The first clip is about reality. Adults will frequently misrepresent things to children in order to motivate the children to do something.
(1) – Goku and Crillen originally came to Master Roshi because they heard he was the best Kung Fu teacher around. In their minds, he knew lots of fancy kicks and moves that he would teach them.
In this video, the boys have succeeded in moving a rock. Master Roshi told them that when they moved the rock, he would teach them real martial arts. After the boys move the rock, Master Roshi tells them, “That is about all I have to teach you”. The boys are understandable surprised.
Master Roshi then explains that most of his martial arts is the training. The training schedule has made them stronger than most other people. This is an accurate reflection of real life. In my own experience in martial arts, many of the people are taking the classes for sport or health or interest. Not because they really want to be a good martial arts fighter. The kind that gets beat up all the time while they learn.
In my experience, most farmers, most construction workers, most manual labor type people could beat up most martial arts type people. I do not mean the skilled martial artists. I mean the average martial art student who takes a few classes a week. The manual laborers do manual labor 8 hours a day. It is common sense that they are likely to be stronger than a person taking a few martial arts classes a week.
This particular video has 3 interesting ideas in it. They are all part of the same scene so the video is one big video. You might want to watch up to the relevant part, then stop the video and read the next part of the discussion.
The next part of the video, Master Roshi starts misrepresenting things to the boys again.
(2) – The boys want to know how they will win the big tournament with no techniques. Master Roshi tells them they came to him to learn, not to win. He tells them they need to gain fighting experience before they can learn fighting techniques.
This is true and not so true. It is true that a person who fights with no experience will gain some experience. How to move the body, how to use strength, knowing if they can take the punishment of a fight. It is also true that if Master Roshi taught the boys how to punch or kick, that they would be better prepared for a fight. It all depends on what your goals are and how you want to raise the boys.
If the goal is for them to stay as true to their nature as possible, you would want them to fight with no training so that their natural instincts come out. If the goal is to train them to be good in a particular style of fighting, then you would want to train them from the outset.
(3) – Then Master Roshi tells the boys what the next stage of their training is. To continue with the old training. But to wear turtle shells twice as heavy. This is real life. If you train by wearing weights, in order to get better, you do nothing more fancy than adding more weight. You will gain a particular type of strenght that not many people possess. If you fight a person who is trained in martial arts, but does not have this type of strength, you could probably beat them. They might hit you and hurt you. You would shrug it off because you are so strong and then beat them up.
(4) – Just to make sure the message has made it’s way into the small children’s mind, Goku makes a comment right at the end of the video clip.
Goku says “I guess we just pretend our opponents are another day of construction work”. Another wheelbarrow to push, more dirt to haul, more holes to dig. Just another job to do.
This statement should be remembered. The mental attitude of “just another job” will take a person far in any field, not just martial arts.
This next video is about Fear and Surprise. It is revealing about the processes people undergo when they are frightened or surprised.
(1) – Bulma accidentlly stumbles in front of oncoming traffic. An unknown man saves her and takes her to the sidewalk. Out of fear she is cluching tightly to him.
This is a common fear reaction. The urge to clutch and grab when a person feels fear. The body is naturally curled up in a fetus like position with the hands curled. When a person is conscious, they stretch and lengthen the body to make it perform properly.
Under the influence of strong fear or surprise, a persons control of their body will flee. Because they are no longer conscioulsy extending their body, the body returns reflexively to it’s natural curved and closed up position.
(2) – Bulma then realizes that she is holding on to a strange man. Surprise sends a flash of energy thru her so that she can release the man and step back from him will opening her mouth to shout.
When a person is surprised, the body will deliver a jolt of energy. The body does not know if it will have to react in order to save itself or not. Just in case it releases a strong jolt of energy. This can be used for any purpose. Bulma uses the energy to open her mouth wide to scream and also to force her fear stricken body to let go of the man and jump back.
(3) – After the energy surge that allows Bulma to scream and jump backwards, her body wants to return to it’s fear stricken, curled and clutching state. If it does, Bulma would fall to the sidewalk and might hurt herself. Since there is nothing to clutch on to, Bulma’s body clutches onto herself.
One of Bulma’s legs stays straight and standing up. The other leg bends out at a weird angle because she is using that leg to clutch her body closed instead of using the leg to hold herself up.
You see Bulma’s entire body shift towards the bent leg. That leg is not supporting her weight so she begins to fall that way. The nature of the mechanism by which she clamps herself closed also causes her head to move towards that leg. Bulma than turns her head in order to compensate for the movement and also because the head must turn to counterbalance the effeds of clamping herself shut. Bulma’s arm on the short leg side is held more tightly to her side as part of the clamping action. This may or may not be easily visible.
If you are a curious person who sees everything and wants to know the why’s of everything, you might also look at the foot of the bent leg. Look at how it is supporting itself on the sidewalk. That is not an accident or sloppy drawing. The position of foot is part of the deformation that takes place in the body when Bulma clamps herself shut against herself because of her fear reaction.