A group of blind men heard of a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: “We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable”.   The first person, whose touched the trunk, said, “This being is like a snake”.   Another, his hand upon its leg, said, the elephant is like a tree-trunk. The next, hand upon its side, said, “it is like a wall”. Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope.             Ancient Parable

What is the best fighting system?  Whatever your answer, how do you prove it?

Like the blind men, we are all groping, constrained by our limitations.  They were only able to put their hands on a small part of the whole.  We are all similarly limited in every area of knowledge and understanding.  This is why wisdom begins with a perception of our limitations.

For instance, I am always out panning for gold (how best to invest my time to get the capability to fight well), sifting for little bits of insight, but I’m only sifting at this one stream.  We are on a planet with 7 billion people, and there are over three thousand years of recorded human history (never mind pre-literate societies).

What are human beings capable of in terms of fighting?  Is the limit what we in the West think, with our science and our sports records?  Or have there been or are there people who are capable of things that have not been photographed and documented?  Until the early 1800s, no one had any idea there was something called infrared.  But there are animals such as bats that can “see” parts of the infrared spectrum.  For most of human history, there was this invisible world we had no idea existed.  The same with ultraviolet light and very high ranges in the audible spectrum (dogs hear it, but not you).

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Shakespeare, Hamlet

When I hear people making confident statements about the “truth,” often in the realm of fighting and who or what is the “best,” I have the urge to roll my eyes.  Such and such is the best fighting method.  You can’t be good unless you do X.   This is especially tiresome as many of the loudest and most confident commentators clearly know next to nothing!  They are armchair quarterbacks.

In fighting, there are various sets of “certainties” discussed on the internet  based on the limits people observe in fighters who fight professionally.  Do you think these professional fighters are the best there have ever been, or even the best now?  I remember when the Ultimate Fighter show appeared in 2005 and the tagline was that the prize offered to the winner was “a six figure contract,” I was like, ooooh.  20 years laters, and further along in my career, it doesn’t seem like such an astronomical figure any longer!  I personally know many people who make six figures sitting at a desk, not risking concussion and CTE.  Is this six figure salary the bait you use to attract the best fighters in the world?

Do we think that it’s the best people on the planet taking Xu ­Xiaodong‘s martial challenges in China?  Everyone who is any good at Taijiquan as a fighting system or other “Classical” styles are taking these challenges?  Are the most deadly hand-to-hand fighters in the world fighting in the K1 or the UFC?  Or are those people bodyguards for heads of state?  Or protecting billionaires?  Or are they living peaceful balanced lives doing something totally unrelated to fighting for a living?

You know what?  None of us have any idea!

Over the years, I’ve met some people who trained for the ring.  I’ve trained with some.  I’ve also trained with “martial arts masters.”  And I’ve seen some stuff and felt some stuff.  And it has left me wondering!  The more I learn about “Classical” systems, the more I realize that there is a whole underground of people who have learned so-called Classical systems who never “show off” in public.  They are not exactly “in the shadows” either.  They are just living their lives, but yet also have what can only be called “superpowers.”  Except they are not supernatural, just based on varieties of ancient technology which the West is only now getting around to studying and “confirming.”

Just because Western science hasn’t studied it yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  Many Western doctors thought acupuncture was nonsense just a few years ago.  Now you can get it covered by your insurance at Kaiser.  Acupuncture is just the tip of this spear of ancient Chinese knowledge.  And let’s through in India and all the other dozens of countries who have fighting traditions going back hundreds and even thousands of years.  To run a modern scientific study costs a bunch of time and money, so this approach is only applied to areas of study in which there is a likely payoff (Intellectual property like patents and drugs to be sold) or where there are wealthy donors involved.  So not everything that might get studied gets studied.  My observation is some cheap and simple things like Apple Cider Vinegar or garlic have amazing health benefits but they are not prescribed by doctors in hospitals by only by people engaged in “pseudo-science” (read “traditional knowledge handed down through culture”).

Ironically, a lot of the current state of opinions about Classical martial systems have their root in Bruce Lee’s 1971 article “Liberate Yourself from Classical Karate.”  This is where he coined his well-worn phrases for Classical systems: ” Classical Mess” and “Land-swimming.”  It was a scathing attack, rooted in truth, but Bruce didn’t know everything and hadn’t experienced everything.

I wonder how Bruce would feel now?  Even his beloved Wing Chun is ridiculed.  In reality, he was incredibly proud of his Chinese culture.  And PS he only studied Wing Chun in Hong Kong for about a year and a half – he never even learned the dummy.  A lot of his Jeet Kune Do idea was him filling the gaps in his game left by having had to leave Hong Kong before he finished his study of the system.  He had a try-this, try-that approach which had its benefits and drawbacks.  A smart man full of energy, he pushed his body to its limits and accomplished a great deal, but he also apparently ate hashish like M&Ms and treated his body like a lab animal.

Many if not all of the Chinese fighting systems are anywhere from influenced to built upon Taoism, including Wing Chun.  The more I learn about Taoism as a philosophy, the more I realize that prize fighting is the last thing you’d find a Taoist doing!  In fact, this was one of the many points of tension in Bruce Lee – he was a big fan of Taoism, yet he also clearly thirsted for fame and had an unquenchable drive to be able to beat anyone in a fight.  This latter drive I think led him to the edge, physically and mentally.  I really hope he would have transcended this urges and needs as he matured.  The Bruce of 1972-1973 described by Wong Shun Leung makes me a little sad, but based on everything I’ve seen and heard and read, it rings true!

So what is the best fighting system?  There is no such thing.  There are systems and there are people training in them and any fight is a product of that moment, and an infinitely complex formula comprised of the condition of the fighters, their motivations, their training, size, weight, etc, etc.  The great thing that happens as you age (and I wish Bruce could have reached this point), is you realize how little questions like this matter to your life.  No matter how “good” you get, there is always someone better.  There are always two people who are better than the one person.  In any fight, the tide can turn when a weapon is produced.  Or friends join in.

The continued value of martial arts as we age is complicated.  Its the challenge of any difficult attainment and how striving changes you.  There are longevity benefits (or pitfalls).  There is the social element.  It can be fun, in the same way volleyball is fun.  It can be a focus of your thought which enriches you the way studying anything can improve your mind.  There are philosophical elements, and the spiritual.  Martial arts can be an infinite source of self-development.  But only if you “invest in loss,” and “learn to lose,” and get over the ego-driven fear-based elements that may have led you to these arts and technologies.

“”I am afraid of fighting. I am afraid of being beaten and losing. But I am more afraid of surviving as a cripple than dying in a fight.”
Fighter in the Wind, a biopic of Mas Oyama, founder of Kyokushin Karate

When I studied Tae Kwan Do back in High School, my teacher (Sergeant Dennis H. Frye) described seeing a 16mm film of Mas Oyama knocking out a bull with his bare hands and chopping off a horn.  I retold that story many times in my teens and early 20s  (in my story, I was shown the film by Sgt. Frye).  Now you can see that film on Youtube (although he wrestles it to the ground by the horns and the chopping off of the horn is not shown but done with a film edit) .

I was pretty “good” at TKD, which in my training emphasized head kicks (roundhouse), spinning kicks, and the side kick, with a little bit of punching — drills up and down the school in synchronization, like in Enter the Dragon.

Over time, recalling what we were doing, I would get confused, since since Sgt. Frye also referred to what we were doing as Karate.  Now I know Tae Kwan Do was a blanket term for the fight training that was going on in Korea at the end of  WWII, which had a lot of Karate influence (Karate itself being an amalgam of White Crane by way of a Chinese manual and a local form called “te”).  I guess everything influences everything.

One of my treasured moments from those Sgt. Frye classes was a time when I was doing round house kicks (and I was fast and whippy and flexible at age 16) and he asked me if I was “locking out fully.”  He had to ask because I was doing it so fast he couldn’t see.  I slowed it down just a bit, pausing at the lockout, and he said “someday, you’ll make a hell of a karate man.”

It was difficult to repress my smile!

When I look at the documentary below (about Mas Oyama), most of what I see is what we did in my school, including the breaking.  But we didn’t punch the makiwara (the post wrapped in rope) since we trained first in a Air Force community center and later in the elementary school gym.  But we also lacked something else, at least in my experience.

My problem with the training I received was that I never had any confidence in it!  And as I got older, I realized that this confidence is the key factor in fighting, the most important factor.  If you are going to do a hardcore striking style like Karate or Wing Chun, you need to figure out how to train in such a way that you can develop your confidence in the power of your strikes (and kicks) to damage the opponent and shot down their offense.

Because in real fighting, milliseconds count.  At my peak, I could have done that Jean-Claude Van Damme trick of kicking the cigarette from your mouth.  I could roundhouse someone in the head standing at Wing Chun bent-arm distance.  But the problem was – would I (in a real fight situation)?  Could I?  Kicking someone in the head requires a certain cold-bloodedness on the one hand and a certain belief in oneself on the other.

You will find that in this blog, I circle back around to this idea over and over (and its is one of the reasons I call my book Wing Chun Mind).  Its similar to Gary Lam’s Geng Ging idea.  You can think it, but can you do it?  You can hit the bag in the gym, but can you hit a person in the face?   It’s not the same!

This is the big advantage that people who spar with head gear regularly have over the rest of us.  They are used to that action of hitting the head of a human being (and one who is moving and trying not to be hit).  We can simulate this in class, but its not the same!  Even sparring is not the same, because in sparring, there is only a tiny fraction of the emotions happening.  In real fighting, you are afraid or angry and these emotional responses kick off a “para-sympathetic nervous system” response.  This creates a whole complicated series of changes in your body chemistry which both assist (you don’t feel the pain) and detract (its harder to see, you are impulsive, you may find yourself running without planning to run).

“Each of us has his cowardice. Each of us is afraid to lose, afraid to die. But hanging back is the way to remain a coward for life. The Way to find courage is to seek it on the field of conflict. And the sure way to victory is willingness to risk one’s own life.”
Mas Oyama

“Subjecting yourself to vigorous training is more for the sake of forging a resolute spirit that can vanquish the self than it is for developing a strong body.”
Mas Oyama

So how do you proceed considering all of this?  You train.  Training works on not only your body (endurance, reflexes, skills) but on your will.  Pushing through your fear in a confrontation is an act of will.  Training when you don’t feel like it is an act of will.  Training also gets you used to the scenario, “someone is throwing an attack my way.”   And even when you don’t spar, in most forms of training, every once in a while, accidents happen.  You get hit.  You get a little bit used to being hit.  You get used to chasing a moving target with your attacks.

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
William Shakespeare

This is the trick and its one you might want to keep thinking about as you train.  Modern Sports Psychology has proven the effectiveness of visualization.  So visualize yourself in fights.  Try and be realistic.  Fights can be incredibly fast and vicious.  How can we simulate these conditions in class?  You can only go so far, even with sparring.  This is the great thing about some of the best movie fights.  This is the useful thing about all the Youtube streetfights.  Imagine yourself in the middle of a wild fight just kicking off.  What do you do?  It’s fast!  The opponent(s) are young and strong and you are having to cope with some wild energy.  Has your training prepared you?  In the old days, and not just in the Hong Kong challenge matches, people would learn to fight in brawls or wars or both.  Most of us don’t have those “teachers.”  So we have to use our imaginations.  Train.  Then picture yourself in the fight, winning.  Rinse and repeat.

“For real sports journalism, the highlight of Pride is Sakuraba’s winning streak. […] It was officially the end of the illusion of Brazilians as being the strongest fighters, that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was not the perfect fighting system and that a pro wrestler proved to be the strongest martial artist of all.”
—Tadashi Tanaka

A fascinating fighter, part catch-wrestler, part showman, part psychologist, Kazushi Sakuraba demonstrates how much of fighting involves expectations.  Brazilian Ju-Jitsu dominated the early decades of the UFC due in part to their being there at its birth.  The rules of UFC and the emerging expectations of how such fights would be fought plus the inate advantages of the strategy and technology of BJJ led to early dominance by fighters who had this skill.  Sakuraba came along, a wild card, and threw a bit of a monkey wrench into what had become a prevalent belief that every UFC fighter had to have BJJ to succeed.  Of course, there were a number of UFC fighters who came from a Greco-Roman wrestling tradition, but I think Sakuraba is interesting because of his unpredictability and his showmanship.  This ties in to my belief that in many streetfights, there is a very important element of theatre.  Savvy streetfighters know that the first punch is extremely important and that fights can be won or lost based on how got the first shot in.  The sucker punch can be a very potent weapon.  So streetfighters (or straight up criminals) master the art of dissimulation.  They smile and put the opponent off-guard.  They watch and wait for the opponent to look away.  They ask a question, then strike.  They strike in the moment of distraction.

The fighters opposing Sakuraba were clearly surprised and perplexed by his unorthodox attacks and hi-jinks.  He came to one fight dressed as Super Mario.  He did cartwheels.  He attacked the feet, ankles, and legs of his opponents.

Wing Chun says “if it works, its Wing Chun.”  I take this to mean, we do the unexpected.  Back when it originated, many styles were circular, so Wing Chun took the straight line.  Other styles were using jumping high kicks.  Wing Chun only kicked low.  Wing Chun is first and foremost a way of thinking about fighting.