Debating Martial Arts topics on the interwebs
3 04 2008This morning I got pretty aggravated by some tool that made the statement
‘We can safely say that martial arts started when Bodhidharma travelled
from India to China and taught some emaciated Chinese Buddhist monks
some exercises to stay healthy’
This kind of thing really riles me. In my opinion the Shaolin story is full of shit, propagated by the Chinese government and old skool kung fu flicks. Why do I think this, because of things I have read and researched.
Now, does this really matter a toss? Really? the answer is definitely no. It’s my opinion, should it be other people’s opinion too? who gives a toss, it doesn’t matter. Does it help my training if indeed the first person to ever throw a punch and teach his mates was some Indian Yogi? not at all. So why debate it?!
The martial arts are about training to be good at fighting, you cannot put a gloss on that. As a side effect of deep study in any practical field, you will also, after time, develop a scholarly side and start researching the martial arts and related fields. If your inclined that way you might even develop the internal aspects of the arts as well. It’s really no big shit! don’t get all excited about it!
I’m not sure if this post makes much sense, but in summary:
- Don’t be a tool and just spout shit on the internet/real world - At least try to do some research first before showing your ignorance.
- Debating esoterica, vague history etc. is fully pointless and will not make you a better practitioner. The main part of that word is practice, so when you feel the urge to spout off, can it and get to the gym to do something useful (I’m clearly not following my own advice here with this rant!)
NB: For a much more eloquent expression of what I am trying to say look here and here
It’s one of the reasons I left wing chun.
Sooooooo many people content to endlessly pontificate about UTTER SHITE rather than actually practicing.
I have stories like this as well. A friend of mine tried to claim that Tai Chi was invented at Shaolin, I’ve also seen people try to claim that Taoism is a derivative of Buddhism. Never mind the guy that tried to claim that Zen / Chan Buddhism had nothing to do with Taoism. As interesting as these things were to read, they don’t really contribute much to my ongoing practice.
I try not to get sucked into these arguments, I just take the view that you can’t force people to see, they’ll see when they’re ready. As we say “When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears”, if I’m wrong and the pupil is me I can only gain.
I say we should leave them to it and attend to our practice, stroking our egos and getting into a blazing row every 5 minutes won’t make us better Martial Artists, it’ll hinder us.