When Do I Get to Call Myself a Martial Artist?

You know, I've been 'doing' HEMA for a little over a year now. Allowing for semester breaks, personal holidays, incidental absences... That's probably a good fifty classes - at two different schools, focusing on several different weapons types and styles. You'll have to bear with me here, as an arts student maths was never my strong suit - but that's about 150 hours of training. They say it takes 10,000 before you are an 'expert' at something. By comparison, my measly experience seems to barely even qualify as 'novice'. So, how do I evaluate my own progress? Can I even call myself a martial artist yet? What does any of it even mean?

I consider my arts background. When I think about that industry, anyone can be an artist. You just need to create art. Doesn't have to be good, doesn't even have to have taken you very long. You wrote a song? Artist. Drew a picture? Artist. The bar is very low, and it's a label absolutely anyone can pick up and affix to themselves. There's no training required (sure, I trained for three years, but more fool me) and, as a result, there is perhaps a little less prestige associated with the classification. So, righto. No problems calling myself an artist.

What about 'martial artist'? I often wonder where the title came from. One might think that those stereotypical masculine, brutish men who love a bit of punchy-kicky would want to distance themselves from the mincing art world as much as possible. Why pick 'artist'? Why not 'martial practitioner'? 'Martial guru'? 'Martial whiz'? 'Martial virtuoso'? 'Martial synonyms'?

I digress.

You can't just call yourself a martial artist. Well, you can, but that sort of hubris is reserved for frauds and people with Youtube channels. If somebody told me they were a martial artist, I would completely expect that that person should be able to kill me with their pinky finger. What's the point, otherwise?

Well, the thing about art is that it's a constant work in progress. Everything you make is a little bit less shit than the last thing. You learn something new every time and you take it forward with you into your future endeavours. Now, I haven't been doing HEMA long, but I'm starting to work out the parallels. Even the best of the best - who have been fighting since before I was born - are still learning. They're learning how to improve their art. It'll never be perfect, such is the human condition. But it can be better than it was before. 

In the same way I work on vocal tonality, I practice my linear footwork.

I get a little better at writing dialogue. I get a little better at keeping my point on line.

Tomorrow I might write a song. The day after that, I might finally understand how to do a cadence properly.

It's all art, man. I am a martial artist. I don't have to be a good one, I just have to be the kind who is always open to learning something new.