Interviewer:
Sifu, there is a wide range of activities under the term “martial arts” these days. How can the newcomer or even old hand sort them out?
Sifu Zopa:
I agree there are a wide number of types of martial arts nowadays. (Laughs!) People keep making them up! Yes, it’s a source of confusion to the general public that there are such a number of activities operating under the rubric of the term “martial art”.
Perhaps a part of the confusion is that there are a number of ways of dividing martial arts into categories. This can be done by sorting them by country of origin; by predominant type of attacking method; and, by whether they are traditional, modern, or eclectic. Then you could mix these categories with some arts fitting into several categories. What I think is the most useful way of categorising martial arts if you’re looking at deciding which is most suitable for you could involve two factors. This’d be leaving aside a lot of relevant practical variables like availability, cost and the capacity of the teacher to teach you. There’s no point in knowing there’s the best art on the planet if you can’t access and afford it and the teacher can’t or won’t teach you! When I was younger I saw a number of terrific gung fu masters but either they wanted to fleece me or they were racists and wouldn’t teach non-Chinese. So their arts were inaccessible - and therefore irrelevant except in a theoretical sense of knowing they existed. Luckily I didn’t get entangled with, and committed to, them in one sense, though - otherwise I might not have encountered and learnt Wing Chun.
Interviewer:
How ought someone best decide which martial art they might study, sifu?
Sifu Zopa:
It seems to me people choose a martial art based on several possibilities - all the wrong criteria. These are: the “famous” or “high ranked” practitioner; tournaments winners; friendliness and acceptance; the influence of martial arts magazines; political connections; the “fun” appeal of the club; a fad; or seeking a “Magical Mystery Tour”. Let me elaborate.
Rank, to be blunt, means nothing - utterly nothing. There are so many arts, organisations and criteria for rank that it means absolutely nothing in the absence of a common metric by which to measure it. This is not to mention that a very large number of supposedly “highly ranked” individuals are quite bluntly fraudulent! If they didn’t grade themselves they were graded by someone who had done so! Many highly ranked individuals literally bought their rank. This is a tragic situation for those generally ranked but it’s a fact.
Tournament wins are no measure of the average quality of teaching or skill in a martial arts school. The top individuals in a school who win them exhibit skill in sport martial arts that’s all. A few of them may even be able to defend themselves in real world combat. Though, this is actually rarely the case. But to assume that if a school wins tournaments that this says anything about the quality of the art, the teacher or the capacity of all or most members of the school to engage in real world self defence is simply nonsense. This is not to even comment on the whole area of who is promoting the tournament; the type of rules involved; the quality, fairness and impartiality of judging; nepotism; favouritism etc which are all real factors in any tournament I’ve ever seen. Like the word “rank”, forget “tournament” if you seek genuine real world self defence skills.
Friendliness has nothing to do with self defence skill, or the ability to impart it! It’s a great attribute - especially for a good salesperson, though! Used car salesmen are “friendly” - or what they think passes for friendly! But this quality has no correlation with self defence skill or the ability to teach it!
Martial arts magazines are possibly the worst thing that ever happened to genuine martial arts! By far the vast bulk of what appears in martial arts magazines is nonsense! Magazines exist to sell magazines and the products they advertise. They exist on sensation and “the latest thing” like all populist media.
Political power, like all these variables I’m debunking here is not connected to martial arts skill. If the person in question spends so much time on developing and maintaining his political power how much less time can he afford to focus on martial art? So you’re politically powerful? Wonderful! How’s your martial art and teaching skill stack up? A general rule of thumb I found useful in finding the top traditional, genuine martial arts instructors was to move as far away from the politically powerful industry figures as I could. The closer you get to the politically connected the less you encounter genuine real world self defence skills. A politician is a politician, and ask you what do you think you could learn from a politician? Yes, how to be political! Would you trust any politician?
If “fun” and “easy” are what you’re after, fine! I’d reckon there would be lots of other activities that are fun and easy other than learning self defence. Genuine self defence skill may be an enjoyable or fulfilling activity to engage in, but “fun” isn’t an adjective I’d attached to training so as not to be raped, maimed or killed. If you want “easy”, sit home and watch TV. Self defence skill development isn’t easy. Most people find it challenging, empowering maybe rewarding. “Easy” is not an adjective anyone who knows anything would apply to learning a real world self defence skill. If it was “easy” it wouldn’t take much to learn, oughtn’t cost much, and more people would be good at it! Self defence skill ought not to be trivialised - it’s a serious business!
Some folk hunting for a martial art will inevitably get caught up in the marketing hype selling - that’s the operative word - the “latest thing”. Martial arts go through fads in being the “flavour of the month”. The martial arts media and to a lesser extent movies drive this. In the field of media studies which I’ve studied a little of lately, they talk about “agenda setting” whereby the media tell their consumers not only what to think about but also how to think about it. The line is “I think this is so, therefore this is fact!” The martial arts media are no different. Because a martial art or martial arts trend is new doesn’t mean anything except that.
Being some-one who has genuine connections with esoteric religious and martial arts traditions, I become disturbed by the type of martial artist who seeks a “magical mystery tour”. For some reason these are usually women! Some commercial martial artists sell their art based on pandering to the seekers of some diffuse sort of New Age-like spiritual truth. The people wanting to “find their true self through martial art” would be best advised to find themselves first then seek a martial art. These people seem to be seeking an easy way to gain some sort of magical power or control of some unseen force and of others. It’s utter illusion.
These would be the worst things to use to decide as they’d inevitably mislead. Why? Because none of those factors is relevant!
Interviewer:
How then would you recommend choosing the most appropriate martial art, sifu?
Sifu Zopa:
The two factors I’d push for in deciding which martial art to study would be the art’s effectiveness as a real world self defence system and the person’s own suitability for the art. There would be a number of opinions on dividing martial arts into more and less effective, of course! (Laughs). Every martial arts practitioner thinks their art is effective - if not the best! The sad but real truth is the vast majority wouldn’t be optimal and the vast majority of modern commercial sports martial artists would meet with disappointment under a real world attack. There’s a world of difference between looking appealing or performing in a training hall and being effective in real world combat. Any real world combat expert will tell you that.
How “effective” is assessed would be a point of debate amongst martial artists - that’s for sure! (Laughs). Then, nearly everything is a matter of debate with most martial artists! Most often assessing effectiveness would, for most people - experienced or newcomers, I’d imagine, be based on opinion or being susceptible to a marketing trend rather than demonstrable fact in terms of the art reliably equipping its practitioners with the skills and knowledge to cope with and survive a real world street attack.
Some of the assessments of “effective” would be motivated by marketing hype and others - the minority, I guess - would be more objective. The more objective way would be rarer because most martial artists don’t choose their martial art by actually researching effectiveness. Most choose it the least informed way they possibly could: based on marketing or recommendations from a friend doing the art. As a newcomer it’d be well nigh impossible to bypass the marketing hype. Many so-called “experienced” martial artists are in fact conned by marketing.
I’d base my idea of effectiveness on the eight basic principles and ten features of an effective real world self defence system. I’ve been trained as a researcher and in critical thinking and the scientific method so I’d like to think my analyses weren’t based on smoke and mirrors! To me, if a system couldn’t be ticked off on each of those eighteen points then, in my view, it might be a martial sport but it isn’t an optimally effective real world self defence system. If I was just after a sport, a club close to my home, a cheap art, something to keep kids off the street or baby-sit them, or a hobby then I guess I wouldn’t be too fussed. But, for a martial art to deliver on the promise of the most effective real world self defence it’d need to meet those eighteen criteria - and, for me, also be the best at meeting them! Most martial arts don’t meet most of those eighteen points, some arts may meet some of the criteria, but it’s incredibly rare you find one that meets them all. They rule out a lot of what passes for “martial art” nowadays, regrettably! They’re the reason I only do the martial art that I do. Simple!
Interviewer:
Can you tell us a little about how martial arts are categorised?
Sifu Zopa:
OK. Let me talk a bit first what is probably one of the most common and popular ways nowadays to categorise martial arts - by the predominant type of attacking method employed: punching; kicking; throwing; grappling; and mixtures of these. A punching art would be represented by boxing type moves; a kicking art would be predominantly reliant on kicks; a grappling art would rely on locks and submission holds; a throwing art would rely on throws; and, the so-called “mixed arts” would utilise various segments of each.
The problem with this is that many martial arts contain elements of hand strikes, kicks, grappling and throws, anyway. So, efforts to neatly categorise them into such divisions are more theoretical than objectively correct and are far too simplistic. This sort of division of martial arts is more a product of populist martial arts media and marketing strategies rather than realistically reflective of the scope within some genuine traditional martial arts.
This division derives from the more recent notion of “ranges”. When I was younger this notion wasn’t held by martial artists. One reason was that in those days most arts employed all of these later divisions anyway. The way “range” has been divided up and popularised is nonsense for real world combat in my view and categorising martial arts by their ‘range” is supercilious and shallow. It isn’t practical in a real world combat sense.
Another related but this time relevant dimension is the suitability of any given individual for the popular ranges. Accepting this division of range for the moment and that given categories of martial arts universally cope more or less better with each or several of them (which I don’t), a point rarely aired and one few commercial martial arts school managers will concede is that most people would seem to be more genetically predisposed to be successful at some of these categories of arts than others. What is actually at issue here is the suitability of a given individual for a given martial arts activity. This is accepting the given activity defines the art in question. It’s a dubious proposition but the point I want to make is served by tentatively accepting it.
Most modern commercial sport martial art promoters don’t want to look objectively at martial arts, nor do they want prospective clients doing this. This is because they are simply interested in conscripting as many students as they possibly can to the art(s) they’ve studied and the one(s) their school offer - regardless of the likelihood of the future successful learning of the student. If they have permanent premises they’re generally only interested in retaining a few top students to look good for prospective newcomers. The rest they see as a continuously turning over throughput. If they rent premises and run a chain they may be more interested in retention - but they can’t maintain quality as the numbers increase. Nor do they care.
My point is this: simply taking the martial arts sport approach - as the commercial martial artists do - you’d normally have to be logically consistent. If martial arts are a sport then body type is a major determiner of suitability for and success in almost any given sport. Short thickset people would be best advised not to attempt to become skilled in arts that require high kicking skills where long, slim, flexible legs are a distinct requirement for success. You don’t and never will see slim tall Olympic judoka or Greco-Roman wrestlers. They’ll always be thickset. (Tall folk have higher centres of gravity, tall slim folk are lighter, and this helps in throwing them). In our own art, short thickset or thickset people are at a distinct disadvantage as a degree of upper body flexibility is required which few of that body type possess. Height and reach is an advantage so a tall, slim physique is best. Failing that, an average shorter build is probably next best. There can be exceptions, but they tend to prove the rule as they’re rare!
By way of another example that not all arts are for everyone, and in looking at physical attributes as determiners of likely success at a modern martial art, look at the modern sport of Chinese Wushu which you will see showcased spectacularly at the Beijing Olympics. This is the very acrobatic activity based on martial arts which requires that the participant be exceptionally athletic and acrobatic. It requires a youthful natural athleticism and acrobatic and gymnastic talent far above average to succeed. The Chinese recognise the significance of body type and have talent scouts out scouring China for the children with the right body type and those with natural talents for the requirements of the sport. It’s utterly useless for real world self defence, of course! Initially it had no connection to self defence - comrades don’t fight each other, see? Lately the commercially minded exploiting the interest in wushu in the West have added in kick boxing and called it “san sau”, claiming it’s the fighting aspect of wushu. So, how come we don’t see the flips and somersaults of wushu in the fighting? Are they part of the art? Are they practical or not?
Tall, slim people are best advised not to attempt to become skilled in arts that require grappling and throwing where large and/or thickset body bulk is usually a distinct requirement for success. It’s the same as long-necked thin people being advised against playing in a rugby football scrum. Before they worked that out a few unfortunate players broke their necks!
Also, an overweight and therefore unfit person ought to look at improving their fitness before beginning any serious self defence training. This is not to say that such folk can’t begin with a class which takes an easier approach, but sooner rather than later they will, like all serious martial artists, have to “bite the bullet” with respect to fitness.
Few people will tell us but it’s a fact of life that there are some activities towards which we will be predisposed or others which will be contraindicated for us. Those not possessed of naturally muscular thick-set bodies, for example will only meet with failure if they try to become successful competitive bodybuilders or Greco-Roman wrestlers. Short people will fail if they attempt to become Olympic high jumpers. Tall people will fail if they attempt to become Melbourne Cup race winning jockeys. This much is obvious in pro sport yet many seem to disregard the effect of body-type and genetics with other more common commercially promoted leisure activities like martial arts. Those who are short will simply never become world class high jumpers. Those who weigh in the sumo wrestler range will need more than a lot of work to become distance runners! You get my point! Genetics does play a part whether the commercial marketers concede it or not. “Everyone welcome!”, “Suitable for men, women and children!” are messages that need examining carefully! They hide a problem.
Interviewer:
Thanks sifu! Is there anything else a person choosing a martial art should know?
Sifu Zopa:
Yes, definitely! It must surely come across in my utter disdain for those who sell the martial arts indiscriminately to all-comers. All my students are well versed in avoiding these people because their attitudes cause problems. There’s an interesting modern commercial mindset that’s actually the reverse of what traditional martial arts teachers believe. Today, prospective martial art students, being raised in a commercial world, think they can buy whatever they want, that they have a right to choose whatever they want, and buy their way into a martial arts school. The commercial instructor is keen to enrol as many students as he can - to increase his profit and commercial and political power. This is a commercial transactional approach. The traditionalist believes that no-one can buy or sell knowledge or skill and that the teacher has the right to select their student when the student comes seeking instruction. This is a character-relational approach.
I’m unashamedly a traditionalist - in the sense of my martial art being simply a highly effective means of real world self defence rather than a sport - and I always will be. It’s what I was taught, what I believe, and what I promised my teachers I’d always be. I understand the commercial view fully (I have a Masters degree in Business, after all! I understand business activity very well!). I just don’t engage in it myself. I believe it’s as inappropriate in martial arts as in religion. You can see the immediate potential for misunderstanding between these two worldviews! So much, then, for that.
However, it’s important to bear in mind as the commercial mindset and the sportification of martial arts activities to make them available to all regardless of suitability for the individual or their likelihood of success - to popularise them commercially - has contributed most of all factors to distorting perceptions of what in the modern martial arts context can be effective in real world self defence. Commercialisation has diluted and distorted the real martial arts - no matter what that art is. The scary thing is that so many people are fooled by the marketing myths and the associated mythology surrounding many aspects of modern martial arts! They’re blind to the view of the martial arts that is invisibly being woven around them and forced on them by mass martial arts media and those who exploit them.