On Martial Arts Secrets

There are no such things. There is information that we may not know, but that does not make it a secret. Nothing is hidden; but that doesn't mean that we can find it. As martial artists, it's all on us.

And it's not necessary to discover all the so-called secrets. No one can know everything about martial arts anyway, and why would everyone want to? It's important to know enough to defend oneself, to remain on the path of learning, and to continue to learn as the opportunity presents itself. It is not important to go and seek every possible technique, every tidbit of information, unless one wants to. But if one does not want to, that's OK too.

Many of the so-called secrets are actually searches for shortcuts or 'magical' knowledge anyway. One seeks hidden information because one believes it holds the key to ability that comes without hard work, without practice, without pain. Those secrets especially do not exist. Seeking those kinds of secrets is a mark of immaturity. We were all immature once, but most of us grow out of it.

A simple technique done correctly is far superior to a complex technique done poorly. No one says of the person lying on the floor that they had secret techniques; they will say their technique sucked or they would not be lying on the floor.

True secrets, if one must call them that, are the techniques which make themselves clear as one practices the simple techniques over and over again, masters them, and begins to understand the principles behind why and how they word. Then one can start to experiment and improvise and test slight differences in the technique mastered, and when one stumbles across or is shown one that works, it must seem as if a hidden secret had been revealed. Tell me, if a jar of peanut butter is at the back of the cabinet and you can't find it, is it hidden? Is it a secret? Or did you just not know where to look or whom to ask? To be hidden from your view does not make it a secret. The problem may be with your ability to see.

It has been argued that the secret to mastery is repetition, but more than that, it's repetition of good technique. And this is where things get tricky.

How does a student, a beginner, know when a technique being demonstrated is good or effective? How do they know when they are doing it correctly themselves?

This is down to three things. The first two are good instructors and good training partners, and the last is most important but very difficult to obtain, and that is painful insight through personal experience.

Anyone can invent a technique. They can claim it is effective and demonstrate it with a willing and compliant partner. It may even 'work', after a fashion, with an unwiling or resisting partner if brute force is applied. It might even be a good technique in its way, but it may lead to negative consequences (like deflecting a blow that turns an opponent's other hand into your face). So how does one know the difference? Painful insight.

To obtain painful insight, one must learn the difference between being hit hard and being hit well. Between being manipulated with force and being manipulated with technique. Both hurt. But the latter provides insight, the former does not. I'm not trying to be mysterious here; it's like describing what it feels like to properly balance on a bicycle; you'll know the feeling when it happens to you. Don't be a masochist; pain for its own sake teaches nothing. Seek painful insight; meaningful and instructive pain that teaches as much as it hurts. When you've been hit with a punch that appeared to have no force to it, yet it drops you like a sack of potatoes, when you've been flipped to the dojo floor with a compelling force that felt like you were being whipped by a twelve-ton machine, when you were forced to comply with a movement or else your limb would definitely break, you've had good technique applied to you.

There are the secrets. Find a good instructor. Find good training partners. Train hard and train often. Seek painful insight and welcome it when it instructs. Be a good training partner to your dojomates and make them apply techniques correctly or do not comply with their movements.

This does not apply to any particular style of martial arts; it applies to all of them. There is not one historically authentic martial arts style that does not work; all do, or they'd have not survived in times when losing a fight might mean death. The secret is that there are no secrets. Advanced techniques which appear to be almost magical, yes. And those are not hidden; you simply cannot see them yet. Perhaps you will, perhaps you will not. Keep training.