The Master
Bow Before Me.
Your opinion, she stinks.
I have traveled on these web boards for over a decade now, and long have the arguments raged over who is doing "it" right, and who is doing "it" wrong. Insults are slung, mud is thrown, and otherwise intelligent individuals behave like grade school kids at a food fight. A pity, for it is said the arts develop ones character. In fact, they simply bring it to the forefront. The honorable man shines more brightly, and the boorish cad, shows his true self. Many have these arguments been, and many have they been fought through the safety of the computer screen. This salvo will be another volley, certain to annoy many, but perhaps enlighten a few.
Today the subject is kenpo. Another time it might be presidential candidates, but for todays fire, it shall be the beast known as kenpo.
First question.
What is kenpo? This seemingly simple question has a dozen answers. Some will say "Parkers art", others will trace it back to Hawaii, others to Japan or even China. Some will say "Not what X does that is for sure." while others may enter the semantically realm. There is no one answer. There in lies the problem of the following questions.
Second Question.
Which kenpo is the right one? Someone who trains with Al Tracy might answer that his is right. A Larry Tatum student will point at his and say "his". Some will mention Ed Parker, often times with a reverence usually reserved for Elvis, the Beatles and occasionally God. Others might point at Cerio, or Mitose, or a hundred others. You are right, you are wrong, and you are both. Because the first question is unanswerable, the second becomes incomprehensible.
When one cannot find an answer, one is left with the educated guess, which is more often than not, merely an opinion with some facts behind it.
Take for example here this person known as Ed Parker. Ed Parker had an opinion. He called it kenpo. When he changed his opinion, he released a new version of his kenpo. Some people liked his opinion, to a greater or lesser amount, and added their own opinions to his. Today, you have dozens of important opinions on kenpo, and you call them by names like Planas and Trejo and Tatum and Mills and whomever.
Reality however, doesn't care about your opinions. It simply is. By simply ising, it forces itself upon you.
The human body can only move in so many ways. The combinations are finite. No opinion of the fighting arts however, covers them all. They cannot, for some combinations don't work for everyone. Some don't work at all. Some only work under certain circumstances and at rare occasions. Why?
Because the human body can only move in so many ways. It is limited. It has a finite number of possible movements. Because each of us is different, what our own bodies can do is but a mere subset of what a perfect body could do under optimum conditions. When are conditions ever optimum? So we build our own opinion from the foundations of anothers opinion, grafting in our own limitations and modifying the concepts and theories to perform within our own limitations and limited subset of abilities and capabilities.
In the end, we express our own opinion of kenpo. And regardless of whom we have based our foundation from, we will always fall short, because our subset is not the entirety. Only in a perfect world, which does not exist, could we not fall short in some way.
Therefore, our opinion, she stinks.
It may be a big stink or a small stink. In the end however, stink it still does.
So, worry less about who is right and how many degrees you point your toes at and who teaches 'true' and who teaches 'not true'. Instead, work at de-stinking your opinion and reaching to expand your subset to be closer to that unreachable perfection.
I have traveled on these web boards for over a decade now, and long have the arguments raged over who is doing "it" right, and who is doing "it" wrong. Insults are slung, mud is thrown, and otherwise intelligent individuals behave like grade school kids at a food fight. A pity, for it is said the arts develop ones character. In fact, they simply bring it to the forefront. The honorable man shines more brightly, and the boorish cad, shows his true self. Many have these arguments been, and many have they been fought through the safety of the computer screen. This salvo will be another volley, certain to annoy many, but perhaps enlighten a few.
Today the subject is kenpo. Another time it might be presidential candidates, but for todays fire, it shall be the beast known as kenpo.
First question.
What is kenpo? This seemingly simple question has a dozen answers. Some will say "Parkers art", others will trace it back to Hawaii, others to Japan or even China. Some will say "Not what X does that is for sure." while others may enter the semantically realm. There is no one answer. There in lies the problem of the following questions.
Second Question.
Which kenpo is the right one? Someone who trains with Al Tracy might answer that his is right. A Larry Tatum student will point at his and say "his". Some will mention Ed Parker, often times with a reverence usually reserved for Elvis, the Beatles and occasionally God. Others might point at Cerio, or Mitose, or a hundred others. You are right, you are wrong, and you are both. Because the first question is unanswerable, the second becomes incomprehensible.
When one cannot find an answer, one is left with the educated guess, which is more often than not, merely an opinion with some facts behind it.
Take for example here this person known as Ed Parker. Ed Parker had an opinion. He called it kenpo. When he changed his opinion, he released a new version of his kenpo. Some people liked his opinion, to a greater or lesser amount, and added their own opinions to his. Today, you have dozens of important opinions on kenpo, and you call them by names like Planas and Trejo and Tatum and Mills and whomever.
Reality however, doesn't care about your opinions. It simply is. By simply ising, it forces itself upon you.
The human body can only move in so many ways. The combinations are finite. No opinion of the fighting arts however, covers them all. They cannot, for some combinations don't work for everyone. Some don't work at all. Some only work under certain circumstances and at rare occasions. Why?
Because the human body can only move in so many ways. It is limited. It has a finite number of possible movements. Because each of us is different, what our own bodies can do is but a mere subset of what a perfect body could do under optimum conditions. When are conditions ever optimum? So we build our own opinion from the foundations of anothers opinion, grafting in our own limitations and modifying the concepts and theories to perform within our own limitations and limited subset of abilities and capabilities.
In the end, we express our own opinion of kenpo. And regardless of whom we have based our foundation from, we will always fall short, because our subset is not the entirety. Only in a perfect world, which does not exist, could we not fall short in some way.
Therefore, our opinion, she stinks.
It may be a big stink or a small stink. In the end however, stink it still does.
So, worry less about who is right and how many degrees you point your toes at and who teaches 'true' and who teaches 'not true'. Instead, work at de-stinking your opinion and reaching to expand your subset to be closer to that unreachable perfection.
