Thinking the unthinkable. Part 1.

A martial art thought experiment.

If you were to design a perfect martial arts system from scratch, how would you do it?

I know this sounds like a complete heresy, but just bear with me on this, consider it as a kind of wild hypothetical musing, an out-of-the-box riffing on a theme.

Why I think this might be worth having a go at:

·       It might just prompt a total reframing of what we think the martial arts are, and what we think they might be.

·       It’s possible that it could cast light on where engaging in martial arts training might fit into modern society.

·       It could help us to project backwards and perhaps encourage us to find a new angle to look objectively at what we are doing now (as practising martial artists operating within our own systems) and what we used to do.

This line of thought came out of some challenging and really interesting conversations I have had in the past with martial artists who like to compare systems.

Starting with the basics – Define your terms.

I am going to come at this through the lens of design. How would a designer approach this problem?

Designers would typically start out with a ‘brief’; a condensed description of just what problem needs to be addressed.

Before I get into specifics; here is the first point:

There are different ways of defining ‘martial arts’, in this case I am definitely talking about ‘unarmed combat’.

For successful design, what is it that you want to achieve? What would be the perfect outcome?

Without getting too descriptive, here are a series of possible characteristics that might be desirable:

1.       Whatever happens it must bring about an instant effect (prolonged engagements will up the risk factor considerably).

2.       There must be a minimal energy output. Energy expense in fighting can be incredibly costly and incurs further risks.

3.       It should not announce its presence (unless it is tactically advantageous).

4.       Whatever is done you should not inflict damage on yourself to achieve your end. This includes damage accumulated during training and preparation.

5.       There should be a zero continuation of threat (even from a downed opponent or their confederates).

6.       There should be a capacity to de-stress, decompress, debrief and detach after an encounter. This is important because of the potential for psychological trauma (anyone who has ever been in a violent encounter will know this). Without this programmed in, your ‘shelf-life’ becomes somewhat limited; like a gun with only the capacity to fire one bullet.

I am sure that the longer I think about it there will be others, but please feel free to contribute in the comments section below.

And furthermore…

Another set of categories I am going to refer to as ‘future-proofing’; things that don’t relate to the immediate moment, the sudden encounter, the instant flash of violence.

·       Whatever course of action is taken in the moment of physical engagement and resolution, it has to be executed in a way that negates the possibility of consequences being carried into the future – otherwise the effects of your actions follow you forward in time. How this is done, I am not too sure. (The only example I can think of is where historical vendettas have taken place, and ruthlessly undertaken so that nobody survives to wreak revenge – a bit extreme, but you see what I am getting at).

·       You have to operate in a way whereby the skills employed cannot be used against you or stolen by others. Rather in the way that if using a dagger, the weapon cannot be taken from your grasp and turned against you. (Think of the way that early judo was taken to the West, and was initially seen as being almost supernatural; until the Westerners learned the tricks and turned it against the Japanese).

·       The system has to be able to feed off itself, by that I mean it learns from its own mistakes, very much in the philosophy of ‘antifragile’ as such, it grows in knowledge and problem solving. (Think of the way a computer learns to play chess by working through its errors and countering them).

·       A legacy has to be built into the system, or it dies. A bit like those 17^th century European fencing masters who refined amazing skills that were never passed forward. We can only guess what abilities they developed.

In the final part:

·       The trade-offs and the negatives.

·       Elitism.

·       Jedi warriors.

·       What the training might look like.

·       How to measure your success.