No Pretenses
This week I posted tai chi stuff to Instagram and TikTok. And it got me thinking. I’m doing three kinds of martial arts here in China right now: JKD, tai chi, and wing chun. I do tang soo do back home. I’ve dabbled in capoeira. And I’ve spent plenty of time watching martial arts videos, reading comments on those videos, reading message boards and discussion posts about martial arts, and generally lurking around martial arts related things. One of the things I’ve noticed is that the community can be…toxic. That’s a topic for another day but the one thing I want to make note of is how it seems every martial art is expected to be practical for self defense.
This isn’t just on message boards and video comments of course. You see it when you go into martial arts schools as well. Many will promote their supposed usefulness in combat or self defense situations. I’m not sure which influenced the other to be honest. Did the martial arts schools promoting usable defense arts influence the internet martial artists to believe that all martial arts need to be practical? Or do the martial arts schools promote themselves that way because the masses already believe it and they needed to be able to market themselves to potential customers? I don’t know. What I do know is I don’t like it.
I don’t believe that all martial arts are practical for self defense. Nor do I believe they have to be. That first thing is probably a widely shared opinion, but that second one might rile some people up. But it’s true. It’s even in the name. Martial arts. Arts. It says art right there. Arts based on martial practices. There’s no reason a martial art can’t be practiced for health, or fitness, or visual appeal, or just for fun.
I do a lot of martial arts for show. I always have. I did plenty of competitions and demonstrations when I was younger. I post a lot of martial arts content on the internet. I like martial arts for their aesthetic appeal. Of course I like them for their combat potential as well but how they look will always be important to me. But a lot of people don’t like that and I can’t escape people and places telling me how useful whatever martial arts they want to interest me in is for fighting.
But the tai chi classes I go to….don’t. There are no pretenses about what we’re doing. We do forms. That’s it. Sometimes the instructor will show us the practical application of a move to help us visualize what we’re doing or just for the information. But we don’t practice them. And we definitely don’t see the practical applications of all the moves. We’re not being sold something that probably doesn’t exist. We’re just…doing forms.
Check out this week’s tai chi posts
While some people may not care for a martial arts class that doesn’t teach them to break bones and may scoff at the idea of doing martial arts for aesthetics or fitness I have no problem with that at all.
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