The Martial Arts have always been present in my life, as far back as I can remember. As I prepare for my 48th birthday, I sit and ponder on this amazing journey that has been, and continues to be, the Martial Arts. Both the study and training of the Arts as a holistic discipline, as well as the scholarly study of the historical context and development of several Systems. And yes, unlike some pragmatic Martial Artists (nothing wrong with that!) I experience a deep fascination for the history of the Martial Arts.
But that came later, not at all when I started. In fact, as I look back through my life’s journey, I feel a deep sense of amusing irony! As a kid in school, I wasn’t particularly fascinated by history as a subject of study. I liked math, I liked physics, I liked music, and probably above all, I liked language! Yet these days, at the gate of reaching my 50’s barely in a couple years, I feel this burning fascination for everything history. My love for music led me to want to study its history. My love for linguistics and language as a fascinating human phenomenon led me to want to study the history of language development, deeply. And yes, it was only after many years of training in the Martial Arts that I wondered, “where did this thing that is so fascinating, so life changing, come from?”
As I said several times in my vlog, the fascination for the history of the Martial Arts was something that hit me, surprising myself, many years after I had started training the Arts with regularity and discipline.
Have you ever been in love? Do you love someone? I do, and the person I love, my wife, never ceases to fascinate me. I do not have to try and be interested in her past, her background. I simply am, I can’t help it. When you love someone, or something, it’s natural to feel a desire to know their history. The more you know someone, the more you know where someone comes from, the more you can please that person, with nuanced details. When you love, you care about knowing them. When you know someone, you know their roots.
And so it happened to me that I started to look into the history of this life changing journey that I call “Martial Arts!” and I realized one thing: there are a few very different types of Arts. Some people fight over whether the Martial Arts come from the military, the temples or the civilian population. As usual, I don’t think there is anything to fight about. We are just fighting over language, not reality. The Martial Arts phenomenon is vast. Very, very vast. The need for humans to fight for their lives and their survival, or the lives of those they loved, is as old as humankind itself. But so it’s the joy of knowing oneself better. As the various systems have evolved through history, with different contexts, with different ‘founders,’ and with different influencers, I would be shocked if they didn’t have the big differences they exhibit today. Some systems emphasize their military roots, while others are proud to come from civilians, and other still focus on health and human development as a whole. They are all right. What I have an issue with is when a system that comes from the military – for example, as this happens with all the other forms, too – feeds a narrative to people to justify why ‘military is obviously better.’ Nothing is ‘better’ – it all depends on the context and it all depends on how it evolved. History produced these Arts, much like evolution produced thousands of life species, which in itself is proof that they are ‘right’ – since they sprang to life and survived to us.
Why am I going on about history in an article titled ‘being human,’ though? Because recently I have been thinking about the why. I’ve done Martial Arts since I was about 9 years old, yet nothing ever clicked with me, nothing ever made me feel ‘home,’ as it did when I met my Teacher George Lee and the system he has been patiently imparting me. And I could never understand why. Was it just my maturity? No doubt that had a lot to do with it. But was there something else?
And then it dawned on me. I am human, I embrace my humanity, and I do not see or even conceive the Martial Arts as a way to escape my humanity. In other words, though systems do exist that push the human frame to the edge of possibility, I do not feel at home in a system like that. This is also why, it finally dawned on me, I do not tend to enjoy Martial Arts movies (I do like the stories, not the fights in most movies!). Because of the focus on attributes. When a system trains you to be faster, stronger, better reflexes. To be able to do physical and mental feats the average human cannot do. These are not attractive to me. And there was a subtle element of that in my previous systems. Somehow, it was assumed if you kept training, you would develop (close to) “superhuman” reflexes. And that is fine, I believe that is possible through relentless training. I just don’t want that for me. This is not about what’s right or wrong – like a centipede and a lizard. Both are ‘right’ life forms, and they couldn’t be more different. Life produced them both in different contexts and with different ingredients, they both succeed until today.
Not only in the Martial Arts, but in all endeavors, I only ‘click’ with something when I accept myself. As husband, I have to realize my flaws. I am awkward, not strong or good looking, pretty clueless, like most guys. But I try my best and I make mistakes. I need to embrace it or life becomes a constant disappointment. When I used to play guitar, I had to stop comparing myself to Yngwie Malmsteen (and Jeff Beck!) to realize there was a ‘way’ to play – that I had never heard before – that came from within me, and I had to trust it, and all of a sudden I realized I could express myself with a guitar, in my own very satisfying way! Comparing myself to nobody.
Through this I have reached a strange mental peace. I still want to learn, improve, but I am happy with the now. My Martial Arts *right now* – the exact way they are now – make me happy.
My Art, my system, I have zero doubt, did not come from the military. It doesn’t make sense. The movements are not there, the injury is not there, the killing is not there. It came from the civilians that had to learn to defend themselves in their normal lives in a time in which one couldn’t count on the law to be there to defend you or your family. I don’t know this from my Teacher, from a book or from a youtube video. I know this through the Art of paying attention, observing. It’s like someone claiming that their system is not good for sport because it was designed to ‘kill’ but in their years of practice one can *observe* that there is no training of fatal ‘techniques’ and actions, no way of producing fatal injury that has been trained again and again. Then why the need to claim that? Why can’t you observe the *reality* of your art and be happy with it. It is, also, like saying ‘my Art works on the ground too,’ yet you never ever practice it on the ground. That’s an intellectual bubble of insecurity. If you want to train for the ground, train it. If not, be happy without it. We don’t need the Martial Arts anyway to buy milk these days, so why are we not confident enough to embrace what we like, just how we like it?
There is another consequence of this. The civilians I am talking about that needed to defend themselves and their loves ones in a society without law enforcement – or a very untrustworthy law enforcement – had another dedication. Meaning, it stands to reason they did *something else* in their lives, and it was the need to defend *that* that made them want to learn ‘to defend themselves.’ For example, trading, doing business with other villages, which is why they endangered themselves traveling between villages and putting themselves at risk of being attacked by bandits. I do not think professions like being a body guard were first, but only later in view of the fact that someone had succeeded (while many others died) in defending themselves when crossing villages when they were doing trading, for example. The same with ‘Martial Arts Teacher.’ At first there was no ‘Master,’ just someone who had somehow survived until an old age while being attacked multiple times by bandits in their travels. And so others gathered around them to ask ‘how they did that’ and only then this hypothetical person would ask him or herself, ‘how did I do this, and how do I pass this to others?’ and hence the ‘training program’ was born. A Martial Arts System was born!
And my Art has another characteristic I never realized before. It took so many years for me to be able to put in words why this System I learn from my Teacher clicks with me. And here it is. It is made for humans, and it doesn’t ask them to become superhuman. This includes strength and speed and reflexes. It’s not that it’s not practical to a point to develop attributes. It is! And if one can, within reason, a great complement to the System is to train for speed and power and reflexes, but only as a complement. What doesn’t make sense – *to me* – is that the Art depends on that. And I say ‘to me’ because much as I love the Arts, they are a way to enhance my life, not a substitute for it. If someone has made their lives the training of Arts, like a professional fighter for example, or a body guard, then that’s different. Then they can devote more than 8 hours a day for 10 years or more to be fast and powerful. And I like that and admire that. But I do not wish that for myself. Because what makes me happy is that I found a system that allows me to have leverage through a system of body mechanics that works with the body I have *today*. And it enhances my life, my other endeavors, my family and professional lives.
The biggest example of this is reading the opponent. My biggest issue with youtube demos is this. I stopped watching online Martial Arts because it’s so rare to see real Martial Arts, in which you do NOT know what’s coming to you. And I find it ugly. I find that perfect choreography in which you throw the exact counter to what’s coming to you ugly and distasteful. Just like I find airbrushed models with no skin pores distasteful. I was made to be human and to like human things, not whitewashed things. That is just me, but I am expressing myself in my Martial Arts and this is the reason why I am so happy with an Art ‘for humans.’
Fights are chaotic. Only a tremendously small percentage of the population has the gift (with or without training, by the way, as there is a severe limit to which level you can develop your reflexes) to read the opponent before they throw an attack. Before I found my teacher, I never knew a system that taught you to deal with this, without asking you to become superhuman, and that is why it clicked with me so much and why to this day I never cease to be fascinated by the genius of our ancestors that figured out a way to survive (not to ‘look good’ or be able to do physical feats) with your body as it is today, in the here and now.
In the meantime, if you have chosen an Art in which you need develop your attributes and you enjoy it as a way of growing and challenging you, I applaud this with admiration, and I bow to you. We respect each others’ Paths with respect. Like the Garden of Life, its beauty is in its variety. The Red Rose is no more ‘right’ than purple Lavender, and the efficient Cactus no more ‘correct’ than the beautiful Lotus.
To know more about this and other Martial Arts and Life topics, you can view my Vlog and Podcast as well as these Martial Journal-related article: Fighting Rhythm: Twelve Jazz Quotes To Upgrade Your Martial Arts by Justin Lee Ford and Ego in the Martial Arts by Daniel Hartz!
Francis can be contacted at francis.cordon@gmail.com, he is also an active Martial Arts YouTube Vlogger as well as the co-host of the Martial Arts Podcast ‘A Thousand Exits.’
- The Eternal Beginner - May 25, 2022
- The Art Of Enhancing Life - April 14, 2022
- The Art Of Observation - March 7, 2022
Leave a Reply