I would say the article is uneven. As an example I disagree strongly with his takes on the difference between self defense and fighting, the pseudoscience bit and his last point. I will explain why at the end. I think people are missing the first part of the article. He is speaking from growing from the neophyte student to the instructor over decades. So let me be less wordy...
Forms (kata) practice: are not how you fight. If the instructor doesn't put you in sparing to turn the movements in the form into a practical skill you have found a fantasy Martial Art.
Belief: do not become trapped by dogma. Not every martial art is meant for every practitioner, so allow the evidence of your success, or failure, to guide you.
(I say the above for two reasons... First using Martial Arts is more than the physical techniques. As an example some martial arts also have different mind sets and if the mind set/philosophy of the Martial Art conflicts with the practitioners personality/temperament it just won't work. Some people may say "studying the MA can change your personality/temperament" but that is easier said than done. Second some TMAs, over the years [especially some TCMAs], have evolved to be vehicles for performance in competitions and not practical fighting. Thank the Chinese Government for that.)
Non-competitive: part of the form issue... there is no full spar/free fighting to turn the art into a practical fighting skill. So drills become an extension of the form issue.
Complicated terminology and tactics: When you teach combatives you need to keep to the K.I.S.S principle. If you use terminology that can confuse the student, or use tactics that have 5 steps when 2 or three would be more effective you create both cognitive and physical inefficiency which can make or break a fight.
Secret Moves : ( some may find my belief here odd considering what my GM said early in his teaching career). Because it remains "secret" and is only handed down to "select" students, you never actually know if it's real. Even if it exists how can you see it's power because you will never see it in practice for fear of the secret "getting out." It really does smack of the "learn the mystic arts of the Far East" marketing.
(it is also imo simply disingenuous. You are essentially saying "pay me for an incomplete curriculum" to the majority of your students.)
A hierarchical system: I definitely agree with this. Some TKD, and Karate federations go to far with this imo. In short they reward time in the dojo at least as much as they do skill, sometimes more. For a good example of this see the history of Dolph Lundgren. 1979 at the World Open Championships they had to find a Brown Belt for him to wear because he was technically only a Green Belt, but he was good enough to actually make it to the final round against Makoto Nakamura. He went the distance and Makoto (a 2nd Dan Black Belt) won the title in a very controversial decision.
Okay onto where I disagree...
Self-defense, not fighting: My issue is with he last point, "I can't tell the difference." There is one. Self-defense, imo, is first about avoiding the fight in the first place. Second it is about surviving, if that means simply opening up an avenue of escape, that works. To me fighting is about "winning" the fight, in other words, "last man standing." You can survive using self-defense even if both are still standing (or at least capable of doing so.
Pseudoscience isn't science: We used to have an actual Scientist in my school who said "Wing Chun is a class in practical Newtonian Physics." Many martial arts, if not all, are just that. The angles of deflections, the use of momentum, the body mechanics to generate power, these are all scientific. The difference is some teachers will point out the physics/science behind the techniques and others don't. Regardless the science is always there.
The origin story: TBH in my school the only part of the "Origin story" that was ever mentioned is that GM William Cheung was a student of Yip Man. Beyond that the art is "sold" on the fact that my Sifu used it operationally. He and his Sifu both instruct it to Local, State and Federal LE and that one of my other instructors has used it in unsanctioned competitions that you can see on YouTube. So in other words it is sold on the basis that, anecdotally, a number of my teachers have used it in reality and it worked. My anecdotal experience on the job confirms this. So I suppose I am saying that he seems to forget that looking at any Community (in this case the WC community) as a monolith leads to the Fallacy of composition.
I think he kinda lets slip why it's uneven in the end. When he talks about being "black listed" from the WC community. This definitely seems to be written by someone who is disillusioned with said community so overall the article is a tad passive aggressive imo.
Lastly, on a side note. Donnie Yen actually has been in more than a few fights. His mother (a martial arts instructor) sent him back to China from the US because he was running with a Chinatown Street Gang and getting into fights, then in 1993 he put 8 people in the hospital for harassing his girlfriend as they left a nightclub. He was actually initially arrested for that incident but was released after the police completed the investigation. Now since it was 1993 he didn't use WC because he didn't study it, to my knowledge, until the first film (released in 2008), but he can fight none the less I think.
