"Creating" your "own" art?

kidswarrior

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I have seen to many create before they knew.
If you know then go on to follow your own path then ok.
Yeah, that could be a problem. I guess it's all in the personal definition of 'know'. Probably a lot of ways we could parse that.
Either way each to their own.
That's my view, too. I'm not the world's policeman.
Hope that your holidays went well for you and yours.
Back atcha. :)
 

James Kovacich

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I think that most all of the recent posts here overlap in some way and I also think that it's the "minority" whose new systems seek praise or actually say they created something new. Commercialism addicts seeking what they feel they deserve, which they may or may not.

It is true that those who really "no," know that what they have, has always been. These new systems are actually doing what all systems have done all along, evolving with each generation of instructors. The exceptions are the "extremes" of evolution, some more, some less, some to the maximum extreme and thats it. The purist of systems either evolved or died. Those that beleive their systems are pure, either don't know the history of their "pure" system or truly beleive that their system is pure but that does not make it "pure."
 

kidswarrior

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These new systems are actually doing what all systems have done all along, evolving with each generation of instructors.

The purist of systems either evolved or died.
Good points, JK. I think that's what I meant to say in quoting Blake. Might be paraphrased as, I must evolve as my understanding grows, or be enslaved within the confines of that which someone else has shown me. An old friend used to say, you're either growing or dying. Or as you put it, we're either evolving or dying.
 
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TheArtofDave

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Realistically you cannot "create" your own system. Even if you were to take the time out to develop a system of self defense, or a martial art, you'd still be borrowing from other arts. Taking the best of what worked, and what didn't. Of course then the argument could come in that its not the specific art but the person's technique which was flawed. But no matter how much you perfect a technique it isn't going to be perfect. So understand that unless you want to be driven crazy by updating your system. Or having a board of mixed styles to determine what goes and what stays. You reorganize that system. Then be my guest. But to the op. It's not really your system, or a friend's system. It's not fair to really call it your system. Or whoever has it marketed as their own.

They have to admit that its a hybrid of various styles that will be rigiously updated as times change. Because you don't want to have an outdated system. Something that works, and will always work is the key. It can't be perfect, and will always have its flaws but those flaws can be minimal. Creating your own system though would take a hell of a lot of work though. Not to mention making sure that your name doesn't single you out as just another fraud. Taking it to seminars. Certification if any, or just as a self defense/fitness program only. A lot of hard work goes into adopting a series of cross training techniques.

So a reminder to those who have such systems or are thinking about it for the purpose of saying you have one. You will open it up to be tested criticized amensely, instructed on how to make it better, or told not to bother. There will always be a critic and nobody is going to support you one hundred percent all of the time. Better learn to be thick skinned in a hurry and have more than six months under your belt if its going to be your system.

If not happy cross training and we will not have to worry about such things.
 

wingchun100

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Why do people feel the need to "create" their own art?

I keep seeing people posting how they took a bit of this, and a bit of that and rolled it into a "unique and deadly effective art".

Why?

Can their mix-n-match approach using low-to-mid level techniques from a dozen arts they dabbled with really be "better" than a solid and serious study of 1 to 3 traditional arts?

The Japanese don't seem to have done that.
One doesn't see grappling in Iaido or spinning back kicks in Jui Jitsu.
Italian Fencing doesn't include takedowns and drop kicks.

So, why do all these "new" arts?

If I want to learn solid kicks I'd study Muay Thai, or TKD or Savate.
If I want solid punching, maybe boxing or a traditional karate.
Ground game? BJJ
Weapons? Stick is definately FMA, knife too. Sword, is fencing or Iaido-Battojutsu.

Why would I want to study someones puzzlebox with a few limited techniques, when I could study the original and get it all?

Sure it takes longer, but I get all the pieces the "mix n matcher" missed, didn't understand, wasn't able to do or flat out was too stupid to "get".

So, why do they do it?
Vanity? A desire to say "I made this (up)"? The ability to wear (and misuse) a fancy title in a language they usually hardly understand?

Often, these "innovators" quote Bruce Lee, and point to his "mix and matching" as somehow making their own "right". Difference was, Lee had a legitimate and solid traditional background, which combined with an above-average ability and being in great physical shape allowed him to do things most people cannot.

That's another point. Lee was in great shape.
Why do most of these "mix n matchers" look like they are better suited for a couch than a training floor?


Personally, I have no respect for these clowns.
Fat, arrogant and in too many cases, plain stupid people who can't hack it in a real school, who want to compensate for their own shortcomings by a fancy title, lots of wall candy, and parlor tricks by which they dupe the unsuspecting into thinking they are some kind of "Master" while they toss around foriegn words they don't know the real meaning of.
When they are in fact little more than "wanna-bes."

Shame on them. Shame on them all.

I think a lot of it has to do with what you said: they want to be considered the next Bruce Lee. But what they don't understand is: you have to KNOW the rules before you can break them.
 

drop bear

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Came across this today by Blake, and it seems to be just another way of saying what many here have said: I must create my own system or be enslaved by another man's. I'd probably say some reasoning and comparison in our context is necessary, but not so much that we become enslaved to another's orthodoxy, or to fear of someone else's comparisons.


quote-if-i-have-seen-further-than-others-it-is-by-standing-upon-the-shoulders-of-giants-isaac-newton-135288.jpg
 

drop bear

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How are people testing these new systems?

I mean if you have invented something and then toweled up a bunch of decent guys with it. Sure your system probably has merit.
 

hussaf

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I feel like this is a bit misunderstood. Sure, there are people out there who teach themselves martial arts through video and the occasional seminar...and those people are to be avoided. I feel like, most of the time, this is a person who has split from their parent organization due to political differences or that teacher's particular growth in that art is growing away from what their organization does. This can equally be good or bad..its just really depends. Downside is not belonging to a huge international organization...if that's important to prospective students. Some issues I've seen from people that go independent can be things done out of necessity. Maybe leaving a parent organization results in financial difficulties for that particular school...to survive that school starts testing the water with whatever's popular. One that bugs me, for example, is a dojo that teaches multiple traditional JMA...then all of sudden is advertising as having MMA classes, with maybe a few newly purchased MT kicking shields and a weekend afternoon 'no gi' class. There's no oversight body to be like "lolwhat?, no."

But then there's the crazies who delude themselves into just going way left of center and making up stuff based on poor fundamental background and a limited understanding. Also 'rank trading' is an annoying thing I've seen: basically guys who have gone independent, met each at like the sokeship council, and visit each other's dojos for seminars in their particular art....so a bagua guy goes to an independent karate school and those instructors give each other honorary black belts in each other's arts.
 

wingchun100

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In order to break the rules, you need to know them first. That is what most cross training nuts I meet don't understand. They go from one school to the next for one month, maybe two, then move on to see what is the "best" part of each style. When they feel they have learned it, they "create" their own.
 

wingchun100

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I just want to add this: it's because many people (not all but a lot) still want to be the next Bruce Lee. But what I liked about Bruce is that he wanted to bring people together. His view on martial arts was that styles separate people, just like religion. There was a lot more to what he was up to besides thinking wing chun was an incomplete system.
 

James Kovacich

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In order to break the rules, you need to know them first. That is what most cross training nuts I meet don't understand. They go from one school to the next for one month, maybe two, then move on to see what is the "best" part of each style. When they feel they have learned it, they "create" their own.

So it sounds like you know a lot of people who have created there own arts. I've never met anyone who created an art after 30-60 days exposure to their arts. Sounds like young inexperienced martial artists to me...in any case, anybody can create anything...it's meaningless outside their school unless it passes the test of time and their students continue to pass it on.

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drop bear

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So it sounds like you know a lot of people who have created there own arts. I've never met anyone who created an art after 30-60 days exposure to their arts. Sounds like young inexperienced martial artists to me...in any case, anybody can create anything...it's meaningless outside their school unless it passes the test of time and their students continue to pass it on.

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You can do it if it is competition based. Because it either works or it doesn't.

Otherwise I am not sure how it is validated.
 

wingchun100

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So it sounds like you know a lot of people who have created there own arts. I've never met anyone who created an art after 30-60 days exposure to their arts. Sounds like young inexperienced martial artists to me...in any case, anybody can create anything...it's meaningless outside their school unless it passes the test of time and their students continue to pass it on.

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No, I don't know a lot of people who have done it. I know a few who have TRIED. This was a long time ago, back when I was in college. I chalk it up to the arrogance of youth. They idolized Bruce Lee, read about jeet kune do, and thought, "I can do that." And...they couldn't.
 

hussaf

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My experience has been people that plateau in their training as they age, get some odd disease in their head, and are no longer amicable enough to work within their own organization and know ways to make their style "better," so they go independent and make their own art. Downward spiral from there.... rank trading with other "sokes," inflated credentials, etc.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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If you learn

- boxing from a boxer, and
- Judo from a Judoka,

Your boxing teacher doesn't know Judo, your Judo teacher doesn't know boxing, who is going to help you to integrate both systems. if you figure out a way to integrate both system, you are create a new art which can be called "Juboxing".
 

wingchun100

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My experience has been people that plateau in their training as they age, get some odd disease in their head, and are no longer amicable enough to work within their own organization and know ways to make their style "better," so they go independent and make their own art. Downward spiral from there.... rank trading with other "sokes," inflated credentials, etc.

Something similar happened with a couple senior students at my school. They didn't integrate other styles into wing chun, but they DID start teaching other people outside of school when they had not been awarded the rank of Sifu.
 

James Kovacich

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Something similar happened with a couple senior students at my school. They didn't integrate other styles into wing chun, but they DID start teaching other people outside of school when they had not been awarded the rank of Sifu.

If they left the school, there's nothing wrong with teaching before reaching instructor level as long as they don't falsely claim they were promoted to instructor. I taught as a brown belt, but not to open a school, it was about training people to be my training partners.

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wingchun100

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If they left the school, there's nothing wrong with teaching before reaching instructor level as long as they don't falsely claim they were promoted to instructor. I taught as a brown belt, but not to open a school, it was about training people to be my training partners.

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That's just it: they DID claim to have been bestowed the title of instructor.
 

Steve

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If you learn

- boxing from a boxer, and
- Judo from a Judoka,

Your boxing teacher doesn't know Judo, your Judo teacher doesn't know boxing, who is going to help you to integrate both systems. if you figure out a way to integrate both system, you are create a new art which can be called "Juboxing".
Already been done:

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