Well, Henry Ford thought so and looking at some of the articles and books that masquerade as martial arts history, he may well have been right. History is important for martial artists as it tells us where we have come from, and from this we can hopefully deduce where we are now and where we will be going in the future.
If we are to have history, we must have historians. As far as Tai Chi history is concerned, it is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Some of the cooks such as Wu Tu-nan, have occasionally made real contributions while others have fulfilled their roles as party hacks by pushing the historical line that suits the Chinese Communist party or their own particular style. Many of the Western articles and books are written by people who do not even practice Tai Chi Chuan in any meaningful way and are almost invariably rehashings of the tendentious drivel that appears in earlier articles and books .
Going a step further, I often wonder whether martial arts magazine columnists are authorities on the martial arts because they write for martial arts magazines or write for martial arts magazines because they are authorities on the martial arts. Often the answer is all too obvious.
Many of us, despite what Aristotle has to say, are scarcely rational beings. In religious, political and martial history many people prefer a sanitised uncomplicated version of complex events and personalities rather than a critical analysis. In some cases this preference for a pleasing version of events can lead to extreme action against those who attempt to argue a different one.
Some years ago one respected American authority on Chinese martial arts was so offended by some of my opinions given in another magazine that he demanded his name be removed from the list of contributors and severed all further contact with the magazine. After his 30 odd years spent cultivating the Tao one would have expected a somewhat more reasoned and mature response from this sensitive soul.
But something weird has happened in modern times; we now have a deification of old masters. In the same way that Zhen Wu Shen, the True Martial God, became patriarch of certain cults during the Boxer rebellion, so many old dead masters are resurrected and their (alleged) opinions, deeds and abilities invoked to give credibility to the opinions, (alleged) deeds and abilities of modern practitioners.
Indeed that unholy trinity of Gichin Funakoshi, Cheng Man-ching and Bruce Lee have probably directly and indirectly sold as many books, articles, styles and teachers since their deaths as every other living martial artist.
Many martial arts instructors are proud and unbending people. They are temperamentally incapable of admitting that there is something in their art or its history or indeed in another art or its history of which they know nothing. Not only this, but they are incapable of accepting that another opinion may have some validity. If one of the unholy trinity, or a living saint such as Dan Inosanto or Hirokazu Kanazawa agrees or seems to agree with them, then that is an end to the matter.
When martial artists with this curious mind-set come to write history, it is indeed bunk. The great detective, Sherlock Holmes - "You know my methods, Watson.", once remarked to the good doctor that when one had eliminated the impossible, the solution lay in whatever remained, however improbable. Many of my martial arts colleagues, prefer to eliminate the possible and even the probable and are all too willing to accept the impossible and improbable.
In 1728, the Yong Zheng emperor issued an imperial prohibition on martial arts, condemning martial arts instructors as "drifters and idlers who refuse to work at their proper occupations," who gather with their disciples all day, leading to "gambling, drinking and brawls." Two hundred and sixty five years later, we look back on the same past as a golden age of great masters with high levels of ability and great virtue.
Maybe in years to come I and my fellow COMBAT contributors will also come to be considered saintly paragons of all the virtues. If only they knew...