Newsletter 927

Picking a Name for Your Martial Art

One time I was down at the offices of CFW,
which published the Inside Karate mag,
which I wrote articles and a column for.
One of the guys,
in charge of video,
suddenly called to me.
‘Hey, Al! Got something to show you!’
I went into the video room and he put on a tape.
The tape was a half hour long,
but within a few seconds I knew what it was.
The guy on the tape was a perfect Bruce Lee imitation.
He swooped wooped,
he swung the nunchucks
EXACTLY
as Bruce had swing them in his movies.
Move for move.
He spoke lines from the movies,
and it was eery,
it was almost as if he WAS Bruce!

But,
of course,
he was just a copy cat,
a guy without much of a life,
a guy who didn’t know who he was,
so mimicked others.

That leads us into this weeks subject…
I am very big on people creating their own martial arts.
There is a simple reason for this.
If you just learn what has gone before,
then you are only a copy cat.
But when you create your own art,
when you alter the moves to fit your frame,
when you craft energy to fit your situation,
when you rearrange pieces of arts
to fit changing situations…
then you are an art.
Would Michaelangelo be an artist
if he merely copied everything Davinci did?
Same thing is true for the martial artist.
Yes,
you should learn,
and that usually implies at least getting your black belt,
in Shotokan,
or Aikido,
or whatever art you study.
But,
at a certain point you have to step outside your art.
Keep the original the same as you learned,
but create your own separate art.

Now,
that all said,
let me slide into a connected but different thing.

I subscribe to something called Quora.
On that platform people ask questions,
and answer questions.
You get a wide cross section of what people are thinking,
you get answer,
a whole host of different answers,
to questions mundane and bizarre.

Recently,
a fellow asked the question:

What’s a good name for a fictional karate style that a flow state fighter would use?

This is a very interesting question.
I have had a LOT of people ask me about naming their art.
Since I am about the only one telling people how to be artists
a lot of artists end up up sending me this question.

I remember one fellow,
many years ago,
personal student of mine.
He reached the point where he had to go out
and create his own art,
and he asked me about a name.
He was was coming up with names like…
‘The Way of the Golden Fist,’
and so on.
So I told him to call his art…

‘Rick Do.’
The way of Rick.

Fortunately,
he didn’t.
He teaches his arts
with some very fine labels.
Very smart guy.
Smart enough to know when to ignore me.

So,
anyway,
I got this question on Quora,

What’s a good name for a fictional karate style that a flow state fighter would use?

And I gave the following answer.

Interesting.

By fictional you mean to use it in a book/script? Or for own use?

What I used to do, just for stuff and giggles, was find a word, or even a zippy type word, and get it translated by google. Zippy karate, not to be facetious, but just as an example, translates as ‘bibi.’ So ‘Bi Bi Do.’ (The Way of Zippy!) This can get fun, you can have ‘crouching tigers eating unwary hunters’ translated, ‘Dūn fú lǎohǔ chī cūxīn de lièrén.’ Then shorten it up as you wish.

If you want to go more serious than my flippy examples you can certainly do that.

Good luck with it, and have a great work out!
Al from monstermartialarts.com

So there you go,
one of the things I do as an artist,
as an author and as a martial artist.
It is great fun,
makes you think,
and might even be worthless.

But I told everybody on Quora,
and didn’t want you guys to feel cheated,
so I pass it on here.

So try it out.
Make up a name for your art.
Focus in on what principles and tricks you want to teach,
and sum it up.
Then have google translate it into whatever language.

And,
while you’re at it,
You can always check out
the ‘Create Your Own Art’ course on the Monster.
It is old,
the video quality isn’t good,
but you can understand it all,
and the principles are SOUND!

Here’s the link.

2d Create Your Own Art

Have a great work out!
Al

2d Create Your Own Art