What does it mean, "the Principles"?

I'm no teacher of the martial arts but this is my blog for blogging things, so if I'm wrong, let it be wrong (or better yet, let someone correct me). What I mean by "Principles" are those basic rules of efficient, economical use of the body when in violent confrontation with another body. For example, when you do the Japanese martial art of Judo you come across the term "kuzushi". Kuzushi refers to breaking the opponents balance in order to more effectively apply your technique and/or to nullify your opponents force. You never fight force with force. That would tire you out and waste your time. Not economical. Definitely not efficient. If you do the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun you come across what is called the "center line" theory. This basically states that there is an imaginary line running from the top of your head straight down to the floor. When you strike or move your body, you are always aiming towards that line or moving your opponent off your own line. Striking to either side of that line enables the opponent to either parry more effectively or incur less damage. If you strike through that line, the opponent has no way to deflect the force, so they take the entire brunt of your strike, i.e. more damage. A principle you might come across in the Okinawan art of karate is the notion that you never strike with just your limbs, you strike with your whole body. So when you punch your arm out for example, you position your feet in such a way so that the back foot can push off the floor resulting in a kinetic movement of force that (along with the twisting of your hips) is expended out through your fist. The best way to visually imagine/explain this is how my Sensei explains it: when a batter hits a baseball, they never just swing their arms to hit, they swing the bat in conjunction with their entire body.  

*WARNING: If I've explained any of these concepts incorrectly, please forgive me and/or correct me. Thank you.

But let's stop for a second (because I've run out of examples from my limited repertoire of examples); if you notice, I was picking out characteristics from those "styles" of martial arts and explaining them as something seemingly unique to that system. The truth of the matter is, you can find any of those principles working within any one of those arts; with the exception of striking in judo perhaps, but judo does have striking techniques (atemi-waza), they're just not the focus. I mean if someone is attacking me and I guided his limbs off of my center line (making him "wrong") resulting in a weakened body position, at which time I applied a foot sweep to make him fall - would I be doing judo because I did ashi-waza? Or would it be Wing Chun because I turned him off my center line? What was it that Miyagi Sensei apparently said (as quoted by Patrick McCarthy):

"Styles...are little more than teaching variations of common principles."  

Yeah, not "Mr. Miyagi" from the movie but the real guy who propagated the Goju-ryu system of karate in Okinawa. My point is, you're not doing any "style" at that point; you are doing "martial arts" (if you define martial arts as being about economical, efficient use of the body during violent conflict). What's needed I think, is a pedagogical model that teaches these principles without the "mess" of style (or the distortion of culture). And because no one system can be all encompassing (otherwise it wouldn't be "a system" right?), you need a way of teaching/learning that can allow for "filling in the blanks" so to speak. I mean perhaps the closest thing to this is Mixed Martial Arts. But MMA is for the purposes of competition; your understanding of these principles is geared towards ultimately winning a match with rules. Which is fine and great. But if your focus is on successfully defending yourself in a situation of unprovoked physical violence (civilian self-protection) then you have to make sure your training fills in the blanks on things not found in a ring (like dudes with knives/guns, surprise attacks, psychological freezes, ethical lines, knowledge of the law, etc). So it's great to start within the foundations of one particular school, and ideally, that school would hold regular cross training sessions with other "styles" in order to better understand their own principles or learn new ones. But I think in today's fragmented world, that may have to be on the student to do themselves; they have to be their own "holistic" school of martial arts.

Elbow SMASH!
- Hiji Até