China, being very old, enjoys as much mythic past as verifiable history. One of its myths tells of an Indian monk, known as Bodhidharma, who visited China’s Shaolin Temple.

There, he supposedly found the Chinese monks in poor health, and consequently taught them various breathing techniques and physical exercises. It is said that the Shaolin monks eventually used such techniques as the basis for hand-to-hand fighting styles. Over the centuries, such styles gained renown and were eventually taught to non-monks, spreading over China, then all of Asia. Thus do the Asian martial arts exist today.

The truth of the matter is similar, but much more complex, and I’ll only write of it briefly. As with the rest of the world, Asia has been pumping out martial arts systems, in various areas, at various times, since the advent of bronze weaponry (in China) around 1500 BC.

Even the Mongol wrestling style called “cilnum” (interestingly utilizing the same edge-of-the-fist blows Inuit traditionally used in unarmed fighting) is incredibly ancient.

Yet none of these fighting systems has persisted like the sort of martial arts that began to trickle out of China since 500 AD — roughly two thousand years later. Why?

The most likely reason is that, while Bodhidharma’s visit is largely mythical, the Shaolin tradition nevertheless did influence many of the martial arts in Asia, however indirectly. And its influence left such martial arts with a semi-religious, ascetic flavour. In this way, the people who today practice the descendant systems of such martial arts might not be monks or Buddhists or even Asian, but they are still peppered by such ethics as:

1. Violence is a last recourse.

2. Respect family and culture.

3. Master the self.

4. Exercise restraint and discipline.

5. Struggle to improve society.

The example above is not a military code, but a civilian, even semi-monastic, one. It is the difference between the martial art studied for war and that studied for the sake of self-discipline. In this way, such martial arts merely offer, as a bonus, the fact that they are useful for self-defence, while their real goal is perfection of the self.

In part one of this column, I described my experience of undergoing a form of traditional Inuit training under my father. He was harsh — even what people today might call cruel — but once I overcame my self-pity, I came out of it with new skills, a new sense of pride in what I could endure.

There was only one other thing that made me feel the same way: karate, a discipline that has its roots in civilian — not military — tradition. In the late 1400s, the Okinawan king Sho Shin banned all weapons. Okinawa, at that time, was an international Asian trade centre.

The response to the weapons ban was that the Okinawans borrowed Chinese martial arts, fusing them with local “te” (“hand”) boxing traditions for self-defence. By the early 1900s, the art was generally known as “karate-do,” or, “empty hand way.” Like my experience with my father, I initially thought it would kill me. As with my father, it was instead an awakening, the sense of being reconditioned into someone better. Like my father, martial arts was a call to my natural physical intelligence.

I wasn’t able to continue with karate because of relocation, but I have sampled other martial arts, and I’ve talked to other Inuit who have done so. Inuit seem to take to martial arts like birds to air, and I’ve decided that this only makes sense.

For there is something strangely Inuktitut about the martial arts. Their philosophies share the same kind of holistic, or “circular,” thinking intrinsic to Inuit culture. Their movements are suited to the Inuit Mongol body-type. But, most importantly, they are about harmonizing conscious mind with unconscious potential, what Bruce Lee called “neuromuscular conditioning.”

In other words, they are about awakening that physical intelligence ancient Inuit used to find so valuable — the ability to act toward survival instinctively, leaving the conscious mind free.

Often, I think about the needs of the younger generations — the need for pride, for focus, for something to do — and I wonder: How would Inuit react if there were more martial arts schools in the North?

Pijariiqpunga.