should schools teach a universal form of martial arts

[suicide]

Because they are bad people. They should not be taught anything but a trade so they can work and pay taxes if and when they ever get out. Teaching them ways to hurt people is a very bad idea because that's what they will do.

thats your point of view , who knows MA might change peoples lives in there maybe it can be used as a form of rehabilitation ma works wonders for all human beings just because there criminals doesnt mean MA cant & wont make a change in there life. how many people did samurais & ninjas kill decapitate poison ambush etc. how many horrible things have you done that no one knows about and you do MA ?

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

thats your point of view , who knows MA might change peoples lives in there maybe it can be used as a form of rehabilitation ma works wonders for all human beings just because there criminals doesnt mean MA cant & wont make a change in there life.

The aspect of MA that can help prisoners are common to other activities and programs, activities and programs that do not teach fighting skills. The problem is that prisoners usually resist programs that can effect positive change.

how many people did samurais & ninjas kill decapitate poison ambush etc.

Irrelevent. Our society does not contain samurai or ninjas. And should we really use the behavior of medieval soldiers and spies as a means of evaluating modern morality?

how many horrible things have you done that no one knows about and you do MA ?

Given that modern society has the practice of innocent until proven guilty, we have to assume that Bill has no such horrible things to share.

Irrelevent in any case: just because some commit crimes and are not caught does not change the fact that common sense mitigates against giving criminals tools to make them better fighters; the prison system goes to great lengths to keep inmates from being dangerous to one another.

Daniel

 

[Xinglu]

Daniel - Logic and sound reasoning have no place here... you and your words.... :lool:

 

[Phoenix44]

Teaching martial arts to prisoners is a bad idea.

Teaching martial arts to children in public schools is a bad idea, and for the same reason.

If anything, children should have their arms chained to their sides and duct-tape placed over their mouths until they are eighteen years old.

I'm taking a guess...you have teenagers?

 

[Xinglu]

To answer the OP's question: Unequivocally no.. I have no problem with them learning a sport - but athletes in school are kept to high academic and social standards, otherwise they lose the privilage of playing the sport. But MA's are not sports. They are methods of SD.

I am not a fan of compulsory education let alone compulsory MA training for all?

 

[Omar B]

I've got no problem with martial arts being taught at school, it's the word "universal" that bothers me. How does one devise a "universal form?" What is a "universal form?" Since it's universal; it should apply and work for all, equally as well, but we all know that's not possible. Even if such a thing were attempted, in devising such an art all you would end up with is one giant compromise that's as equally unsuited to actual use as it is impractical.

I started Karate in Prep school, but it was taught as a separate program from the regular curriculum with our Sensei coming in 3 days a week and using the room set aside for use as Ballet in the evenings when Karate's not in there.

 

[suicide]

The aspect of MA that can help prisoners are common to other activities and programs, activities and programs that do not teach fighting skills. The problem is that prisoners usually resist programs that can effect positive change.


Irrelevent. Our society does not contain samurai or ninjas. And should we really use the behavior of medieval soldiers and spies as a means of evaluating modern morality?

Given that modern society has the practice of innocent until proven guilty, we have to assume that Bill has no such horrible things to share.

Irrelevent in any case: just because some commit crimes and are not caught does not change the fact that common sense mitigates against giving criminals tools to make them better fighters; the prison system goes to great lengths to keep inmates from being dangerous to one another.

Daniel

i think prisoners resist programs and things like that because of the way there were brought up the way they ve been living for so long that a lil program seems a lil foolish to them ' most of these guys have been fighting to survive for the most part of there life - i think ma can teach em how to hold back and see that sometimes all the violence is not necesary - i know not all of them would change but if 10 out of 100 would that would make an enormus difference ...

im sure bill is not hannibal lector im just saying ma is there for everyone , just imagine all the criminals as kids were introduced to ma dont you think a bigger percentage of them would of turned out diffrent ?

its a dangerous enviroment of course they dont want them killing each other but not only the sd side but the other sides of ma i think would make a great difference in there approach to all aspects of life ...

 

[shihansmurf]

What sort of liability issues would this cause? Specifically related to covering the costs of the injuries that will surely arise from this.

Now, I'm okay with my kid getting thumped and knocked around, he's a rough and tumble little guy as it is, but I'm wondering at how many other parents would have problems with their youngsters being taught how to fight? If not, could the parent's opt their kids out? Would uniforms be an extra cost, or something else that the school would have to figure out how to pay for out of an already tight budget?

What sort of safety measures would be in place? Would they be extensive enough that the training would basically be watered down to the point of being nothing more than Tae-Bo? If that is the case, then why not just teach Tae-Bo?

Just a few question, for clarity.
Mark

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

i think prisoners resist programs and things like that because of the way there were brought up the way they ve been living for so long that a lil program seems a lil foolish to them ' most of these guys have been fighting to survive for the most part of there life

What you say is probably true, but the end result is that the programs designed to rehabilitate prisoners are generally resisted by the prisoners.

i think ma can teach em how to hold back and see that sometimes all the violence is not necesary - i know not all of them would change but if 10 out of 100 would that would make an enormus difference ...

Before MA can teach them anything of value, they need to be teachable. Students coming in the door of a dojo are teachable. Not all to the same degree, but they are in class of their own volition and at least want to attempt to learn what you are teaching.

This is the biggest difference between prison and school: kids in school are generally open to new things and are generally willing to taught to varying degrees. Kids also accept school as a normal part of their lives. Prisoners, on the other hand, are generally angry that they are in prison and their remorse is generally over getting caught, not over what they were caught doing.

Needless to say, I disagree with Bill's statement,

Teaching martial arts to prisoners is a bad idea.

Teaching martial arts to children in public schools is a bad idea, and for the same reason.

If anything, children should have their arms chained to their sides and duct-tape placed over their mouths until they are eighteen years old.

Teaching martial arts might help to keep those kids from public schools from becoming residents of the prison system later in life. Provided the program was designed with a strong emphasis on the 'do' rather than on fighting.

Daniel

 

[suicide]

What you say is probably true, but the end result is that the programs designed to rehabilitate prisoners are generally resisted by the prisoners.


Before MA can teach them anything of value, they need to be teachable. Students coming in the door of a dojo are teachable. Not all to the same degree, but they are in class of their own volition and at least want to attempt to learn what you are teaching.

This is the biggest difference between prison and school: kids in school are generally open to new things and are generally willing to taught to varying degrees. Kids also accept school as a normal part of their lives. Prisoners, on the other hand, are generally angry that they are in prison and their remorse is generally over getting caught, not over what they were caught doing.

Needless to say, I disagree with Bill's statement,

"Teaching martial arts to prisoners is a bad idea.

Teaching martial arts to children in public schools is a bad idea, and for the same reason."

Teaching martial arts might help to keep those kids from public schools from becoming residents of the prison system later in life. Provided the program was designed with a strong emphasis on the 'do' rather than on fighting.

Daniel

nice choice of words you broken down the right way.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

thats your point of view , who knows MA might change peoples lives in there maybe it can be used as a form of rehabilitation ma works wonders for all human beings just because there criminals doesnt mean MA cant & wont make a change in there life. how many people did samurais & ninjas kill decapitate poison ambush etc. how many horrible things have you done that no one knows about and you do MA ?

I spent enough time working in law enforcement to realize that criminals are, first and foremost, predators who have realized that laws are made of paper, and only enforced if the predator in question gets caught.

They are fundamentally unlike you or me. They do not have a feeling of social responsibility, and they cannot be taught it. They are truly amoral, like animals, knowing neither good nor bad but only what they want at the moment.

Whilst martial arts training instills a sense of responsibility in many practitioners, it is a mistake to assume that criminals locked in prisons are subject to the same feelings we are. They are not.

I have never - EVER - met a parole officer who was a liberal, even though many started out that way and they will admit it. They know that all prisoners are liars, opportunists, con-artists, and basically as evil as evil gets. They'll do anything, say anything, whatever they have to do in order to get what they want. They're not humans, they're dangerous creatures who look at us exactly the same way a snake looks at a mouse.

Giving them the ability to fight more effectively is exactly the same thing as handing them loaded guns as they exit prison.

Spend some time around criminals and you will quickly change your tune. The only people who think they can change are people who never spent any time with them.

 

[harlan]

Unbelievable.

They're not humans...

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I'm taking a guess...you have teenagers?

No, I have no children. I was fortunate - although I am the eldest child in my family, my younger sisters all had children before I married. Having experienced everything from changing diapers to tantrums to having the police bring the little hoodlums home in the middle of the night, I came to the conclusion that Mark Twain was right. Children should be kept in a barrel and fed through the hole in the barrel until their 18th birthday; at that time, the hole should be sealed up.

Besides, not having children allows me to thumb my nose at righteous left-wingers who are global warming bullies. By my wife and I intentionally not reproducing, we have reduced our carbon footprint more than any one of the whining liberals ever could by paying voluntary offsets. Our not having two kids, who don't each have two kids, etc, results in basically 64 fewer mouths to feed in less than 100 years and it just keeps getting bigger after that. I win in the 'I am so self-righteous I get to tell you how to live' wars that left-wingers love to engage in. They hate that.

Well, actually, my wife and I met too late in life to have any children. But it's a good story, eh?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Unbelievable.

Work around them sometime and tell me I'm wrong. Humanity is not just a set of DNA strands, it is a personal characteristic.

 

[harlan]

And yet, if I were to come onto a board and state that through my experiences, Republicans were baser than dirt, obviously non-human, I doubt I could get away with publicly spouting such ignorance; Intolerance is the path to fascism.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

And yet, if I were to come onto a board and state that through my experiences, Republicans were baser than dirt, I doubt I could get away with publicly viewing my ignorance.

What's your point?

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

No, I have no children. I was fortunate - although I am the eldest child in my family, my younger sisters all had children before I married. Having experienced everything from changing diapers to tantrums to having the police bring the little hoodlums home in the middle of the night, I came to the conclusion that Mark Twain was right. Children should be kept in a barrel and fed through the hole in the barrel until their 18th birthday; at that time, the hole should be sealed up.

The vast majority of children are not the hoodlems that the police brought home in the middle of the night.

On another thread, you enumerated the benefits that your karate class has provided to you (Isshin Ryu, if I recall), most of which were not related to the execution of strikes and blocks. Many other posters have related the positive effect that martial arts have had on themselves.

I am not personally a proponent of any sort of mandatory martial arts class in schools; the public school system in this country has a lot of problems that need addressing, many of which, if addressed, would have a positive effect on the kids.

But I am not opponent of martial arts in school either.

Kids these days need all the help that they can get. A martial arts class will not make them more likely to fight. If anything, it may help to improve their ability to interact with both eachother and with authority figures, keep them in shape, and may even improve their grades.

I agree with your assessment of criminials, however, as I stated earlier, I disagree with your statement,

Teaching martial arts to prisoners is a bad idea.

Teaching martial arts to children in public schools is a bad idea, and for the same reason.

I disagree because kids are not criminals being punished. If it is a bad idea to teach martial arts to children in school, then it is a bad idea to teach children martial arts period. If it is a bad idea to teach children martial arts, then their turning eighteen does not magically change anything, thus it is then a bad idea to teach adults martial arts; there are plenty of criminals between the ages of eighteen and forty, probably more than there are juvenile criminals (that is a guess, as I do not have actual figures to back that up), and even our elected officials do not show particularly good judgement. Nor do the leaders of our financial sector. Obviously, adults make bigger blunders than the kids do, mainly because they have access to much more of the world than kids do.

If martial arts are beneficial to people in building character, the time to start is not when the kid is eighteen. And by having it in public schools, the kids who need it most (the disadvantaged who cannot afford to pay for class in a dojo) are then reached. In the long run, it might make your job as a police officer easier.

Daniel

 

[Bill Mattocks]

The vast majority of children are not the hoodlems that the police brought home in the middle of the night.

But they universally lack restraint and a sense of social responsibility - that comes later (if it comes at all).

On another thread, you enumerated the benefits that your karate class has provided to you (Isshin Ryu, if I recall), most of which were not related to the execution of strikes and blocks. Many other posters have related the positive effect that martial arts have had on themselves.

Indeed. It has not, however, changed my basic personality. I was both law-abiding and able to look at threats rationally before I began training in martial arts. Please note that although they are in the minority, there are a few people here whom I would term 'immature' to put it politely, who seem to be rather pleased with the idea of the damage they can now do to others.

In other words (to borrow an old IT term), garbage in, garbage out.

Kids these days need all the help that they can get. A martial arts class will not make them more likely to fight. If anything, it may help to improve their ability to interact with both eachother and with authority figures, keep them in shape, and may even improve their grades.

I'm sorry, I just don't see that.

I agree with your assessment of criminials, however, as I stated earlier, I disagreedwith your statement that, "Teaching martial arts to prisoners is a bad idea.

Teaching martial arts to children in public schools is a bad idea, and for the same reason."

I disagree because kids are not criminals being punished. If it is a bad idea to teach martial arts to children in school, then it is a bad idea to teach children martial arts period. If it is a bad idea to teach children martial arts, then their turning eighteen does not magically change anything, thus it is then a bad idea to teach adults martial arts; there are plenty of criminals between the ages of eighteen and forty, probably more than there are juvenile criminals (that is a guess, as I do not have actual figures to back that up), and even our elected officials do not show particularly good judgement. Nor do the leaders of our financial sector. Obviously, adults make bigger blunders than the kids do, mainly because they have access to much more of the world than kids do.

I maintain that children are like criminals in the sense that they lack any notion of restraint or social responsibility. In children, they typically grow out of it. With adult criminals, it is too late. Neither is to be trusted with great power.

It is not a question of punishment - I do not punish an alligator for being a alligator, but it is an apex predator, and to treat it like a pet is to court disaster. Children are not given driver's licenses and the right to drink for good reason - they can't handle it (as a group; I'm sure there are individual examples who can). Martial arts training is no different in my mind.

I do not think that children automatically become adults at 18, either. In fact, I'm rather fond of the notion that most people's brains don't grow in until after age 30, if they're going to grow in at all.

If martial arts are beneficial to people in building character, the time to start is not when the kid is eighteen. And by having it in public schools, the kids who need it most (the disadvantaged who cannot afford to pay for class in a dojo) are then reached. In the long run, it might make your job as a police officer easier.

Just to be clear, I'm not in law enforcement any longer - I left more than a decade ago.

As to disadvantaged youths, I will concede that you have a point.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

But they universally lack restraint and a sense of social responsibility - that comes later (if it comes at all).

Yes, and martial arts certainly teaches more self restraint than any class in school does.

Indeed. It has not, however, changed my basic personality. I was both law-abiding and able to look at threats rationally before I began training in martial arts. Please note that although they are in the minority, there are a few people here whom I would term 'immature' to put it politely, who seem to be rather pleased with the idea of the damage they can now do to others.

And such individuals will find ways of doing damage to others without martial arts.

I maintain that children are like criminals in the sense that they lack any notion of restraint or social responsibility. In children, they typically grow out of it. With adult criminals, it is too late. Neither is to be trusted with great power.

I am not sure that a typical kid martial arts class equates to power. Realistically, any training that strengthens the child physically is 'power.' As is teaching them to read, write, and everything else that one learns in school. Ultimately, kids are given power bit by bit until they are adults and legally responsible.

It is not a question of punishment - I do not punish an alligator for being a alligator, but it is an apex predator, and to treat it like a pet is to court disaster.

You mean to say that prison is not a punishment? Last I checked, you have to be convicted of a crime to go to prison, at least in the US. Also, the aligator will never be released into the population, whereas many prisoners eventually are. After all, not every criminal is sentenced to life in prison or capital punishment because it is a punishment, and our laws mandate that the punishment fit the crime.

Children are not given driver's licenses and the right to drink for good reason - they can't handle it (as a group; I'm sure there are individual examples who can). Martial arts training is no different in my mind.

Very different. A childrens' martial arts class is not even remotely similar to a drivers license or alcohol consumption. Class occurs in a controled environment under adult supervision. A drivers license allows unsupervised operation of a piece of equipment on public roads and the alcohol consumption causes a degredation of inhibitions, sensory ability, and and judgement.

I do not think that children automatically become adults at 18, either. In fact, I'm rather fond of the notion that most people's brains don't grow in until after age 30, if they're going to grow in at all.

By that logic, nobody should be in martial arts, issued drivers licenses, permited to consume alcohol, or permited to own any kind of weapon. Too much to risk. Needless to say, that precludes having a military or a police force; both involve martial arts and nobody under thirty is ready for the responsiblilty and it is only a possibliity that they may be ready if they are over thirty.

Daniel

 

[suicide]

I spent enough time working in law enforcement to realize that criminals are, first and foremost, predators who have realized that laws are made of paper, and only enforced if the predator in question gets caught.

They are fundamentally unlike you or me. They do not have a feeling of social responsibility, and they cannot be taught it. They are truly amoral, like animals, knowing neither good nor bad but only what they want at the moment.

Whilst martial arts training instills a sense of responsibility in many practitioners, it is a mistake to assume that criminals locked in prisons are subject to the same feelings we are. They are not.

I have never - EVER - met a parole officer who was a liberal, even though many started out that way and they will admit it. They know that all prisoners are liars, opportunists, con-artists, and basically as evil as evil gets. They'll do anything, say anything, whatever they have to do in order to get what they want. They're not humans, they're dangerous creatures who look at us exactly the same way a snake looks at a mouse.

Giving them the ability to fight more effectively is exactly the same thing as handing them loaded guns as they exit prison.

Spend some time around criminals and you will quickly change your tune. The only people who think they can change are people who never spent any time with them.

if you were hungry with no opportunities in sight no future what so ever and you and your family were starving what would you do ? i bet like all humans WHAT EVER IT TOOK !

there animals ? WHOA ! there alot of criminals that change there ways by way of religion they see the light , but the only thing is religion is not for everyone some even see religion as being weak , but i doubt the way the path would be seen as weak - and it comes with the physical conditioning man ! how can you loose...

showing them ma / sd is not showing them how to fight they know how to fight already its showing them how to defuse a situation.

believe me dude i know alot of ex cons and i work with a couple , i work construction im a carpenter in the union - and all of them are married now got kids got mortgages pay taxes own cars and boats , they take pride in the trade and i guess thats what keeps them out of trouble but not every guy coming out of jail has the same opportunity.

They know that all prisoners are liars, opportunists, con-artists, and basically as evil as evil gets. They'll do anything, say anything, whatever they have to do in order to get what they want. They're not humans, they're dangerous creatures who look at us exactly the same way a snake looks at a mouse. ( but so are alot of politicians ) only difference is they wear suits and ties and not hoodies baseball caps :whip: