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Lineage and True Understanding
By Bobbe - Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:16:09 GMT
Originally Posted at: FMATalk
====================
Quote from another forum on the subject of lineage:
Quote:
What is lineage in ****** and how is it passed on and does it vary with school?
Quote:
Without lineage your art would be dead or dying. Bit by bit things would be lost and diluted.
Quote:
When people look back at history all they would be able to say is that ****** WAS once something special.
People love a connection to an era, or a traceable route in a timeline. It gives them a feeling of self-worth and belonging. Americans like to trace their roots to their ancestors in Scotland, England, Africa, etc. It gives them a sense of connection to a culture and civilization older than what they might have, and can also instill a sense of pride in your own history.
What it can NOT do is give you any physical relation to the history, culture or art that you don't already possess genetically. The linkage is purely psychological. Being a black American doesn't make you a lost member of the Zulu tribe. Being (myself) from Scottish grandparents doesn't make me a descendant of Robert the Bruce with legal claims to his kingdom.
The same is true in martial arts of ANY kind, in fact much more so than I would say anywhere else. I cannot go to a website, visit a school or speak to an instructor without getting somebody's kung fu resume dating back to the 12th century. I hear it over and over: "My teacher trained with Wang, who trained with Chong, who was the student of Fong, who slept with Chang's mother, whose neighbor cleaned the toilets of Soong. My lineage is from this hierarchy." This is, in my opinion, a false lineage. You didn't know these people. You didn't touch hands with them. You never heard what they had to say. All you are getting, no matter how truthful your teacher is trying to be, is secondhand information. The only "lineage" you can claim are those who you have trained directly under. Anything else is fantasizing. My students can claim to have trained with me, and the ones that go to Indonesia with me can claim my teacher there as well. However, they cannot claim all my teachers as a lineage, because they didn't train with them, only me. And what they get from me is my understanding of the knowledge I was given, complete with my own failures in training as well as skills and achievements. I can't duplicate my instructors word for word, move for move, skill for skill...No student can of ANY teacher! You take the essence of the lessons and apply them to the best of your abilities, knowledge and understanding AT THAT TIME. This understanding will often change as you grow and evolve in your own training.
On the subject of the art being lost, dying, or things getting diluted...Do you suppose that isn't the case now? When one physical technique is transferred to another person, that person has to change it to adapt it to his/her body size & strength. A person who has learned a martial art will alter it as time goes by so that he/she can continue to practice it in later years. There are just as many changes, if not more, than there are causes to remain the same year after year. Also, who said change equals dilution? That's a metaphor, and not an accurate one at that. It's misleading because it implies that the addition of new knowledge and the deletion of obsolete knowledge is somehow to be frowned upon. There is nowhere else in life that we as human beings would accept such. In the computer world whomever presented such a concept would be ridiculed into the street. In this age we have access to more information about martial arts than ever before, and our knowledge about the world around us allows us to see the fallacies in our own training by observing the strengths in others. Information and innovation that normally took decades to discover, develop and correct due to isolation can now take seconds to a person with an open mind. This is in now way disrespectful to the art, or the HUMAN BEING who created it...If he had access to the knowledge you do today, do you really think he wouldn't see the need for correction? Do you suppose this oh-so-wise creator couldn't bring himself to change his style if he learned how to build a better mouse trap?
Things cannot be lost...The body only moves so many ways, and if it was found once, it will come around again. Anybody can discover this. Anybody can achieve this.
Behind every TECHNIQUE there is a CONCEPT.
Behind every FORM there is a CONTENT.
Behind every ART there is an ESSENCE.
That's the base of ALL martial arts, the motion conceptualized is experimented with until a technique for application is formed. A group of principles & techniques became a form. The presentation of this form from the creator's point of view became an art.
So, what is the MESSAGE that your art is trying to convey to you? I don't mean the spiritual realm, there are enough people touting their opinions, as well as their version of God's opinion. No, what I am speaking of is the physical actions, when you take all the drills, stances, footwork, basics (especially basics!) of your art, what does it point to? What was the creator of it trying to convey, in his limited knowledge? THAT is ESSENCE. Every art has something like this, with the exception of perhaps a few that try to be "All-Inclusive". I personally don't think this is possible, but that's also my own opinion.
Behind every TECHNIQUE is a CONCEPT.
This is where it starts, because NOBODY has a martial art plotted out from crime to cops right at the beginning. But they will have a couple or more techniques that they can execute with relative success time after time. They already have a fluid version of it in their heads, so at this point there's no need to create a standardized "Technique" to present. They will only do that if they try to teach the concept to others. So, to concept: What is the message that the individual techniques of your style are trying to convey? They will normally find a common ground between them to support the essence of the technique.
Behind every FORM (Kata, Kuen, Juru, etc.) there is CONTENT.
This is a very straightforward point, what is the form doing? Some relay multiple messages, others repeat the same thing over and over to drive home a point. Don't get lost in the honorifics of the form, what it's name is, what it's lineage is (Some styles do this, why I have no idea), look for the purpose of the motion.
The TECHNIQUE will support the FORM
The FORM will support the ART
The ART will reflect the ESSENCE
This is the evolution of a system, or "Style". To bring lineage into it, while historically has some merit, does the third or so generation out no good at all, outside of a rhetorical exercise in "Who-What-Where". By all means, keep accurate records, develop a sense of pride in the knowledge that others went before you, and let it motivate you to continue when you feel like giving up. Yes, your instructors passed this information on to you, and yes, you should be grateful. But don't think for a second that it's lineage that's going to save you when the weasels hit the rectum. It will be your own hard work, effort & time spent training.
The learning impediment really occurs after the second generation of students produce students of their own, and the guidelines of the founder become dogma. Then the art falls into stagnation, and any hope of contemporary evolution is LOST.
Focusing on who did what in the art when the world was flat is to place importance on the irrelevant. A common trait for a freshly-minted Guru is to try to freeze time from back in the mid 1700s, and select certain traditions and cultural nuances for grafting onto the present. What and how it was done three hundred years ago is a little outmoded in my opinion. Someone who lived & trained this art 500 years ago doesn't have any bearing on you today, outside of perhaps a shared principle or concept he discovered back then. Cultures and timelines, as well as constantly changing world boundaries play against accurate information being passed down. You must learn to recognize what is important, and what is trivial. Trying to carry an ART or STYLE is nothing more than trying to carry an additional burden in your life. Understanding the essence of what the art is trying to say to you is what's important. Recognizing what the concept of your technique is will advance your skill in the art, not listing out the instructors of it up to it's creator. "Lineage" does nothing for you, outside of providing a kind of record of those who trained before. My students can all tell you this. They move well, train hard, and are skilled with the tools they have developed in the time they have spent with me. Most of them do not know who I have trained with, almost none of them even know my rank, outside of "Teacher in this school", and it doesn't interfere with their learning capacity in the least. The skill will prove true, that wall chart is just decoration.
Lastly, I have an inherent dislike of mysticism in the martial arts. I hate it when instructors try to hypnotize their students with metaphysical oogah-boogah language and sleight of hand, for whatever reason. From what I have seen & experienced, that sort of control starts with subtle tricks that slowly convert the student into a zombie, such as "Sensei is always right" "Call me Master" "Your obi has a sacred spirit in it, never wash it" and of course, "Our lineage goes back to the days of yore". Getting the student to buy into one of these will open the door for the others. Maybe it isn't always for the bad, I'll grant you that, and as I said earlier, theres nothing wrong with having a sense of pride in where your art came from. But the examples of it being used for hypnotizing a student are by FAR more in abundance than not.
This disgusts me. My high school math teacher never took me aside & said; "You are learning the Euclidian lineage of mathematics. As long as you can add & subtract, REMEMBER TO HONOR EUCLID!!".
See what mean? I didnt even know who Euclid WAS until I was an adult. It didn't enhance or detract from my learning math. And theres lots of other examples I could give. Martial Arts teachers are in a limbo-like state in society. Not really "educators" per se, and not "guardians" either. Yet they are revered and respected as both, often by nothing more than the belt they wear. This puts them in a position of power that is difficult to overcome, because it's like a kind of inherited respect, and not often an earned one.
So I tell my students to just call me Bobbe, and don't make a big deal of the honorific because it doesn't get me a better deal on my mortgage. It only matters in the school, and since everybody already knows it's my school...Why bother? I tell my students that what they are doing now is much more important than what I did 20 years ago, or what my teachers did 45 years ago. I tell them to create, not imitate. I will not avoid or ignore an innovation to my art just because master Kwan didn't do it. One of my students said it best, as we were having this discussion a week ago: "All anyone has to say is that "Sensei said it was true" and it's F**K common sense!"
Back to my point, "Tradition can be just as much a hindrance as any advantage you gain from it. It can blind you to the obvious truth that is right in front of your face, because tradition always must have an answer for everything. If such doesn't exist in your tradition, then it simply "doesn't exist", no matter what the evidence is to the contrary. I have seen this kind of thing before.
Let me close this with a question: Did you go to high school? Did you're teachers there pass knowledge on to you? Has that knowledge more than once gotten you a job, let you read a label, understand what was being said to you?
Do you still honor those teachers who taught you to read in the fourth grade? Their knowledge is no less important, and I'll bet my next paycheck you use it more than you use Martial Arts. Got any pictures of THEM on your wall? Do you keep a lineage chart of all your teachers from preschool throughout College?
If you do, fine. BUT IF YOU DON'T: Wouldn't you say that remembering them in your thoughts and prayers (or not) hasn't really made one bit of difference in your execution of their gift of knowledge to you?
Think about it.
Read More...
------------------------------------
FMATalk.com Post Bot - FMA Feed
By Bobbe - Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:16:09 GMT
Originally Posted at: FMATalk
====================
Quote from another forum on the subject of lineage:
Quote:
What is lineage in ****** and how is it passed on and does it vary with school?
Quote:
Without lineage your art would be dead or dying. Bit by bit things would be lost and diluted.
Quote:
When people look back at history all they would be able to say is that ****** WAS once something special.
People love a connection to an era, or a traceable route in a timeline. It gives them a feeling of self-worth and belonging. Americans like to trace their roots to their ancestors in Scotland, England, Africa, etc. It gives them a sense of connection to a culture and civilization older than what they might have, and can also instill a sense of pride in your own history.
What it can NOT do is give you any physical relation to the history, culture or art that you don't already possess genetically. The linkage is purely psychological. Being a black American doesn't make you a lost member of the Zulu tribe. Being (myself) from Scottish grandparents doesn't make me a descendant of Robert the Bruce with legal claims to his kingdom.
The same is true in martial arts of ANY kind, in fact much more so than I would say anywhere else. I cannot go to a website, visit a school or speak to an instructor without getting somebody's kung fu resume dating back to the 12th century. I hear it over and over: "My teacher trained with Wang, who trained with Chong, who was the student of Fong, who slept with Chang's mother, whose neighbor cleaned the toilets of Soong. My lineage is from this hierarchy." This is, in my opinion, a false lineage. You didn't know these people. You didn't touch hands with them. You never heard what they had to say. All you are getting, no matter how truthful your teacher is trying to be, is secondhand information. The only "lineage" you can claim are those who you have trained directly under. Anything else is fantasizing. My students can claim to have trained with me, and the ones that go to Indonesia with me can claim my teacher there as well. However, they cannot claim all my teachers as a lineage, because they didn't train with them, only me. And what they get from me is my understanding of the knowledge I was given, complete with my own failures in training as well as skills and achievements. I can't duplicate my instructors word for word, move for move, skill for skill...No student can of ANY teacher! You take the essence of the lessons and apply them to the best of your abilities, knowledge and understanding AT THAT TIME. This understanding will often change as you grow and evolve in your own training.
On the subject of the art being lost, dying, or things getting diluted...Do you suppose that isn't the case now? When one physical technique is transferred to another person, that person has to change it to adapt it to his/her body size & strength. A person who has learned a martial art will alter it as time goes by so that he/she can continue to practice it in later years. There are just as many changes, if not more, than there are causes to remain the same year after year. Also, who said change equals dilution? That's a metaphor, and not an accurate one at that. It's misleading because it implies that the addition of new knowledge and the deletion of obsolete knowledge is somehow to be frowned upon. There is nowhere else in life that we as human beings would accept such. In the computer world whomever presented such a concept would be ridiculed into the street. In this age we have access to more information about martial arts than ever before, and our knowledge about the world around us allows us to see the fallacies in our own training by observing the strengths in others. Information and innovation that normally took decades to discover, develop and correct due to isolation can now take seconds to a person with an open mind. This is in now way disrespectful to the art, or the HUMAN BEING who created it...If he had access to the knowledge you do today, do you really think he wouldn't see the need for correction? Do you suppose this oh-so-wise creator couldn't bring himself to change his style if he learned how to build a better mouse trap?
Things cannot be lost...The body only moves so many ways, and if it was found once, it will come around again. Anybody can discover this. Anybody can achieve this.
Behind every TECHNIQUE there is a CONCEPT.
Behind every FORM there is a CONTENT.
Behind every ART there is an ESSENCE.
That's the base of ALL martial arts, the motion conceptualized is experimented with until a technique for application is formed. A group of principles & techniques became a form. The presentation of this form from the creator's point of view became an art.
So, what is the MESSAGE that your art is trying to convey to you? I don't mean the spiritual realm, there are enough people touting their opinions, as well as their version of God's opinion. No, what I am speaking of is the physical actions, when you take all the drills, stances, footwork, basics (especially basics!) of your art, what does it point to? What was the creator of it trying to convey, in his limited knowledge? THAT is ESSENCE. Every art has something like this, with the exception of perhaps a few that try to be "All-Inclusive". I personally don't think this is possible, but that's also my own opinion.
Behind every TECHNIQUE is a CONCEPT.
This is where it starts, because NOBODY has a martial art plotted out from crime to cops right at the beginning. But they will have a couple or more techniques that they can execute with relative success time after time. They already have a fluid version of it in their heads, so at this point there's no need to create a standardized "Technique" to present. They will only do that if they try to teach the concept to others. So, to concept: What is the message that the individual techniques of your style are trying to convey? They will normally find a common ground between them to support the essence of the technique.
Behind every FORM (Kata, Kuen, Juru, etc.) there is CONTENT.
This is a very straightforward point, what is the form doing? Some relay multiple messages, others repeat the same thing over and over to drive home a point. Don't get lost in the honorifics of the form, what it's name is, what it's lineage is (Some styles do this, why I have no idea), look for the purpose of the motion.
The TECHNIQUE will support the FORM
The FORM will support the ART
The ART will reflect the ESSENCE
This is the evolution of a system, or "Style". To bring lineage into it, while historically has some merit, does the third or so generation out no good at all, outside of a rhetorical exercise in "Who-What-Where". By all means, keep accurate records, develop a sense of pride in the knowledge that others went before you, and let it motivate you to continue when you feel like giving up. Yes, your instructors passed this information on to you, and yes, you should be grateful. But don't think for a second that it's lineage that's going to save you when the weasels hit the rectum. It will be your own hard work, effort & time spent training.
The learning impediment really occurs after the second generation of students produce students of their own, and the guidelines of the founder become dogma. Then the art falls into stagnation, and any hope of contemporary evolution is LOST.
Focusing on who did what in the art when the world was flat is to place importance on the irrelevant. A common trait for a freshly-minted Guru is to try to freeze time from back in the mid 1700s, and select certain traditions and cultural nuances for grafting onto the present. What and how it was done three hundred years ago is a little outmoded in my opinion. Someone who lived & trained this art 500 years ago doesn't have any bearing on you today, outside of perhaps a shared principle or concept he discovered back then. Cultures and timelines, as well as constantly changing world boundaries play against accurate information being passed down. You must learn to recognize what is important, and what is trivial. Trying to carry an ART or STYLE is nothing more than trying to carry an additional burden in your life. Understanding the essence of what the art is trying to say to you is what's important. Recognizing what the concept of your technique is will advance your skill in the art, not listing out the instructors of it up to it's creator. "Lineage" does nothing for you, outside of providing a kind of record of those who trained before. My students can all tell you this. They move well, train hard, and are skilled with the tools they have developed in the time they have spent with me. Most of them do not know who I have trained with, almost none of them even know my rank, outside of "Teacher in this school", and it doesn't interfere with their learning capacity in the least. The skill will prove true, that wall chart is just decoration.
Habit and tradition should not be above criticism, nor should the dead rule the living.
Lastly, I have an inherent dislike of mysticism in the martial arts. I hate it when instructors try to hypnotize their students with metaphysical oogah-boogah language and sleight of hand, for whatever reason. From what I have seen & experienced, that sort of control starts with subtle tricks that slowly convert the student into a zombie, such as "Sensei is always right" "Call me Master" "Your obi has a sacred spirit in it, never wash it" and of course, "Our lineage goes back to the days of yore". Getting the student to buy into one of these will open the door for the others. Maybe it isn't always for the bad, I'll grant you that, and as I said earlier, theres nothing wrong with having a sense of pride in where your art came from. But the examples of it being used for hypnotizing a student are by FAR more in abundance than not.
This disgusts me. My high school math teacher never took me aside & said; "You are learning the Euclidian lineage of mathematics. As long as you can add & subtract, REMEMBER TO HONOR EUCLID!!".
See what mean? I didnt even know who Euclid WAS until I was an adult. It didn't enhance or detract from my learning math. And theres lots of other examples I could give. Martial Arts teachers are in a limbo-like state in society. Not really "educators" per se, and not "guardians" either. Yet they are revered and respected as both, often by nothing more than the belt they wear. This puts them in a position of power that is difficult to overcome, because it's like a kind of inherited respect, and not often an earned one.
So I tell my students to just call me Bobbe, and don't make a big deal of the honorific because it doesn't get me a better deal on my mortgage. It only matters in the school, and since everybody already knows it's my school...Why bother? I tell my students that what they are doing now is much more important than what I did 20 years ago, or what my teachers did 45 years ago. I tell them to create, not imitate. I will not avoid or ignore an innovation to my art just because master Kwan didn't do it. One of my students said it best, as we were having this discussion a week ago: "All anyone has to say is that "Sensei said it was true" and it's F**K common sense!"
Back to my point, "Tradition can be just as much a hindrance as any advantage you gain from it. It can blind you to the obvious truth that is right in front of your face, because tradition always must have an answer for everything. If such doesn't exist in your tradition, then it simply "doesn't exist", no matter what the evidence is to the contrary. I have seen this kind of thing before.
Let me close this with a question: Did you go to high school? Did you're teachers there pass knowledge on to you? Has that knowledge more than once gotten you a job, let you read a label, understand what was being said to you?
Do you still honor those teachers who taught you to read in the fourth grade? Their knowledge is no less important, and I'll bet my next paycheck you use it more than you use Martial Arts. Got any pictures of THEM on your wall? Do you keep a lineage chart of all your teachers from preschool throughout College?
If you do, fine. BUT IF YOU DON'T: Wouldn't you say that remembering them in your thoughts and prayers (or not) hasn't really made one bit of difference in your execution of their gift of knowledge to you?
Think about it.
Read More...
------------------------------------
FMATalk.com Post Bot - FMA Feed
