12 rules for choosing a martial art
(With apology to Jordan Peterson)
- Yoda doesn’t exist. (Read rule number two)
- If chi, pressure points or solo movements with guttural grunts is integral to believing that your particular martial art will work … leave now. (Read rule number one)
- There are no secret or lethal techniques in katas, bunkai, poomse or forms – only dead patterns. Most certainly, you can imagine frying an egg but without actually doing it with a pan, butter and an egg – you will still remain hungry.
- If a good part of the class is spent on bowing, chanting the school’s creed, acknowledging each instruction with a three-letter syllable and wearing a single branded uniform which is indistinguishable from each other, then you are probably in a cult.
- One’s particular style is mostly not appropriate or functional for others – seriously question the teacher who insists that you master his own style.
- Be wary of an unhealthy focus on lineage, if it wasn’t posted on Facebook it didn’t happen. Jokes aside, what may or may not have happened 200 years ago with a man with a white wispy beard has no consequence to you. What matters is the sincere efficiency of your coach.
- If you are going to choose on external physical appearances; the man with cauliflower ears got his through the sweat and grind of resisting opponents whilst the man with callused knuckles got his by hitting an unresponsive piece of wood. But you don’t need either to be efficient.
- Note if half the class consists of push ups and other irrelevant calisthenics, this is placed there to mask the deficiencies of that style and the knowledge of the coach. Conditioning sessions are separate to skill development. Don’t confuse the two.
- When everything is taken into consideration, martial arts is about being competent in fighting, with this comes the confidence of mastering yourself, which will in all likelihood be enough to deal with bullies. The proviso is competence in fighting, anything else will only heighten your deficiencies.
- Don’t confuse bowing with respectfulness – I have fist-bumped, shook hands or high fived the nicest and well-adjusted people on the planet. Bowing I have seen to encourage a false humility.
- Apply yourself every day, you will get better.
- And finally, you are allowed to have fun; training does not have to entail a Spartan existence.