Martial Arts
Every martial art made is based on how the human body moves using human structure. Even if the style is tiger, crane, praying mantis, or monkey, it is still just a human "style" mimicking animals. The tiger stylist only mimics the tiger but can't bring down a water buffalo anymore than the crane stylist can dunk his head into a lake and pull out a fish in his mouth.
So it is of utmost importance to learn human anatomy and physiology. Learn the strengths and weakness, the vital areas, locations of arteries, joints, tendons. Learn to control the forces of yin and yang and the movements of the five elements. With this knowledge a martial artist can defeat yang energy with yin energy and use the controlling cycle of the five elements to control its generating cycle. This seems only complicated at first then with a little teaching it is as simple as “rock, paper, scissors.”
“Three Circles”™ tries to put back into the martial arts what has been distilled out though specialization.
There are three main causes of this specialization; personal, geographical, and political.
When a student learns a style, they take what works for their body type (five elements) and leave what doesn't. A short over weight person will never get proficient in moving like a tall slender person and visa versa. Each person will then go on to teach their students moves they know and do best while leaving out the ones they are incompetent. Sometimes a person is only able to learn part of a style and makes a new style out of that.
When a style moves from one location to another, it has to adapt to fit the new location.
A style utilizing a long spear will not be as functional in a highly wooded area. A style made for a padded ring utilizing techniques to wear down a single opponent will not be the best choice when being attacked in an urban setting by multiple opponents.
Martial arts have also been made illegal by governments looking to suppress any training that might lead to a future uprising. These martial arts were than taught in secret, moved to a different country or were made to look like dance. The ones taught in secret were only taught to direct family members and people they could trust. The ones that went to another country fall into the geographic category. The ones made to look like dance were taught openly as exercise or looked like useless martial arts that no one took it seriously. It took a dedication of years to earn the trust of the instructor to be shown real applications.