What kicks besides a sidekick...

[TSDTexan]

Why do so many people, Okinawans included, have questionable lineages? Are we to accept their word for it?

Lineage is overrated. At least as the credentialist method is commonly employed.

It doesn't guarantee a quality instructor or prove complete transmission of an art. From the past to the present.
Lineage could be viewed differently.

In fact, I have come to my own understanding about lineage.

A martial arts practioner does not automatically have a lineage. He or she has a lineage potential.

This is my doctrine.

You do not have a lineage until your students have become teachers.

The other thing is this.

Founders or Soke type folks of a given new style that work are often unable to prove their background, either in part or in whole.
Partly because they are promiscuous students. They tend to have more than one teacher, and they create more techniques then regular students.

My bigger concern than spotty lineage(s) is does the curriculum work at all in the real world or is it really just unicorn fairy dancing fist style.

The arts have become formalized and very western.
In the case of judo that was clearly beneficial.

But go back prior then about 300 years and all TMA lineages becomes smoke and mirrors.
This why I have turned lineage around. It is every student who becimes a teacher's job to make a functional art. He has a lineage if he manages to propagate his art two generations down stream.
After a point, We cannot know historical myth from historical truth. We can know who we are, who our students are...and perhaps even know who their students are. We can inspect our students and grand students.

We can visit a school and see it in operation. And view what kind of students it builds.
We cannot "know" for fact any lineage beyond those who are alive now, that can be contacted, or have been caught in the lens of camera showing a student with a teacher in a proper setting

 

[Koshiki]

Sometimes I'm grateful that I can just say, "Well, my teacher learned from some guy no one has ever heard of named Horace Littlefield, but beyond that, neither I nor anyone else really knows."

Takes a lot of weight off, acknowledging that you're nothing but a mutt with absolutely no pedigree, verifiable or otherwise. The it becomes a question, not of historical legitimacy, because there apparently is none, but of, "well, can ya fight, and can ya show me how?"

 

[elder999]

This is my doctrine.

You do not have a lineage until your students have become teachers.

Sorry-this is a rather objectionable notion, as solid as the idea may seem to you. Once again, words have meaning:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

lineage
noun lin·e·age \ˈli-nē-ij also ˈli-nij\
: the people who were in someone's family in past times
Full Definition of LINEAGE
1
a : descent in a line from a common progenitor

b : derivation
2
: a group of individuals tracing descent from a common ancestor; especially : such a group of persons whose common ancestor is regarded as its founder
The other thing is this.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Lineage" relates entirely to what came before, not what comes after-almost completely opposite what you're saying. One has "lineage" almost automatically-I can no more help being in the lineages of Antonio Pereira and Mas Oyama than I can deny being in the lineage of John, Jason, Louis, Nathan, Aaron, Aaron and Jeffrey Cuffee-and, saying that one deosn't have lineage as a student of martial arts until one has students is much like saying that I don't have Cuffee lineage until I have children.

In short, it's more B.S.

There's some truth in the rest of what you say, and your "bigger concen" is a functional way of looking at the issue, but lineages-are important.

An example that I like to use is what is called, in Miyama ryu, quite simply, a "jujutsu bow." Most Miyama ryu practitioners might know that this half-kneeling bow came from the founder's (Antonio Pereiera) study of Sosuishitsu ryu jujutsu-what they mostly don't know (because it isn't taught) is that this half-kneeling bow is the one performed by Japanese warriors in the field wearing armor....a small piece of evidence of the "lineage" of Miyama ryu...it's descent from Sosuishitsu ryu-among other arts, and something that can't be helped by the MIyama ryu student, even if one never studies Sosuishitsu ryu, as I have.

But go back prior then about 300 years and all TMA lineages becomes smoke and mirrors.
This why I have turned lineage around. It is every student who becimes a teacher's job to make a functional art. He has a lineage if he manages to propagate his art two generations down stream.
After a point, We cannot know historical myth from historical truth. We can know who we are, who our students are...and perhaps even know who their students are. We can inspect our students and grand students.

We can visit a school and see it in operation. And view what kind of students it builds.
We cannot "know" for fact any lineage beyond those who are alive now, that can be contacted, or have been caught in the lens of camera showing a student with a teacher in a proper setting

Which simply isn't anymore true than saying that I can't know that I'm descended from those Cuffees that came before me because they are merely names in a book...

 

[TSDTexan]

Sorry-this is a rather objectionable notion, as solid as the idea may seem to you. Once again, words have meaning:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

lineage
noun lin·e·age \ˈli-nē-ij also ˈli-nij\
: the people who were in someone's family in past times
Full Definition of LINEAGE
1
a : descent in a line from a common progenitor

b : derivation
2
: a group of individuals tracing descent from a common ancestor; especially : such a group of persons whose common ancestor is regarded as its founder
The other thing is this.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Lineage" relates entirely to what came before, not what comes after-almost completely opposite what you're saying. One has "lineage" almost automatically-I can no more help being in the lineages of Antonio Pereira and Mas Oyama than I can deny being in the lineage of John, Jason, Louis, Nathan, Aaron, Aaron and Jeffrey Cuffee-and, saying that one deosn't have lineage as a student of martial arts until one has students is much like saying that I don't have Cuffee lineage until I have children.

In short, it's more B.S.

There's some truth in the rest of what you say, and your "bigger concen" is a functional way of looking at the issue, but lineages-are important.

An example that I like to use is what is called, in Miyama ryu, quite simply, a "jujutsu bow." Most Miyama ryu practitioners might know that this half-kneeling bow came from the founder's (Antonio Pereiera) study of Sosuishitsu ryu jujutsu-what they mostly don't know (because it isn't taught) is that this half-kneeling bow is the one performed by Japanese warriors in the field wearing armor....a small piece of evidence of the "lineage" of Miyama ryu...it's descent from Sosuishitsu ryu-among other arts, and something that can't be helped by the MIyama ryu student, even if one never studies Sosuishitsu ryu, as I have.

But go back prior then about 300 years and all TMA lineages becomes smoke and mirrors.
This why I have turned lineage around. It is every student who becimes a teacher's job to make a functional art. He has a lineage if he manages to propagate his art two generations down stream.
After a point, We cannot know historical myth from historical truth. We can know who we are, who our students are...and perhaps even know who their students are. We can inspect our students and grand students.



Which simply isn't anymore true than saying that I can't know that I'm descended from those Cuffees that came before me because they are merely names in a book...

My point is simple.
You only hold the "past" of a lineage when you are a member only of it. Until you pass it foward, the lineage (within you) will die with you, while other branches may move on.

You or anyone else are no longer merely the potential or "past" of a lineage when you have passed on the line into decendant artists. While you are in the moment of trainging up the next generation you are creating the present of your lineage.

A student is a bridge being built between two generations.
A master is a finished bridge.

One could argue that mastery is not achieved until one can not only "do" it, but correctly teach another how to "do".
Because teaching others brings a whole new level of understanding to the journeyman.

Yes. Words do have meaning. I agree with you there.

And in fact, within living languages, there is drift and creep on the value and meaning of words. They are not absolutely frozen forever. That would be a pretty solid indicator that a language has most likely become a dead language.

While you think my rationale is BS. I firmly believe it.
Yes, there is such a thing as lineage. It can exist.
However, what it means, as to what is actually taught from school to school, tradition to tradition or artform to artform
Has no standard of meaning at all.

It becomes very subjective.

A genealogy of masters, a long grey line, of students and teachers teaching arts of war that change over time almost like the arts were alive and growing themselves.

Fathers and sons, not by blood but by purpose and will.

 

[elder999]

My point is simple.
.

Your point is crap.

 

[TSDTexan]

That video is pretty offensive.
Someone such as yourself should know better.

I think I will be taking a break from MT for a while because of this. I think you have hurt my little feelings sempai.

 

[elder999]

That video is pretty offensive.
Someone such as yourself should know better.

I think I will be taking a break from MT for a while because of this. I think you have hurt my little feelings sempai.

Mmm'okay, Don't forget to take your little red wagon with you.....buh-bye!

 

[Koshiki]

Ahem. Ignoring the past few posts...

1. lineal descent from an ancestor; ancestry or extraction
2. the line of descendants of a particular ancestor
3. a group of individuals tracing descent from a common ancestor; especially: such a group of persons whose common ancestor is regarded as its founder
4. descent in a line from a common progenitor
5. descent from a particular ancestor; ancestry.
6. The descendants of a common ancestor considered to be the founder of the line.

It actually does go both ways... A lineage is a line segment, an individual is a point somewhere along that line. You cannot be an ancestor or link in that lineage until you have passed it on, but you are every much as much a part of that lineage the day you start training as is a child the day the are born, even if they themselves never have children. It becomes your lineage, just as the lineage or family of a child becomes their lineage or family when they are born.

It's not as though you are not a member of a family tree or lineage until you have kids of your own, or in the extreme situation postulated, grandchildren. By that logic, my grandparents are part of my family tree, but my parents, aunts, uncle, cousins, sister and myself are not...

But, yeah, anyway, what kicks beside a sidekick might be applicable here?

 

[Buka]

There was this guy... a long time ago. He really loved martial Arts, dedicated his life to it. Wanted to help people, share all that he had learned. It was a hard road, but he never waivered, never gave up, kept working, kept learning and developing, kept teaching. Some that he taught fell by the wayside. Others, stoked the fire. They sacrificed, worked like dogs improved and taught - becausing teaching is key. No teaching, no Martial Arts.

This has come all the way down to you. May it continue.