Regulating Martial Arts Instruction

[The Master]

jks9199, the confusion may lie in that this thread was moved from the TKD message board over to the general message board. However, it was spurred from a completely different thread which was not about the subject of this particular thread. I was asked to start a new thread on the subject...and I did...and then it got moved by the 'administrative team' I believe.

Well, people do tend to like things catagorized. I mean, imagine starting thread on kicks that shortly morphed into tomato plant staking techniques. Makes for a useless tread, and too much useless clutter. I for one think the staff here does a good job on keeping things on topic.

As to the name change. Apparently a few moderators feeling that my post were not to their liking moved rather quickly to have my account suspended before I could even respond to some of their 'snipes'. I was unable to even access the PM's sent to me by some. I next found I was banned entirely before I could even get a response from the site admin. Thus, I was left with having to re-register just so I could talk to the site admin about the delimna. I also did make a couple of post during that time which some of the moderators took exception to and moved to ban that account as well. The site administrator finally contacted me directly (I was totally unaware he lived where the blizzard hit and was not getting his messages) and he intervened to correct the problem. Wah Lah! The Emperor of Kentukki is once again reinstated, albeit, now I have my private info public so some of the grousing will end. It never dawned on me to consider that the majority of posters on this site are not familiar with Korean Martial arts nor Tang Soo Do in particular. Among the TSD community, I'm am known....and known as both midnight503 and as the infamous 'Emperor of Kentukki'. While other posters on MT did know who I was and while I did occasionally sign my real name to posts...it wasn't something at was offered on every post and now is. I believe this will make some posters to MT happy....other I'm sure it won't.

Having read through much of this board prior to registering, and the KMA sections having been part of that, one can get the informed opinion that KMAers tend to believe that posted rules do not apply to them. Reading much of those other threads, one is left to wonder if it is a taught part of the art, or if the arts simply attract lower class types than the more enlightened JMA and CMA schools. This one however is left to wonder why you were even let back in, since multiple accounts are a rules violation with a blanket ban the listed punishment.

That is the real delimna with moderator boards. On the one hand they prevent a large number of just flamboyant posts. The cost is at the price of censorship. Some board operate with out moderators even if it means having to put up with or even overlook the occasional post or poster that makes the blood boil. Much as the criticism was directed at my suggestion of 'regulation of the martial arts'....MT occasionally suffers from the pitfalls of power abuse many of you voiced concerns about. Simply being a moderator will not remove bias. In fact, I discovered that there are posters on MT that aren't even martial artists that have moderator status.

You want anything goes, try USENET. No censorship there, just survival of the foulest mouth. As to the non-martial artists as mod bit, who pray tell? Last I knew the staff here was primariy martial arts instructors, a few school owners, and several senior students of the arts. Wasn't aware there were any non-MAers. In fact, the high number of instructors and school owners on board here was one of the reasons I signed up, compared to most MA boards comprised of a couple high belts, and a bunch of newbs.

 

[Hand Sword]

I believe, with all do respect, that this thread has run it's course.

Moderators????

 

[Carol]

As to the non-martial artists as mod bit, who pray tell? Last I knew the staff here was primariy martial arts instructors, a few school owners, and several senior students of the arts. Wasn't aware there were any non-MAers. In fact, the high number of instructors and school owners on board here was one of the reasons I signed up, compared to most MA boards comprised of a couple high belts, and a bunch of newbs.

I'd also like to know that...esp. after since I've personally been been hit hard and knocked to the mat by several of the mods here.

 

[Jonathan Randall]

I'd also like to know that...esp. after since I've personally been been hit hard and knocked to the mat by several of the mods here.

HeHe.

Actually, to my knowledge, I am the ONLY Moderator who is not currently either formally training or teaching Martial Arts. Shame on me! I guess 20+ years in the arts has left me unqualified to frequent an MA board? BTW, Moderators and Mentors are selected, IIRC, as much (or more?) for their ability to, uh, follow rules? and post productively, coherently AND politely as they are on their "rank". Inappropriate comments on another poster's wife won't get you a Mod. position here regardless of your formal credentials, I believe.

 

[Carol]

HeHe.

Actually, to my knowledge, I am the ONLY Moderator who is not currently either formally training or teaching Martial Arts. Shame on me! I guess 20+ years in the arts has left me unqualified to frequent an MA board? BTW, Moderators and Mentors are selected, IIRC, as much (or more?) for their ability to, uh, follow rules? and post productively, coherently AND politely as they are on their "rank". Inappropriate comments on another poster's wife won't get you a Mod. position here regardless of your formal credentials, I believe.

Boxing is a Martial Art, Jonathan, and with your background, you are still training even if you don't have an active coach.

You are very inspiring to me too with my training and you have taught me a lot. Perhaps that doesn't count as formal training or teaching but it's still made a big difference to me :asian:

 

[Jonathan Randall]

Boxing is a Martial Art, Jonathan, and with your background, you are still training even if you don't have an active coach.

You are very inspiring to me too with my training and you have taught me a lot. Perhaps that doesn't count as formal training or teaching but it's still made a big difference to me :asian:

So true, thanks, but I'm not sparring anymore (car accident in 2002). I do workout but painting gets most of my energies.

 

[Don Roley]

I could go on...but the point is thus: THIS WAS AN INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE.

I don't think so. You seem to use that excuse, or that you are merely playing devil's advocate. But you seem very involved in the issue. So much so that you would not wait for your suspension to conclude and signed up under a new name against the rules.

I think that by starting this thread, you have gotten the idea that you can make your case more acceptable if you present it as a need for background checks and CPR training for instructors. As I pointed out, local goverments can pass that regulation for all sports instructors in their area without anyone from martial arts getting involved in politics. I do not want people that want to regulate quality in martial arts telling others what they can and can't say/do but I would want my daughter to train in a ballet studio where the teachers have been checked to see if they are on a sexual predator list.

And the shots you keep taking at me does not convince me that you are just in this for an intellectual exercise. Your trying to make it sound like Brain was apologizing for me, you shot at my teacher, and your various comments like the one about my wife seem to show that you are the one that is engaging in personal attacks. Oh, and FYI Masaaki Hatsumi worked full time as a seikotsuin until he reached retirement age andcollected a pension. There are not many people in their 70s with a day job so trying to pass him off as someone who makes his living off of teahcing budo just does not work.

But that is a case I would like to point out. There are some great people who have taught and made enough money to live off of, but they are few and far between. Most of them became great and only then went full time. But when you deal with full time instructors, you are mainly talking more about the Fred Villaris than the Ed Parkers. I do not think that Ed Parker should be mentioned in the same sentance as Villari, nor do I think that he would have been interested in any art or school that was not using his name.

But Villari would. As a full time instructor that isvery keen on marketing his product, I am sure he would be eager to set up a board to judge and regulate quality. Of course, he would be on the board. The vast number of his students would get him the pull to manage it as well. As a member of the board that judges quality, he would have a lot more name recognition.

And that is what I see behind most of these calls for regulating quality. Not concern for students- marketing.

Most of the people that start their own art or who have tried to make it as a proffesional teacher do not meet my standards of competency. So when they talk about regulating martial arts, I can only say to start with themselves. But I would never make them say or do anything. Because I do not want a system where people can do that. Not for any great love of the guys like Villari, but because I know that they are the ones that will eventually be put in a position to tell me what to do.

(Just a side note. I can understand if you don't want to sign nasty negative reputation comments. But you should know that you can't affect anyone's rating unless you yourself have postive karma. And you are far from that being the case.)

 

[MJS]

1)jks9199, the confusion may lie in that this thread was moved from the TKD message board over to the general message board. However, it was spurred from a completely different thread which was not about the subject of this particular thread. I was asked to start a new thread on the subject...and I did...and then it got moved by the 'administrative team' I believe.

2)As to the name change. Apparently a few moderators feeling that my post were not to their liking moved rather quickly to have my account suspended before I could even respond to some of their 'snipes'. I was unable to even access the PM's sent to me by some. I next found I was banned entirely before I could even get a response from the site admin. Thus, I was left with having to re-register just so I could talk to the site admin about the delimna. I also did make a couple of post during that time which some of the moderators took exception to and moved to ban that account as well. The site administrator finally contacted me directly (I was totally unaware he lived where the blizzard hit and was not getting his messages) and he intervened to correct the problem. Wah Lah! The Emperor of Kentukki is once again reinstated, albeit, now I have my private info public so some of the grousing will end. It never dawned on me to consider that the majority of posters on this site are not familiar with Korean Martial arts nor Tang Soo Do in particular. Among the TSD community, I'm am known....and known as both midnight503 and as the infamous 'Emperor of Kentukki'. While other posters on MT did know who I was and while I did occasionally sign my real name to posts...it wasn't something at was offered on every post and now is. I believe this will make some posters to MT happy....other I'm sure it won't.

3)That is the real delimna with moderator boards. On the one hand they prevent a large number of just flamboyant posts. The cost is at the price of censorship. Some board operate with out moderators even if it means having to put up with or even overlook the occasional post or poster that makes the blood boil. Much as the criticism was directed at my suggestion of 'regulation of the martial arts'....MT occasionally suffers from the pitfalls of power abuse many of you voiced concerns about. Simply being a moderator will not remove bias. In fact, I discovered that there are posters on MT that aren't even martial artists that have moderator status.

4)As I've spent a great deal of time on this thread basically having to defend me...rather than a position or point....and the thread has now lost it luster, I think I'll leave it. Order having now been restored, I find the thread has taken up more time than I'm comfortable with giving it. When you start your day off with domestic violence, have a homocide for lunch, and watch your country get threatened with nuclear devices for dinner....it sort of make the bickering that has gone on here seem insignificant. Time I could have better spent on rehablitation of my knee, reading a book, researching a form.....petting a cat. So I'll go back to occasionally checking in on the TKD, TSD or Korean threads. Happy swimming to you in your ponds....wherever they are.

John Hancock
The Emperor of Kentukki

Mod Note:

Sir,

Before this thread gets any further from the original topic, I'd like to point out a few things.

1) This thread was moved to the General section because it was decided that it was better suited as it seemed to address all arts, not just TKD.

2) I strongly suggest that you take the time to read through the rules of this forum. There were a number of posts that did not meet the general posting rules, therefore the suspension.

3) This is not the place to discuss the board policies. If you have a problem with something, feel free to PM or email an admin or Senior staff member.

4) Before this thread gets locked, again, I strongly suggest that it returns to the topic!

Mike Slosek
MT Supermod

 

[terryl965]

Ok lets try and bring this back to topic,

1) Regulation would be possible if all Art was the same and since they are not it is impossible.

2) MMA to my recolation has no system in place for ranking and teaching, if I'm wrong please advise to where I can find tha info.

3) and Ibelieve this is the most important, who or what board will decide you is really qualify and who is let say a belt factory person, you see if you have enough money a BB can be bought and if you don't it can be made ona computer and look authentic enough to pass by most people.

4) There are too many organization that would never give up there controlling rights to just anybody, you see you can teach without ever have taken a single class of MA, read, understand the mechanics of all the material and go out and teach people what is the correct way and then you proclaim yourself a 10th Dan in coach potatoe fu.

Great Plan but will never happen

 

[shesulsa]

HeHe.

Actually, to my knowledge, I am the ONLY Moderator who is not currently either formally training or teaching Martial Arts. Shame on me! I guess 20+ years in the arts has left me unqualified to frequent an MA board? BTW, Moderators and Mentors are selected, IIRC, as much (or more?) for their ability to, uh, follow rules? and post productively, coherently AND politely as they are on their "rank". Inappropriate comments on another poster's wife won't get you a Mod. position here regardless of your formal credentials, I believe.

Funny. I always have had respect for those who, once they find they cannot participate in one way, find another way to stay involved. This commands respect ... but that can only be gotten from those who have it to give. :asian:

 

[EmperorOfKentukki]

In order to avoid more unnecessary flaming, I will only respond to this comment from Mr. Roley, not so much to appease Mr. Roley as to clarify things for other readers of the thread:

various comments like the one about my wife seem to show that you are the one that is engaging in personal attacks.

Message board inherently have communication difficulties in that there is no face to face contact. 80% of our communication comes through body language, which cannot easily be translated to a written communication. Additionally, sarcasm sometimes does not translate in written form.

The comment at the conclusion of a post I made was made in pointed sarcasm. Given the directedness Mr. Roley continued to make posts toward me personally and not toward the topic, it leave the impression I must had commited some offense against him that would have made him have a focused dislike of me.....such as an illicit act commited with one's spouse. Mr. Roley likes to jab. Other posters have commented as much both publicly and privately. Fine. Perhaps I shouldn't have jabbed back. But what is done is done. I prefer not to get baited again ...so I'll decline to comment further on the remainder of the post. Further comment wouldn't be productive to this thread and just a further digression from the topic itself. I believe the majority of readers of this thread will conclude on their own that neither I nor Mr. Roley will be sharing warm and fuzzy moments with one another in near future anytime and as this board is sensitive to political correctness, it would be better to just accept that we (he and I) do not see eye to eye.

And I apologize for droning on in this post.

John Hancock
The Emperor of Kentukki

 

[exile]

Ok lets try and bring this back to topic,

1) Regulation would be possible if all Art was the same and since they are not it is impossible.

[/QUOTE]

To my way of thinking, this is the real crux---or one of the real cruxes---of the issue. In the course of this thread I've found my thinking changing a lot. I originally had the ski-instruction model of industry self-regulation, and believe me, they do a very good job of maintaining standards and keeping their instructors' technical and teaching competence bright and shiny. And Flying Crane pointed out a similar situation in scuba diving. But in both cases, there is only one technical toolkit. In skiing, what the racers do today will be taught, in digested and learnable units, tomorrow (or maybe early next week). In scuba there are certain constraints that the sheer physical reality imposed on the diver. So we can talk about how well or ill any given instructional facility works...

...but that is very clearly not the case with MAs. And without that, it's very hard to get a handle on the matter of quality control, even if you take an industry-internal perspective. In skiing, it all comes down to the hill owner's interest in safe, effective instruction. We don't have that situation in MA...

 

[Don Roley]

The comment at the conclusion of a post I made was made in pointed sarcasm.

If it was just that, I would be willing to think it was just a mistake on your part. But with all the other jabs you have pointed at me and even at the moderators here, I do not tend to believe you. And the comments by others such as Carol and Jonathan seem to back the idea that you crossed the line with your comments about my wife. I tend to believe that you tried to drive me into a rage with your comments so as to lessen my ability to deal with you in a rational manner. You do not know me well enough to know that I take more pleasure in pointing out these tactics than in falling for them.

You leave me with a problem. Should I treat you as someone who tried to enrage me and is unwilling to admit his faults and thus is quite willing to engage in them again? Or should I treat you as someone who does not quite realize that talking about someone's wife and having sex with her is a rather deadly insult? I have lived in places where had I made your comment to a local I would have looked down to see a knife stickingout of my chest. I do not think that is right that people would attack others over words. But it is a fact that some people would and dealing with that reality is a good part of what we call self defense. So I never make comments about having sex with members or the immediate family of someone I am debating with. Not making racial comments, comments about someone's family or martial status and any other thing is just a form of common sense if you want to live long enough to die of old age in bed. Should I treat you as someone who does not even have the intelligence and good sense to realize that comments about someones wife and sex with them is never socially acceptable? Should I treat you as someone who can't understand complex concepts and ideas? Or should I treat you as someone who is simply without morals?

I do not think you are either smart nor heavy in morals. I have never seen someone with as many negative stars as you last long before getting banned. Your comments about the certain moderators being egomaniacs are part of a pattern I have seen where people who go out of their way to piss people off make comments about how the moderators can't handle the truth, differing opinions or whatever and then get to say that they were right when they were so deservably banned.

You went out of you way to try to make me mad at you. I have tried hard to deal with no comments closer to you than things like "the attitude you show" rather than you personally. If you want to deal with the issues instead of getting personal, then I would be willing to deal with that.

Take a look at just how fast your reputation has fallen since you started this thread. I have never given you reputation. But if you have noticed, my own has risen quite a bit since you started attacking me. Take that as a lesson as how your tactics have backfired.

 

[CoryKS]

That is the real delimna with moderator boards. On the one hand they prevent a large number of just flamboyant posts. The cost is at the price of censorship. Some board operate with out moderators even if it means having to put up with or even overlook the occasional post or poster that makes the blood boil. Much as the criticism was directed at my suggestion of 'regulation of the martial arts'....MT occasionally suffers from the pitfalls of power abuse many of you voiced concerns about. Simply being a moderator will not remove bias.

Hold that thought for a moment. Now take a look at your question from the initial post:

We in the U.S. have long fought the intrusion of government regulation into the martial arts industry. But why? Who will it harm? Who will it benefit?

It seems to me, the only way many of the problems we all complain about within the Martial Arts community can only be resolved by outside intervention. After some 60 years, it seems obvious we, the grand community of various schools, organizations, arts, etcetera ad infinitum, have proven ourselves completely incapable of policing ourselves. Thus, it will have to come via some regulatory body. Every other commerical and professional industry has already submitted to such regulation. This one seems to have had a rather long run...perhaps...overdue....for regulation. Already we have seen regulation enforced in certain communities, and some states have take up the gauntlet with mixed results.

Given your experience with this moderated forum, can you understand now why some people might be leery of appointed a regulatory body that would decide who can or cannot run a martial arts program?

 

[CoryKS]

For the person who just dinged me - I alllmost edited the post to say "perceived experience". But I didn't because I wanted him to see his contradiction. I was NOT criticizing the board.

 

[MJS]

Thread Closed Pending Review

Mike Slosek
MT Supermod

 

[terryl965]

For the person who just dinged me - I alllmost edited the post to say "perceived experience". But I didn't because I wanted him to see his contradiction. I was NOT criticizing the board.

Corky I just added afew back to you and I saw where you was going with your post, this thread no matter how to try and bring it back to topic it dose'nt