This kind of “making logic out of illogical-sounding contradictions” is very typical of martial arts and Eastern mysticism, and most of this type of stuff comes strait out of Taoist philosophy.
There are two phrases I found grammatically difficult to get past, the first being 处于劣势, or as the text has it, 处于一种劣势. “处于” chǔ yú means to “be in a state of…”, or “to be in a position of…”. 劣势 liè shì means “inferior”. Put together, this translates into English as “to be at a disadvantage”, or in the case of 处于一种劣势, “to be at some kind of disadvantage”.
The second and more difficult phrase is found in the third paragraph: 以剑招之长补兵器之短. The thing that makes this sentence difficult is all the accursed nebulous words that have many meanings – we’ve got 以, 之, and 补 all smooshed together, and these words are the keys to unlocking the meaning of this sentence. So let’s break this down word by word and see if all the definitions together don’t give us a clue:
以 – yǐ – The definition of 以 that’s being used here is “by means of” or “by way of”
剑招 – jiàn zhāo – Swordsmanship maneuvers
之 – zhī – of
长 – cháng – length
补 – bǔ – “to make up for”
兵器 – bīng qì – Weapon
之 – zhī – of
短 – duǎn – shortness
Ah hah! Though this is still a little convoluted, once we know the meaning of 以 and 补 in this instance, this now becomes much simpler to read. It says: “By means of the ‘length’ of [my] swordsmanship maneuvers, [I] make up for the shortness of [my] weapon.” We can see here that “length” doesn’t really mean how “long” something is – “length” here means a high level of skill. The word “length” is just being used to juxtapose against the word “short”.
You’ll enjoy this if you’re an upper-intermediate or advanced reader, and are interested in some specialized vocabulary.
把自己放在劣势
一名剑客去拜访一位武林泰斗，请教他是如何练就非凡武艺的。武林泰斗拿出一把只有一尺长的剑，说:“多亏了它，才让我有了今天的成就。”
剑客大为不解，问:“别人的剑都是三尺三寸长的，而你的剑为什么只有一尺长呢?兵器谱上说:剑短一分，险增三分。拿着这么短的剑无疑是处于一种劣势，你怎么还说这剑好呢?”
武林泰斗说:“就因为在兵器上我处于劣势，所以我才会时时刻刻想到，如果与别人对阵，我会是多么的危险，所以我只有勤练剑招，以剑招之长补兵器之短，这样一来，我的剑招不断进步，劣势就转化为优势了。”
的确，优势和劣势有时候并不是绝对的。把自己放在劣势，就是给自己压力，为自己注入进取的动力，敢于把自己放在劣势的人，最终就有可能把劣势转化成为优势，从而取得胜利。
3 replies on “Martial Arts Mastery: Put Yourself at a Disadvantage”
Oh, and please add other websites of different languages ( Please Do French ) and also do a dictionary of them. That would be great, thank you!
This makes me think that I should learn other ways of fighting other than martial arts. Thank you.
I can’t help but feel that “Department of Women, Family and Community Development” isn’t an entirely correct translation of ”兵器“
P.S. Come back!!!