Sirus
10-19-2005, 07:31 AM
Playing devils advocate & trying to make people think:
Powerful ham-fisted images, metaphors hammering home an ethos of self-worth through violence adorn the pages of the slurry of Martial Arts Magazines which jut out of the News-Stands around the country.
Grotesque and contorted images of martial arts mayhem embodied in both black & White and colour print leap outwards as one flicks lazily through the pages.
Do these images present the case against martial arts? Or are they simply representing where the arts (as they were once known) are headed?
Do these images and the articles they are wrapped within accurately represent the martial arts to Joe Public? Are these the messages we want to put forwards for the arts?
I fear hearing the answers to these questions. I fear that the true jewels of the arts remain (to most) sunken like treasure at the bottom of a vast sea made murky with these images.
Treasures like the art’s relationship to health. Not adrenaline-pumped health but the type that brings about longevity. Treasures like the immensely personal and philosophical messages beating at the heart of the arts.
Sadly I fear that the vital arteries of the arts are becoming clogged with a mire of destructive and violent messages eventually leading to failure of the heart … the heart of the martial arts.
Melodramatic? Perhaps. But sadly something to consider given the melee of images marketed within the pages of the martial arts press.
“Marketed” is a great term for surely these images are just that. Designed to enthral and entice Joe Public to believe that this is the way to go, the art for him or her or even more concerning, for their children!
Yes self-defence isn’t pretty but that’s not all there is to the martial arts. What say's you?
Powerful ham-fisted images, metaphors hammering home an ethos of self-worth through violence adorn the pages of the slurry of Martial Arts Magazines which jut out of the News-Stands around the country.
Grotesque and contorted images of martial arts mayhem embodied in both black & White and colour print leap outwards as one flicks lazily through the pages.
Do these images present the case against martial arts? Or are they simply representing where the arts (as they were once known) are headed?
Do these images and the articles they are wrapped within accurately represent the martial arts to Joe Public? Are these the messages we want to put forwards for the arts?
I fear hearing the answers to these questions. I fear that the true jewels of the arts remain (to most) sunken like treasure at the bottom of a vast sea made murky with these images.
Treasures like the art’s relationship to health. Not adrenaline-pumped health but the type that brings about longevity. Treasures like the immensely personal and philosophical messages beating at the heart of the arts.
Sadly I fear that the vital arteries of the arts are becoming clogged with a mire of destructive and violent messages eventually leading to failure of the heart … the heart of the martial arts.
Melodramatic? Perhaps. But sadly something to consider given the melee of images marketed within the pages of the martial arts press.
“Marketed” is a great term for surely these images are just that. Designed to enthral and entice Joe Public to believe that this is the way to go, the art for him or her or even more concerning, for their children!
Yes self-defence isn’t pretty but that’s not all there is to the martial arts. What say's you?