The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Room



The truth of the matter is that for all the mystic associated with Martial Arts, when it comes down to it, there is very little that is glamorous about the arts.

It all depends on what one means by artistic, of course.





While the use of the word art in this context owes more to definition number two (Martial Art, as a technique), than it does to definition number one (Martial Art, as relating to the philosophy of aesthetics, the theory or set of principles governing the idea of beauty at a given time and place), we wish it were not so.

We wish, in fact, that it could be as easy as that:



Or as aesthetically pleasing as this:



Or this glamorous:



But it is neither.

THIS is what the true face of Martial Art looks like (and the true face of Ronda Rousey, when she is in the ring, that is):







This is no flower bending in the breeze, this is a bulldozer.

There is a reason why martial arts like Kung Fu or Aikido do not cut it at the UFC (Yip Man and Morihei Ueshiba are rolling in their graves).

It has been argued, of course, that the techniques taught by the various Kung Fu schools are too hardline a style, which, in practice, ultimately renders them useless in a ring because many of those schools most effective moves would be banned by the UFC due to the fact that such moves are specifically designed to cripple or out-right kill.

Some of those techniques can be categorized as follow:



I don't know...



I mean, such arguments are difficult to disprove, of course. Such a demonstration, one way or the other, would require nothing less than a UFC champion to face a Kung Fu or Aikido challenger in a no-holds-barred contest.

Somehow, I can't help but feel Ronda Rousey would be more than a match for any potential would be challenger.



Including even, perhaps if it came to the event, has it been argued, of a mixed martial arts (MMA) contest with professional boxer Floyd Mayweather.


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