Master ______________ was unbeaten/undefeated/invincible.
You could put many great (and famous) masters’ names from the last century or two in that blank.
I say Don’t buy it. Or at least take it with a ton of salt. And I say that despite the fact that I train in and teach an art that has at least two past masters (Wu Yi Hui and Chen Yi Ren) who were said to be unbeaten/undefeated/invincible.
It’s not that I don’t respect great and famous masters from the past. In fact, I’m quite certain that many of them had skills that few masters have today, simply because it was a different time period. For example, I think it’s plausible that self-defense really was more important back when people lived in villages. I believe that a hundred years ago people had more time to train (which you have when you don’t spend all your time on Facebook). And I think it’s pretty likely that more people were training and teaching and fighting way back when (which happens when people aren’t constantly taking selfies and posting on social media every hour).
But all of those things (and others) lead me to these questions: How is it that these masters didn’t cross paths, especially when many of them lived during the same time periods and also supposedly traveled around to develop and test their skills? Because if they did cross paths, how could they all stay unbeatable/undefeated/invincible?
I suspect that these masters did sometimes meet, but that when they did, the following happened:
- They didn’t fight. After all, if you don’t fight, you can’t technically lose or be beaten, right? (I myself am unbeaten/undefeated in tournament fighting, but that’s a matter of semantics for me because I’ve never fought in a tournament!)
- They did fight, but they agreed to keep the results private or the fight ended in a draw.
It’s pretty obvious that all sorts of reasons exist why these two things would happen. For example, in a culture in which losing face is a big deal (which in many Asian cultures it is), you can see where keeping the results private would be the way to go. Also, if your livelihood as a teacher (which most of the great and famous masters were) depends on your reputation, once you’ve established that reputation, why jeopardize your income by fighting someone who might beat you, especially if losing could seriously shrink that income? And except for the hypercompetitive (which perhaps some of the greats were), why would you risk serious injury or death if you’ve already made it and you’re on top?
I used to be really impressed when I’d hear about how a master was unbeaten/undefeated/invincible. Now I’m not as impressed. Because I know it’s a myth. And I think it’s time that we acknowledge that this myth actually hurts us as martial artists more than it helps. Instead of legitimizing how great a master is, I think it often makes the master and the associated art seem like they come out of a comic book. And that’s probably not a good thing if you’re living in reality.
So then what does make a great martial arts master? I think we can look at other endeavors and apply many, if not all, of the same criteria. Hardly anyone would argue that Muhammad Ali (boxing) and Babe Ruth (baseball) and Efren Reyes (pocket billiards) and Jackie Joyner-Kersee (track and field) aren’t among the greatest (if not the greatest) of all time in their sports. But were they unbeatable? Not at all.
But these greats did succeed a lot. They were tough to beat. They were dedicated. They competed against the best in their era. They weren’t afraid to lose. And they all worked hard, making whatever natural talent that they had even better. Those are the things that make a great master. And those are the things that will make you great (and maybe famous).