The madness......

[KEND]

A friend referred me to this article, which, although written by a silat practitioner resonated with my own experience over several decades of MA practice. It will probably elicit a heated response and end up in BTDT but it is a subject that must be addressed by anyone who is a serious martial artist

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The Madness of CrowdsPosted by Bobbe Edmonds on November 9, 2009 at 7:43pm in English
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Let’s start this off with a few simple terms:

1: The definition of “Teacher” isn’t “Master”

2: The definition of “Student” isn’t “Disciple”

3: The definition of “Respect” isn’t “Grovel”

Everybody with me so far? Good.

A peculiar malady in the martial arts is the recurring theme of the all-encompassing master, the keeper of the secret flame who, in his infinite wisdom, holds the meaning to all of life’s questions and obstacles. In particular, YOUR life. It’s a remarkable phenomenon to observe an otherwise rational, intelligent, educated man fall victim to martial arts hocus-pocus. Although you can see this in other facets of civilized society (religion, science) it’s particularly disheartening to see it in the martial realm, because it can cause you to draw ridiculous conclusions from random scraps of accurate information thrown together in a mish-mashed form. A small handful of facts (attacking nerve clusters causes pain, joint manipulation causes pain, striking an organ such as the kidneys causes pain) coupled with various schools of thought from Christianity, Chinese medicine, mysticism, Islam, Buddhism, Yoga, Zen, what-have-you, often leads to such fantastic claims as “invisibility”, “super sexual abilities” and various other comedic claims. Humans are humans. We are not supermen, we have weaknesses as well as strengths, varying body structures and limited life spans.

I have an inherent dislike of mysticism in the martial arts. I hate it when instructors try to hypnotize their students, for whatever reason. From what I have seen & experienced, that sort of control starts with subtle tricks that slowly convert the student into a zombie, such as "Sensei is always right" "Call me Master" "Your obi has a sacred spirit in it, never wash it" and of course, "Our lineage goes back to the days of yore". Getting the student to buy into one of these will always open the door for the others. Maybe it isn't always for the bad, I'll grant you that. But the examples of it being used for negativity and manipulation of a student are by FAR more in abundance than not.

This attitude is enhanced by a very simple but inherently destructive message:

You can find limitless variations of this message in any martial arts school you go into:

“We tear you down to build you up”

“You have to submit to receive”

“You have to empty your cup”

“SHUT UP AND KOWTOW.”

This disgusts me. It’s as if you’re signing over your entire supply of free will to someone you really know no better than a passing stranger, for no better reason than he’s wearing a sash and doing a footsweep or a wristlock.

This, above all else, I cannot subscribe to. There is nowhere else in our lives as free people we would accept such nonsense, but put on a kung fu uniform and it’s suddenly to hell with common sense. Sorry, no dice. If someone comes up to me claiming to be Jesus, you better believe I’m going to be checking his wrists for holes.

That bit about “Lineage” is another hook to spotlight the teacher as some great source of enlightenment, coming from a long line of such. As if that was humanly possible.

My high school math teacher never took me aside & said; "You are learning the Euclidian lineage of mathematics. As long as you can add & subtract, REMEMBER TO HONOR EUCLID!".

See what mean? I didn’t even know who Euclid WAS until I was an adult. It didn't enhance or detract from my learning math. And there’s lots of other examples I could give. Martial Arts teachers are in a limbo-like state in society. Not really "educators" per se, and not "guardians" either. Yet they are revered and respected as both, often by nothing more than the belt they wear. This puts them in a position of power that is difficult to overcome, because it's like a kind of inherited respect, and not often an earned one.

Remember, there is a distinct difference between EDUCATION and INDOCTRINATION. You cannot simply recite myths and propaganda as if they were gospel and expect your students to follow you into the lion’s den. As a teacher, you must avoid an atmosphere that is reminiscent of a religious setting, such things send a subliminal message to the student that puts him in a particular frame of mind, one that should be avoided at all costs. AVOID SAGEISM. Do not deify yourself, or allow your students to do it to you. If the teacher allows or promotes this kind of behavior, then he will usually project himself as an “all-knowing” being, and attempt to turn the martial arts student into a zealot accepting instruction and a philosophy which leaves no room for growth outside of a single source of knowledge (the teacher). This will begin the descent of the pupil into what I call “followership”, the kind of person who has directly involved his martial arts teacher where he DOESN’T belong: The student’s everyday life. This is never a good thing, and will promote abuse of the student’s misguided goodwill by the teacher every time. . This rule comes from Nicomachean ethics; “Avoid holiness like the plague”

And you don’t want to be in the teacher’s shoes when the student wakes up.

The martial arts are difficult enough without any mystical woo – woo added to it. A knowledgeable instructor can teach for years with a well thought-out curriculum, some personal education, martial development and growth, and he won’t have to repeat a class or rehash information he has already taught to the same people. As your students gain the skills you teach them, their mental development will take off like a rocket and their learning curve will straighten out dramatically. This is to be expected if the teacher has been doing his job. Don’t stack the deck against yourself by saying or doing something that will cause them to despise you later on when they see you in a different light & realize you are human after all. If you are honest and accept yourself for what you are, so will your students. You don’t have to know everything, and if you admit this from the beginning then nobody else gets any credit for pointing it out. Similarly, don’t be arrogant in your knowledge and skill, your ego will be the source of MUCH regret if you are. Remember, if you give yourself a Jesus complex & project it to your students, don’t be surprised when they crucify you for your sins. You’re the one who demanded the palm fronds.

And that thing about "taking oaths"...There is no reason for that. NONE. “Wu-de” might be a traditional martial concept in the “self fulfillment and esoteric oogah-boogah” section of your local Barnes and Noble, but just like true virtue and enlightenment, so few (if any) really rise to it. I call this the "10 People in the Past" theory:

You can dig up any ten people from any particular person's life, male, female, young, old, etc. Select each one within 5-year intervals, starting at age 15.

Of the ten, you will find five that would venerate the person as a saint on this Earth.

Of the ten, you will find five that would put a gun to the person's head and pull the trigger themselves, given half the chance.

Now, of the ten, you can only choose one...who do you listen to for insight into the person? If you can answer this question without guile, you have achieved Wu-De.

I train a martial art. You are my teacher. You have, to SOME degree, control over me in your school. In deference to that, I will listen to what you say and apply it to the best of my abilities. But once I walk out that door, what I do, where I go & what I think & say ARE MY DAMN BUSINESS, not yours. So many Americans just throw their common sense out the window and adopt this "romantic" view of the martial arts, we are so in love with the mystique of the Samurai we forget common sense. Do you want that kind of control over my life? Does ANY person deserve that kind of say-so over what you do with yourself? Then let's see some evidence of your involvement and investment in it aside from "punch-kick-swear an oath". PAY MY MORTGAGE. My phone bill could use some help. Buy me a new car. I'll swear to Mars and back if you do that. But no, the cult of the martial arts “Maha Guru” persona demands a one-sided argument, that the respect flows in only one direction: To the teacher.

Allow me to quote here from Oscar Ratti & Adele Westbrook’s excellent “Secrets of the Samurai”:

“A pupil was taught to walk seven feet behind the Sensei, lest he tread on the master’s shadow. The teacher showed the way & the pupil had only to follow it. Hence, the pupil was not allowed to depart a step from the teacher’s instructions: he was permitted to reproduce but forbidden to improve. It is not surprising, therefore, that the teacher should have become more sparing of his teaching as the pupil advanced, or that he should have tried to sanctify his art by surrounding it with all manner of mythical traditions. If the pupil happened to be of a free and ungovernable mind, and attempted to add his own devices to what knowledge was imparted to him, he was certain to provoke his instructor’s wrath”

Although the above scenario depicts a common feudal-era Japan ideal, it is very likely to see most, if not all of the above traits demonstrated in a modern training facility. Ironically, rational adults who would scoff at this in any other setting (work, family, church) will accept it under the circumstances of “culture” in a Dojo. When you relinquish your control over reality & freewill so easily to someone else it’s difficult to regain any kind of footing in your training. You have just signed over control of yourself to someone who usually cares nothing for you in the first place. And getting out usually isn’t as easy as getting in was…

Let me go back to the idea of "Artist" and not "Art". A skilled practitioner can usually make anything (art/system/style) work within a given set of boundaries. If they are particularly adept, they can probably use it successfully under extreme conditions as well. This gives the impression that the art is what allowed the artist to excel, when really someone who DIDN'T have such coordination and skill could fall flat on their face. But you never hear "The art is incomplete", what you hear is "He's not good enough at his art". I truly think it is the other way around, some people start off in the wrong thing and continually try to force the fit, no matter how uncomfortable it is. There are martial arts that simply cannot be done by everyone, and a careful investigation of how this training will affect you & your body structure in 20 years must be done before you jump right in. But my point here is that a SKILLED practitioner can make even the most nonviolent actions (Yoga?) seem like the worlds deadliest style. A competent baker can give you a delicious cake every time, no matter what kind of flour he uses.

A common malady in martial arts is the point of view of the founder becomes dogma after a few generations. The fanatical wide-eyed followers of the holy man of legend, and the mystical madness the fall willingly, LEAP JOYOUSLY into. Soon this gives rise to the "Our style has everything" mythos that is so prevalent in martial arts today, and the arrogance the prohibits any real growth. There is nothing you can say to these people that will not inspire argument & outright attacks for any perceived "insult" they have suffered from you. They look narrowly down the hallway of their specialty, and despise deviation from what they are familiar with. They are the source of endless nit-picking, the ongoing quibbling over the placement of a fist.

Of course, this point of view won’t sit well with the old guard. That is to be expected. It was easier to be a martial arts instructor in the 70's and 80's. There was a mystique about black belts spawned by kung fu movies and Karate dojos that promoted a "No one questions the master" kind of attitude. Bluntly put, the instructor could successfully run a martial arts school with absolutely NO talent for teaching martial arts. Cross training was forbidden, and developing yourself to be better than your teacher was nothing short of heresy. To this end, many teachers imposed ridiculous strictures on their students, and held back information vital to the growth of their students martially, for their gratification of their own egos or to keep a steady paycheck coming in for life.

Two events in the early 1990's were cataclysmic in ending this:

1: The first UFC
2: The Internet

The UFC was instrumental in breaking down barriers between martial styles, as it showed from the first "No style has everything". Indeed, it further proved many styles were lacking quite a few things! It also demonstrated how a little education goes a long way, as the champions of earlier UFC's were unhorsed later on by others who had not studied the reigning style (i.e. Gracie Jiu Jitsu) simply a few techniques on how to counter it.

An art that maintains fighting efficiency for many generations isn’t “pure”, in my opinion, it would HAVE to be blended with other things. “Blend” isn’t a bad thing. ANY art that survives from the 1600’s to today would have to evolve to reflect the current approach to combat. People don’t attack & defend the way they did when the style is formed, usually the same circumstances don’t exist, i.e. 1600’s West Javanese jungle vs. 2006 America/Pacific Northwest. Which brings me back to my initial point: If the founder of the style (whatever style) has never seen knife fighting, the style won’t reflect an in-depth knowledge of knife fighting. Or, take circumstances today: If you have never really SEEN Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it would be difficult to train for counters to such, wouldn’t it? People today are much more exposed & familiar with Martial Arts in general than they were 20 years ago. We are much more capable of rationalization WITHOUT bias, although we may not practice it much, and we can see the usefulness, or lack of, in ANY MA system.

The internet was the final nail in the coffin, as information became more readily available to those willing to spend some time researching web sites. Suddenly, you didn't have to take your instructor at face value, if his claims or rank seemed a little suspicious, you could usually verify it in one evening without leaving your house. Later, more and more people began to post curriculum & techniques from different styles, students of different instructors began to compare notes, and eventually entire styles were posted on web pages, in an effort to upstage everyone else. This was the kiss of death for the old-style instructor, because the potential student was armed with information he or she would normally not have, and much less susceptible to the mythos of the "Sensei". The instructor's word was now just one ingredient, whereas it used to be the whole pie.

Now, you will also encounter those who blend arts together for the sake of ego, trying to become the Grand Poo-Bah of their own martial art system, but blending what you have learned from various different systems and teachers together in a thoughtful manner with a focus on combat and reality and arriving at a new conclusion isn’t a bad thing. It’s EXACTLY how Brazilian Jiu Jitsu came about, and they are world-renowned for combat efficiency, if on a limited range. Ummm, come to think of it, if you believe the legends, it’s supposedly how several martial arts styles came into existence, from Wing Chun to some versions of Eskrima and Pencak Silat. I would view “combat efficiency” as something that changes over time & development. They way war was waged in the last century won’t be similar to the way it will be in 20 years.

Everything has combat efficiency, given the right set of circumstances. But a system with an adaptable approach to varying combat conditions would have to include the capacity for split second directional changes in the middle of technique, and encourage the practitioner to think outside the box. Such a system cannot maintain "purity" and "combat effectiveness" at the same time. To believe that a style is pure is to be convinced that there is no room for improvement on said style. This is the exact moment you will stop adapting & start trying to “force the fit” of your current knowledge base to any other art you encounter that has a fluid, evolving system behind it. If the other art continues to grow, and you remain stagnant in your education, there can only be one outcome. It’s only a matter of time.

Many martial artists are just as handicapped by their style as they are enhanced by it. Again, this is due to lack of foresight, the inflexible attitude of "We (insert style here) always do it THIS way". Often I have seen practitioners sacrifice a sensible, logical and effective technique, concept or theory, in favor of what his style dictates. Think about it: You never hear water saying "In my style, we flow around the LEFT side of the rock". Water just hits it and goes, it doesn’t care what “style” of flow it uses! But the higher in rank you go, the more bound you seem to become to whatever rigid, nonsensical barrier the "founder" put in place, probably as a result of the living conditions of whatever time he actually existed in. This mental rigidity will lead a style into stagnation, and become nothing more than a haven for clones, practitioners who are in absolutely no danger of growing in the art and eventually thinking for themselves. Students who do discover the truth are often “corrected” when they present their findings, and excommunicated if they fail to comply. I have heard “Sensei is always right” on more than 100 occasions, and it has always proven to be wrong.

Speaking of arts never growing, some arts are more complete than others, and some are only one-trick ponies. Because a particular style of martial art offers a unique approach to combat, or a specialized tactic in a predetermined condition or scenario (i.e. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) doesn’t make it all-encompassing or in any sense profound just because nobody has thought of a counter to it yet. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the answer to one problem is the solution for everything.

Wing Chun, for example. It does one thing and one thing only. However, in this narrow skill set, THEY DO THAT ONE THING WELL. Now, if I was thinking that I needed to understand a close range infighting system with minimum footwork and body English, Wing Chun is what I would look into. Or take BJJ as another example. Again, one concept with very little fru-fru. But they execute it with superior skill and ability. To say "We work counters against Brazilian Jiu Jitsu" or "We train to avoid going to the ground" is well and all, but they are MASTERS of their application. Are you a master of the counter? Against a skilled (insert artist here)? Most "style based" artists are not. They cannot see beyond their own narrow field of specialization, no matter how complete it is. Again, an art, system or style is merely one person's interpretation of reality and truth in combat. And, as I pointed out earlier, the individual skill of that person will dictate how "complete" the art is. But if I view whatever art I am training in as nothing more than one tool in my Kung Fu toolchest, I can view other arts with an equally undogmatic approach, and train them without prejudice or preconceived notions and hindrances.

Arts that try to be all-inclusive often fall into the other end of the spectrum: So convoluted and bloated that the real principles that they started with are lost in a jungle of "Well, we took a little of this from Thai, and a little of that from Silat". This is no better than the fanatical purist, and indeed gives way to the martial arts gadflies who drop round a seminar and want to cherry-pick. These are often the cloned-zombie followers of Bruce- praise-be-unto-his-name-Lee, chanting his holy mantra of "Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless".


There are three points to this article that I hope have been conveyed:

1: The definition of “Teacher” isn’t “Master”

2: The definition of “Student” isn’t “Disciple”

3: The definition of “Respect” isn’t “Grovel”

Let me close this with a question: Did you go to high school? Did you're teachers there pass knowledge on to you? Has that knowledge more than once gotten you a job, let you read a label, understand what was being said to you?

Do you still honor those teachers who taught you to read in the fourth grade? Their knowledge is no less important, and I'll bet my next paycheck you use it more than you use Martial Arts. Got any pictures of THEM on your wall? Do you keep a lineage chart of all your teachers from preschool throughout College?

If you do, fine. BUT IF YOU DON'T: Wouldn't you say that remembering them in your thoughts and prayers (or not) hasn't really made one bit of difference in your execution of their gift of knowledge to you?

Think about it.



Tags: bobbe, edmonds

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[Muad'dib]

He really goes to town on an issue that I've heard quite a bit about, but never actually experienced.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

He really goes to town on an issue that I've heard quite a bit about, but never actually experienced.

that's because of his shit being fake.

he apparently thinks mcdojos are where real tcma come from ergo his error overall.

[Chris McKinley]

Ehhh....all stuff I've been ranting about for years on this forum.