by Chris McKinley on Fri Dec 05, 2008 12:25 pm
Personally, I think it's hysterical. Even the stuff we're going to keep needs to be subjected to healthy amounts of sillyness and ridicule. Frankly, if we're not going to police our own stuff by making fun of ourselves, others are going to do it for us...and well they should. Take the Robot Tai Chi clip. It is funny. Really funny, not just an, "okay, that looks a little odd, I'll admit" kinda way, but really funny. Hell, it may even work for teaching that form, but it's still just silly as all get out, and nobody should be shouting that fact louder than those actually promoting it.
The exactly wrong response is the one that CaliG gave. It completely confirms (to them) everything they are stereotyping us with. It says we take ourselves waaay too damn seriously and that we can't take a joke or laugh when something's funny. We then classically engage in psychological projection by rationalizing that, "I don't take my self seriously, but my art is sacred territory that can't be impuned in any way by pointing that some of the things it contains are funny". Sorry, guys, but as I have to occasionally bring up around here, martial arts don't exist. They are abstract labels for describing sets of physical behavior by certain humans. They don't have feelings to hurt, pride to act as a stumbling block, nor face to save. They're us.
If you really want to throw the younglings just discovering the joys of hero worship and masturbation over at Bullshido a curve, you'd not only acknowledge the humor in a clip like that, but provide even more where that came from. That would take the wind right out of that proverbial sail. Show them you're not too blinded by groupthink, Confucianism, insecurity and self-deception to look at what you do objectively on its functional merits, nor to consider other methods which may be outside of what you're already doing with the very same objective perspective.