武術 War for Peace

故善攻者，敵不知其所守；善守者，敵不知其所攻*
That is why when one is skillful in attack, his opponent does not know where to defend; one is skillful in defence, his opponent does not know where to attack.

There are many names to describe martial arts 武(舞)技, 武道, 武功, 國術, 功夫... From nationalist pride to some special aspects of the training, they express different views. Still 武術 seems to be the most common denomination, and looking at its meaning beyond the simple "martial arts" translation is interesting because its shows the evolution, the misunderstandings and the ability for some schools to play with Chinese characters beyond their usual meaning.

Who hasn't heard through the grapevine, in the world of copy/paste, that 武 is made of 戈, halberd, and 止, to stop, that the ultimate goal of martial arts is to stop violence, bring peace. A simple mind would say that if you don't want violence, don't learn or teach people how to fight. Probably the Chinese, in their early days, were already aware of the art of communication which consists on making people believe that going to war is to bring peace.

It seems that we should first, and because it is almost never done, explain that this character has evolved in its writing. Nowadays, if you look at it, 武 looks like it is made of 一, one, 弋, arrow, and 止, to stop. And it is only in old writings that 戈 and 止 are obvious. The modification came because it made it easier to write while at the same time keeping the constitutive elements of 戈, as it is described in old dictionaries to be made of 弋 and 一 "從弋，一橫之".

戈 was a kind of halberd during the early ages in Chinese history, a pole-arm with a blade shaped like an L.  It is often defined as "平頭戟也" a 戟 with a flat head, 戟 being also an halberd, probably more popular, from those times. 戈 became also a way to refer to weapons in general or war, like in 干戈 or 兵戈.

止is the real problem because its meaning has evolved through time. Before meaning to stop, its first meaning was foot, or footprint, "下基也。象艸木出有址，故以止爲足", so actually movement. An halberd and a foot, a very simple indication that one has taken arms to go fighting. A simple description, nothing more, nothing less.

So how did we switch from taking arms to stopping the halberd? It probably all started a long time ago with the King Zhuang of Chu (楚莊王, died in 531 BC) and a phrase for posterity "故止戈爲武", "That's why martial (ability) is to stop the halberd".  So, what can you say against this great hero of the Spring and Autumn Period, whose late prowess led to the Chinese Idiom 一鳴驚人, an obscure person suddenly sets the world on fire, accuse him of being the reason why thousands of people believe nowadays that they can stop weapons with their bare little tiny hands?

The first thing is to notice that putting 止 first and 戈 second, which is not the traditional way from top to bottom to decompose a character, is an indication that our great king was going beyond the usual meaning of the character. Indeed, reversing the order can even, in some rare cases, have consequences and lead to different meanings, like for 岊 and 岜. That is why 止戈 probably meant more laying down arms than just literally stopping the halberd if we look more closely at the context in which it was said:

King Zhuang had just beaten the Jin, one of his strongest enemy, at the battle of Bi, paving his way to hegemony. He was asked why he did not comply to the custom to make a burial mound by piling up his dead enemies, a 京觀, to commemorate this martial achievement. Simply said, his answer was that war should bring virtue, that martial mastery should avoid unnecessary violence and wars of extermination. For those who are aware of the theory of cultivation of both the martial and the civil in the Chinese culture, 文武兼備, it can be seen as a direct application of it. So, the King of the Chu "故止戈爲武" was more about telling people that martial skills were also about to know when to stop a fight and not to endlessly prolong violence.

However, if it is definitively incorrect to say that the original meaning of 武 is 止戈 "to stop the halberd", this definition can also be totally justified in a context of certain trainings or in certain schools. And as long as the original meaning is not forgotten, modifying the usual definition of a character for training purposes is a common custom in Chinese martial arts. For example "止戈" can be seen as training to become deterrent. In the first place, it is very simple, it's getting used to go dressed with as many protections and weapons as possible. For professional escorts, the famous 鏢局, it was to hire people with a fearsome reputation or a massive body, a bit like the bouncers nowadays. In this sense "stoping the halberd" was to be taken more like being deterrent enough to stop other people to feel like raising arms against you. This led, on the internal side, to a special mind training in order to develop what those practices call 殺氣, the murderous spirit, the aura of death which would keep people away from you. Before getting the aura of death, you would first have to train presence, which implies that you know standing, which comes from footing. From its new meaning "to stop" to its old one "foot", you've come to a full circle.

Furthermore, "stopping the halberd" is not the only modified definition of 武. For some schools, 武 is not composed of 戈 and 止, but of 戈 and 正 (right, correct, sharp), the strokes 一, up for 正 and down 戈, overlaying. For those schools, 武 simply means a weapon correctly (handled). So the study of martial arts would be the one of how to correctly handle a weapon. 

As we will see, 術 has also much more to give as a martial arts character than only it usual definition.

It is made of 行, to move, surrounding 术, which does not have any meaning and serves as the phonetic part of the character. Nowadays 术 is also the simplified form of 術.

Originally, 術 means a path, a road in the middle of a country, and by extension technology. "邑中道也。邑，國也。引伸爲技術". It has evolved into many meanings, the ones of art, skill, method, study and tactics being the most relevant for the Martists.

But for some schools, the originally meaningless 术 actually holds a lot of meanings. It is not only supposed to represent a man, but also contains some of the principles of correct motion. In writing order, 术 is a man arms extended 一, backbone vertical and centred丨, legs on the side 八, the dot 丶on the top left representing the head or the eyes.

The straight lines are representing the first principle, reaching unity by straightening the whole body, and especially the backbone. Arms and backbone make a cross, 十, another principle applied in various parts of the body to also unite it. Arms, backbone and legs making 木 represent the well-known six directions, another important principle in training. They all converge to a central point which is supposed not only to unite them, but also to be the source of movement, normally the waist, 腰. The dot adds the necessary third part of what is considered with the legs and the arms to be the roots: the eyes/head, 六, a perfect balance if the dot is centered (and, as an extra, 六 happens to mean six...). The dot is also a reminder that all this straightness will have, eventually, to lead to roundness.

That is why 術, for some schools, is "art coming from moving the body with a method including straightness and being centred, the cross, the six directions, the three roots and the waist, all leading eventually to roundness". With not a lot of entertainment at that time, playing with characters seemed very entertaining.

So, from the basic definition of 武術 as martial arts to the more complex one "Art coming from moving the body with a method including straightness and being centred, the cross, the six directions, the three roots and the waist, all leading eventually to roundness, in order to move correctly a weapon", you can find various definitions, like "art of stopping the halberd", meeting different training needs. It is interesting to notice they all are about weapons, no empty hand here. And, food for thoughts, where there is a recto, there is a verso, or everything has a external and internal side. This long possible definition of 武術 is the external one, concerning the body, there is of course an internal one, using the same characters, dealing with emotions and organs.

*孫子兵法，第六篇，虛實. The Art of War, Sunzi, Chapter 16, True and False.