Question for Dan ranks or equivalent Re: what is

[ballen0351]

Well I explained why in my post. Specifically.

Do you think it is? Why ir why not?

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I was directing that question to the OP again but
To me no its an exercise program but I think if someone takes Tae Bo and wants to call it a marital art then its a martial art. If I hear someone talking about their art of Tea Bo I wouldn't care.
But using your definition Id say its loosely connected to combat learning and practicing punches and kicks knees etc. So Id say in my opinion by your definition it could go either way

 

[Steve]

I see what you're saying. I agree. I dint think it's a martial art and I also do t care whether someone else calls it one or not.


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[pgsmith]

Perhaps we should start a thread on why people insist on worrying about how others define things. Questions such as the OP posted have cropped up with amazing regularity beginning with the old Usenet days, and I've never really understood why so many people were willing to argue about it.

Just another one of those things I guess.

 

[TSDTexan]

As you saying they are not?

I haven't said anyone was "wrong" in their answer to the op, I have simply asked questions, in a line of inquiry. I am inclined to believe "tae (as in Tae Kwon Do) bo (as in boxing) could become more than calisthenics. At its present form it is not an art.

Lion dancing is dancing. A martial art can devolve into empty dancing. But the line between dancing and martial art is far thinner then the line between cardio kick boxing like Taebo and martial arts.

 

[ballen0351]

I haven't said anyone was "wrong" in their answer to the op, I have simply asked questions, in a line of inquiry. I am inclined to believe "tae (as in Tae Kwon Do) bo (as in boxing) could become more than calisthenics. At its present form it is not an art.

Lion dancing is dancing. A martial art can devolve into empty dancing. But the line between dancing and martial art is far thinner then the line between cardio kick boxing like Taebo and martial arts.

So whats a martial art to you?

 

[TSDTexan]

I will share an article excerpt from something I read in an
INTERVIEW WITH YUKIYOSHI TAKAMURA
Aikido Journal 117, Fall 1999


How did you come to reorganize the traditional curriculum of Shindo Yoshin-ryu?
That is a very complex question. Let me see if I can explain it clearly.

Any martial art is really a set of concepts and ideas. Physical techniques are important but not the definiting elements of a style.

I have heard some people say that this is not true, that they have secret techniques.

So what!
I bet another style has techniques that are similar to their "secret techniques."

I would guess that what they actually have is more correctly described as secret concepts. All jujutsu traditions do similar joint locks because the joints in all human beings operate in the same way.

There really are no new joint locks. It's how they perform the locks that differentiate the styles.

The concepts used in the application of the locks are what are important. These aspects are what make one tradition different from another. They are often the okuden.

When I came to America I discovered that many traditional techniques were simply not applicable to the realities facing my new students. Jujutsu techniques in their original form were not intended to address these modern situations.

When I first started teaching, students began to ask me how I would deal with a boxer, or with a karateka and so on.

At first I was surprised because I was not sure that I had the answers. I had to carefully examine this. I realized that the answers were right in front of me. I was busy focusing on jujutsu techniques when it was jujutsu concepts that were the solution.

Techniques did not matter because they were guided by concepts. New techniques could be devised to address new realities while embracing the time honored concepts that form the arts core.

This would not be abandoning the art. This would allow the art to maintain its effectiveness and relevance to a new generation and era.

What do teachers who embrace a more classical approach to the martial arts think about this? I would assume that they are critical of your position.

They are free to have their opinions. I am free to have mine. I am not really concerned with what other teachers think because my authority to teach does not come from them.

My authority to teach and to make the decisions I have made came from my teachers. I am most concerned with the welfare of my students and living up to the responsibilities that have been entrusted to me.

I am comfortable with the reality that my students may actually use the art they are learning. The same cannot be said about the students of most teachers that embrace a strictly classical approach.

Many classical martial traditions in Japan are now just pretty dancing. It is so sad. They have not adapted their techniques to address modern realities. They cling only to antiquated forms and, in this process, often neglect the concepts which form a particular traditions core.

Some people wish to preserve the arts exactly as they were in olden times. This is commendable, but usually folly. With very fews exceptions, no existing classical school reflects even a fraction of the arts technical heritage as practiced in times past.

It is impossible for any teacher to transmit 100% of an art's traditions, yet many classical schools believe that the student should do everything exactly like the teacher in order to preserve the art.

Without the addition of an instructor's own wisdom, experience and, most importantly, technical innovation, the art is but a hollow shell of what it once was in just several generations.

Without the consideration of modern realities to challenge an art's effectiveness, it becomes a museum piece whose only modern relevance is that of a historical curiosity.

Remember that the ryu as they existed in the Warring States era were constantly changing and adjusting to the realities they faced on the battlefield.

Only when this period ended did the innovation slow. Many of the classical schools as practised today are, at their best, reflections of the way that tradition operated in one short period of its existence.

They are not an accurate reflection of its technical existence over its whole history.

The risk of classical thinking has many historical examples which should cause one to pause. Katsuyori Takeda (1546-82, son of Shingen Takeda and daimyo of the Azuchi-Momoyama period) clung foolishly to outdated techniques of battlefield engagement even though he was aware that its effectiveness was seriously compromised.

New strategies involving a devastating technical innovation, the tanegashima (musket), were employed by his enemies. His samurai were cut to pieces in rotating volleys of musket fire by Nobunaga Oda's foot soldiers.

One of the most impressive armies in Japan's history was efficiently decimated because its leader was unable to part with a strategy that he knew was compromised by changing realities.

Romantically drawn into doing things as they had been done succesfully in the past, he was defeated by his classical mindset. This strategy of old, and Takeda's failure to adapt in the face of overwhelming evidence to change, cost him everything.

I will not allow a similar flaw in technique or mindset to compromise my students' potential safety. My grandfather often emphasized that my jujutsu must really work.

That it must become my own jujutsu. And that someday my students' jujutsu must become their own. That was his legacy to me and it should be my legacy to them as well as him.

 

[geezer]

Martial Arts: For some reason many people like to bring up the derivation of "martial" as evidence that martial arts have something to do with the arts of war. Regardless of the etymology, the overwhelming majority of martial arts have nothing at all to do with war-fighting.

...I should note that I am a descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist when it comes to definitions. Someone with a more prescriptivist bent may support a definition which will exclude a significant number of people practicing what they consider to be a martial art.

Well put Tony. I fall in to the same camp re being a "descriptivist." Others... perhaps Chris included, would fall on the other side of that dichotomy, which is why I sometimes disagree but seldom argue with him.

 

[Cirdan]

What is the point of distinctions? What is the point of fences?what the point of creation? What is the point of contrasting distinction? What is the point of boiling down and creating a distillation?

If you capture the essential nature of a thing, it opens doors.

A superficial grasp of any subject has never led to great art.

I am a man who has been plauged with the question of "Why" since childhood. It is part of my nature. I am not satisfied with accepting that it just is, because it is assumed. My desire to ask and know beyond generalities is because it is important to me. Why is important... It may not be to others, and I get that, but I am a proccess driven artist.

You are not looking for a "why" here, you are trying to build a needlessly complicated model for a term that is anything other than precise. You might as well try to decide if green is more pretty than purple, not only for you but to all people. Obsessing over simplified lables is a dead end and won`t lead you to any kind of "great art".

Boiling down and distilling is what I do, my day job is running a lab.

Sometimes I have to tell my customers that the test they request is useless because the result won`t mean anything.

 

[Cirdan]

Perhaps we should start a thread on why people insist on worrying about how others define things. Questions such as the OP posted have cropped up with amazing regularity beginning with the old Usenet days, and I've never really understood why so many people were willing to argue about it.

Just another one of those things I guess.

Yeah the number of threads that turn into linguistics wars over terms such as fighter, warrior, predator, martial art, sport, traditional, do, jitsu, black belt, expert, master...

Seems to me people are too worried about apperances and how they are perceived by others. It is like, "I have trained a lot. Am I an elite Martial Artist now? What does that mean? Where is my tribe that I can fight for and who are my enemies? Respect my athori-thaa!"

Training makes us a bit better at what we do, and that is enough. I recommend looking inwards, not outwards.

 

[ballen0351]

I will share an article excerpt from something I read in an
INTERVIEW WITH YUKIYOSHI TAKAMURA
Aikido Journal 117, Fall 1999


How did you come to reorganize the traditional curriculum of Shindo Yoshin-ryu?
That is a very complex question. Let me see if I can explain it clearly.

Any martial art is really a set of concepts and ideas. Physical techniques are important but not the definiting elements of a style.

I have heard some people say that this is not true, that they have secret techniques.

So what!
I bet another style has techniques that are similar to their "secret techniques."

I would guess that what they actually have is more correctly described as secret concepts. All jujutsu traditions do similar joint locks because the joints in all human beings operate in the same way.

There really are no new joint locks. It's how they perform the locks that differentiate the styles.

The concepts used in the application of the locks are what are important. These aspects are what make one tradition different from another. They are often the okuden.

When I came to America I discovered that many traditional techniques were simply not applicable to the realities facing my new students. Jujutsu techniques in their original form were not intended to address these modern situations.

When I first started teaching, students began to ask me how I would deal with a boxer, or with a karateka and so on.

At first I was surprised because I was not sure that I had the answers. I had to carefully examine this. I realized that the answers were right in front of me. I was busy focusing on jujutsu techniques when it was jujutsu concepts that were the solution.

Techniques did not matter because they were guided by concepts. New techniques could be devised to address new realities while embracing the time honored concepts that form the arts core.

This would not be abandoning the art. This would allow the art to maintain its effectiveness and relevance to a new generation and era.

What do teachers who embrace a more classical approach to the martial arts think about this? I would assume that they are critical of your position.

They are free to have their opinions. I am free to have mine. I am not really concerned with what other teachers think because my authority to teach does not come from them.

My authority to teach and to make the decisions I have made came from my teachers. I am most concerned with the welfare of my students and living up to the responsibilities that have been entrusted to me.

I am comfortable with the reality that my students may actually use the art they are learning. The same cannot be said about the students of most teachers that embrace a strictly classical approach.

Many classical martial traditions in Japan are now just pretty dancing. It is so sad. They have not adapted their techniques to address modern realities. They cling only to antiquated forms and, in this process, often neglect the concepts which form a particular traditions core.

Some people wish to preserve the arts exactly as they were in olden times. This is commendable, but usually folly. With very fews exceptions, no existing classical school reflects even a fraction of the arts technical heritage as practiced in times past.

It is impossible for any teacher to transmit 100% of an art's traditions, yet many classical schools believe that the student should do everything exactly like the teacher in order to preserve the art.

Without the addition of an instructor's own wisdom, experience and, most importantly, technical innovation, the art is but a hollow shell of what it once was in just several generations.

Without the consideration of modern realities to challenge an art's effectiveness, it becomes a museum piece whose only modern relevance is that of a historical curiosity.

Remember that the ryu as they existed in the Warring States era were constantly changing and adjusting to the realities they faced on the battlefield.

Only when this period ended did the innovation slow. Many of the classical schools as practised today are, at their best, reflections of the way that tradition operated in one short period of its existence.

They are not an accurate reflection of its technical existence over its whole history.

The risk of classical thinking has many historical examples which should cause one to pause. Katsuyori Takeda (1546-82, son of Shingen Takeda and daimyo of the Azuchi-Momoyama period) clung foolishly to outdated techniques of battlefield engagement even though he was aware that its effectiveness was seriously compromised.

New strategies involving a devastating technical innovation, the tanegashima (musket), were employed by his enemies. His samurai were cut to pieces in rotating volleys of musket fire by Nobunaga Oda's foot soldiers.

One of the most impressive armies in Japan's history was efficiently decimated because its leader was unable to part with a strategy that he knew was compromised by changing realities.

Romantically drawn into doing things as they had been done succesfully in the past, he was defeated by his classical mindset. This strategy of old, and Takeda's failure to adapt in the face of overwhelming evidence to change, cost him everything.

I will not allow a similar flaw in technique or mindset to compromise my students' potential safety. My grandfather often emphasized that my jujutsu must really work.

That it must become my own jujutsu. And that someday my students' jujutsu must become their own. That was his legacy to me and it should be my legacy to them as well as him.

Great those are his words. I asked for your opinion what do you think

 

[Tez3]

But the line between dancing and martial art is far thinner then the line between cardio kick boxing like Taebo and martial arts.

I doubt that. Ballet, tap, ballroom, street, cultural country dancing, disco dancing is quite removed from martial arts, the only similarity is that they are physical activities.
I don't understand this worrying at Taebo, it seems an innocuous activity which gets people off their bums and fitter, never a bad thing. A martial art? probably not but then who cares especially the Dan grades who are the only ones allowed on this thread apparently ......what's that all about anyway? Since when do we define who can post and who can't ? We don't always, in fact hardly ever, get the answers we may 'want' but we don't get snobby here and say only Dan grades can answer as if 'lower' grades can't have an opinion.

 

[TSDTexan]

Great those are his words. I asked for your opinion what do you think

You miss the forest for the tree in front of you.

It appears you dont care for an indirect answer. But that is what you were given.

He has already said what I wanted to answer you with.

Do you think I have to have a different opinion, or express the same content with different words?

Why should I have to rephrase and rewrite what already expresses my answer?

What stone tablet is that carved into?

Who told you quotation was not a valid way to answer a question?

Truths are true irrespective of written elements of style. Or who says them.

I answered you. Try and look at my answer again.

 

[TSDTexan]

You are not looking for a "why" here, you are trying to build a needlessly complicated model for a term that is anything other than precise. You might as well try to decide if green is more pretty than purple, not only for you but to all people. Obsessing over simplified lables is a dead end and won`t lead you to any kind of "great art".

Boiling down and distilling is what I do, my day job is running a lab.

Sometimes I have to tell my customers that the test they request is useless because the result won`t mean anything.

Hmm. Thank you for telling me what my intent was. And what I am building as well.

The reality is I am asking questions about what separates a martial art from what is not a martial art.

I am seeking objective answers.

The difference between green and purple with regard to how pretty something is.... Is entirely subjective.

Do you believe that there are no objective answers to be had?

Do you feel or think that there are only subjective answers to the question of what separates a martial art from what is not a martial art?

 

[Tez3]

The reality is I am asking questions about what separates a martial art from what is not a martial art.

Of course the obvious thing to do would be actually ask that question and to throw it open to all martial artists not just 'Dan' grades. Many experienced and wise martial artists don't grade or carry what some may think is a lowly grade, the truth is grade has nothing to do with actual knowledge. If the answers aren't what the OP likes then that I'm afraid is life, giving wordy and ultimately empty answers back to posters he doesn't feel make the grade he has set is just paying lip service to wanting a serious discussion.

 

[Zero]

But the line between dancing and martial art is far thinner then the line between cardio kick boxing like Taebo and martial arts.

Sorry but I'm with Tez on this one, I am struggling to understand how you would see dance [in general] as closer to MA than Taebo...?
The only time I had a concern with Taebo was not re Taebo itself, which is great for getting a sweat on, but when a mate of mine was doing it and thought he has somehow being equiped with fight skills/training. He really thought the loose fight moves were going to serve him in a fight. I was worried he was going to try and use it and get pasted, he could be a bit silly and a hot head sometimes and let people work him up while at concerts/gigs etc and would say "I'm going to blast that guy behind me with my elbows". "Cardio-combat" when taken for what it is meant to be is great but when certain people doing it let themselves go into la-la land, well...but that said, there are plenty of people doing MAs who are also completely deluding themselves as to what they think their art is equiping them with and what their capabilities are - plenty of those people about...

 

[ballen0351]

You miss the forest for the tree in front of you.

It appears you dont care for an indirect answer. But that is what you were given.

He has already said what I wanted to answer you with.

Do you think I have to have a different opinion, or express the same content with different words?

Why should I have to rephrase and rewrite what already expresses my answer?

What stone tablet is that carved into?

Who told you quotation was not a valid way to answer a question?

Truths are true irrespective of written elements of style. Or who says them.

I answered you. Try and look at my answer again.

This isn't a place of training, but a library of discourse. A place of conversation. Did you forget that?

By your own words this is a place of conversation. NOT a place to cut and paste other people's thoughts. So again I'll ask you what you think. I don't want a cut and paste of someone else's thought

 

[TSDTexan]

This isn't a place of training, but a library of discourse. A place of conversation. Did you forget that?

By your own words this is a place of conversation. NOT a place to cut and paste other people's thoughts. So again I'll ask you what you think. I don't want a cut and paste of someone else's thought

I am reminded of and by Tim " the tool man" Taylor, when he would go ask a direct question to his neighbor by the fence, and in the course of conversation, his neighbor from below his hat would offer a quotation, as an answer.

As for what you want. I will now offer the sage counsel of the rolling stones.....

"We dont always get what we want."


But the irony you present is you don't want cut and pasted content, while serving the same thing to others.

 

[Tez3]

by Tim " the tool man" Taylor,

Who is this person?

But the irony you present is you don't want cut and pasted content, while serving the same thing to others.

Ballen hasn't cut and paste anything on this thread so this is a patent nonsense. It seems to me that the OP is playing a game with us, asking questions and being deliberately obtuse with his own answers perhaps for amusement.

 

[ballen0351]

Who is this person?

It's a character from a TV show from like 15 years ago

Ballen hasn't cut and paste anything on this thread so this is a patent nonsense. It seems to me that the OP is playing a game with us, asking questions and being deliberately obtuse with his own answers perhaps for amusement.

Thus dude reminds me of that weirdo that was here a few weeks ago talking in rhymes.

 

[ballen0351]

I am reminded of and by Tim " the tool man" Taylor, when he would go ask a direct question to his neighbor by the fence, and in the course of conversation, his neighbor from below his hat would offer a quotation, as an answer.

As for what you want. I will now offer the sage counsel of the rolling stones.....

"We dont always get what we want."


But the irony you present is you don't want cut and pasted content, while serving the same thing to others.

So basically your here to post question when people give you their OWN honest thoughts you will tell them they are wrong but when asked your OWN thought on the topic your going to cut and paste or gave nonsense off topic answers. Got it I now know not to waist my time with your threads. Carry on with your delusions sir