I’ve just finished reading Robert W. Smith’s new book, “MARTIAL MUSINGS: A Portrayal of Martial Arts in The 20th Century” (Via Media Publishing Co., 1999, ISBN 1-893765-00-8). For those of you who haven’t heard of him, Smith is an old buffer now (born in 1926, in Iowa) who has practiced martial arts for more than 50 years and best known for his writings on Chinese martial arts.
Brought up in an orphanage, Smith wrestled in high school, after which he joined the Marines where he learned some crude judo. He took up boxing and later coached it, though he now believes all boxing should be banned. In 1947, on doctor’s advice he gave up boxing for judo, an art for which he still has some affection.
After university, Smith had a desk job with the CIA in Washington before being posted to Taiwan (1959-62). While in the Far East, he met a whole bunch of people who were or subsequently became big names and Smith’s reminiscences of these times are the best part of the book.
Smith is nothing if not inconsistent. He says of a demonstration by Aikido’s founder, Ueshiba, “…to me, the feat seemed authentic and marvellous”; in the next paragraph this becomes, “His performance may have been legitimate.” He quotes a Judo 6th dan on aikido techniques being unrealistic and ineffective, then describes a demonstration by Koichi Tohei, a top student of Ueshiba, who took on and threw five high ranking judoka who attacked him repeatedly all at once.
We learn that Wing Chun is “a minor boxing method” and “an obscure system” and Bruce Lee “was an even worse actor than a fighter”. None of the Ultimate fighters “could stand before a middling sumotori”. Ali “is an overweight light-heavy with the punch of a pillow who could not stand with earlier heavyweights.” Tell that one to Big George, Smokin’ Joe and a host of others
I sometimes wonder what planet Smith lives on. He relates, “…the leading American martial arts magazine offered us (Smith and Donn Draeger) its editorial slot but when we insisted it be substantively sound and non-commercial and that it be changed from a monthly to a quarterly format, the owner lost interest in us.” Quelle surprise.
Referring to his old collaborator, Draeger, he says, “…his books had all the wit and humour of Marine Corps administrative memoranda.”
Smith has a fund of embarrassing stories about Mas. Oyama, Nishiyama, the Gracies and Sylvester Stallone to name but a few. Smith rightly criticises some of the techniques taught by the legendary Captain W.E. Fairbairn who pioneered self defence training for the Shanghai Police in the 1920s and the Special Operations Executive during WWII, but in his own books there are plenty of techniques shown by “Smith-approved masters” Gao Fang-xian, “the top Northern Shaolin boxer”, Cheng Man-ching, “the Master of Five Excellences” and Hong Yi-xiang which are either questionable or downright ridiculous.
The Professor’s advice on dealing with a street attack is, “…keep your mind on your own legs. This way everything will work out fine.”
Smith says of nine time in a row All Japan Judo champion Yamashita, “…I think Yamashita’s technique would have been even better if he had relaxed more…” Attacking the “furor over winning”, he says that in a worldly sense the “quintessential men of Zen were invariably losers”, quoting three examples from fiction and mythology to back up this penetrating insight. He also shares his opinions on ballet with us, “Compared to taiji, ballet afforded no root, kept too much qi in the head and arms” and “Alas it knew nothing of relaxation”. Unfortunately there are no photos of Smith in his judogi showing Yamashita how to relax or in his tutu and pink tights showing ballet dancers how to root.
For Smith a good teacher “…will be gentle, not forceful; he will be mild not blatant; he will be moderate and modest, but courageous. Out of thousands of students, Smith gave permission to teach to only 12 who had spent more than five years with him.
For British martial artists (or practitioners of “combatives” to use Smith’s term), there are interesting anecdotes about the late great E.J. Harrison, Syd Hoare (an almost forgotten hero of British Judo and Sumo) and Rose Li amongst others.
We have Smith’s tale of a shame-faced Terry O’Neill, standing outside Rose Li’s studio having been banned for missing taiji practice one Saturday and going to France with the national karate squad to compete instead. Some people! Thankfully Smith also gives Madam Li some constructive criticism, concluding that her form is “often double-weighted and not relaxed”, “…the result of inadequate learning or dilution of Liu’s original form by a young woman…” And these are his friends!
Nowhere does Smith discuss the many differences between Cheng Man-ching and Yang Cheng-fu’s postures or Cheng’s other teachers. Smith (“a world’s leading authority on Asian martial arts”), tells us in one sentence that he didn’t care for weapons apart from some staff work then gives us three pages on guns and hunting.
He mentions the imprisoned boxer, Reuben “Hurricane” Jackson, which seems to be mixing Reuben “Hurricane” Carter, the boxer, and George Jackson, the black activist who was shot dead. Smith has an interesting prose style; on page 219, “…it was mostly wonderful”, while on page 220, “Most of the time it was only wonderful”.
Smith’s knowledge of Chinese is at times pretty suspect. He translates the character jin as “tenacious energy”, whereas the character contains the radical for strength and thus indicates not tenacious energy but skilled (as opposed to brute) force. Smith says that to become capable of jin requires “mastering your essence (i.e. sperm) and qi ”. There is no mention of Kung training in jin techniques. Smith gives us a picture of him and three fellow students trying to push Cheng, basic physics would reveal to Smith that because of the body mechanics involved this is impossible not because they hadn’t mastered their essences.
Smith wants it both ways. On the one hand we have the invincible Cheng Man-ching, but, “…taiji is or should be a gentle art, practiced nowadays mainly for health”. We have students of Hong Yi-xiang who practiced Shaolin and Nei Jia Chuan winning San Shou tournaments whereas apart from the limited success of William Chen who also trained Western boxing Cheng’s students did little or nothing in this area.
Smith comes across as the Mr. Angry of the martial arts world trying like King Canute to turn back the tide. This is not a great book and probably not even a good one with far too much in it in the way of obscure quotes from Smith’s favourite writers and too many limp shaggy dog stories. There is little of value about martial arts in the last 20 years. There is nothing about the opening up of Mainland China and martial arts there, no history except recent history, nothing about martial arts from parts of Asia other than Japan and Taiwan. Despite all this, the book is often interesting with a wealth of (often highly biased) opinions on people and styles from a time long gone.
To his credit Smith opposed the insanity of US involvement in Vietnam and points out the ludicrous nature of the Rambo films and such where Hollywood has America winning instead of being defeated by peasants. (Incidentally he fails to mention that Ho Chi-minh practiced Tai Chi Chuan.)
Smith isn’t a great theorist or fighter or researcher. He lived in interesting times and he wrote about his experiences and for anyone interested in the passage of knowledge in the martial arts from Taiwan and to a lesser extent Taiwan to the West, this book is indispensible.