There's also the "fantasy" that so many people cling onto.
Deep down inside, a lot of TMA guys want to believe that they're learning a mystical ninja art. That they are privy to the ancient secrets that will defeat all the weightlifting boxers and kickboxers and strongmen (and today you can add to that list MMA guys, too) out there.
They are learning the secrets, and it feels good to be part of that secret club.
They buy into the BS that with their secret, ancient, exclusive training, they will be able to defeat any bad guy, even if he is bigger and stronger and tougher and a boxer and wrestler and kicked sand in your face and stole your girlfriend. He doesn't even realize the ancient power that he is about to be messing with when he fights you, for you a master of all aspects of "real" and "ancient" TMA knowledge. You don't go to a McDojo, you are a closed-door disciple learning only the most exclusive and secret of ancient techniques passed down from master to chosen student:
Iron body that makes you able to withstand hits. It can only be done with secret exercises and breath control and qi manipulation. You are learning this and no one else is. You are elite.
Ancient strength sets used by the old masters to develop superhuman strength. Weight lifting, protein shakes, creatine, that stuff is all new agey hokum. Even tho you're not getting big or testing your strength with weights so you have no way to know if you're actually getting stronger or not, your dynamic tension strength set is bestowing upon you insane strength gains. And every week you add another rep. Soon you will be invincible. And it feels so good to have this knowledge that no one else has. If only the elite-level athletes of the world knew the secrets that you knew...
You punch a wall bag filled with steel shot 500 times a day. Without pain. Your fists are like iron. You can easily crack a skull. All those poser boxers are hitting soft heavy bags wearing boxing gloves. Wusses! You possess real destructive power in your fists. Never mind that you've never actually trained against a moving opponent that didn't just sit there like your wall bag does. You know in your heart that you are so deadly, you could crack a skull with one punch with minimal effort. You walk around all day supremely confident in this knowledge. You can break the bottom brick. You can rupture organs without leaving a mark on the body. Someone would have to be completely insane to get into a fight with you!
You know a few dozen multi-hit combo techniques. You can impress the hell out of your friends. "Dude, throw a punch at me... no, not like that... use your other arm... and keep your other arm there when you do it... yeah like that... throw that punch at me... oh but do it slowly so I don't accidentally hurt you..." BAM! Bong sao, lop da, knee kick, twisting double palm strike! Your friends cry out "Whoa!!! Dude that was awesome! You're like Bruce Lee!! Do it again!" Your ego is huge.
Your ego is huge. That is why TMA "myths" are still around, and will always be around.
F.uck all of that.
You want secret conditioning? Grapple and take punches.
You want massive strength? Get your ass in the gym and lift weights.
You want a useful punch? Train against resisting opponents, heavy bags, and double end bags.
You want secret techniques that work? Learn Muay Thai and BJJ.
Forms are BS.
Secret ninja body conditioning is BS.
"Strength sets" are BS.
Cool-looking combos are BS.
edit - I'm talking about in the development of martial skill. Look, if you just want to get in shape, forms can be useful. If you need to improve circulation or whatever, qigong and taiji might help. But when instructors delude students into believe they are learning how to fight through things like forms and secret grandmaster ancient "conditioning" methods and walking in circles and 10-hit combos on outstretched arms, that is doing a phenomenal disservice to both the student, and to the MA community as a whole.
edit 2 - I'm qualified to talk on this because I wasted much of my youth on BS conditioning systems and ancient strength sets and learning the secret techniques to make me an invincible kung fu fighter. And thinking weight lifting was inefficient and this and that and all those other BS myths. And then one day I went to a gym and realized that despite training harder than anyone else for the last year in ancient strength sets I was incredibly weak, and since I wanted to get strong, I had to lift weights. And after getting my stuff completely ROCKED in an MMA class against someone who had been training for only a month I decided that maybe my secret ninja techniques weren't as awesome as I thought they were.
So I'm not a hypocrite. At one point I was a HUGE supporter of "traditional" (BS) training and spent countless hours tracking down copies of old training books with the "secret and lost methods" because I wanted to be a superior kung fu fighter. Holy crap, was all of that ever a huge waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I was super dedicated. But if any of that crap actually worked I would've been a world champion fighter by now. lol. It sucks, though, to literally spend hours a day for years doing things that you think are going to benefit you greatly only to find out that they were worthless. I had the biggest freaking ego, too; it's a good thing I never got into a "real" fight or I would've been destroyed both physically and mentally.
Last edited by IronFist; 09-29-2010 at 01:52 PM.
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