Martial Arts Ethic

 

Today we have a guest post by Jim Russo, a senior Chinese internal martial arts teacher. 

The True Value of Martial Ethic - a Modern ”Social Experiment“

Chen Wei Ming”s event bringing family members together

I am a traditional martial artist. I have been training traditional martial arts, since I am a child. I had my throat slit as a child, and that motivated me to study these arts from a realistic standpoint and not a fantasy standpoint. Trash talking has always been a part of. Professional fighting, because it is a psychological tactic and, a promotional tactic to build interest in the event and to sell tickets. I have never observed the kind of trash talking I see in the traditional martial arts arena until the advent of the UFC. I have always been interested in the UFC as a reality-based fighter. I don't believe in breaks or rules as they don't apply in nature. Traditional martial arts culture endeavors to not only learn how to defend oneself, but how to refine oneself as a useful organism to humanity. Young practitioners are drawn into the trash talking because they can do it safely from the seclusion of their own room. There are many practitioners who use this as an opportunity to Authoritize themselves by criticizing other practitioners. This is even more complicated when we get into the Internal Martial Arts because , if they are in fact internal, lower level practitioners can not see what is happening. When a person decides to evaluate someone purely from the visual standpoint, it suggests that they never considered the inside of the body as a power making mechanism. I have been abused, bullied, harassed, fat shamed, age shamed, accused of being a thief, and a trickster when I wasn't even charging people for the knowledge. I decided that I would try to illuminate the minds of young practitioners via a social experiment. I outlined the basic idea of the experiment and I went to work. I began posting high level skills on various sites that have had an historical agenda at trying to dumb down the entire syllabus of the Art of Yang Family Taijiquan. This has created an unpleasant environment for many people who are seeking positive change in their life and evolution. It has also required a tremendous amount of work on my part to deal with these comments.

 

After 15 years of this abuse, I have decided to respond by simulating aggression on the edge of insanity. This is one of the biggest reasons that Martial Ethic exists ; because , you never know who you were talking to online or their background and history. You never know the challenges that they go through on a daily basis to attempt to live in a state of peace. You could be talking to a veteran with CPTSD who took up Tai Chi in an attempt to deal with his demons. You may be talking to an ex-convict who studied Tai Chi in prison so that he could learn how to harmonize with society and his personal issues. I would suggest that it is not a good idea to poke either of these “hornets nests’” with a stick. The same cast of characters arise, coffee in hand, every morning and starts casting insults around to the same individuals. There is a lot of nonsense going on in the Martial Arts world, but I always saw that as child's play and walked past it without interaction. I see the entire Yang Family as One Family, and the different lineages should not endeavor to stand on the shoulders of their brothers and sisters, in an attempt to appear larger than they actually are as far as their skill and knowledge. Endeavoring to do something about this disease, I thought that I would do a social experiment that would illuminate the reasons for preserving Martial Ethic within the traditional martial arts community. I utilized traditional tactics from Sun Tzu”s The Art of War as well as concepts from Miyamoto Musashi’s “Go Rin No Sho” or a” book of five rings”. These are standard readng for business students in Asia. I also utilized the principles of the Yang family art as well.

 

The Taiwanese Taijiquan Association

The first principal I used was Enticing Energy. I simply started posting knowing that they would attack me. I simply waited for one of the more abusive individuals to attack… This time however, I responded with intensity. I responded by appraising the skill of the attacker and "champion". I reached out to the attacker also through direct messaging to suggest that he could walk away from this looking elevated and not behaving badly in the future but he would just ruin his career by fighting me and if he were even lucky enough to win, he would look like an idiot as a big “champion” beating up an old man. I did this with several of the offenders. I did not waste my time with the “flying monkeys” and “minions” that do the dirty work. I went after the heads of the snakes. Every online group has administrators, who allow this behavior to happen because it suits their dark agenda or they don't allow it to happen like they did with my page. If you go onto my Group, you will not see abusive comments happen more than once. In the past, I tried to elevate these characters by talking to them and that proved fruitless so I don't waste my time anymore. I simply delete the comment and remove them. When your social media experience is darkened by negative comments, now you know who are to blame and who can stop it in an instant. There are also certain lineages of skill that do not go beyond the first level of training, and have no knowledge of the other evolutions that have existed historically. Many of these characters, practice a sport where they shove each other around, using muscles that violate the principles of the Art and then they call themselves “champions”. The Older lineages that predate Chinese Communism preserve the more Martial presentation of the Art, and are often analyzed from the perspective of the modern form. Different forms, have different goals, and when you understand the goals, then you might understand things that you consider to be violations of your principles. I have found that it's best to inquire open heartedly. Years of watching the degradation of the ethical elements and character, refinement associated with traditional martial arts, has led me to do a modern social experiment. The goal of the experiment what is to illuminate people on the realities of unethical behavior.

The idea of acting as if I had lost my mind was intentional, because that is something that could happen with someone. Suddenly, the attacker’s life is upended, because they “poked the hornets nest” . This is basically applying elements of psychological warfare to those who have been psychologically traumatizing others for many years running. The result of the experiment was that most of the “posers” disappeared immediately. The other result was associates of the attacker endeavored to attack my ethical qualities publicly. All this does is indicate that they do know right from wrong, and that they are acting wrong intentionally. Welcome to my trap. You see it is easy to make people with negative intention reveal themselves because they are not operating from a high level of intellect nor intention. The offenders were notified that I would identify who they were if they did not back off. The other option is we all just walk away quietly, and begin to act in an evolved fashion. Everyone wins but more importantly, we teach our younger practitioners, the value of something that they have been throwing away.

The real offenders behind this are the actual media platforms. Conflict results in more views and more activity. They want to create an environment for conflict. They are, however, creating an environment for bullying, harassment, and public shaming. This creates an unsafe space for the developing minds of our children. We as consumers have a right to share our various presentations without daily abuse. Martial Arts Practitioners often consider themselves to be warriors, which is quite delusional. The same characters look the other way to the daily abuse of others , which does not make them worthy of power. I will never look away from seeing someone abused by someone of more power. People can communicate on an intellectual level, without having to resort to violence. The true value of Martial Ethic is that the practitioners refined their character in parallel with the development of their power. A person with a great deal of power, and no character development is dangerous to society and to themselves. The real goal of all of this is to illuminate how dangerous unrefined characters can be, and how scary they can be. The goal is also to keep people interacting with each other in an ethical fashion , sharing ideas and perspectives with an open heart where they learn to stand on their own two feet instead of the necks of others. The result will be that traditional martial artists will begin to refine themselves and guide our children towards higher degrees of refinement and interaction.

When someone goes online and is critical about another person and their skill, they are doing so without actually testing them in person which is very inaccurate in drawing its conclusions. I would like to suggest that we help our younger brothers and sisters to rise the higher levels by inspiring them through our positive actions. I would like to see the entire Yang family become open hearted and share with each other. I would like to see them, become a true family again and stand in the rightful place in the history of Chinese Internal Martial Arts.