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If you look at any martial arts club, from the nonsensical mystical bullshit taught in aikido to the primarily athletic, spectator sport martial art of western boxing, the trappings of magic and ritual are everywhere. Granted they are more obvious in many of the traditional asian martial arts, involving bowing, special clothes, meditation, and sometimes mantras. If you go to a boxing or mma gym, you can see many of the same categories of things, they just look superficially different. You see a lot of the same athletic gear like Everlast, Hayabusa, or Venum, worn to appease the martial spirits to be invoked. Or just to fit in. Or because those are high quality brands, and wearing a high quality brand will mean that you are a better fighter, at least in one's head at some level.
Essentially all forms of martial arts or combat sports involve a preparatory period, like striking the gong or lighting the incense in order to get the mind into the magical trance or mood necessary for spell-work. The preparatory period in the martial arts is a warm up, light exercises to prepare the body to get in to aroused state necessary to meet the upcoming demands of the workout or competition.
And then training happens. Much like a voodoo practictioner plunges needles into his poppet to destroy him, the kickboxer hits the heavy bag in preparation for the fight, simulating in as realistic a form as possible his opponent. The fighters who have teachers that keep current on the state of sports science are well aware of the utility of using visualization as a means to improve the skill of a fighters' techniques. Visualization of course is a time honoured tradition in many mystical and magical paths.
Each training session I argue is no different from a spell; what you do in the dojo is meant to make a certain outcome happen in the objective world. Some systems of martial arts utilize methods of training that are so byzantine that the outside observer can see little relation to that and the act of physical combat. Think of elaborate systems of choreographed movements, some of which are designed to improve woo woo as "chi". These fighters never let their spells come to fruition, their spells fail, for they seldom test their abilities in real life (at least I've found little evidence other than wild claims from their practitioners).
If a truly devoted martial artist lifts weights and diets appropriately to further increase his performance in combat, this is the same thing: An act with absolutely no clear relation to the act of punching someone in the head until they fall down. Yet it cannot be denied that such fighters are those who in fact do defeat their opponents with the greatest skill and frequency, and if they chose could probably go into a crowded area and cause serious damage with nothing but their bodies. In other words, martial artists who have proven their ability through competition or street fights after casting their spells (years of training) are fucking wizards.
