07/19/2026
There is an old joke: Two boys were walking down the street when they heard a bunch of noise coming from a house. One of them found a hole in the fence and peeped through. "What's goin' on?" The other boy said. "There's a bunch of people doing some weird stuff!" Answered hus friend. The inquiring boy asked, "Is it men or women?" The peeping boy replied, "I can't tell, they ain't got on no clothes!"
So many people look at martial arts through the shapes they practice, rather than the principles, the ethos of what makes it viable. Particularly in the traditional world (but well beyond it too) people go fishing for chances to make shapes when they go live. You can see it before it happens. Preparatory actions to make a technique prior to the appropriate conditions for successful deployment to present.
I don't, at all, believe that aesthetics are valueless, but they're only of value when they are honest to what they signal (or are used in effective martial deception). Your art is more than what it looks like. If it fails to be more, it fails to be anything more than choreography. No amount of aesthetic refinement will give you martial capacity.
Form follows function. Aesthetics should only be refined once the application has been acquired.
