Is It All In Decline?

[Kwanjang]

Thats how it was in the 80's with ninjutsu. Everyone claimed to know and teach it when in fact they new a little of this and a little of that and they called it Nijutsu.

Great point!

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Thats how it was in the 80's with ninjutsu. Everyone claimed to know and teach it when in fact they new a little of this and a little of that and they called it Nijutsu.

Absolutely!

 

[teekin]

Thanks for your input guys. I'm really impressed at the range of answers off of everyone.



I have to say I have never ever seen someone who runs a dojo for a living come up with a decent anough argument until that. Thanks for your insight.



Good point, but it's not the watered down part that is the major problem for me. It is the risk that someone is going to go out of their door feeling completely invulnerable because someone has told them they are. And I seriously hate guitar hero XD.



Pretty much the counter point to above quote. I have to say this a major concern for me as well. However, I wouldn't say that owning a grade of any kind signifies you can protect yourself. I also believe that if a child is able to perform techniques to a high enough standard then they get the grade. If a kid is capable of doing everything on their syllabus and they do it with confidence and technical knowledge that's good enough for me. If they do kata well (and I have seen kids who do kata better than some of my adults) then they deserve recognition of it. Now I know a school is technique and form, those were just examples. But If I see a child able to do the same techniques as an adult I won't begrudge the childs age against them. If anything they should be given certain concessions in terms of the pressure they're under in grading situations and the fact that it's probably a lot harder for a child to learn MA than an adult.



Wouldn't have expected anything less than that from you Xue, well said. I also have to apologise when I termed UFC and MMA as the same thing earlier, it would seemed that caused a slight upset. Sorry folks.



To understand the techniques you are taught/teaching it is important to understand why they were being taught in that specific culture.



What constitutes a reputable instructor. As I had mentioned earlier people can gain positive reputations through quite subversive means. How do you judge someone as an instructor?

Which brings me nicely to my next point. If people are able to so easily advertise themselves and claim great repute, how can people know they're not so good? Personal Experience with one poor instructor could put someone off MA for life. How do you all judge and gauge another instructor?

I think I covered this in another post, "Overlook Instuctors". Basicly you can not teach what you have not mastered. The instructor's Inability to break down each technique into it's core components, knowing why each piece fits the way it does, and how they lock together to produce the desires effect, means they can NOT teach the technique clearly because they do NOT understand it. They also can not execute or adapt it.They can not correct it in themselves or others. Someone who has a 2 year black belt has mastery over nothing! and so can teach nothing, his students will learn nothing. It is all just shadows of shadows.
Lori M

 

[arnisador]

There are a lot of schools purporting to teach MMA out there. Some are "mixed" but not MMA in the UFC sense. Some are BJJ schools that teach a little striking. When I see "MMA" on a school's sign I don't know what it means.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Thats how it was in the 80's with ninjutsu. Everyone claimed to know and teach it when in fact they new a little of this and a little of that and they called it Nijutsu.

Do you know how many taiji schools actually teach real taiji today, much the same thing.

Look at any Martial arts school that has a sign in the front window in big red letters KUNG FU and then go ask them what style and get a blank look and the answer... well..... Kung fu...Which, by the way, means much the same as a sign in the window that says "JAPANESE MARTIAL ARTS"

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

The local taji school has a big sign up on their front that reads, "KARATE", as do nearly all of the taekwondo schools in the area. When we moved, we finally got rid of the sign that said karate, but until June, our sign read, "Karate Kendo." Even our website was "mykaratehome.com" Now it simply says, "Korean Martial Arts" and our website is Koreanmartialartsinc.com.

Daniel

 

[arnisador]

Alas, karate truly is a generic term now. There's little sense in fighting it. Lots of FMA schools use "Filipino Karate" in their signage and ads.

It used to be "Chinese boxing" but now everything is a style of karate, not boxing!

 

[shihansmurf]

Martial arts fads and marketing to the target audiance of those fads are nothing new. What's more bothe the fads and the marketing are here to stay, all that will change is the particular fad and the particular marketing campaign.

It is so true. Now that UFC is big MMA schools are stepping up as the next McDojo. Whatever craze catches on after that , will spawn a different wave of McDojo's. It is whatever is most marketable at that time

bowser666

Being that I work in Marketing I would tend to agree.

We live in an "American Idol" society were the craze of the moment is what people gravitate toward regardless of whether it has any substance or not.

celtic_crippler

bowser and the crippler both speak wisdom. When I was a kid and just a newly minted yellow belt the ninja craze was going on with great force.Everyone was a ninja.Even those trutles but that would really come a bit later, the turtles I mean.

The samurai craze has always been a bit of an undercurrent in Japanese martial arts.

The JKD/Bruce Lee is karate god thing was still(and remains) rampant. I am amazed at the amount of "Cetified JKD teachers" that Bruce Lee promoted after his death. BTW the same thing happened after Ed Parker died.

RBSD, Krav Maga in particular has been the rage for quite a while. Camoflauge Commandos teaching practical survival skills to civilian classes such as sentry removal, and KP Duty evasion.
BJJ/MMA is the current hotness. Naturally we have a bunch of "Masters" that have jumped on the bandwagon.

Given time, we will have a new cool thing that will have instant masters.

I think I'll get in on the ground floor of the next craze and seperate some gullible types from their cash. I just need a new martial fad.Hmm.......

I've got it. I'll teach the ancient art of Sword-Chukery!!!!!

Master Fighter
Mark

P.S. The source of sword chucks is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Warriors_(8-Bit_Theater)
scroll down to fighter

 

[Tez3]

Ecky Thump is the next big thing!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TJxGi8bizEg&feature=related

 

[Xue Sheng]

I don't mean to contradict you but I do believe it is SD against Fruit that will be the next big thing

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=piWCBOsJr-w

 

[arnisador]

The RBSD and MMA crazes will last for a while, but they'll be replaced some day too.

 

[qwksilver61]

I'm with you on that Ego thing,pretty sad. I have seen lower level students waste their money and time attending seminars,given a task and then spending hours hammering out the same sloppy technique with no supervision from the senior level students.I can credit myself for chasing at least one school out of town..these two cats were (claimed) golden gloves boxers,along with a couple of kicks,were taking these peoples money hand over fist until I exposed them,the next day they had closed shop.One guy that I was giving instruction to was only in it for what he could get,instant Kung Fu.He exhibited no patience,admittedly did not practice as often as he should have,produced almost no results (say's he had a hard time remembering, and needed someone right there) and did not want to research anything Martial arts related, no conversations relative to MA's.I gave this guy good quality training,almost a years worth of free lessons ( he later bitched about his future in ma's,that's when the lid blew off!) seems nowaday with the exception of this forum no one can carry on a civil conversation about anything with out either being opinionated or on the defense.That fellow I trained...I refuse to teach him anything.Most people don'y want to know any more than what is directly in front of them,throw away society?Forget the past...that's "OLD STUFF" I beg to differ....never stop searching for the truth.Peace out!

 

[Tez3]

The RBSD and MMA crazes will last for a while, but they'll be replaced some day too.

RBSD and MMA have been going on for a long time over here, the RBSD for 30 years or more, I think it will carry on but be accepted as traditional martial arts lol!
Any ideas what will replace them as the flavour of the month? We could get in on the ground floor of the next best thing and make a fortune lol!

 

[teekin]

Tez, I think very traditional style TMA are on the way back in. I think the public is tired of being ripped off with the promise of "quick and easy" and is ready to go and look at the classical roots.
I bet anything that espouses aherence to a "classical" system and has lots of complicated Kata will be big. Spending 10+ years to get a BB will be seen as proper. ( much like dressage)
Lori

 

[Xue Sheng]

RBSD and MMA have been going on for a long time over here, the RBSD for 30 years or more, I think it will carry on but be accepted as traditional martial arts lol!
Any ideas what will replace them as the flavour of the month? We could get in on the ground floor of the next best thing and make a fortune lol!

At one time or another every single TMA was new

Tez, I think very traditional style TMA are on the way back in. I think the public is tired of being ripped off with the promise of "quick and easy" and is ready to go and look at the classical roots.
I bet anything that espouses aherence to a "classical" system and has lots of complicated Kata will be big. Spending 10+ years to get a BB will be seen as proper. ( much like dressage)
Lori

I agree but this may or may not be a good thing because what I have seen in anything that can be considered a resurgence of TMA tends to be a rather watered down version of the TMA they came from.

 

[teekin]

Xue, I have insufficeint knowledge to debate the point either way but I Hope you are wrong. I am hoping that there are enough dedicated people around to preserve the knowledge in it's original forms (kata) and who can and will teach them. :mst:
No system ever has more than a handful of living masters, how ever popular it is. The pyramid just gets wider at the bottom.
Ever the optimest, or I'm wrecked
Lori:wink:

 

[qwksilver61]

I'm with you on that one...preserving original Knowledge....if it's not broken...don't fix it!

 

[Hyper_Shadow]

I don't think there is really much 'original knowledge left'. Maybe in a handful of texts that may have been passed down in rare cases and in Kata, but it certainly is very diluted now. That of course is the great point to martial arts isn't it? We have to take those small bits of info and try to put it back together. We have to sieve out all the crap so that later generations of our schools have much purer information to work with. Our egos can't figure into it otherwise we end up with the great mess we have now.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Xue, I have insufficeint knowledge to debate the point either way but I Hope you are wrong. I am hoping that there are enough dedicated people around to preserve the knowledge in it's original forms (kata) and who can and will teach them. :mst:
No system ever has more than a handful of living masters, how ever popular it is. The pyramid just gets wider at the bottom.
Ever the optimest, or I'm wrecked
Lori:wink:

There are some people that know what they are doing but they are by far out weighed by those that do not and if you are talking CMA the problem here is those that REALLY know tend to not talk much or advertise much, if at all, and those that do not really know tend to yell loudly and advertise like crazy. And you also have the person that does actually "know" their style that gives into pressure and lightens things up for the all mighty dollar. So what tends to happen is the pool of "dedicated people" tends to get smaller all the time. So I do not see a resurgence of TMA I see it slowly going away. I do see a resurgence of TMA light or bastardized being called "Traditional" Martial arts.

 

[tshadowchaser]

As each of the old masters die a bit of knowledge dies with them. Their students may think that all has been passed on but events, people, conditions, experiments, who taught who, and those little things that seemed so ordinary to them may not have been passed. We live in a time when much has to be rediscovered and much “PHONEY ****” has to be discarded