Martial Artists of Noble Stature

[Martialart]

I don't know if I'd go that far. Seems a bit much to me. The only people that tend to care about black belts are other martial artists. Otherwise there's a 33.3% chance that you'll get worshipped from the watched too many movies crowd, ignored completely or you paint a target on your back for the wrong people. I personally try not to discuss my training unless someone else brings it up. Just my opinion.

But that's just it: if someone else brings it up, you can lie, but if you're a black belt you're probably going to tell them you're a black belt in Taekwondo, or whatever, and that's when it happens; that's when they say, "Wow. Really?"

Then no matter how humble you try to act about it, it only adds to the mystique. Because everyone knows that being humble is something only the powerful can do. The weak can't be humble, just humiliated. When they say "Wow. Really?" They just made you noble.

I'm just wondering if it's real?

[Toptomcat]

I think you're confusing 'impresses the credulous and easily-impressed' with 'intrinsic nobility'.

Which is pretty baffling, really.

[Martialart]

I think you're confusing 'impresses the credulous and easily-impressed' with 'intrinsic nobility'.

Which is pretty baffling, really.

Nobility has lots of definitions. At least one aspect of it is to be of a superior class to others. If I meet someone and learn that they have a third degree black belt in something, I'm impressed. I mean, unless I think they're lying.

Wouldn't the black belt "club" be the modern-day Samuri? They were a noble class. And I realize some black belts don't shine with a lot of nobility, but look at some of the older martial artists, the ones who have given their life to it. Don't you think they have a noble quality?

I don't know, perhaps one has to first believe in the idea of nobility before they will see nobility. Or maybe we have to define it, but I always thought it meant "a superior class" of person, for whatever reason.

[Sibylla]

Don't you think that there's a difference between martial artists and non-martial artists? It seems that martial artists have a nobility, that is a superior quality and sanctification, a greater moral stature.

Now that may not be true, but tell someone you have a black belt and they tend to think you're a cut above the rest, a powerful person. Is that not nobility?

It's pompousness and lies. I don't want to be associated with martial artists that believe stuff like that.

[Martialart]

It's pompousness and lies. I don't want to be associated with martial artists that believe stuff like that.

What about nobility? Don't you think there is any nobility in the martial arts?

[Sibylla]

Nope. Martial arts is no more noble than any other activity.

I'm very much in line with what is said in the article here, and in some of the comments:

http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2010/03/04/your-karate-practice-is-not-noble/

In my of experience, people who claim some kind of nobility due to what they practice and/or rank, very often turn out to be if not very immature, hypocrites and not very nice people at all.

[username13768]

Nobility has lots of definitions. At least one aspect of it is to be of a superior class to others.

Perhaps that may be one definition, but it shouldn't be a definition used by a martial artist. Martial artists should strive to get rid of the ego not inflate it.

Wouldn't the black belt "club" be the modern-day Samuri? They were a noble class. And I realize some black belts don't shine with a lot of nobility, but look at some of the older martial artists, the ones who have given their life to it. Don't you think they have a noble quality?

LMAO, a BB Club the modern day samurai? Hardly! Most Black Belt Clubs that I've seen are people that pay extra money to a McDojo instructor so that they can be taught the exact same thing learned in a regular class. For your information Samurai means "To Serve", as in to serve someone besides yourself. This service is what made the Samurai noble, not whatever training they had. People in BB Clubs are only serving themselves and inflating their own egos with thoughts of the all mighty black belt. In a competent school a black belt makes you a serious student, not nobility.

I don't know, perhaps one has to first believe in the idea of nobility before they will see nobility. Or maybe we have to define it, but I always thought it meant "a superior class" of person, for whatever reason.

I believe in nobility alright. You can see it on the news occasionally. A firefighter runs into a burning house to save someone, that's noble to me. A Doctor who toils through 8 years of expensive medical school to so that they can practice medicine in under developed areas of the world, that's noble to me. As for it meaning a superior class of person, only in the mind of a poor martial artist that missed the entire point of earning a black belt.

[sensei8]

A black belt ISN'T in a superior class! A black belt is someone who can do something that a non-martial artist can't....for that moment....things and people change, some for the best and some for the worse. And you know what, a non-martial artist can do somethings that a martial artist can't.

So much for being in a superior class!

It's pompousness and lies.

Sibylla hit the nail right on the head. For real, it's just a belt and if someone is treating their black belt like it's something that it's not, and that black belt makes them think that they're something that they're not; then that person is only in the martial arts for the belt.

What was said about nobility in the Fighting Chicken article that Sibylla linked us to was...right on! I train, I practice and I do it because I love it and I love it more each new day, but, I'm a martial artist first, and what rank I am is so unimportant because I'm not in the martial arts for the belt and/or titles and/or platitudes and/or whatever else.

Sure, there was a time when I was in the martial arts for the belts. But, that was when I was 9 or 10 years old. When I was a child, I did childish things!

IndoSilat says...

I believe in nobility alright. You can see it on the news occasionally. A firefighter runs into a burning house to save someone, that's noble to me. A Doctor who toils through 8 years of expensive medical school to so that they can practice medicine in under developed areas of the world, that's noble to me. As for it meaning a superior class of person, only in the mind of a poor martial artist that missed the entire point of earning a black belt.

Absolutely and solid!

[Martialart]

I believe in nobility alright. You can see it on the news occasionally. A firefighter runs into a burning house to save someone, that's noble to me. A Doctor who toils through 8 years of expensive medical school to so that they can practice medicine in under developed areas of the world, that's noble to me. As for it meaning a superior class of person, only in the mind of a poor martial artist that missed the entire point of earning a black belt.

OK. But I want to pick this apart a bit, not to be argumentitive, but simply to arrive at some definition.

A firefighter runs into a building to save someone. That's bravery. Brave is how noble people act, but a brave person is not necessarily noble, is this right?

A selfless doctor practices for the poor. That's service. A noble person is one who serves, but not all who serve are noble. For example, a run down doctor who can't keep a job in the US due to chronic alcoholism thus goes to serve the poor in a foreign country--not noble. He would have to be a good doctor who has chosen to come down in order to be truly serving. In other words, within the context of medical practice, he would have to be noble first in order to step down to serve in underdeveloped countries.

Now, both the individuals above may be noble people, and that may be why they do what they do. But it seems you have only hit on elements of what we find in noble people. So, where does the nobility come from in the first place? What makes a person noble--if there is such a thing.

Unfortunately, I can't agree with those who say there's no nobility in martial arts. A person who can force their bodies through the training and end up doing techniques that normal people cannot do, who can behave with discipline, honor, integrity, and humility towards those who are less powerful, who can persevere to the point of black belt or beyond, who develop their wisdom through religious training, who supplement their martial arts with some creative artwork like poetry or painting, etc, who grow into the best of what humanity can be through the constant discipline of the martial arts, who then go on to teach it to younger students--If that's not the actions of nobility, what is?

If the person described above is no better than the alcholic loser in the trailer park who fights with their neigbors, abuses their kids, won't work, accumulates petty crime on his rap sheet like a credit card bill, etc, then we live in a cynical, atheistic world where there's no chance for nobility. The kid in that same said trailer park has no way up and out.

I realize not everyone deserves a black belt, not everyone who has a black belt is a noble person, but given what a black belt represents to the world, always has represented, I tend to think that perhaps the only noble class to survive into the modern world is in fact the warrior caste, the samurai, the martial artist.

Note: I refer to black belts, because in most styles the black belt represents the one who has learned and can perform to the basic level the content of the martial art style.

[Martialart]

A black belt ISN'T in a superior class!

Well, maybe not to you. But to the outside world it is. I really think that. It may be a ruse, but the noble classes have been fooling people for all of history. Nonetheless, it's never the nobility that makes themselves noble. They don't jump up on a pedastool. Other people put them there.

Case in point. I had to draw blood from a 9 year-old, patient in the mental hospital yesterday. For a lab that is. He was afriad of the needle, but when I had stuck him and was collecting the blood, I praised him for being so brave in the face of it and said to him "You must have a Samurai spirit in you." He was a pudgy kid with some serious setbacks in his life, but he was very interested in that notion. He even asked of the blood in the tube if that was Samurai blood. I told him that it was indeed. Then I gave him four stickers with superheroes on them (For some reason that escapes me, the kids in the hospital love those and will do just about anything for them--including getting better!).

He loved the notion of the Samurai. He loved the superheros on the stickers. I told him, "When you get older and out of here, you should think about martial arts, being you obviously have a Samurai spirit." He seemed to like that idea quite a lot.

So, you see, your black belt (I think you told us you have 45 years in martial arts and run a dojo.) does put you in a noble class, whether you like it or not. You never said you were noble, but that kid would think you are. You'd be a living superhero to him, something worthy of being on a sticker. You can't come down to him from on high (which can save him) unless you are from on high.

Does that make any sense at all?