Scott Free Thinking

This Wendesday I’ll be heading out with a friend of mine to start work on a possible new merchandise line for Dirty Mechanism, based on martial arts and kickboxing. This friend’s name is Kelly, and I had come to the idea after a long time of knowing her and then, after starting up the retail efforts, thought it might be a good idea to see if she could help me out. The whole aura of martial arts is a very specific one to me.

As far as karate and martial arts goes, I myself have been long out of practice. The last time I attended a martial arts class was when I was 8 years old, I think, and since that time my muscles have atrophied, my flexibility is completely gone, and if I got into a physical brawl these days, I’d probably have to rely on the protection of the police or something, but I was also saying that to myself back in 8th grade where I got into a fight with this guy named Burt and I nearly broke his arm. The thing about learning karate, or especially good karate, from a very early age, is that it tends to stick with you throughout life.

There needs to be, at this point in my entry, a certain emphasis on good martial arts, good self defense. There are a number of problems with martial arts and its present state in America, from what I can see, and though I cannot speak for other cultures, the spread of a world culture seems to speak out that it’s entirely possible there’s a worldwide problem with martial arts. Most of us probably remember the 1980’s and early 1990’s where we saw a slew of martial arts movies hitting the cinema, including the famous Karate Kid franchise which got its first film release and three additional sequels until finally when Karate Kid 4 came, the world had had enough. There was also a number of other flicks throughout movies and television, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its numerous sequels, Sidekicks featuring Chuck Norris and in addition all of Chuck Norris’s feature films like Walker:Texas Ranger, and the list goes on and on. Why is it that throughout the 80’s and early 90’s there was a pop culture and media martial arts explosion?

For one thing, the population at large had caught onto something. The reason this massive craze began was because of the ideas behind powerful and amazing forms of martial arts and self defense. It was not even so much the fighting techniques itself as it was the philosophies paired with it. Hollywood writers, producers, actors, and the general public had come to love the ideals behind martial arts. This was before the uproaring and outrage that has really, flowing over to the modern day, been brought up about violence on television, how violence affects children, and so forth. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen a great number of kids who have taken karate acting a bit more reckless and aggressive than kids who have never been exposed to the idea. My own step brother was like this, at 7 years old, for some reason anytime he wouldn’t get his way, there seemed to be a 50/50 chance at him throwing punches, launching sidekicks, and attempting to break the bones of my father or step-mother. It was hyperactive behavior, and could it be accredited to anything other than his already existing karate classes and Cartoon Network television diet?

After years of being under the belief that the issue of violence in movies and media has been entirely overblown, people were overly concerned, and parents were overreacting and robbing kids of harmless fun, as well as ruining their chance for exposure to real historic truths, my beliefs have changed. It’s a bit hard to say it, but after seeing some very well done research studies, including some of the classic ones you’ll read about in psychology textbooks, we find that children who see characters on t.v. engaging in violent behavior and are then given incentive to do so are more likely to act out that behavior in their own reality. The fact of the matter is that media does affect the mind, and for every person who is not suspect to being affected there are too possibly another several people that are able to be affected.

But coming back to martial arts & self defense. When I was barely even 5 or 6 years old, I started training in an Americanized Tae Kwan Doe dojo on the other side of town, where although it was American, the fighting advice seemed to have a very effective practicality to it. For those who are well trained and attacked on the streets, the aggressors usually will regret their decision. I started out in the children’s class, where only a few other kids my age were being taught elementary skills. The skills they were being taught, however, were different, less harmful techniques that could not really hurt anyone for the most part. There was a lot being censored to the “Mighty Mites” kids’ class. The instructor recognized I had a certain level of calmness and maturity that the other kids did not seem to have. Although I would later develop an anger problem in intermediate school and so on, at this time I was really cool headed and kept my calm easily. My older brother Jeremy had taken the classes for years longer than I had, and he was several belts in skill higher than I was. In trying to spar Jeremy, or any other highly experienced individual from this school, was probably a big mistake. His reflexes were so well trained you could be coming to give him a hug from behind and then end up getting elbowed in the face. In a way, the autonomy of the defense mechanisms were so well attuned that being around the people without first instructing them exactly what you were about to do would probably get you physically hurt.

Few schools in the country, that I know about, at least, teach self defense skills to this level, and over the past decade of not going to the school I’d seen a number of people come out of the same school and now the techniques being taught were not as lethal as before. In a sense, you could say the school had “gone soft,” but really what it was, is that the knowledge being taught there in the first place was probably scary to the general public. The more conservative crowd would probably not want to stick around and watch the classes because of some of the techniques being taught. You were taught how to break people’s arms, knock the air out of people’s lungs - really powerful and potentially violent stuff.

And the entire time, the only thing that holds any of it in to the well trained individual is that individual’s solid understanding of proper self defense. Fight for right was the motto, or meaning that you should never fight just to fight, or never fight to attack. The knowledge was self defense, and defense only.

So what can be attributed to the fall in martial arts over the past 10-15 years in the United States? Take a look at almost any martial arts magazine in present day to get an idea, or look back to that slew of movies. Even Jackie Chan does not make martial arts look like a serious practice anymore. And martial arts is a serious practice, to those who are serious about it. Who is going to take martial arts seriously after Ninja Turtles? After Sidekicks? Like all of the people who seem to have ruined the image of martial arts in the United States, I want people to remember after all of it that there are also people who have not ruined it and are dedicated, somewhere, to showing you the true meaning and potential behind it all.