My Dragon Style Will Crush Your Mantis Style

[KyungYet]

This post was originally published as an article in a dedicated KarateForums.com Articles section, which is no longer online. After the section was closed, this article was most to the most appropriate forum in our community.

I generally like martial arts, and I generally like martial artists. There's one thing we frequently do, however, that I dislike as a rule: put each other's styles down to new students and to one another.

After earning 1st Dan in my chosen style, I went from studio to studio, trying out their free lessons to get a feel for them. On my part, I was genuinely curious: I'd read about many well-known martial artists such as Bill "Superfoot" Wallace or Chuck Norris, who had begun their career in one art (judo, as it happens, in both cases!) but found their calling in another. Further, after fighting in a number of tournaments, I thought it would only be to my benefit to understand the way other martial artists thought and what their typical movements were like.

During that time, I learned the idiosyncratic differences between a number of arts - but one thing that each of them had in common was this: they all told me they were better than the others. A Lua instructor told me conspiratorially that, because his style hit multiple times per strike, his was better than "simple" styles like Shotokan. A Shotokan instructor pointed out that they didn't do fancy flying kicks like tae kwon do, because "pretty high kicks" were a waste of energy when you can knock someone out with a single punch. An aikido instructor informed me, with grave seriousness, that the striking arts all had it wrong: the only path to true victory lay in using an opponent's energy against them. Time and time again it happened. Sometimes I noticed a trend when I told instructors that I was already a black belt in another style. They would take special care to point out the many ways that their art did things better than mine.

I was a little dumbfounded, as well as disappointed. And I vowed I would never do this myself - a vow I have since rarely broken in nearly 30 years. I say "rarely" because I've caught myself saying derisive things and then instantly regretting them. Putting something down in order to draw a favorable contrast to something you value is human nature, and that's only one among a number of reasons I think instructors do this.

1. Instructors, especially in today's economy, are trying to increase their student base. Convincing newcomers that you are the best, that your studio is the best, and that, indeed - your WHOLE STYLE is the best, gives potential customers incentive to spend their money on your studio instead of someone else's. This is just basic marketing strategy.

2. Psychology and sociology have long examined the dynamic of creating favoritism within groups ("ingroups") and derogation towards those outside our group ("outgroups") in order to increase affiliation (see Tajfel, H. (1970); also see every high school, everywhere). One way to make students feel important, and increase cohesion between them, is to give them the feeling that they're members of a special group that is better than or in conflict with other groups. This particular phenomenon has been used to explain everything from why we follow social norms to basically all of racism and sexism - so it can certainly be a powerful methodology.

3. Psychologists have also posited a phenomenon called "cognitive dissonance," in which after having made a choice, a person feels the need to stay consistent with that choice lest they feel "dissonant" (a mental sort of discomfort or unease). Thus, a person who perhaps hesitantly buys a Prius may start singing the praises of their new vehicle to convince themselves as well as others of the wisdom of their choice (see Festinger, L. (1956)). The more time and energy one has invested in a particular choice (e.g., an intimate relationship or a martial arts style), the more powerful the need to avoid this dissonance.

4. With great power comes great responsibility. And a great ego. Some people simply think they're better as a matter of course; give a person the confidence that they can dominate others physically and then give them people who look up to them and want to emulate them, and some of those people just become... jerks. There is probably science behind this particular phenomenon as well - but this should also be public knowledge.

Setting aside #4, it may sound as though I've just outlined a number of effective methods for gaining and retaining students. Why shouldn't instructors utilize them?

Because martial arts shouldn't just be a business out to make money regardless of methodology.

Because martial arts shouldn't only raise up those that belong to one particular group, ignoring or actively slandering others.

Because martial artists shouldn't teach or act so as to validate their own life choices to themselves, regardless of the effects of this on their students.

Because martial arts has a philosophy, and it's generally something like: be respectful of others.

Friends who are parents will frequently ask me what martial art their child ought to take, and I always answer the same way: it doesn't matter. All martial arts are in their own ways effective, beautiful and character-building, if taught the right way. I tell these parents: pick your martial arts studio based upon the instructor. And one of the things I tell them to look out for is whether or not the instructor demands that their martial art is the best way and the only way.

Another problem is that if we take the argument that one style is "best" to its logical extreme, and we convince everyone we tell that all other arts but ours are easily deconstructed, it would mean the eventual eradication of all other martial arts styles. Can you imagine if everyone in the world acknowledged the superiority of Gracie jiu-jitsu and became practitioners to the exclusion of all else? I don't think even the Gracie's themselves would want that. Well, maybe. But you see my point: martial arts are as diverse as the people who created them are, and it's a boon to us all that this is the case.

I try to live by my own words, so when a student asks me if I'll be "mad" if they try Muay Thai or whether or not I think their friend's style is good, too, I always tell them that all styles have their strengths and weaknesses and that they're welcome to try any one they want (I do encourage them to get a black belt in our art first though, just to create a solid base, before bouncing around from style to style as I did). I'm always disappointed when I continue to run into this phenomenon today, but I think we can turn it around: the class right before mine at the university is t'ai chi ch'uan, and some students have asked me what I thought about it. "Isn't it just for old people?," they wondered. So I told them no, it was a really interesting style that develops excellent breathing and internal strength as well as some excellent self defense and weapons skills. But later, a t'ai chi student told me that when she had asked the instructor about my class, he had answered by saying that "that Tang Soo Do class after us... all they do is shout and hit things! They have no understanding of internal energy!" So what did I do? I returned to my old habit of taking a free lesson - I came early to his class one day and asked if I could join in, because I was interested in learning more about the great art of t'ai chi. Then I invited him to give a demonstration and a guest lesson to my students. And now we're quite collegial with one another.

Because that's what the martial arts should be about: mutual respect and cooperation.

[Patrick]

Thank you for the submission, KyungYet.

Patrick

[Wado Heretic]

Thank you for the article; it is interesting to see a citation of psychological works. Should be one to make us all stop and ponder what we may be doing unconsciously to our students.

[bushido_man96]

Great article, and I agree with most of your points. I think its important as an instructor to not stifle a student's curiousity about all things Martial Arts. I have noticed and written about the same kind of Martial Arts monogomy, and it is a real thing out there, and I can't stand it, either. You've got a great grasp of it here, and you do a great job of broaching the subject with your students. Keep up the good work!

[sensei8]

Great article, thank you for it!!

What gives us instructors the right to talk down to other MA styles to their students? NOTHING!! Imho, what's effective to one practitioner isn't always to another, and just because one doesn't agree with a styles methodology and/or ideology, doesn't mean that any given style isn't effective. I sincerely believe that the practitioner is what isn't effective for some reason(s) or not.

But, exactly does our berating of another style to a student tell that student about us? That we're possibly insure, or that we're not complete in our totality as a MAist!?!

I've heard all of my karate life from many karateka's how inferior TKD is! Well, I gave into that when I was young. Then, I met many TKD stylists on the open tournament floors and they gave me a what-for that I didn't like; effective. So much so, as a JBB, I enrolled into a TKD dojang in Burbank, CA under GM Young Ik Suh. Meeting him and training under him for 1 year, changed my opinion about TKD for the rest of my life.

We judge often inappropriately because we don't want to understand that which is different from what we sincerely believe in; compassion, imho, misdirected in that type of regard.

Imho!!

[bushido_man96]

Good words, Bob. I was thumbing through an old Black Belt Magazine of mine, and found a quote by Richard Ryan in the Full Contact collumn. He stated, "People make systems; systems don't make fighters." He went on to write, "Systems provide the pathway to skill, but systems don't fight. People do."

Those are some good points.

[sensei8]

Good words, Bob. I was thumbing through an old Black Belt Magazine of mine, and found a quote by Richard Ryan in the Full Contact collumn. He stated, "People make systems; systems don't make fighters." He went on to write, "Systems provide the pathway to skill, but systems don't fight. People do."

Those are some good points.

AWESOME points!!

[TheGrim123321]

Amazing Article