Rules and Rituals in Martial Arts -- Is It Respect or Superstition?

martial arts training teaching martial arts Mar 20, 2015

I belonged to an internal arts school that had some rules that were carved in stone. Here are some of them:

**Each time you approach the training floor, you stop and bow to the floor. Each time you leave the floor, you bow to the floor before stepping off.

**Street shoes are NOT allowed on the training floor.

**At the beginning of each class, there is a moment of meditation and a bow to the shrine at the front of the room, designed to honor past masters.

**Only instructors are allowed to touch objects on the shrine.

**If you drop your sash to the floor, you must kiss both ends before putting it back on to show that you intend no disrespect to yourself.

**Men wear the knot on their sash on the right side and women wear it on the left. Once you reach Master level that reverses -- men wear the knot on the left side and women on the right.

**The sash is never washed because according to tradition, washing your sash will wash away your strength.

**When we perform techniques, we count in Chinese. "Yi....Er....San...., etc."

**You had to change your underwear every half hour, and you had to wear your underwear on the outside so the instructor could check.

Okay, I made up the last one about the underwear. I was just making sure you were still reading.

Respect is an important tradition in the martial arts, but sometimes it goes a little too far, and it begins to feel like superstition and religion. The older I have grown, the less inclined I am to uphold this type of rule. I can respect the arts without sacrificing my own culture and without teetering on the edge of worshiping something that is not worthy of worship. The concept of worshiping inanimate objects seems counter to the concept of harmony, where we become one with the universe, part of all things.

For many years, I followed all these rules without questioning, like a lot of martial artists. Then one day, something a Chen Taiji instructor said snapped me out of it.

The instructor came to my school in Bettendorf, Iowa to teach a workshop on the Chen 19 form. One of my top students, Rich Coulter, stopped and bowed before he stepped out onto the training floor. The instructor saw him.

"You bow to the floor?" the instructor asked.

"Yes," Rich said.

The instructor replied, "How Japanese."

At the time, Rich was shocked, but when he told me about it a few days later, I nearly fell down laughing.

It was a true moment of enlightenment. Only two words -- "How Japanese" -- but they hit me like a two-by-four and I realized the silliness of carrying on Japanese traditions in my Chinese gongfu school. I realized that I had learned most of these rules from an instructor who was heavily rooted in the Japanese arts.

I am a 21st Century, college educated American. I adapt to new information. It was not long before I began making sweeping changes to our rules, including:

**No more bowing to the training floor. I do not worship a floor. In China, where you go outside and practice in alleys, in courtyards, or anyplace you can find enough room, there is nothing special about a training floor. I simply use it, and in doing so, I am respecting the art. A floor is not going to be upset if you do not bow.

From a philosophical perspective, if a mouse finds its way into your martial arts school and sneaks out onto the training floor, it does not feel the need to bow. Why should you? The floor is special? Drop it and go outside to practice on the grass.

**As an American, if I need to count, I count in English. I cannot imagine Chinese boxers practicing a Western art and feeling the need to count in English just because they are practicing a jab, cross, and uppercut. Why we feel compelled to count in foreign languages is beyond me.

If Chen Xiaoxing begins to count in Mandarin during a workshop, I enjoy it. But if Chen Xiaowang begins to count in English, I also enjoy it.

**Shoes are a part of Chinese gongfu. Karate is practiced barefoot, taekwondo is practiced barefoot, but Kung-Fu is practiced with shoes. In China, where people have always just worn their normal clothes to practice, including shoes, this is not a big deal.

If you are attacked on the street, the last thing you will want to do is stop and remove your shoes. Practicing without shoes is quite silly. If all you have to wear are street shoes, wear them. The training floor is not offended, I assure you.

**I do not worship my sash. I do not wear a sash most of the time, although there are sashes in the old "system" that I taught. But a sash is relatively meaningless. If I am clumsy and it falls to the floor, I pick it up and hang it up (or put it on) without attaching anything mystical or superstitious to it. If I spill something, I can use my sash to wipe it up. The sash is not offended.

**My sash got very dirty once, so I brushed it off with detergent and water. It did not voice a complaint. As far as I could tell, my muscles did not wither. Until they come up with a clinical trial at Mayo Clinic showing that washing a sash will wash away my strength, I will assume that this is malarkey, like Trickle Down Economics.

You can go down the list, to one rule after another. I have never had a shrine in my schools. I honor past masters by carrying on the art. That is enough.

I do not believe that my sword has a personality or a spirit living within. I treat it carefully, but it is merely a tool, like a hammer.

I do not believe women should be treated differently than men. Asking them to wear the knots of their sashes on the other side -- I mean, seriously?

I do not believe that the number eight is lucky. It is simply the number after seven.

Respect is an important part of martial arts -- respect for yourself, respect for other people, and respect for all things, which you should feel as you build your sense of "connection" with all things through the study of the internal arts.

But human beings tend to make rules and then create rituals, usually carrying them to an extreme that ends up bordering on religion. Do you want to see human ritual running amok? Attend a Catholic mass.

Many of the rules and rituals attached to martial arts practice are simply not necessary and, when we take them beyond simple respect for ourselves and for other people, it can quickly degenerate into something unhealthy.

Many of the rules and rituals attached to martial arts -- in my opinion, we should "drop it," walk on, and practice.

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Rules and Rituals in Martial Arts -- Is It Respect or Superstition?

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