Martial Arts - Martial Arts, a Dying Art?

Martial Arts - a Dying Art?

Many many years ago martial arts, as I think of it, thrived. When man had to fight it out hand to hand, blade to blade, honor to honor. However, now a days with the perfection of long ranged weapons one needs little skill to push a button or pull a trigger in order to have frightening results. Not to demean warriors who are trained in modern weapons, but I am saying that modern weapons reduce the need for perfection of one skill. You may disagree, yet I still think that a guided missile may have a little bit more room for error than a blade fight. Although the weapon of choice is relative to the target size. But I digress from my original point. Now a days martial arts is learned for competitions, entertainment, health-reasons; and there is a shift of martial arts teachers teaching with money in mind. Some may know who they are, others won't. These aforementioned reasons are not necessarily wrong; however, if these are the sole purposes of martial arts I don't think that one will reach a master's skill level. Without surpassing the master a martial art will slowly deteriorate away.

In old times where survival was key, martial arts evolved. If you did something and survived, that something couldn't be too far off from correct. And if it was and you tried it again, you'd probably pay for it. In this manner Darwin's theory proves correct. However, a habit of the martial master was to keep "secrets" to themselves or maybe only the top students, so as not to have the students surpass them or some other reason. Although I understand why, I think that ultimately in more peaceful times, this secrecy led to a smaller population of masters. As time passed, with this attitude martial arts deteriorated at a snails pace; although this is debatable. But with the current generation where preserving and surviving is no longer the main focus, martial arts is doomed to become water-down. In fact there is a population of schools in which the focus of teaching has shifted towards a business model. So instead of passing on an art they are selling a product. Forms, belts, "secrets" are sold to the higher bidders. Even if the instructors do not have this mindset, the students today also seem to hinder the development of martial art. In todays world, efficient training methods are no longer used for liability issues, and more and more martial art schools are being geared to the students' expectations rather than the students' expectations geared to the school. In my opinion, in a school a student should expect hard grueling training sessions. People may get hurt, bones may be broken, eyes may be blackened. There is a certain risk one must expect in order to attain high level of proficiency. Therefore, you either stay and get good; or you leave and join the average world. But this is not what people today want to hear. They don't want to hear that only by pushing yourself to the limit can you ever expect to surpass your limit. The easy route is favored over the hard one, and people convince themselves that they are good merely because they can move through the ranks. Some of these disillusioned people break off and form their schools or styles before they can find out how little they actually know. In this manner you'll find "McDojos" popping up left and right. How can we expect martial arts to grow? Don't get me wrong, there are still good schools out there, but they are scarce and a dying breed.

But even if martial arts is dying what is my point other than to complain? Is it too late, can it still be revived? Of course it can, as long as there is still one good school out there. And the main focus of this school has to be producing quality students (a quantity of quality students would be preferred) whose goals are to develop and pass on their art eventually. The students themselves cannot be in a rush to open a school, they should open it when the are ready. Now, "ready" is a complex word, they have to be a good teacher, they have to have above superior skills, they have to not care about losing "bad" students, and they almost have to be altruistic and self-sacrificing. Perhaps this is a little extreme, but this is the fastest and probably most ideal way to revive martial arts.

Then again, some of you reading this will disagree - martial arts is alive and well. Thinking that I am a romantic idealist who himself is disillusioned. Perhaps, but I choose to walk the path I walk with little regrets. I'd rather reach for the stars never to touch them than to only touch the earth knowing I can.