One of my abiding interests is in the martial arts and their relationship with philosophies like Zen and Taoism. I've just read this great (and funny) book called Angry White Pyjamas which is a look at one persons experience of intensively learning Aikido in Japan over the course of a year. It refers to the brutality of the training regime and the ascetic nature of the discipline and how this gets interpreted by the various teachers dependent on their level of experience. It's a fantastic insight into just how far people will go to learn something like self-defence and then how they learn not to use it...a thoroughly good read!