So here's a thing

[vagabond]

dyspirido, i can't speak to staring at the wall but i wouldn't dissuade you. but regardless i'd encourage you to consider that money doesn't register on the human timeline, and that credit-money doesn't register on money's timeline; and that the last extinction period was driven by oceanic temperature changes due to shifting currents killing off the little guys that make oxygen, and that currently the straights of newfoundland are hypoxic, and the press concerning it all centers around the collapse of the fishing industry. and that a couple hundred sea turtles died the other day, cause it was warm enough to swim to maine and then it wasn't, which is sad not for sea turtles in and of themselves but because it speaks to the death of the producer of 65% of our oxygen (oceanic life) the bulk of the rest of which comes from the amazon which is currently being sold off as boardfeet by bolsonaro. and that mixing daoist meditative practice and martial arts has never been useful for fighting, but can you backseat drive how to slip a plum?

marvin8, what are you relevant to? (this is a snarky way of illustrating that relevance is a dynamic, not a point)

[marvin8]

dyspirido, i can't speak to staring at the wall but i wouldn't dissuade you. but regardless i'd encourage you to consider that money doesn't register on the human timeline, and that credit-money doesn't register on money's timeline; and that the last extinction period was driven by oceanic temperature changes due to shifting currents killing off the little guys that make oxygen, and that currently the straights of newfoundland are hypoxic, and the press concerning it all centers around the collapse of the fishing industry. and that a couple hundred sea turtles died the other day, cause it was warm enough to swim to maine and then it wasn't, which is sad not for sea turtles in and of themselves but because it speaks to the death of the producer of 65% of our oxygen (oceanic life) the bulk of the rest of which comes from the amazon which is currently being sold off as boardfeet by bolsonaro. and that mixing daoist meditative practice and martial arts has never been useful for fighting, but can you backseat drive how to slip a plum?

marvin8, what are you relevant to? (this is a snarky way of illustrating that relevance is a dynamic, not a point)

You may have misunderstood. I said it may not be relevant, as I did not watch the complete videos. However, it might be relevant to the posted video that mentioned the Yakuza and MMA.

Compensation in MMA seems to be getting better as competition (other organizations) and trade agreements grow.

If one is not happy with how much a particular company pays, one can look to another organization or career. Dana White, president of UFC, has a fiduciary responsibility to the owners/shareholders, as well.

[C.J.W.]

Not bad, but I think whoever made the series is over-analyzing and somewhat romanticizing the rise of MMA.

Blood sport for the viewing pleasure of the rich and the powerful as well as the general public is by no means a modern invention, but a phenomenon that dates back to ancient times (e.g., the Romans and the gladiators), and has taken place in many cultures around the world at various points in history. If we look at modern sports and their origins, we could say that boxing, wrestling, fencing, football, rugby, soccer are all deeply-rooted in this tradition.

I also believe that human beings' affinity to the sensual excitement of fighting is genetically ingrained -- the psychological remnants passed on to us by our ape ancestors who, like all other animal species, had to fight for survival on a daily basis. Ever notice that whenever there's a street fight or a schoolyard tussle, just about everybody -- from a 5-year-old kindergartener to an 80 year-old lady -- would stop and watch, or at least turn their heads and take a few peaks? We can't help it. It's in our blood -- no pun intended.

[Overlord]

Not bad, but I think whoever made the series is over-analyzing and somewhat romanticizing the rise of MMA.

Blood sport for the viewing pleasure of the rich and the powerful as well as the general public is by no means a modern invention, but a phenomenon that dates back to ancient times (e.g., the Romans and the gladiators), and has taken place in many cultures around the world at various points in history. If we look at modern sports and their origins, we could say that boxing, wrestling, fencing, football, rugby, soccer are all deeply-rooted in this tradition.

I also believe that human beings' affinity to the sensual excitement of fighting is genetically ingrained -- the psychological remnants passed on to us by our ape ancestors who, like all other animal species, had to fight for survival on a daily basis. Ever notice that whenever there's a street fight or a schoolyard tussle, just about everybody -- from a 5-year-old kindergartener to an 80 year-old lady -- would stop and watch, or at least turn their heads and take a few peaks? We can't help it. It's in our blood -- no pun intended.

No it’s not necessary in our blood.
That way I approach it is get away from any confrontations.
There is nothing to watch.
I don’t like violence, that is why I study it.

[dspyrido]

Not bad, but I think whoever made the series is over-analyzing and somewhat romanticizing the rise of MMA.

Blood sport for the viewing pleasure of the rich and the powerful as well as the general public is by no means a modern invention, but a phenomenon that dates back to ancient times (e.g., the Romans and the gladiators), and has taken place in many cultures around the world at various points in history. If we look at modern sports and their origins, we could say that boxing, wrestling, fencing, football, rugby, soccer are all deeply-rooted in this tradition.

I also believe that human beings' affinity to the sensual excitement of fighting is genetically ingrained -- the psychological remnants passed on to us by our ape ancestors who, like all other animal species, had to fight for survival on a daily basis. Ever notice that whenever there's a street fight or a schoolyard tussle, just about everybody -- from a 5-year-old kindergartener to an 80 year-old lady -- would stop and watch, or at least turn their heads and take a few peaks? We can't help it. It's in our blood -- no pun intended.

Vagabond - what he said.

I know a few people working in ufc today who grew up in the ranks of the older shooto and pancrase formats. No matter how many fan boys, key sad music, boo hooing or pacifist theories exist it is nothing new. Also the mechanics of it have nothing to do with MMA other than it is the medium presented for entertainment. It's a business which works within good ol supply & demand of a free market. A free market that is backed by the usual vendors, sponsors, underground/white collar criminals and other special interest groups.

I don't mind the human cock fighting. Better than getting roosters or dogs doing it. Yes I recognise it is fundamentally stupid but technique can't truly be pressure tested without a form of fighting. I don't see it any better or worse than horse or dog racing or even other impact sports.

Also the video is still corny.

[vagabond]

hoo boy

[vagabond]

ok. dyspirido. the free hand, lets start there it's a lovely place to start

well no, let's start with the video, cause you're right, it's corny. i kinda like corny, i wonder partly how much that's on purpose but if you can't make it through 30 seconds without cringing and changing it then it's not effective, no arguement. i can feel my heart ache as the sax croons and squeeze out a tear or two and mouth that guilty feet ain't got no rhythm and we're not even both right, just you. my best piece of advice in that regard is when i ask you to dance say no, that's all

ok the free hand. there's no such thing, no free, no hand. adam smith was this guy, right, and he was wrong. he lived in a world that included among other things the near east, where they had both hands and markets but, contrary to popular belief their carpets did not fly and their hands were only ever hidden in the usual way, nothing fancy. free markets were established along the silk road outside the purview of various sultans and whatnot, free not in metaphysical terms but quite literally further than troops and tax collectors would go. the hand involved was a handshake between traders, who knew each other by reputation and experience. it was beneath the honor of such traders to enter a contract or seek enforcement from any angle other than the censure of the community and their two free hands. when adam smith picked up the concept he had to eliminate the free cause he lived in a monarchy and didn't have the luxury of a desert full of bandits to party in in, and he had to eliminate the hand because everything in england necessarily sprang from god by way of the divine right of kings. so he made the hand invisible, called markets natural and situated freedom within this network of constraints and imperatives which is to say he said the word free a lot. that's why the history of the self regulating free market is the history of conquest, the slave trade and economic collapse and famine after economic collapse and famine after rescue by mints and central banks etc.

furthermore people have been fighting since prior to rome, prior to greece even and nothing harkens back to anything any more than you trace a lineage to hero's and senators memorialized by pliny the elder when you shake the piss of your willy like thracymachus did

gene's don't work like that and they're not an interest of mine so i can only encourage you to google epigenetic's and bonobo's

i appreciate the ufc and pride and k2 and all the others in some ways for raising the level of technique but that by no means exempts them from criticism any more than any of the rest of the culture industry. also worth reflecting that this is hardly the only point in history that's seen a pool of high level fighters, and that in each instance there's been material causes like coaches at the same time that fighters have been telling each other it's cause they've got the finger bones of a saint in the hilt of their sword

and finally if you're practicing a martial art that explicitly, and not magically or metaphysically, incorporates techniques of meditation and philosophical concepts with their roots in daoist and buddhist philosophies and you're not criticizing the milieu even as you continue to participate and influence and learn then you're wasting your time, cause that thread about "clenching" was shit and sylvie von douglas ittu is both brilliant and nicer to look at than anything windwalker ever posted

[vagabond]

also fencing, football and rugby are rich kid games. rugby's a prep school you know

[vagabond]

-a guy who trains, spars, and watches the fight with the boys

[C.J.W.]

https://youtu.be/VVJEvtkFKBc

Might be of interest to some.

"Even swords were allowed in the middle-ages. Good times. Today unfortunately, we must respect sport rules."

[dspyrido]

https://youtu.be/VVJEvtkFKBc

Might be of interest to some.

"Even swords were allowed in the middle-ages. Good times. Today unfortunately, we must respect sport rules."

That's insanely awesome.

Vagab - if u posted that vid you wouldn't have had to post your conflated, inflated, obfuscated ... diatribe? Leave adam alone - he just called it like he seez it.

Btw rugby as a prep school for rich kids ... i guess blue collar workers are better off these days.

[vagabond]

why would i post a video about calcio storico? i have no idea what that has to do with anything, i don't know why cjw posted it

my insane diatribe was a little bit of history that rarely get's brought into current understanding. adam smith did not in fact call it as he see's it, he lied extensively and fabricated economic theories on the basis of unattributed concepts taken from scholars coming from places like baghdad with names that begin with ibn- or al-. the notion that money came about to facilitate bartering for example is false; coinage was developed by feudal lords as a way of circumventing obligations to provide food and supplies to troops(creating the "merchant"), and to keep peasant soldiers from deserting. coinage was initially only useful in this context, i.e. could only be exchanged with a quartermaster, and then later camp hangers on. lords encouraged the wider circulation of coinage as a way to make soldiering continue to appeal, i.e. take a more permanent form than simply as a tally to exchange for porridge or arrows or whatever. this was conclusively proven in like 1908 or something in a paper published in the main journal for economic papers and such and for the last hundred years or so economists have been kinda letting it slip their mind when discussions come around to is money like, maybe, a bad thing. the notion of the (necessarily, in the english system, invisible) hand and the free market came from i wanna say ibn khaldoun, but don't quote me. there are entire passages in wealth of nations cribbed and not attributed from muslim philosopher economists part of a long tradition of folk in what we might call christendom stealing unabashedly from the near east and acting like that's totally normal and reasonable. read david graeber's debt, the first 5,000 years, if you care to. cjw posted some nonsense about genes that no geneticist would recognize as pertaining to biology, and i'd encourage anyone who blithely takes the word "genes" as a cue to cease all critical thinking to read some more, almost anything in book form for god's sake but donna harraway is quite good. all of which is by way of saying there is no such thing as a free market; all economies are planned explaining the deficiencies of the ufc in terms of a free market is hardly better than blaming mischievous elves.

so having gotten some silly and ahistorical notions out of the way, this would seem to leave us with your own observation that the ufc is fundamentally stupid. but i think we most of us would agree that cma's are in a bad state, and kung fu largely could benefit from some kind of injection of stuff and thingy's associated with the ring, like more pad drills and regular fighting. similarly, fundamental stupidity could brush up against meditation and poetically philosophical lineages of knowledge and probably like, grow as a person. all of which is framed against a background in which the world is fucking ending and none of us can afford to be fundamentally stupid unless we just really don't mind dying of hypoxia in thirty years or so

so which way is forward fella's?

[origami_itto]

so which way is forward fella's?

What are you willing to do?

[vagabond]

What are you willing to do?

who cares? it's an avoidant question. the notion of will is a popular one in a lot of circles, ima goofballs included, but a much more useful question would be what are we capable of doing. seems to me like that's been the question that's driven this forum the bulk of it's history. it's frustrating watching the conversation get more and more disingenuous. it's absurd to think that a grown up human with access to google couldn't conjure up a better solution to simple sparring problem x or y, so i won't. clearly the conversations are calibrated to maintain themselves with a universally acceptable minimum of disagreement while avoiding any kind of conversation ending resolutions, which is a little bizarre for a fighting discussion forum don't you think? so setting aside all the silly discussions about sprawl vs. root for a minute, they'll still be there, what is all this nonsense good for? can we help folks other than ourselves, or even ourselves? is anyone teaching anything in a socially beneficial capacity?

[dspyrido]

Don't you ima? If so what's done for you lately?

As for mma - it's just good fun to mix and match and play around.

Regarding ufc -