Martial arts as done in the past is truly that the past. Practitioners of the martial Code are a dying breed. What is done today is not Martial arts but rather health exercises with martial movements.
It's the shape but not the essence. Tournaments, while they do impart a certain amount of Martial camaraderie, don't give practitioners the Danger environment needed to move beyond the game aspects. Tournaments have an air of respect, and a definite feeling of safety. Where in a real life confrontation none is given beyond the level of your skill.
Commercial Martial artist rarely if at all have true combat skills and so handle situations from a political forum where whoever gets the best play on words wins. It doesn't matter who's right. And in the end nothing is settled. Opinion vs. opinion.
Challenge matches in the old days could accure for any number of reasons such as testing yourself, gaining a reputation, Loss of face, etc. Today if you tried to have a challenge match it had better be private or you'll find your self in jail or one of the opponents has no honor and sues you and puts you in jail.
Wude is the Martial Code. All true martial artists live by this code to the point it could mean their life. Wude is the Martial code of
Honor. It is not for the public; it is for the martial artist.
Those who are faint of heart think that this is ego or showing off. It's not for the masses, and in fact it's more like an elitist club and you must have certain requirements to even enter. Actually it's appalling to have non Martial artist, people who normally have no true discipline or the insight that discipline brings, set governing rules on us. They would say that what we do is savage, but it's far more civilized then the way most unpleasant situations are handled.
Society at large is in a state of pre Armageddon precisely because of the lack of discipline from the Bum straight up to the leaders of the world. Wude has it's own body of politics unto which we govern our self's. Sure you have those who break the law, but by and large we have and maintain order. Order is maintained by higher aspiration. For those that think that this is not true, than know this, all of the high level masters of our systems where apart of WuDe. In the old days just to be a martial artist, it was a given that you were apart of that society.
The Timids, as my brother likes to call them, like to think that they know the world by not walking out the door; nothing could be further from the truth. In fact it's their interference by way of their philosophy that's helping to keep practitioners from working harder to raise the level of the art. The standard in the west crap!
Fighting hardcore raises your level of concience, on a physical plane yes, but raises it non-the-less. Those predisposed to higher levels of perception are taken that much higher. Fighting in this way gives you the ability to know yourself, which so many don't.
Peace
B.C. Hill Bey