How Can You Call Yourself a Master? (Part Two)
In part one we discussed that a person really has to know something about an art, and not just in the general monkey see monkey do sense of the current legion of wanna be masters. The article you are reading now has to do with the second and even more important missing ingredient upon the part of todays masters. This article has to do with the true amount of real and workable knowledge a master must have to be a True Master.
Yes, a fellow can study a martial art and say he has mastered that martial art, and people might even fall for it. He can get so good at the art of karate, for instance, that nobody can even come close to beating him. That, however, isn’t going to result in him really becoming a master.
To be able to destroy somebody using a particular martial arts style is an extremely limited point of view. Destruction, you see, is a very short sighted and self-defeating point of view. While there can be an art to the fact of destruction, the true martial art has to do with this subject of control.
How do you control somebody? You must learn more than one art, and this means you must learn both the destructive arts, and the arts which espouse control. You’ve got to learn force and flow, which is another way of saying you must be able to bash something, or control it.
Destroy something and it is no longer around to bother you, but this has another side to it. This means that you have no more authority or power over whatever it is you destroyed. True mastery is a perpetuating state whereby you can sustain your power and authority over your subject even into the future, no matter what.
In the first article I said you had to know something about something. In this article I am telling you have to know everything, and one other thing. I am telling you that you must have power and authority even over those strange and unreasoning things called people.
Having power and authority over not just things, or an art and all its moves is not enough to make somebody a master. You must be able to have power and authority over people. You must not just know the moves of an art, you must be able to apply them at any time and any place over any person.
Now, having defined a master, consider those who call themselves a master. Can they just hurt and destroy people, and especially those who subject themselves to their teachings? Or have they studied a wide range of arts, and can apply those arts, the technique of their choice, to anybody at any time?
Al Case has analyzed martial arts 4O years. He began writing articles in’89, and had his own column in Inside Karate. He is the originator of Matrixing Technology, which you can find out about in a free ebook offered at Monster Martial Arts.