Matt Stone
Master of Arts
In reading through some threads recently, here and on other forums, I find the comments some die-hard adherents to IMA make really interesting...
It seems that in the IMA community there are those that:
1) think Qi exists and can do magical things;
2) think Qi exists, but is simply "outdated, bogus science;"
3) think Qi is one thing, but are actually mistaking it for something else, most typically Jing;
4) think that you cannot really learn IMA unless you are Chinese (which is amazing, since the people most often making this comment aren't Chinese, which seems to invalidate their entire practice outright...);
5) think that a teacher cannot reallyteach IMA unless he/she is Chinese;
6) think that you cannot really learn IMA unless you learn in China;
7) think that their use of romanized Chinese makes them linguistic and cultural experts (and often they likely couldn't tell the difference between two Chinese characters if you held them up in front of their faces), and able to correct other folks' use of romanization;
and my absolute favorite,
8) that they can never really hope to learn how to do IMA anyway, ever, no matter who they study with, no matter how long they study, because the information is just so far beyond our mortal ken...
and the list could go on and on, but I think I've made my point for the folks that matter...
It makes me wonder why so many people even bother to study IMA in the first place, since it seems to be nothing more than a bed of controversial, allegedly false and incorrectly taught or understood styles of fighting... Wouldn't it be so much easier for these people to go and study something else easier for them to grasp and understand?
Just an observation. Feel free to flame away... I'm wearing my asbestos jammies, so no worries...
:flame: :samurai: :tank:
It seems that in the IMA community there are those that:
1) think Qi exists and can do magical things;
2) think Qi exists, but is simply "outdated, bogus science;"
3) think Qi is one thing, but are actually mistaking it for something else, most typically Jing;
4) think that you cannot really learn IMA unless you are Chinese (which is amazing, since the people most often making this comment aren't Chinese, which seems to invalidate their entire practice outright...);
5) think that a teacher cannot reallyteach IMA unless he/she is Chinese;
6) think that you cannot really learn IMA unless you learn in China;
7) think that their use of romanized Chinese makes them linguistic and cultural experts (and often they likely couldn't tell the difference between two Chinese characters if you held them up in front of their faces), and able to correct other folks' use of romanization;
and my absolute favorite,
8) that they can never really hope to learn how to do IMA anyway, ever, no matter who they study with, no matter how long they study, because the information is just so far beyond our mortal ken...
and the list could go on and on, but I think I've made my point for the folks that matter...
It makes me wonder why so many people even bother to study IMA in the first place, since it seems to be nothing more than a bed of controversial, allegedly false and incorrectly taught or understood styles of fighting... Wouldn't it be so much easier for these people to go and study something else easier for them to grasp and understand?
Just an observation. Feel free to flame away... I'm wearing my asbestos jammies, so no worries...
:flame: :samurai: :tank: