Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

“Philopoemen,” the Roman moralist Plutarch wrote that the athletic body
and lifestyle were different in every way from the military. The diet and the
exercise were particularly different, as the athletes slept and ate regularly,
while the soldiers trained to endure wandering, irregularity, and lack of
sleep. This being the case, Plutarch viewed athletics as something that distracted
a man from more important things, such as waging war or earning
fame. Either way, organizing contests and meets was arguably the most important
part of the process, as in war the prowess of the individual warrior
is rarely as important as command, communication, and logistics.
Monetary gain (aethlon [Greek; prizes given Hellenic athletes for victories
during gymnikos, or funeral games]). Monetary motivation clearly
applies to individuals selling belt rankings or requiring students to purchase
long-term contracts, but also applies to athletic and professional associations,
equipment manufacturers, and tourist bureaus.
Muscular development. Although individuals often play for fun or
narcissism, the purpose of school physical education programs is not so
much to build beautiful bodies or help anyone have fun as to ensure that
children grow up healthy. (Through vigorous exercise, participants grow
stronger and therefore become more productive workers.)
Nationalism. Governments patronize martial arts and combative
sports as a form of muscular theater; the idea is that our national method
produces better fighters than their national method. Thus in the sixteenth
century, Indian rajahs, Japanese shôgun, and European princes had stables
of professional wrestlers, while in more recent times the Communist Chinese
have patronized taijiquan (tai chi ch’uan) and the South Koreans have
patronized taekwondo. Nationalism leads to many invented traditions, in
part because governments can afford to pay people to create them.
Paramilitary training. When used by police, paramilitary training typically
emphasizes control methods that are not intended to kill or maim
healthy adults and teenagers. Sometimes called nonlethal, such methods
can kill or injure if they are misused or if the recipient is unlucky. However,
when used by political factions and antigovernment activists, paramilitary
training typically emphasizes lethal methods using everyday implements.
Political theater. “Dueling nobles,” Robert Drews has written, “are essential
for the poet’s story, but in reality the promachoi [dueling nobles] were
much less important than the anonymous multitude in whose front rank
they stood” (1993, 169). While true, stories featuring deeds of derring-do
teach history and morals to semiliterate masses, and it is not coincidence that
the word mystery originally meant “to minister.” Martial examples of political
theater include the Water Margin stories in China, the Robin Hood stories
in England, and the ballads about Jesse James in the United States.
Potlatch. Our group sets out to embarrass another group by putting
Social Uses of the Martial Arts 535