The human machine is a miracle whose vast potential is hampered by undisciplined habits and acquired behaviors. Martial arts expand upon that potential, unlocking the deeper physical and metaphysical abilities of body, mind, and spirit. Although such arts, at the basic levels, simply help a person strike or move more effectively in a fight, the higher reaches of martial-arts discipline go far beyond physical combat, into the realm of mental focus and spiritual refinement.

Although the obvious example of self-perfection through martial arts is kung fu (roughly translated as “hard work” or “auspicious effort art”), most martial arts have esoteric elements. Renaissance fencing features philosophy, psychology, and mathematics as well as physical skill; Greek pankration emphasizes being “all powerful” in all respects; capoeira relies upon the essence of freedom as well as on the acrobatic maneuvers for which it’s famous. Advanced martial arts, therefore, nurture the spirit, hone the mind, and turn the body into a focus for the powers of each.

At their most metaphysical levels, advanced martial arts attune a practitioner into the Quintessential life force, channel it through refined motions, and grant incredible – some would say inhuman – powers through the focus of an art.

The Akashic practice Do is probably the most obvious example of this practice on a metaphysical level, but any martial art – even dirty fighting – can become a magickal practice with the proper mindset and devotion.

(See Chapter Nine’s sections dealing with Martial Arts and Do.) Essentially, the artist manifests her will through clarity, energy, and activity. In game terms, she uses that art as a mystic focus.

Beyond their mystic elements, martial arts are also technologies: refinements of knowledge that can be studied, repeated, and employed with practical effect. Thus, Technocrats and other technomancers can employ martial arts as a focus too.

Regarding all that mystic nonsense as metaphors and mental techniques, a technomancer can divorce her martial arts training from mysticism and still retain its metaphysical potency. With such powers, she can direct Forces, alter Life, rearrange Matter, perceive Entropy, channel Prime, enhance Time, and – perhaps most of all – refine her Mind to sublime capacity. Although she couldn’t fly through the air or skip along tree branches by manipulating chi (“That’s just mythology!”), she can still rework conventional physics and biology through her understanding of the fighting arts.

Associated Paradigms: A World of Gods and Monsters; Bring Back the Golden Age; Creation’s Divine and Alive; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything is Chaos; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; Might is Right; Tech Holds All Answers

Associated Abilities: Acrobatics, Alertness, Athletics, Awareness, Esoterica, Etiquette, Intimidation, Martial Arts, Medicine, Meditation, Melee

Common Instruments: Bodywork, dance and movement, energy, herbs, meditation, ordeals and exertions, symbols, wands and staves, weapons, voice