Friday, March 16, 2012

Defining Violence

I recently came to a stark realization that violence has many more faces than I normally account for. I believe that violence is pervasive and just may be an inalienable part of the human condition. As a civilization we have mainly addressed physical violence as a criminal act. We discourage people from using brute force against each other citing that it is not civil and we live in a civil society. Emotional violence is probably more common than physical. It probably causes more physical violence than purely physical confrontations do on their own. Our society apparently has no problem with social violence, where one may use their time, money, and power at the expense of others. Also, symbolic violence occurs regularly when people marginalize or devalue each other due to divergent class or culture.

As a martial arts teacher it is customary to instruct your students on how to defend themselves from physical violence. This benefit is commonly achieved by students. Achieved even by students who attend for a short period of time. Many attacks are remedied by techniques (martial arts technology). But for our more sophisticated forms of civilized violence, in its emotional, social, or symbolic forms of attack, one must become adept in the symbolism and strategic approach that many self defense techniques are rooted in. This takes years and years of practice, development, and trials.  Zhang Sah provides a wide base of martial arts technology in order to address the broad array of violence. Zhang Sah uses varied techniques but more importantly divergent and yet complimentary strategies that can remedy almost any situation if you understand the underlying concepts and act deliberately.


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