Guess I’m just feeling nostalgic

[Xue Sheng]

That or I should know better than to watch 3 old Chuck Norris movies in a row (Force of One, Forced Vengeance, and the Octagon)

Not that I am in to quoting myself... but this sure save me a lot of typing and I'm old...so forgive me :asian:

I made this post awhile back and this is what I have been thinking about a lot lately... it took up the entire 45 minutes of my sanity walk away form the office today as a matter of fact

First I am old and I have been in this a long time so I tend to have a dinosaurs view I guess, but there use to be a lot more comradely between martial artists back in the stone age. I have often wondered what happened to that....

Back when we were roaming with dinosaurs it generally ended up in a fairly friendly sparring match, and you learned from that where your weaknesses were. Sometimes you learned to keep your mouth shut around senior students…. Not that I would know this from experience mind you. :whip:

Let me say here that I am not advocating meeting people to beat them up or challenging someone to a sparring match to make your point, I am just saying that was my experience and there was very little anger involved.

I guess I am just missing the old days and wondering what happened to them. I miss the old Jujutsu school and my old TKD school and the cross style sparing groups... it was all very cool.

But I do not go back as far as some on MT, I am only thinking back to the time when Enter the Dragon was a New Movie and the popular show on TV was the first "Kung Fu"

 

[seasoned]

That or I should know better than to watch 3 old Chuck Norris movies in a row (Force of One, Forced Vengeance, and the Octagon)

Not that I am in to quoting myself... but this sure save me a lot of typing and I'm old...so forgive me :asian:

I made this post awhile back and this is what I have been thinking about a lot lately... it took up the entire 45 minutes of my sanity walk away form the office today as a matter of fact





I guess I am just missing the old days and wondering what happened to them. I miss the old Jujutsu school and my old TKD school and the cross style sparing groups... it was all very cool.

But I do not go back as far as some on MT, I am only thinking back to the time when Enter the Dragon was a New Movie and the popular show on TV was the first "Kung Fu"

A bit older I am, but it works for me.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I just got back from my daughters TKD class, and to be honest the school is great with kids but IMO does not really teach much MA. But… today was a belt test and my overactive sense of nostalgia kicked in for the days when I was taking belt tests… you did not get to take a belt test just because you went to class so many times or because you were there so many weeks or months or just because there was going to be a belt test… you took it when your teacher said you were ready and that was the only way to get a test and it did not cost you any extra money.

However I am not sure I could have handled sitting there watching my daughter go through a belt test like I use to go through. And… I did not get so nostalgic that I went and signed up with a school that gives belts… I am traditional CMA pretty much to the core these days… but I am still wondering what happened to the old school type of MA training

They also had a class going on with 2 kids against one and I remember those from my Jujutsu days.... and based on that, IMO, they were doing it all wrong.

Damn I'm gettig old :uhyeah:

 

[seasoned]

As much as I love and miss the good old days, I do consider that these days are the yesterdays for those that are in the nowadays.

All that aside, I do have some awesome memories, and opportunities to lunch and train with some of my very best friends from days gone by. To be 100% honest, to recapture those days in my mind are much fun, but, I in no way could ever again keep that pace and intensity. Such is life.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I would not survive it either it is just I do not see this in MA schools today and I miss it.

 

[Balrog]

However I am not sure I could have handled sitting there watching my daughter go through a belt test like I use to go through. And… I did not get so nostalgic that I went and signed up with a school that gives belts… I am traditional CMA pretty much to the core these days… but I am still wondering what happened to the old school type of MA training

If one looks at the "lifeline" of martial arts training since it hit the shores of the USA bigtime in the late 50s/early 60s, you'll see a trend and not a good one, either.

It used to be that the folks who did martial artists were predominantly the "testosterone warriors" - males 16-30 or so. Then there was an increase of women who began training. And a lot of these folks had kids and since they knew first-hand the benefits of m.a. training, they put their kids into it and they rocked.

Then movies and TV happened. And we started getting people (mostly kids) who wanted to be Power Rangers or Ninja Turtles or who had had a desire to do m.a. all along and just hadn't. They at least were somewhat athletic and were used to having to work for success.

But for the last 10 years or so, we're getting kids who are couch potatoes. The only thing athletic about them is their thumbs from twiddling video game controllers. And they don't want to exercise. They don't come in pre-framed with the attitude of working hard to be successful. Their parents haven't taught them any manners whatsoever, and their attitude when faced with challenges and adversity is to immediately quit because it's too hard.

We get them for two hours a week or so and we have to overcome the cultural conditioning of quitting the first time you stub your toe. How many of you have corrected a kid's stance or hand position or whatever and had the kid burst into tears because in their mind, you just told them they were a total failure? It happens far too often, even if you do it using the "praise-correct-praise" model. Is it any wonder that the average length of stay for a beginning student is less than six months?

Visualize one of those kids and mentally put them in your place in your first class. You stuck it out; would they? My first class was in 1966 and one of the Black Belts kicked me in the face and gave me a bloody nose. Me being 17, I thought it was cool beyond belief and couldn't wait for the next class because I wanted to learn how to do that.

Every once in a while, I run a "good old days" type of class for my higher rank students. They love it and beg for more. When I do it for the lower ranks, they whine and are very happy that not all classes are run like that. It takes us years, literally, to change their mindset to one of being successful, and that saddens me. We, as a culture and a society, used to instill that into our children from a very early age and we don't any more.