Malice

[ap Oweyn38 1]

I was watching Hammer’s ’Tales from Beyond the Grave’…one of my favourites…only yesterday!

I just recently (and finally) watched "The Quatermass Xperiment." I'd managed to watch them out of order, having seen "Quatermass 2" a while back. That may not have been the first time I'd seen either one. The weird thing about leaving the UK at a young age is that I have a vague recollection of a lot of 70s British sci-fi, without much concrete assurance that I've seen any given title.

I think a disconnect has developed between the concept and the modern martial arts—-> combat sports. Dan grades have learned their art in clubs that are about monthly revenue, children’s classes and winning trophy’s in competitions. Those Dan grades have become teachers themselves and through no fault of their own, perpetuate this impotent version of the fighting arts; no teaching of psychological/spiritual ideas and the original lethal intent that was part of their art. It’’s like the disconnect between true meditation and modern ideas of ‘mindfulness’; they’re not the same thing.

I'm going to differ (predictably) on this one. If you're practicing something in which you actually knock people unconscious, force them to submit, or generally enforce your will on them, that doesn't seem impotent to me. Instead, they're taking their abstractions elsewhere.

In iaido, your abstraction is that you're not actually bashing each other with bokken (I presume). And you're substituting a wooden sword for a steel one. Likewise, in eskrima, the stick is often taken as a surrogate for the blade. And, even when we do bash each other with sticks, it's with some level of protection. (Even the famed Dog Brothers wear a fencing helmet at the very least.)

As I've said elsewhere here, none of us are actually doing "the thing." We're all doing an approximation of the thing. We're giving in to necessity and common sense somewhere. The vast majority of us here will never actually kill anyone, nor even come particularly close.

Every form of training has rules. Therefore, every form of training has a disconnect.

I think the psychological training does come in many combat arts. It doesn't look the way I'm used to, and it's not couched in those terms, but it's there. The spiritual ones are largely individual, versus institutionalised the way they might be in TMA.

She’s a member of a modern, interpretive denomination (Anglican). She doesn’t believe in Hell, the immaculate conception and has gathered fire wood on the sabbath!

Sacrilege. (Because I'm lazy rather than religious.)

But now she’s going to be ‘nunning it’ won’t her superiors bring it up? She needs to have a set of good arguments to put to them should they have issues.

That's an interesting question. Obviously, I don't have a concrete answer. But if you'll take a purely anecdotal one: One of my first eskrima teachers went on to become a Catholic priest. And a celebrity chef. (If I had a penny for every time... ) He talks a lot about his martial arts experiences, so I'm presuming that the church doesn't have a problem with it in that case.

That’s an excellent summary.

Thanks!

I’m sure you’ve read accounts of soldiers behaving abhorrently on the battlefield despite being perfectly normal in their home environs. People who just followed orders a bit too well were again, quite ordinary in civilian life, so ai think it’s perfectly possible.

Yup. Agreed.

They have found that by contorting you face into a smile actually makes you feel happier!

Again anecdotally, my experiences have born that out.

Well hopefully solve this issue for them here!

I'll share that hope.