On The Mat

The high school where I teach used to have a really excellent wrestling coach named Clint Fox. For a couple of years right before he switched to another school, I was his assistant.

I could have done this for a decade more than I did. Kick myself now.

Learned a lot about making people fall down, and flipping them over, and making them hurt. Also learned the reverse of all those thing, too. It is a splendid sport.

A lot of it has faded away. It's the kind of thing that takes constant practice to retain.

Is it a martial art? It is done on a lovely, comfy mat. There are a ton of safety rules limiting what participants can do. The objective itself is also pretty non-realistic. You put your buddy down on the ground and try and flip him on to his back and hold him there. In a real fight if you do put the other chap down, the last thing you want to do is put him on his back. He can hurt you from there, whilst on his belly he can't. Can't really call it a martial art.

It is a martial sport. The goal is the game, the pin, the points. What one learns is applicable to real combat. It's as if one learned to be a Karate tournament fighter without learning any of the applications or rules-forbidden moves. Would one's tournament skills be useful in a real fight? Can't say it would hurt.

There is an interesting relationship between three aspects of any martial art. There is the 'real' side of things. Perhaps we should call this self-defense. Second there is the sport angle. Lastly there is the art part.

The art is where the calm of repetition kicks in. The beauty of working on minute details. There is Kata.

I make it sound as if there are hard edges between the various aspects within a martial art. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is more like sitting on a 3 legged stool. Your weight can be more on one leg than the others, or equal on all 3. Remove one leg from the stool, and you'll probably crash. Remove 2, you'll hit the deck real fast.

Or maybe there's four main aspects to a Martial Art. You know, fitness.

Better not go there. Sometimes I over think things.