Shogun said:
A quicker way of phrasing the question is probably, If someone has a basic understanding of several martial arts, and he/she teaches those arts, is it necessary to have a name on that MA they are teaching?
It depends....
But I would put it like this. If someone studies ninjutsu, jujutsu and tai chi then they should
not call it ninjutsu, jujutsu or tai chi. What they created has things that is not found in tai chi, or jujutsu, etc. Thus they should come up with a new name for their new outlook on what they do and distance themselves from the base in terms of name.
You see this with what Ueshiba and Kano did with naming their arts instead of keeping their old names. You can see this with how Steve Hayes calls what he does Toshindo instead of ninjutsu.
I have a friend that did the whole JKD type of experience while living an...
interesting life. (Just like the Chinese curse...) He married a wonderfull woman who taught another art than what he had experience in. She brought him in to teach things he had learned from his experiences on the street and in other arts to fill in any blind spots she could not see. They eventually asked me to come up with a name for what they did. I gave them the title in Japanese for what they wanted. So was born the art of Dango Jiru. The guy is an imp and loves to let people know what the impressive sounding name actually means in Japanese.
Leftover Stew.
Yep. Just as people start to nod their heads with the exotic sounding name, he lets loose with the secret that they named their art after the creation you make when you throw everything you can find into a bowl and
hope it comes out edible. No plan from the start, just play it by ear as you go along and hope for the best. I wish I could see some of these people's faces as he shows them just how little seriousness he puts into titles and such. because of his skill and experiences, a lot of people come to him like they do a god that they only have to bow down to in order to get better. He probably stops a lot of that behavior right there.
And Dango Jiru does not have to fit any kind of mold that they don't want it to have. They can take things from aikido and leave out the parts they don't feel right about teaching. An aikido teacher may blanch at the fact they may not teach Ikkyo
if they called their art an aikido style. What kind of aikidoka does not know Ikkyo? But since it is not aikido, it is Dango Jiru, they don't have to worry about playing off of anyone else's sheet of music.
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