I Don't Want To Be...

[sensei8]

I admire Bruce Lee and many other notable figures throughout the history of the martial arts, but, I'm not them and they're not me, as a matter of fact, their not "you" and "you're" not them!

"Fight Like..." is the usual tagline for a story about some martial artists way of fighting/grappling/etc. There's nothing wrong with these "How To" articles/stories/books at all. Anything and everything that can help/improve/etc of the skills/knowledge/etc and the like of the martial artist is important because absorbing what is useful and discarding what isn't is what it's all about.

Having said that and while I admire their abilities and the like, I don't want to be "like" anybody. No, I just want to fight MY WAY and my way alone and be myself.

Is that so bad? Is that so wrong?

[Ichi_Geki]

Its not bad or wrong. There is no possible way we can be like them. We can emulate them and try to achieve a small amount of likeliness to their forms and style but we will never become them. Take Toyama Seiko Sensei's Sanseryu, it is unnique to only him and no one else can emulate them.

Take Ryuko Tomoyose's Seisan, very light and audible, but no one else can do it like him.

Gushi Sensei's Sanchin and Seisan, not even his top student Makoto Fukumoto can emulate him fully.

[mr_obvious]

I agree. Probably most of us take bits and pieces of others styles, and incorporate into our own Frankenstein.

[bushido_man96]

There is nothing wrong with that at all, Bob. I think that more and more people should learn to be comfortable with who they are and what they are capable of, and grow from that, as opposed to trying to always emulate someone. I have been guilty of this myself.

I would add, though, that in trying to emulate someone in the beginning, makes for a good launching pad to finding out what one's strengths and weaknesses are, and building from there becomes more individual.

[sperki]

Bushido-man96 has a great point about emulating others. That's how most of us learn martial arts in the first place; "kick like this," "block like that." At some point though, especially in competition, you have to put all of the pieces together in whatever form works best for you. Of course, I'd like to be as fast as Bruce Lee and hit as hard as Mike Tyson!

[RichardZ]

Is emulatiing the same as self perfection? Anything can be imitated, but is it the exact same? I would think, these martial art pioneers are more of a motivational inspiration than a hard core learning method.

[Ichi_Geki]

I try to emulate Tohyama Sensei but I come up extremely short. I put them as my lifelong goal, but yet it will always be that far away because we can never be identical. To even think that we can is a waste of time.

[RichardZ]

We do want to be like these pioneers.

Because they had set forth determination and achieved

Edited December 3, 2009 by RichardZ

[sensei8]

I want to emulate my Soke and my Dai-Soke across the board...still, but I'm not them...I'm me. I'm ok with that.

[RichardZ]

Then, at some point, we do emulate the afore pioneers.....