Where the Martial Arts Came From!

I was working in a factory many years ago, and word got around that I was training in the martial arts. A Philippine co-worker came up to me one day, and he said, “No study martial arts, martial Arts bad…bad, “ then he shook his head and walked away. From this odd beginning I discovered where the martial arts really came from.

As one might expect, I was intrigued by my co-workers attitude, the Philippines were renowned for their martial arts, and so I tracked him down and questioned him further. “Why are the martial arts bad?” I asked him. This is the story he told me.

“One day I decide I learn martial arts, so I go outside and hit tree. I chop like so (he did a vertical chop, as if chopping down on somebody’s forehead), and a I chop and I chop. I chop two hour a day for two year.

“One night my neighbor have wild party, and three in morning I go ask him to stop it. He laughed at me, so I use karate on him. I chop his head and he turn upside down, so I run home and worry I kill him…that why Karate bad!”

I didn’t laugh, because he was serious, he really thought the art was bad, and didn’t understand that his unique ways of self training, and his own lack of control, might have something to do with ‘being bad.’ But his tale led me to wonder where the martial arts came from. I mean, they are the world’s second oldest profession, so where did they come from?

They came into being because somebody wanted to take something away from somebody, and they came from somebody wanting to stop somebody from taking something away from him. This is the same as lawyerism, but applied to the actual hit and punch that occurs when politics breaks down. Eventually, the idea of taking something away from somebody, or protecting your property from somebody reached the levels of armies and weapons of mass destruction.

The idea that what you have belongs to me, and I don’t have to pay you no stinkin’ money…that is where the martial arts came from. And people train to war, and steal money and property and wives and whatever else they covet. And, oddly, as my previous words indicate, the solution to this avarice and misbegotten art is…in the study of the true art.

You study the art to protect yourself, and in that study you discover yourself…you discover your self worth, and the idea that you are honorable and don’t have to fear others, or that they might take from you. On the day that everybody on earth knows the martial arts, on that day the avarice and war stop, and on that day everybody will know where the martial arts come from. They come from within, from the spirit that is you, from the honor that motivates every beat of your heart and every breath you take.

Al Case has 60 years of training in the martial arts. If you liked this article visit MonsterMartialArts.com and subscribe to the newsletter.