Kosta Danaos on Combat Sports and Martial Arts

Excerpted from The Rediscovery of Panmachon by Kosta Danaos:

Anyone with a more than elementary involvement in the martial arts and combat sports is able to tell the difference between the two. A combat sport is, by definition, an athletic contest between two individuals, the main intention of which is, in the end, to assure the participants’ safety. Wrestling, judo, taekwondo and boxing are principal examples of combat sports. Techniques that are by definition hazardous to the participant’s health and continued wellbeing are (or should be) prohibited. It is plainly understood that contestants are not allowed to (nor desire to) attack one another’s eyes or genitals, bite through each other’s flesh, or attack the spinal chord and skull using lethal strikes, locks, or other techniques. Killing or permanently disabling the opponent is not the objective of combat sports, though injuries abound…

…Without proper neurological and cognitive conditioning, we can’t really avoid reacting [instinctively], since this is how we have been programmed by nature. It would be safe to call this biological sequence our “natural aggressive response.” Similar manifestations to the “response” mentioned above can be seen in dogs, cats, monkeys, and gorillas, in fact in all animals. As human beings, however, we do have the capacity to control our physiological reactions during combat, as we differ from other animals in terms of self-control and logic. However, this can only be achieved though conscious effort and discipline (In other words, the logical and conscious elements of our brain, the cerebral frontal lobes, must impose themselves upon the more primitive parts of our brain, the autonomic nervous system and the limbic system)…

…A combat sport such as kickboxing, where the execution of the techniques and body posture follow the model of our natural response in battle, has much to commend it. However, in practice and under real combat circumstances, such a stance is ill-advised. In contrast with expectations, during the past 10,000 years (as far as the archeological record takes us back), martial artists, have insisted on an upright posture. Why is this the case?

(continued at Kosta Danaos’ Panmachon website)