The descriptive sub-title of this blog—Against Professional Philosophy—originally created and rolled out in 2013, is “A Co-Authored Anarcho-Philosophical Diary.”
Now, nine years later, after more than 300,000 views of the site, this new series, A Philosopher’s Diary, finally literally instantiates that description by featuring short monthly entries by one or another of the members of the APP circle, in order to create an ongoing collective philosophical diary that records the creative results of critical, synoptic, systematic rational reflection on any philosophical topic or topics under the sun, without any special restrictions as to content, format, or length.
In this fifth installment Otto Paans formulates a set of philosophical precepts based on almost 30 years of martial arts training and practice.
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#1 Changing Social Institutions From Without Or Within
#4 Respect For Choices vs. Respect For Persons
A Philosopher’s Diary, #5—Thirty-Six Philosophical Precepts of Martial Arts Practice
The 19th-century quanfa master Wong made a list of precepts that were handed down via a Southern Chinese compendium on martial arts practice, called The Bubishi.[i] One of his precepts encourages the reader to write down what they have learned. Following his lead, I’ve written down some insights from my own martial arts practice.[ii] As I formulated them, it gradually dawned on me that they also constitute a set of existentially rich, neo-organicist philosophical precepts. These precepts, in turn, can be used for the cultivation of our essentially embodied and specifically “human, all-too-human,” capacities for cognition, affect or emotion, and intentional action, altogether independently of technology, especially including digital technology.
1. All attacks should aim directly towards the assailant’s center line, even circular movements. If you understand this, you can attack from any angle.
2. There are no defensive techniques. Evading should always be done to obtain a better position to attack the assailant or to disrupt their balance; blocking should either destroy the assailant’s capacity to attack, or it should unbalance them and maneuver them into a disadvantageous position.
3. When you move, imagine your dan tian as a heavy stone ball rolling at a fixed speed across the floor: the center of the ball is stable, and its movement is continuous. All sudden jerking movements, interruptions in rhythm and pauses are accelerations, decelerations, and accents in the continuous flow of motion.[iii]
4. Carefully distinguish between dachi (stance) and kamae (posture). The concept of kamae denotes not just the alignment of your body, the positions of your hands and feet, and the distribution of your weight, but especially includes your mental attitude and fortitude. Spirit comes first, technique comes second. Someone with a proper kamae is never a target for an attack and has achieved the martial ideal about which Sun Tzu spoke in The Art of War: to be superior is to dissuade the assailant to fight at all, without actually having to engage in combat.
5. The art of overpowering an assailant consists in destroying their composure without losing your own. Again, think of kamae. The person with proper kamae retains their composure, even under stress, or even when fighting from a disadvantageous position. Even a powerful assailant can be stopped when he loses their balance, topples, grasps only thin air, or is distracted. Make every effort to disrupt the intention and flow of the attacker while retaining your own rhythm and flow of movement.
6. Keep your eyes focused on the assailant’s chest or at least their upper body. Do not follow the movements of their hands and feet. That way, you’ll always be quicker than they will be, because their body will betray their intentions. Again, think of the kamae and the flow: the mind that is concerned with and distracted by individual movements cannot retain its composure and strategy. It cannot see the whole because it focuses narrowly on the parts.
7. Never allow your assailant to advance within an arm’s length of you, or you will not be able to block or evade their attack. Correspondingly, freely use this tactic to surprise them. Stand unexpectedly still when he advances quickly or try to gradually close the distance between them and you, then force the good moment to strike. That way, they won’t be quick enough to stop you. Never allow your assailant to push your arm towards your chest to an angle that is less than ninety degrees. This traps your arm against your body and removes your capacity for attacking.
8. Always unbalance the assailant, mentally as well as physically. Entire empires have fallen due to imbalance, but this applies equally well to individuals, no matter how strong or tall they are. If the assailant attacks, pull them in or twist them around their central axis. If they retreat, sweep their feet away or push them in the direction where they are weakest and most prone to lose their balance. When they are unbalanced, push the attack. Correspondingly, never allow an assailant to dictate your rhythm of movement or your flow. Strive to disrupt theirs.
9. Never stop attacking until the assailant cannot attack any longer. If you stop your attack too soon, you endanger yourself by allowing the assailant to retaliate. If you do this, then you fail to protect yourself (or others) sufficiently and fall short in your duty to yourself.
10. The relation between a specific technique and the continuous flow is analogous to the relation of a wave to the ocean. The wave emerges and submerges yet remains recognizable as an individual wave. However, at no point during this process was the wave not the ocean. Likewise, the technique is identifiable in a continuous flow, but is always part of it, and never not part of it.
11. When one executes kihon (basic techniques), the goal is not to attain perfection, or to reach that one moment where one performs a perfect punch or kick. If one trains regularly, a perfect kick or punch will occur at some point. Rather, the goal of kihon is experimentally to explore how a basic technique fits to the capabilities and limitations of one’s body. As one ages, these capabilities change, so the kihon must develop alongside and through the body. Therefore, do not just focus on physical prowess alone, as this capacity will wane over time.
12. The Okinawan karate master Choshin Chibana (1885-1969) is rumored to have said that one must regularly include new elements and ideas into one’s karate. If not, the repertoire that one practices starts to resemble a stagnant pool, while it should be a living brook. Likewise, the Okinawan karate master Choki Motobu (1870-1944) wrote a book entitled Watashi-no-Karate-Jutsu. We can translate thistitle as “my [art of] karate”. In giving the book this title, Motobu demonstrated that he fully understood the personal character of activities like karate and thinking.
13. Train free form (kumite/saan sik) and technique (kihon) side by side. Too many people glorify technique because they misunderstand the role of good free form. Good free form creates habits in your body that you will unconsciously apply whenever needed. The more exacting you are for yourself, the better these free forms will appear when needed. However, many people value the form for the sake of form too highly, or they claim that “form will get sloppy in a fight.” But perfect free form is not required for fighting; neither is maintaining a perfect form in a fight a useful goal for training. Good free form makes fighting easier, even if it is not perfect. Conversely, those who only train only with good free forms lack proper alignment and will lose their composure quickly when pressed.
14. The improvisational freedom of good free form and the stringent discipline of technique are not opposites. It is only when they work properly together that truly good free movement (in the form of the continuous flow) emerges. This is exactly what forms (kata) achieve when executed properly.
15. The body continuously moves as an integral whole. Too many people think about moving their arms and legs, but don’t coordinate their body as a whole. But the phalanx is vulnerable when it does not advance as a whole or retreat as a whole, and so the body is vulnerable when it does not move as a whole. Again, this must be studied through the practice of kamae and alignment. To retain composure is to retain the integrity of the body’s and mind’s movement.
16. Breathing and balancing are fundamental skills. Without proper breathing, one cannot move continuously or synchronize individual movements. Without balance, one is unstable half of the time. Do not confuse balancing with the mastery of standing on one leg for prolonged amounts of time: balance is maintaining a stable bodily core while moving, like a heavy stone ball rolling across a surface. Both skills are essential for retaining composure when pressured.
17. Always keep your elbows tucked in and about a fist’s distance between them and your body. Your hands should be just above your shoulders, so that they can easily protect your head and your lower body, because they have only to travel equal distance to both destinations. Keep your legs closed to protect your groin and use step-slide. Don’t tense your fists except for the moment of making contact with the target. Don’t tense your shoulders or lower your chin too much—a hunched posture impedes everything. Always be flexible and nimble when moving.
18. Keep your back straight whenever possible, and don’t lean forward or backward. If your move forward, use the entire body; if your move backward, use the entire body. Always move as an integral whole. Don’t lean into your attacks, because it makes you vulnerable to unbalancing, being pulled in, or to quick counterattacks. Don’t lean back from attacks, because it impedes your mobility and weakens your composure. The same applies for twisting your spine—avoid this. If you retreat, move to an advantageous position.
19. Speed has nothing to do with punching quickly or moving rapidly. It has to do with the right timing of being there, where the assailant’s attack is not, and being able to attack them where they cannot defend. Beginners move too much; experienced practitioners seemingly don’t move at all. Identify where the emptiness in your assailant’s kamae is, and you will be able to move efficiently.
20. Interpret the meaning of kata (forms) freely so that they work for you. This is part of the process of growth and understanding. There is no such thing as secret bunkai (explanation). Use your reasoning and experience to see how you can interact with the form. Also, remember that forms are living entities. Study the differences in styles closely and retain what is useful; notice that many previous masters recombined forms to suit their purposes. Interpretation is a form of expression, indeed an integral part of it. Because the form is alive, it should grow with you during your life.
21. Never try to make your students move like yourself. Teach them the basic principles of the techniques and strategy instead. Bad teachers wish to achieve immortality by molding students into replicas of themselves. Good teachers know that every tree in the forest grows upward towards the sun, but that no tree is the same. That is why there is an old saying: “Many trees, one forest.”
22. Let go. The goal of teaching is to enable students to achieve more than you ever could. That is why good teaching is liberating, as it provides students with the tools to grow forever. The bad teacher wants to hold on to his students; the good teacher lets them go. In many traditional Chinese stories, the students are sent away to find their own way in the world. This is the essence of teaching.
23. If someone is not motivated to train, try to find out whether the person can be motivated. Motivation should come from inside and be voluntary, or else it will develop through practice. But someone who cannot motivate themselves cannot grow, no matter how hard they try. Try to find the reasons for the lack of motivation if you think the student has potential. If students cannot motivate themselves, then it is part of their process to master this. If they cannot achieve this, then do not teach them.
24. If someone trespasses on someone else’s boundaries, for instance by hitting too hard or by not adjusting to their partner’s needs, make them train with someone who does the same to them. The best moral lesson is to experience personally what one does to others. Conversely, make sure that you set high expectations for achievement. One who likes to avoid conflict cannot grow, so being uncomfortable is part of the process of growth. Likewise, those who like conflict and violence too much must be curbed and be made to feel what they inflict on others.
25. Always work with physical contact, even if it is soft and controlled in the beginning. Without physical contact and receiving impact, no martial art can be mastered. There is an old Okinawan saying: “the mind does not get disturbed by being beaten, but by beating others.” To be beaten is a useful tool for understanding what one does to others, and it strengthens one’s capacity for resilience and courage. To be beaten is not the worst thing that could happen.
26. Do not fear. The Litany Against Fear in the first book of the Dune series by Frank Herbert is a veritable manual for martial arts training:
You must not fear
Fear is the mind-killer
Fear is the little-death that brings obliteration
To fear the oncoming punch is to have lost already. One must recognize the danger of the punch, but one must not fear it. If one does not think and respond simply by trusting the body, a proper response will be taken. Fear kills the mind, that is, one’s capacity to act properly. It is the death of the spontaneous working of the mind, because it overthinks and starts reasoning in the middle of a fight. The fight is no place for a purely rational being.
27. Fear is the little-death: Shakespeare said that a coward dies a thousand times, a brave person only once. Fear focuses one egotistically on one’s own demise and on survival. To allow this kind of egoism is the beginning of the end and of destructive self-centeredness. One’s own demise cannot be on one’s mind if one has to fight properly. Even self-defense cannot be effectively practiced when one thinks about oneself. This seems a paradox, but one should keep in mind that the goal is not mere survival, but the incapacitation of the assailant, even if that means destruction.
28. Forms and techniques are living entities. They develop and change over time, depending on the personal preferences, age and cultural contexts of those practicing them. One way one might think about them is in terms of manifestations. One who practices a given form manifests the ideas contained in it through their own body, with all the limitations and possibilities that implies. Even if a single person performs the same form twice, the content that is manifested might be different. Forms and techniques exist to support the process of growth and to direct it. Those who do not understand this insist that technical perfection must be achieved and that this is the sole goal of practice.
29. To adhere to a single style and never force oneself to explore other styles is to lock oneself into a room without windows.
30. There is no difference between teaching moral conduct and teaching martial arts. Proficiency in both cannot be achieved without experiencing the core lessons for oneself. Both cannot be mastered by adhering to strict rules that have been set down in stone.
31. Do not stop searching. Keep an open mind and ask questions. Do not uncritically try to incorporate all things you learn in your training. Your life is too short to master everything, so choose what feels good for you and train this in ways that are appropriate to your body and its capacities. Better to master one thing and feel confident with it than trying to master all kinds of things that add little.
32.The body has causal and physical limits. The mind does not have those limits. Because they are one, you can achieve more than you originally thought.[iv]
33. Physical prowess without contemplation is mere brute force, and an invitation to disaster; mere contemplation without action is fragile passivity, and an invitation to cowardice. When the bodily capacities wane, the mind should be able to give one’s training depth and meaning, even in the absence of physical prowess. In this way, one can train until the day one dies.
34. Beneath all subtle questions of morality, we find the brute, root moral issue of how to deal with coercive force or even outright violence, in some form or another. This applies to contemplating life-or-death situations, having to take a life, defending oneself, justifying pre-emptive strikes, the impacts of receiving pain, harming others or oneself, the cultivation or lack of self-respect, and protecting one’s own or others’ dignity. Because the world is thoroughly imperfect, we must respond to the issue of coercive force or outright violence—this is something that we cannot avoid. Therefore, it is best to cultivate oneself, become mature through training and discipline, and prepare for the inevitable moment that one has to deal with this issue, either in its causal, physical form (for instance, by having to defend oneself against an attacker, or protect an innocent target of an attack) or in its existential form (for instance, by having to choose between two evils). When that inevitable moment arrives, you won’t have time for reasoning, contemplation, or deliberation; you’ll have to act directly.
35. The living essence of tradition in martial arts practice is the innovation and development of practice-based and intellectual insights that allows each generation of students to achieve more than their predecessors could. It is always focused on enabling people to train and think for themselves, so that they become the best person they can be. To stifle this living tradition by imposing dogmatic formulas, narrow and style-based conceptions, and lack of spontaneity, is immoral and kills the tradition. There is a continuity with the past that stretches into the future. Those who wish to cling on to the past petrify the present and cripple the future. Mindless conservation is pointless and demonstrates a lack of understanding. Some people do indeed feel naturally inclined to practice a single style, but always add something to it that makes it personal. They manifest the essence of what makes a style functional. What applies to the continuous flow of movement applies also to tradition as a whole.
36. Mastery means letting go:letting go of unrealistic expectations, letting go of physical prowess, letting go of bad habits, letting go of students, and letting go of unfounded ideals. The road is always being traversed, which means that what one encounters always changes, prompting one to move with the circumstances. Continuous movement can only be attained through discipline. This is what the well-known Samurai warrior Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) meant when he said that there is only a single correct way. But this one way should always be one’s own way–continuous with the past but developing towards the future.
[i] To my mind, one of the best Bubishi translations is by Patrick McCarthy, and the most recent edition of this translation has been published as Bubishi: The Classical Manual of Combat (Rutland: Tuttle Publishing, 2016). The term quanfa refers to the style(s) of boxing practiced round the end of the 19th century in Fujian, Southern China, but that eventually found their way to the Ryukyu Kingdom.
[ii] These insights are personal and are derived from an almost 30-year span of practice. In the text, both Chinese and Japanese terminology is used. I started my practices with Wado-Ryu Karate, switching to Wado-Karate-Jutsu, Kissaki-Kai Karate and Koryu Uchinadi, accompanied by Ju-Jutsu and MMA later on. After a brief pause, this was followed by Krav Maga, three styles of Wing Chun, two of them based on the lineage from Ip Man (1893-1972), through the variations developed by Wong Shun-leung and Leung Ting, respectively), and one based on the Tang family style. I have always cross-trained in order to acquire new ideas or to modify old concept, amongst others by following courses or seminars in Aikido, Ao-Denkou-Kai, boxing, Escrima, Freefighting, Fujian White Crane, Hapkido, Judo, Muay Thai, Systema, and Taijutsu.
[iii] The Dan Tian (or Dan Tien) is an important point below the navel used in qigong and martial arts practice. It loosely translates as “elixir field”. In Japanese, it is also known as hara (“belly”). The Dan Tian is used in various breathing exercises, is thought to generate life force (Qi/Ki) and corresponds to the point of gravity in the body, so keeping it “rooted” or “stable” is essential for maintaining balance.
[iv] We are essentially embodied beings. While we can speak of mind and body, we should always regard them as one inseparable unity while thinking.
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