Martialart

But that's just it! In a world where every child is a Ceasar waiting to be emperor when they get older, not promoting them is even worse than kicking them out. No parent would stand for their boy-king being denied the rank they believe they should have--especially after they've paid for the grading! In this day and age, in every parents mind, their child is already a black belt, the school is just confirming it for a fee. And anyone wanting to make their living teaching martial arts has to know that--and cater to it. It's like a trap from which there is no escape. But see, I actually don't have problem with it. When I get my black belt one day, I will have done all I could do, and I love the martial arts. So let the black-belt would-be emperors flop around all they want and look like clowns. In the end, anyone can order a black belt from a martial art store and tell people they are a black belt. Perhaps that's all a belt is anyway. Perhaps what makes the black belt a living thing is that the person wearing it tries their best and loves the martial art they practice. If a person can say that, then perhaps that's all we can ask about a black belt.

Perhaps you're right. Of course at this time, we are still pretty low in the ranks. They are going to make us green belts based on our prior experience, so the time to start being good example may be now. The future white belts may see some black belt flopping around in a hyung, but they will know it's not the way it's supposed to be if we at a lower level are trying to do it better. Thanks for you input.

Actually, Siylla, we're one ahead of you there: we know no one will ever follow our lead. But with us, the cleft it forms between us and others is already there just by virtue of our age. My wife and I are both 45, and there's only a couple of other adult students like that, except for the instructors themselves. The rest of the students in the "adult" class are adolescents--and black belts at that. So, we're not really not part of their crowd. But more importantly, we will never be an example to them, because they are allowed to be subminimal in their performance and still get promoted. So to them, there's my way of doing it and their way of doing it, and both are equal--just different. I don't think they even recognize the difference between good technique and bad. I really think to them it's just different shades of gray. You know, one thing I have in all of this is a sense of history. By that, I mean that I can look back to a traditional hard style of Wado-Ryu karate that I took 27 years ago, in a small dojo in England. Things were no differnt then. True, they were more demanding, but the instructor I had was an immature 30-something year-old man. He would flirt with the girls in the class (one it was rumored he was having an affair with). He would bully at times and brag about himself a great deal, and he generated a lot of cliquishness. It didn't cost much money to attend, but when I look back it was grossly unprofessional. The TKD Plus school I'm attending now, on the other hand, is very professional. It would be great to have a class where the instructor had a real lineage going back to the creation of Taekwondo, was demanding and inspiring, and was worth following both as an example in the martial arts and as a moral human being. But that doesn't exist. And since that doesn't exist, I'd rather go to a martial arts college like the McDojo I attend. The style is good. The instructors are very good in their techniques. The teaching is professional; the standards are clear, and the facilities are modern and well kept up. True, in the end, if you show up, you may well be promoted all the way to black belt with a minimum of effort on your part, but it's your choice--just like in college: someone with a 2.0 GPA gets a degree the same as someone with a 4.0. I honestly believe we bring the nobility to our rank, not the other way around. Thanks for allowing me to expound on this.

What I mean is that if you want to start a school, and not just an incestuous club, you're going to have to apply the principles of business to making it work, and those principles are at odds with the integrity of martial arts. A highly selective club is just a clique. I've seen small schools like that before, as you probably have. They are just as corrupt in their own way as belt mills. I know, there's this idea of highly selective schools that train to high degrees of competence and just being a student of that school means something. But that's just an idea. Those schools don't really exist. Case in point, everyone thinks MMA ultimate fighting championships style is the real deal. Those guys are real fighters! Yeah, and they were before they took Brazilian Jujitsu as well. They're also big. And after they throw an obligatory kick and "go to ground," they are no different than wrestlers in Ancient Greece were. Others think that Ninjitsu is the real martial art, as if anyone would assasinate anyone these days without using a bomb or a rifle--or a letter with anthrax in it--or a jet airliner. The fact is, if you want your MMA/Ninjitsu school to survive, you have to cater primarily to kids whose parents have fat wallets and want to see their kid become something other than just another negative creep walking around the house with an attitude. To do that, you're going to have to set the bar pretty low for a black belt, or you won't have enough people signing up to keep the doors open. The mystique of martial arts is what has no credibility. Martial arts training is like college. You get out of it what you put into it. Everyone gets a degree if they meet the minimum requirements for one, and anything extra comes from the student who made it matter for themselves. One might as well go to a McDojo. Noble people bring nobility to the martial arts. The martial arts makes bullies and heroes equally. It inherently has no credibility. Only the credible students of it give it that.

I hope so, Bushido-Man. But you know, I don't think we will. The guy who got the electrical tape, or the 2nd degree 12-year-old in front of me who couldn't make a correct front stance after being repeatedly told to correct his stance by the instructor is evidence that we will have no impact whatsoever. At best we will be the flat stone you get to skip twelve times on the pond before it sinks--but it means nothing when it's thrown against the Pacific Ocean. If we maintain quality (my wife and I), we will acquire nobility in that class. People will watch us and envy us, even when we are warming up. I am arrogant enough to believe I am Divinely entitled to such nobility. However, I would never kid myself into believing I could change the tide of the world. I laugh at myself even now: the white belt who would be king! Delusional disorder at its best.

Thanks DWx. The truth is, it's not credible. It's a franchise. But then, Taekwondo isn't really credible either, not if you realize it's just Japanese karate given a different name. There is a kind of public shame Koreans seem to have over Korea being occupied by Japan in the early part of the 20th century, and they will never admit that such an occupation might have brought with it a more advanced civilization, so there is a denial that Taekwondo is really rooted in karate. And I took WTF Taekwondo for a year with an old Korean in Colorado Springs (who was very prominent in Olympic Taekwondo) who wouldn't even admit Karate existed or for that matter any other form of Taekwondo than WTF (Kukkiwon). He knows better. He was alive in WWII in Korea. He knows who General Choi is, and he knows Choi studied Shotokan Karate under Funakoshi in Japan. And even Shotokan Karate is not that old! Not even a hundred years yet. My point is that every martial art in existence today is not that credible. The martial arts of bygone eras are probably not that much more credible. Samuri warriors were probably not as skilled as ledgend has it. In the military probably only 1 out of 100 infantrymen are really good at what they do on the battlefield. The martial art is a way (a "-do" by any other name), nothing more. We bring nobility to it. TKD Plus, Ho-Am Taekwondo, the International Taekwondo Alliance is fast growing. It is a black belt mill, no doubt about it. BUT... It is traditional (very traditional, like Shotokan-with-high-kicks traditional) Taekwondo. Today, I learned how to escape a from-behind headlock by dropping into a sitting stance (kiba-dachi in Shotokan Karate) and flipping the assailant over my back. I did it successfully with a man my size, a 280 pound man, and had it done to me several times. (because we are a McDojo, there's enough money for padded floors in the dojang). I'm a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. I needed to know that move. And TKD Plus taught it to me. It may well one day save my life--because I was so impressed with it, I'll never forget it. On the other hand, tonight, in order to get a piece of blue tape on the end of my white belt, I had to do the Chong-Ji hyung (kata). I did it very well, if I may say so. Another guy did it and looked like he was making up a whole new pattern--everything was wrong from his stances, to the blocks to the punches--everything. We both got blue tape. My dobok popped with my punches, and all my movements locked at the end. He flopped around like a seizure. Tonight he was promoted just like me. But I'm not bitter. I bring the nobility to that blue electrical tape. And I'm coming to learn that that's what it's all about. Thanks for letting me ramble.

I wonder what that difference is. It seems in that scenario, only the sheepdog can be humble. The wolves have to survive (just as a bully must survive psychologically, or a mugger must survive his addictions or his starvation). The sheep, must beg for mercy and thus show their humility to both the sheepdog who can kill them, as well as the wolves who need to kill them. Only the sheepdog has the strength to be truly humble. It seems to me that only those who are in power can be humble. But I would like to read more of your thoughts on this.

If this topic is inappropriate for this forum, please delete it with my apologies. I just wanted to mention something about Christians and the martial arts. It seems to me that Christians who take "turning the other cheek" seriously would have to be highly accomplished martial artists. Think about it: if a bully slaps you, and you're too weak to do anything but let him or her slap you again, where's the glory? I think the idea is that you are more than capable of taking the bully's head off, but choose instead to turn the other cheek--realizing he's too weak to actually defend against you. This fits with "loving your enemy." And humilty doesn't exist if you have no choice but to be humble. If you are a weakling--there's no glory in being humble; that's just what you do to survive. If on the other hand you could easily kill or seriously injure a person with your bare hands owing to your years of training in the martial arts, then you being humble means something. It seems to me that the love inherent in turning the other cheek or in being humble can only come from those who are truly powerful enough to do otherwise. Just my thoughts on the subject.

I train at a McDojo. There is no question about it. We (my wife and I) just started at a TKD Plus school here in our area. Both of us trained in the 1980's and then again for a year in 1999-2000, and now at this school. So, we've actually been able to watch the evolution of McDojoism. Heck, just last night I was talking to a 3rd degree black belt. I think he's fourteen. He said proudly that he's been training for three or four years, says he can't really remember (as if there have been so many years of his training). That same night I also watched an instructor give a little colored tab to a white belt for doing his four basic stances. The problem is, he didn't have a clue how to do them. That's just good ol' McDojoism. Everything costs: uniforms, badges, sparring gear, the yearlong contract, a signing up fee, books, videos, gradings, belts. The adult class is usually almost all black belts of various degrees, and except for the instructor, none of them are adults. My wife and I, at 45, are like freaks in our white belts. Granted, last night there were about half and half. Half were adults of different colors, the other half were adolescents with various degrees of black belt. I don't think the black belts actually know how to throw a punch. They flop about through their forms, and I hope when I get my green belt in a couple of months, I don't accidentally hurt one of them in sparring. They don't seem to know at all what a combination is. I will need to use a lot of control, and I will. I'm not out to prove anything. I learned to spar very hard in Higashi (Wado-ryu) Karate in England in the 80's, and that has stuck with me. This class has seen nothing like that--ever. Maybe a couple of the instructors have. But interpret that as you will: a real green belt is only evenly matched with the instructors. The kids (that's what we call the black belts in the class) are allowed to talk during class. Sometimes they talk when the instructor is talking. To the credit of one of the Masters (I think it's master in the sense of "owner"), she admitted, she has to cater to kids, and the parents of kids, primarily in order to keep the business viable. If they are too heavy handed, the kids simply won't come. I am ashamed at what I see. I am disgusted by it. When I think back to my Higashi days, I can't reconcile the two. Be that as it may, here's the thing: The style is very traditional Taekwondo (they call it Ho-Am Taekwondo, but it might as well be called Korean Karate, because that's what it is. It's like something General Choi would teach the Korean Military). The self-defense techniques are effective. The dojang is modern and well equipped. The actual instructors are disciplined and pretty good in their techniques, and they teach effectively. There is line work, forms work, sparring, and a lot of attention is paid to the lower belts (us). So, all the ingredients are there for some very effective training--if one wants it. If you don't want it, you're still going to pass your gradings--that much is clear. But if you want it, there's no rule against making your dobok pop when you punch or kick. There's no rule against increasing your flexibility so you can kick higher. There's nothing that says you can't visualize an enemy while you're punching or kicking a target. There's nothing that says you can't do your forms with snap and precision. And that seems to be the example the senior instructors and Master-owners display. But they don't make you display it--not for a belt anyway. And so, I have come to find that the McDojo I am in may be the most real martial arts class I have ever been in. The nobility of the black belt can't be handed to you, you still have to earn it, and that nobility is shown in your forms, your punches, your kicks, the speed of your self-defense techniques and in the aggression of your sparring. It is not at all evident in the degree of your black belt. Yesterday, when I was doing my Chong-Ji (the white belt hyung [kata]), I made my dobok pop a couple of times when I punched. No one else did. But I noticed that night, at the end, before bowing out, the instructor gave a little speech about how the class needed to stop talking during stretching. She was kind in her words, but it was clear she wanted them to shut up from now on. So, maybe there's hope. Oh, and why would I choose to train at a McDojo? The same reason as anyone--it's what's available in my area. If it weren’t for the three McDojo TKD Plus schools down here in the armpit of the United States, there wouldn't be any martial arts at all. So, I don't want them to change at all. I need the floppy black belt kids to keep coming and paying for their belts--so I can train.