The Master
Bow Before Me.
Greetings and Solicitations, my students of the arts!
Over the years I have traveled some, and attended functions in many places. I have formulated an interesting conclusion that I will share shortly. Some background is in order however.
Most of the arts I have dabbled in over the years tend to be relaxed in structure. Most don't use belting structures, nor do they care about artificial score cards such as rank. Interactions with the practitioners of these arts tend to also follow a relaxed structure. You are on a first name basis with your teacher, some even have cute nicknames for each other. It is relaxed, and friendly, and everyone there can kill to greater or lesser degrees of sweat.
Contrast that with Kenpo.
You have masters, and senior masters, and professors and sensei this and sifu that and everyone sirs everyone to death. You sit by color belt rank, and you line up for food by time served, and no one starts to eat until the guy with the most stripes has burped, but first you must say grace. It looks so regimental, so "British". But, underneath all this forced respect, and artificial order, lies egomaniacs, despots, poor manners, and a serious lack of disrespect for anyone who doesn't kenpoo the way that youdoo.
Your art is probably the most documented, most published and most structured of any out there, yet you will wage holy war over who is in your upline. Guys will stand on high and proclaim how many decades they have in, as if that means something. Yet, they have all the temperament and maturity of a 17 year old school yard bully. They engage in childish games, and boorish behavior that in any cultured circle would find the offender expelled and his membership revoked. Yet, here they are sir and master and professor.
The people who formulated your art were geniuses. I am truly impressed by what I have read, and the recent lost writings of Ed Parker Sr. continue to show me a man who was ahead of his time and who passed too soon. But his students, and oh too many of those who you call senior and teacher and master and professor and a dozen other titles, you I am afraid fall far short of the mark.
I have read complaints from a few of this site's rejected souls elsewhere, then researched their posts. The common ground for them all, they are bullies who resent being told 'no'. Some of these bullies are still here, for now. I suspect soon they will join their kin in exile, and proclaim loudly on lesser read sites how "mistreated" they were. The reality of course is, they are common trash with a great number of stripes on their bag.
One can be a lady or gentleman and a martial artist both. The idea of personal enrichment is alive in the arts. It is alive in the art of kenpo as well, I can see it in the founders words. Why those who claim to have studied for decades have not managed to grow up however, is a mystery this Master cannot answer. Instead they lurk here, hiding cowardly behind a false mask of affabilty all the while seeking instead to forment discord and bring disruption upon us, playing the victim of others malice. In the common language, they are called trolls, though troll might be too kind for some, or too intelligent a term. They know who they are.
So, answer for yourselves. Will you be enriched by your art, strive to become more than you are, and be a gentleman? Or, will you stay or sink to the level of a common street thug, only with fancier dance steps to amuse your victims as you bully them for lunch money?
The choice my dear people is always yours.
For me, I remain, The Master.
Over the years I have traveled some, and attended functions in many places. I have formulated an interesting conclusion that I will share shortly. Some background is in order however.
Most of the arts I have dabbled in over the years tend to be relaxed in structure. Most don't use belting structures, nor do they care about artificial score cards such as rank. Interactions with the practitioners of these arts tend to also follow a relaxed structure. You are on a first name basis with your teacher, some even have cute nicknames for each other. It is relaxed, and friendly, and everyone there can kill to greater or lesser degrees of sweat.
Contrast that with Kenpo.
You have masters, and senior masters, and professors and sensei this and sifu that and everyone sirs everyone to death. You sit by color belt rank, and you line up for food by time served, and no one starts to eat until the guy with the most stripes has burped, but first you must say grace. It looks so regimental, so "British". But, underneath all this forced respect, and artificial order, lies egomaniacs, despots, poor manners, and a serious lack of disrespect for anyone who doesn't kenpoo the way that youdoo.
Your art is probably the most documented, most published and most structured of any out there, yet you will wage holy war over who is in your upline. Guys will stand on high and proclaim how many decades they have in, as if that means something. Yet, they have all the temperament and maturity of a 17 year old school yard bully. They engage in childish games, and boorish behavior that in any cultured circle would find the offender expelled and his membership revoked. Yet, here they are sir and master and professor.
The people who formulated your art were geniuses. I am truly impressed by what I have read, and the recent lost writings of Ed Parker Sr. continue to show me a man who was ahead of his time and who passed too soon. But his students, and oh too many of those who you call senior and teacher and master and professor and a dozen other titles, you I am afraid fall far short of the mark.
I have read complaints from a few of this site's rejected souls elsewhere, then researched their posts. The common ground for them all, they are bullies who resent being told 'no'. Some of these bullies are still here, for now. I suspect soon they will join their kin in exile, and proclaim loudly on lesser read sites how "mistreated" they were. The reality of course is, they are common trash with a great number of stripes on their bag.
One can be a lady or gentleman and a martial artist both. The idea of personal enrichment is alive in the arts. It is alive in the art of kenpo as well, I can see it in the founders words. Why those who claim to have studied for decades have not managed to grow up however, is a mystery this Master cannot answer. Instead they lurk here, hiding cowardly behind a false mask of affabilty all the while seeking instead to forment discord and bring disruption upon us, playing the victim of others malice. In the common language, they are called trolls, though troll might be too kind for some, or too intelligent a term. They know who they are.
So, answer for yourselves. Will you be enriched by your art, strive to become more than you are, and be a gentleman? Or, will you stay or sink to the level of a common street thug, only with fancier dance steps to amuse your victims as you bully them for lunch money?
The choice my dear people is always yours.
For me, I remain, The Master.
