choices in order to make your own
way.
Be
prepared – and walk outside until you find a new way indoors.
Be
prepared to stand up for what is right, rather than clinging to what is
popular
or expected.
Be prepared to live, to train, and to act
as a martialist.