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Secret arts
An excellent example of the way beginning, or even experienced, martial artists may be misled is the John F. Gilbey book Secret Fighting Arts of the World. Gibey claims to have traveled the world to find the world's most secretly guarded fighting techniques which he then describes in his book. Some of the legitimate techniques he describes are the Liverpool head butt, the Ganges groin grab, French Savate, and Mexican knife fighting. However, he also describes a Parisian who could project a belch ten feet in the open air and cause a man to faint. He describes a ninja who could take a full force blow across his forearm with a sharp sword without the skin being cut. The ninja could also stop another person's bleeding nose with a loud kiai. Another old master could silently leap to the roof of a house.
Gilbey also tells of seeing a man in the Reykjavik, Iceland passenger train station whose deflected punch left a quarter of an inch depression in a steel stanchion that it hit. There is no, and has never been, a train station in Reykjavik. The only train in Iceland's history was a small narrow gauge work train that only had one short rail line.
John F. Gilbey is actually a pen name of Robert W. Smith, a noted author and martial art teacher. In the late 1960's, Smith, along with fellow martial artists, Donn F. Draeger, Jon Bluming, and Jim Bregman invented a super martial artist from Reykjavik, Iceland named John F. Gilbey (the last name taken off of a bottle of gin).
Trickery is not just a modern occurrence
The Boy Conjurer from 1857 shows the bed of nails, rock broken on the body, Iron Bridge, bending nails, and many other stunts similar to the ones listed above. To read an 1895 account of the pseudo supernatural strength of the "Magnetic Girl, " click here.
Believe all the hype about psychics?
Your computer can read minds as well as they do. If you do not believe it try this test.
More
More stunts of strengthCheck out this site for some videos of how some martial art tricks are performed.
Anybody dumb enough to believe these will believe anything:
It seems that the more outrageous a claim is, the more people will believe it. If I told you I saw an old man suddenly leap to the top of building, people would say I was lying. However, if I also said the man was a grand master of Kung-fu, people would tend to believe it happened. If it seems unbelievable, then do not believe it until it is proved. The laws of physics and nature apply to everyone, even martial arts masters.
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