"In
depth" knowledge is term frequently often used in Chinese martial arts .
What is interesting, it is not easy to define this and “in depth” knowledge really
means. I asked a question on some Kung Fu internet groups and interesting answers
appeared. According to some kung fu practitioners, ‘in depth” knowledge is :
- A
very detailed or complete study of something...
- unconscious
competence
- In
depth knowledge means a thorough study of any subject to the finest of detail,
also covering all aspects through experience
- A
very detailed knowledge about everything that's related to Kung fu
- A solid
knowledge base of “on paper” facts and factors and some fundamental
understanding of the subject,
As
we can see, answers are rather positive, if fact this is an impression that
people who supposedly possess “in depth” knowledge are trying to leave. But
what really does that term means. To understand it correctly first we have to
understand what martial arts are, or what they should be. Chinese martial arts
are, or at least they were before Taiping rebellion, systems of fighting concentrated
on weapon usage with rudimentary empty hand techniques, if any. But no matter
what martial art we are talking about they, weapons oriented or empty hands
systems, even modern fire arms training, all of them are based in same basic
principles. In order for any martial art to be efficient three conditions must
be met: timing, distance and power. These tree basic conditions include more
sub conditions but they are not important for this article. Note, power in fire
arms training comes from the weapon, but essentially doesn’t change the requirement
of sufficient power to stop the opponent, small caliber weapons with not enough
power to penetrate body armor or to cause enough damage can have dire
consequences for the user of such a weapon. There is only one way to gain
sufficient skill in any martial art, and that is hard training and real combat
experience. In order to be effectively trained and applied martial arts systems
have to be simple. Over complicated movements not only that are not easy to
learned but because of the complexity they can never be used in real situation
because two reasons, first- timing will be off because complex movements
require more time to be executed than simple movements, best example in Kung Fu
is two or more block on one punch followed by a counter punch, basically three
techniques in response to one attacking technique, which means that the person
who is using such a defensive approach must be more than a three times faster
than attacking opponent which is physically impossible. Second, conflict
situations cause surge of adrenalin, on the other hand adrenalin effectively suppresses
fine motor skills in which complex movements are based, simply under the stress
of combat only the simplest movements can be executed, complex techniques
simply fall apart. There are numerous
studies that show effect of the adrenaline on the fine motor skills and there
numerous full contact competitions that proved what kind of movements can and
can’t be applied in combat.
Having
this in mind it is obvious that martial arts are not based in complex knowledge,
but rather in hard training that develops physical and psychological attributes
necessary for fighting. Of course everything can be explained with various
levels of complexity, one simple movement can be explained through a volume of
books from pure physics of the motion the can be explained through complex mathematics
and physics and also through biochemistry and medicine. On the other hand there
is a question in usefulness of such knowledge for an average practitioner who
wants to learn self-defense of to compete in contact sports. Truth is vast
majority of practitioners do not have sufficient knowledge and education to
understand such a complex approach in explanation, and even those who can, will not benefit from it because it
is useless for the purposes of self-defense or competition. Of course vast
majority of teachers do use modern science to explain their arts, simply
because they don’t know it nor understand it well.
So
the questions are, what is and why do we have “in depth’ knowledge in
traditional martial arts?
Answer first question, what is in depth’
knowledge in traditional martial arts, is not easy to answer. Every style has
its own standards in the “depth” of ‘knowledge”. In my experience “in depth”
knowledge is a mix of pseudo- science, Taoist theories and often esoteric
concepts picked from other religious systems. For example we have a Wing Chun
system that uses terms like “time\space\energy” which are modern physics terms
and not only did not exist before recent times but those concepts in such form
are impossible to be expressed in old Cantonese language, mixed with theories
for traditional Chinese “medicine” and
Taoism to explain their fighting concepts. Not to mention that there no real “depth”
in those theories, terms like time\space\energy are just used in order to give
serious and scientific appearance to the people who do not really know science,
esoteric part is aiming towards people who already believe in such things. Another
example is “teacher” who explains that in order to execute a proper movement
practitioner must use specific part of the brain, taught properly only ( what a
surprise) in his system, while all other are using different part of the brain,
thus their movements and entire arts are not correct. Of course, this particular
teacher is also using concepts like “qi” and “internal” energy\force. I wonder
where is the documented research that proves what part of the brain is used by
him and his students while practicing their art compared to the brain scans of
the people who are doing “incorrect” movements? Most of the teachers do not use
pseudo-science because they are aware that it easy to debunk those theories. On
the other hand, “Qi” and “internal” power are perfect for “in depth”
presentation of the art. It is impossible to debunk those theories simply
because no one knows what “Qi’ is, there is no clear definition of it and it
can mean whatever a teacher wants in particular moment. It is important to
mention that every try to measure the effect of “Qi” in controlled condition
failed, same as any other kind of magic or esoteric arts. Accompanied with
pseudo-science and religion, “in depth” knowledge is consisted of one more
important element, growing complexity of the movements, drills and “what if” scenarios.
I have personally witnessed different teachers showing that knowledge,
Sometimes teacher will “correct” the position of the body part by few millimeters
with an explanation that a “proper” position will open ‘qi” channels or be
connected properly to the body structure and provide better “force flow”. Sometimes teachers will show complicated set
of movements usually called “drill” that, although completely unrealistic and
without any combat value “suppose” to develop some necessary fighting
attribute. People pay a lot of money for this nonsense and what is worse they
pass that nonsense to others. There are many other examples of “in depth” knowledge
so many that they are actually prevalent way of teaching kung fu these days.
The
question why “in depth” knowledge in this form even exist is much easier to
answer. First it is the financial moment involved in kung fu. Chinese Martial
Arts are big business and they attract a large number of people. In order to
draw as much money as possible from those people, over complicated systems in
theory and practice are invented and they are still growing in complexity.
During Ching dynasty period, for which we have the most historical evidence,
kung fu training lasted for no more than a few years, and later people trained
in kung fu sought jobs in military, police or as a private security. Training
was harsh, similar to training of the special military and police forces today,
and those people had to learn their arts properly because their lives depended
on them. How and why form simple and effective combat systems Chinese martial
arts came to what we have today was a subject of one of the previous articles. This also brings the second reason for “in
depth” knowledge existence. Vast majority of kung fu teacher have no fighting experience
what so ever. So, how can a person who doesn’t know how to fight teach other
fighting skills. It is impossible, just like a person who doesn’t know how to
swim can’t teach swimming to others. But those teachers are teaching kung fu,
martial arts, so they have to offer something, and they offer arts that are
based in imagination and assumption, based in Hong Kong action movies and
developed with completely compliant training partners with zero resistance or
simulated resistance in training. On top
of that , those teachers are also selling the “tradition” , some famous, often
mythical ancestor had superhuman powers and fought usually hundreds if not
thousands of fights, he never lost any, and his fighting abilities somehow
magically transferred through generations of successors ( who never had a
fight) to the current teacher. Best example is revered Wing Chun master Yip
Chun, a son of most famous Wing Chun figure today Yip Man. Although we have no
evidence what so ever that Yip Man had any fight he is considered by his
followers to be tremendous fighter and there are numerous legends about his fighting
skills which grow in number over time. Yip Chun proudly states that he never
had a fight in his life, and even if his father was a good fighter how that
makes him competent to teach others martial art?
At
the end, it is important to say that “in depth” knowledge can be very dangerous
for the practitioners, not only it will drain their pockets but giving them
false confidence in their fighting ability may cause them to act irrationally
in potentially dangerous situation and that may cause serious physical injury
of death. Those things did happened in the past, so I urge to all martial arts
practitioners to test their skills in controlled conditions in order to get a
realistic assessment of their fighting abilities.
