This year we are discussing the Book of Martial Power
(BOMP) on Saturdays.
(BOMP) on Saturdays. A person can be a good fighter without being a martial artist. Some martial artists might be lousy fighters when the grits hit the oscillator. I suppose if we were to draw a Venn diagram of fighting and martial arts, they might overlap significantly, but they would not by any stretch of the imagination be the same set.
.
Pearlman, in his third chapter describes part of what makes a martial art into a true artform - the objective. In fighting, the objective is victory or dominance or something to that effect. In the martial arts, the goal is what Pearlman calls The Pure Objective...
.
Victory must be...
- instantaneous
- effortless
- non-injurious to the opponent (if at all possible)
WOW! That's a tall bill to fill! Sounds like M. Ueshiba...
- When an enemy tries to fight with me ... he has to break the harmony of the universe. Hence at the moment he has the mind to fight with me, he is already defeated.
- To injure an opponent is to injure yourself. To control aggression without inflicting injury in the Art of Peace.
Pearlman gives a couple of criteria by which to judge if our martial techniques meet The Pure Objective...
- Given a reasonable level of proficiency, does the technique in question hold the potential for a smaller person to effortlessly apply it against a larger person?
- Given a reasonable level of proficiency, does the technique in question hold the potential for instantaneous victory?
____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com
