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  • 8/13/2019 ARMA Editorial - John Clements

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    ARMA Editorial - November 2013

    Reflection and Personal Growth in Renaissance MartialArts Std!

    By John Clements

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    Around the time I was 20 years old or so,

    my best friends and I were getting into

    kickboxing. We all had a mass of books

    and VH ta!es on the sub"ect and had done

    a ton of s!arring and cross#training with allsorts of different !eo!le. We bought all

    manner of training gear, as if the more wehad the better it made us. $%entually, we

    went to get some !rofessional instruction,

    trying out assorted local classes and

    coaches, but seldom long enough to warrant

    any educated o!inion. Ade!t at %irtually

    nothing and without any real !rogram tofollow we still imagined oursel%es

    com!etent and knowledgeable. When Ilook back on this now, I reali&e "ust how

    much youthful enthusiasm and energycarried us along more so than any real

    learning. 'nly now do I gras! "ust how

    much was obli%ious to us e%en as we

    regularly criti(ued !rofessional coaches andfight trainers who)d been !racticing longer than we)d e%en been ali%e.

    *roblem was, we didn)t know what we didn)t know. Hell, we hardly knew what we did know. We

    "ust weren)t ex!erienced or mature enough to

    a!!reciate what was being taught to us, or forthat matter, what wasn)t being taught to us+which can be almost as significant. We "ust

    weren)t (ualified really to e%aluate most any ofwhat we were shown one way or another. We

    sim!ly hadn)t !ut in the years of work or the

    de!th of effort +!hysically or mentally. -et,

    none of this sto!!ed us from endlessly s!outing

    off our o!inions on e%ery as!ect of martial arts

    where%er and whene%er we saw it. $%en when

    we did encounter real masters and ex!erts thatim!ressed us, we always seemed to find somereason or other for re"ecting their ad%ice in fa%or

    of our own notions. It was so easy to make la&y

    excuses for our limited skill sets or our own still

    un!olished amateur abilities. 'utgrowing this didn)t come easy. +And kee! in mind, I)m am

    referring here to the !ursuit of widely#known Asian martial art styles with readily accessible

    traditions, not extinct combati%es still being redisco%ered

    /ecades would !ass before I came to understand what !rocess was at work and how few e%er getbeyond it. I cringe now when I imagine how we must ha%e looked at the time to our seniors and

    elders. We had the admirable !assion of the nai%e, certainly. And in the realm of martial

    disci!lines, sometimes when there is extraordinary a!titude, it as!ires to something commendable.

    ut more often than not, regardless of how uni(ue or how well#read we belie%e we are, it

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    ultimately "ust ends u! being ex!osed for what it is1 untutored ignorance.

    I recogni&e this same thing today among the younger Internet generation s!ewing "udgements

    about historical martial arts matters for which they !ersonally ha%e no great ca!acity and within

    which they ha%e achie%ed no admirable accom!lishment. A twenty#something of no !articular

    athleticism, not es!ecially gifted, and not e%en of remarkable !hysical conditioning, willnonetheless imagine that his o!inions on using historical arms and his %iews on little#known self#

    defense methods of which he only recently encountered, should hold some !articular %alue for theworld. It)s lunacy.

    In my youth, my friends and I were at least smart enough to recogni&e when others were far better

    and far wiser about matters of fighting than we. We understood when they had training regimens

    and !ractice routines that !ut ours to shame. We conceded that their seniority, their ex!erience,

    their conditioning all meant something, e%en if we weren)t (uite sure what. We held them inesteem as role#models to emulate and e%en dream of sur!assing, whether we !ersonally meshed

    with them or not. We e%en admitted to oursel%es that there was a much larger world out therebeyond our limited "udgement and understanding. I don)t see that among the et generation. $%ery

    adolescent thought, e%ery insi!id o!inion, e%ery ine!titude, e%ery uninformed notion and fli!!antex!ression of foolish inex!erience gets embarrassingly enshrined in a blog, %ideo, social#media

    !ost, or tweet. 3all it the archi%ing of stu!idity.

    As a !rofessional fight instructor, as a !ioneer in historicalcombat studies, and as a %eteran of more than thirty years of

    fencing and martial arts, I now ha%e %ery little !atience for

    such self#deluding ine!titude. It tarnishes our heritage and

    certainly offers little to im!ro%e my students or aid my

    constituent membershi!.

    4oday, the craft of learning 5enaissance martial arts contains a

    strong autodidactic com!onent, in that, not being able to callu!on extant teaching lineages of sur%i%ing !edagogical

    traditions, many of us are by necessity self#taught. We came to

    our skills by %irtue of whate%er le%el of !hysical work we !ut

    into de%elo!ing our understanding of the craft. Howe%er,

    martial arts are heuristic only to a small degree. $ach new

    generation doesn)t really come to the sub"ect with 6new ideas

    and fresh %iews6 because e%ery no%ice student must first learnkey biomechanical lessons about the nature of combati%es andabout dealing with !ersonal %iolence ##lessons slowly accumulated o%er generations by fighting

    men down through the ages. 7artial knowledge is ac(uired only through will and ad%ersity. It is

    !aid for by !ain and sweat and blood. -et, today we don)t do this with our sub"ect. We ha%e instead

    !lay %ersions and !retend fights that for the %ast ma"ority are what moti%ate and instruct +and

    obscure.

    In my youth, what was always strange to me was how back then some of my friends who were the

    least !hysically gifted and least ca!able !ractitioners were among the ones who had the dee!estdelusions about their own skill and !otential while being least able to recogni&e or acknowledge

    excellence in others. 4hey ne%er did grow much as martial artists, either. 4hey ne%er came to

    understand the !rocess or the "ourney. 4hey ne%er mo%ed beyond their own adolescent en%ies and

    inade(uacies e%en as adults. If anything, they became worse as their youth faded. 4he fact is, not

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    all martial artists are made e(ual. ome !eo!le "ust don)t ha%e any real talent for it and ne%er will.

    *roblem is, they often delude themsel%es into imagining the le%el they !ractice it on is the 6real

    thing.6

    4oday, as an ex!erienced instructor, as a

    successful !rogram manager, I see this samekind of resentment and %itriol on the et all

    the time. Haters gonna) hate, after all. eingan instructor, I long ago disco%ered ways of

    dealing with such ignorance in !erson. It)s not

    uncommon to find it in many combat s!orts,

    martial disci!lines, or any other serious

    !hysical skill. Ine!t !eo!le tend to weed

    themsel%es out of higher standards and a%oidthe challenge to better themsel%es. ut today,

    in the realm of historical fighting arts on theInternet, they can readily reinforce their

    mutual delusions because, after all, these areskills that will ne%er get tested, ne%er get

    strenuously challenged, and ne%er get !ut to

    the test +artificial s!orting contests

    notwithstanding. 4hey will instead always remain safely in the con%enient realm of s!eculati%e!ossibility and hy!othetical theory. 4hus, mediocrity tends to flourish.

    ow, this isn)t the say that e%eryone, no matter how untrained or inex!erienced a no%ice, can)t

    contribute in their own way to the ex!loration of this sub"ect or ha%e useful insights into its

    in%estigation. 4his as!ect is something that I ha%e myself s!ecifically ad%ocated for years. +In fact,it is a central message of the A57A)s reco%ery and reconstruction efforts. ut there is also nodenying there are two sides to this. 4o come across some !udgy trash#talking adolescent imagining

    he now understands a fighting method that hasn)t been !racticed in centuries all because he)s cutsome !lastic water bottles, or read some 28#year#old)s 6definiti%e6 inter!retation of a 98th#century

    close combat source 6deci!hered6 because he)s won some !retend bouts with !lastic swords, is

    astonishingly absurd.

    I)%e said this before and I)ll say it again1

    it would be ridiculous for !eo!le with

    %irtually no ex!erience in self#defensetraining, no lengthy history ofexercising in the source teachings or in

    handling wea!onry, and no noticeable

    athleticism or !hysical a!titude for

    combati%es, to ne%ertheless imagine

    that they could reconstruct some

    forgotten styles of "u"itsu or kung fuafter s!ending "ust a cou!le years

    !laying at it while surfing the net fromtheir !arents) basement. :ust read some

    books, !lay with some wea!ons, and

    ##poof ##you)re now (ualified to go

    online to 6inter!ret.6 And don)t forget

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    to o!ine and com!lain bitterly o%er techni(ues that you yourself are inca!able of !ro!erly doing.

    -et, if we are honest, this is in effect what has emerged now when it comes to the study of the lost

    martial arts 5enaissance $uro!e1 A huge net community of amateur enthusiasts !laying at it while

    in%enting modern sword#s!orts congregate to mutually reinforce a lowest common denominator

    status (uo of !erformance. 4he only ones denying this !henomenon are those neck dee! incelebrating it. It)s certainly not a !roblem exclusi%e to our disci!line or sub"ect and there)s also

    nothing that can be done about it ##exce!t to offer an alternati%e based on excellence.

    When it came to historical fencing, in my youth there were no

    credible authorities or ex!ert know#how a%ailable. 4here were

    only 3A bo&os and stage#combat klopfechters+of which not

    much has changed. 4here were few resources to draw from,

    %irtually no good e(ui!ment, and e%eryone was more or lessonly "ust beginning to !iece together that there e%en was

    something real to reconstruct. ow by contrast, there aretremendous resources to call on and significant exam!les to

    follow. It)d be wonderful to think this would automaticallytransfer to !ersonal growth in the !ractice of authentic

    5enaissance fighting arts. Alas, this is not the case. ot e%ery

    fighting method or !ractitioner is created e(ual. And not e%ery

    style or class or teacher will meet the needs and !ersonality ofe%ery student. o matter what, someone)s always going to be left disgruntled in some way o%er

    something. ut, howe%er defined, it is a!titude and attitude combined with good training habits

    culti%ated by self disci!line that determines a successful martial artist.

    In 9;rand7aster :ohannes ?iechtenauer. He com!lained that the show#fighters !roduced things that

    belonged not to real fencing but only to 6school fencing and the exercises for their own sake.6 4othis we might add a modern corollary, that there are none now who can claim knowledge of this

    Art without being able to com!etently demonstrate the teachings of ?iechtenauer. 4hink about this

    the next time you catch a -ou4ube cli! of some adolescent with weak !osture and abysmal balance

    standing at im!ro!er distance to slowly cho! at !lastic bottles. Who is there to tell them of their

    ine!titude@

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    I think back to a night, circa 9=

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