Because those martial artists have such level of mastery in their respective arts. Humans are bad measuring sticks - too unstable and variable. By martial artist’s performance you can only assess how great is his mastery of his art. You cannot assess the greatness of art itself. Remember: such… exhibitions attract only certain types of people. And the Third Jewel of Daoism is “not dare to be ahead in the world”. Do not think that participants of those exhibitions represent the arts as whole.
When you stop to think about martial artists as “woo-hoo, I am learning to punch really hard so I can punch my way to world championship” - you would know the answer to this question =)
And you did not understand a thing of what he was advocating. He was advocating achieving taiji - the form that is formless - and practicing the state of mushin - mind without mind. But to correctly understand it you must first understand daoist philosophy, and I am seriously not in the mood for such explanations and do not think that you would understand it either. In short - yes, the highest form is formless, but to achieve it you have to master other forms and their underlying philosophies as “special cases” of said formless form. He was speaking against mastering one form and staying in it, as all forms are merely a means to achieve formlessness. It is like mathematics: you have to really understand all kinds of natural numbers, integers, fractions, irrational numbers and transcedental numbers before you could really start to understand that they all are special cases of complex numbers.
You should do your research more carefully. For example.
I do not harp on your personal experience, I merely mention its absence. And yes, plural of “anecdote” is not “data” and your “mixed martial arts arenas” is exactly this - anecdotes.[/quote]
A heads-up: the link you posted (at least, that particular page) actually said that there’s nothing mystical about what was being observed, and it says that the same thing happens in other dedicated high-level athletes like Olympians. What’s being observed is the result of rigorous training and not specific beliefs about the nature of the universe. You would do well to remember that people who participate in combat sports are also athletes (and at the level where anyone’s actually paying attention to them, high-level athletes), and not disrespect their dedication, training, and ability just because it isn’t philosophical or spiritual.
I’m really not in a mood for explanation of daoist philosophy any more than you are. I could probably understand it just fine; what I would probably not do is agree with you as to its necessity in mastering skills, including any level of excellence in fighting.
