Are We Stuck to Traditions

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I was introduced to a deeper meaning of the OODA loop, created by Colonel John R. Boyd (USAF ret), that has me thinking through research and analysis. It occurred to me that modern martial arts are stuck in the traditional form of practice to the exclusion of the higher and broader asepcts that make martial arts effective in conflict and violence.

We seem to be, just like certain larger organizations who deal with conflict and violence, stuck in a more traditional attrition type of fighting or what I am going to call, “Fense.” In one of the thesis written to the work of Colonel Boyd the author stated, “The aristocratic tradition, the top-down command and control system, the slavish addiction to the ‘Principle of concentration’ and the drill regulation mind-set, all taken together, reveal an ‘obsession for control’ by high-level superiors over low-level subordinates.”

The reason I find a connection here is because our modern martial arts were and are influenced a great deal by military mind-sets and mind-states. Add in that the commercialization of modern martial arts is and must be tied to such a system to work is evident, to me. 

The aristocratic tradition is about structure and hierarchal control of those who have a lower status than the aristocrats. Military have the rank structure for status and control as well. Add in that modern martial arts also has a status structure, i.e., its senpai to kohai, deshi to sensei, etc. structure, where rank and status puts the system into an aristocratic hierarchal model for control and today economic gain. 

Then the top-down command and control system also speaks as well to the aristocratic hierarchal model for control. When we tie income and aristocratic hierarchal model for control to the dojo we then create a means to enforce that by status, ego and the various testing requirements to move up and in higher status and authority within this model. 

Karate and martial arts are also about drills and that mind-set has placed more control on how the art is trained, practices and most important applied. It meets and exceeds many of the concepts, traits and symbolic aspects of what is already described and it takes modern martial arts far and away from the “Traditional Authenticate and Classical” form of practice and training. 

I believe, originally, that training and practice was about the individual and their self as to how they train and practice on an individual independent way while adhering to the more cultural organic natural social cohesive way that I refer to as the Eastern View vs. the Western View above.  I believe the so referred to aristocratic traditional way of the Western View is the chasm that separates us from the full and complete way of Eastern Martial Arts. 

We are taking the Eastern Way and polluting it with the Western way while leaving only remnants of that Eastern Way to satisfy our need to connect to the Eastern Cultural Way of martial arts of a authenticate traditional and classical model. The Western way seems to truly have a obsession for control between the higher-levels over the lower-level subordinates, the kyu grades and dan-sha levels, etc. 

Truthfully, I firmly believe that we can have the best of both worlds if we can accept and embrace the truth to both. This is actually the true authenticate way of a traditional practice of Eastern Ways of martial arts. It doesn’t have to be exact and unchangeable, it can be useful at the lower levels while allowing for change, creativity, analysis and synthesis into an more diverse, robust and appropriate model for modern society and times. There are a hand full out there that are actually headed in this direction but most are still mired in the past, the past alone and unchanged. The best of both worlds means a blending, mutually beneficial and connected, of the past, the present and the possible future. 

Traditions and traditional are not meant to mire us in past and often inappropriate ways for the present but rather a means to take the past, to which we all must learn from so it cannot be REPEATED in the future or even the present. Repetition has its place but innovation through creative analysis and synthesis as possibly related to the Eastern way of “Cheng-n-Ch’i” can take us places we never imagined when we first entered the dojo.

As a matter of fact, it is this connectivity of the modern present to the ancient past that makes the possibilities of the future possible, creative and most exciting. It is this that makes martial arts something useful and beneficial for an entire lifetime of training, practice and applications.

Honestly, we should NOT be STUCK to traditions. We SHOULD be connected to traditions so they become useful toward appropriate change of now and the future. We should honor and be true to traditions but not the the dogmatic adherence to traditions to the detriment of change, creativity and applicability to modern times and possible futures. One day, the very thing we train in now, even if not connected to traditional ways, will become the traditional ways of our times and that means it should be traditional but not traditional in the sense I present. Something to think about, something to consider and something to analyze.   

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