# What does your martial art do for you



## bigfootsquatch (May 9, 2007)

Martial Arts should be first and foremost, cultivation and development of character and spirit. Too many martial artists get caught up in ego and trophies to the point of losing the actual art. How can one take a martial art and make it suitable for competition? They can't It simply can not be done without losing the original essence of the art. Look at the UFC now, a bunch of bland martial arts being done by muscle headed jocks without any sense of honor or discipline. 
Take a look at tae kwon do from Richard Chun's books(taekwondo, advancing in taekwondo) and a book today. You'll find that tae kwon do has lost many of it's more dangerous strikes, rooted stances, and just plain flavor because of it's development into a full fledged sport. 
Heck, see what competition did for Tai Chi and have a real good laught!

Also, too many get on a rant of insults to make them look better. For instance, (most)Gracie Jiu Jitsu practioners are very cocky and belittling of other styles. When one goes on a rant about how one style is infinitely inferior, it only shows insecurity and immaturity both in their own style and themselves. Many also get so caught up in the hard vs soft styles, japanese vs chinese, even wtf taekwondo vs itf taekwondo styles that they lose sight of the original meaning of cultivating and developing their character!

What I am trying to say without writing a book is that if you want sport then go play ball or run track. If you want to develop yourself to a higher level, physically, mentally, and spiritually, then take a martial art. 
Oh and if you are one of those ego mongrols I described in the 2nd paragraph...just get over yourself. 

Remember:
Honor, Discipline, Respect

Forget:
Ego, Competition, Laziness


Thoughts, Add-libs?


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## Blindside (May 9, 2007)

Do I have a reply?  

Sure, martial artists that put on a holier-than-thou attitude, who might get "on a rant of insults" describing others as "bland martial arts" or as "muscle headed jocks."  When the traditional martial artists go on a rant about how one style is infinitely inferior, it only shows insecurity and immaturity both in their own style and themselves.  

Lamont


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## bigfootsquatch (May 9, 2007)

I tried to step on a few toes to get my point across, great reply!


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## Touch Of Death (May 9, 2007)

Its just so unfulfilling relying on the rules of society to protect you from reality.
Sean


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## JadecloudAlchemist (May 9, 2007)

> Martial Arts should be first and foremost, cultivation and development of character and spirit.


I feel that way too but not everyone will see it that way everyone is on different levels and directions. 





> Look at the UFC now, a bunch of bland martial arts being done by muscle headed jocks without any sense of honor or discipline.


I disagree I see a sense of sportsmanship and respect
I see discipline in a way that they are able to control(though not all the time) themselves in a orderly conduct. Are they bland I think they are good at what they do thats what they train for.


> )Gracie Jiu Jitsu practioners are very cocky and belittling of other styles.


 I think they see holes in a style and point it out maybe not in the best way but tough love is a real eye opener.

Everyone has a different idea what martial arts are. To be fair some might say if you want to learn manners one should seek morality from religion or spiritual guide. For me I think Martial arts means expressing your innerself
using martial applications be that in form,fight or other.
Its all opnions to me instead of looking at why that guy may be wrong I try looking at it as what makes me so right. Food for thought.


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## bigfootsquatch (May 9, 2007)

JadecloudAlchemist said:


> I feel that way too but not everyone will see it that way everyone is on different levels and directions. I disagree I see a sense of sportsmanship and respect
> I see discipline in a way that they are able to control(though not all the time) themselves in a orderly conduct. Are they bland I think they are good at what they do thats what they train for.
> I think they see holes in a style and point it out maybe not in the best way but tough love is a real eye opener.
> 
> ...


 
I agree with you about the UFC. I tried to throw a little grease in the fire with my statement just to get people answering(not the most tactful way is it?). The guys are indeed good at what they do, and many do have good sportsmanship. The only real negative impact UFC has had is the fact now that most everyone thinks anything but bjj/gjj is inferior. The UFC DID make the martial art world(especially hard stylists) wake up out of their fantasy world of macho warriorism(simply beating up their opponent). Any hard stylist worth their salt had better, at the very least, understand that punching and kicking won't always work, and since many simply do not get into anything but minor scuffles, the UFC can be thanked for that eye opener.


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## bigfootsquatch (May 9, 2007)

Touch Of Death said:


> Its just so unfulfilling relying on the rules of society to protect you from reality.
> Sean


 
No one is relying on rules of society here


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## exile (May 9, 2007)

bigfootsquatch said:


> Martial Arts *should* be first and foremost, *cultivation and development of character and spirit....*
> 
> Take a look at tae kwon do from Richard Chun's books(taekwondo, advancing in taekwondo) and a book today. You'll find that *tae kwon do has lost many of it's more dangerous strikes *rooted stances, and just plain flavor because of it's development into a full fledged sport.
> Thoughts, Add-libs?



OK, so why have I bolded/differentially colored these two passages?

First of all, I am with you, bfsq, on the dangers of competition scoring systems backfeeding into MA curricula. No argument, and TKD is a prime cautionary tale about what happens when sport winds up driving the training syllabus. 110% agreement. 

Second, look at the red and green passages: cultivation of character and spirit  on the one hand, and on the other, the implicit assumption that a MA which has lost its more dangerous strikes is being diminished. The first is a should, the second, apparently, a corollary shouldn't. Someone reading this post might well think you were saying that removing a MA's most lethal techniques diminished its role as a character builder! I think, myself, you're mixing apples, oranges and Dead Sea scroll together here.


 I don't see why anyone would think that MAs are about character, development, spirituality, or anything like that. I'm just had my sixtieth birthday, and I've had a very good fraction of a lifetime to develop my character, whatever that is, on the basis of that many years of experience, my own upbringing by my parents who provided me with ethical guidelines I still largely navigate by, a lot of very fine-grained argumentation with terrific friends and in many cases brilliant thinkers based on `what if...' type scenarios involving the consequences of action, and a hell of a lot of reading in ethical philosophy. I don't need to learn ethics, character development or anything else of that sort from an Asian martial art that grew out of desperate edge-of-survival circumstances, and whose practitioners, mythology notwithstanding, beat the crap out of each other during rival-school confrontations. If someone's going to offer me instruction in morality and personal ethics, bfsq, they'd better have a lot better reason than their dan rank in a martial art to make me think that I require instruction from them in the domain of _ethics_.

So let's get rid of the _should_s, OK? There is no way you're going to be able to construct a valid, sound argument of the form _Martial arts should (primarily) do X_. How are you going to establish what the ethical imperatives of a codified fighting system are? What would be the structure of your argument? I don't think you can do it. I've seen a huge amount of gaseous, self-important moralizing about what the martial arts and martial artistry imply/entail on this board, and none of it, in the end, has any more foundation than any statement of the type `Well, I believe that  blah blah blah, and if you don't agree, you are clearly wrong/ignorant/bigoted/not a _true_ [fill in appropriate category of person]', or some such drivel.

Forget about the part in red; you cannot win that argument with anyone who doesn't share certain initial assumptions with you, and there's no way you can establish those assumptions a priori. Why not just talk about the part in  green? What I mean is, let's ask what a martial art has to offer, based on its history. The people who created any given MA weren't moralists or philosphers of ethics. They were ordinary working people (some of them working in military professions) who needed effective ways to protect themselves in an era when the rich and powerful could take care of themselves, and to hell with everyone else. And that's what they created, after generations of experimentation (aka trial and error). If you study the systems they created carefully, you'll find a full complement of techniques to use to protect yourself in a variety of types of violent confrontation. By no means all, but many, of a kind that most of us might encounter somewhere along the line. So on the basis of their historical origin as effective systems of self-defense, that's what we can expect to learn if we study these systems from the perspective of their creators. 

Martial sports take much of the effective, structured violence out of play via their scoring systems, which reward athletic skills and actions which have little relevance to self-defense. If you want to do that, fine. If not, fine too. What's bad is when you cannot obtain effective instruction in self-defense because the martial art schools have all, or mostly, become martial sport schools. Bad, bad, bad. The remedy is to seek out the MA schools that teach effective SD, join them, learn their curricula, experiment with and further develop their skill sets. 

So please, let's cut these _should_-type assertions out of our MA discussions. MAists can be expected to behave according to certain ethical norms simply because those norms make life in society possible. But there's nothing unique or special about the MAs in that respect. Let's just recognize that all traditional MAs have a rich core of effective self-defense techs, that many MA schools dilute this core because they're focused on competitive events that have a very poor fit with violent assaults, and that if you want to max out your success rate in such encounters, you need to get training from places which offer effective training for just that purpose. 
I myself can't think of anything more that needs to be said about any of this.


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## Touch Of Death (May 9, 2007)

bigfootsquatch said:


> No one is relying on rules of society here


Exactly.


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## bigfootsquatch (May 9, 2007)

exile said:


> OK, so why have I bolded/differentially colored these two passages?
> 
> First of all, I am with you, bfsq, on the dangers of competition scoring systems backfeeding into MA curricula. No argument, and TKD is a prime cautionary tale about what happens when sport winds up driving the training syllabus. 110% agreement.
> 
> ...


 

You know what? I'll have to think about what you've posted before I can even begin to give an adequate response. Thanks


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## exile (May 10, 2007)

bigfootsquatch said:


> You know what? I'll have to think about what you've posted before I can even begin to give an adequate response. Thanks



Sure, bfsqand please understand, I wasn't shaking a finger at you or anyone involved in this thread; it was more a kind of thinking aloud (which is one of the great things about MT, that you can do that and get useful feedback). I see the MAs as a kind of terrific toolkit that allows you to build stuff, but the contents of that toolkit by themselves don't really tell you _what_ to build. For that, you have to consult everything else in your life, sort of.

AlsoI really didn't want to squelch any further discussionmy desire to avoid these kind of `should'based exchanges was based on the number of threads that I've seen go sideways as a result of squabbles about how ethics and MA relate to each other. My experience has been that whatever else you wanted to get at will inevitably be sidetracked by the arguments that arise as a result. It seemed to me that you were raising another, very useful point about the effect of competitive practice on martial art content. That's a discussion that really can take you somewhere, I think; a parting of the ways between SD-oriented and competition-oriented forms of the same MA seems to me to be unavoidable, and there are signs of it happening in both TKD and karate. But if you want to have that discussion, than the ethical/spiritual stuff will only derail you, because so far as I can tell, there just isn't a consensus out there about it and no amount of back-and-forth is going to get people to change their bedrock assumptions about those things...


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## geocad (May 10, 2007)

Thanks EXILE for your insightful thoughts on many topics here at MT. I would imagine you're a professor of philosophy or psychology based on how you intelligently express your opinions and give us readers 'food for thought.' Now I'm going to do a search to see what else you've been writing. Cheers! ~G


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## thardey (May 10, 2007)

I agree that MA's don't have a core of ethics involved -- ethics were introduced after the fact to calm down people who were frightened by this unknown power.

Example: Someone who doesn't know me hears that I'm a Black Belt. A typical first reaction is worry that I can hurt him. Since he doesn't know what a "Black Belt" really is, that unknown element raises those fears. But if he's seen "Star Wars" or "Karate Kid" then he *knows* that people with a lot of personal power are also wise and ethical, and can be trusted with that power. 

It's a marketing ploy, and always has been. A lot of the dojo's around here advertise "Self-defense, Courage, Self-Control, Respect" etc. Why don't they advertise "Practical, efficient killing systems?" Because mothers don't want their babies learning how to kill people with their bare hands. They want them to grow up to be moral, ethical, responsible citizens; The "Good Guys".

--------------------------

However, inherent to MA is _responsibility_. The very first MA lesson I took was a self-defense class from a Tiger Jujutsu teacher. When I realized how powerful MA was, my first thought was: "I don't know who else out there knows this, and I certainly don't know else is out there. I think I'm going to be nicer to people from now on." 

As I struggled with persevering through the boring parts of my training, I realized that I needed to understand how these techs worked in real life, which also meant that I had to really think about how far I was willing to go, and the brutal reality of what I was training for. In order to be persistent in my training, in order to advance, I had to start taking _responsibility_ for my skill.

It's one thing for a frightened person to go out and buy a gun -- they feel better, but never deal with the actual details of what if means to use it for what it was intended. They put it in their sock drawer, unloaded, and sleep better at night for it.

It's another to practice with that gun. To shoot at a man-shaped silhouette, and imagine that you are putting a bullet into a real human being that breathes, and has a mother, or kids, and to imagine what kind of horrible situation you must be in to justify that action. To deal with the fear of having to draw and fire without thinking, because some nightmarish situation made that extreme act necessary. A healthy person can't mentally continue with that kind of training unless you find some way to take responsibilty.

However, _responsibilty for what_ is where we get back into ethics. And like Exile said, that comes from some external source, not MA itself. For instance, what's the difference between revenge and justice? (That's a rhetorical question, folk, I don't want to hijack the thread). Only your own beliefs can answer that for you.

(appendix?)
---------------------------

Some people find perseverence for MA's by applying it to sport. In and of itself, that's not bad, but I think they're cheating themselves. If you are practicing strikes and kicks (or target practice) for the purpose of winning a sporting event, you don't have to deal with the responsibility of what happens. The event coordinators have already assumed that responsibilty, and have set rules and officials in place to deal with it. Since you are "absolved" from that responsibility, you are free to focus on the "Win". 

But if you only focus on sport, you are never forced to go through the mental struggles of what happens when you use deadly force, and you miss the chance to grow up a little more.


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## exile (May 10, 2007)

geocad said:


> I would imagine you're a professor of philosophy or psychology.



Thanks for your kind comments, geo. I do teach at university, my field is linguistics, from the point of view of what kinds of computations must human beings' cognitive ability be able to carry out such that we find the syntactic patterns we're able to identify in human languages. It's a _kind_ of psychology, in a sense... part of the study of human cognition...



thardey said:


> I agree that MA's don't have a core of ethics involved -- ethics were introduced after the fact to calm down people who were frightened by this unknown power.
> 
> Example: Someone who doesn't know me hears that I'm a Black Belt. A typical first reaction is worry that I can hurt him. Since he doesn't know what a "Black Belt" really is, that unknown element raises those fears. But if he's seen "Star Wars" or "Karate Kid" then he *knows* that people with a lot of personal power are also wise and ethical, and can be trusted with that power.
> 
> ...



Whoa, that is an _outstanding_ set of observations, thardey! I think you've hit every target there is!


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## JBrainard (May 10, 2007)

*What does my martial art do for me?*

To keep it honest, short, and sweet: It keeps me sane.


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## thardey (May 10, 2007)

exile said:


> Whoa, that is an _outstanding_ set of observations, thardey! I think you've hit every target there is!



:asian:


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## Shaderon (May 10, 2007)

thardey said:


> I agree that MA's don't have a core of ethics involved -- ethics were introduced after the fact to calm down people who were frightened by this unknown power.
> 
> Example: Someone who doesn't know me hears that I'm a Black Belt. A typical first reaction is worry that I can hurt him. Since he doesn't know what a "Black Belt" really is, that unknown element raises those fears. But if he's seen "Star Wars" or "Karate Kid" then he *knows* that people with a lot of personal power are also wise and ethical, and can be trusted with that power.
> 
> ...


 

I honestly can't follow that!   Amazing post!


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## thardey (May 10, 2007)

Geez, now I'm blushing -- thanks, guys.  

There's got to be more to say on this, though, it's too big of a subject for a page and a half of thread.


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## exile (May 10, 2007)

thardey said:


> Geez, now I'm blushing -- thanks, guys.
> 
> There's got to be more to say on this, though, it's too big of a subject for a page and a half of thread.



That's definitely true. Every single person on this board has had a unique experience with the MAs, and since the question is `what have the MAs done for _you?_' we can hope for a lot of individual answers, each with its own truth. What I like about your post, though, is that you covered a lot of more general, widespread truths in a single message. Certainly worth a cheer!


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## Steel Tiger (May 10, 2007)

The study of MAs has had some very interesting effects for me.  It has opened my mind to a vast collection of different views and opinions on many things, not just MAs.  I have made many friends through my study.  As a result of a couple of decades of this I can now talk to people on the other side of the world about similar experiences, and other things.

thardey was talking about responsibility.  Yes I can see that in what I do.  To teach is to take a certain amount of responsiblity for ones self and ones students, especially in regard to passing on knowledge.  But I think that there is something else.  It is discipline.  Not that imposed, whack you on the back with a stick discipline, but heavy-duty, it only comes with understanding, self-discipline.

Before I started MA training I did athletics.  I found it came very easy to me and as a result I didn't practice as assiduously as I should have and didn't achieve what I propably could have.

When I took up Ma training I found it also came easy to me, but I also discovered that what I was doing had meaning which running and jumping alone didn't.  This discovery led me to focus more, impose a level of self-discipline I had not before.  As a result I was able to achieve a higher level of understanding and success.


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## tshadowchaser (May 10, 2007)

What has the martial arts done for me?
Lets see, I have met some of my closest friend through the arts.
Some of my fondest memories are from experiences and people ( now pasted away)
Some of the things that have hurt me emotionally and made me wary of others came from my experiences in the arts
The arts have reinforced my general outlook on how I look at and treat others in all aspects of life
I have learned to deal with people of all heritages and life styles form all over the world, many of whom did not speak the same language that I do 
I have learned that those closest to you may be the ones that stab you in the back if it can make them look better or increase their ego
I guess I am saying that the martial arts has been one of the things that has had a very  large influence on who and what I am today


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## qi-tah (May 12, 2007)

I started martial arts about 6 years ago 'cause i was having raging anxiety and panic attacks at the time and needed some heavy duty cardio exercise to combat it. I found Capoeira and this fulfilled this function for a year, 4-5 days a week for several hours at a time. Unfortunately it also wrecked my knees to the point where i had trouble walking :-( I then took up internal CMA as i had heard that it might help to fix my dodgy knees! 

And now, five years later? I still have dodgy knees (though vastly improved from 2001), but more importantly, i am tapped into a MA that has been passed down through generations of much better men than me (not hard, since i'm a woman, but you get the gist...), a skill that i can practice for life, which will help to keep me healthy, which allows me to look into the mirror of my own aggression and know myself better, which feels beautiful and fun to practice and which i know will absorb all the skill i shall ever have and still have things to teach me. Oh, and maybe one day i shall be able to beat ppl up using it, but by that time i hope to be living a supremely peaceful life.


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