"Secrets" are such a
funny thing in the martial arts.
They
can be:
-Things you haven't learned yet
-Carrots to keep students paying longer
-Things you have been told, but just don't understand
-Things you've forgotten, so they now elude you
-Things that have been encoded (and maybe subsequently, lost)
-The actual core of an art that makes it workable
There
are many more possibilities, depending on your experience and perspective, but
I think an important question is, "what is the value of 'secrets' in
traditional martial arts today, given the poor reputation the arts have for
utility?"
How
does a modern teacher or college professor use "secrets" to ensure
their students get the best education or the best career?
Jonathon
Patrick Ryan Neale
That's tough for me to say because in a Japanese koryu art secrets serve a
different purpose and come from a very different cultural context than a Gendai
Budo or from a Chinese or Okinawan art. So speaking to the value of secrets
requires me to address that Japanese koryu are just different and fill a
different martial niche than someone learning, say, White Eyebrow or Shorin Ryu
and therefore I can't just disdain secrets in ALL martial arts out of hand. I'm
sorry if I'm not being clear here and if I wasn't in a rush I'd elaborate more
on what secrets are supposed to do or not do and say how we should treat them
in modern pedagogy.
Burinkan
Martial Arts
Exactly. Convergent evolution occurs in
culture as well as biology.
Dennis
Jung
Unfortunately, I think this practice of secrets has led to many arts and skills
being lost forever...much of those were probably the practical applications,
leaving many with ‘flowery’ forms missing the true combat essence and spirit. I
understand the hesitancy of the old masters to teach people how to really hurt
someone but it’s a shame nonetheless
James
Bullock
Secrets are among the great lies of the martial arts world. It ranks up there
with the parlor tricks many of the "Masters" would use to build up
their own art or to add to their own legend.
Dylan
Pfaff
Secrets are the simple foundations of the art, transformed by practice and
study
Roelof
La Lau
Never asume that you know it. If somebody says something that does not match
your principles then ask why, and not reject it
Burinkan
Martial Arts
We all know so many of the same things, simply under different names :)
Victor
Donald Smith
Secrets in the Martial Arts in a very complex issue.
Of course one meaning is anything can do you have not been taught to others. It
itself that is not reasonable meaning. A corollary thought is working to choose
your response that no one can anticipate your choice.
Then there are the secrets or your art. Of course what one art teaches only
after years can be compared to a different art which teaches it from the
beginning.
I am not knowledgeable on secrets of the Japanese arts. But that some
experience in the secrets of other arts traditions.
For example in the Sutrisno family Shotokan tradition, there are bunkai studied
that only commence after Dan training has begun, they are extensive technique
series, extremely effective and they are shared over decades of study. All of
them are worthy, in that sense not a secret to the initiate just unknowable to
outsiders, I have only seen a small fraction of them and they work. No idea
what knowing the entire body of them would be like.
In the Chinese Arts I have seen a few. Most are not revealed until a great deal
of study has been done. Some are requiring much base study before one is ready
for them. Some are an alternate performance of the technique originally studied
to yield a different result.
Some are more intense as while I have studied a small piece of Northern Eagle
Claw, there are many times many things I have not been shown. The system base
is the locking techniques that have been transmitted, part of the study is in
depth study of the locks. One of those studies includes 108 different locking
techniques. I have read that locks 101 – 109 are death locks. No idea what they
are, just that they exist.
Another type of Secret is how to make the locks more effective. I have been
instructor how to form the eagle claw locks. But for me they are more grabs,
when my instructor does them with decades of training behind them (including
many force enhancers behind them ), where when I do them they are a grab, yet
when he does the same locks they elicit exquisite pain. Not the use of specific
pressure points, rather his ability to form the locks I know is much more
intense in his grip.
I suspect that is part of the secret of secrets, few train long enough to
actually do them as taught, Way beyond mere performance, more into the sublime.
We can see this with the technique in judo of Mufine, in the technique in
aikido of Usheiba and of course many other examples.
The only true secret I possess is more and more training.
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