Recreational Holidays

The Effect of Science Fiction on Martial Arts

Many of the martial arts, like karate are fiction. Slam somebody on the nose with a palm and bone shards will spear into his brain and kill him, except there isn’t any bone in the nose, its all cartilage. And all those old legends, a lot of them are good for washing the hog, if you have a willing hog.

But, there is a certain science that has proven applicable in the realm of the martial arts. This is the science of how to apply concepts of geometrical energy potentials. I discovered this field while consumed by a book series called the Lensmen Series.

I suppose the first time it hit me was when E. E. Smith, the author, described spacemen fighting on the hull of a space ship. They were hooking their feet under hand grips so they would not fly into space when they hit somebody. They were anchoring themselves so they could apply force, and not have the force dislodge them.

Soon I was wrapped in a universe where weapons created geometries of force. If a death ray was a rod like beam, it could be deflected by a shield. And if a shield could deflect, then a shield sheared sideways could slice into the first shield.

Soon I was imagining entire fleets of space ships creating their own particular brand of strategy. Armies of space ships would form globes around other armies, and cones of spaceships would swallow globes of entire armies. Each time a geometry was described, my mind struggled to imagine the wave of new concepts.

Then, shock of shocks, fleets of spaceships gave way to the powers of the mind. Those same rods and shields and globes and cones, made real in the ultimate space combat, became the stuff of mind to mind encounters. How do you slide your awareness through the grid of another minds awareness?

And, ultimately, having exhausted the books, I began extending those outer space alien mind combat strategies to the field of the martial arts. I sank my weight into deep horse stances, planted my stance so I would not fly away from my own force. I described cones with the movements of my arms, and engulfed the globes of fists as they flew out of space at me.

When I tell people about what has inspired me in the martial arts they generally think I am a bit crazy, or they realize I am a genius. Reading sci fi so as to use weird concepts in the martial arts, who would have ever imagined? Yet, both fields are art, and should not art be brandishing creativity and expression and beams of force and mind to mind conflicts?

Al Case has analyzed martial arts for 4O+ years. A writer for the magazines, he is the creator of Matrixing Technology. You can find out about Matrixing by getting his free ebook at Monster Martial Arts.