What is "Defense" in Martial Arts? (Part Two - "Prevention")

More on Terminology

I have done a bit more study of the latin root words for "defense" (defensus) and "defend" (defendere) and found that there was more of a meaning of "prevention" in the past than I expected. (See, for instance, defensus and defendere). So, it might be the case, somewhat contrary to my previous thinking, that "defend" and "defense" are as precise as 防御 (bougyo), which is comprised, as described in Japanese, of the meanings of 予防 (prevention) and 御する (gyo suru - control). (With copy-and-paste you can look any of the Japanese compound words up on Jim Breen's very handy Japanese dictionary hosted by Monash.)

In Chinese, compound words are very common and they are typically a combination of two words, the combined meaning of which gives us the larger concept. So, it is one word in Chinese then, that means "prevention/control" and some variant of this is used in Martial Arts in countries which adopted Chinese words. While etymological study of our Latin and Greek root words is often very illuminating, the word as it exists today does not show the meaning, as Chinese characters do.

So what about Names?

At some point in this seminar Master Su talked about the names of martial arts systems. He mentioned the names Wing Chun, and Jeet Kune Do, among others. To Master Su the name of a system indicates something about its essence. For instance his own approach, "Essence of Evolution," is itself an evolution of "Essence of Change," which he no longer uses. He began to see mere change as not reflecting the more advanced state possible - that of evolution.

But, back to the seminar in Miami, is "Wing Chun" a good name? Is "Jeet Kune Do" a good name? Wing Chun is the name of the lady who the style is purportedly named after. Jeet Kune Do, however, is a product of Bruce Lee's thinking about what to call his school and approach.

I understand that Master Su thinks that Jeet Kune Do is an excellent name for a martial art - perhaps one of the best names out there. The styles upon which EOE is built -- Hsing Yi Chuan (形意拳), Ba Gua Zhang (八卦掌) and Tai Chi Chuan (太極拳) -- don't have particularly good names, if I understand his thinking correctly. This is because they can mean almost anything. The words are taken from the Yi Jing, considered to be the oldest book in the world. The Yi Jing is a foundation of Chinese culture - extremely important - but for the same reason, the words arise from the dim mists of antiquity, and it is hard to grasp their meaning. "Tai Chi" means "supreme ultimate" or something similar; Ba Gua Zhang is "Eight Trigram Palm." What's a trigram? Why should I have to know that to learn a martial art? How can I take the word "eight trigram" and formulate a strategy from it? Jeet Kune Do, in contrast, has an easily graspable, descriptive meaning. This makes it an excellent name. (I encourage you to look it up).

Similarly, when we discuss things like "defense" we need to consider what the word means. "Defense" after all is not sufficient for us to formulate a tactic, much less a technique. Even the next step from "defense," "prevention," is insufficient. What does "prevention" mean in martial arts? As Master Su says in the first clip, what sort of prevention are we looking for? Prevention as understood in "preventative medicine"? (He uses the example of vaccination because in Japanese that is called a "予防注射" (prevention injection)." Recall in the first clip the part of the discussion where he raises the point that "defense" in baseball is different from "defense" in american football, and so on. Moving towards an understandable objective, specifically in this video one step beyond "prevention" to a term that can be used to formulate strategy, tactics and techniques, is necessary for the Martial Artist - just as the concept of "vaccination" is an evolution that could be understood as starting from the word "defense" in medicine. Presumably in that case it would be "defense," "prevention," "vaccination."

In my understanding EOE begins with strategy, and moves through tactics to arrive at techniques. To have a strategy we must understand what our objective is. Using terms like "defense" makes it hard to formulate a plan because it provides so little indication of what it is that we should do.

So: "Defense," "Prevention," "Intercept." Now we can see the beginnings of a strategy; tactics and techniques can be evolved from here, as well. So much for "defense"!