Читать книгу Legends of the Martial Arts Masters - Susan Lynn Peterson - Страница 8

Introduction

Most stories are either nonfiction or fiction, true or make-believe. But a legend is often both.

Most of the people in Legends of the Martial Arts Masters were real people. Tamo was a real monk who lived fifteen hundred years ago. Yet because he lived so long ago, we know almost nothing about what he was like as a person. The stories about what he could do have been told and retold so many times that we no longer know what is real and what is make-believe. On the other hand, Robert Trias died in 1989. Many of his students are still alive, still teaching karate, and still telling their students what they remember about Grandmaster Trias. But already Robert Trias is becoming a legend. Stories about him are told and retold, sometimes growing a little in the telling.

Did Ueshiba Osensei really disappear into thin air? Did Nai Khanom Tom really defeat twelve Burmese Bando fighters? Did Gogen Yamaguchi really fight a tiger? I don’t know. That’s the way I heard the stories, but maybe they had “grown” a little before I heard them.

Even if these aren’t true in every detail, they are great legends. Why? Because legends aren’t just about what happened. Legends are about how we feel when we hear stories about great people doing great things. Legends are about wondering whether people are really able to do such spectacular feats. Legends are about wondering if we could do great things, too.