Secrets are a big deal in martial arts circles (“Duhhh!”, you say).

All too often, “secrets” are used as magnets for the easily duped, or to make a practitioner or “master” appear more interesting, knowledgable or mysterious than they actually are. An earlier column of mine (“False Prophet”) details my unfortunate dealings with one such practitioner.

But reconsidering, I hope I can convince you that there is value in a controlled flow of information from teacher to student.

For example, the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt who regularly gives seminars at our kwoon, John Will, is adamant that if he teaches a particular technique to a group, that he will never teach a counter to that technique in the same lesson, and probably not until some time later. To teach the counter too early would discourage the students from trying the technique in freestyle grappling and thus prevent them from learning to apply it effectively – a corollary of which would be that they never learn to counter really well either, since none of their classmates bothered to learn the technique properly!

Only when he sees four or five students from the group applying the technique successfully in freestyle practice does he then introduce the counter.

Both John and my Sifu, Rick Spain, occasionally show a technique or training method to only one or a few students, and let them loose on the rest, until the others either work out what they are doing, or say something like, “OK, you’re doing something I don’t know about and it’s working on me, what’s the deal?”

Teachers do this for a number of reasons (some of which may not be totally altruistic ), including testing something out to see whether it is as good as their own Sifu said, or as good as the article on www.WingChunKuen or bjj.com.au said; to give a reticent student confidence – or motivation by giving them an assignment to carry out; or to get the others to exercise their analytical skills. “Why is he cleaning you all up? How can you counter that?”

By observing the reaction of others to the new technique or the new qualities in the secret initiate’s approach, the Sifu can gauge each individual’s analytical and observational skills, mental flexibility, and other attributes, and then tailor his teaching approach more closely to each student’s makeup.

Such an approach requires sensitivity on the teacher’s part to determine who gets what, and who doesn’t, at a particular time. As John Will said (I paraphrase), “a coach needs to be very careful with what seeds he plants, where and when.”

Obviously this is not an approach that can be successfully used in your commercial “belt factory” – though in my opinion there is a place for the teacher or organisation who runs a belt factory to pay their school’s rent, while supporting the craftsman’s cottage out the back where the serious students train. None of the teachers with whom I interact today have ever had anything to do with belt factories, though.

I have been privileged to have been shown some secrets, which are never shown to any but senior students. But these are not “invincible techniques” which once known will allow me to effortlessly destroy any attacker who does not have the knowledge.

More, they are different ways of training which will give a significant edge if practiced diligently over a period of months or years. Even then, they are things which an intelligent and open minded student may well work out for him/herself in time, perhaps through mental association with apparently unrelated disciplines, and a conscious decision not to accept everything shown in class uncritically.

The secrets are seldom the concealed core of the system. In many ways the importance of a secret is not the knowledge itself, but the fact of its concealment. The keeping and telling of secrets both guarantees the integrity of the system (and the veracity of those who claim high levels of skill or mastery), but also tests and measures the integrity of those made privy to it.

It serves as a reminder of a student’s obligations and responsibilities, to the art they study and to his/her teacher, lineage, and si-hings, and of the trust placed in them by their teacher. Were I to relay the knowledge to the uninitiated without the blessing of my seniors, the system would not be significantly compromised; however, the damage to my external reputation and internal self-image would be serious and permanent. I won’t damage the system, I’ll just damage myself. And the people who induce, coerce or trick me into revealing it will not really gain anything they can easily use, let alone sell to anyone else, train armies of henchmen with, etc.

For what it’s worth, there’s a publicly available site on the internet which details the dim mak implications of every point on the twelve main acupuncture meridians and the eight extra meridians, plus new points, in amazing detail. Once you find it, great. Then what are you going to do with that info? Go out and kill all your enemies? Hardly. The knowledge is one thing, being able to put it into practice effectively is another. You’ve still got years or decades ahead of you before you can use this info – including learning more basic offensive and defensive fighting skills. After all, if you can’t get close enough to your adversary without getting damaged yourself, knowing a few dim mak points will do nothing for you. Then there’s knowing how and when to hit individual points correctly and conditioning your bodily weapons and your own chi flow to deliver the strikes. Years, maybe decades, boys and girls.

The map’s out there. But that doesn’t stop crossing the wilderness from being a long and arduous journey.

(Hint: it’s a martial art site, but not a Wing Chun site. Not American. If you do get there and you want the stuff, do the right thing and buy the guy’s book as he asks, rather than just take his work.)

There may be secrets, but they don’t replace the basic necessities of consistency, persistence, and hard work. If you don’t have the basic qualities and basic skills, the secrets might as well be encrypted for all the good they’d do you.

Here’s a secret for you: sitting there in front of the screen ain’t going to improve your martial arts. Stand up and give me 100 pak dars (pak sao and punch) and 100 bil dars (you work it out!)

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