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