Lifestyle
It is far better to be a warrior tending his garden rather than
a gardener at war - Kristian Karppi, MD, K&K Global Consulting Ltd.
“Martial arts” has a wide definition and is often
used to describe sports, meditative arts, selfdefence and technique-based martial arts.
Unless you are a connoisseur in the subject, you
may not have heard as much about the more
intellectual “principle-based martial arts” and
how such arts can be applied to your life.
In self-defence the ideal scenario is an escape
from combat, which can be achieved by many
different means, avoiding that anyone gets hurt.
If nobody gets hurt, there is a better chance the
opponent is not harbouring any hard feelings
leading to further retaliations.
a situation that I didn’t choose to enter and there
was a severe threat to my own life, but I feel much
better in myself that his parents and family still
have a son and a brother.
Most martial art styles have a long history of being
clouded with secrecy. With a chain of succeeding
teachers only teaching their secrets to their closest
student, the true path of martial arts has been
severely eroded and it is hard to find great martial
arts schools. The reasons for this erosion are
many, martial art wisdom is ultimately intellectual
property and there is always a risk that such
secrets may be turned against you. Revealing your
martial secrets can be just as foolish as publishing
trading algorithms for public consumption.
An example of how techniques got lost in
history is provided by classic karate self-defence
blocking techniques that are often taught as
being divided into the following two parts; a)
a cross arm position to create leverage for
power and thereafter b) a block of an attacker’s
incoming limb. Considering most martial arts,
such as Karate, were developed out of an armed
opponent context this two stage approach is
clearly irrational. The most pragmatic decision
would be to occupy the space the attacker needs
to take in order to injure you, deflecting in your
first move to avoid being hurt. If you observe the
two section karate technique and understand the
paths to your victory, you will also understand that
the first section indicates that your opposite arm to
the blocking arm is in fact the first deflecting parry
preventing you from getting injured.
Unfortunately, the world is rarely that simple.
Attackers rarely come pre-announced and alone
and you may also want to protect family and
friends. Therefore, you may have no other option
than to engage in combat with your opponents.
If your skills as a martial artist are excessively
superior, you may be served the opportunity to
spare your enemy’s life and ideally he and his
family will understand that they owe you a favour
to not pursue further retaliation. Only as the final
outcome, when there is no other alternative,
you may be forced to end a chain of violence by
terminating someone’s life. This may sound like an
outlandish philosophy but I have personally been
in a situation where I have spared my enemy’s life,
The second block move is a strike with the intent
to injure, unbalance and potentially even settle
the opponent in a position where they need to
raise to launch their next attack. At the moment
the opponent rises from a settled position, he
is in a “weightless state” where a) his balance is
susceptible to manipulation for a throw and b)
his mind is vulnerable for knock out. If you have
seen boxing matches where the boxers have
given each other really hard punches but the
boxers keep standing up seemingly unharmed
it’s because they are in a stable position. You
may also have seen that a se