I have no panache, I have no flash, I have no sizzle, am I a Martial Artist? If you have studied any grounded martial art for any length of time then you know what I mean. As I was watching Animal Planet's "Kung Fu: The Animal Within" I was struck once again with this feeling. It is a feeling of inadequacy, a small feeling mind you, but it is there none the less (consequently I also get this feeling whenever I watch a good MMA fight). The Kung Fu practitioners, for the most part, are beautiful performers. Their katas are almost poetic in nature. If the art's deadliness rivals their beauty then they truly are an art to be admired. But my art, my style, is lacking in this fluidity. Don't get me wrong, there are a few pretty moves, but overall it is a very utilitarian art form that I practice. Quick straight hand strikes and low kicks are the norm. Get in and get out quickly. Hard blocks, fast counters, combinations followed by combinations until the opponent is incapacitated. A throw or joint lock borrowed from Jujitsu every once in a while. An eye gouge, elbow, knee, choke hold or face scrape whenever necessary. Not pretty... but effective when used properly.
So, when a friend or family member attacks me in jest, or asks me to show them something, I am usually at a loss. My nephew is the worse at this, he is almost twice my weight and almost a half foot taller than me. Although I know I could stop someone his size in a real fight, it wouldn't be a pretty move that did it, it would be a brutal incapacitating combination of strikes that brought him down. Perhaps I am just jaded though, maybe the moves that I perform daily in my katas have just become too pedestrian for my eyes. Maybe the unaccustomed eye can still see beauty in the techniques and katas that I perform.
Training has been a little slow but I have still been progressing over the last few weeks. I realized that for the next belt advancement I need to learn more like 10 techniques rather than the 6 that I first counted. I'm still trying to get one in a week but it is difficult to get a good work out in and learn new techniques and continue to perfect already known techniques. I have received all of the training DVDs that I have ordered and they all look pretty good. I have hours and hours of training material to go through now and a large portion of that only concentrates on the first belt level! This doesn't even include the multiple PDF documents that I am still needing to read. I need to sit down and sort through all the material that I now have to make sure that I am using them to their fullest extent.
Speaking of time, in regards to the martial arts, how much do you think you can learn in one hour? This last week Animal Planet reran an older one hour program, probably from around 2001, called Kung Fu: The Animal Within. I tried to find out more information on it but I haven't been able to track too much down. As you can imagine, it is your typical Discovery production. A lot of flash but only a small amount of content. I was hoping at first that it was a new series. Think how much we can learn about fighting from the animal kingdom. Now, narrow that down to just the five major animal styles of Kung Fu... Tiger, Crane, Leopard, Snake and Dragon. This even excludes my two favorite styles, Monkey and Praying Mantis Kung Fu! Now, whittle that down to an hour and see how much you can learn. Yeah, thought so, not much at all. This just screams for a series. One two hour episode for each style, now that would be informative and entertaining.
