Before he was Muhammad Ali, Greatest of All Time, he was Cassius Clay, scrawny and fuming in the basement of a Louisville auditorium.
Origin of the GOAT
A self-professed slow reader with a temper, young Cassius was not quite through describing in lurid detail what he was going to do to the punk who stole his brand new bike when the police officer-come-boxing coach convinced him to train in the pugilistic arts.
While Cassius never did catch the bike thief, he did learn to fight. Not just in the ring, where he is disputedly one of the best to ever step through the ropes, but in the arena of civil disobedience as well. Refusing the draft and giving up his prime years, Muhammad Ali faced down Uncle Sam as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and a defender of those who would face persecution or worse rather than support an unjust war. His action inspired millions. In doing so, he transcended his sport and was rightly hailed as the Greatest.
Could Muhammad Ali have accomplished what he did without any knowledge of boxing? Perhaps. But could he have done it without the discipline, perseverance, moral fortitude, grit, courage, and all-around badassery honed through years of martial arts sparring and competing against tough men with bad intentions?
Herein lies one of the keys to the question, “Why train martial arts?”
A lot of people who don’t train judge martial arts purely based on their efficacy as a method of self-defense. They laugh at the melodramas brimming with avenging disciples, improbable move-sets, and wire-fu stunt theatrics. But what they are laughing at are the myths. Stories that were meant to convey an underlying truth. Just as the cowboys of the old West rarely stared each other down under the beating high noon sun, the temple(s) of Shaolin was not some ancient superhero factory training warrior-saints to mete out two-fisted justice across the land.
As Scott Park Phillips has pointed out in his books, the Shaolin Temple was like most religious institutions of the pre-modern world. It served many ceremonial, spiritual, and sociological functions. One of them was as an orphanage for problem children and wayward youth.
So just imagine what an old monk has to do to impress a bunch of angry young boys on the path to becoming angry young thieves, rebels, and thugs.
The mystery of the martial arts is that it has always been an aesthetic improvement on how to hurt, and yet style seems like a distraction from the pure act of killing. What good do flowery moves, the horse stance, meditation, early mornings, and good behavior have to do with learning the one secret technique that gives you the power of life or death over any man?
The “Magic” of Shaolin Kung Fu
To me, the answer is obvious. The old abbot employs a light bait and switch by showing the youths a series of impressive tricks which may or may not seriously hurt people. He lets them believe that they are the killer techniques of a fabled warrior prince ascetic from mythical India or Persia or Africa (some exotic place filled with badasses) named Bodhidharma. The kids get it in their minds that they can use this on the bullies that wronged them and the people who stuck them in a temple.
But like most magic tricks, the “secret” is actually a ton of hard work.
If you want to learn to vanish a card, you’ve got to master infinitesimally small muscle movements up and down your arm which combined produce an effect called sleight of hand. If you want to kick someone’s head off, it’s even worse. You’ve got to spend hours in the horse stance. Endure excruciating splits. Wake up early and practice forms. Understand the human body and the points where it will break and the methods by which it will mend. Practice getting along with your master and your fellow students. Meditate on the nature of your hatred and grapple with your reasons for existing.
At the end of all this, over years of training, the kids became purposeful, mature adults. Some chose to stay at the monastery but most left to make their way in the world. This is one of the reasons why the traditional martial arts teacher is a Sifu, or “study father”. Because the school really did form a surrogate family for many of its students. It not only fed and clothed these boys, but it also taught them how to be useful members of society. It raised them into real men.
Graduates develop the mental fortitude to overcome their greatest enemy—their own ego. The mystical power of a Shaolin monk, then, isn’t in his mastery over the ways to maim and murder anyone who stands in his way, but in a self-mastery sufficient enough that he will do whatever is necessary when called upon.
He becomes, like Muhammad Ali, a true champion.
Every martial artist eventually realizes the truth of martial arts: there is no death touch, no surefire techniques to beat up every person who has or will ever wrong you.
The mystery of the martial arts is that if you get good enough, you won’t need them.
I could not have arrived at this understanding of the martial arts without the works of Scott Park Phillips’ Possible Origins and Deng Ming-Dao’s wonderful work, Scholar Warrior. Definitely worth a deeper dive if you’d like to understand the origins of martial arts and their ideals.
“The mystery of the martial arts is that if you get good enough, you won’t need them.” As long as we keep practicing!
Great article. Maybe we have some common ground? Check me out at budojourneyman.substack.com