Partial Arts

Very Few People Online Are Actually Kung Fu Fighting

When I first moved to Washington, D.C. in the 1980s, there was an advertisement on local TV for Jhoon Rhee Taekwondo. They had a great jingle with children singing:

If you take Jhoon Rhee self-defense

Then you too can say: Nobody bothers me…

The commercial ended with a cute little boy saying “Nobody bodda me!” followed by another sweet kid adding, “Nobody bodda me eedah (either).”

It was brilliant because it drove home precisely why men (mostly) love martial arts: it’s the closest we can come to being superheroes. There isn’t a guy who hasn’t seen an ordinary-looking dude in a movie kicking the ass of three oafs twice his size and not dreamed of doing it (For some reason, women don’t want to beat people up as much. I don’t know what’s wrong with them). This is why the internet features a daily avalanche of self-defense exhibitions.

Lucky for us, these include a morbidly obese Steven Seagal poking dudes with his forefinger, which sends them soaring across a room, a perfect encapsulation of a Hollywood flameout. Or an emaciated Asian octogenarian repulsing knife-wielding sicarios by waltzing them compliantly into wood paneling.

I wasn’t much of a fighter growing up in a community of fighters. Muhammad Ali lived around the corner, as did middleweight legend Joey Giardello. Jersey Joe Walcott was always in our favorite diner, and Joe Frazier trained just over the Ben Franklin Bridge that connected South Jersey to Philadelphia.

I tried boxing a few times and learned a valuable lesson: Guys were punching me in the face, and it hurt. I had been under the impression from shadowboxing in front of my basement mirror that I was just going to hit the other dude, and he was going to collapse beneath my lightning fists. Genius that I am, I took aikido and made the mistake of telling people, which resulted in my being stuffed into a locker.

No, I was more of a jump-on-them-and-make-them-pry-you-off-them-so-they-decide-you’re-just-not-worth-it kind of guy. Which, incidentally, isn’t the worst survival strategy.

The term-of-art for online karate porn is “bullshido,” a word I should have invented. Its meaning underscores that we’re looking at individuals who would have their asses handed to them on a paper plate were they ever in a real fight. They include a shaggy-haired fellow wering a gi who thrusts out his hands while shouting “SsssaaaaaHH!” thereby sending multiple attackers tumbling to the ground. He was absolutely serious, as opposed to Monty Python’s Knights Who Say Neee! who were likely joking. A friendly and rotund moon-faced Filipino man performs moves so intricate that he clearly expects assailants to politely comply with his deft guidance as opposed to, you know, kicking him in the gonads. He calls his technique “the Tapi Tapi,” and it’s adorable. Then there is a fellow who minces around the mat, which has prompted one wag to dub in voiceover that calls to mind comedian Paul Lynde’s suggestive sass on 1970s Hollywood Squares.

I’m not the only one who has observed that the martial arts methods demonstrated on the internet would never work in real life any more than Lt. Columbo would ever get a conviction. Millions of dudes watch this stuff to point out precisely how the ample buttocks of the ninja would be served up to him should a showdown occur. Indeed, these things are asserted with fervor, which makes you wonder why people care so much. Is it the reality that we all know down deep we wouldn’t nearly be as effective in a real fight as we fantasize? As posted above, The Onion has called it right with its headline: “Average Male 4,000% Less Effective in Fights Than They Imagine.”

Fear is scary. It exists in nature for a reason, as my friend Gavin de Becker’s classic book, The Gift of Fear, lays out. When somebody posts a martial arts demonstration, they are conveying, intentionally or not, that they have no fear because they have a “way” to handle any situation. Empowerment is a good thing: I take precautions given threats I’ve faced. Nevertheless, when I’ve spoken to people in social situations about threats, I ask questions about practicality: Are you really going to shoot somebody in a street confrontation? Do you really believe you can apply fighting techniques you learned in a studio in a sudden real-world dust-up?

Because so many of my readers come to me for street-fighting advice, let me give you a theory based on observation. The best fighters are people who’ve been in lots of fights over many years — and walked away in one piece. Most of us, thankfully, have not been in many altercations, which is a good thing. All of us have two characters living inside of us, the Person We’d Like to Be and the Person We Are. The internet appeals to the self-satisfied moron teenager (me) shadowboxing in his mirror. This is the person who envisions precisely how the fight will go, but who’ll be a tad non-plussed when he feels how badly it hurts — and how shocking it is — getting hit.

If you watch real fights, as opposed to what you see in popular entertainment, the first thing you notice is how unimpressive even the best fighters look. They, too, are more than a little surprised when they get hit, and even when they win, it’s often not by much. There are a handful of street brawls on YouTube where a nitwit confronts a boxer or Mixed Martial Arts fighter, and even though the nitwit loses, the victory for the professional isn’t as easy as one might hope.

The “Person We Are” should avoid confrontations and watch self-styled internet martial artists just because they’re hilarious. And read The Gift of Fear, or I might track you down and inflict the Tapi Tapi upon you.