Sign Of Times

 

Since modern weaponry and technology appeared, old practices coming from Asia, some still refer as martial arts, have entered a more or less slow decay a few centuries ago, surviving by spreading in more and more diluted versions in the civilian world. It’s neither a shame nor good, it’s just the way it goes for anything in this world ruled by time.

If, from India to Japan, the pace has been different, often following the modernisation of all the countries in the area, they became at a point or another something of the past, old if not totally obsolete. Still, those practices found a new inspiration when they were introduced in the Western world. Indeed, their particular ways of training and the so-called philosophy they were supposed to bring along found a quite important audience, being exotic also having its charms. But, at the end of the last century, new and a better fit to the modern life methods, as well as the debunking of old practices claims, made them even less attractive. Indeed, when not totally unrealistic, most of the interesting skills old practices are supposed to attain cannot be achieved when training them as a hobby.

In China, before the turn of the century, it was usual to bump into people training in parks from dusk till dawn. At early morning, the few serious ones would finish their training around six o’clock and then either stay to chat a bit or go on with their daily duties. The numerous less serious would then gradually come and train a bit, chat a bit, till close to noon. Around six o’clock was often the time line separating those who knew from the rest. After the turn of the century, they were replaced in the evenings by lovers and in the morning by runners, dancers, fitness, badminton, gymnastics and so on… The only few that remained, apart from the ‘Taiji for All’, definitively came after six, deep in the night training, an efficiency prerequisite for quite a few old martial art practices totally disappeared.

The last time I was in China, training for a month in the only big park around in a heavily built area, luckily open twenty-four hours a day, this was just the case. There was no martist to be seen in the deep hours of the night and only a few Taiji (not the ‘for All’ version) would pop by around seven o’clock at best. Then, after nine o’clock, a full-fledged master would come, carrying loads of weapons, a bit like someone totally dressed up for a party that ended hours ago. Still, it never really hit me until I had the chance to recently spend a week in my hometown (not in China), thanks to Covid and other things, after many years.

There is a park over there where martists normally come to train, usually at a fixed spot. It opens quite late, seven-thirty, but there is a smaller one next to it accessible twenty-four hours a day. Before the big park opens, there are quite a few people running around it and some training exercises probably coming from crossfit or similar in the smaller one. But of course, no martist to be seen. Then the park opens, one more hour to finish a very late training and, when lucky, only one person (not even the same one every day) sort of training some kind of Taiji. Of course, on weekends in the middle of the day, one can see quite a few martists gathering. At least this tradition is maintained.

All in all, it seems that runners and other sports have nowadays much more dedicated people training than the so-called martial artists. They know, indeed, that regularity and the early bird catches the prey. Of course, dreaming is also a part of leisure. One can still see himself/herself, with just training a few hours a week, as a warrior practicing an art following a living tradition coming from generations of renowned masters, or any other flowery expression people use to market their product. It is also totally OK to fool oneself by believing that seeing a teacher once in a while for a weekend clinic, and from whom we want to stay independent, will bring exactly the same as living 24/7 with a person we have built a teacher-father relationship with. After all, we definitely know better than the people who designed the whole transmission system in the golden ages of these practices  ;-))).

Old practices are not vintage anymore, they became something like antics, attracting only a few and very limited in their capacities, a thing from a faraway past that will wither even more until whatever left of what made them a bit special will also be forgotten.

Not to worry, the next post will be about lineaments and vapours ;-).