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The Blessings of Ignorance in Karate

I began Karate in 1967. It was a new concept, this oriental fighting thing. We’d seen some terrible chops in the movies, but there was still this thing about massive power going on around.

A few books made their appearance, but they didn’t really say anythign. Even the pics were terrible.

When I finally found a school and started studying, the teacher never spoke. He’d count, or say, ‘Put your foot back further,’ or something like that. But it was real Monkey See Monkey Do.

The blessing, of course, is that nothing was said. The result of this silent teaching was that there were no intellectual distractions, nothing to misguide us.

Interestingly, as time went on, and more people spoke, less was learned. The learning happens in the bones. The learning happens in the sweat and the blood.

Now we are truly cursed. not only do we have everybody telling us what the martial arts are, what they are telling us is allmade up. It is based on their short experience, and their is no real lineage in America. Thus, arts are thrown together, techniques that don’t fit are mish mashed, and the whole thing resembles a Rubik’s Cube.

Not for lack of sincere effort, but because nobody took the time to analyze the myth and come up with the science.

Well, things are getting better. After all, you have tobreak a few eggs to make an omelet. And people will eventually get smart enough to ignore the myth, study the science, and eventually make it back to the myth.

It’ll just take a short time.

Check out Monster Martial Arts. A million words of Martial Science, and a lot more on this concept of science returning us to mythic proportion and the true blessings of the martial arts.