I occasionally
get asked about “secret” techniques or applications. While there are historical
records of secret techniques or applications in history they are not
unbeatable. An example of an old secret technique is il passato sotto, a dodge and low counter thrust on-the-pass (with
a forward-outward step), which many Italian Renaissance fencing instructors
often taught to wealthy students at great cost as a secret technique.
Historically there has been a long
running tradition of visualizing martial artists as possessing supernatural
levels of skill and power in the popular imagination. There have been multiple
reasons for this phenomenon throughout time.
Often martial artists have sought to reinforce this stereotype themselves
for that simplest and most primal of reasons; intimidation. Tacticians have
always made a point of emphasizing that if your opponent is afraid of you at
least half your battle has already been won. The key to successfully
implementing such a boast is the same as for any other bluff; that the opponent
can’t know what you’re hiding.
There is no such thing as a perfect
technique or an unbeatable attack. We live in a world that imposes many
physical laws on our movements and these affect our techniques whether or not
we like it. As a result any and every attack or technique has a weakness or
vulnerability that can be exploited. However it’s much more difficult to
recognize and exploit those weaknesses if we don’t know what attack is coming
our way or if it’s very different from what we have previously encountered. If
we’re already scared of an unknown technique our minds slow down and it becomes
nearly impossible to overcome an unknown “ultimate” or “secret” technique. Countless
fighters have exploited this very phenomenon to great effect. So the word has
spread, over time, of lethal and unstoppable “secret” techniques and as so
often happens, memories become gossip and gossip become legends.
Sadly this has lead many adept
martial arts students to wrongly believe that such a thing as an “unbeatable
secret technique” exists. This is not true of course, there are countless
powerful techniques which are difficult to counter, especially if they are not
known to the opponent, but they all have some
weakness. Continuing with the example of the passato sotto mentioned earlier fencing historians all agree that
as the technique became more widely known it stopped being a secret (obviously)
and counter movements began to appear.
On the other hand, many young
students have, in their ignorance, bought into the legends. This can lead to
two different problems; they either underestimate themselves because they feel
that they have not received any “secret” technique and are therefore less able
than those who claim to have learned such techniques, or they actually believe
that they have learned some unbeatable technique from their teachers (sadly
there are many unscrupulous “teachers” out there) and now think that they are
invincible. Both are very wrong and can be very dangerous mindsets for the
student to have on the day that he/she needs to apply them in real self
defense.
The fact is that the only “secrets”
some teachers do hide is attention to detail. The student is taught a form and
that’s it; no explanations about the correct posture, body alignment, weight
distribution, breathing, timing, applications, focus, intention,
vulnerabilities, possible combinations
with other movements, possible counters, etc. This usually happens because
the teacher has either lost conscious awareness of these minute details after
years of personal practice, or simply is unfamiliar with them himself (in the
case of the latter this lack of mindfulness in movement is visible to an
experienced fighter; as with any expert athlete when they execute their
technique it should look flawless and effortless).
Another possibility is that the
teacher would choose to hide this knowledge from all but a few students. This
was a popular practice in the age before firearms, when knowledge of martial
techniques could mean the difference between life and death by giving the
practitioner the power to hurt or kill opponents. Some teachers felt a moral
obligation to hide some or all of the applications from those they did not deem
of high moral fiber. Others chose to hide the details behind the movements for
personal benefit; after all if no one else knew their techniques they could
hardly defend against them. However the value of martial arts purely as a form
of self defense has decreased as firearms have become preferred tool of
defense. Therefore moral and self defense issues have ceased to be a reason to
hide the details behind techniques.
Therefore know that the so called
secret techniques or secret applications to known techniques are merely a
matter of learning proper body mechanics through diligent and mindful solo
practice and employing them in partnered practice to identify what techniques
and applications work, and when and how best to employ them. The only real
secret is finding a qualified teacher who can help you learn the techniques and
all the little details within them then practice until it flows naturally and
smoothly. That’s what kung fu is, high skill acquired by diligent practice.
That is all the “secret” really is.
