Introduction
Martial arts have traditionally been classified through technique, strategy, lineage, cultural origin, philosophical orientation, or preferred methods of combat. Systems are commonly distinguished as striking or grappling, internal or external, hard or soft, or sportive or combative. Such classifications remain useful for describing martial traditions and practices, but they provide less insight into how the same practitioner may respond differently when circumstances, pressures, and constraints change. They tend to emphasize what a practitioner or system does rather than how the capacity to act is organized, expressed, and regulated as conditions change.
Addressing this limitation requires shifting the focus from the classification of techniques or martial systems toward the organization of force in action. The relevant question is not simply what techniques a practitioner possesses, but how available force capability is brought into action and governed as circumstances change. Force is therefore understood not simply as physical power applied but as an embodied capacity whose possibilities depend upon the relationship between what a practitioner is capable of doing, how that capability is expressed, and how its use is regulated.
Force in martial practice can consequently be examined through three interrelated aspects: force capability, force expression, and force regulation. Force capability concerns what the practitioner is capable of doing, including physical, technical, perceptual, and experiential resources. Force expression concerns how that force capability is manifested through action, whether directly, indirectly, through redirection, moderation, intensification, or other forms of organization. Force regulation concerns how force capability and force expression are governed through awareness, intention, judgment, control, proportionality, and responsiveness to circumstance. These are not sequential stages or separate kinds of force, but distinguishable dimensions of the same embodied capacity to act.
This distinction provides the basis for differentiating Style and Form. Style refers to the characteristic manner in which force is expressed, while Form refers to the regulatory condition through which force capability and force expression are organized. Form therefore does not refer primarily to physical form or technical structure. The same force capability may be expressed through different Styles according to circumstance, while the same Style may occur under different Forms of force regulation. Direct force does not necessarily indicate poor force regulation, just as restrained or yielding action does not necessarily indicate superior force regulation.
An important conceptual foundation for this distinction was established by Dr. Maung Gyi, the former Chief Instructor and now Chief Instructor Emeritus of the Burmese martial art of the Hanthawaddy System of Bando & Thaing, through his System + Styles Model, presented in Bando Philosophy, Principles, and Practice: An Overview of the Free-Hand Style (2000, pp. 23–26). Here, Dr. Gyi distinguishes between Hard and Soft Systems and between High and Low Styles, producing four configurations: Hard + High, Hard + Low, Soft + High, and Soft + Low. For the present study, the significance of this Model lies in its separation of two dimensions that can be examined in relation to one another rather than as a single continuum.
The present Paper builds upon Dr. Gyi’s Model by extending its binary structure to include intermediate conditions that are significant in adaptive martial action. Style is therefore organized into three orientations – Hard, Middle, and Soft – while Form is organized into High, Middle, and Low. Their interaction produces nine possible configurations. Middle is not intended simply as a midpoint between opposing extremes but as an analytical category for forms of force expression or force regulation that cannot be adequately represented by either pole.
The resulting Nine-State Martial Model treats these configurations as dynamic States rather than fixed traits. A practitioner may move among States as threat, environmental uncertainty, emotional pressure, fatigue, injury, experience, responsibility, and available options change. The Model, therefore, does not classify practitioners according to permanent characteristics or identify a single ideal Style or Form. Instead, it examines how force capability, force expression, and force regulation are organized under particular conditions and how practitioners may reorganize their actions as those conditions change.
The broader purpose of the Model is to explain Adaptive Embodied Agency, understood as the capacity to recognize changing conditions, regulate available force capability, modify its force expression, and reorganize action while maintaining functional effectiveness and responsible control. In this framework, force capability establishes the field of available action, Style describes how force capability is expressed, Form describes how force is regulated, and movement among States provides a means of examining adaptive martial behavior.
Conceptual Foundation: Three Aspects of Force
Force capability, force expression, and force regulation are related but analytically distinct. Force capability concerns potential: what resources for action are available to the practitioner. Force expression concerns manifestation: how those resources become organized into observable action. Force regulation concerns governance: how the practitioner manages the relationship between available force capability, expressed force, intention, circumstance, and consequence.
Force capability therefore should not be reduced to physical strength. A practitioner may possess force capability through physical power, technical skill, coordination, timing, positional awareness, perceptual sensitivity, embodied knowledge, and the capacity to generate, absorb, redirect, control, or withhold force. Force capability establishes a field of possibilities, but it does not determine which possibility will be expressed in a particular moment.
Force expression concerns the manner in which force capability enters action. The same underlying force capability may be expressed through direct engagement, indirect redirection, controlled pressure, withdrawal, positional manipulation, or adaptive combinations of these approaches. Force expression is consequently not equivalent to force capability itself. A practitioner may be capable of decisive force without expressing it, just as a practitioner may express force in a limited manner despite possessing greater underlying capability.
Force regulation concerns the governance of this relationship. Force regulation determines, in practical terms, whether available force capability is increased, reduced, redirected, withheld, sustained, or terminated according to changing circumstances. Force regulation does not mean suppressing force or minimizing force in every situation. A highly regulated response may involve decisive physical action when circumstances require it, while a poorly regulated response may involve either excessive force or unnecessary withdrawal. Force regulation therefore concerns the quality of organization and control through which force capability becomes force expression.
The three aspects can be summarized as follows.
Table 1. Three Aspects of Force
| Aspect | Central Question | Primary Concern |
| Force Capability | What is the practitioner capable of doing? | Physical, technical, perceptual, and embodied capacity; available possibilities for action |
| Force Expression | How is capability manifested? | Direction, modality, intensity, manner, timing, and organization of force in action |
| Force Regulation | How are capability and its expression governed? | Awareness, intention, emotional regulation, judgment, control, proportionality, and responsiveness to circumstance |
This distinction prevents confusion. Force capability should not be confused with force expression because the capacity to act is not identical to the action actually selected. Force expression should not be confused with force regulation because the outward manner of action does not necessarily reveal the condition governing it. Force regulation should not be confused with the absence of force because effective force regulation may support either direct or indirect action depending upon circumstance.
The broader theoretical foundation for this argument is Adaptive Embodied Agency. Agency is embodied because action emerges through the interaction of perception, emotion, physical capability, environmental conditions, learned experience, and situational demands rather than through cognition alone. Martial practice makes these relationships particularly visible because uncertainty, resistance, risk, and consequence place immediate demands upon the practitioner’s capacity to perceive, organize, regulate, and reorganize action.
The Model also extends beyond the individual practitioner. Martial capability is cultivated within institutions and social environments that shape how force is trained, authorized, constrained, and evaluated. Organizational rules, professional norms, authority structures, training practices, and systems of accountability can reinforce particular patterns of force expression while encouraging or restricting particular forms of regulation. Force regulation is therefore both embodied and socially situated.
The Nine-State Martial Model
The Nine-State Martial Model examines the relationship between Style and Form. Style describes the primary manner in which force is expressed, while Form describes the condition through which action is regulated. Force capability underlies both dimensions by providing the practitioner’s available capacity for action, but force capability itself is not one of the Nine States. The Nine States instead represent recurring configurations of force expression and force regulation under particular conditions.
The Model identifies three primary Styles: Hard, Middle, and Soft.
Hard Style expresses force directly. It seeks to overcome resistance through decisive engagement, structural disruption, offensive initiative, or concentrated pressure. Hard Style is not defined by aggression or emotional intensity. It is characterized primarily by a preference for direct influence upon an opponent, obstacle, or problem.
Soft Style expresses force indirectly. It seeks to manage resistance through redirection, yielding, absorption, timing, positional advantage, or non-collision. Soft Style is not equivalent to passivity. It represents an alternative manner of organizing force in which existing forces may be redirected or incorporated rather than directly opposed.
Middle Style occupies the space between direct opposition and indirect management. It functions as an adaptive mode capable of integrating Hard and Soft responses according to circumstance. Rather than committing to either extreme, Middle Style emphasizes calibration, transition, and situational adjustment.
These three Styles therefore represent different ways in which available force capability can be expressed when confronted by resistance.
The Model then identifies three Forms through which action is regulated: High, Middle, and Low.
High Form represents integrated regulation. Emotional discipline, cognitive clarity, ethical awareness, situational perception, intentionality, and control operate together sufficiently for action to remain deliberate under pressure. High Form does not mean absence of force, passivity, or preference for Soft Style. A practitioner operating in High Form may express substantial direct force when circumstances require it.
Middle Form represents adaptive regulation. Situational awareness remains sufficiently intact for the practitioner to assess circumstances, modify responses, and retain judgment while force is increased, reduced, redirected, or withheld. Force regulation remains functional but may depend more strongly on situational stability and established patterns of response than in High Form.
Low Form represents constrained regulation. Fear, anger, urgency, exhaustion, confusion, perceptual overload, or survival pressure may narrow awareness and reduce deliberative capacity. Action can become increasingly determined by immediate circumstances rather than by conscious organization. Low Form does not necessarily mean weakness or incompetence, nor does it imply that action will always be ineffective. A practitioner may retain substantial force capability while force regulatory capacity is temporarily constrained.
Table 2. Characteristics of the Two Dimensions
| Dimension | Category | Primary Orientation | Strengths | Risks if Poorly Regulated |
| Style | Hard | Direct engagement and decisive force | Speed, dominance, decisive resolution | Rigidity, escalation, excessive force |
| Style | Middle | Adaptive integration of direct and indirect force | Flexibility, versatility, responsiveness | Hesitation, inconsistency |
| Style | Soft | Redirection, yielding, positional control | Efficiency, conservation of effort, de-escalation | Passivity, avoidance, failure to act |
| Form | High | Integrated force regulation | Emotional discipline, ethical judgment, cognitive clarity | Effectiveness remains dependent upon appropriate Style selection and contextual judgment |
| Form | Middle | Adaptive force regulation | Situational responsiveness, flexibility | Partial regulation under increasing pressure |
| Form | Low | Constrained force regulation | Immediate survival response | Emotional reactivity, narrowed awareness |
The importance of this distinction is that Style and Form should not be collapsed into a single continuum. Direct force does not necessarily indicate poor force regulation, while yielding does not necessarily indicate high force regulation. The same force capability can therefore appear in very different configurations depending upon how it is expressed and regulated.
The Nine Operational States
The interaction of three Styles and three Forms produces nine operational configurations. These configurations are not types of persons and do not represent fixed stages of development. They are reference points for examining recurring relationships between force expression and force regulation.
Table 3. The Nine Operational States and Behavioral Configurations
| Style ↓ / Form → | High | Middle | Low |
| Hard | Disciplined Force | Controlled Pressure | Reactive Aggression |
| Middle | Adaptive Integration | Adaptive Engagement | Unstable Adaptation |
| Soft | Conscious Redirection | Responsive Adaptation | Passive Avoidance |
Hard Style + High Form, or Disciplined Force, represents decisive force governed by discipline, proportionality, judgment, and deliberate control. A practitioner may possess substantial force capability and express it directly while maintaining awareness of circumstance, consequence, and appropriate limits. The presence of direct force therefore cannot itself be interpreted as evidence of poor force regulation.
Middle Style + High Form, or Adaptive Integration, represents fluid movement between direct and indirect responses while maintaining stable force regulation. The practitioner can integrate different modes of force expression according to changing circumstances without becoming rigidly committed to either extreme. Middle Style + High Form therefore provides an important expression of Adaptive Embodied Agency because the practitioner can reorganize force expression while preserving force regulatory continuity.
Soft Style + High Form, or Conscious Redirection, represents conscious yielding, redirection, and indirect control governed by intentional restraint. Force capability remains present, but its force expression is organized through timing, positioning, perception, and deliberate management of resistance rather than unnecessary direct confrontation.
The Middle Form configurations represent functional force regulation with less integration than High Form.
Hard Style + Middle Form, or Controlled Pressure, represents controlled direct pressure under relatively stable conditions. The practitioner remains capable of deliberate action and retains awareness and restraint, although force regulation may depend more strongly upon situational stability and established patterns of response.
Middle Style + Middle Form, or Adaptive Engagement, represents functional adaptability and balanced responses during routine demands. The practitioner can shift between more direct and more indirect forms of engagement while retaining sufficient awareness to respond to changing conditions.
Soft Style + Middle Form, or Responsive Adaptation, represents flexible and responsive redirection without the full integration associated with High Form. The practitioner can manage resistance through timing and adjustment, but the capacity for adaptation may become more dependent upon the stability of the situation.
The Low Form configurations emerge when force regulatory capacity is constrained by fear, urgency, fatigue, confusion, emotional pressure, or survival demands.
Hard Style + Low Form, or Reactive Aggression, represents direct force expression increasingly governed by immediate emotional, physiological, or survival pressures. Force capability may remain considerable, and action may even be effective in the short term, but awareness of proportionality, consequence, and alternative responses can become narrowed.
Middle Style + Low Form, or Unstable Adaptation, reflects attempts to adjust without sufficient force regulatory capacity to maintain consistency. The practitioner may move between different modes of engagement, but those changes may be driven more by immediate circumstances than by deliberate adaptation. Flexibility can consequently become inconsistency.
Soft Style + Low Form, or Passive Avoidance, represents yielding or withdrawal arising from uncertainty, fear, or diminished regulatory capacity rather than from deliberate adaptive choice. The outward action may resemble softness, but the underlying process is characterized by constrained force regulation and reduced ability to influence the situation deliberately.
Low Form should therefore not be interpreted as a statement about personal worth, permanent ability, or moral character. A practitioner may move temporarily into a Low Form configuration while retaining considerable force capability. The analytical distinction concerns the organization and regulation of capability under present conditions.
Table 4. Summary of the Nine Operational States
| State | Behavioral Configuration | Core Characteristics |
| Hard Style + High Form | Disciplined Force | Decisive force governed by discipline, proportionality, and judgment |
| Hard Style + Middle Form | Controlled Pressure | Controlled direct pressure under ordinary conditions with generally stable force regulation |
| Hard Style + Low Form | Reactive Aggression | Reactive aggression driven by urgency, anger, or survival pressure |
| Middle Style + High Form | Adaptive Integration | Fluid movement between direct and indirect responses while maintaining stable force regulation |
| Middle Style + Middle Form | Adaptive Engagement | Functional adaptability and balanced responses during routine demands |
| Middle Style + Low Form | Unstable Adaptation | Inconsistent adaptation marked by uncertainty, hesitation, or unstable transitions |
| Soft Style + High Form | Conscious Redirection | Conscious yielding, redirection, and indirect control governed by intentional restraint |
| Soft Style + Middle Form | Responsive Adaptation | Flexible and responsive redirection without full integration under pressure |
| Soft Style + Low Form | Passive Avoidance | Passive avoidance, excessive yielding, or withdrawal resulting from constrained force regulation |
The significance of the Model lies not only in these nine combinations but also in the relationships among them. Together they create a multidimensional map of how force capability may be expressed and regulated under pressure. The central analytical question is therefore not which State represents a universally preferred condition, but how a particular configuration has emerged, what circumstances produced it, and whether the practitioner can reorganize action as those circumstances change.
Dynamics of Movement Between States
The Nine-State Martial Model should not be understood as a classification system in which individuals permanently occupy a particular position. Human behavior is dynamic, and stress, fatigue, training, experience, responsibility, environmental conditions, institutional constraints, and emotional pressures continually influence both force expression and force regulation. As these conditions change, the relationship between force capability, force expression, and force regulation can change as well.
A practitioner operating in Soft Style + High Form during training may transition rapidly into Hard Style + High Form when confronted by an immediate threat. A practitioner functioning in Hard Style + High Form may return to Middle Style once a situation is stabilized. Under extreme fatigue, injury, or psychological pressure, even highly experienced practitioners may temporarily move toward Low Form configurations. Such movement is therefore a normal feature of embodied action rather than an exceptional failure.
This dynamic perspective challenges models of martial development that emphasize permanent progression toward a preferred endpoint. Hard responses may be necessary when immediate action is required, while Soft responses may be appropriate when direct escalation would create unnecessary risk. Middle responses may become particularly useful when circumstances are complex and neither direct nor indirect action alone is sufficient. Similarly, High Form does not prescribe a particular Style. High regulation can support direct force, indirect force, or adaptive combinations of both.
Middle therefore has a particularly important role within the Model. Middle Style functions as a bridge between direct and indirect force expression, while Middle Form functions as a bridge between constrained and integrated force regulation. Their importance lies not in occupying a supposedly intermediate position but in facilitating adaptive movement. Together, they provide conditions through which a practitioner can reorganize action without necessarily becoming fixed within either extreme.
Table 5. Factors Influencing Movement Between States
| Influencing Factor | Likely Effect on Behavior |
| Training | Improves force regulation and increases adaptive movement between states |
| Experience | Expands the range of effective responses |
| Stress | Compresses force regulation and narrows awareness |
| Fear | Increases movement toward Low Form States |
| Fatigue | Reduces cognitive flexibility and emotional control |
| Injury | Restricts available tactical options and capabilities |
| Environmental uncertainty | Requires rapid transitions between Styles |
| Institutional constraints | Encourage or discourage particular behavioral states |
| Responsibility | Encourages greater force regulation and deliberate decision-making |
| Organizational culture | Reinforces preferred patterns of force expression and force regulation |
From this perspective, martial development becomes the cultivation of adaptive capacity rather than the pursuit of a fixed identity. Development concerns the increasing capacity to recognize changing conditions, preserve meaningful options, regulate available capability, and reorganize action when existing responses become inappropriate.
States as Dynamic Configurations
A common tendency within both martial and non-martial systems of classification is to transform descriptive categories into fixed identities. Individuals may be assigned enduring labels, developmental stages may be treated as permanent achievements, and complex patterns of behavior may be reduced to stable types. Although such approaches provide organizational clarity, they can obscure the fluid and adaptive character of human behavior and the extent to which behavior changes in response to circumstance.
The Nine-State Martial Model consequently describes States rather than traits. Traits are generally understood as relatively stable characteristics of individuals, whereas States are temporary configurations that emerge under particular conditions. A practitioner should not be understood as inherently hard, soft, aggressive, passive, disciplined, or reactive simply because a particular configuration is evident at a given moment.
The same individual may display disciplined force in one situation, adaptive engagement in another, and reactive behavior in a third. Changes in threat, emotional condition, experience, fatigue, injury, environmental uncertainty, responsibility, institutional context, and available capability may alter the relationship between force expression and force regulation and consequently produce movement within the Model.
The Model may therefore be understood as a behavioral topology rather than a rigid taxonomy. The Nine States function as reference points within a field of possible relationships between force expression and force regulation. They help identify patterns of action, clarify the conditions under which those patterns emerge, and make potential transitions visible. Their purpose is not to assign individuals to categories but to provide a means of examining how a particular configuration has emerged and what alternative configurations remain possible.
This emphasis on movement also changes the meaning of mastery. Mastery is not represented simply by stability within one State or progression toward a predetermined endpoint. Rather, it involves the capacity to recognize changing conditions, regulate available force capability, and move between configurations while maintaining functional and ethical responsiveness.
The Nine-State Martial Model in Comparative Perspective
The Nine-State Martial Model differs from approaches that classify martial practice primarily according to technique, preferred combat method, historical lineage, personality, ethical orientation, or developmental stage. These approaches address legitimate dimensions of martial practice, but they ask different analytical questions. The Nine-State Martial Model focuses specifically on how force is expressed and regulated under present conditions, while force capability provides the underlying field of available action.
Table 6. Position of the Nine-State Martial Model Among Existing Models
| Approach | Primary Basis of Classification | Primary Question |
| Technical Classification | Techniques performed | What techniques are used? |
| Stylistic Classification | Preferred methods of combat | What style does the practitioner use? |
| Historical Classification | Lineage or tradition | Where does the system originate? |
| Psychological Models | Personality or temperament | What type of person is acting? |
| Ethical Models | Moral character or virtue | What ought the practitioner do? |
| Developmental Models | Stages of progression or mastery | How advanced is the practitioner? |
| Nine-State Martial Model | Interaction of force expression and force regulation | How is force being expressed and regulated under present conditions? |
The distinctive contribution of the Model is therefore not that it replaces these approaches but that it asks a different question. It examines martial behavior as situated and changeable rather than as a direct expression of fixed Style, personality, moral identity, or developmental status. This distinction is particularly important because force capability may remain relatively stable while its force expression and force regulation vary significantly according to circumstance.
The distinction also changes how martial development and expertise can be understood. If development is defined primarily through technical acquisition, specialization within a particular Style, or progression toward an ideal State, mastery may be represented as increasing proficiency within a defined domain. The Nine-State Martial Model instead places greater emphasis on adaptive capacity: the ability to recognize changing conditions, regulate capability, adjust force expression, and transition between configurations as circumstances require.
Table 7. Comparison with Traditional Models of Martial Development
| Traditional View | Nine-State Martial Model |
| Master one Style | Develop adaptability across multiple Styles |
| Progress toward a single ideal State | Navigate different States according to circumstance |
| Technique defines the practitioner | Force capability, force expression, and force regulation shape situated behavior |
| Skill is measured primarily by technical proficiency | Skill includes adaptive performance |
| Mastery is represented by stability within a defined domain | Mastery includes intelligent movement between States |
| Classification describes identity | Classification describes temporary behavioral configurations |
This does not imply that technical specialization is unimportant or that every State is equally appropriate in every situation. Technical capability remains an essential foundation because adaptation cannot occur without meaningful possibilities for action. What the Model adds is the proposition that technical capability becomes more meaningful when practitioners can recognize changing conditions, regulate available force, and reorganize expression accordingly.
Expertise is therefore relational rather than purely technical or categorical. Effective action depends not only upon what a practitioner is capable of doing, but also upon the ability to recognize situational demands, regulate available force capability, select an appropriate manner of force expression, and transition when the existing configuration no longer fits the conditions.
Part two coming soon!
