MA integrity.

[Merryprankster]

Why integrity in the MA is important.

This isn't meant to be a style bashing thing or a training method thing. My biggest frustration is people not representing themselves truthfully in MA. Be honest about what your training can and can't do for the people who come to you. It's OK not to be a "fighting school," or as some talk about on here, a "hippy Tai Chi place" but BE HONEST with yourself and your students. Otherwise you (universal you) could very well wind up like the guy on the short end of the stick in this fight--or as an instructor be responsible, in some part, for it.


http://www.mcdojo.com/article_read.asp?id=40

[Crimson Phoenix]

I agree that integrity is important, specially in MA. But...
What about individual responsibility?? It's not always the other's faults if you believe in lies, it's your fault in the FIRST PLACE. Open your mind, ponder, experiment...if you don't do it, well, fine, no prob, just don't go whining after.
Lessons learnt in life are always learnt the hard way. It's how nature and life work from the very beginning. Nowadays we scream for injustice as soon as something bad happens to us, and it's much easier to point out the faults of others than to realize the integral part we played in our own doom.
If that guy was feeling confident he could fight, without ever trying, was it really the instructor's fault? He was so confident he could block without ever trying, is it the instructor's fault? HHEEELLLLOOOOOO what about free will? What about common sense? If he believed it, it is HIS fault first and foremost.
Modern society generates unresponsible people at every level.
There is no justice, there was never any justice. **** happens, and when **** happens to you and you don't make it, the fault can always be traced back to you. But it's so much easier to find someone to blame, as long as it is not your cherished ego.

Rant over :)

[old jong]

If there is one thing assured,it is that there is no ultimate or perfect MA ,system or whatever.You learn and practice something to get skilled to a certain degree but nothing can really make you invincible against anything.You learn a traditionnal MA or you practice a fighting sport or you beat the monkey watching Gracie tapes!...(Ralek;)...)You never can be 100% assured of the outcome of a real fight.An instructor whatever the style,Kung Fu,BJJ,wrestling,Tai-Chi,whatever is not helping his students when he tells them that they will be like martial arts movie stars or UFC idol if attacked.A MA is only a tool that can be well or badly utilised .You can mess yourself pretty bad with a tool you know!
It is the person that has to defend himself,not his art or sport.No training in the world can replace the simple will to survive when the conditions are not the same as in a gymn,school,whatever ,when there is no teacher to calm things down or it is useless to tap out or you simply find yourself in a situation you never saw coming.
Integrity is letting students know just that so they don't live in fantasy.

[Internal Boxer]

It depends what you mean by integrity?? If you mean that MMA will make you a better fighter on the street or in tournaments?? Sport MMA is just that only SPORT!!!

For me MMA has helped to a minor degree with some aspects of street fighting, but I have to say my experience of internal martial arts has helped me more than any sport based combat. I respect Frank Shamrock Gracies etc, but I wonder how they would fair against a three dic. heads with bottles. As I am of the opinion that as ground fighters they are second to none, but how would they fair with more than one attacker (Yes I know its an old argument but no one seems to want to answer the question) That is why you should not neglect the striking part of your art for the grappling and ground fighting. My training partner for example does not feel it is relavant for him to part take in ground fighting, he is a hard lad, weighs 15 stone, and has had over 100 street fights in Moston a very dodgy part of Manc, he has never once been taken to ground. I have tried to get him on the floor but its like trying to move a tank. So again its down to the individual, but I dont think we should loose perspective thinking that MMA is balanced, cause it aint, its just about sports grappling at the end of the day.

[Merryprankster]

Internal Boxer--Huh? You're free to rant if you want, but I'm trying to figure out against whom...

The post was about how that article related to integrity in MA. I don't care WHAT the person practices. Heck the guy who wrote the article still practices a Korean art, NOT MMA.

Crimson--no argument about personal responsibility. But the guy teaching his material has a responsibility to be as honest as he can about what training can and cannot do--and in this sad instance, he was NOT. My point is that while surely personal responsibility comes into play here, it does NOT reduce the impropriety on the part of the instructor.

[yenhoi]

The individual is completly (thats 100%) responsible for his own training.

Teachers, policemen, lawyers, doctors, old bums on the street are either helpful guides or obstacles to be smashed. (Metaphorically speaking, that is......)

[apoweyn]

yenhoi,

ideally, i agree with you. but practically, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

martial arts instruction is a service industry. people who don't know martial arts come to people who do. similarly, automotive mechanics is a service industry. i don't know jack about engines, so i bring my car to someone who does. ideally, it falls on me to be the final judge of my own car. but if i knew enough to make an educated call about that, i wouldn't be visiting a mechanic in the first place.

that's the inherent problem. make the people least equipped to make an informed decision completely responsible for making an informed decision.

granted, it's naive to count on the altruism of a businessman. even a martial arts-related business. so ultimately, you can only count on yourself. but since we're here to discuss the state of martial arts, i have to agree that it would be nice if we could get some truth in advertising.

if a teacher tells a prospective student that he can teach him self defense, why wouldn't the student believe? the teacher has a black belt. and trophies. and weapons on the wall. and...

but how many actual self defense situations has that instructor been in? enough to reliably convey a workable sense of self defense? i hope so if i'm staking my well being on it.

personally, i've never had a fight in my life. and i DON'T teach self defense. i make that very clear from the get go. i teach martial arts. and, while i try to train with realism in mind, i don't want anyone leaving my class believing they have something that they don't.


stuart b.

[Cody]

I'm thinking that a sense of responsibility emerges from two major sources.
The nature of the self and societal input, which might be followed in a rote way as part of a belief/social system. The latter is what one first Knows or is later taught, and strong pressure is exerted to follow that way. Some might say that it is a person's responsibility to test the "rules." I would look at it more from the point of view of self-knowledge and finding a way of life inside or outside of the lines which agree with who you are. At any time during this process, there is a degree of ignorance present, inside and out which can have far-reaching consequences.

Fact is no one wants to be a victim, and part of MA training involves not Feeling like a victim either. That's where the puffing up comes into play. Add an overinflated ego (compensating for still feeling like a victim), and one has a problem. Part of that is not dealing properly with the fear that is there, not even wanting to admit to it, and engendering the support of those around you because you need it. This dynamic can happen in people who have proven fighting skills, just as it can in a yokel who blows it out his *ss. Hence, the magic art or move which is bigger and better, etc. When a fight is won, this feeds an illusion of invulnerability, which goes beyond an honest confidence that with study, one might be in a better position to defend, and that's that.

Even in a person who is responsible and exercises integrity (honest with self and others), the job or developing Interactive Integrity (my term) isn't done. Because the step needs to be taken to extend that into another's feelings and not to interpret those feelings from one's own point of view. It's not just walking in another person's shoes (as one's self), but walking in them as the other person.

So, yes, we are all responsible for our training and where it takes us and how we teach it (even in helping out a newbie at school). Yet, there are stages and gaps in our knowledge which must be acknowledged as valid. This is not to make excuses, but rather to realize that degree of responsibility must relate to development of the types of knowledge indicated above.

We do the best with what we have and act/teach with honesty. Anything less than that is not as it should be in MA practice and teaching, imo. To teach invincibility is dishonest and lacks integrity. Teaching in a "box" might not necessarily be dishonest if that is all you have known and it has worked for you. Promoting unreasonable expectations in students, which you know to be pipe dreams, is dishonest. If you don't know and the student doesn't, then unfortunate results are more a matter of ignorance than anything else. As I said, degrees of ignorance are everywhere, and much is taken on assumption. When confronted with a teacher who knows more than we do, it can be natural to assume that the knowledge extends much further. If this way of thinking is encouraged via cult of personality, or instance, the student might not have resources to deal with it, unless presented with defeat or seeing teacher taken down.

If a person is brainwashed into thinking that a certain martial art is invincible, or that certain moves make one King Kong, then one might say that the person is fallen into some bad mental programming, and might be in a social situation which demands beliefs like this. With no experience, and the emphasis on taking what is given as IT (in order to be or to feel worthy, even to be safe), the responsibility of the student to question must be extracted from more objective experience and observation. It is very hard to question what one does not know at all, in new circumstances, or in old circumstances which have formed the basis for a large part of one's identity or sense of well-being.

Yet, the responsibility grows, and integrity has faltered, when teachers knowingly (consciously) perpetuate what does not work, or leave out vital components in their teaching for any number of reasons, while possibly misleading students re where the training They are getting will get them.

Yes, we are responsible for our own training, but how can we be responsible for what we do not see? For instance, one goes to a T'ai Chi school. Soft Soft Soft. Yes, soft is important. What one doesn't know is that the softness within and which shows is layered on a hardness which must be trained, but that isn't mentioned, and so on.

Given the human condition as it stands, I doubt that much can be done, except to teach people to think for themselves, and to be able to function independently of the group, as well as in cooperation. It is a difficult balance. It is true that we don't exist in a vacuum. If there are lies, they must be broken. Better a broken lie than a broken student.

Cody

[Internal Boxer]

Merry sorry mate I did not see the link, so I wondered what the bejesus you meant by Martial Integrity?:D :D

[ewallace]

For some reason I think that particular story may not be an actual event but it's irrelevant. One of the biggest factors in the school that I chose is when I was there observing the teacher said a few things that really stuck out. When they were doing knife drills, he told one of the students flat out that in a real situation you will get cut. There are also no belts at my school.

If that story did in fact happen, one thing that really caught my attention was that the guy said that the school looked like what he had seen on T.V. I really don't have much sympothy for folks that get taken like that. Do you walk into a car dealership and just buy the car without doing any research on it's realiability or past problems?

The instructor as well as the students were equally accountable in my mind.

[yenhoi]

To ap:

I agree with you.

Martial arts instructors have a resposibility to thier students to teach them whatever it is they have agreed to teach them.

Regardless of what is being taught, or what is promised, or this or that, it is still upto the student to gauge the training. You are responsible for your progress, you put in the time on the mat, the time hitting the tires, hitting a heavy bag, doing pushups, getting punched in the face. Only you can gauge what works and what really doesnt work, and if YOU keep falling for the 'excuse' of "just do horse stance for 10 minutes a day" then YOU are the one who is responsible for YOUR false confidence, you are responsible for thinking you are capable of handling violence.

In between posts I read Marc MacYoung's article on cyberkwoon, he says this in a much more structured manner then me, but his words only reinforce my conviction, YOU are responsible for your training, you decide to goto class, you decide to pay dues, you decide to do the legwork and research and find out if what your learning is effective or mcdojo mumbo jumbo.

[MonkeySlap Too]

I think most of the people who are lieing to their students beleive their own lies.

Therein lies the problem with martial arts.

[rogue]

As long as there are people with martial fantasies there will be people to take advantage of them.

IMO the area where the fantasy is most prevalent is self defense. My instructor has people ringing his phone off the hook for self defense training but he's never gone after any business. People are coming to him with fantasies of taking on al Queda hijackers. Problem is how do you take a fighting system that takes months to get the basics down in some sort of a workable form and teach it in a couple of hours? You can't.

The great part of teaching self defense is that the vast majority will never get to try out the art to see if it works. No competitions, sparring or anything else that could break the fantasy. So all you have to do is teach something that to the layman looks effective and odds are you'll never have one of your students come back with complaints.

[eulerfan]

REALLY!

I just can't have any sympathy for somebody who thinks he can fight without ever having fought, who it never occurs to to ask what the katas have to do with fighting.

I mean, my tai chi class is essentially a health class. He bills it, "Tai Chi for heatlh". But he still teaches us the applications. Cuz, if you're learning it anyway, you might as well know what it's for.

In kung fu, my sifu teaches us applications. Then we have to come up with applications of our own. Then we spar. Then we do drills. AND I STILL wouldn't tell you I'm capable of defending myself. Because I don't know; I've never been in a fight.

I think this guy is a little retarded.

[Merryprankster]

I think this guy is a little retarded.

I'm tempted to agree.

I certainly agree that you are ultimately responsible for your own training, and caveat emptor are watchwords for MAists. On the other hand, the guy was marketing himself as an expert qualified to teach self-defense. A master.

Clearly he had no business doing so. So to some degree he is responsible for selling a weapon that won't fire while advertising that it does. On the other hand, the fellow who got the crap kicked out of him probably wasn't very bright for buying the weapon in the first place :) That doesn't make the instructor's responsibility to his student any LESS though--it just means we all have to be circumspect when looking for a teacher. Not that that's a bad thing!

[apoweyn]

yenhoi,


Originally posted by yenhoi
To ap:

I agree with you.

Martial arts instructors have a resposibility to thier students to teach them whatever it is they have agreed to teach them.

Regardless of what is being taught, or what is promised, or this or that, it is still upto the student to gauge the training. You are responsible for your progress, you put in the time on the mat, the time hitting the tires, hitting a heavy bag, doing pushups, getting punched in the face. Only you can gauge what works and what really doesnt work, and if YOU keep falling for the 'excuse' of "just do horse stance for 10 minutes a day" then YOU are the one who is responsible for YOUR false confidence, you are responsible for thinking you are capable of handling violence.

In between posts I read Marc MacYoung's article on cyberkwoon, he says this in a much more structured manner then me, but his words only reinforce my conviction, YOU are responsible for your training, you decide to goto class, you decide to pay dues, you decide to do the legwork and research and find out if what your learning is effective or mcdojo mumbo jumbo.

amen. well said.


stuart b.