Is it about time CMA grew up a little bit?

[Ron Panunto]

If your only interested in self defense then buy a friggin gun. CMA is more than just self defense. It is a way of life, including health, longevity, and a philosophy of living. I just don't see that in MMA, BJJ, or American boxing.

Are you kidding. To some boxing is practically a religion and most definitely a way of life. Health and longevity? Boxers are the fittest guys out there. They exercise regularly and eat better than most of the general public.

Sure - tell that to Muhammad Åli.

[RobP2]

If your only interested in self defense then buy a friggin gun. CMA is more than just self defense. It is a way of life, including health, longevity, and a philosophy of living. I just don't see that in MMA, BJJ, or American boxing.

Gee, I can't buy a gun, that's me stuck.

Is CMA self defence, or is it historical re-enactment?

[H2O]

Is CMA self defence, or is it historical re-enactment?

Could be either, depending on who you're talking to.

[RobP2]

If your only interested in self defense then buy a friggin gun. CMA is more than just self defense. It is a way of life, including health, longevity, and a philosophy of living. I just don't see that in MMA, BJJ, or American boxing.

Depends how shallow or deep you want to look I guess, or how deep or shallow people go into what they do. Doing something slow in silky PJ's isn't inherently more spiritual than taking a long walk or going fishing and it's that kind of "spiritual snobbery" that reinforces Chris point IMHO

A way of living is something that manifests in your actions, not the outward trappings of a particular hobby. I know a few "old school" boxers, fit, moral, ethical people who do a lot for their fellow man. I'm sure there are boxers who are thugs. Ditto in CMA. I've met some genuinely spiritual/practical people and some who are living a taoist monk/warrior fantasy. I guess it's the latter Chris is making his point about

[Snow]

[crackpot theory]

I believe that having an affinity for fantasy (or not) is an inborn trait. Nobody can be talked into switching camps. But, among those having an affinity for fantasy, I think there are also two types of thinking. For one type, fantasy is a way to avoid or deny reality. For the other type, fantasy is a motivation to improve one's own reality, by providing an optimistic narrative for one's own actions. It provides a goal, a vision of a finer side of life that might not be in evidence in the everyday world. And I'm not sure that the difference between the two types of fantasists is entirely inborn--perhaps it can also be influenced by emotional maturity and experience. But I do feel that the latter type of fantasizing can be very productive and healthy.

This reminds me of the Pasha video everyone laughs at. Pasha is clearly in the "affinity for fantasy" camp. But I think he might actually be in the healthy fantasy side. He sucks now--sure, he's an immature kid who doesn't know what he's doing--but he keeps going because of his fantasy, and as he gets older and trains more/better and sees more of the world, he's not always going to suck that hard. He'll have kept going and improving because the fantasy motivated him to. If someone told him to go join an MMA gym, I think it wouldn't be as successful at helping him improve because he's an inborn "affinity for fantasy" person, and the loss of the fantasy would also spell the loss of his motivation and he'd just quit training.

[/crackpot theory]

[cerebus]

I think that one of the problems in the martial arts in general is that so many people think that reason "A" is THE reason for martial arts, and that reasons "B", "C", and "D" are therefore NOT the reason for the martial arts. Sure, combat may have been the ORIGINAL reason for the martial arts, but things have evolved in many different directions and there are now many different resons for the martial arts, all of them valid for the people following them.

As long as an instructor is not mis-representing themselves or the training they provide (like teaching only form and push-hands while claiming such training will lead to true "combat" ability) then I for one have no problem with the myriad other reasons people have for practicing the MA.

[Chris McKinley]

Thanks, guys, for your contributions. Bhassler had a good point about the cultural beliefs/practices acting as a delivery vessel for the content. That of course corresponds with the inclusion and continuation of Confucian practices in CMA here in the West.

Ron Panunto is misguided in believing that simply purchasing a gun constitutes complete self-defense. We've covered that issue more thoroughly in other recent threads. RobP is correct as far as the kind of CMA practitioners this thread targets most. However, it's easy to see the silliness in those folks because the behavior is so relatively concentrated and extreme. As a result, it's easy to either dismiss them or at least inocculate against acting like them precisely because their behavior is so outrageous. What isn't so easy to see are some of the subtler influences of such traditions/behaviors. Granted, the subtler they manifest, the less of a problem they are, at least within the context of this thread. Yet much of this behavior is not so extreme as to be cartoonish, yet is pervasive enough to give CMA its sometimes characteristically anachronistic reputation in the West.

IOW, what we see is a body of content being wrapped up in a package of traditions and behaviors that are on occasion outright silly, but more often simply irrelevant to the content itself and yet just incompatible enough with modern culture that practitioners do not see themselves as historical re-enactors, yet still come across as a bit self-important and needlessly melodramatic.

While certain individuals have personal predilections for the dramatic, I find Snow's theory not so much crackpot as just a little too simplistic, dividing all people into one of only two camps, the determination of which is apparently inborn. I think the issue of personal appeal to the dramatic is a bit more complex than that, but it does include a valid point about a person benefitting from finding their true motivations for training.

cerebus,

I would agree with your point, but with the caveat that it is not complete. Yes it's fine that as long as a given instructor is not misrepresenting what he's teaching (which is all too common) and as long as a given practitioner is being honest about what they want out of their training and whether or not the training is providing it, then live and let live. However, beside the fact that such intellectual honesty is as rare as hen's teeth in many CMA, there is still yet one problem (or at least caveat) that needs to be mentioned in regard to your specific phrasing. It's all fine for various people to have various reasons for training martial arts, but one inescapable fact remains....without providing combat skill, a given method of training is no longer a martial art, no matter what other myriad benefits it provides. Without its raison d'etre, it's simply not a martial art anymore, regardless of how ancient, traditional, revered, deep or authentic it might be.

[Bhassler]

It's all fine for various people to have various reasons for training martial arts, but one inescapable fact remains....without providing combat skill, a given method of training is no longer a martial art, no matter what other myriad benefits it provides. Without its raison d'etre, it's simply not a martial art anymore, regardless of how ancient, traditional, revered, deep or authentic it might be.

Hi Chris,

Just being pedantic here... If a car is in a museum on display and is never driven anywhere (which would qualify as it's raison d'etre) is it no longer a car? If the purpose of a car is transportation, and that same car is taken out of the museum and just driven around the block as a novelty to no other purpose, does it somehow gain validity by it's use? If that same car is later used as a daily commuter, is it's significance-- or even it's existence-- somehow increased by being used for it's original purpose?

It's a simplistic analogy since a car is an object and an art is by it's definition imbued with something more, but it's a useful analogy as it points to the question of what constitutes the quiddity of a thing.

[Chris McKinley]

Bhassler,

RE: "If a car is in a museum on display and is never driven anywhere (which would qualify as it's raison d'etre) is it no longer a car?". That's not a particularly good analogy in that your hypothetical car's raison d'etre is to serve as a functional mode of transportation, and it indeed no longer functions as such. In fact, in a way, your analogy sort of furthers my point.

RE: "If the purpose of a car is transportation, and that same car is taken out of the museum and just driven around the block as a novelty to no other purpose, does it somehow gain validity by it's use?". The key phrase here is "as a novelty to no other purpose". In that case, the answer is no.

RE: "If that same car is later used as a daily commuter, is it's significance-- or even it's existence-- somehow increased by being used for it's original purpose?". I'm not even sure what you mean by increasing something's existence, per se, but in terms of how well that item fulfills the purpose for which it was designed, the simple answer would be yes. The car wasn't designed to be a museum display piece. That it can be used as such is incidental.

If your hypothetical car is no longer in service because it cannot keep pace with the transportation needs of the current era, then this is to be expected. Using all kinds of things for their original intended purpose does not prevent those things from being abandoned in favor of other items that serve that same purpose more effectively should such items be developed. This is exactly what one would expect. An item serves its purpose until a more effective item for that purpose comes along, rendering the first item obsolete. However, if an item still represents the most effective way to serve a purpose, and is still not being used for that purpose, then it is not merely the inevitable victim of technological obsolescence. It's simply not fulfilling the purpose for which it was designed and for which it is still viably competitive.

Leaving analogy and going back to the actual example at hand, if a martial art is serving to provide its practitioner with spiritual/philosophical growth, health, comeraderie, coordination, confidence, or even a chance to play dress-up in antiquated clothing and yet it does not provide combat ability, it has ceased to be a martial art by functional definition.

Ensuring that a given martial art fulfills its identifying purpose in no way precludes it from providing whatever other host of benefits someone might wish to derive from it. However, if one signs up for swimming lessons and serendipitously discovers that the lessons provide deep personal and spiritual growth, cultural education, a connection to a long line of practitioners of an ancient practice, self-discipline, comeraderie, and superb fitness, except that there's this one minor little drawback in that you don't ever actually learn to swim at all, then whatever else those lessons provide, they haven't done their job. After considering, weighing and balancing everything, at the end, it's really a matter of intellectual honesty.

[Chris Fleming]

[everything]

There is a good recent book out called American Nerd. It analyzes the history of nerds and subcultures of nerds more completely and broadly than do this or other threads with the same recurring themes here or elsewhere. I recommend you check it out since nerd behavior is really the object of criticism here. Two points the author makes in trying to define nerds (from ham radio operators to iPhone hackers to MA nerds) that seem contradictory when describing the MA nerd but really aren't:

1. passionate about highly technical subject that doesn't revolve around physical or emotional confrontation, social communication, beauty, sex
2. socially awkward ... avoids physical and emotional confrontation

What I think we describe about the MA nerd is that the nerd is into the highly technical, non-emotional, non social, aspects of MA (that is supposedly about physical confrontation), hence stupid, useless stuff, but is really afraid of physical and emotional confrontation, hence is not willing to test out the useless stuff, but prefers to live in a fantasy bubble of kata, magical qi powers, or whatever. There may not ever be Chris' desired honesty because the nerd may not even realize he or she is in the bubble, sometimes self-created, but sometimes passed on nerd-to-nerd.

He also describes how this avoiding of social interaction, etc., has led to production of various outputs in arts, etc. E.g., Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) was afraid of water despite living near the ocean, but immensely talented with music and musical equipment. He crafted a popular image of the surfer and spent many lone hours in the studio to craft a "beach sound" using equipment. Nugent (the book author) goes on to describe how nerds in media ironically propagate and create the stereotypes in popular culture of nerds.

So here we deride the utter uselessness of the fantasy bubble of the MA nerd but when the same kind of nerd fantasizing is really put to use to create something, say, the entire Star Wars universe, that is "popular", we celebrate it. We deride the uselessness and floweriness of wushu but we celebrate Ray Park's excellent use and mastery of wushu in portraying the awesome (especially to the nerd in all of us) Darth Maul character. We then deride the poor kid on youtube who bought into this fantasy we all celebrate when he tries acting like Ray Park acting like Darth Maul using a twisted interpretation of ancient useful kungfu stuff, but fails miserably in his attempt. So I agree with everyone here in the criticism of uselessness, but really, on some level, who cares. It doesn't matter. We've all done the useless stuff. We all have nerd and anti-nerd in us. On another level, I think the reason we keep discussing this kind of thing is if we like CMA, we don't like this kind of nerd behavior dragging down something we like by association. If the nerds appropriate the subculture, it is bad for anti-nerds, who will then be seen as nerds by association. No one wants to be seen as the nerd. But still, who cares. Reading and writing about it is in itself nerdy. This comment has been incredibly nerdy. I don't see how it matters to anything except that it's nerdily interesting to talk about.

[Chris McKinley]

everything,

Very thought-provoking contribution from a cultural anthropology standpoint. However, you ask, "So I agree with everyone here in the criticism of uselessness, but really, on some level, who cares.". I actually do, however pointless or hopeless that caring is. I've seen good people get hurt and killed by inadequate preparation for real violence. I care because there are still predators out there, preying on good, law-abiding folks who are just trying to get home safely to their families. When such well-meaning but ignorant folks turn to martial arts lessons to provide what they are advertising to help them live their lives in peace and to protect their families, they are far too often sold a bill of goods. The tragic thing is, they won't ever know they were ripped off until a situation arises where it's too late to do anything about it.

IOW, this isn't just about people's personal preferences, social interaction styles, relative creative contributions, etc. like it is with most discussions of nerdy behavior and hobbies. This is about protecting people's lives. If somebody prefers to watch Sci-Fi and play D&D all night with their nerdy buddies instead of going to the club to pick up hot chicks, no one gets harmed. If deluded martial arts instructors give years of lessons to ignorant practitioners without preparing them for real combat and those practitioners find themselves in a real assault, good people get hurt or killed. Forgive the drama of that statement, but once all the discussion's over, that's essentially it.

[Chris Fleming]

[Chris McKinley]

Chris Fleming,

Yep, it's a soapbox issue. That's not exactly news to anyone who's read any of my posts on the internet in the last 13 years. As to being the change I wish to see, I've been doing that for 27 years in the IMA, often while I was the only person in my state at the time who was doing so. Some of us have already set an example for others to follow. What I'd like to see is more folks learn to think for themselves, take the reins of their own training, and begin setting their own examples. If, in that process, the IMA regain the "deserved" portion of their reputation as viable combat arts, then I'll be all the happier.

[everything]

Sorry to be flippant. I enjoy talking about nerdiness in a not too serious way. More seriously, I agree it's up to you and others who care more about the problem to take the leadership role (on the soapbox) in trying to help the MA nerds see and come out of their bubble (or stay in it and at least become intellectually honest).