Kick Boxing & Martial Arts for Sport

How many movies in the last 40 years or so have featured some form of martial arts activities? How many of these have shown the martial arts as a form of discipline for children, teenagers, and adults? How many have shown the martial arts as a desirable and beneficial form of exercise and physical and mental and emotional and even spiritual health development?

Of these, how many have shown what I encountered today?

Today, in conversing with a gentleman regarding a limp that he displays, which I assumed was from a recent injury, he informed me that he had healed of that injury but was limping on account of a much more serious injury that he received 24 years ago. He said that in the cold and wet weather, like today’s weather, he limps due to the lingering pain of a broken neck.

He explained that he was once the state champion kick boxer. In one of the competitions he missed blocking a kick to the side of his head. The result was a broken neck and a long hospital stay. Additionally, he continues to suffer the long term affects of the injury.

It amazes me that the same movie producers who bombard us with propaganda against smoking tobacco, nevertheless promote the martial arts, not to mention also showing in many of their productions heros or other characters who smoke.

What amazes me even more is that knowing the fraud of the movie producers, I continue to help to make them wealthy and enable them to continue in their fraudulence by renting their movies. Who is really the bigger hypocrite? Does it matter? Hypocrisy destroys the practitioner. It has impact on others as well, but most especially is the hypocrite brought low by his hypocrisy.

My dollar for old movies and my three dollars for new releases really have little impact on society. Many hypocrites together, however, change the world for the worse. Each of us imagines that our hypocrisy is insignificant, but Adam’s hypocrisy killed the entire world. Those of us who continue in hypocrisy in any of the activities of our lives, do cause harm, first to ourselves, and then to those who are either influenced by our lies or are directly affected by their effects.

I wonder whether the man with whom I spoke today would have pursued a broken neck via kick boxing if hypocrites like myself had not helped to glorify this so-called sport. Hypocrisy in matters of the faith cause harm of even greater degree, of everlasting consequence. But it seems that in the matters of greatest consequence we seem to apply the least degree of concern.

That does seem odd, even tragic, doesn’t it?

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