The term "martial arts" has always has an ominous connotation; a potentially lethal set of skills and uncommon fighting ability. And the heroes of my day, guys like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Joe Lewis certainly personified this belief with their movies and fight stats. There was a time when foreign terms like karate and judo actually awed westerners who had only been exposed to boxing. And of course, there was the lore that a martial artist was required to register his hands as "deadly weapons," no doubt created and perpetuated by ingenious school owners back in the day, hoping to increase their revenue.
I have had the honor of training with some pretty scary dudes in the last 40 years. I've seen a man pierce a water melon with his extended fingers (I wouldn't try it, not even after two beers). I practiced taekwondo (not the flashy stuff you see today) with a man who lived in Korea for a number of years who could kick my 190 lbs frame across the room...there was absolutely no getting near that guy and after a couple hits, I didn't really want to. And, as I have mentioned in other posts, one of the scariest men I've ever met was Issoyama Shihan of Aikido.
Issoyama-san was one of the original people to study with the founder of aikido, Morihei Ueshiba. The aikido of that era is extraordinarily hard to find today. The art has been so watered-down and misinterpreted that it has become the bastard step child of martial arts, typically portrayed on YouTube as fake and useless. I think that has a lot to do with its propagation in the last 30 years as this mysterious, non-lethal martial art. When you start selling the idea that you can fight someone without causing any harm to them...or worse, tell your students that they have the moral obligation to "not" harm an assailant, you will produce a bunch of out-of-shape, ignorant and arrogant weekend warriors who love to prance around a tatami mat. I may have a bit of an opinion on that.
This was not my experience training in Japan, and certainly not studying under Issoyama-san. As I understand it, he once broke the arms of a couple of GIs who came to his dojo looking for a fight. After that, he stopped teaching on U.S. military bases for a long time. His aikido was fast, linear and devastating. If he selected you to be his uke, (training partner), you had to bring it up about five notches. Nobody looked forward to taking one of his hits or having him apply any kind of joint lock. I vividly remember him performing his famous irimi nage - - a throw similar to a clothesline in football, and the man literally flipped over onto his face and stopped breathing. And this is where everything changed for me.
Issoyama calmly walked over, sat the man up and adjusted his neck a couple of times, hit him on the back and he was fine. Well, dazed, but fine. I had never seen anything like it. Later that night at the usual party, I worked up enough sake courage to ask Issoyama how he was able to revive the man so quickly. He laughed at me and said, "That is true martial art." Now, he was no health practitioner. But he had an incredible knowledge of the body and how to treat it. You see, there was time when any master of a system or school was expected to have a thorough understanding of how to treat the body as well as how to damage it. And I would say that a person who possess the ability to heal can be far more devastating than the one who only knows how to harm.
In my decades of work in physical therapy and rehabilitation, I've used a number of joint mobilizations, manual techniques, balance exercises and other forms of treatment that all stemmed from the martial arts. This is one of the reasons I continue to teach and study aikido and jujutsu principles; just about everything you learn on the mat can be applied off the mat to help someone...not just the physical stuff. Thorough and consistent training not only instills confidence, but more importantly, respect for others as well as the capacity and limitations of the human body. I have been blessed with a life that has revolved around the martial arts and the healing arts. For me, at least, you cannot effectively have one without the other.
The ability to fight and protect ourselves is extremely important, but only a piece of the the true value of martial arts training. Discipline, fitness, mental acuity, friendship, honor...love. All part of it. Try to remember that the next time you're on the mat.
Dave Magliano
Tatsu Dojo
Jissenkan Budo
Dojo Cho
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