Le blog de ARIEL Ondoua

TECHNIQUES IS TECHNIQUES and  FIGHT IS FIGHT

I've trained and made many fights in my martial arts career. I'm good, but honestly speaking,i don't think I would win against a real martial art fighter.

 Why? Simply because martial art is based on the theory of specialization. It is logical, you will never have a more powerful elbow punch that someone who trains his elbow everyday or be more focus than someone who dedicate all his life by training his mind or chi-kung. This is even the concept of asian philosophy and culture, the more you work in something, the more you will be close to master it. In martial arts, you have:

-fighters

-technicians

-philosophers (means pedagogue, or mystic)

Of course, in the beginning, every martial arts master was good in the whole: they were good fighters, pedagogue and technicians. Just look the history of Chen Sanfeng, Morihei Ueshiba, Miyamoto Musashi, Takeda…At that time, it was almost necessary to master the whole to improve his martial art. These masters were genius…

Of course, every martial art teachers must know all of it; but he should also have a speciality.

But so many people confuse about  movies and reality, that’s a pity.

Fight is fight, and technique is technique. If you are in front of someone whom speciality is fight, you have almost no chance to win or to escape because he used to fight and he is trained to reach his limits. A technician can know how to escape from a technique or in which context to apply a technique, but nowadays, technicians means a lot of theory and many technicians never had the opportunity to verify the real application of their techniques, that’s the drama.

Why techniques?

In martial arts, techniques have been created in order to solve problem in fight: how to escape of a strangulation? How to avoid a powerful kick, how to manage many opponents? Master thought about this kind of problems and created techniques.  So, a technique is a kind of answer to “a specific problem”. That’s why every techniques work in a specific context(place, speed, number of opponents, kind of weapons, the physical appearance of the opponent…) . You will never see a technique which works in any context. That’s may be the good point of UFC because it comes to remind people the reality : fight is fight and techique is technique.

You also have philosophers or pedagogues who are really important in martial arts. I don’t mean people who spend all they life on youtube, google or Wikipedia and after pretend they can talk about qigong, death hand or any martial arts secrets or concepts, NO!!!!!

I mean, people who really know martial arts, they have good experience, they can fight and  know techniques and they have a kind of gift because they are able to understand and to explain the principle beyond techniques, because martial arts are yin-yang(visible and invisible; theory and practice.)

 When you are in front of that kind of people, you really know that you are in front of a Master, someone who knows what he is talking about.
So, except some genius, you will never see someone who has the same level of mastering in the three, everyone has a speciality. For exemple, my master was a really good technician and good pedagogue (spiritual and at least a mystic) but he was specialized in fight and in that way, he was almost a killer in the real meaning of that word.

I can fight and I have good experience in fighting, but I’m more a technician and even a pedagogue:I know how to teach people and I understand the principles beyond the techniques. But I will never make the mistake to think that I would win against a real martial art fighter. We don’t stress on the same point of martial arts. And many teachers are to proud to admit it. Of course, I can kill people, I can defend myself and others in case of danger, but in front of a real fighter, I will have some difficulty to win. But my personal training contains the three parts:-fight

-philosophy

And techniques

You will never see a fighter make easily a really good exhibition: because they want to be too realistic. But real fights are rarely nicelooking.

In choregraphy, movements are perfect, beautiful, unbelievable, and make people say:”waaaaaaaaaaouuh!!!!”; but the problem is that most of the movements are unrealistic and useless in a realfight.

The philosophy of martial art talks about really nice and beautiful things: levitation, telekinesy, telepathy, qigong, death hand…But it is really hard to reach this level except if you sacrifice many years of hard training. But the theory want to remind you  the fact that this  kind of  level exist and it is not a myth. That’s why there is another concept which comes from the philosophy: the concept of secret.

It is so simple, to understand because it is just based on the art of the war. What does it means? It simply means that:”the less someone know about your technique, the more you have chance to defeat him!” That’s why now, Gracie can no more win in UFC  because now everyone know about Brazilian jiu-jitsu!

That’s also what is crazy about UFC because it is against the principles of war or fight for life. It is just about fighting for money, proudness and glory.  If you really want to survive, you will never show your technique to the opponent, or apply it so that no one can see it and discover as it works.

 Plus on se recueille en soi-même en se dégageant des choses extérieures, plus l’esprit s’ouvre et s’élève sans peine, parce qu’on reçoit d’en haut la lumière de l’intelligence. Il faut se souvenir qu’une âme pure, simple et ferme n’est jamais distraite au milieu même des préoccupations les plus nombreuses.

Generally, all martials arts and specially wu shu has three level:

*       The physical contact: Use your physical skill against your enemy.

*       The mental level is use your knowledge, languages, strategy. Everything you could before physical contact to stop your enemy.

*The Emotional level: honor, belief, your love, show it to your enemy. It is the art of turning enemy into friend. 

Why I put emotional at the end ? Just because in China, the heart is consider as the main vital organ. All comes from the emotional plan, from the heart (Hsin or Xin). One must always have Xin before getting Yi(mental, intention). 

La Vie en elle-même est une toile vide. Elle devient ce que vous peignez dessus. Vous pouvez peindre la misère ou vous pouvez peindre la joie. Cette liberté est votre splendeur. (Osho)

INSPIRE YOUTH

Since a certain time Ariel start to become famous. Now, he   inspires African and Cameroonian youth.

 “I admit that it is what I want, because nowadays,a lot of teenagers don’t have any landmark. In the past many people have tried to introduce news concepts in Africa trough martial art, politic or sport. But they lost faith on the road.

I have my own light and I try to share different concept about life.

Now, many people admire me and send me message around the world everyday. But I don’t want anyone to have illusion about my life. It is not always easy, it is not just question of  chance; of course I am lucky(I admit it, God has blessed me in a special way I can’t deny it), grace and chance are just part of it. People never saw the  other side  of shinning people. Like me, i need sometimes to fight with injuries in my body; or walk in a long distance because sometimes I finish teaching or practicing very late; or sometimes I’m just short of money and I need to pay my studies.  So, I have a hard time. Everybody has a hard time at least one moment in their life, some other it is everyday. People need to know it. That’s why I write these articles. To show that even if life is hard and difficult, we can still overcome and become the best. I don’t say that I’m the best, but I just want to try to be better today than I was the day before. ‘I can’t choose when I’m born; but I can choose the way my story will end”.  

For that, I think that my  biggest friend and enemy is myself.  If I try to fight against myself and that I succeed and I find the harmony, then my life will become much more better.

I’m still young, I want to do my best to show to myself that  I can be someone better. May be I will not succeed, but I  need to try.  We  just need to continue to prove we can do a better job.