What to do about MA of today...

[red5angel]

The problem is that our society has enforced the bad habits in people, made them lazier. Do I think that people were better 300 years ago? I think they had to work harder and and so appreciated life more. Some may have hated it but there are those types now.
Need Proof? America is now the FATTEST nation in the world, only technically beat by Samoa, who carry a genetic predisposition towards fatness.
However, Americans watch tv, watch movies, drive everywhere, take escalators, elevators, buses. Americans eat more fast food then any other nation, drives more cars then any other nation, thats percentage based not population based. But its spreading, Europe is fast catching up to our fatness and laziness. Its just our society encourages it through and through. Arent 'pretty', are have any 'talent', watch tv, escape from your life by playing video games and locking yourself in you living room with the television. Why think for yourself.
Is TV a drug? My wife was talking yesterday and said to me "I hate the tv, when I come home, if I turn it on, I dont want to turn it off." Some people get regular 'doses' of tv, some have watch thier shows........

Sorry MP, you optimism is laudable but I dont feel the same way you do about our society. It can do some great things but is drifting slowly away from that to, now it is becoming a platform for self serving greed and laziness the world has yet to see.

[scotty1]

Where's that razor?

[raving_limerick]

Personally, I think two of the most irritating things in the martial arts today are the constant bickering and lack of dialogue among practicioners. If it's not intra-style p!ssing and moaning over who has the TRUE undiluted form of the art (Not that this ever happens in Wing Chun, mind you ), it's just shouting matches between traditionalists and modernists or whatever two groups are in vogue at the moment.

Man, you'd think that this whole martial arts business was a religion unto itself sometimes...

Now, I'm not saying that lineage isn't important or that frauds shouldn't be rooted out, or even that the traditional methods don't work (au contrare, I rather like my traditional training)-- but the simple fact of the matter is that, in the grand scheme of things, we're all doing the same thing. Why be so divisive and hostile towards any sort of discussion that isn't a carbon copy of your own views? Heaven forbid that we actually learn something through dialogue

Anyhow, that's my personal pet peeve. Now back to the regularly scheduled discussion.

[raving_limerick]

Originally posted by red5angel
Sorry MP, you optimism is laudable but I dont feel the same way you do about our society. It can do some great things but is drifting slowly away from that to, now it is becoming a platform for self serving greed and laziness the world has yet to see.

You know, I remember reading a quote from a Sumerian scribe nearly 4000 years ago that ran something like "The world is coming to an end-- children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book" (paraphrased, of course). The point is, this accusation seems to be leveled at somebody else every couple years. Remember, in the 50's rock and roll was seen as degrading, lewd, and even satanic. Did the world end because Elvis dared to play some ripped off blues songs and shake his hips?

Okay, moving on...

I think Merry raises a good point when he says:

Originally posted by Merryprankster
Do you REALLY think people from 300 years ago were composed of better stuff somehow?

Another example of idealizing the past... It had its good and bad, just like today. And just like today, there were a very small number of people at the top of the skill/dedication range, and a large chunk in the middle and some dishonest folks at the bottom.

This is another thing that irks me-- the idolization of the past. Do you really think that society's fallen so far in the last 150 years? I sure don't.

There's always been lazy, ignorant, unmotivated people, but they never make it into the history books. All we remember are the ones that stand out, the exceptional ones-- be they exceptionally good or exceptionally bad.

[Mutant]

it seems that what many define as the 'problem' with cma, is more of a dislike of modern society and its values.

we live in a world of fast food and information overload. like kung lek said, for every 250 bad students, there may be one good one. i think it has probably always been that way, not just now. and sure there's a lot of junk out there, but half the fun is learning enough to recognize the good stuff, a rewarding part of the process. in the end, the shallow commercialized arts and misconceptions will be just that, and the real quality stuff will remain intact and understood by the few that are willing to work hard enough and look far enough. things that work and are useful will not become extinct. things may evolve as they always have, but the core will remain. i know i train hard...why should i care if everyone in society doesnt train like a shaolin monk or understand martial arts? if someone cares enough, they can and probably will figure it out. if you don;t like the arguments over 'traditional -vs- mma' then just go do your own thing and ignore it. but if you choose not to partake, you will forfeit your points of view and certainly won't prove much or effect the outcome of people understandings of cma.

i think ryu has a great point and attitude; if you really have an issue and feel strongly that something is wrong with the state of cma, then figure out what to do and go do something about it. peronally, i think the 'problem' is beyond cma, i think its just the way modern society affects cma. whining about it just makes you sound like like a grumpy old man yearning for the past, as prankster pointed out

personally i think the modern world is fun, i like the overload and exposure that it brings. i like the cheezy martial arts flicks and video games that misrepresent the 'true' fighting arts. i even like to watch modern wushu athletes and the fact that i can fly to bejing to see it in the olympics. would being confined to one small village and its family style somehow be a superior and more desirable living situation for your society? things were better like that back then? not for me. you can have your museum quality forms and training. i have done plenty of that too and i enjoyed it, but i don't care to be mired in the past with a great albetross of tradition to uphold. the beauty of it is that i don't need to because many of you will do that for us, because thats what you like to do, and thats wonderful. i like to learn it and then move on and go try to apply the knowlege and techniques to the modern world. different personalities are a good thing. but just because i don;t want to spend my life kissing some masters ass, doenst make me or others with my attitude somehow beneath the pedantics of society.

[Mutant]

it seems that what many define as the 'problem' with cma, is more of a dislike of modern society and its values.

we live in a world of fast food and information overload. like kung lek said, for every 250 bad students, there may be one good one. i think it has probably always been that way, not just now. not everyone has access to the 'good stuff', but the information and training is definately more available to the common folk than it was in the past. many of you would never even have the opportunity to learn what youre learning if you had lived in those enchanted times gone by. at least now you can access it. and sure there's a lot of junk out there, but half the fun is learning enough to recognize the good stuff, a rewarding part of the process. in the end, the shallow commercialized arts and misconceptions will be just that, and the real quality stuff will remain intact and understood by the few that are willing to work hard enough and look far enough. things that work and are useful will not become extinct. things may evolve as they always have, but the core will remain. i know i train hard...why should i care if everyone in society doesnt train like a shaolin monk or understand martial arts? if they want to be a fat slugs an watch t.v., i feel bad for them but hey, i guess on one level its just survival of the fittest. what do you think we should do, put them on diets, take away t.v. and place them all in exercise intensive labor camps? would that be good for their character? it might be fun to see, but its not gonna happen, and i'm not sure it would improve society. you can just be responsable for yourself, and those immediatly around you to a degree. unless you go into politics, which would be cool, maybe thats the way we can help society.

if someone cares enough to learn real ma, they can and probably will figure it out. if you don;t like the arguments over 'traditional -vs- mma' then just go do your own thing and ignore it. but if you choose not to partake, you will forfeit your points of view and certainly won't prove much or effect the outcome of people understandings of cma. so go write or go fight, no use just whining about it.

i think ryu has a great point and attitude; if you really have an issue and feel strongly that something is wrong with the state of cma, then figure out what to do and go do something about it. peronally, i think the 'problem' is beyond cma, i think its just the way modern society affects cma. whining about it just makes you sound like like a grumpy old man yearning for the past, as prankster pointed out

personally i think the modern world is fun, i like the overload and exposure that it brings. i like the cheezy martial arts flicks and video games that misrepresent the 'true' fighting arts. i even like to watch modern wushu athletes and the fact that i can fly to bejing to see it in the olympics. would being confined to one small village and its family style somehow be a superior and more desirable living situation for your society? things were better like that back then? not for me. you can have your museum quality forms and training. i have done plenty of that too and i learned a lot & enjoyed it, but i don't care to be mired in the past with a great albetross of tradition to uphold. the beauty of it is that i don't need to because many of you will do that for us, because thats what you like to do, and thats wonderful. i like to learn it and then move on and go try to apply the knowlege and techniques to the modern world. different personalities are a good thing. but just because i don;t want to spend my life kissing some masters ass and obsessing over tradition, doenst make me or others with my attitude somehow beneath the pedantics of society.

[Mutant]

please ignore the 1st post, read the 2nd edited one (if you even care to read all that jibberish at all)

[shaolinboxer]

Wow, this is one of those threads where I read different opinions and agree with all of them.

The only thing I have to add is this...although yesterday wile walking down the avenue I saw a poster that made me physicallly ill ( an add for target ith a blonde skinny karate chopping model), I think that the mass proliferation of kung fu is over all a good thing. Why?

1) There is still an unbearable amount of racism in the US against asians, particularly the chinese. If the entertainment industry is the way to educate people about the richness of asian culture, so be it. At least people have to admit that asia exists.

2) So many more people are interested in the martial arts that it makes us less freaks, and more respected in our society.

3) Even if people are training at a McDojo, at least their fat arse is up off of the couch.

4) A McDojo can be the one door that opens to a person who wants to sincerely practice. They can learn at least something...than later they can persue there personal quest elsewhere.

5) I can finally see Jackie Chan movies in a decent theater.

6) As hard practicing, soul searching, style mixing, tradition loving, butt kicking, peace making, MA's...we have so much to offer so many new interested people. Let's train hard, get out there, and help people find their own truth.

[apoweyn]

shaolinboxer makes a really good point, to my mind. i started out in a mcdojo. it was terribly commercialized. grandmaster clubs. insistence on only buying gear from them. inordinate testing fees. the whole bit.

but they're accessible. and as a 13-year-old kid you don't know enough to pick and choose. and even if you do, you don't have the resources (money, transportation, etc.). but the friendly neighborhood mcdojo is right there. and it CAN be a first step. get you off the couch, get you information, etc.

wherever i am now, it's as much due to the bad schools as to the good ones. they taught me a lot. sometimes due to the good teachers that came through those schools (before being driven off themselves because of the commercialization) and sometimes because i learned by negative example. 'these are the things i don't want to be.'

the more economically viable martial arts is, the more accessible it because (in all its forms). the trick, then, is to provide people with enough solid information for them to make up their own minds about things like style, mcdojos, tradition, realism, etc.


stuart

p.s. the whole 'things were better in the past' debate: bear in mind that humans have a tendency to impose order, patterns, and meaning on things after the fact. so while the past seemed somehow more coherent and workable than things do today, i guarantee you that as many years from today, someone else will be sitting around saying precisely the same thing about us, here, right now.

[Merryprankster]

Scotty---in answer to the "razor," question

The razor is here: Human beings aren't fundamentally different than they were 300 years ago. I don't have to look to find the reason why "the state of MA is so bad," because it's not. We act like the only people who ever did this stuff were the ones who became lineage holders, and that's just not true. For every dozen dozen students you probably had one or two really dedicated guys... those are the ones that history remembers

So the razor is that human nature hasn't changed any really.


Red, in answer to your comments about fat America.

Let's inject some perspective into this. I have a low tolerance for that as well, but here's some food for thought:

We are hard-wired for sugars and fats because these are calorie dense foods. That's why ice cream is so darn good!

Through the use of our brains, we have managed to save labor--we don't HAVE to be physically active anymore. Look at old american recipes--seriously--grab a cookbook from the 1800's and everything was cooked in drippings or fat--meat, potatoes and two veg. It's not that different than the way we eat now...they just worked physically harder for the most part.

We have, for the first time in human history, drastically altered a fundamental pattern, and it's coming to a head NOW.

I'm not excusing it--obviously, regular exercise would clear that up, but think about it--the farmers of yesteryear got their exercise by WORKING all day. Now, you're asking people to exercise in addition to their job, their family, the piddly little day to day things that make up life, etc. It's not that easy for many people to do it. Where does a single mother find time to exercise, take care of the kids, do the housework, SLEEP, etc?

Again, I'm not excusing it--exercise has always been a priority for me--but it's easy to see the slippery slope. Some of us are learning now about exercising--you forgot something BTW...America has the fattest people in the world, but we also have some of the fittest people in the world! In other words, we're starting to re-educate society, and many people are listening but this is something that has been in the process for oh, 25-30 years. You can't sweep thousands of years of programming under the rug in that time period.

Do you really think that those farmers wouldn't use labor saving devices in the name of exercise? What if you told them they now needed to exercise after they worked for 10 hours a day? They'd probably light up a pipe and tell you to shove a cork in it

[red5angel]

I may have come off wrong in my argument. Let me try to explain a little better.
I dont have a problem with modernization. Anyone will take the easy way out if they can, lets call us instinctively lazy. But, that doesnt mean we cant choose to work for some things.
A good example would be the martial arts. There have always been those willing to buy/sale a mastership, "take my weekend workshop and become a grandmaster in no time!". This was true 300 years ago and now. I would argue that even relatively speaking it is much more prevalent now then then, because our society pushes that. Its instant gratification, who would deny it?
As for America being fat, well we may be hardwired for fat dense foods, but for most people, excersise and food in moderation will keep one physically healthy. Obesity runs rampant in our country because laziness runs rampant.
Even a little bit of excersise a day, they say 20 minutes is good, will help, but why when I can drive home in my car, turn on the tv, and watch all the action I am missing on tv. My roommate says why walk to the bus stop, a few blocks away, when he can drive to work, even if he has to sit in traffic for an hour! thats a good example.
Its short term thinkng and I believe because of it we ar emissing something. A Mcdojo instructor, who often recieves thier certification through a Mcdojo, is missing out on really deep, thorough martial arts for some weak self defense/aerobic training. Instead of buying my Mook, I can build it, then it really is mine, or I can buy it. Sure I dont get to work on it right away but building it makes it something more, gives me more respect for it. Is it necessary? Obviously not. but I dont mind working for my achievements when I have to.
Ultimately this is my opinion obviously, and a generalization......

Raveing_Limerick - Dont bring the WC politics into it! We are perfectly fine mucking up our own forum and dont need to take it to other forums!!!!

Ap - I think the question isnt where you get but what you have. For instance I have a freind who is a black belt with National Karate, a Mcdojo. When I first started wing chun, he wanted to spar, I did not as I figured he would be killing me. Well, he didnt come close to dominating me, and said so himself. Then we sparred with an instructor there, same thing. Now one of them studies wing chun

[apoweyn]

red5angel,

i get your point. and it's a good one. but my thinking is that not everyone trains for the same reason. and there's no reason to my mind (you may feel differently) that everyone should have to train in the same way.

mcdojos exist because they meet a perceived need. hobbyist martial artists. some people want to put on a gi, learn some maneuvers, then return to their regular lives. and while that might not be the way people here want to be, i don't see it as an invalid choice.

does their black belt mean less than mine? perhaps. perhaps not. frankly, i don't much care one way or another.

your friend or his instructor (whichever ended up switching to wing chun) had a priority. fighting. and when that priority came into conflict with what he knew, he made the decision to learn something else. and that's fine. but that's a decision that reflects that particular person.

i guess, when it comes right down to it, i'm not really offended by the proliferation of martial arts.

...

i take that back. the forms demonstrations by the reyes team, paul mitchell, and that sort of thing drive me bonkers. but i still feel like there's room for that. those who want to move beyond that ALWAYS find the motive and the means. ALWAYS. people who are dissatisfied with a mcdojo either quit (in which case, they probably wouldn't have hacked your kwoon anyway) or find something more to their liking (and that's the sort of individual that stands a chance of excelling).

as irritating as it can all be sometimes, i think it ultimately does us a favour. it creates an environment that will support different takes on martial arts, which gives us options. think i could have found an eskrima school in my neighborhood had all the local taekwondo schools not proven financially viable? i doubt it. so they helped me. would i even have been interested in eskrima without first making the decision at 13 to try 'that karate stuff'? nope. i doubt that too. it was my experience in something i didn't ultimately want that allowed me to make more informed decisions about what i did ultimately want.

so to my mind, if we want to help, we provide information and we provide choices. that's it.


stuart b.

[raving_limerick]

r5a-- Awww... but this forum was so clean! I just had to muddy the waters! But in all seriousness, it's not just a Wing Chun phenomenon. Everyone seems to fight over lineage questions, and it's probably one of the most irritating things I've seen. Nothing's less appealing than listening to adults squabble like children.

Like I said though, this is different than calling someone on a fake lineage or no lineage at all (ala McDojo/Mckwoon). Nor do I mind a discussion on, say, the difference between Yip Man and YKS Wing Chun. These things serve a valuable purpose, to disseminate information. It's just when the conversation drifts into "my way is The One True Way(tm)" territory that such things get out of hand.

All in all, please keep in mind that I didn't bring this up to start a flame war, but to point out a facet of the martial community that I think is doing more harm to people than good. Screaming always wears you out more than talking, you know what I mean?

Ap-- I understand what you're getting at, (and your take on the hobby MAist is spot on) but the problem remains on how to clue in people who are looking for honest-to-goodness martial instruction. How do you go about finding a good kung fu school or karate dojo if you a) don't know what to look for, and b) don't know where to look? I think that's the real problem with McDojo's is that they siphon off potentially serious students who just don't have the resources to find the real stuff that's around-- they're often much more visible and accessible (location-wise) than a legit kwoon.

[red5angel]

Ap - Ultimately I am not opposed to the proliferation of martial arts. If someone wants to be a hobbyist then so be it. It can get annoying though when they want to compare what they have to what non hobbyist have, and believe it holds up to that. Thats where I start to have a problem, but that general isnt an issue.

RL - LOL! These guys have enough to fight about with all the ground fighting vs striking vs classical vs modern vs chop suey! Not too mention the JKD words!
Seriously though I am sure it is as prevalent but I find that for whatever reason this wingchun forum has some serious issues!!!!

Ultimately, I believe that my opinion is right and those who oppose me will be destroyed.

[Ryu]

"Ultimately, I believe that my opinion is right and those who oppose me will be destroyed."



Now that doesn't sound like our resident moral relatvist! See how it don't work in real life?

OOH! Jordan fades back... LOL, just kidding.
I just couldn't pass it up. Forgive me.

Ryu