Drunken Monkey

my kick-boxing instructor tells me there some kind of open training/'friendly' mutli-gym/school training session going on in beckenham the coming week. anyone (mart....) here going? might see you there.

um, gee.... thanks? but please stop sniffing there. i don't mind when we're in private but not in public please.... but still. it's true. i've just got bakc from my first heavy session for about two months. my arm is bleeding, my knuckles are bleeding, my head is ringing and my left thigh hurts. tonight i have bled the most because i am so out of training. anyone wanna see pics of my knuckles? i can post them here...

y'know, i have found that the easiest way to explain to people how it works is to be mature and give real, sensible answers. what i do when people ask me is tell them straight that we do not belt system. they then ask about how do we know who's better. the answer to that one is then 'then one who bled the least that evening'.

so can you tell us what style it was? or was just one of them really bad american things i keep hearing about?

that's also where some of the issue lies. isn't there some truth in that you don't feel like you should call anyone by a title, be it sifu, sensei or whatever? do you really believe that martial arts sifus and senseis just stand issuing orders? don't you think that in our class our sifu would show something to us and then have us try it? don't you think taht's a little naive not to mention totally ignorant? don't you think that in some styles where feel is the most important aspect he make sure we'd know what the real technique feels like? don't you think that the guys who teach us, our sifus and senseis can perform the techniques effortlessly? the 'not taking part in tournaments' argument in not really a valid one because it has been established that the ring is not the best place to judge arts. my previous sifus have worked doors and one is a police inspector in hk. what they know and teach and use, works. i know they work because they have made them work in situations that are more real than anything you can experience in a ring. do my sifus deserve the title? you decide.

yeah but then no more bananas....

not sure. we went to visit the village and stuff, then one of my aunts mentioned the banana tree, then someone said 'let's cut down some bananas'....

um, because traditionally the bow is used in the culture from which the art comes from? hmm, do you have to call you superior officer sir? do you have to salute him? same thing. the bow in martial arts has no religious connotations, it is just part of the tradition. any such idea is brought to it by you. it is you who sees the bow as being religious. you just can't see that it isn't religious and no matter how much EVERYONE tells you otherwise, you will not listen.

y'know, just like to point out that the idea of 'borrowed energy' is one that features heavily in wing chun.... hmmm, boxer rebellion..... hmmm, the mind wanders.... and i have to say, i wasn't aware of the chinese influence on omaya. man, there is so much i do not know....

y'know, in my grandma's place in hk, the little house in the village, in the gardan is a banana tree. when i was there earlier this year, we cut down a massive bunch of bananas. must've been about 5-8kg of bananas. it leaked this horribly sticky sap everywhere that refuses to be washed out. i have to say we looked a bit odd walking down the 'big road' in yuen long with the bananas...

hmm, what kind of yellow?

for reasons of your own, you have decided that in a martial arts school, the guy at the top insists on being called sifu becuase of ego. you then follow with statements that group all martial arts that use any form of title, and say catagorically that ALL of the sifus and senseis and whatever are actually incompetent people and hide behind the title. you view is very short-sighted, very narrow minded and in no way reflects reality. your quotemeantions caste societies but it fails to see that in a sifu/toa-dai everyone who is learning is equal. you can have beggears and doctors and students and government officials all calling each other brother. the sifu could be of a lower caste than some of the students. the idea is that the quan is a place where anyone can go to. it is a little bubble where conventional social problems are not an issue. a little sidenote. some of the most obnoxious, ego maniacal people I have ever met have been americans. does that mean that all americans are like that? also, you are basing your view on someone else's words? how many people have you met and talked to? how many of those have been martial arts instructors? have you been to every single martial arts school and talked to every guy who teaches and then made a note about how he is addressed and how he acts etc etc? as someone else has said, the thnigs you have posted just show how ignorant some people are. "a sifu has a position to defend.... "I am a Sifu, and as such I must remain aloof from my students, and I must not spar with them" that particular one bugs me. perhaps its an american theng (like i said before) but i have never met an instructor who was unwilling to cross hands with me. "you see, its all a big ego trip. And of course eventually that "sifu" becomes very insecure.... because he knows in his heart, since he has not been training and sparring, that some of his own students can probably work him over now.... which of course makes him even more insecure.... its all a vicious cycle. Usually the sifu becomes a bitter angry guy" that is called conjecture. the whole point of view is based on the notion that sifus don't train/spar with their students and hence are not able to beat their students. i can argue that the guys who don't use a title are the ones who are protecting themselves because if they lose, well, then they won't feel so ashamed. anyway, i'm going to be mean now and ask that you answer with your own words. answer with your own experiences. using other people's words like that is not that different from matt thornton's idea of the sifu. you don't have much of an argument. you use someone else's words to protect yourself. if those words are proved wrong then well, they aren't your words....

and despite all that i say, it still sounds like people misunderstand the context of the term of master in martial arts. is it that difficult? is it really that unbearable to call the guy who teaches you martial arts 'sifu/sensei' (i have never met anyone who asked to be called master....) not everyone calls my sifu by the title but i do. it is a choice i make because i have no ego about it. fi would say that it is you with the ego problem if you personally do not want to call your teacher sifu/sensei. whetehr or not he asks to be called by the title is almost another point entirely. if you are going to him to learn then you have deemed him suitable to teach and hence worthy of the title.

well that's kinda the point. we 'over-analyse' only in words because some people pick at the words we type and question things that would usually take 10 seconds to show. if you were to throw a punch at me i could do this or that or what-ever. i can then go to tell you that if you had been in a different stance my reation would've been different. if you had you foot in a different place i would've done something different. if you followed i would do this, that etc etc. i can go on forever, and analyse everything that you could ask. BUT if you asked me to show you, i could show you and make you see what i mean in maybe 2 minutes with very little talking. the over analysing is because a lot of people don't see that what i learn isn't a fixed thing. there is no 'i do this if you do that'. i don't block, the block is there. i don't pull if you step forward, your stepping forward makes me pull. in my style, and that is all i can comment on, everything i end up doing is caused by you. i can tell you how+why that is in words and it will take me bloody ages. or i could show you very quickly in person (whether or not it works is always a different matter...)

hmm, you'll probably lose the use of your legs before you turn stupid in kick-boxing or muay thai....

hmm, i think we write a lot because we spend so much time online trying to explain things to people that would normally take 30 seconds to show in a training hall.... then they equate that we can only talk. then they misunderstand what we typed originally. then they think that what we said=what we do. then they think that what we do don't work. so... we try to explain more to clarify. then even more misunderstandings occur....

well, if you're in the uk have a look for bob breen's places. he is a very, very, scary man...

derby? that's a bit far...

i'll tell you what's good for martial arts. SALSA!

hmm, but i would say that you don't use the title in the muay thai gym because of the nature of the training. in muay thai (as well as kick-boxing, boxing...), i would say that there is more of a mutual, level training between all people. skill is based on actual hands on experience and the more skilled guys who are teaching, teach by example so to speak. it's more like they don't teach, they show. the more traditional arts (and you all know how much i hate that term...) tend to be more teacher/student in terms of the relationship. in some cases it can even be much deeper than that (father/son). i've mentioned this a lot before but the term sifu or sensei DOES NOT mean master. i've said a lot on this already in other threads so i'll not bother here (someone find the links...). just so you know. when refering to my teacher to other students, i would call him sifu. when talking to him in context of the class, i would call him sifu. outside of the class i still call him sifu. don't ask why, it's a chinese thing.... equate it to calling someone doctor. when refering to him, you would call him doctor in the surgery you would call him doctor. outside of the surgery you could still call him doctor (although due to the much less formal social regards towards a doctor these days, he would probably prefere to be called by his name). (should point out that the chinese have a habit of calling a doctor by that title in every situation, in fact with most jobs with titles, the title is used...) whether inside or outside the surgery, he is a doctor. the same applies to a teacher be it of math, english, astro-physics or even the art of intercepting face.

except that they don't seem to realise that none of the modern generation of the original masters trust the chinese government anymore, especially the guys in hk and taiwan. it's quite strange. some of the wing chun guys were invited to the jing wu for some official government recognition do. now while the jing wu has a very respectable history, it has not a lot to do with wing chun and well, do the 1st gen yip man students (esp tsui sheung ting, leung shueng, etc )need to be recognised by the chinese government...? it all just seemed really false and well, pretentious.

gonna pick at terms here for a bit... there is no such thing as traditional wushu. no art was ever called, in itself, wushu. you never went to a school that teaches something called wushu (bear with me...). wushu was/is a term that describes fighting arts. when you went to a school, it would be a wushu school/quan but what they taught was not (directly)called wushu. instead the art had a name of its own be it wing chun, hung gar, tai chi etc etc. you can say (translating from chinese): i am learning wu. or the name of my style is (insert name). (name of style) is a one of the wu-shus of china. however, there exists today, wushu as a registered art which is the performance arts (more or less) that was devised by the chinese government for whatever reasons (too many to go into). so in closing. there is no style called traditional wushu.

my hardest workout is always done at home. i have a strict routine of forms, drills, wallbag then everything on the dummy. however, due to the harsh nature of puching the wallbag, my hands are pretty much useless for the next three/four days... But that just gives me more time to do more drills. maybe pick up the three. the sun is out again these days...

ahhh, wushu from china. explains a lot....

..and pretty much telegraphed to the extent that you might as well hang a sign around your neck saying, 'look out here i come'...