Author Peter S. Beagle wrote a fantasy novel called The Folf of the Air. The plot concerns what happens in a California college town when a young girl who is part of the college's Rennaissance Festival / Society of Creative Anachronism club manages to learn real magic.The main character is a musician, Farrell, in his late twenties who returns to the town after many years away. At one point, Farrell goes to visit a training session given by John Erne, the club's Master of Combat, an expert on medieval fighting forms who teaches the "warriors" how to use their play swords and shields. But he sees this as his true vocation, and he enters into a discussion with Farrell about all martial arts and their place in the modern world. I've always been haunted by the passage...
"This is my time." He leaned forward and patted Farrell's knee hard. "This is the time of weapons. It isn't so much the fact that everyone has a gun -- it's that everyone wants to be one. People want to turn themselves into guns, knives, plastic bombs, big dogs. This is the time when ten new karate studios open every day, when they teach you Kung Fu in the third grade, and Whistler's mother has a black belt in aikido. I know one fellow on a little side street who's making a fortune with savate, that French kick-boxing." Farrell watched the combat master's face, still trying to determine how old he was. he appeared most youthful when he moved or spoke, oldest when he smiled.
"The myriad arts of self-defense," John Erne said. "They're all just in it because of the muggers, you understand, or the police, or the Zen of it all. But no new weapon ever goes unused for long. Pretty soon the streets will be charged with people, millions of them, all loaded and cocked and frantically waiting for somebody to pull the trigger. And one man will do it -- bump into another man or look at him sideways and set it all off." He opened one hand and blew across his palm as if he were scattering dandelion fluff. "The air will be so full of killer reflexes and ancient disabling techniques there'll be a blue haze over everything, You won't hear a single sound, except the entire population of the United States chopping at one another with the edges of their hands."
Farrell asked quitely, "Where does that leave chivalry?"
Matteo dei Servi and another student had begun to work out with their swords and shield, circling each other with the peculiar hitching stride that the combat master had employed. They carried the rattan blades well back and almost horizontal, at helmet height, and they struck over the tops of their shield in the rhythm of fencers, turn and turn about. John Erne snapped his fingernails sharply against his own sword as he watched them.
"A dead art form," he said, "like lute music. As unnatural to the animal as opera or ballet, and yet no body who puts on even cardboard armor can quite escape it -- any more than you can escape the fact that your music believes in God and hell and the king. You and I are what they use to call witnesses, vouching with our lives for something we never saw. The bitch of it is, all we ever wanted to be was experts."
3 comments:
That is a little scary. Not every studio teaches the warriorship behind the moves. Sure, it kind of frightens me, the sort of reckless people who sometimes stand next to me in the dojo, and how unseriously they accept the things we are being taught. But a person has to also have hope in the general goodness of humanity.
Hmmm.
I've never really been sure where Erne stands in the "are people basically good?" debate. I get the sense he is a curmudgeon who has faith in humanity, but is a realist about how they act.
The book was written a couple of decades ago, and I think the state of things has gotten generally worse. Pick up a martial arts magazine: Reality Fighting, No Holds Barred fighting, shootfighting... It's all about the "fighting." Check out the "new" arts featured: Kali, Pentjak Silat, Capoeria, Krav Maga, Aikijujutsu, Hirsadut, Systema, Sambo, Chanbara (don't get me started), Shippal Gi, etc.
Too many people move from art to art searching for effective technique. The be-all for them is fighting. Go buy a handgun and learn to be effective with it; you'll save time. Every time I read Black Belt, I think about John Erne's words.
There's a reason most people who devote themselves to the lifelong study of a martial art do it. But what about the rest? What drives the hobbyist who comes in for a good work-out? What drives the fighter who, god forbid, thinks he might actually be called upon to fight the terrorists in our very streets! (OK, by definition, terrorism strikes in unlikely locales, and already a trained, regular-joe judoka defended our nation against them on September 11. But you stand a better chance of being struck by lightning, twice -- statistically.)
I think it is important to reflect on the motivations that bring people to the martial arts. There are probably as many motivations as there are martial artists. I'm not sure there is any one right motivation, but I suspect there are several bad motivations. I think this is one issue John Erne touches on in his remarks, and I think it affects the arts themselves.
Our media and culture are becoming increasingly aggressive and violent. Violence is even funny to some people. But it is of great concern to some who know how serious an offense violence is. It is the reason the earth was flooded at the time of Noah. To many, this bible story is ancient folklore, but there are many other countless histories that tell of the path of violence. If you trace the path back, you can see how clearly the violation of the commandments can ultimately lead to fear and violence in your life. The path often leads to annihilation. Likely, this is what haunts you about his statement, because it is highly probable, in fact it's occurred among groups of people in history many times before, as I'm sure you know.
Post a Comment