|
Reflections on the Impact and Importance of International and Global Education
|
|
Musings on Japanese and Ryukyu Budo
|
 Martial Arts Rivalry, Comradeship and the Fear of Being Exposed
Article reviewed: Morgan, Kai (2020), “Martial Arts, Religion and Ressentiment”, script presented at the 6th Martial Arts Studies Conference: Martial Arts, Religion and Spirituality, July 2020. Martial artists speak frequently of respect, humility and fraternity. We bow before entering the dojo, acknowledge our teachers, thank our training partners and repeat the familiar assurance that different traditions are simply different paths towards the same destination. Yet martial-arts culture is also remarkably fertile ground for suspicion, contempt and tribalism. Traditional practitioners dismiss combat sports as crude or spiritually empty. Combat-sport practitioners ridicule traditional arts as theatrical, compliant or delusional. Successful schools are labelled “McDojos”; small schools may treat their lack of students as proof of integrity; practitioners who spar dismiss those who do not, while those who avoid competitive testing sometimes redefine fighting ability as spiritually inferior. Online, technical disagreement rapidly becomes mockery, lineage policing and personal attack. Kai Morgan’s conference paper, Martial Arts, Religion and Ressentiment, offers a useful framework for understanding this behaviour. Drawing upon Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Scheler and Stefano Tomelleri, Morgan asks whether martial-arts rivalry may arise not merely from honest technical disagreement, but from frustrated desire, insecurity and powerlessness. The paper is valuable because it asks us to look beneath martial artists’ stated principles. A declaration of moral, technical or spiritual superiority may not always emerge from confidence. It may instead defend against the disturbing possibility that another practitioner, school or tradition possesses something we desire but cannot attain. Morgan calls this ressentiment. However, the dojo is not merely a place in which ressentiment develops. It is also often a place of comradeship, belonging and mutual support. For many practitioners, martial training provides a community that wider society has failed to offer. The real question is therefore not whether the dojo produces solidarity or resentment, but how one can become the other when leadership fails to understand the social world forming around the practice. Ressentiment and the Inversion of Values Morgan begins with a familiar contradiction. Martial arts and religions may claim to pursue common ethical or spiritual ends, yet both can produce intense hostility towards neighbouring groups that appear, from the outside, remarkably similar. The stronger a tradition’s claim to exclusive truth—whether based upon lineage, effectiveness, authenticity, morality or spirituality—the easier it becomes to portray competing systems as fraudulent or misguided. The issue is not simply why martial artists disagree. Disagreement is inevitable and often productive. The deeper question is why disagreement so regularly becomes contempt. Morgan turns first to Nietzsche’s account of ressentiment in On the Genealogy of Morality. For Nietzsche, ressentiment develops when people feel unable to act directly against those they envy or resent. Unable to defeat the stronger party on its own terms, the resentful person creates a new system of values in which apparent weakness becomes virtue and the rival’s strengths become moral defects. Power becomes cruelty. Wealth becomes corruption. Confidence becomes arrogance. Physical strength becomes brutishness. Failure, exclusion or weakness may then be reinterpreted as proof of purity. This is Nietzsche’s transvaluation of values: the reversal of an existing value system so that the person unable to succeed within it can nevertheless imagine themselves morally superior. Morgan applies this neatly to martial arts. A financially unsuccessful instructor may condemn a thriving school as a McDojo, not because its teaching is demonstrably poor, but because commercial success threatens an identity built around sacrifice and authenticity. Lack of success is then transformed into evidence of moral seriousness. The same process appears online. A practitioner unable or unwilling to test technical claims physically may seek status through pedantry, terminology, lineage disputes or personal attack. Correcting another person’s Japanese, criticising their body or questioning their credentials becomes a substitute for meaningful embodied exchange. Morgan also considers instructors who redefine martial ability in order to protect themselves from testing. Someone uncomfortable with sparring might declare it crude, ego-driven, or spiritually immature. That judgement may occasionally be sincere. Not every martial art must prioritise fighting or competition. Ressentiment arises, however, when a person privately desires the authority associated with combative competence but, unable to demonstrate it, condemns that competence as morally inferior. The problem is not the pursuit of spirituality, health, aesthetics or personal cultivation. It is the resentful conversion of another person’s capacity into a vice because that capacity exposes a weakness in oneself. Scheler and the Unequal Dojo Max Scheler accepted the importance of ressentiment but rejected Nietzsche’s claim that Christianity was its principal source. For Scheler, ressentiment emerged from the contradictions of modern society. Modern societies proclaim equality while preserving substantial inequalities of power, wealth, education and status. People are told that advancement is open to everyone, yet repeatedly encounter barriers that prevent equal participation. The distance between promised equality and lived inequality produces frustration and humiliation. This has obvious relevance to martial-arts institutions. The dojo often presents itself as a meritocracy. Advancement is supposedly earned through discipline, effort and ability. Rank appears to offer an objective measurement of progress. Everyone begins as a novice and moves through a transparent hierarchy. Yet martial organisations are rarely pure meritocracies. Promotion may also depend upon loyalty, money, proximity to senior teachers, organisational politics, nationality, gender, age, physical capacity or willingness to reproduce the dominant culture of the group. The practitioner is told that the hierarchy reflects ability, only to discover that certain forms of ability are ignored and certain individuals remain institutionally untouchable. This can create a particularly martial form of ressentiment because the hierarchy has been represented as both technically and morally deserved. The black belt therefore becomes more than a marker of training. It is converted into symbolic proof of character, legitimacy and authority. Those excluded from recognition may create rival organisations, invent alternative histories or condemn the ranking system entirely. Those who benefit from the hierarchy may dismiss critics as jealous, disloyal or insufficiently disciplined. Both responses may contain truth. Both may also conceal struggles over status. The Dojo as Comradeship Yet the dojo cannot be understood only as a hierarchy or a site of domination. For many people, it is a community of comradeship. Practitioners do not always arrive simply because they wish to punch, throw or defend themselves. Some come seeking structure, recognition, continuity, friendship, or a place where their life experiences make sense. Others arrive after isolation, displacement, failure, bereavement or personal crisis. Many find in martial practice something wider society has not provided: a place where they are noticed, given responsibilities, challenged and permitted to grow. This is one of the great possibilities of martial arts. The regularity of training, the mutual dependence of partners, and the slow accumulation of shared experience can create bonds unlike those of ordinary friendship. Practitioners struggle, fail and improve together. They learn one another’s limitations and, at their best, protect one another without removing the challenge necessary for growth. The dojo can therefore become a genuine support network: a place of foundation rather than retreat. Hierarchy itself is not necessarily destructive. It may provide stability. Ritual may provide continuity. Rank may recognise effort. Belonging may give people the confidence required to participate more fully in the wider world. The danger arises when the instructor understands technique but not community. A teacher may possess considerable martial knowledge while lacking any real awareness of group formation, vulnerability, dependency or exclusion. Such an instructor may imagine that teaching technique is sufficient, while ignoring the fact that a social world is developing around the practice. In the absence of thoughtful leadership, comradeship can become tribalism. Loyalty may harden into conformity. Shared identity may become hostility towards outsiders. Affection for a teacher may become dependency. The language of family may discourage criticism, while the language of tradition may protect unequal or harmful relationships. The dojo then becomes a place where resentment is not transformed but stored. Individual disappointments are repeated, confirmed and given a collective language. Members reassure one another that outsiders do not understand them, that rival schools are corrupt, that former students are disloyal or that criticism merely proves the group’s special status. What began as mutual support becomes a closed circuit of grievance. This is where the instructor’s responsibility extends beyond technical competence. The teacher is not merely transmitting movement. The teacher is shaping a social environment. From my own experience as a classroom teacher, martial arts student, and citizen, communities do not flourish simply because well-intentioned people gather together. Beneath the formal activity is always another curriculum concerning who is heard, who is trusted, who is corrected, who is protected and who is permitted to change. The same is true in the classroom and the dojo. An instructor who fails to recognise this hidden curriculum may unintentionally allow the dojo to become a place of festering rather than flourishing. A healthy community is not one without jealousy, frustration, disappointment or conflict. These are unavoidable features of human association. The crucial question is whether the community helps its members work through them or converts them into permanent identities and shared enemies. A flourishing dojo does not deny ressentiment. It gives practitioners ways to recognise, articulate and transform it. Foucault and the Production of Martial Truth Morgan largely approaches ressentiment through the lens of moral psychology and social relations. A Foucauldian reading pushes the question further by examining how martial institutions produce the categories through which practitioners understand themselves. For Foucault, power does not simply prohibit. It produces knowledge, identities, norms and truths. Institutions teach people how to classify bodies, recognise expertise and distinguish normal practice from deviance. The dojo is one such institution. Through repetition, grading, etiquette, terminology and authorised history, practitioners learn what counts as correct posture, legitimate violence, proper behaviour and authentic tradition. They also learn who may speak, who may correct whom and whose interpretation carries authority. A practitioner does not enter the dojo with a fully formed understanding of effectiveness. The organisation helps produce that understanding. One school may define effectiveness through competitive sparring. Another may define it through fidelity to kata. Others may prioritise self-defence, internal development, historical preservation, health or character education. Each system produces evidence suited to its own claims. The training method defines the test, the test validates the training method, and those who succeed within it acquire authority to defend the system. Ressentiment appears when competing systems expose the contingency of these truths. The traditional practitioner may resent the combat athlete because competitive success establishes an alternative regime of truth. The combat athlete may resent the traditionalist because lineage, cultural legitimacy and historical depth cannot be acquired simply by winning contests. Each possesses a form of authority the other cannot fully control. The conflict is therefore not reducible to jealousy between individuals. It is a struggle between systems that produce different kinds of martial subjects. Bourdieu and Martial Capital Pierre Bourdieu offers another extension. Martial arts may be understood as a social field in which participants compete for different forms of capital. These include physical ability, technical knowledge, historical and cultural knowledge, relationships with influential teachers, rank, lineage, commercial success and public recognition. No practitioner possesses all these forms equally. A successful fighter may lack historical knowledge. A scholar may lack competitive experience. A gifted teacher may struggle commercially. A senior-ranked instructor may depend heavily upon organisational recognition. A large school may possess resources but little prestige among traditionalists. Ressentiment becomes likely when one form of capital is threatened by another. The traditional teacher may dismiss sporting achievement as undermining lineage-based authority. The fighter may ridicule ritual and scholarship because these produce prestige unavailable through competition alone. The small instructor may condemn commercialisation because economic success exposes limitations in institutional reach. Each group attempts to establish its preferred capital as the legitimate measure of martial worth. This is why debates over the “best” martial art are rarely resolved through evidence. Participants do not simply disagree about techniques. They disagree about the currency in which value should be measured. A karate practitioner, an MMA competitor, a historian and a self-defence instructor may all use the word “effective” while referring to entirely different purposes. Ressentiment enters when one group’s preferred standard is disguised as neutral or universal judgement. Hegemony and the Story of the “Real” Martial Art Gramsci’s concept of hegemony helps explain how certain martial values come to appear natural. At different historical moments, legitimacy has been associated with military lineage, national discipline, spiritual cultivation, sporting success, street effectiveness, scientific training or commercial professionalism. These standards are not neutral. They favour particular institutions and marginalise others. The rise of MMA, for example, helped establish pressure-testing and cross-training as powerful measures of credibility. This corrected many unrealistic claims within traditional martial arts. It also produced its own assumptions: that rule-bound competitive success provides the final standard against which all martial practice should be judged. Traditional systems sometimes respond by retreating into claims that cannot be tested. Their techniques are too dangerous for competition; their knowledge is reserved for advanced students; their true purpose is spiritual rather than combative. Some of these claims may be reasonable. A practice should be judged according to its actual purpose. Yet they may also function ideologically, protecting authority from scrutiny. Ressentiment can therefore become organisational doctrine. A group’s insecurity is converted into a narrative of persecution: outsiders do not understand us; modern fighters are merely athletes; scholars lack embodied knowledge; commercial schools have sold out; traditionalists are trapped in fantasy. Such stories bind the group together while ensuring that contrary evidence is not seen as an opportunity for learning but as an attack upon the community. Elias and Civilised Hostility Norbert Elias offers a further complication. Martial arts often present themselves as methods for disciplining violence. Through etiquette, rules, hierarchy and emotional restraint, dangerous encounters are transformed into controlled social practices. Yet the suppression of direct violence does not eliminate rivalry. It relocates it. Where practitioners cannot simply fight one another to establish superiority, conflict reappears through reputation, gossip, exclusion, credential disputes, technical criticism and online performance. The more civilised the external behaviour, the more displaced the hostility may become. A practitioner bows, smiles and speaks of mutual respect while quietly denying another teacher legitimacy. Organisations avoid open confrontation while manoeuvring over recognition, membership and historical authority. Social media turns restrained bodily aggression into largely unrestricted symbolic aggression. This does not make etiquette false or useless. Ritual restraint is preferable to actual violence. But civility should not be mistaken for the absence of conflict. Sometimes the bow conceals the struggle. The Limits of Ressentiment Morgan is careful to distinguish ressentiment from legitimate criticism. This distinction is essential. Not every accusation of fraud is motivated by jealousy. Some schools are exploitative. Some instructors exaggerate their ability, manipulate students or sell rank. Some training methods create dangerous illusions. Technical and ethical criticism are necessary. To diagnose every critic as resentful would itself become a way of avoiding accountability. Nor should commercial success, sporting achievement or institutional prestige automatically be treated as proof of quality. A thriving organisation may indeed be a McDojo. A celebrated fighter may be a poor teacher. An ancient lineage may reproduce ineffective or abusive practice. The concept becomes useful only when it encourages self-examination rather than silencing disagreement. The necessary question is not only: Is this criticism accurate? It is also: What desire, insecurity or threatened identity may be shaping its intensity and form? A claim may contain factual truth while still being driven by ressentiment. Equally, someone accused of jealousy may be identifying a genuine injustice. Motivation does not determine validity, but it helps explain why particular disputes become so emotionally charged. We must also avoid reducing structural problems to private emotions. Practitioners compete for students, recognition, facilities, legitimacy and livelihoods. Marginalised members may reasonably resent organisations that proclaim equality while denying them advancement. Scheler’s insight remains important: resentment grows where formal promises and lived realities diverge. Tomelleri and the Possibility of Fraternity Nietzsche and Scheler largely treat ressentiment as poisonous. Stefano Tomelleri offers Morgan a more constructive possibility. For Tomelleri, ressentiment is not a disease confined to the weak or the morally defective. It is a recurring feature of human relationships. We compare ourselves with others, experience failure and dependency, and discover that our sense of self is never entirely independent. This pain can lead towards hostility and withdrawal. But it may also become transformative. Ressentiment can force us to recognise the fiction of complete self-sufficiency. The rival exposes our limitations but also reveals our dependence on others for recognition, development, and meaning. Tomelleri calls the positive alternative fraternity. Fraternity is not mere kindness or passive tolerance. Benevolence can remain one-sided: I decide to be generous while preserving my position of superiority. Fraternity must be constructed mutually, including with the rival whose actions cannot be controlled. Martial practice is a powerful site for exploring this idea. A training partner is both a helper and an obstacle. The partner resists, frustrates and exposes us. Without that resistance, however, genuine learning is impossible. The Japanese term aite—相手—captures something of this relationship. The other is partner, opponent and counterpart. Technique acquires meaning only through encounter with another body. The rival is therefore not an interruption to self-development. The rival helps make development possible. This does not require eliminating competition. Fraternity without challenge can become sentimental and empty. The point is to transform rivalry from a struggle to annihilate the other into a relationship in which both parties grow. The person who exposes my weakness may also enable me to transcend it. Beyond the Same Mountain Morgan concludes by questioning the familiar claim that different martial arts are simply different paths up the same mountain. The metaphor sounds generous, but assumes that every tradition shares the same destination. In practice, martial arts often ask different questions and pursue different ends. Some preserve cultural heritage. Some prepare athletes for competition. Some teach civilian self-protection. Others cultivate health, discipline, spirituality, performance or community. Treating them as imperfect attempts to reach one universal summit may simply reproduce the observer’s preferred definition of martial arts. Drawing upon Steven Smith, Morgan proposes the alternative image of “bowl climbing.” Rather than beginning on separate paths that converge towards a single summit, traditions may begin within a shared historical or cultural space and diverge in different directions. They retain points of contact, but their purposes diverge. This provides a more honest basis for dialogue. A jūdō competitor and an aikidō practitioner need not decide which art is universally superior. They can instead ask what kinds of body, behaviour and relationship each practice seeks to produce. The aim is not to declare every art equally valid. Some claims remain false, harmful or incoherent. The goal is to establish the terms upon which meaningful comparison becomes possible. Before asking which system is better, we must ask: better for what, for whom, under what conditions, and according to whose values? Closing Thoughts Kai Morgan’s Martial Arts, Religion and Ressentiment gives us a compelling language for discussing something martial artists often prefer not to acknowledge. Behind declarations of authenticity, spirituality, realism, or superiority may lie an uncomfortable fear: that another practitioner, school, or tradition possesses a form of power, recognition, or legitimacy that exposes the limits of our own. Nietzsche identifies the inversion through which weakness may be reimagined as moral superiority. Scheler locates resentment within societies and institutions that promise equality while preserving hierarchy. Tomelleri shows how the painful encounter with a rival might be redirected towards fraternity. Foucault, Bourdieu, Gramsci and Elias allow us to go further. They show that martial resentment is not merely an individual defect. It is produced through regimes of truth, struggles for symbolic capital, hegemonic definitions of legitimacy and civilised forms of displaced conflict. Yet the dojo is not only a site of ressentiment. It can also be a place where people arrive carrying wounds, disappointments and unfinished lives, and where disciplined comradeship gives them a firmer foundation from which to engage the world. That outcome is not automatic. Without reflective leadership, the same bonds that sustain people may isolate them. Loyalty may become obedience, fraternity may become tribalism, and shared struggle may become a story of superiority and persecution. Perhaps the deepest responsibility of the instructor is therefore not simply to preserve a tradition or produce competent practitioners. It is to cultivate a community in which belonging does not depend upon exclusion, and in which insecurity is not allowed to harden into collective grievance. The mature dojo is not one in which ressentiment never appears. It is one in which ressentiment is recognised, challenged, and gradually transformed through practice, responsibility, and encounters with others. Human flourishing begins when a community no longer asks its members to diminish outsiders to secure their own belonging. 日本語要約 武道は礼節、謙虚さ、相互尊重を重視すると語られる一方、流派間の対立、正統性をめぐる争い、他者への軽蔑も生み出す。Kai Morganは、ニーチェ、シェーラー、トメレリの「ルサンチマン」という概念を用い、自分が得られない強さ、成功、権威を持つ相手の価値を否定することで、自らを道徳的に優位に置こうとする心理を考察する。 しかし、道場は単なる対立や支配の場ではない。多くの人にとって、道場は友情、規律、承認、共同体を得る場所であり、社会の中で居場所を見つけられなかった人々を支える基盤にもなり得る。 問題は、指導者が技術だけを理解し、共同体の形成や人間関係を理解しない場合に生じる。仲間意識は排他性へ、忠誠心は服従へ、伝統は批判を拒む仕組みへと変化する可能性がある。その時、道場は不満を変化させる場所ではなく、不満を蓄積し、外部への敵意を育てる場所となる。 トメレリは、ルサンチマンを単なる毒ではなく、成長の契機として捉える。他者は自分の弱さを暴く存在であると同時に、成長を可能にする相手でもある。成熟した道場とは、対立や嫉妬が存在しない場所ではない。それらを認識し、修練、責任、他者との関係を通じて変化させる場所である。 真の共同体は、外部の人間を劣ったものとすることで内部の結束を保つのではなく、所属する人々がより広い社会へ開かれていくための基盤となる。  Primary Text Under Review Sánchez García, R. & Malcolm, D. (2010). De-civilizing, Civilizing or Informalizing? The International Development of Mixed Martial Arts. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 45(1), 39–58. About FART: it is a series of reflective essays that examine influential publications in the growing field of Martial Arts Studies. Rather than serving as a conventional article review, each FART uses a single publication as a point of departure for broader scholarly reflection. My purpose is neither to determine whether an author is simply "right" nor "wrong", but to explore the explanatory strengths—and occasionally the limitations—of the theoretical framework employed. The article therefore remains the primary text under review, whilst the wider discussion considers what additional insights emerge when the same empirical evidence is viewed through alternative heuristic lenses. Introduction One of the reasons I selected this paper is because it resonates with an experience I continue to encounter within my own professional life. As both an educator and a lifelong practitioner of Japanese budō, I have often found that proposals to introduce budō into educational settings are met with understandable, though frequently unexamined, reservations. At the school in which I currently teach, for example, a proposal to establish a budō programme has thus far failed to gain support because martial arts are assumed to encourage violence. Whilst I fully appreciate the safeguarding responsibilities of schools, I have often wondered whether such concerns reveal as much about our own cultural assumptions as they do about budō itself. Having spent more than three decades living, studying and teaching in Japan, I have come to appreciate that the Japanese conception of budō sits rather uneasily alongside many contemporary Western understandings of violence. Within Japanese budō, violence is neither celebrated nor ignored; rather, it is disciplined, ritualised and ultimately subordinated to the cultivation of character. Kano Jigoro's transformation of jūjutsu into jūdō, discussed in my previous FART through Dario Mazzola's The Gentle Way, remains perhaps the clearest articulation of this philosophy. It was therefore with considerable interest that I approached Sánchez García and Malcolm's examination of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). At first glance, MMA appears to represent the very antithesis of Kano's educational project. Yet the authors ask a far more sophisticated question than whether MMA is inherently violent. Instead, they ask what its emergence reveals about Norbert Elias' theory of the civilising process. My own purpose, however, is slightly different. Rather than asking whether Elias is correct, I wish to explore the explanatory reach of his framework. Does figurational sociology sufficiently account for the evidence presented, or might alternative theoretical heuristics reveal dimensions of the same material that remain comparatively underdeveloped? Summary of the Article Sánchez García and Malcolm challenge the popular assumption that Mixed Martial Arts represents a process of de-civilisation or a return to barbaric combat. Drawing principally upon Elias' figurational sociology, whilst extending it through Cas Wouters' concept of informalisation, they argue that MMA is better understood as a contemporary manifestation of long-term civilising processes than as evidence of their reversal. The authors trace MMA's historical development from early contests between practitioners of different martial traditions to the emergence of highly organised promotions such as the UFC. Although early marketing deliberately emphasised spectacle and brutality, the sport itself became progressively more regulated, technically sophisticated and strategically complex. Rules evolved, safety standards improved and competitors increasingly displayed high levels of tactical awareness and emotional self-control. Public perceptions of exceptional violence, they argue, owe considerably more to media representation than to empirical evidence concerning injury or participant behaviour. Consequently, MMA should be understood not as a rejection of civilisation but as an example of how contemporary societies negotiate excitement, risk and regulation simultaneously. Situating the Article within the Field This paper occupies an important position within Martial Arts Studies because it demonstrates the continuing explanatory power of Elias' sociology in understanding the evolution of combat sports. Rather than abandoning the civilising thesis when confronted with an apparently contradictory phenomenon, Sánchez García and Malcolm refine it through Wouters' concept of informalisation, arguing that modern societies increasingly replace external regulation with heightened forms of internal self-restraint. Read alongside Mazzola's discussion of Kano Jigoro, an interesting convergence emerges. Both papers reject simplistic understandings of violence. Mazzola demonstrates that violence may become educational when disciplined by ethical purpose. Sánchez García and Malcolm similarly argue that visible physical intensity does not necessarily indicate diminished social restraint. In both cases, violence is neither eliminated nor celebrated; rather, it is regulated, contextualised and rendered socially meaningful. Critical Engagement The paper is both thoughtful and persuasive. Nevertheless, it also raises an important methodological question. Is Elias sufficient? Read through Elias, MMA appears as an evolving configuration of behavioural regulation characterised by increasing self-restraint despite apparently relaxed external rules. This is undoubtedly a compelling interpretation. Yet alternative theoretical perspectives illuminate rather different aspects of exactly the same empirical evidence. From a Foucauldian perspective, the central issue is no longer behavioural regulation but the production of knowledge itself. The question becomes not whether MMA is objectively more violent, but how violence came to be constituted as an object of discourse. Medical expertise, political rhetoric, media representation and sporting governance collectively produced particular understandings of MMA that acquired the status of accepted truth. Violence, in this reading, is not merely observed; it is socially constructed through historically contingent regimes of truth. Bourdieu shifts our attention once more. His concern is not primarily with violence but with legitimacy. Why has Olympic judo acquired unquestioned educational authority whilst MMA struggled for decades to achieve comparable social acceptance despite increasingly similar levels of regulation and practitioner discipline? The answer lies not simply in behaviour but in symbolic capital. Different martial arts occupy different positions within social fields, accumulating varying degrees of prestige, legitimacy and cultural authority. Finally, Gramsci encourages us to examine the operation of cultural hegemony. Educational institutions, governments and the media rarely impose understandings of civilisation through coercion alone. Rather, they cultivate forms of common sense that gradually come to appear entirely natural. My own experience within education illustrates this rather well. Resistance to budō has not arisen from hostility towards Japanese culture, but from an inherited Western understanding of violence that has become sufficiently hegemonic to appear self-evident. This observation extends beyond martial arts. Elias associates civilisation with increasing behavioural restraint, yet critical social theorists remind us that the very meaning of "civilisation" is never politically neutral. Modern liberal societies frequently identify civilisation with declining interpersonal violence whilst paying comparatively less attention to structural, symbolic or economic forms of violence. The civilising process, therefore, may itself constitute a culturally situated narrative rather than a universally accepted description of historical progress. The question is no longer simply whether societies become more civilised, but whose understanding of civilisation acquires sufficient authority to become accepted as common sense. None of these perspectives invalidates Elias. On the contrary, they reveal his continuing importance. However, they also demonstrate that figurational sociology does not exhaust the complexity of the evidence before us. Elias explains changing patterns of behaviour with remarkable clarity. Foucault reveals the discursive production of violence. Bourdieu exposes struggles over legitimacy and symbolic capital. Gramsci reminds us that all such understandings ultimately depend upon hegemonic constructions of common sense. Future Directions Perhaps the next stage of Martial Arts Studies lies less in seeking a single grand explanatory theory than in encouraging greater dialogue between complementary theoretical traditions. Elias remains indispensable for understanding long-term behavioural regulation. Yet Foucault illuminates the production of regimes of truth, Bourdieu reveals struggles over legitimacy and symbolic capital, whilst Gramsci demonstrates how dominant understandings of violence and civilisation become culturally normalised. Rather than asking which theory is correct, Martial Arts Studies may benefit from asking what each theoretical perspective enables us to see—and what it simultaneously leaves in the shadows. Concluding Thoughts Sánchez García and Malcolm have written an important paper. Not because they finally resolve the question of whether MMA is civilising or de-civilising, but because they invite us to reconsider how we explain martial practice in the first place. For me, the most enduring contribution of this article lies not in its defence of Elias but in the opportunity it provides to place Elias into conversation with Foucault, Bourdieu and Gramsci. The result is not theoretical competition but theoretical enrichment. The empirical evidence remains unchanged; what changes is our capacity to see its different dimensions. Perhaps that is the enduring lesson of Martial Arts Studies itself. No single theory possesses a monopoly on explanation. Every heuristic illuminates certain aspects of social life whilst simultaneously consigning others to the analytical periphery. The task of scholarship is therefore not to defend a single lens, but to recognise what each allows us to see—and, equally importantly, what each leaves unseen. Hatch thought The measure of a good theory is not that it explains everything, but that it knows where its explanatory reach ends and invites another conversation to begin. 本稿では、Sánchez García と Malcolm による総合格闘技（MMA）研究を取り上げ、その議論を足掛かりに、武道研究における理論的枠組みの説明力について考察した。著者らは、ノルベルト・エリアスの「文明化の過程」と Wouters の「インフォーマライゼーション（非形式化）」概念を用い、MMA は「脱文明化」の産物ではなく、むしろ高度な自己規律と制度化を伴う現代的な格闘文化であると論じている。 本稿はこの解釈を高く評価しつつも、エリアスだけで十分なのかという問いを提起した。同じ事例をフーコーの視点から読めば、「暴力」とは客観的事実ではなく、政治・医療・メディアなどの言説によって構築される〈真理の体制〉として理解できる。さらにブルデューは、柔道が教育的価値を持つ一方で、MMA が長く野蛮視された背景を「象徴資本」と「正統性」の問題として説明するだろう。グラムシは、何が「文明的」で何が「暴力的」であるかという判断そのものが、文化的ヘゲモニーによって「常識」として形成される過程に注目する。 私自身、日本の武道教育に長年携わってきた経験から、武道が学校教育の中で「暴力を助長するもの」と理解される場面にたびたび直面してきた。しかし、それは武道そのものよりも、西洋社会における暴力理解や文明観を反映している可能性がある。 本論文が示唆する最も重要な点は、単一の理論で武道を説明し尽くすことはできないということである。エリアス、フーコー、ブルデュー、グラムシは互いに競合するのではなく、それぞれ異なる側面を照らし出す補完的な分析視角として理解すべきであり、武道研究のさらなる発展も、こうした理論間の対話の中にこそ見出されるのではないだろうか。 Machida, 2026  "The greatest danger to any organisation is not that it lacks talent, but that it gradually loses the capacity to recognise talent that does not resemble itself."
There are occasions in one's academic life when a seemingly innocuous conversation fundamentally alters the way one understands a familiar phenomenon. Such was the case during a recent discussion with my long-time friend and fellow educational researcher, Shireen K, who introduced me to a concept she has termed Mirror-tocracy. The more I reflected upon the idea, the more convinced I became that it describes a phenomenon present not only within education, but throughout traditional Budō, business, politics, and indeed almost every human organisation. Why do successful organisations so often lose their vitality? Why do institutions that once embodied innovation gradually become resistant to change? Why do martial arts schools, businesses and even universities become intellectually stagnant despite being populated by capable and committed individuals? The answer, I would argue, is rarely a shortage of talent. More often, organisations become increasingly adept at reproducing themselves. Beyond Meritocracy: Mirror-tocracy should not be confused with meritocracy. The latter, famously coined by Michael Young in The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958), was intended not as a celebration of achievement but as a cautionary tale. Young warned that societies believing themselves entirely meritocratic eventually confuse success with virtue and failure with personal deficiency. More recently, Michael Sandel has argued that such thinking breeds both arrogance amongst those who succeed and resentment amongst those who do not. Mirror-tocracy addresses a rather different question. It asks not whether organisations reward merit, but rather how organisations define merit in the first place. The distinction is critical. Most organisations sincerely believe they appoint the best candidate. Yet "best" is seldom an objective category. It is interpreted through existing organisational cultures, established assumptions and inherited expectations. Consequently, institutions often reward individuals who appear competent not merely because they possess ability, but because they affirm what those already in positions of authority recognise as competence. The mirror becomes the measure. Shared Values are Essential. Shared Perspectives are Dangerous. At this point, an important distinction must be made. Healthy organisations absolutely require shared values.
What organisations do not require is intellectual or cultural uniformity. Indeed, one might argue they require precisely the opposite. Shared values should never be confused with shared perspectives. An organisation whose members possess identical assumptions, educational experiences, professional trajectories and ways of interpreting problems may enjoy short-term harmony. Over time, however, that harmony frequently becomes intellectual homogeneity. Innovation quietly gives way to repetition. The Mirror and the Window. Social psychology has long recognised aspects of this phenomenon. Irving Janis described the dangers of Groupthink, whereby cohesive groups gradually lose their capacity for critical judgement. Chris Argyris distinguished between organisations capable of double-loop learning—those prepared to question their own governing assumptions—and those confined to single-loop learning, correcting mistakes whilst leaving underlying beliefs untouched. Edgar Schein demonstrated how organisational cultures perpetuate themselves by teaching newcomers not simply what to do, but how to think. From a sociological perspective, Pierre Bourdieu argued that institutions continually reproduce familiar forms of cultural capital. Michel Foucault, meanwhile, reminds us that every institution establishes a regime of truth—a system through which authority, legitimacy and expertise become defined and normalised. Mirror-tocracy sits comfortably alongside these ideas. It describes the subtle process by which organisations cease looking through windows and begin looking into mirrors. They no longer seek new ways of seeing. They seek reassurance that their existing ways of seeing remain correct. Lessons from Nature: The paradox becomes clearer when viewed through the lens of complexity theory. Healthy ecosystems depend not upon uniformity but upon diversity. Monocultures may appear efficient for a time, yet they remain uniquely vulnerable to disease, environmental change and systemic failure. Biodiversity, by contrast, creates resilience because different organisms respond differently to changing conditions. Human organisations are remarkably similar.
Their long-term health depends not simply upon stability but upon continual adaptation. Such adaptation requires difference—not difference of purpose, but difference of perspective. The healthiest organisations therefore maintain a stable moral centre whilst encouraging intellectual diversity around it. Mirror-tocracy in Education: Having spent more than three decades working within schools across several educational systems, I have become increasingly convinced that Mirror-tocracy presents one of the most significant yet least discussed challenges facing educational leadership.
The difficulty arises when "fit" quietly becomes synonymous with familiarity.
Within the Irish educational context, where relationships, collegiality and shared ethos rightly occupy an important place, there is perhaps an even greater responsibility to distinguish between cultural alignment and intellectual conformity. The strongest schools I have encountered possess a common moral purpose whilst welcoming colleagues who challenge prevailing assumptions respectfully and thoughtfully. Educational excellence depends not upon perpetual agreement but upon perpetual learning. Mirror-tocracy in Traditional Budō Traditional Budō presents an equally compelling case. Every martial tradition speaks of preserving its heritage. Few ask how that heritage was created. History demonstrates that no martial tradition survived by remaining static. Every generation interpreted inherited knowledge, responded to changing social conditions and renegotiated what deserved preservation. Ironically, many contemporary organisations now reward preservation more readily than thoughtful adaptation.
Historical research becomes uncomfortable because it challenges accepted narratives.
Looking Beyond the Mirror: Mirror-tocracy is not an argument for appointing contrarians simply for the sake of disagreement. Nor is it a rejection of organisational culture. Rather, it asks leaders to distinguish carefully between those who share their values and those who merely share their views. The former strengthens an organisation. The latter merely reproduces it. Perhaps the first responsibility of leadership is therefore not to ask, "Who is the best candidate?" but rather, "Best according to whose assumptions?" The healthiest organisations are those willing to appoint individuals who occasionally make them intellectually uncomfortable—not because they undermine the institution's values, but because they broaden its horizons. History suggests that organisations rarely fail because they lack talented people. Far more often, they fail because they become so captivated by their own reflection that they cease noticing the possibilities waiting beyond the mirror. Perhaps, then, the true test of leadership is not whether we recognise ourselves in those we appoint. It is whether we possess the confidence and humility to recognise excellence when it arrives wearing an unfamiliar face. 本稿では、友人で教育研究者のShireenが提唱した概念「Mirror-tocracy（ミラー・トクラシー）」を紹介する。これは、組織が能力そのものよりも、既存のリーダーや組織文化と価値観・思考様式・行動様式が似た人材を無意識に採用・昇進・評価する傾向を指す。問題は「価値観の共有」ではなく、「視点の均質化」にある。組織は倫理的価値を共有しつつも、多様な視点を積極的に受け入れなければ、学習・革新・適応する力を失ってしまう。教育、とりわけアイルランドの学校教育や伝統武道を例に、真のリーダーシップとは、自分を映す「鏡」を求めるのではなく、新たな可能性を示す「窓」を迎え入れる勇気にあることを論じる。  Text Under Review:
Na, Y. (2016). The Future and Prospect of Asian Traditional Martial Arts. Revised paper presented at the Korean Alliance of Martial Arts International Conference. Introduction Some papers answer questions. Others raise better ones. Na Young-il's The Future and Prospect of Asian Traditional Martial Arts belongs firmly to the latter category. Ostensibly, it is a discussion concerning the future of Asian martial arts within an increasingly globalised and sporting world. Yet as I progressed through the paper, I found myself increasingly interested in the assumptions on which its conclusions appeared to rest than in the conclusions themselves. Like many scholars writing within martial arts studies, Na repeatedly invokes concepts such as tradition, heritage, legitimacy and preservation. These terms appear throughout the paper as though their meanings were both stable and historically self-evident. It is precisely this apparent obviousness that captured my attention. Rather than reading the paper primarily through Allen Guttmann's sociology of modern sport—the framework Na explicitly adopts—I found myself reading it through a rather different intellectual companion: Michel Foucault. For Foucault, the task of archaeology is not to determine whether a proposition is true, but to examine the historical conditions that make certain propositions appear self-evidently true. Read in this way, Na's article becomes more than a discussion of Asian martial arts. It becomes an artefact through which contemporary martial arts discourse reveals some of its deepest assumptions. Summary of the Article Na's paper is ambitious in scope. It surveys the modernisation of martial arts across Japan, Korea and China, considering the effects of globalisation, legislation, academic institutionalisation and Olympic sport upon traditional systems of practice. Drawing upon Allen Guttmann's seven characteristics of modern sport—secularisation, equality of opportunity, specialisation, rationalisation, bureaucratisation, quantification and the pursuit of records—he argues that Asian martial arts have undergone profound transformation during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The paper identifies four broad mechanisms through which this transformation has occurred: the modernisation of traditional martial arts; their globalisation and glocalisation; their academisation through universities and research; and increasing government legislation intended to preserve or promote them. Na illustrates these developments through examples from Japan, Korea and China, paying particular attention to figures such as Kano Jigoro and institutions including the Dai Nippon Butokukai, the Kodokan and various national martial arts organisations. The overall argument is clear. Unless Asian martial arts continue to adapt to changing social conditions, they risk either disappearing or being absorbed into broader sporting cultures. Preservation, therefore, requires careful negotiation between continuity and change. It is a thoughtful paper, rich in historical detail and comparative breadth. Yet it is not this argument that I found most compelling. Situating the Paper within the Field Na's article occupies a recognisable position within contemporary Martial Arts Studies. It draws upon sport sociology, cultural policy and comparative history, whilst engaging familiar debates concerning modernisation, globalisation and the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. In many respects, it reflects a broader scholarly concern that has emerged over the past three decades: namely, how martial traditions might negotiate the pressures of modern sport without relinquishing their distinctive cultural identities. Here Guttmann provides the principal interpretive framework. Yet there are other intellectual conversations quietly unfolding beneath the paper's surface. Norbert Elias reminds us that bodily practices are progressively regulated, standardised and civilised over time. Eric Hobsbawm demonstrates that traditions are often less ancient than they appear, functioning instead as selective constructions serving contemporary purposes. Pierre Bourdieu encourages us to view martial practice as the embodiment of cultural dispositions rather than merely technical knowledge. However, I believe Michel Foucault offers the most provocative lens for approaching Na's work. For Foucault, archaeology asks a deceptively simple question:
An Archaeology of Tradition Throughout the paper, tradition functions as a remarkably stable signifier.
Indeed, that is precisely the point. Archaeology begins when apparently obvious truths cease to appear obvious. One sentence in particular illustrates this remarkably well: "Teachers of traditional Asian martial arts hold a strong belief that if they cannot maintain the traditionality, the legitimacy which is the basis of their existence certainly weakens." From a Foucauldian perspective, this statement immediately generates a series of further questions.
It is also narrated, categorised, legislated, institutionalised and, ultimately, produced. The paper therefore tells us rather less about ancient martial practices than it does about the contemporary discourse through which "tradition" itself has become an object requiring preservation. From Archaeology to Genealogy If archaeology examines discourse, genealogy examines power. Here the paper becomes even more intriguing. Na repeatedly celebrates legislation, university departments, governmental support and academic research as mechanisms for safeguarding martial traditions. Undoubtedly they are. Yet they are also mechanisms through which authority is exercised.
It participates in the production of what counts as traditional martial arts in the first place. This is not intended as criticism of Na's argument. Rather, it extends it. Once viewed genealogically, preservation and production cease to be opposites. They become mutually constitutive. Critical Reflections The paper's principal strength lies in its breadth. Few authors attempt such an ambitious comparison across Japan, Korea and China, whilst simultaneously engaging questions of sport, education, legislation and globalisation. For readers unfamiliar with these developments, Na provides a valuable overview of the institutional landscape surrounding Asian martial arts. At times, however, the paper tends towards description rather than interrogation. Concepts such as tradition, Asian martial arts, and heritage are treated as largely self-evident rather than as historically contingent categories that require critical examination. Ironically, this is precisely what makes the paper so rewarding. It becomes not simply an account of martial arts modernisation, but an archaeological site through which the contemporary discourse of tradition becomes visible. Suggestions for Future Research Na concludes by calling for continued attention to the future development of Asian martial arts. I would agree, albeit with a slight shift in emphasis. Rather than asking only how traditions may be preserved, Martial Arts Studies might also ask how traditions become traditions.
Closing Thoughts Na set out to examine the future of Asian traditional martial arts. In doing so, perhaps inadvertently, he also invites us to examine something even more fundamental. The future of tradition itself. Foucault once suggested that archaeology is less concerned with recovering origins than with unsettling certainty. Read in this spirit, Na's article challenges us not simply to preserve martial traditions but to interrogate the conditions under which "tradition" has become one of the dominant regimes of truth within martial arts discourse. Perhaps the most valuable contribution of the paper, therefore, lies not in predicting the future of Asian martial arts, but in encouraging us to ask a more demanding question: When we speak of "tradition", whose truth are we actually preserving? 日本語要旨 (Yōshi) 本稿では、ナ・ヨンイルの「アジア伝統武術の未来と展望」を、ガットマンの近代スポーツ論ではなく、フーコーの考古学と系譜学を通して読み直した。論文は、近代化、グローバル化、大学制度、国家法制を通じて、日中韓の武術がいかに変容してきたかを論じている。しかし、より重要なのは、そこで「伝統」「正統性」「文化遺産」といった語が、あたかも自明で安定した概念であるかのように用いられている点である。 フーコー的考古学は、ある伝統が本物かどうかではなく、そもそも「伝統武術」というカテゴリーが、いつ、どのような条件の下で語り得るものになったのかを問う。さらに系譜学は、その言説を支える権力関係を明らかにする。国家、大学、競技団体、教育制度は、単に伝統を保存するのではなく、何を伝統として認定し、誰に正統性を与えるかを決定している。 したがって本稿の中心的な問いは、武術をいかに保存するかではない。「伝統」を語るとき、私たちは誰の真理を保存しているのか、ということである。  Primary Text Under Review
Jennings, G. (2016). Ancient Wisdom, Modern Warriors: The (Re)Invention of a Mesoamerican Tradition in Xilam. Martial Arts Studies, 2, 59–70. Before turning to Jennings' article, a brief point of context may be useful. The selection of this paper was prompted by a recent and highly stimulating conversation with my friend and colleague Professor Rune from Norway. While we did not discuss Xilam directly, we found ourselves returning repeatedly to a deceptively simple question: when a martial tradition claims to connect practitioners to a deeper cultural inheritance, what exactly is being transmitted? Is it technique, identity, memory, philosophy, or something else entirely? Jennings' article does not answer these questions directly, but it provides a fascinating lens through which to explore them. As is often the case in academic life, one conversation opened the door to another. While Jennings frames his discussion through Bonfil Batalla's concept of México Profundo, I found myself reading the article through a somewhat different lens, namely Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus and Michel Foucault's concept of subject formation. Doing so raises a question that extends well beyond contemporary Mexico: what kinds of people are martial arts attempting to create? Summary of the Article It is perhaps inevitable that any serious student of martial arts eventually encounters the question of authenticity. Is a martial art legitimate because it possesses an unbroken lineage? Because it is effective? Because it preserves a cultural tradition? Or because it helps create meaningful lives for those who practise it? George Jennings' examination of Xilam, a contemporary Mexican martial art inspired by pre-Hispanic cultures, provides an opportunity to revisit these questions from a fresh perspective. Yet what makes this article particularly interesting is that authenticity is not ultimately its most important concern. Rather, Jennings invites us to consider how martial arts participate in the construction of identity itself. The article introduces Xilam as a modern martial art founded by Marisela Ugalde during the late twentieth century. Inspired by the cultures of the Mexica (Aztecs), Maya, Zapotec and other Mesoamerican peoples, Xilam seeks not merely to teach techniques of combat but to reconnect practitioners with what anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil Batalla termed México Profundo — the deeper civilisational foundations of Mexican society that survived conquest, colonisation, and modernisation (Bonfil Batalla, 1996; Jennings, 2016). Importantly, Jennings is refreshingly honest from the outset. Xilam is not an ancient martial art. There is no continuous lineage stretching back to pre-Hispanic warrior societies. The martial systems of ancient Mesoamerica were disrupted and largely destroyed following the Spanish conquest. Xilam is therefore a modern reconstruction rather than a preserved tradition (Jennings, 2016). Yet Jennings argues that this does not render the project meaningless. Instead, he suggests that Xilam functions as a form of embodied cultural education through which contemporary Mexicans may reconnect with elements of their ancestral heritage. Through ritual, movement, philosophy, symbolism, and physical discipline, practitioners engage not simply with a martial art but with a broader project of identity formation (Jennings, 2016). Situating the Article within the Field Jennings' article emerged during an important period in the development of Martial Arts Studies as a distinct academic field. Much early scholarship focused either on Asian martial arts or on questions of technical effectiveness, violence, and sportification. By contrast, Jennings joins a growing body of scholars interested in martial arts as sites of cultural production, identity construction, and embodied meaning-making. The article sits comfortably alongside studies of capoeira, taijiquan, kalaripayattu, and other traditions that cannot easily be understood solely through the lens of combat efficacy. It also contributes to ongoing debates surrounding Hobsbawm's notion of "invented traditions" and the broader question of how communities construct continuity with an often imagined past (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983). What particularly distinguishes the article is its engagement with Bonfil Batalla's concept of México Profundo. This framework allows Jennings to move beyond simplistic questions of whether Xilam is historically authentic and instead examine how martial practice may serve as a vehicle for cultural memory and civilisational continuity. For readers familiar with Japanese budo, this discussion may feel surprisingly familiar. While the historical circumstances differ dramatically, one finds similar concerns in the writings of Kano Jigoro and other educational reformers who viewed martial practice not primarily as preparation for violence but as a means of cultivating particular kinds of citizens. The Warrior as a Subject Position What struck me most while reading Jennings' article was the repeated appearance of the figure of "the warrior". Yet this warrior is not primarily a fighter. Indeed, Jennings repeatedly emphasises that Xilam's understanding of the warrior is metaphorical rather than literal. The warrior becomes a person who pursues excellence, self-discipline, honesty, responsibility, and service to others (Jennings, 2016). This is where I believe the article becomes most interesting. Drawing loosely upon the work of Michel Foucault, one might argue that Xilam is less concerned with reconstructing a lost combat system than with producing a particular kind of subject. The warrior here functions as what Foucault might describe as a subject position — an identity category that individuals are invited to inhabit through repeated practices of self-cultivation (Foucault, 1988). The goal is not simply to learn techniques. The goal is to become a particular kind of person. This becomes especially apparent in Xilam's recurring emphasis on "removing the skin" — a metaphor for shedding ego, illusion, and false identities to discover a deeper self (Jennings, 2016). Such language bears a striking resemblance to what Foucault described as "technologies of the self": practices through which individuals actively transform themselves in accordance with particular ethical ideals. Viewed in this light, the question of whether Xilam accurately reproduces pre-Hispanic fighting methods becomes somewhat secondary. The more interesting question becomes: What kind of human being is Xilam attempting to create? Habitus, Embodiment, and Cultural Memory The article also invites interpretation through Pierre Bourdieu's work. One of Jennings' central claims is that Xilam transmits aspects of Mesoamerican culture not primarily through intellectual study but through embodied participation. Practitioners move, bow, perform rituals, learn stories, engage symbols, and enact philosophies through the body itself (Jennings, 2016). This is remarkably close to Bourdieu's concept of habitus (Bourdieu, 1977). Culture, in this view, is not simply something people know. It is something people become. Through repeated bodily practices, certain dispositions, values, assumptions, and orientations toward the world become naturalised. Xilam may therefore be understood as an attempt to cultivate a specifically Mexican habitus rooted in indigenous civilisational memory. In this sense, Xilam functions as much as a pedagogical project as a martial one. Critical Engagement The article possesses several notable strengths. First, Jennings treats Xilam with intellectual generosity while remaining transparent about its historical discontinuities. He neither dismisses it as fantasy nor uncritically celebrates it as recovered tradition (Jennings, 2016). Second, the article broadens the geographical horizons of Martial Arts Studies. Too often, the field remains dominated by East Asian examples. Jennings demonstrates that Latin America possesses equally rich traditions of embodied culture worthy of scholarly attention. However, the article occasionally seems somewhat sympathetic to Xilam's narrative. Questions concerning authority and representation remain underexplored. Who has the right to speak on behalf of ancient Mesoamerican cultures? Which histories are selected for inclusion? Which are omitted? How are competing indigenous perspectives negotiated? Yet perhaps this criticism should be applied more broadly across the martial arts world. How many karate practitioners genuinely represent Okinawan culture? How many kendoka represent Tokugawa Japan? How many judoka embody Kano's educational philosophy rather than the imperatives of Olympic sport? Viewed from this perspective, Xilam may not be unusual at all. Rather, it makes visible processes of invention, reconstruction, and selective remembering that exist within many modern martial traditions. One aspect of the article that warrants further consideration is the repeated use of the term warrior. While these are undoubtedly admirable qualities, the language of the warrior deserves closer scrutiny. Most contemporary martial artists encounter conflict within highly regulated environments governed by rules, safety protocols, legal frameworks, and institutional oversight. Whatever else occurs in the dojo, gym, or training hall, it is generally far removed from the realities of warfare, political violence, or life-and-death combat. In this sense, the warrior often functions less as a historical reality than as a pedagogical metaphor. This is not necessarily a criticism of Xilam. Indeed, many modern martial arts employ similar narratives. The interesting question is not whether practitioners are literally warriors. They are not. Rather, it is why the figure of the warrior remains such a powerful symbolic resource for constructing identity, purpose, and meaning within martial arts communities. That, however, is perhaps a discussion for another FART. Suggestions for Future Research Jennings concludes by identifying transformation, transmission, and transcendence as fruitful themes for future research. I would wholeheartedly agree. However, I would also suggest several additional directions. First, comparative studies between Xilam and other reconstructed martial traditions would be valuable. Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), modern kendo, reconstructed indigenous wrestling systems, and even aspects of modern karate all raise similar questions concerning authenticity, memory, and identity. Second, greater attention could be devoted to pedagogy. How precisely are values transmitted through practice? What role do instructors play in shaping interpretations of the warrior ideal? Third, scholars might explore how practitioners themselves understand their participation. Do students experience Xilam primarily as martial training, cultural recovery, personal development, spiritual practice, or some combination of these? Finally, the article opens broader questions about martial arts education generally. Perhaps the most significant question is not whether a tradition is ancient or modern. Rather, it is whether it provides meaningful frameworks through which individuals can cultivate purposeful lives. Conclusion Whether Xilam successfully reconstructs pre-Hispanic martial traditions is, in some respects, the least interesting question raised by Jennings' article. Far more compelling is the recognition that martial arts are often less concerned with preserving the past than with producing particular kinds of futures. The warrior, then, is not simply a historical figure preserved from the past. Nor is it merely a cultural symbol. It is a subject position; an invitation to inhabit a particular relationship with oneself, one's community, and the wider world. In this respect, Xilam and Kano's Judo may have more in common than first appears. Both seek to use martial practice not simply to teach techniques, but to cultivate particular kinds of citizens. Both are concerned less with combat than with character. Both ask how embodied practice might contribute to the formation of a meaningful life. Whether that invitation originates in the Kodokan, a taijiquan school, or a training hall in contemporary Mexico City matters less than we might imagine. The enduring question is not how we fight. It is who we are trying to become. References
本稿では、ジョージ・ジェニングスによるシラム（Xilam）研究を取り上げ、武道とアイデンティティ形成の関係について考察した。シラムは1980年代末に創設された現代メキシコ武道であり、アステカやマヤなどの先スペイン期文明に着想を得ている。しかし、その価値は古代武術を正確に復元しているかどうかではなく、現代人にどのような自己理解や文化的帰属意識を提供しているかにある。 論文を読みながら私が着目したのは、「戦士（warrior）」という概念である。シラムにおける戦士とは戦闘員ではなく、自己規律、誠実さ、責任感、共同体への貢献を体現する人格的理想像として提示される。この点から私はフーコーの主体形成論や「自己の技法」を想起した。シラムは失われた戦闘技術を再現する試みというよりも、特定の人間像を育成する教育的プロジェクトとして理解できるのである。 また、ブルデューのハビトゥス概念を用いると、シラムは身体実践を通じて文化的価値観を体現させる装置として捉えられる。文化とは知識として学ぶだけでなく、身体を通じて「なる」ものでもある。 一方で、「戦士」という言葉そのものには慎重な検討も必要だろう。現代の道場やジムは厳格な安全管理の下で運営されており、実際の戦争や暴力とは大きく異なる。したがって戦士とは歴史的現実というより、人格形成のための教育的メタファーとして機能していると考えられる。 結局のところ、本論文が投げかける最も重要な問いは、「武道はどのような人間を育てようとしているのか」である。問題は、どのように戦うかではない。どのような人間になろうとしているのかなのである。 |
James M. HatchInternational Educator who happens to be passionate about Chito Ryu Karate. Born in Ireland, educated in Canada, matured in Japan Archives
April 2026
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
