OG AND BOG

(July ‘96/#21)

Every once in a while I have student who asks me about martial arts history, about where the martial arts really come from. Some times I tell them the orient. Sometimes I tell them they were computer generated by a fellow in a spaceship. Sometimes I tell them other things.

Let me now, for all time and all students, state exactly where the martial arts came from.

Once upon a time there was a caveman named Og.

Og went out every day and climbed the trees and picked the apples. Every day he brought home a basket of juicy apples for his wife and all the little neanderthals.

In the next cave was a caveman named Bog. Bog didn’t want to work, and when he saw Og come home with the big basket every day he started scheming.

One day Og was walking down the path to his cave when Bog suddenly jumped in front of him. With a mighty ‘BOK’ caveman Bog struck Og on the head and stole the apples.

Og woke up feeling rather badly. Not only did he have a bump on his head the size of a dinosaur’s egg, he couldn’t feed his family.

That night Og and his family went to bed hungry, and all through the night Og thought about what happened. He relived the image in his mind, seeing Bog pop up so quickly, then swinging his big fist to hit him right on the….

And suddenly, about dawn, Og got an idea. What if he lowered his walking things right where they bent? What if he ducked? Then he could do what Bog had done to him?

Upon waking up Og found that his mind was filled with the idea that he had had. He went out and worked, and all that day the image filled his mind. Duck. Hit. Duck. hit. He even found himself making the ‘Duck and swing’ motion that he was thinking about!

When Og finally knocked off work for the day he had a fine, big basket of juicy apples. Grabbing the basket he started walking back along the path towards his house.

Bog suddenly popped up in front of him and swung.

Og found himself ducking, and his big, hairy fist made an arc of it’s own and, lo and behold, it was Bog that went down for the snooze!

Og picked his apples up and went on home.

The point of all this is that Og, fighting for survival, had an idea. Furthermore, he went about making this idea work. And thus he invented the martial arts.

The martial arts are invented every single day. They are invented all anew whenever somebody gets an idea, then has the guts to make that idea work.

This is the real idea behind martial arts history.