Not that it matters, but my statement said martial arts had their beginning with Monks and were spiritual events. Of course, there are many forms of martial arts, just as there are many cookies, but no one knows who made the first cookie.
It was around 500 BC, when the Monks started it. It is entirely possible there were earlier unknown beginnings as with everything in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.
“Sometimes it takes more courage to get up and run than to stay. You either just do it or you don’t. I got so scared the first day in combat I just decided to go along with it.” - Audie Murphy
“The night of March 2, I was leading six other guys on patrol along the front. We spotted a German tank that had been damaged. Because I thought some of the Krauts might have slipped up to repair the tank in the dark, I left my men in a ditch 200 yards from it and crawledslowly through the mud toward the tank. I was afraid to make any noise. No, that’s not right. I was just plain afraid. Anyone who tells you he isn’t scared in a spot like that is a liar. I was I was wishing my shirt didn’t have any buttons so I could get closer to the ground.” - Audie Murphy
Since you didn’t leave a link I can not comment.
Again no link, is this a novel, biography, what?
http://www.audiemurphy.com/newsletter_pdf/amrf_news7.pdf
Can you comment now?
Shaolin is old, but it isn’t the oldest. If there’s any truth to the Bodhidharma legend, he may have been teaching a form of Indian Kalarippayat, which is even older than Shaolin. Pankration was introduced as an Olympic sport in 648 BC, and very definitely wasn’t invented by holy men. The art of attacking another human or defending against such an attack is probably as old as human history.
As to martial arts and fear, show me a martial artist who hasn’t felt fear and I’ll show you one who hasn’t been training hard enough.
Don’t really want to continue this, but once more. What is fear itself? How does it exist without an object? Can you fear without fearing something, I think not. As for children, a baby is unafraid of spiders, snakes, and the dark, parents teach fear not only by words, but also by actions of what they are afraid of, fear is not instinctual. We learn fear, and we can unlearn fear. The word phobia means fear.
I think the point we were discussing got turned upside down. Of course, people fear, we are all afraid of something to a greater or lesser degree. I would hope we could stop teaching fear since there is enough to go around now.
Spiritual training is confronting fear and eliminating it in a number of different ways. Through knowledge, understanding, and unlearning or replacing fear with love. This is very beneficial to the person who does the training.
Back to the OP, fear, aka hate, has no good business to exist in anyone, and eliminating it is a high priority in those who understand its destructive nature.
Fear is necessary for survival, not to mention morality and caring. Someone without fear ( which takes something as drastic as brain damage, you don’t learn it ) won’t care what happens to themselves or someone else; that’s fear. You are afraid of what may happen to your loved ones. You are afraid of what may happen to you, or your target when you point a gun at someone. You are afraid when you cross the street of getting run down, so you look both ways, and don’t step in front of moving cars.
Morality, not to mention general competence, requires a fear of the potential negative consequences of your decisions.
Link to the first quote, starts on page three:
http://www.audiemurphy.com/newsletter_pdf/amrf_news7.pdf
Link to the next quotes, about page 2:
http://www.audiemurphy.com/newsletter_pdf/amrf_news4.pdf
Comment away.
What does this mean in practical terms? It doesn’t seem to mean anything.
Babies cry when their parents leave because they’re afraid they won’t come back. How do the parents teach that? Through what mechanism do parents teach children to be afraid of the dark, thunderstorms and monsters in the closet? The nightlight industry is dying to know.
:rolleyes: Thank you, I never would have known.
And for the majority of the martial arts that I have trained in and taught, they were not started by monks and were not spiritual events.
I think the discussion would be better served if you confined yourself to topics about which you had some semblance of knowledge.
Regards,
Shodan
OK, the discussion has gone off the topic into tangents of little interest for me.
Those who wish to hold fear will do so, and those who wish not to will do so.
Everyone is responsible for their own beliefs and thoughts and the actions that result from same. Some will want to explore self-discovery, for others the time is not now.
You said you couldn’t comment until you had links. You have them now. Don’t you want to comment?
This kind of reply is what this thread is about. You never really understood what I was talking about.
Refuting an argument factually is now considered evidence of prejudice? O tempora o mores!
I think we understand perfectly what you’re talking about. We just think you’re wrong.
Having fear isn’t a matter of volition. And no, overcoming a phobia isn’t a matter of banishing fear, or you’d find people who overcome acrophobia walking off cliffs. It’s a matter of toning it down.
It seemed to interest you until people asked you to support the statements you were making. Oh well.
On the other hand, if we look at actual historical records and not the sort of manufactured folklore that you cited that is used to make people feel good about their hobbies, we discover that Shubó kung fu, practiced during the Shang dynasty (1766-1066 BC), and Xiang Bo (similar to Sanda) from the 600s BC,.[6] are just two examples of ancient Chinese kung fu. In 509 BC, Confucius suggested to Duke Ding of Lu that people practice the literary arts as well as the martial arts[7] thus, kung fu was practiced external to the military and religious sects by ordinary citizens; (pre-dating Shaolin by over 1,000 years).
[sup]6[/sup]^ Kang, Gewu. The Spring & Autumn of Chinese Martial Arts: 5,000 Years. Plum Pub., 1995.
[sup]7[/sup]^ Prof. Kang Gewu. The Spring & Autumn of Chinese Martial Arts: 5,000 Years. Plum Pub., 1995
And the actual record shows that you were relying on the hype surrounding a TV show and some of the “woo woo” elements that it spurred in the popular media, regardless of the legitimate mental techniques that are studied by its genuine practioners. Rather than monks starting it in 500 B.C.E., we have testimony from Confucius in 500 B.C.E. that it was already practiced among all the (educated?) peoples of China to the point where he had to encourage his correspondent to get the people to add literary arts to their studies and historical records from a thousand years earlier that do not mention monks, at all.
You were attempting to make the point that Chinese martial arts were wonderful because they taught people how to be brilliantly effective by remaining dispassionate in battle and that heroes don’t feel fear. We have already seen from Audie Murphy’s personal accounts* that your second point is nonsense and we now see from a look at the historical record that your first point is based on error.
I suspect that you never really understood what you were saying, either. You have some feeling and a sense that “something” should be a particular way, but you have never examined your feelings in the face of evidence to discover whether you were right or wrong in your beliefs.
If you are going to take this attitude, it may well be a good time for you to withdraw before you begin getting into trouble with misplaced condescension.
Or, perhaps, lekatt’s definition of “love”, is not the same as your’s, or mine.
This isn’t a knock at you, more at lekatt’s idea that “love is the answer to everything”. What he calls “love”, is not what I think of love.
Oh, the irony.