When I was a freshman at Michigan State University in 1968, I took a Judo class taught by Jay Kim (spelling?). He was a Korean (?) man who had taught US Marines hand-to-hand combat during the Pacific Island campaign of WWII. He was very quiet, humble, and four foot 10 inches tall. The first day of class, he stood in the middle of his circled new students. He asked one to come forward to push him over. The student gave a shy shove, to which Mr. Kim told him to plant his feet and push. Mr. Kim didn’t move. He asked another student to join the attempt to move him off his stance. He was simply standing with his feet shoulder-width apart and arms hanging loosely at his side. When the two guys couldn’t push him over, Mr. Kim asked a third student, then a fourth, to make the effort. With four big guys pushing on him, Mr. Kim did shift his feet to remain upright. It was the most amazing thing I had witnessed to date.
Jay Kim taught us to stand completely at rest with the soles of our feet slightly rolled inward to aim them at a point four feet below the floor we stood on. We were amazed at the stability this posture gave us. None of us reached the capacities of our aged instructor. He started his martial arts studies as a spiritual practice at a young age.
Next, he focused on our muscle tension. Complete relaxation before movement of any kind was his teaching. To move a muscle quickly, it must be relaxed. A tense muscle first has to relax before it can move. For a muscle to be relaxed, the mind must be relaxed. That is a basic tenet of his spiritual practice. A quiet mind empty of thoughts and pre-conceived notions. Then the brain can quickly assess visual cues and send appropriate muscle signals. That was his most difficult teaching for us young guys, full of motion and attitude, to acquire. I’m still working on that 60 years later.
On the second day, he taught us how to fall. We all had hoped to learn how to throw people around. Instead, we learned how to take a five-foot fall without getting hurt when he flipped us mid-air. Turned out his plan was a good one because each one of us got thrown around a lot. A lot!
Jay Kim was a dangerous man. His decades of dedicated study in the martial arts positioned him to teach US Marines in deadly combat. It was no game, sport, or celebrity status for him in that role. Now he was teaching MSU students as a kind and patient instructor. In hindsight, he had nothing to prove. I never felt any egotism from him. His grounding was four feet below the surface he walked on. I think the connection to his traditions was deeper still.
I think Mr. Kim wouldn’t fit into the contemporary “manosphere” of money-laden and egotistical cage fighting. The origins of martial arts produced spiritual warriors able to connect mind, body, and soul for the benefit of the community and/or the emperor. That is a far cry from modern use of martial arts for entertainment, self-aggrandizement, and profitability. Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and Professional Fighters League (PFL) all have a huge viewership and generate enormous economic activity. UFC, which advertises “the sickness is real,” purportedly amassed between 15 and 23 billion in net worth.
The sickness is real indeed. The cultural impact of these modern-day gladiatorial events is much deeper than ticket sales and cheering crowds. Cage fighting feeds into the angry need to hurt someone that fills the manosphere. Disaffected people want revenge for perceived wrongs. Inflicting pain in numerous ways on non-white, non-hyper male groups is promoted by secretive organizations and overt policy influencers. Cage fighting is the mere public expression of aggressive hyper-masculinity that also contains misogyny, anti-semitism, -muslim, -foreigner, -black, -brown, and anyone else not fitting the dictates of white supremacy.
The Patriot Front is an active and sophisticated white supremacist organization that recruits young men at fight clubs around the country. They know that some fight club members’ participation is due to unresolved disaffection and rage. The Front builds on that discord in very effective ways, as proven by their growing membership and satellite chapters around the country.
Promotion and recruitment happen in other areas also. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited Pastor Doug Wilson, a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, to preach to Pentagon officials. Wilson defends slavery, would deny women the right to vote, and is an old-time, strict Christian theocrat. His contribution to the manosphere is that only white Christian men are divinely enshrined to hold power over all others.
President Trump is a long-time fan of cage fighting. So much so that he ordered a cage built on the front lawn of the White House. Fighting was scheduled to celebrate America’s two-hundred fifty anniversary and his birthday. The professional UFC fighters exited the Oval Office on their way to the fight cage. It is bitterly ironic that the same US President who has disparaged wounded veterans and soldiers killed in Europe would allow paid fight entertainers to use the Oval Office. Our soldiers have suffered wounding and death defending the United States, some only to be humiliated by the current leader of their beloved America. But UFC fighters get top access to that president, use of the White House front lawn, and celebrity status.
The White House has been a symbol of freedom and human rights for the world. It is the center of what President Ronald Reagan called the “shining city on a hill.” President George HW Bush referred to “a thousand points of light” as American citizens doing good work in their communities. I wonder what they might think of the current president turning the White House, the people’s house, into a focal point of the Cult of the Bully? The Cult of the Bully contains the Monied and the Muscled. The Bully is financed by the Monied and enforced by the Muscled. Our society of the celebrity empowers those with news coverage and the envious public eye. Of course, not all money nor muscle is behind the Bully.
The cult of the bully honors only the most selfish money and the most destructive muscle. That might change if we get rid of the Bully. Might. Because the American psyche would need to start honoring the kind, the generous, the compassionate, and the world influencer, affecting positive change for all Earth’s citizens. That is a big lift for average citizens. Bigger still for the Gluttonous, feeding their greed and star-ship-sized egos.
