"The Art of Fighting Without Fighting" teaches how to frighten assailants without ever becoming physical.

My comments:

If a young man goes to a martial arts school to learn Kung Fu, the first thing the master tells him may be that he won’t be welcome to stay if the aim of his study is to enable him to beat guys up in future street fights.

If the master is worth his salt, that is.

At least this may have been the case in the olden days – the golden days of martial arts.

Today, if a youngster tells his teacher that his whole aim of learning Kung Fu is to win street fights, he may be commended for having ambition.

All kidding aside, the aim of perfecting one’s martial arts skills is not to win street fights. Not at all. It is, on the other hand, pushing one’s limits physically and in the process achieving a greater mental awareness and understanding of man and nature.

The aim is not to engage in the dirty work of beating anyone up, but so that nobody dares mess up with you in the first place.

The aim is, in short and in the words of Sun Tzu, to win a war without having to actually go into battle.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.