Poll: Tradition or Evolution?

[Shaderon]

Once more I get here too late and Exile has already said everything that was in my mind when I first read the question.... so yea.... what he said.....

Keeping tradition definitely has it's place, and a big one, after all, we are learning from the experts here, the people that developed these systems did so because they were putting together things that were proved to work for them and their predessesors, so who are we to throw them out the window and claim we know better? But saying that, all the time people are evolving, changing, getting more intelligent and finding new ways to do things... that defence that GrandMaster Whatsisface devised centuries ago was all well and good until Mister Oojamaphlip found that you could counter it by doing "this" about 60 years ago and so someone had to come up with a way to counter "that" and so on and so on.... of course it's going to evolve.... things that don't evolve have more chance of becoming extinct, but we shouldn't loose what we have, that would be plain silly, especially if we don't understand it.

The students when they are just beginning to understand their art, suddenly realise that the patterns/kata they are doing are drilling them for doing unconcious blocks or attacks, it'd be the same way, someone somewhere could one day realise that the thing they have learnt, although it seems useless would be a pretty fantastic defence against the thing that they encountered in a street fight yesterday.

Does that make sense? I've still not had my second cup of tea today

 

[CuongNhuka]

What I find intresting as I read this, is only one person has really made any attempt at all to say 100% one or the other, yet there are still people saying 100% evolution in the poll.
What I also find intresting (this is my major gripe with MMA) is that how do you know it doesn't work? Everything exists for a reason. And yet there are people who still beleive that traditionalism is a complete waste of time...

 

[Flying Crane]

This is a hard choice, I kind of think in some ways several of the answers could be best.

I think the arts do need to continue to change, as a living art. First off, they DO change simply in the act of being passed on from teacher to student. Nobody is a carbon copy of their instructor. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, talents, and such and this will dictate how they practice and execute their art. So on a personal level it changes, simply in the act of teaching it.

That being said, I think the student needs to strive to learn and understand, to the best extent possible, what is being passed down, in its original intent. But this can be difficult to do as social circumstances have changed and some of what was developed generations ago is no longer relevant, even to the point of being non-understandable without also being a scholar of history. Something might be embedded in an art, and it made sense 300 years ago because of social norms: types of clothing worn, weaponry carried, slick and muddy streets that were not paved over, etc. But today these things have changed, so whatever was originally built into the art to deal with these issues is no longer relevant.

But not just anybody should be in a hurry to make changes. Knowing when one is ready to do so is the difficult part. On one hand, I think we each have an individual responsibility to ourselves to make sure what we are doing is as relevant and useful as possible. So if something doesn't work for us, we need to change it, at least for ourselves.

But on the other hand, the newbie beginner who simply doesn't have the experience to make these decisions, has no business trying to make these changes. Knowing where the line lies, over which one must cross before being able to make a good judgement about this, is the tough part.

But I do not believe that everything needs to be kept status quo, simply because some famous guy in the past made it up. Nobody is perfect, and what works well for one person may not work so well for another. This can be a reason to change something, at least on a personal level.

Maybe the basic structure of an art should remain essentially unchanged as long as it remains relevant. But the individual needs to eventually make his own changes to make it best for himself...

Something to keep in mind: once upon a time, all that we now consider "traditional" martial arts, was cutting-edge during its heyday, and was created by forward thinkers who weren't afraid to make changes that they felt were necessary, in order to make their method the best it could be.

 

[Steel Tiger]

This is a hard choice, I kind of think in some ways several of the answers could be best.

I think the arts do need to continue to change, as a living art. First off, they DO change simply in the act of being passed on from teacher to student. Nobody is a carbon copy of their instructor. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, talents, and such and this will dictate how they practice and execute their art. So on a personal level it changes, simply in the act of teaching it.

Any art that is truly ossified will die out. There appears to be a natural evolution in most arts, in that slight changes occur as the art moves from teacher to student. For example, my teacher is about six inches shorter than I am but similar shape, my kicking is also better than his. As a result the version of the art I teach focuses on my strengths but does not exclude what I have been taught.

 

[IWishToLearn]

I'm of the opinion that as long as what you're doing is still valid for today's needs, you're fine. When it isn't, you evolve.

Do you believe the Martial Arts should be all or mostly preserved intact, the way they were handed down by previous masters?

100% Preserved?

75/25 Preservation/Evolution?

Or, do you believe Martial Arts are a living tradition, and so should be constantly evolving?

75/25 Evolution/Preservation?

100% Continuous Evolution?

 

[exile]

I'm of the opinion that as long as what you're doing is still valid for today's needs, you're fine. When it isn't, you evolve.

This gets in a nutshell the thrust of a lot of the preceding discussion. You conserve (to preserve information that you may derive new knowledge from)and you innovate (to adapt that knowledge to present conditions or to incorporate genuinely new discoveries). Two horses pulling the same carriage...

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

This gets in a nutshell the thrust of a lot of the preceding discussion. You conserve (to preserve information that you may derive new knowledge from)and you innovate (to adapt that knowledge to present conditions or to incorporate genuinely new discoveries). Two horses pulling the same carriage...

Basically you keep cross-referencing the two, seeing how the information you already have(tradition) relates to the new information you are getting(evolution).
In cases where tradition is lacking information that corresponds to the new data coming in, you look among for other sources of data that relate to the subject.
So basically- Do we have something that covers this situation? If yes, test it. If not, look for more data.

The biggest problem is ensuring that you don't try to to warp the new data to fit the old frame-work.
Instead the old frame-work should adapt to fit the new data.

 

[Shaderon]

Basically you keep cross-referencing the two, seeing how the information you already have(tradition) relates to the new information you are getting(evolution).
In cases where tradition is lacking information that corresponds to the new data coming in, you look among for other sources of data that relate to the subject.
So basically- Do we have something that covers this situation? If yes, test it. If not, look for more data.

The biggest problem is ensuring that you don't try to to warp the new data to fit the old frame-work.
Instead the old frame-work should adapt to fit the new data.

I was with you completely up until the last paragraph, can you explain your thinking more? Because I can see that two ways.

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

I was with you completely up until the last paragraph, can you explain your thinking more? Because I can see that two ways.

What I mean by the last paragraph is that you can't corrupt the new data to make it fit neater.
A good example of this is inserting things like guns or knives into unarmed training. We've all seen it, where the attacker makes the big huge lunging knife strike the freezes frame while he is daintily blocked and struck several times.
Whats happened here is that the new data is completely corrupted, and bears no resemblance to its original format- ie the realities of modern day knife attacks.
So its a case of making the system work WITH the new data, not just twisting the data so that the system doesn't need to change.

 

[Blindside]

Any art that is truly ossified will die out. There appears to be a natural evolution in most arts, in that slight changes occur as the art moves from teacher to student.

Or be preserved as a "fossil" of a previous time, valued for its historical value than its current martial worth.

 

[Shaderon]

What I mean by the last paragraph is that you can't corrupt the new data to make it fit neater.
A good example of this is inserting things like guns or knives into unarmed training. We've all seen it, where the attacker makes the big huge lunging knife strike the freezes frame while he is daintily blocked and struck several times.
Whats happened here is that the new data is completely corrupted, and bears no resemblance to its original format- ie the realities of modern day knife attacks.
So its a case of making the system work WITH the new data, not just twisting the data so that the system doesn't need to change.

Ok I understand now, I was thinking you might be saying you have to change the way the old martial art works to fit new techniques... but I see you mean mould the old ways to fit new problems. Yes I can see this and agree.

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

Ok I understand now, I was thinking you might be saying you have to change the way the old martial art works to fit new techniques... but I see you mean mould the old ways to fit new problems. Yes I can see this and agree.

Personally I think just randomly slapping techniques onto an art is one of the worst ways of "improving" an art there is, and is often very detrimental because of the false sense of security it gives.
It also misses the point completely about how combat works I fear.
The key element of all combat is positioning, the abilty to put yourself in the position to best achieve your objective.

Its like chess, knowing how to play the game isn't just about the final move, its about knowing how to get to that position in the first place.
Arts where techniques are just tacked on to them are like people studying Chess who only ever learn about check-mate.
Its trying to play the game without knowing how it works.

 

[Touch Of Death]

90% 10%

 

[kidswarrior]

Personally I think just randomly slapping techniques onto an art is one of the worst ways of "improving" an art there is, and is often very detrimental because of the false sense of security it gives.

Its like chess, knowing how to play the game isn't just about the final move, its about knowing how to get to that position in the first place.
Arts where techniques are just tacked on to them are like people studying Chess who only ever learn about check-mate.
Its trying to play the game without knowing how it works.

Like reacting without thought, instead of acting in line with our overall goals. Or as The Way of Kata stresses, tacking on techniques randomly is missing the need for a well developed strategy before trying to make tactical adjustments. The strategy is preplanned, and guides all later decisions. Tactics are the spur of the moment ways we accomplishment the strategic goals. Too many people--and whole MA schools--jump around from tactic to tactic without a clear overall set of combat beliefs. So without a clear strategy, how will we know if new tactics fit our system or not, are helpful or harmful to our abilities to realistically combat an aggressor?

 

[exile]

Like reacting without thought, instead of acting in line with our overall goals. Or as The Way of Kata stresses, tacking on techniques randomly is missing the need for a well developed strategy before trying to make tactical adjustments. The strategy is preplanned, and guides all later decisions. Tactics are the spur of the moment ways we accomplishment the strategic goals. Too many people--and whole MA schools--jump around from tactic to tactic without a clear overall set of combat beliefs. So without a clear strategy, how will we know if our tactics fit our system or not, are helpful or harmful to our abilities to realistically combat an aggressor?

Exactly right, kdswrrr—the problem of combining different `styles' (I wish there were a better name but can't think of one) is really the problem of reconciling often very different strategic approaches. Even amongst striking styles, say, there are significant differences. The foundational principles of unarmed combat using strikes as the primary weapon are the same throughout, but Wing Chun seems to apply them in quite a different way than Karate or TKD do...

The point of the old fable about the hedgehog and the fox, as I recall, is that the hedgehog usually does better with the one trick s/he knows than the fox does with a dozen or more, and the resulting confusion about which one to use when the crunch comes...

 

[Xue Sheng]

Not sure if this has been addressed or not in this post but what I feel is more important here is not so much the evolution of the martial art as the evolution of the martial artist.

If it has been addressed my apologies

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

Like reacting without thought, instead of acting in line with our overall goals. Or as The Way of Kata stresses, tacking on techniques randomly is missing the need for a well developed strategy before trying to make tactical adjustments. The strategy is preplanned, and guides all later decisions. Tactics are the spur of the moment ways we accomplishment the strategic goals. Too many people--and whole MA schools--jump around from tactic to tactic without a clear overall set of combat beliefs. So without a clear strategy, how will we know if new tactics fit our system or not, are helpful or harmful to our abilities to realistically combat an aggressor?

True. Before any basic tactics can be developed, an overall strategy must be formed. The way I see it, there are four primary strategies, relating to the four main areas in which unarmed combat can be a factor.

Competition- Putting yourself in position to either submit or knock out your opponent.
Self-defence- Putting yourself in a position to escape from danger.
Security - Putting yourself in a position to restrain an individual
Military- Putting yourself in a position to make use of a superior weapon.

Within each of these strategic objectives, there are numerous tactics that can be used to achieve them. So when developing or adding any tactics its important to analyse two main factors:
Does this help or hinder my strategic objective?
Do I have a back up plan?

To my mind its important not only to develop tactics for achieving your objective, but to also develops ones which deal with what happens when things go wrong.
Take ground-fighting in self-defence. Many people correctly state that you do not want to go to ground in a self defence situation (I refuse to use the phrase street fight).
However the fact that you do not want it to happen does not remove the possibilty of it happening, so its important to also develop tactics for preventing it or dealing with it when it does.

 

[kidswarrior]

True. Before any basic tactics can be developed, an overall strategy must be formed. The way I see it, there are four primary strategies, relating to the four main areas in which unarmed combat can be a factor.

Competition- Putting yourself in position to either submit or knock out your opponent.
Self-defence- Putting yourself in a position to escape from danger.
Security - Putting yourself in a position to restrain an individual
Military- Putting yourself in a position to make use of a superior weapon.

Within each of these strategic objectives, there are numerous tactics that can be used to achieve them. So when developing or adding any tactics its important to analyse two main factors:
Does this help or hinder my strategic objective?
Do I have a back up plan?

To my mind its important not only to develop tactics for achieving your objective, but to also develops ones which deal with what happens when things go wrong.
Take ground-fighting in self-defence. Many people correctly state that you do not want to go to ground in a self defence situation (I refuse to use the phrase street fight).
However the fact that you do not want it to happen does not remove the possibilty of it happening, so its important to also develop tactics for preventing it or dealing with it when it does.

Agreed. :ultracool

 

[kidswarrior]

Exactly right, kdswrrr—the problem of combining different `styles' (I wish there were a better name but can't think of one) is really the problem of reconciling often very different strategic approaches. Even amongst striking styles, say, there are significant differences. The foundational principles of unarmed combat using strikes as the primary weapon are the same throughout, but Wing Chun seems to apply them in quite a different way than Karate or TKD do...

The point of the old fable about the hedgehog and the fox, as I recall, is that the hedgehog usually does better with the one trick s/he knows than the fox does with a dozen or more, and the resulting confusion about which one to use when the crunch comes...

Good point, and analogy.

Originally Posted by Shotgun Buddha
True. Before any basic tactics can be developed, an overall strategy must be formed....

Within each of these strategic objectives, there are numerous tactics that can be used to achieve them. So when developing or adding any tactics its important to analyse two main factors:
Does this help or hinder my strategic objective?
Do I have a back up plan?

OK, so going back to the original question of which should have more weight in practicing a martial art, tradition or evolution, and using our strategic/tactical understanding. Do I want to stick with tradition as the basis for a strategy, or go with experience and practicality in building a strategy. Or, neither, or both?

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

OK, so going back to the original question of which should have more weight in practicing a martial art, tradition or evolution, and using our strategic/tactical understanding. Do I want to stick with tradition as the basis for a strategy, or go with experience and practicality in building a strategy. Or, neither, or both?

Thats entirely dependant on testing. First off, test how the traditional strategy handles the new situation. And I mean proper, extensive testing

• Does it handle it well?
• Does it need some improvement?
• Or are you doomed?

If it handles it well, obviously we do not have a problem.
If it handles it alright, but with some flaws, study up on the subject, and do some tweaking to suit it.
If you are doomed, its time to start looking for other methods of dealing with it.
In that case the obvious choice is to examine the methods used by people who deal with that situation regularly and effectively. Then examine how you can incoporate those methods with your own, and fit them into the strategic plan.

So basically, it depends entirely on the style and the problem.