I like the idea that he's from a rival discipline. One would have to imagine, before the rise of guns there were many fist fighting practioneers.
I like think it went down something like crossbows and longbows material makes guns not as decisive but everyone can use them with or withiur skill so martial arts with material would be harder to just squash i mean we still have martial arts today IRL so i would imagine material enhanced arts would not be going away to quietly