Martial Arts. What good are they?

The use of the meditative practice “and working with energy” during martial art classes has a destructive influence on the human conscience and behavior. Martial art schools, the huge number of which has recently appeared in Russia, are very often as harmful as the pseudo-religious sects.

The issue of the orthodox conscience and martial arts was the main issue on agenda of the meeting that took place in the town of Sergiyev Posad, the Moscow region. &to=http://www.orthodox.org.ru/en.htm' target=_blank>The Moscow Patriarchy informed that over 150 representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church took part in the discussion. The meeting was also attended by representatives of the government, scientists of the Asian studies, and leaders of military and patriotic clubs. The meting was arranged with the participation of the Moscow Patriarchy, the Moscow Spiritual Academy, and the educational center for children, Peresvet. The participants of the conference stressed the necessity for elaborating the joint position of the church regarding the martial arts as one of the factors of modern life.

It is an open secret that there are more and more of young people who attend martial arts classes. Oriental combat is the most dangerous in this respect: karate-do, ushu, aiki-do, and others. Of course, it is very good to know some basic self-protection techniques, but in contrast to the Soviet sambo (this is not developing at all now), the oriental school of martial arts is not a system of self-protection, it is a certain lifestyle, a philosophy, and it is far from being totally harmless.

Bruce Lee, the icon of the oriental combat fans, suffered a horrible death. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After Bruce Lee died, his skull show any damage, the blood vessels were not deteriorated, but his brain grew from 1.400 to 1.575 (!) grams. Bruce Lee used to say sometimes during the last days of his life that he often had to combat the non-material substances in an invisible and wearisome way. Those substances were tiring him out totally, both physically and mentally. It seemed like combating a shadow, as if Bruce was combating himself. As a matter of fact, this is due to irreversible changes in the psychology of a human being. The destructive non-material energy that Bruce Lee was trying to accumulate finally did him in.

There are a lot of scam artits now among those who claim they are teachers and gurus. There was the notorious case last year in the Altay region, the case of the experimental school of the Russian martial art “Rossichi.” The leader of the school, 49-year-old Yury Usov, was sentenced to six years in prison. Usov told his students that he was connected with supreme intellect and he wanted everyone to obey him. He even forced his female students have sex with him, explaining it was necessary “to burn the sexual energy.” It is very interesting that all of Usov’s students said in the court hearings that he was really their guru who helped them in their self-perfection. There are a lot of such examples.

The author of this article used to study ushu with one devout teacher, who was a Master of Sports candidate, teaching children at one of the Moscow schools. This man taught only the exterior part of the whole thing, and he said he did not want to stuff the kids’ heads with the oriental rubbish, since he had realized that it was bad to people. This person listened to the voice of his conscience. Are there many such responsible people in Russia today?

The participants of the meeting in the Moscow region agreed that one had to encourage the orthodox military and patriotic clubs in every possible way, which would teach not only the martial arts but also Russian history, religion, ect. Furthermore, the teachers of such clubs, the people who have military experience and special training, are supposed to cooperate more actively, consulting with the representatives of the Orthodox Church. One of the most active organizations of this kind is the Vityaz association. It is also necessary to develop programs for cooperation between the church and the state in the military and patriotic up-bringing and mass sport.

Sergey Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov