Martial arts discussion thread

[Oldschool78]

Hi guys, sorry to jump in on the thread. Just wondering what art everyone does here? Gonna go back and read the whole thread... whew make take a while, but will be easier to read if i know which styles you guys train in

[GoktimusPrime]

Just wondering what art everyone does here?

I mostly do Seven Star Northern Praying Mantis Kung Fu. To my knowledge, we have members here who practise:
+ Liuhebafa Kung Fu
+ Taekwondo
+ Hapkido
+ Uechiryuu Okinawan Karate
+ Brazilian Juujutsu
...apologies if I've forgotten any.

I've intentionally not mentioned who does what style other than myself -- I'll leave it to those people to re-identify themselves or not if they want to.

Something else I'd like to discuss is the idea that Asians are inherently better at martial arts than non-Asians. Some of the best martial arts instructors I've come across have been non-Asians. Yet they sometimes suffer from many students who refuse to learn from them, simply because they're not Asians... including fellow Caucasians! I've spoken to some of these teachers and they say that often other white people come to their school, see a white guy teaching an Asian martial art, then quickly conclude that their teaching must be rubbish -- simply because the teacher is a white guy.

Now apart from the obvious stupidity of such a concept, what I also find laughable is that if a white person refuses to learn martial arts from a white teacher because they think that white people can't be as good at martial arts as Asians... then WHY, as a white person, even bother learning an Asian martial art in the first place?? According to their own logic, if they believe that white people can never truly master an Asian martial art -- then that would include themselves!

To make things worse, I have met several Asian martial arts instructors who are really not very good... but they have lots of students who just _flock_ to them simply because they're Asian! Especially if they speak really poor English too (I wish I were kidding). It's as if... these people want to live the "Karate Kid" dream and have their own Mister Miyagi. They're ideal image of a good martial artist is an old Asian man who speaks with a heavy Asian accent. You see a white guy with an Australian accent... RUN FOR THE HILLS PA KENT!



I decided to bring this up because in the past week I've been practising with a guy who seems to have this preconception that people who come from the country where a martial art originated from are naturally better than those who don't. i.e. He seems to believe that Japanese people are naturally more gifted at say Kendo, Chinese people are gifted at Kung Fu etc.

This whole attitude is about as ridiculous as saying that only the French can ever truly master tennis, since tennis originated from France. Yeah right!

Has anyone else ever witnessed or experienced discrimination in martial arts?

[5FDP]

To my knowledge, we have members here who practise:
+ Hapkido

I've intentionally not mentioned who does what style other than myself -- I'll leave it to those people to re-identify themselves or not if they want to.

That would be me.

Has anyone else ever witnessed or experienced discrimination in martial arts?

We had an asian student in our class many years ago and he was constantly ridiculed by people making Bruce Lee noises (you know the ones) whenever he was around.

It wasn't until after he left that I found all this out. I tried to encourage him to return but the damage was already done. Fortunately, the idiots who made life hard for him were also weeded out fairly quickly.

[GoktimusPrime]

We had an asian student in our class many years ago and he was constantly ridiculed by people making Bruce Lee noises (you know the ones) whenever he was around.

It wasn't until after he left that I found all this out. I tried to encourage him to return but the damage was already done. Fortunately, the idiots who made life hard for him were also weeded out fairly quickly.

That's sad, but I'm glad to hear the perpetrators aren't around. Which leads me another thing with martial arts... responsibility. Teaching someone martial arts is in effect giving them power (because you are empowering someone when you teach them to defend themselves). And as Spiderman's Uncle Ben always says, "With great power comes great responsibility." And when it comes to schools, I think teachers have a responsibility not to teach martial arts to irresponsible people. If you have an irresponsible student, then I think it's best to encourage them to leave.

For example we once had this one guy come to our school -- he was an obvious thug who wanted to learn martial arts to beat people up. My instructor made a conscious decision to ONLY teach him very basic stuff. He knew that he'd done other martial arts before, so he only taught him things that he already knew... i.e. he never learnt anything new at our school. He would come class after class, hoping to advance and learn new techniques, but he was always held back. Eventually he got fed up and just stopped coming to lessons. A lot of Kung Fu teachers also know Taiji (Tai Chi) - and some of them, if they encounter aggressive and potentially thuglike or otherwise irresponsible students, will exclusively teach them Taiji. That way they're still learning martial arts and self defence, but in an entirely passive and defensive way that cannot be used to beat people up.

One sad story: I once visited a Goujuu Karate Dojo and I came across this brown belt who had serious anger issues. After the class I spoke with the Sensei and told him that I was quite surprised that a student with such a bad attitude had already achieved brown belt and advised that he really should never be allowed to obtain a black belt. The Sensei said that while he he agreed with me in principle, this student just refuses to give up. Apparently he'd been trying to get a black belt in Karate for thirty years. This is despite the fact that he's extremely dedicated and persistent (the guy attends classes 3 times a week). His previous teachers must have tried to hold him back, but due to just incredible patience and perseverance, he's gone from school to school and worked himself up to brown belt and now at this school I'd visited, was qualified to go for black belt. The teacher said that there was technically nothing he could do at that point to deny him permission to sit for the black belt exam - and also because he attends so many classes he's a main source of income for his relatively small school (i.e. losing such a regular student would mean a significant loss of income for him).

So I was quite frustrated at seeing yet another thug - who should never have even graduated from white belt - on the verge of receiving a black belt, simply because he persisted for 3 decades and paid lots and lots of money. (-_-) IMO a responsible teacher should absolutely exercise discretion on who s/he should accept as students based on their psychological disposition.

So I applaud any martial arts teacher/school that - either discreetly or directly - refuses to teach martial arts to bullies/thugs (and good on your Hapkido school for weeding those guys out). The quality of your students is better than the quantity. But having said that, at the end of the day martial arts instructors also need to feed their families, and good intentions don't pay bills. But there are ways around that too - e.g. only teaching them bare basics or only teaching passive techniques. That way the teacher still gets their income but safe in the knowledge that they aren't creating more thugs.

[GoktimusPrime]

Hi guys, sorry to jump in on the thread. Just wondering what art everyone does here? Gonna go back and read the whole thread... whew make take a while, but will be easier to read if i know which styles you guys train in

I just remembered, there's a poll about what martial arts styles are practised here.

[GoktimusPrime]

Okay... the new "Karate Kid" movie is out -- and yeah yeah, I know that movie martial arts are never anything like real martial arts, but that's not what I wanna raise here.

The movie is called Karate Kid right... but from all the images and trailers I've seen, it appears to be set in China, and uses Kung Fu (or at least the theatrical version of it), not Karate.

Now I kept on thinking... surely there's more to this than meets the eye. Surely NOBODY in their right mind, in this day and age, would do something as blatantly stupid as making a movie called "The Karate Kid" and have it feature an entirely different martial art. Surely not.

But I just had this sinking feeling that I could be wrong, so my curiosity got the better of me today - and no, I didn't go pay to watch the movie - but I Googled it and came across this on Wikipedia:
"Unlike its 1984 counterpart of the same name, the 2010 remake, despite its title, does not feature karate, which is from Okinawa, but focuses on the main character learning kung fu in China. Allegations of cultural ignorance and potential racism have resulted from the film's title as the lack of distinction between Japanese and Chinese culture demonstrates deindividuation."

WWHHHHHAAAAAAATT?!? So my suspicions were true!?! If this is true, then I completely agree with the allegations of cultural ignorance and deindividuation - and yes, even potential racism - could you imagine if there were a movie set in the Australian outback with Aborigines performing a Maori Haka! Or if someone made a movie called "Transformers" and it just actually about GoBots!

The fact that the movie is set in China and that the Master (Jacky Chan's character) is probably Chinese doesn't bother me. After all, the original Karate Kid was set in the United States and the Master (Mr. Miyagi) was an American patriot (of Okinawan heritage). So I have no problem with the movie being set outside of Japan and lacking Japanese characters... fine. Karate, like most martial arts, is practised internationally - not only in Japan/Okinawa. But in a movie called The KARATE Kid, I would expect the kid to... ya know... use Karate! -- regardless of characters' ethnicity or the story's location.

So yeah... I'm not happy about this film coming out and deindividuationising (is that a word?) Karate and Kung Fu. It's condescending and insulting to both martial arts (and to their background cultures). Just as well I had no prior intention of seeing this film in the first place.

[5FDP]

You mean there are movies out there that do not accurately reflect conventional wisdom. I thought Hollywood was an honest industry. This changes everything

[SamLoi888]

Kung-Fu Kid just doesn't have the same ring to it.

[Oldschool78]

A lot of the old Kungfu movies in the 70s had billings with Karate on them. Was just the fad at the time i guess.

[Bartrim]

They are marketing it as a remake of a popular movie from the 80's. If they didn't then it wouldn't of attracted anywhere near the attention it got. I'm guessing they felt Joe Public really wouldn't be bothered by that fact.