Are you the toughest guy in the world?

Dr. William Durbin

Young people in a Dojo are very susceptible to what the public attitude is in regard to most aspects of life, but in particular this is true regarding the image of the martial artists. In the seventies, due to the television show KUNG FU, a martial arts instructor was looked at as a peaceful person who was skilled in special fighting techniques with which he maintained the peace of his/her environment. 

This has changed. A recent movie showed two martial artists who had to work together through no desire of their own. One was an out of control police officer, who enjoyed beating on the people he arrested. The other was a man who had a problem making commitments to others. Even though they were fighting serious criminals, a lot of the time was spent fighting each other as well. 

The image of the martial arts have changed considerably from the old days. Worse yet, due to the current excess of 'anything goes' tournaments and entertainment programs presenting 'make believe' tournaments, young students of the martial arts are now asking their instructors the question, 'are you the toughest guy in the world?' Maybe a story which relates the events of one such youngster can help in providing an answer to what is a very negative situation. 

It starts with a young martial arts student listening to two teenagers talk about a story they had heard about their instructor. It seems that in his youth, during his college days, their instructor had been attacked by ten aggressors. In a quick battle, the instructor put six of the assailants down, with the other four backing off afterward. The young student could not believe what he was hearing, was his instructor really that good? He had always believed his instructor was good, but ten attackers? 

Finally he decided to just go up and ask his instructor if the story was true. Later after class he approached the man and in halting tones asked if it was all right to ask a question. The instructor said certainly. 'Is it true that you fought ten guys and won', asked the youngster. With a smile the instructor replied yes. Then the young student asked in an incredulous voice, 'Are you the toughest guy in the world?' The smile left the instructor's face and he asked, 'Does it matter?' 'I don't know', replied the student, 'I just thought that was the reason you trained in the martial arts, after all look at those Jujutsu guys in the magazines, and the full contact fighters, all they care about is being the toughest guy in the world, nothing else seems to matter to them.' The instructor then told the student that he wanted to share a story with him, but by this time other students had gather around and were listening to the instructor as well. 

It seems that in his youth, the instructor had wanted to meet the toughest guy in the world. He had been training in the martial arts for a couple of years and yes he wanted to be a tough fighter. During those couple of years he had met and fought several good martial arts instructors, but he wanted to train with the best fighter in the world, the roughest and toughest guy. He thought that if he could meet and train with the toughest guy in the world, then he might learn how to be that tough as well. He then started talking to people in the local martial arts community, some from many distant places, who attended the local college. While he heard stories of Bruce Lee, Mohammed Ali, and some other famous people, none were accessible nor proven on the street. In the past he had fought several boxers and had little problem defeating them, and while he was a great fan of many action adventure movie stars, he realized that there is a big difference between 'acting' like a fighter and being one. 

Finally, he did hear of a man who was reported to live a couple of hundred miles away from his location. He was bald and had the tattoos of a dragon on one arm and a tiger on the other. Scuttlebutt had it that he was a real Shaolin priest, but it seems he had fallen from his vows and was now an inhabitant of many of the local bars. It seems that while he was in a bar one time, that he had been jumped by six toughs and proceeded to beat them into submission. The police arrived and the man allowed them to arrest him and take him to jail, without any resistance. However, one of the men he had fought in the bar had been seriously injured and it was not sure that he would live, thus the man was confined to the area until the man either lived or died. If the man died, then there would be a trial to determine the fighter's accountability. This then, thought the instructor would be the toughest man in the world, at least that he had access to, that he could talk with and maybe learn from. 

That weekend he traveled to the town the man lived in and waited outside of the local bar he found the man frequented. Around one o'clock that night the man came out, easily recognizable by his bald head and tattoos, which were evidence from his arms being bare in the tank top he wore. The instructor related that he walked up to the man and asked if he could talk to him. The man was somewhat surly, but said that as long as he kept up with him they could talk. Wearing a jacket that had a dragon on it and Karate down the right sleeve let the man know that his visitor was a martial artist. After they had talked awhile, the older man became very friendly, admitting that when he saw the jacket, he thought the instructor was another guy out to start a fight with him. The instructor laughed and said, 'I've heard all about you. That your the toughest guy in the world, that's why I came to talk to you. I thought maybe you could teach me some of your skills.' 'Your kidding right', replied the bald man, but he saw in the young man's eyes that he wasn't, 'Let me tell you what it is like being thought of as the world toughest guy. Years ago I was a young martial artist like you, only I had a habit of drinking and getting into fights in bars. Most of the time I won, sometimes I didn't, but I got the reputation as a great fighter. Eventually, nice people stayed away from me, because they were afraid. But every tough guy who wanted to make a name for himself, or anyone who wants to feel tough by knowing the toughest guy in the world, will buy me drinks and act like my best friend, until I leave the bar, then they don't even know me. That's why I'm walking home all by myself tonight, except for you. And you want something from me to, you want to be a tough guy like me. Take a good look at me kid' 

The instructor did as he was told and really saw the man for the first time. He looked old and tired. If he had to guess the guys age he would have thought him in his fifties. There were scars all over his body. There were scars around both eyes, at the corner of his mouth, and his nose had been broken so many times that it was as crooked as a country road. 'When I was a young man, like you', the man continued, 'I wasn't a bad looking fellow, but fights and the scars and damage they leave tend to take a lot of the looks away. The only way I can get a woman to spend time with me is to find one in a bar drunk enough to not see what I really look like.' 'These tattoos', the old man said as he lifted up his arms, 'I had put on my arms were so people would think I was a great martial artist, you know, like that guy on the TV show. But they only mark me as someone to fight. Kid if you want to be a tough guy, you are a fool. A tough guy is just someone with the bad luck to win a lot of fights, so that he ends up friendless and lonely. I'm in my late thirties, but I look a lot older because of the wear and tear on my body. I wish that when I had been your age, I would have learned the martial arts as a peaceful way of life, that I would have met some nice people and that they were still my friends today. But I went the wrong way, don't make that mistake. Go back to your Sensei kid. Don't try to be a tough guy, be a nice guy, and stay away from people like me.' 

'At that point', the instructor said, 'we had reached his apartment building. He went in and I never saw him again, though I did hear that he was killed in a bar fight a few years later. But I always remember what he said. That's why I teach the martial arts like I do, like a family. All of you know that you have someone who loves you and a place where people care about you. You asked me if I am the toughest guy in the world. No I am not and boy am I glad. But I do hope that some of you think I am the nicest guy in the world. I train in the martial arts so that I can have self defense skills, physical fitness, mental awareness, and seek spiritual growth. The training makes me happy. Teaching you, makes me happy. I hope training makes you happy as well.' 

With that the teacher said good night to his students and after they left, as he closed up the school he thought about the young man who had asked the question. He hoped that he had been able to give the young man the answer he needed, so that the young man would not waste his life trying to be something that wasn't worthwhile to begin with. At that same time the young student was telling his parents about class and the story the instructor had told. When he finished, he said that he was glad that the instructor wasn't the toughest guy in the world, but was glad that he was one of the nicest. His parents smiled at each other glad that he was learning lessons of peace and non-violence, while he was learning personal discipline, which is why they had signed him up in the Dojo to begin with. 

It is time for the martial arts community to stop emphasizing the toughness of the martial arts to the American public. Most of them don't like it to begin with. What has brought people to the martial arts in the past has been a need for legitimate self defense skills and all the other benefits, like physical fitness and mental discipline, which stem from training. Many people love the philosophy of peace and the study of history that is such an important part of the arts. Most of all the overabundance of tournaments, each claiming to crown a tougher champion than the one before, has actually hurt the enrollment of people in the martial arts. 

While it may attract many rough natured and violent people into the martial arts, all too often it drives away or turns the stomach of the women, children, and men who actually need the training for their own self protection and personal development. Most good instructors really don't want to be thought of as the toughest guy in the world. Competent instructors of valuable self defense skills, effective physical methods of training, and intelligent philosophies; yes. Those who want to be thought of as tough, probably aren't. Those who go around proclaiming their toughness, are just showing their insecurities. Probably if they spent more time training and less time bragging, they would lose their insecurities and find an inner peace that would replace the need to brag. Most of all they would set a much better example for the young people in our world, who already have too much violence to deal with. 

Let us take the martial arts back to the old days, when an instructor was thought of as a man/woman of peace, who had special skills they could use to insure the peace in their corners of the world. Let us go back to the image of the martial artist as a person who would not go looking for trouble or a fight, but had the strength and security of mind to defend what was right, when it was right to do so. That is a much better image for the children of the world and the rest of humanity to have of martial artists anyway.