#bujutsu

STOP BEING SCARED | read in full...

.

What do you fear?

Why do you keep quitting?

Why do you keep starting over?

.

The greatest fear that you face is yourself. We all have dreams and goals in life and that can be very scary to accept. It's also very scary to admit to yourself and say "I want that" in my life, because if you put your heart and soul into something that you really want, and you fail, how are you going to feel about yourself?

.

That is why YOU HAVE TO go for it. Not for anyone else, but for yourself. You owe it to yourself to go after what it is that you want in your life. IT IS YOUR LIFE.

.

Are you tired of quitting and throwing in the towel to your emotions? Everybody is going through something. I do not care who you are or what you want. Everyone is going through something. But never forget that your greatness is in front of you, not behind you.

.

Whatever you are going through, whatever it is that you want can either stay where you are and get the sh*t kicked out of you, or you can fight for what it is that you want.

.

Most of you are running from the obstacles in your life, when the facts are it is the obstacles are there to get you to the next level.

.

You're ready to quit, give up and give in? It is the mindset of the warrior that says that no matter how many time I get knocked down, I will get back up.

.

It does not matter how good yesterday was or how much money you made. Because the truth is, you have to get up and do it again today. Success is not a destination, it is a journey.

.

Keep fighting in the midst of the struggle. Keep thinking positive. You only lose when you quit. If you are going to quit because someone else tells you that you are not good enough, or that you should not do that, well then you do not deserve what it is that you think that you want.

.

At the end of the day, when you do your mirror match and you ask yourself "Did I Get Better?"... If the answer is yes, and you keep doing that day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year... You will be able to look back and have pride in your life's work and the goals and the dreams that you achieved.

.

Journal spread #35

Angel can fight well unarmed, with swords, with axes, with a quarterstaff, and with knives. He’s also a fair archer, I think. We’ve also seen him train specifically on screen with swords and Tai Chi. When, how, and where though, did he learn all of these different fighting styles?

Let’s start at the beginning with Liam. Liam probably knew how to brawl. No real technique just drunken fists pounding. I doubt he was half bad at it either, but due to the Penal Laws at the time, I doubt Liam was familiar with anything else. I doubt he even knew how to use a pistol as he would not have been allowed to own a fire arm. Conclusion: His training began after he became Angelus.

This makes sense to me given the patterns we’ve observed in vampire fighting skills. We’ve observed that vampires that are newly risen are fairly good fighters, by human standards, but I would place this down to increased and unexpected strength and agility and desperation more then anything else, perhaps, a slight demonic instinct too. They haven’t been trained yet so they aren’t remotely as good as we’ve observed older vampires to be. (Unless they were martial artists as humans.) The century old vampires are much better at combat. I would surmise that, given that I believe that vampires are territorial, the ability to fight and defend is an extremely necessary skill. Fledgling vampires, provided they aren’t abandoned, are thus taught by their sire how to fight. In this way, they can protect their territory from other vampires. This is probably often a factor behind turning a vampire as well. A sire, or master of a coven, wants back up in defending their turf (and their right to be master vampire within it.) After centuries, I imagine they became quite good at it. If they weren’t, they’d be dead.

Which brings us back to Angelus and the issue of who taught him these things. We know that Darla taught him a lot about, and encouraged his proclivity towards, psychological torment, but did she teach him how to fight? Beyond the basics, frankly, I doubt it. She slowly worked her way back to her sire, the Master, and, I believe, she hoped that he would further Angelus’s education. Obviously, this did not happen and I’m sure Darla would have realised that Angelus would need to be able to fight to survive. The only people who could teach him, aside from other vampires, which could be risky business, were humans. I Imagine they would have learned it in the London area, before they left, as they knew the Master was at least tolerating their presence in the area. So, how would this play out?

During the late 18th Century, fencing and boxing, known as pugilism, were the most popular martial arts of the day. However, fighting with knives and the quarterstaff was common as well, if typically confined to “prize fighting.” Angelus likely learned how to fight from one of the boxing teachers. He and Darla may have even captured a few and held them prisoner until they’d finished teaching, after which, they ate them. The same held true for fencing and the quarterstaff, the former of which was considered to be the sport of the upper classes. Given Darla and Angelus would have appreciated the difficulty that lay in roaming Europe, often in hostile vampire turf, they probably spent about a year ensuring that they at least had the basics. In addition, Darla herself was probably the one to teach Angelus archery, as that was a long-distance weapon which she favoured, not wanting to get into a pitched fight, and which was quite efficient. Hence, by the early 1760′s, I’d say that Angelus was familiar with fencing, boxing, the quarterstaff, knives, and archery. He wasn’t a master by this point, not nearly, but he knew the basics. He would practice these skills for decades before getting close to being as good with them as he became when we saw him on Buffy and Angel. Nevertheless, as discussed in this post, Angelus picked a lot of fights with demons and probably was obliged to learn quickly or die.

The above, thus, covers how Angelus learned the more European martial arts, but how did he learn Kenjutsu? And the headlocks and  joint locks of wrestling? I believe that this happened when Angelus returned to the Master, as discussed in the aformentioned post, Angelus wanted the respect that the Master commanded and he’d had a few too many close calls with death to be comfortable just winging it on his own. He began some serious training under the Master and used it to enforce the Master’s will. A part of his training would have been, I believe with the former Slayer turned Vampire, Yuki Makimura, who taught him how to use the Katana rather then merely the traditional European swords. (We saw him training with one with Cordelia.) She probably taught him bujutsu too, which is the martial art that lead to Judo and Aikido. As a former Slayer, Makimura probably trained a lot of the Masters favourites. Also, while wrestling may have gone out of fashion in 18th century Europe, for Vampires who’d been around for centuries, I doubt the present-day fashions mattered. Under the Master’s influence, Angelus also learned all about wrestling with its joint locks, choke-holds, and headbutts. Thus, while Makimura was working in Japan, Angelus would train with others until he became a first class fighter in both unarmed combat and armed combat, mastering several different types of fencing particularly. By the end of the century or so that Angelus was with the Order, he would become one of their top fighters.

During none of this though did Angelus learn any other Eastern arts like Tai Chi which he appears to be quite fond of. In addition, there’s no indication that Angelus ever left Europe. This means that he must have learned them after he got his soul back. Angel left Darla and the rest of the gang in 1900, for good, during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Given the instability at the time, Darla’s anger, and the fact that we know that he can speak Korean, I would imagine that he went to Korea and stayed there for about a year, until the rebellion ended. This is where he would have been exposed to Taekkyeon, the precursor of Taekwondo, which was commonly practiced by the Koreans of the time as something of a folk custom. I’m sure Angel would have found it interesting as he learned the spiritual side of fighting that he hadn’t really been exposed to before. I doubt he learned it in any kind of depth, but it was interesting on a philosophical level. (Makimura having left things like that out of her instruction.) The idea that Taekkyeon, while could easily become lethal, attempted to incapacitate an attacker first must have been fascinating. This sparked an interest in Angel as he was exposed to ideas and concepts that he hadn’t really thought about before. 

Hence, in 1901, with the end of the Boxer Rebellion, he headed back towards China, on his way to the New World. (The idea of going to the New World stemmed from the increasing American influence in the Korean Empire. In America, Angel thought, he might be able to start fresh and would be less likely to encounter members of the Order or people who knew about him in general.) While, in China, he learned Tai Chi, which he still favours today. He found that it helped him to calm his mind and learn to deal with the demonic instincts inside of him. After he was finished learning the basics, he continued West as he trekked over to Tibet, where he was exposed to the teachings of the monks there. In Heartthrob, Angel comes back from a Tibetan monastery where he was learning to accept Buffy’s death. Given that that is where he chose to go, and that he can speak Tibetan, I imagine that he stayed there awhile as he finally learned to start accepting what he was. Hence, when he is at his lowest with Buffy’s death, that is where he returns. If he learned martial arts here at all, which given his actions in Heartthrob, I think he did, it would have been Lama Pai. These Eastern influences would have altered Angel’s fighting style with more kicks and possibly more spins, as it is my understanding that there is more an emphasis in Taekkyeon on kicking then in the other fighting styles that Angelus had learned previously. Moreover, they would have encouraged Angel to only fight when necessary and provided sound guidelines for when it might be appropriate to use force. This is another concept that was rather new to Angel as Angelus, lacking remorse, is a more ruthless fighter.