China and Japan have given the world many so-called 'Martial Arts' - Karate, Judo, and so on - and most of these contain a large element of philosophy as an integral, and perhaps vital part. The gentlest, and perhaps the most philosophical of these arts, however, is also the least well-known - Kao-Teng.

Kao-Teng originated in China in the eighth century AD. According to legend, it was originally devised by none other than the legendary philosopher and sage Kon-Fu-Tsu, who we in the west know as Confuscius. Kon-Fu-Tsu is known to have been a practitioner of Kao-Teng, but its origins are probably much older - it may be as old as 2000 BC. Philosphically speaking, Kao-Teng is not a million miles from the more mainstream Chinese way of thought known as Taoism; where Taoism emphasises the duality of the universe, though, Kao-Teng sees everything in nature in a triune fundamentalism. Where Taoism's emblem is the well-known Yin-Yang symbol, in Kao-Teng the equivalent is the Kao-Pat (shown right). This symbol is also known as the Ying-Tong, which is an elaborate Chinese pun; the expression means 'something ineffably deep which, to outward appearance, seems completely nonsensical'.

To the practitioner of Kao-Teng, the universe and everything in it consists of three distinct aspects; for example, there is light, there is dark, and there is everything else; there is good, there is bad, and there is mediocre. The Kao-Pat also shows another aspect, by means of the nesting of circles within circles: everything is a part of something else, and everything contains other things. This holistic view is at the very heart of The Way of Kao-Teng, and is fundamental to the thinking of its practitioners.

There is more to Kao-Teng than its philosophy, though. It is also a martial art, but it is the gentlest and least violent of all martial arts. There is no throwing your opponent to the ground (Judo); no standing around in strange postures (Tai Chi); no hitting him with an open hand (Karate); no hitting him with a stick (Kendo); no hitting him with whatever part of the body is nearest (Kung-Fu); no hitting him with whatever comes to hand (Ju-Jitsu); no hitting him round the face with a wet halibut (Oi-Yu-Cop-That). In Kao-Teng, there isn't even the mildly agressive ritualised glaring found in the ancient martial art practiced in Leicestershire, Ayup-Meduk.

The secret of Kao-Teng's gentleness is that the art is entirely verbal.

Kao-Teng is a purely defensive art, and the approach is a simple one: when attacked, one doesn't strike back, one merely distracts and placates one's opponent by telling him a story. There are 1,263 traditional Kao-Teng stories, which the novice is expected to learn by heart so that he is able to recall and relate any of them at a moment's notice. The novice must be absolutely word-perfect in all of these stories before he can be initiated into the inner-temple. At this point, he dons the saffron robe and the gold medallion (see left) of the first-dan initiate, and begins to learn the various techniques needed for further progression within the order, for an experienced Kao-Teng practioner must be able to construct entirely new stories as occasion demands. This is a vital skill: when defending oneself against an attacker, one cannot rely upon any of the traditional stories, because there is always the danger that the attacker will have heard it before.

The perfect Kao-Teng story must have certain attributes. It must be palpably false, but not demonstrably so. It must be elegant in construction, and self-consistent, with no internal conflicts or contradictions. It must have no unresolved questions and, most importantly of all, it must entertain, amuse, or distract the attacker. In this sense, elderly Kao-Teng practioners are necessarily the finest there are; those who are not made of the 'right stuff' are usually killed early on, often because they attempted to improvise a long, complex joke with no clear idea of a punchline.

The ancient art of Kao-Teng is a fascinating one, and deserves to be better-known in the west. We hope that this very brief overview may have wetted the reader's appetite, and that he will search out some of the literature listed in the bibliography below.

Pronunciation

Few of us in the west speak Mandarin, so a brief note on pronunciation might be in order. Remember that Tao is pronounced dow, and Feng-Shui is pronounced fung shwey; thus, in Kao-Teng the ao sounds as ow, the T in Teng sounds as a D, the eng sounds as ung... oh, just figure it out for yourself.

Bibliography

For an easily accessible example of a Kao-Teng story, the interested reader need look no further than the 'Kao-Teng' section of the Philosophy Gallery in the Museum of Misinformation. For further examples, see almost everything else on this site.

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