UFC Ready for Explosion

[seansnyder]

Or maybe I wrote that backwards... But you get my meaning.

Regardless of what you "call it" my PERSONAL experience has been that they are different, so until I experience things the other way, then no, I dont think the written words matter.

I could write Football is a sport where you kick a small round ball with your feet, and keep your hands off of it.... but where Im from that isnt football.

Just curious, what is your PERSONAL experience?


-sean

 

[Cryozombie]

Just curious, what is your PERSONAL experience?


-sean

Well, Sean,

If you read further upthread...

When I think "Sparring" I think back to what we used to do back in my Hapkido days at that school... which is 99% different from what we do in Randori in my current BBT school.

 

[seansnyder]

My error, thank you-must be getting blind in my old age

 

[Cryozombie]

Yeah, I took Hapkido for over 2 years. We used to spar almost every class, and I also competed in tournaments in the sparring competition.

My experience with it, it was more like playing "Tag" than fighting

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Seeing as this thread has taken off elsewhere as well, I thought I'd try to put a different spin on it here again. I've studied rhetoric, so I thought I'd take a new look at the subject from that point of view.

One of the most common mistakes speakers do is that they tend to mistake personal and/or moral convictions with actual truths as pertaining to mathematics or natural sciences. People actually do tend to get convinced in regards to the latter, if your arguments are sound and based on provable facts - that is, unless they're not educated enough to understand them.

But in regards to ethical conducts, political systems or, in this case, theories about combat and self defense, the situation is a totally different one.

It is very, very common (I've done it myself more than enough times and it will probably haunt me for a while to come) to make the faulty assumption that deep down, everybody is essentially like yourself, even when speaking of very temporary opinions. The more convinced you are of the validity of a given theory, the more you tend to believe that all that's necessary for the people you're speaking to to embrace your ideas and values is a little bit of education and enlightenment. You often like to think to yourself that people have been sharing your point of view all along.
In worst case scenarios, one may very well be so full of one's own convictions that one doesn't even pay attention to the reactions of the listeners, upon which one commits the most fatal mistake of all - becoming enraged at their perceived stupidity.

There are plenty of interesting cases to illustrate this point, probably because this is a very general problem. It concerns all that we feel is the most important to us - good and evil, healthy and unhealthy, good and bad from a moral perspetive.

One particularly strange political phenomenon is the fact that regardless of our own particular affiliation, we always seem to be able to rationally understand how those to our right think and look at things, but we never seem to be able to understand how people to our left reason with the aid of pure logic. Why this is the case, I don't pretend to know. But the phenomenon if very prevalent all over the world.
If, by left we mean people who want more economical and social equality, and by right, those who see different reasons why this is unachievable, there have always been a right and a left, even though the words themselves came into use under the French revolution.*
Furthermore, there is always someone to our right, as well as to our left. On the right side of the right-wing conservative we have the fascist and the Nazi. On the left side of the socialist we have the communist, the anarchist and Pol Pot.

To simplify things, let's look at the extremes. Somehow we can understand the fact that Nazis like to feel that they belong to the "chosen" Aryan race or that really rich people feel that everyone has the same needs as them. On the other hand, all the drastic attempts at equalization done at the hands of left-wing extremists always seem to be beyond our comprehension. What the heck did Stalin and Pol Pot achieve by killing all those people who wore glasses or spoke more than one language? And why do anarchists seem to believe that everyone would cooperate for the better of the whole of humanity if all governments were to suddenly cease to exist?

At this point you're probably asking yourself what the hell all this has to do with the topic previously discussed in this thread. Well, here's the answer - if you replace left-wing with traditional martial arts and right-wing with the vale tudo crowd, the problem is totally analogous to the issue mentioned above.

No, I'm not saying that all NHB martial artists are Nazis or vice versa. The political affiliation of particular martial artists has nothing to do with this and is another issue altogether. What I'm saying, is that the reason we tend to talk past each other is very similar.

Even for the most vehemently traditional koryu practitioner, it is somehow possible to understand how for example professional shootfighters have to train hard to optimize their conditioning and technique repertoire so that it will fit in with the circumstances they operate under. On the other hand, for Bujinkan practitioners, it can be hard to understand what has caused more traditionally-minded practitioners of Japanese arts to believe that ONLY the practice and repetition of techniques over and over will breed real life effectiveness WITHOUT the Bujinkan trademark understanding of distance, balance breaking, timing, leverage etc. Same goes for doing purely one-man forms. It's no more easy for us to understand than it is for NHB people to believe that by training with ancient Japanese weapons nobody carries around today, much less uses in the cage, we will be able to create attributes that will carry over and better our unarmed movements as well.

Personally, I think this has a little bit to do with the faith people put in experience.
Take for instance the communist idea of a state-controlled utopia, compared with, in this case, the study of kata. The idea is then, that by adhering to the carefully thought out plans, everything will work out for the best and everyone will benefit. In TMA terms, this would be equal to the practice of kata in combination with the faith we choose to put in all the people who put all the knowledge contained within the nine ryuha to actual use in mortal combat.

For capitalists, however, this is not enough. Their experience has taught them that the previous system will fail due to the human factor - i.e. communism is unachievable for as long as there is greed and jealousy among humans, as well as the fact that anarchism does not inspire people to cooperate on their own volition - instead it will promote "the right of might".
The same goes for the MMA people. Blind faith in the effectiveness of the techniques taught by old masters is not sufficient, they want to look at provable results - that is, what works in sparring and in competitions. They want to be able to judge from what they have experienced for themselves.

But if this was all that there was to it, what would Hatsumi have meant when he said "this stuff cannot be taught. It has to be discovered for yourself."? How does that fit in with the popular Bujinkan maxim "shut up and train, shut up and practice, shut up and apply"? Why is it then that so many MMA-oriented people speak and reason exactly alike (dead patterns, absorb what is useful etc etc etc etc.)? And how does one explain the existence of Israeli kibbutzes?:ultracool

It goes without saying that there has to be at least some technique drilling in all MMA endeavours before sparring (everyone can understand that). But it's not at all self-explanatory that there is more to kata training, at least from a Bujinkan perspective, than just practicing movements over and over (we "traditional leftists" can understand that because that's what we deal with regularly, but the "cage-fighting right-wing" can't always see that just as easily - is this beginning to make sense yet?)
This is particularly due to all the anomalies that appear regularly within the Bujinkan "paradigm" - some spar regularly, some people are uncooperative in training, sometimes you get to change the order of events within a kata and you have to learn to adapt to the situation, some people, like the ones I usually train with, utilize more physical conditioning than what is common elsewhere etc etc.

The only possibility in cases such as these is to look at the opposing side's view of the world from within, so that we'll be able to comprehend where the other side's coming from. Often, right-wing people who gain a large following are themselves former leftists such as Mussolini or Goebbels. Traditionalists who manage to amass a large number of followers are often themselves former sport-oriented practitioners such as Hatsumi or Nagato. Of course, with Matt Thornton for example, the opposite is also true.

But again, what do I know? I'd like to apologize beforehand if I've offended someone with this rant, because that was not my intention. But my point is, as Sun Tzu said, we have to understand our opponent - in any case, we must have the will to strive towards understanding. Only then do we have a chance to get past the stupidity and the prejudices.





* Just for clarification, I do not see myself as either far-left or far-right. However, I have understood that there are several so called political parties who want to take my money and give it to people who have less. What the hell? Stay away from my money, I say. I'm the one who's been risking my neck writing reports and walking back and forth for hours in between apprehending shoplifters. Not them. But, I've got a middle-way solution for them. If you want people to stay away from smoking crack and flipping burgers at American restaurants, you'd better make sure to get them all educated. And the best way to do that is to stop believing in the popular cliché that all kids naturally yearn for knowledge and thus can be raised properly by their school. Of course, knowledge is great and all that but generally speaking, kids don't realize that on their own. If they did, then there would be no need for schools, would there? DS.

 

[heretic888]

Seeing as this thread has taken off elsewhere as well, I thought I'd try to put a different spin on it here again. I've studied rhetoric, so I thought I'd take a new look at the subject from that point of view.

One of the most common mistakes speakers do is that they tend to mistake personal and/or moral convictions with actual truths as pertaining to mathematics or natural sciences. People actually do tend to get convinced in regards to the latter, if your arguments are sound and based on provable facts - that is, unless they're not educated enough to understand them.

But in regards to ethical conducts, political systems or, in this case, theories about combat and self defense, the situation is a totally different one.

It is very, very common (I've done it myself more than enough times and it will probably haunt me for a while to come) to make the faulty assumption that deep down, everybody is essentially like yourself, even when speaking of very temporary opinions. The more convinced you are of the validity of a given theory, the more you tend to believe that all that's necessary for the people you're speaking to to embrace your ideas and values is a little bit of education and enlightenment. You often like to think to yourself that people have been sharing your point of view all along.
In worst case scenarios, one may very well be so full of one's own convictions that one doesn't even pay attention to the reactions of the listeners, upon which one commits the most fatal mistake of all - becoming enraged at their perceived stupidity.

There are plenty of interesting cases to illustrate this point, probably because this is a very general problem. It concerns all that we feel is the most important to us - good and evil, healthy and unhealthy, good and bad from a moral perspetive.

One particularly strange political phenomenon is the fact that regardless of our own particular affiliation, we always seem to be able to rationally understand how those to our right think and look at things, but we never seem to be able to understand how people to our left reason with the aid of pure logic. Why this is the case, I don't pretend to know. But the phenomenon if very prevalent all over the world.
If, by left we mean people who want more economical and social equality, and by right, those who see different reasons why this is unachievable, there have always been a right and a left, even though the words themselves came into use under the French revolution.*
Furthermore, there is always someone to our right, as well as to our left. On the right side of the right-wing conservative we have the fascist and the Nazi. On the left side of the socialist we have the communist, the anarchist and Pol Pot.

To simplify things, let's look at the extremes. Somehow we can understand the fact that Nazis like to feel that they belong to the "chosen" Aryan race or that really rich people feel that everyone has the same needs as them. On the other hand, all the drastic attempts at equalization done at the hands of left-wing extremists always seem to be beyond our comprehension. What the heck did Stalin and Pol Pot achieve by killing all those people who wore glasses or spoke more than one language? And why do anarchists seem to believe that everyone would cooperate for the better of the whole of humanity if all governments were to suddenly cease to exist?

At this point you're probably asking yourself what the hell all this has to do with the topic previously discussed in this thread. Well, here's the answer - if you replace left-wing with traditional martial arts and right-wing with the vale tudo crowd, the problem is totally analogous to the issue mentioned above.

No, I'm not saying that all NHB martial artists are Nazis or vice versa. The political affiliation of particular martial artists has nothing to do with this and is another issue altogether. What I'm saying, is that the reason we tend to talk past each other is very similar.

Even for the most vehemently traditional koryu practitioner, it is somehow possible to understand how for example professional shootfighters have to train hard to optimize their conditioning and technique repertoire so that it will fit in with the circumstances they operate under. On the other hand, for Bujinkan practitioners, it can be hard to understand what has caused more traditionally-minded practitioners of Japanese arts to believe that ONLY the practice and repetition of techniques over and over will breed real life effectiveness WITHOUT the Bujinkan trademark understanding of distance, balance breaking, timing, leverage etc. Same goes for doing purely one-man forms. It's no more easy for us to understand than it is for NHB people to believe that by training with ancient Japanese weapons nobody carries around today, much less uses in the cage, we will be able to create attributes that will carry over and better our unarmed movements as well.

Personally, I think this has a little bit to do with the faith people put in experience.
Take for instance the communist idea of a state-controlled utopia, compared with, in this case, the study of kata. The idea is then, that by adhering to the carefully thought out plans, everything will work out for the best and everyone will benefit. In TMA terms, this would be equal to the practice of kata in combination with the faith we choose to put in all the people who put all the knowledge contained within the nine ryuha to actual use in mortal combat.

For capitalists, however, this is not enough. Their experience has taught them that the previous system will fail due to the human factor - i.e. communism is unachievable for as long as there is greed and jealousy among humans, as well as the fact that anarchism does not inspire people to cooperate on their own volition - instead it will promote "the right of might".
The same goes for the MMA people. Blind faith in the effectiveness of the techniques taught by old masters is not sufficient, they want to look at provable results - that is, what works in sparring and in competitions. They want to be able to judge from what they have experienced for themselves.

But if this was all that there was to it, what would Hatsumi have meant when he said "this stuff cannot be taught. It has to be discovered for yourself."? How does that fit in with the popular Bujinkan maxim "shut up and train, shut up and practice, shut up and apply"? Why is it then that so many MMA-oriented people speak and reason exactly alike (dead patterns, absorb what is useful etc etc etc etc.)? And how does one explain the existence of Israeli kibbutzes?:ultracool

It goes without saying that there has to be at least some technique drilling in all MMA endeavours before sparring (everyone can understand that). But it's not at all self-explanatory that there is more to kata training, at least from a Bujinkan perspective, than just practicing movements over and over (we "traditional leftists" can understand that because that's what we deal with regularly, but the "cage-fighting right-wing" can't always see that just as easily - is this beginning to make sense yet?)
This is particularly due to all the anomalies that appear regularly within the Bujinkan "paradigm" - some spar regularly, some people are uncooperative in training, sometimes you get to change the order of events within a kata and you have to learn to adapt to the situation, some people, like the ones I usually train with, utilize more physical conditioning than what is common elsewhere etc etc.

The only possibility in cases such as these is to look at the opposing side's view of the world from within, so that we'll be able to comprehend where the other side's coming from. Often, right-wing people who gain a large following are themselves former leftists such as Mussolini or Goebbels. Traditionalists who manage to amass a large number of followers are often themselves former sport-oriented practitioners such as Hatsumi or Nagato. Of course, with Matt Thornton for example, the opposite is also true.

But again, what do I know? I'd like to apologize beforehand if I've offended someone with this rant, because that was not my intention. But my point is, as Sun Tzu said, we have to understand our opponent - in any case, we must have the will to strive towards understanding. Only then do we have a chance to get past the stupidity and the prejudices.





* Just for clarification, I do not see myself as either far-left or far-right. However, I have understood that there are several so called political parties who want to take my money and give it to people who have less. What the hell? Stay away from my money, I say. I'm the one who's been risking my neck writing reports and walking back and forth for hours in between apprehending shoplifters. Not them. But, I've got a middle-way solution for them. If you want people to stay away from smoking crack and flipping burgers at American restaurants, you'd better make sure to get them all educated. And the best way to do that is to stop believing in the popular cliché that all kids naturally yearn for knowledge and thus can be raised properly by their school. Of course, knowledge is great and all that but generally speaking, kids don't realize that on their own. If they did, then there would be no need for schools, would there? DS.

Well said, Mr. Nimravus. I agree completely.

:asian: :asian: :asian: :asian: :asian:

 

[Mr. E]

I could not help but associate this thread with this video clip.

I mean no disrespect. I just wanted to share the laughter.