martial arts colony?

CuongNhuka

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This is weird question, but here it comes. I was reading a book about Miyamoto Musashi, and it said something to the effect of he stayed at an artist colony. For those who haven't read about his histroy or The Book of Five Rings, he stresses the interconected-ness of all arts ("to learn the sword, study the guitar"). Now with these two facts in mind, I got thinking.

1. Has anyone who studied Martial Arts stayed in an artist colony, and used Martial Arts as the art they went there with. Keep in mind artist colonies are about people form differnit arts coming, staying, and practicing there arts together. So, there would be people who did painting, played intrusments, and metal smiths training in one place.

2. Is there such thing as a Martial Artist Colony? Now I'm not talking about like a live in dojo. But a place were people from differnit styles come together and bounce ideas, concepts and techniques off each other. One could easily say "Yah, your at it. It's called a forum". But I mean in person. It's one thing to explain it, but anouther to be taught it. Got me?

3. If such a thing existed, would you try to stay at it?
Have at it
 

exile

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Hi CN—I suspect Brian van Cise's Instinctive Response Training school is kind of what you're talking about. Not exactly, but as close as you're gonna get. You might contact him and ask him about it. From what I can tell from his website, it's kind of an institutionalized ongoing seminar drawing on all martial arts to extract their effective tools and techniques for realistic SD use, so that you can build on your base art...

There's a link to his site in his signature, if this sounds good to you...
 
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CuongNhuka

CuongNhuka

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Ahh, Exile. Why am I not surprised to see you? I keep finding you in the threads I start. Starting to think you might be stalking me, lol.
Anyways, the next real question becomes, if you had the oppertunity, would you go to such a place?
 

exile

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Ahh, Exile. Why am I not surprised to see you? I keep finding you in the threads I start. Starting to think you might be stalking me, lol.

Nah... stalking wouldn't ever be my game... I wouldn't have the patience for it! :D

Anyways, the next real question becomes, if you had the oppertunity, would you go to such a place?

I would, for sure... but with no well-formed expectations. Just as an experiment. If it worked out, great; but there's no guarantee—too many intangibles. So I'd just try to keep a totally open mind and see how it went.
 

Steel Tiger

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Details of such a place?

If agreeable, count me in! I think it would be great. Think of the evolution of the arts from such a mixing. It'd make a hell of an impact on the world of the M.A.'s!

It will either be as you say or the FBI will be wondering what caused all these people to kill each other.
 
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CuongNhuka

CuongNhuka

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As I thought Exile. That's good, one and half stalkers is enought for me. Dont ask, it's a long story.
Anyways, in refernce to what Hand Sword said. From what I understand artist colonies are meant so much to be a mixing, but to gain a deeper understanding of what your doing by gaining a differnit perspective. I imagine that if such a thing were real, it would be something like that.
Now let's see if we can find Brian Van Cise, his school seems to be based on this idea, so I would like his imput!
 

Steel Tiger

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A colony like this is actually very intriguing. When I was at university, the gongfu club there attracted people from quite a few different style backgrounds and it was interesting to see and hear the different ways people approached things. But, that being my teachers school, they were there to learn what he was teaching so it wasn't much like an artist's colony.

A place where one could get many different perspectives on the martial arts would be very interesting. One of the great advantages of an art's colony seems to be the variety of very different artistic media. I guess in a martial arts colony the emphasis might be slightly different as there would be a similarity between the various inhabitants.
 

Carol

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Thats actually an idea that I'm toying with. I've been exploring the idea of putting together a club with teachers that have an interest in teaching (and not running the busienss)...where I manage the back office/organizational work.

I've taken the idea and expanded it one more step and explored the idea of building a community, starting with mortgaging a 2-3 family home, using the basement as the beginning of the club. I'd live in one unit and and offering the teacher(s) a discount on their rent of the unit in exchange for regularly teaching for the club, actively contributing to the maintenance and rehab of the property and believing in the idea of building the community in to something more than just another set of apartments.

There are seemingly countless variables and "what if" scenarios that need to be addressed before going forward..but the idea is so crazy it just might work :lol:
 

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Here in California I try to go to different martial art demonstrations and talk with the performers. A MA community sounds pretty cool. I'll defiantely would like to take time off and visit the community (like a MA retreat). Now if there was a Benihana chef that was there as well practicing MA...that would be sweet.
 

Brian R. VanCise

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A community of martial artists getting together to train and expand their knowledge. Well we just had a gathering of the tribes here in Michigan. Unfortunately I could not go but they had five or six instructors including Brian "Buzz" Smith, Bobby Tabomina, Chuck Pippin, Mustaq and more. This was over four day's as well. There actually have been lot's of seminars formatted in this way and they are generally pretty successful. In IRT we bring alot of different instructors in to enjoy their approach to martial science. This way you are always being exposed to new ideas or slight variations on movement. This can keep you from stagnating in your training and give you a much needed spark to keep going.

So would a live in colony/community of martial artists work? Probably it would be a great idea. Would I go and live there? No, because I have a family to take care of. Yet I might drop in for a weekend.
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However for younger single martial artists (less attachments) it would probably be a great experience to live in and interact with other martial artists.
 
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CuongNhuka

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I'm getting a lot more responses then I thought I would. So, were to start...

Steel Tiger - haha. If someone were to go to such a place in the first place, they would have to be pretty open minded, and I doubt (doubt, anything is possible) they would do that. And you make a good point about why someone would be intrested in doing this in the first place.

Carol - That would be the take off point of such an idea. And since you have already toyed with the idea, what, may I ask, have you come up with in the way of problems that need to be dealt with? Atleast that may not seem like obvious problems.

Hawke - That would be the basic idea, in many ways

Brain - You probably read the earlier posts, and now know what I meant in my private message, assuming you read it. Now with what you yourself said and Exiles comment, would you say that your school is like this? And like with Carol, what are some of the problems you have encounted in doing this?

My next thought would be floor plan, for lack of a better term. If you were to establish such a place, and had (lets say) one million dollars to do this, what do you think you would need? You would obviousy need apartments and a training hall, but what else? Would you need to build multiple training halls if you had a large number of geusts? Would you include training equipment from differnit styles? Such as a Wing Chun Wooden Dummie, and chashi (they're weighted bars held during Kata). How would you set it up? Would it be like a College Gym, or the Shaolin Temple?
 

qi-tah

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This is weird question, but here it comes. I was reading a book about Miyamoto Musashi, and it said something to the effect of he stayed at an artist colony. For those who haven't read about his histroy or The Book of Five Rings, he stresses the interconected-ness of all arts ("to learn the sword, study the guitar"). Now with these two facts in mind, I got thinking.

1. Has anyone who studied Martial Arts stayed in an artist colony, and used Martial Arts as the art they went there with. Keep in mind artist colonies are about people form differnit arts coming, staying, and practicing there arts together. So, there would be people who did painting, played intrusments, and metal smiths training in one place.

Unfortunately not :-( But the town where i live is kind of like one huge artist's colony, martial arts included. I've had some very interesting exchanges with other martial artists here over a number of years - CMA, Aikido, Ninjutsu, archery. Only problem is that we are quite spread out and disconnected from each other... so it's not really the melting pot you are talking about. Finding something as stable as a training partner is not the easiest.
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Actually, i find artists of all stripes to often be introspective, reserved types - they will get together for a party and a gab (exchange of ideas?), but when it's about work they scuttle off to thier studios to do the hard slog alone.

2. Is there such thing as a Martial Artist Colony? Now I'm not talking about like a live in dojo. But a place were people from differnit styles come together and bounce ideas, concepts and techniques off each other. One could easily say "Yah, your at it. It's called a forum". But I mean in person. It's one thing to explain it, but anouther to be taught it. Got me?

If you are thinking about a live in situation in a single building, then this might be the closest thing in our area: http://www.jamessumarac.com/home.html
Yeah, i know it's mainly a teaching/retreat facility, but it has possibilities for camps and conventions etc. I've visited the place but never stayed - too expensive for the likes of me!

3. If such a thing existed, would you try to stay at it?
Have at it

If it was a collective thing and the rent wasn't too high, i'd love something to stay at a MA colony! :asian:
 
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CuongNhuka

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Cool, gonna have to save that site to my favs... saved!
 

Carol

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Carol - That would be the take off point of such an idea. And since you have already toyed with the idea, what, may I ask, have you come up with in the way of problems that need to be dealt with? Atleast that may not seem like obvious problems.


Brain - You probably read the earlier posts, and now know what I meant in my private message, assuming you read it. Now with what you yourself said and Exiles comment, would you say that your school is like this? And like with Carol, what are some of the problems you have encounted in doing this?

Biggest challenge is that there are so many different contingencies to the situation. Its a huge human dynamic...including how they come on board, such as whether they join as a renter of an apartment, investor in a cooperative, or owner of condo. All situations have different advantages and disadvantages and there is so much to be addressed that is contingent on how the project gets started.
 
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CuongNhuka

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Yah, thats about what I figured.
 

Hawke

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hhhmmmm......

A two story building where the studio is on the bottom floor and people live on the second floor.

The building is near woods (beach property would be more expensive) for outdoor training (bow, axes, throwing knives, etc). Also dig a few holes for some makiwara (wooden post surrounded with rope)

Equipment can get expensive, but maybe improvise as much as possible.

I had a friend stay at a Buddhist retreat. She would help maintain the place in return for food and shelter.

Carol brought a good point about logistics. Getting the funds for this may be a mountain of a climb.
 
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CuongNhuka

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Thats why I said if you had one million dollars. Although I dont know too many people who train with bows... And we could cut down on costs by making alot of it from the trees in the wood. Makawara, wooden dummies, so on.
And doing chores to cut down on costs would be a good idea.
 

DavidCC

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http://www.ymaa-retreatcenter.org/en/retreatcenter

Semi-isolated from the distractions of modern society in a remote mountain area in Northern CA, 15 students will live and train with Dr. Yang in an unprecedented 10-year training program. The extensive curriculum includes Chinese martial arts and weapons, English and Chinese literature, writing and publishing, Chinese cooking and culture, horseback riding, archery, meditation, and the healing arts. Graduating students will be conferred the title of Master of Traditional Chinese Martial Arts.
 
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CuongNhuka

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Sweet, but not really what I meant. Thanks for that though.
 

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