Martial ARTist

Ken Smith helping me demonstrate at a Dillman seminar).

My friend, Ken Smith, is a direct student of Professor Remy Presas, and is one of the designated inheritors of Modern Arnis. Ken loves to quote his beloved teacher, and when he does, he will do a spot-on impression of Remy's accent, phrasing and somewhat imperfect English. It is a funny, loving tribute. When he teaches Arnis, however, Ken sounds like Ken.

In contrast, I knew an American karate teacher, who, whenever he was teaching, sounded like his Japanese sensei, same broken English, same everything. I am only remembering this because my acupuncturist was telling me about fellow students (from his days studying kung fu) who started speaking like their Chinese sifu.

This tendency points to a fundamental problem, most martial artists are not artists at all, they are mimics. Their goal is to imitate and they hope to become clones of their teachers. Oddly, at the same time, they believe that their teachers are somehow imbued with other-worldly skills that no one else could ever attain.

But, as Professor Wally Jay like to say (I'm sure he said it often, but this is the exact way he said it to me), “No matter how hard you train a St. Bernard, it will never run like a greyhound. Everybody has a different way.” No one can become Bruce Lee, or Remy Presas, or Wally Jay. All anyone can do is be their own martial artist. So, Ken Smith is not Remy Presas. And even though he is inheritor of Modern Arnis, he still moves, thinks and teaches like Ken. And that is what makes him a martial artist.

Thanks for reading,

now go train.

CT