To regulate, or not to regulate...

[italian_guy]

In Italy we have a sort of facultative regulation. I'll explain..

 

There is a federation called FILJKAM (for Italian federation of Wrestlig, Judo, Karate and martial arts namely Ju-Jitsu and maybe in the future aikido) it is a federation member of CONI which is a governmet agency regulating sports. This federation is mostly for sport competitions rules but certifies also exams and instructors. If you go on a school/dojo which adhere to FILJKAM you have a standard for exams (black belt exam which are held at state level for I-II-III dan or nationwide in Rome for IV dan onwards ) so you know that in order to get your belt you should perform at a certain level agreed by the master of the organization which are not burocrats but MA masters. Also FILJKAM organizes stages for instructor in order to update their teaching.Nobody force you or your school to adhere to this organization but if you adhere you have a certain standard that to my opinion is not a bad standard (but I maybe wrong since I do not have comparison) at least a karate BB by FILJKAM has a knoledge of the art which is the same throughout Italy. My Karate school is part of the FILJKAM while my kung-fu school is not. I do not think one is much better than the other in comparison but I do not think that a FILJKAM school can be mc-dojoish.

[delta1]

Oh, man!!! I go away for a week, and 53% of you vote for limmited regulation! I've failed, th' arts have gone to hades, and th' wurld is doomed! That's what I get for being such an easy goin', non-confrontational type of individual!

 

Time to go underground!

[DLopez]

Not trying to toot horns here, but Kuk Sool Won doesn't need government regulation because the only way to teach it is with permission from the Grandmaster, and each school must adhere to a syllubus, and teach nothing else but what's on the syllubus, or else the license can be revoked.

 

Does that prevent someone from teaching what they learned in Kuk Sool Won? No, but they cannot legally call what they teach Kuk Sool Won thanks to Copyright and Trademark laws.

 

Plus, it does give prospective students the confidence in knowing that if they want to learn Kuk Sool Won and go to a licensed Kuk Sool do jang, they will learn the same exact thing at the same rank, whether they are in Houston or in Great Britain.

 

I was surprised to find out that most all other martial arts are not like that themselves.

 

Besides, less government in your lives is only a good thing.

[Vito]

forget impractical, it would be impossible for more reasons than i feel like typing out.

[CloudDragon]

My thought on this: caveat emptor (sp?) or buyer beware, the government regulates enough already trying to protect the public from itself. If you can't figure out what is fluff from what is real, then you most likely won't have any serious input to a true self defense situation. This brings up another thought, if MA were regulated the instructor could be liable for any injuries sustained by a student in a self defense situation. Similar to the bartender that serves a person who kills someone in a DUI accident. The bartender will most likely not be able to tell if a patron has appropriate reaction time to avoid an accident. Likewise the instructor will not be able to tell if the student is able to defend himself in any self defense situation. Just keep this in mind: regulation is a tool for litigation. IOW it allows people to sue others for their own poor judgement.

[aefibird]

I disagree with any form of regulation or martial arts governing body, on the grounds that when politics and government are involved then it usually a bad thing and causes more harm than good.

 

Yes, it's be nice to have a common standard of 'black belt', but a governing body wouldn't weed out McDojo blackbelts, but only create them by lowering the standards so that more people could become dodgy black belts.

 

Plus, as CloudDragon said, regulation usually leads to litigation.

 

I bet that there's someone somewhere who has been sued for not promoting little Johnny to blackbelt. It was probably claimed that it was 'discriminatory' against the poor little mite to fail him, too...

 

Hmm, maybe DM's idea of 'kick dorr' would be a good thing after all?

[Drunken Monkey]

...not my idea.

 

well, the 'kick door' concept, power struggles aside, was basically self regulation.

 

you have school A and school B, both teach different styles and both are 'legit' schools.

 

both have visited each other and test each other.

 

both teachers have beaten the crap out of each other.

 

because of this 'discussion' both people understand what each style has to offer.

 

of course, behind closed doors there will still be the 'mine is better' being said but there is also going to be respect.

 

then a new school that teaches style A opens nearby.

 

teacher a visits school A2 to see who he his, where he came from (a chinese custom).

 

now,

 

IF school A2 is legit, there would be harm in students meeting and training at each establishment every now and then (friendly meeting of hands).

 

IF school A2 is bogus, then the meeting of students would/should show things as they are.

 

sometimes, if any dispute between styles (in terms of 'superiority', technique etc etc) arises, a challenge would be issued and the fight would be used to settle the martial art matter.

 

this is how things worked.

 

yes, the challenges were often thinly veiled attempts at proving one is better than the other but then again, you didn't hear many of the big famous schools being challenged that often...

 

the actual 'kick door' is actually a very serious situation.

 

'kick door' basically means 'to destroy the school.

 

to go down that route means to once and for all, finish the matter.

 

it is, retribution of the highest order in terms of martial arts schools.

 

say a bad thing without proof, lie, cheat, insult, teach badly and you have to fear the martial arts community coming to kick your door down.

 

i know what i have typed here are very simplistic and more or less an ideal case scenario

 

but the basic idea is easy to grasp

 

and

 

it doesn't give any opportunity for bad schools to last that long.

 

but then again, any system can be abused....

 

what's to stop the bad mcdojo from taking a band of 100 students to kick door at a legit school with 10 students?

[delta1]

Time to go underground!

 

All right! 52% against!

 

I feel like a groundhog- I can stick my head out and see if the improvement is a trend, or if I'm gonna have t' duck back down and take cover!

[delta1]

Hey, DM, thanks for the history lesson! Pretty interesting.

 

Not sure how that would work here, though. We'd probably make a lot of lawyers happy with that system. CD and aefi are probably right about that being the result of regulation as well. Maybe we could kick in a few law office doors as an alternative course of action?

 

 

Just a thought.

[aefibird]

Hmm, maybe DM's idea of 'kick dorr' would be a good thing after all?

...not my idea.

 

Well.... I didn't mean that it was your actual idea, rather than it was an idea of how to regulate the MA industry...

Maybe we could kick in a few law office doors as an alternative course of action?

 

I like that. I have issues with lawyers, epsecially over their astronomical prices.

 

Although, if anyone on here is a lawyer then you never read that...it wasn't my comment