English Warrior Arts

 

There have been attempts to create a English Martial Arts, but the aim of the Ar-Kan Rune-Lag is to create an Esoteric Warrior Arts that will complement the Exoteric Warrior Arts. After training for some years in Karate and Muai Tai Kick-Boxing, and then a little Wing Chun and Kung Fu, one of the main drawbacks that I found was that the training did not just involve learning the Martial Arts, but also learning the names of each move in a different language. Our Karate Instructor used English translations which made things easier, but there was still some areas in which Japanese was used. Now, I have no objections to this at all, but it would seem simpler to learn moves given in clear English which one can understand straight away. The Israeli martial arts called Krav Maga is taken from various different martial arts and made into a Combat Art rather than the usual Martial Arts which have become a sport. The same goes for the Russian Martial Arts of Systema, again using plain English to teach and learn, and again being a Combat Art and for use in street-fighting. 

If we look at the Eastern Martial Arts and their origin we find that they are not quite as 'foreign' as first seems. Most scholars trace the origins of the Martial Arts back to China and to the Shaolin Temple. From there developed Kung Fu, and then this spread to Korea (Tai Kwon Do) and Okinawa/Japan (Karate). But when delving into this the true origins lie with the Aryans in India, whence a Buddhist Monk - Boddhi-Dharma (Boddhidharma) travelled to the Shaolin Temple in China, and there taught the monks Chan (Zen) Buddhism, from which was developed Kung Fu. 

Boddhi-Dharma was born Bodhitara (461-534CE), the third son of a southern Indian King who was a member of the Ksitriya (Warrior-Caste), and he travelled to China to teach Buddhism. We can see from this that Buddhism, in its origins, was not at all pacifistic in its essence or form. The Koreans have a poem that describes his non-oriental origins -

From India, a true Son of Buddha

His bodily existence as free as the white clouds

I entrust these words to the mountains and the waters

You must open your barbarian blue eyes and look.

There is ion fact one very strange legend that depicts Boddhi-Dharma as coming from China by sea rather than by land as is the usual version. In this he arrives in a Swan-Ship; this is depicted in a mural known as 'The Temple of the Pagoda of the Sixth Patriarch's Hair'. He landed in Canton, from whence he travelled to the Shaolin Temple. Indeed, the foundation of the Shaolin Temple was credited to a non-Chinese monk named Buddhahabhadra (Ba-Tuo) in 496CE.

Boddhi-Dharma was a descendant of Sakya Muni, the Buddha, who was also of the Warrior-Caste of the Aryans. There is also a very interesting piece of information on the Warrior Arts of India. The birthplace of Boddhi-Dharma in Southern India is also the home of an Indian Warrior Arts called kalarippayattu. At the end of World War II a Russian KGB Officer came across an ancient Sanskrit document in Berlin in 1945. This Sanskrit document was stamped by the National Socialists and it turned out (when translated) to refer to a 5000 year-old martial arts originating with the Aryans in India. This Aryan Martial Arts was then developed in Russia and is today used to train some of the Russian Special Forces.

So this is really a case of an ancient Aryan Warrior Arts surviving in the East, and in much later times coming into Europe for our own use again if we so wish to adopt (and adapt) this to our own needs. This is not the only case of such a thing happening. It is usual to credit the Chinese with the art of acupuncture, back to around 2000 years ago, and yet Otzi the Iceman, found in the Alps between Austria and Italy, has been shown to bear tattoo-marks that correspond to known acupuncture points. Otzi is dated back to 5,500 years ago!

A good deal of the Martial Arts is based upon a knowledge of the movement of birds and animals in fighting, much like boxing may have been based upon seeing hares fighting. It is thus a natural form of movement, based upon a knowledge of Nature, and thus not restricted to one area of the world. There are martial arts moves which are more for sport than for street-fighting, and it would be necessary to leave these out of training. High kicks and spinning kicks are fine on a Holywood movie, but low kicks to the knee and shin are more effective in fighting. A good example of the use of high kicks is the Korean Tai Kwon Do, but since these were designed for attacking an opponent riding a horse they would not be practical in these times. Experience has shown me that attacking a Tai Kwon Do opponent with punches makes it very difficult for them to respond effectively, being used to mostly kicking. The key seem to be using practical moves rather than 'traditional moves'. 

Bruce Lee developed his own martial arts from various other forms of fighting, including foot-movements from English Fencing Techniques. His training was originally in Wing Chun, which is a Combat Art and not a sport, and which is highly technical but highly effective in many ways. In many ways it is good to train in different martial arts and then create a form suited to your own needs; this way it becomes an individual Fighting Art which no one else trains in, and is thus unique and harder to combat. 

Bruce Lee dropped the use of kata or form, since his was a street-fighting form that he wished to create. However, there are distinct advantages to the use of kata/form, and the use of group-training where the group is set in a line and practices the use of punches, kicks and defensive moves together as a group. This makes for very effective group-cooperation, and of course team-work, which is essential for any group. Businesses very often send their employees on team-work courses of some kind to help to form an efficient team. This would certainly benefit most people in our day, since individualism and the lack of team-work is rife in our society. This is no doubt why businesses have done this in the past, to offset this problem. 

The 33 moves of the Ar-Kan Basic Form are done singly, but there is a Fylfot-Form which uses the same 33 runes but in a form of movement incorporating each of the 33 runes. The latter has been developed from the former, and there will be more of these to come in the future. Some of the younger chaps in the Hearth of Hengest did a bit of BJJ at the last camp, and this can form part of our work at camps, since young chaps have more interest in this stuff and this is a useful form of training in times like these.