A New Stand

一而不可不易者，道也¹

One but (not un)mutating, such is the Way.

The more technology improves, the less relevant become the old practices. Catastrophic events set aside, humanity is on a verge of a new technological revolution that will not only surpass everything we have known, but may well redefine our own species as we know them.
As far as a student of the old practices is concerned, one must realise that, in a near future, anything we train will be achieved faster and better beyond understanding by a pill, a chip and an exoskeleton. If such times have not come yet and old internal practices root themselves in the present, it remains a strong trend leading them further into decay.

Martial arts and internal practices nowadays have become a fully pledged leisurely product, offering anything from self-defence to self-improvement, facing harsh realities to dreaming in fantasy worlds, unleashing violence to finding internal peace, toughing body and mind to reaching Nirvana... Because of their new leisurely nature, they face many challenges, some of them already mentioned in Standing and follow the evolution of the myths and legends of our times². No practice being “realistic” any more³, it is a normal thing they all claim to be, tradition as an emblem. 

Clinging on to a glorious, often legendary, past is after all part of the leisure experience, people come for the dreams, hardly for the harsh reality. Still, for those who deeply love what they do, it may be important to leave the dreamworld and concentrate on the rest, in order to reclaim a bit of what has been lost through the centuries.

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1 Zhuangzi, Outer Chapters, Within Magnanimity, 莊子, 外篇, 在宥.

2 A very interesting link can be made between the appearance of superheroes (as opposed to heroes) in the popular culture, especially movies, and the change of training methods in martial arts from a long and daily process with a master (to make sure one is on the right path) to a few weekend courses a year with the equivalent of a professional trainer.

3 Some martial arts meccas happen to be also the safest places on earth, i.e. where even street violence is almost gone. Others not, but they tend to fight with modern heavy weaponry, not spears, daggers and bows...