The levels of reality in fights: exhibition, training, fight

There’s a difference, that, when watching martial artists, is of extreme importance to be aware. As martial arts are a science, evaluating the styles, masters and methods is of great importance to choose the adequate martial art for you. As Sun Tzu’s Art of war 孙子宾法 stated “the different tactics should be employed” there’s no better martial art, there is an art more adequate for you, but, although some beliefs, there is good and bad martial arts, otherwise you could just create a ridiculous martial art and follow it.

The first of the levels is an exhibition. You can notice this stage by the lack of variety of the attack “the indirect methods of attack are immensurable’ is said in the Art of War by Sun Tzu孙子兵法; the attacker will attack when and how the opponent chooses, something that obvious would not happens in a real fight and have a great impact on the strategies used, saying that a move will work because it worked on a demonstration like this is dangerous. Even if it is more used for didactic and purposes only, a better demonstration should be employed, like fake attempts and resistance to grappling moves “boards don’t hit back, make boards hit back”.

Then comes the training. Here rules are imposed, but inside these rules are giving a liberty of strategies, what in martial arts we call “resisting opponent”; different from demonstration they are generally here to not collaborate with the attack, exactly the contrary, which comes near of what happens in a fight. The sports-based and some shows fall in that category.

And finally comes the real fight, the war with no rules (in reality that is not a good description as some “no rules” competitions have rules (no more than two participants, the fight just start after a referee allow, no weapons, etc.)). But what is a real fight? Two soldiers fighting a war, two gang members brawling, two black belts fighting; I don’t dare to say what a real fight is. Real fight is like the supreme truth or the dao 道, “If you grasp you lose it”; if you define it you will be wrong, because fight is made to break paradigms. Forget the Geneva Convention, the UN; have you watched the last conflicts? These are just instruments for one or some nations dominate another by other means but war. Forget the honor, the friendship, the respect, nothing of this will be useful in a fight (Sun Tzu said…faults of a general:.. a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame). It is incredible that some martial arts, arts of war, generally do not show more than demonstrations (Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan), aikido, self-defense” methods) and almost all don’t go further than training (MMA(mixed martial arts), Muay Thai, Brazilian jiujitsu (BJJ), Judo, Taekwondo, etc.).

The golden rule “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself”

As seem in the Analects 论语 (論語), of Confucius (孔子), should work perfectly in the uniform old Chinese society, that considered themselves as the kingdom that had a world around it (中国) (中國), the middle kingdom, and the other people as barbarians (although there were a great pluralism in the hundred school of thoughts 诸子白家 (諸子白家) and not the uniformity of the Qin 秦 dynasty).

But in our diverse society this seems more complicated, maybe the rule would be better “do not treat others as they do not want to have been treated”; but we do not want they get treated as they want when they’re out of control nor when want to hurt themselves, some of us live in a free world that we cannot have the option to not to be free.

We cannot simply ignore the others either. This was, is, and will be cause for much conflict.

 

Example of white horses that are thought to be a horse in the Yi jing (I Ching) 易经 (易經)

The discovery this logic is not made by the logicians, the school of names 名家, but probably earlier by the writer(s) of the Yi jing, a line爻yao of a hexagram 卦gua have not a meaning of another exact same line, in the same position, but in a different hexagram; it has a complete different meaning.

Why not use The Yi Jing to explain errors made by not paying attention to this logic?

The hexagram 1-乾 qian and 2-坤 kun do not represent yin and yang; They may be classified as yang and yin respectively but, as a white horse can be classified as horse, may represent something quite different. One of the eight Trigram 八卦 bagua has not the same meaning of other same trigram in the same location. Two trigrams cannot have the same meaning as a single trigram. Two horses are different than a horse. A reverse or inverse or other pattern has no correlation with the other hexagram in any way. A hexagram formed by two trigrams has not the same meaning of that trigram: one horse plus one horse is not equal two horses (the hexagram 30-離li have a different meaning then the trigram li, fire火).