AND THE DRAGON

In Chinese Martial Arts and philosophy the dragon can symbolize many things. It can mean that a dragon is a real creature that once lived or it can mean a creature from another dimension that sometimes touches into our own. The meaning I like the best is that it means the highest point in spirituality at its most creative. The dragon can symbolize creative and spiritual energy as one. When someone learns all the stroke it takes to learn an art, be it painting, sculpting, ballet and martial arts, she or he can be considered an Adept but few reach the sphere or “master.” A “master would take the dragon energy (fusion of creative and spiritual) and take his art to a place no one has conceived of before. In MMA, this person is Lyoto Machida. Unlike other fighters, Machida has developed a style that gives him the least amount of damage. He is the least struck fighter in the UFC. His style has been called “boring” by some but affective and efficient by others. He does lots of damage yet incurs little. He uses a Karate style of counter punching and has excellent jujitsu. He's taking an existing martial art, that most experts thought inaffective in MMA because of past failures by other practitioners, and turned it into something effective.Taking old strokes and making them new a sign of a master. I like his style because it's so smart because it takes aggression and turns it back on itself just like martial arts is suppose to do. It won't be long before Machida is lightweight champion even with the “boring” tag stuck to his butt. He's 14 and 0. If you know anything about MMA, 14-0 is almost unheard of. It's awesome to see this type of mastery so soon in someone so young. I know many people who are turned off by the ruff music and destructive violent attitude that can be attributed to cage-fighting. I emplore you to look past the easy judgements and look deeper into an art that use to be defined as regional but has now become a fusion of all MARTIAL ARTS of the world.