Does Martial Arts Really Teach Discipline and Not Violence?
Martial arts seem to be very popular these days. There are so many forms of these arts. We know them generally as Tae Kwan Do, Judo, Kung Fu, Karate, Aikido and other more obscure ones, each one has as many different styles as there are masters.
The proliferation of different styles are normally the result of former students who open up their own school, possibly because they have created their own style and not too happy with their former sensei or masters.
I took up Karate when I was a kid after being influenced by violent films and action stars like Bruce Lee. The instructor was a good man who actually taught the philosophy of martial arts and that was to refrain from violence at all times. I remember asking him why do we learn such deadly efficient techniques of maiming or even killing someone if he have to refrain from violence. His answer was that if we had enough practice and knew how deadly they were, we would be disciplined enough not to use them.
I did not understand what he meant by one could be disciplined by learning to be violent. While some teachers teach students to restrain one’s violent tendencies and only execute the moves for self-protection purposes, most teachers do not teach that. In fact most of them encourage their students to be aggressive and win tournaments so that they can strut around showing off how good they were as teachers.
Also within the martial circles, there are a lot of backstabbing and ridicule of each other’s art. Each sensei or master will say that the important things in martial arts are discipline and humility. Then the master will usually go on at length talking about how genuine his art is and how fraudulent the others are.
Whether you agree or not, most if not all, teach violence. Although they will violently deny it, I have not yet met a martial arts teacher who can really tell me the true meaning of the whole thing. Maybe such a person does not exist. So for most students and teachers, martial arts is just another ego-building activity.
Apart from writing about topics on Sports, Fred also enjoy building websites on subjects that he’s passionate about such as Proform Elliptical Trainer. Come visit http://www.ProformEllipticalTrainers.com for more information.
