It sounds so self evident it almost sounds glib. It’s in contradistinction to the saying: “What you don’t know can’t hurt you!” What you don’t know obviously can hurt you! We see that every day! What you don’t know you obviously don’t know. Yet the bulk of the modern martial artists I’ve encountered around the world really don’t know what they don’t know. Humorously though, they’re often prepared to offer their opinion. Internet chat groups have contributed enormously to this of course. Every kid with a computer and a shelf of martial arts books has an opinion! Usually not his own, though!
Every modern sports martial artist thinks they’re knowledgeable on martial arts because they’ve read a few martial arts books, read martial arts magazines and mix in populist commercial martial arts circles. The mix with both the swaggering braggarts and those who exude a contrived “humility”. And, something rubs off.
I reckon that there’s probably at least one “martial arts” personality type. I’d guess as a psychologist that if I gave personality tests to enough martial artists I’d find that the observable commonalities one can see after mixing with a large enough sample of martial artists would be borne out by the personality tests. Apart from an utter intolerance for having anyone disagree with them and even aggression when anyone dares to do so, one of the major personality characteristics I’d imagine would emerge in many of their tests would be one we could long-windedly label “willingness to suspend logic to believe in what one is committed to”. A further characteristic might likely be self righteous belief in what they read and hear to the exclusion of actually testing it out.
I’ve been surprised mixing with martial artists around the world to find so many who will dismiss the possibility of anyone they haven’t heard of (and this means anyone not having had exposure in martial arts media) being highly skilled. They assume they know who is! By an illogical leap of exclusion then, they assume that if they don’t know of a person then that person isn’t highly skilled! If it’s anyone they haven’t heard of, then that person couldn’t be highly skilled! Otherwise I’d have heard of him, right? I’m sorry to break the news but the criterion of someone being highly skilled has never been anyone else’s knowing of them or not!
Years ago, before the West had heard of Sifu Sum Num, the modern Western martial arts and Wing Chun world logically hadn’t heard of him. They didn’t know they didn’t know! They thought Yip Man was the only Wing Chun master, the grandmaster of Wing Chun, or whatever epithets have been given him in the exclusion of additional knowledge they didn’t have that Sum Num and Yuen Kay San Wing Chun existed.
I often find it’s the case that when I use the term “Wing Chun” - or any Wing Chun technical term - these people assume they have a common referent in an art they’ve read about, seen and perhaps train in. In most cases, because I’ve seen, read about, discussed, and often trained in their version of “Wing Chun”, I do know what they’re referring to. Yet the reverse doesn’t apply. I guess there are people who’ve heard of me and assume that because I state I teach Yuen Kay San Wing Chun that it’s the same Wing Chun they’ve encountered. Yet, it isn’t! To think and state that all Wing Chun is the same is to miss the point! Observably it isn't!
I’ve had comments relayed to me about me and my art by people who’ve never even seen it! They’ve never, ever even laid their eyes on me! They haven’t met me, met my sifu, or seen my art or trained in my Wing Chun. Incredibly though these people will still assume, evaluate and comment. They assume that when I employ a term or phrase that it’s what they know. Now how intelligent could that be? You don’t know what you don’t know! You simply don’t know you don’t know it! A lot of people never get to understand this!
My concept of “reference” is, to me, an explanation for this phenomenon. In the absence of an objective yard stick or reference, people use their own subjective reference to compare and evaluate. Not having seen some practitioners or some arts they assume what they have seen is the same, better - or at least not worse. As a friend of mine once said - they ass-ume! Like it or not, you don’t know what you don’t know!
The truly smart person will realise they don’t know something. The smartest person will guess it’s possible they don’t even know they don’t know something. The stupid person is envious of, and hates, those they suspect know something they don’t know and those who they think may know they don’t know. It’s fairly salutary to think that it’s very true to apply the old saying: “He who speaks does not know, he who knows does not speak” to the modern martial arts world. Apart from taking the gung fu out of their gung fu, the modern commercial sports martial artists devotees and devourers of martial arts media are driving the real masters underground with their arrogant attitudes. Who's the loser in this situation? Think on that.