Style bashing

[Kung Fu Wang]

It is my duty as a martial artist to dispel these myths wherever I find them.

All my life I believe that my duty are to

- preserve the "world peace".
- maintain the "new world order".
- help the weaker to fight against the stronger.
- help all good guys to go to heaven, and help all bad guys to go to hell.
- ...

I do believe that "With great power comes great responsibility".

 

[Steve]

All my life I believe that my duty are to

- preserve the "world peace".
- maintain the "new world order".
- help the weaker to fight against the stronger.
- help all good guys to go to heaven, and help all bad guys to go to hell.
- ...

I do believe that "With great power comes great responsibility".

I believe the children are our future.

 

[CB Jones]

I believe the children are our future.

Teach them well and let them lead the way

 

[JR 137]

Teach them well and let them lead the way

It's like you read my mind. With every messed up reply you post, I ask myself how you beat me to it.

Edit: You posted a picture, whereas I was going to go with the video...

SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!!! They play so fine, don't you agree?

 

[Martial D]

Can we all agree that this:

... is not ever... Never... Never ever... Going to be effective in a fight. BUT, takes some serious athleticism and looks like it might be fun.

At this point, I'd be surprised.

 

[Kiron]

Im not telling anyone not to do anything. I just think people should be educated. If you walk out of aikido class thinking you are equipt to deal with a street situation by it, you are worse off than if you had 0 training at all. False confidence kills a lot of people. I don't think it's right to scam people at all, especially not as it could pertain to life or death.

You are telling that Aikido is worse?! Do you know what you are talking? Studying Aikido makes people calmer and aware of its surrounding! Martial art comes in different forms!

 

[Headhunter]

If this to you seems harsh -

My point of view - it is harmful and fraudulent to instill in people a false sense of confidence based on nonfunctional BS that will and has gotten many people hurt or killed. It is my duty as a martial artist to dispel these myths wherever I find them.

We certainly come from different neighborhoods.

The only reason one might find this harsh is if they recognize themselves in the statement. Oh there I go, being harsh again.

This is something I believe in, and yes, I'll admit it, I think many 'styles' are complete fantasy bs, and furthermore, largely the very idea of crystalized style is largely bs.
People have asked for my background. It's the internet, anyone can claim anything but it's always been about combat for me. I've been obsessed with combat since I made my first set of nunchucks when I was 8. As for 'styles' I've done Wing Chun, I've boxed my whole life. I did years of Mui Thai, some BJJ, some Arnis, some fencing, some kendo, some hung gar;but so what? Style loyalty is counterproductive. I've sparred for realistically over 1000 hours with just about every type of 'style' you can name, and it's from this that I largely form my opinions about what works. When I say works I mean 'works on me' Simple, right?

I am not Bruce Lee and I get my *** handed to me all the time, but I could list off a number of 'styles' (lol) that simply when executed in no way resemble real fighting.

Now feel free to call BS on all of that. I really don't care.

You did Muay Thai but you can't even spell it. Okay sounds legit

 

[RTKDCMB]

- soft, you can be hard when needed.

I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.

 

[Tez3]

maintain the "new world order".

Probably not a good time to post that.

 

[hoshin1600]

Probably not a good time to post that.

Yeah I was wondering about that...

Maybe he needs to Google it.
Possible he meant it as a joke or doesn't know the common nomenclature.

 

[DaveB]

You would be surprised. The Facebook wing chun forum I am now on thanks to that video I wanted to see is all about MMA BJJ ground concepts and expanding the wing chun idea.

You keep assuming instructors are worth their salt. There is no standard for martial arts instructor.

The purpose of style bashing is to challenge accepted belief. The people who benefit from that belief would consider it rude and uncomfortable.

No, style bashing is about ego. Effective communication of criticism is only bashing to the most highly strung and they don't last.

To paraphrase Gpseymour, one does not have to be rude to be honest.

If you (any you) are too ignorant to communicate without respect why should anyone give a fig about your opinions? Worse still, when you communicate in such a lax and imprecise way as happens when "bashing" something, your arguments are usually rubbish anyway.

An easy example is your sarcasm about your student being at fault if your style doesn't work:
How much does your style weigh?
What colour is it?
How tall is it?
Is it detectable on the E.M. spectrum?

...oh it only exists as information.
Which only exists within the storage of whatever is processing that information, in this case the student.

The student who chooses whether to train or watch tv. The student who decides to step back and kick or step in and punch etc etc.

You see where your sarcasm fails to produce anything meaningful. So perhaps it is better to ditch the snark, think through your concerns and present them without the attitude. Then perhaps not only might you get a better response, you might learn something about the art your questioning rather than just thinking you know because you've had a few fights and did ok.

 

[drop bear]

No, style bashing is about ego. Effective communication of criticism is only bashing to the most highly strung and they don't last.

To paraphrase Gpseymour, one does not have to be rude to be honest.

If you (any you) are too ignorant to communicate without respect why should anyone give a fig about your opinions? Worse still, when you communicate in such a lax and imprecise way as happens when "bashing" something, your arguments are usually rubbish anyway.

An easy example is your sarcasm about your student being at fault if your style doesn't work:
How much does your style weigh?
What colour is it?
How tall is it?
Is it detectable on the E.M. spectrum?

...oh it only exists as information.
Which only exists within the storage of whatever is processing that information, in this case the student.

The student who chooses whether to train or watch tv. The student who decides to step back and kick or step in and punch etc etc.

You see where your sarcasm fails to produce anything meaningful. So perhaps it is better to ditch the snark, think through your concerns and present them without the attitude. Then perhaps not only might you get a better response, you might learn something about the art your questioning rather than just thinking you know because you've had a few fights and did ok.

So when you say it is about ego.

It is about protecting your ego.

I mean if you don't want sarcasm don't post arguments with gigantic logic holes in them. I find that offensive.

 

[Steve]

So when you say it is about ego.

It is about protecting your ego.

I mean if you don't want sarcasm don't post arguments with gigantic logic holes in them. I find that offensive.

LOL. I just tried to picture you being offended by something, and couldn't do it.

 

[drop bear]

LOL. I just tried to picture you being offended by something, and couldn't do it.

I think you need a big ego to be offended easily.

 

[Kiron]

I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.

I agree with you and I'm waiting for Spongebob to say that it was just your "IMAGINATION"

 

[DaveB]

So when you say it is about ego.

It is about protecting your ego.

I mean if you don't want sarcasm don't post arguments with gigantic logic holes in them. I find that offensive.

When you find this gaping hole be sure to let me know. It took 20+ pages of discussion to come up with one cogent argument (which frankly I was on the verge of handing you to dispel the boredom and move things along and you've yet to deal with the response.

 

[Tez3]

I think you need a big ego to be offended easily.

It depends what you find offensive doesn't it. Does being offended by paedophilia, Nazis, race hate etc make you weaker or does it drive you to oppose and protect people? Does being offended by the actions of a child abuser who has just tortured and murdered a baby make you weak? How does one achieve 'peace' by not being offended by these things?

When it comes to MT, far fewer people are offended than some think. When you put up an opposing argument often the person being disagreed with will make comments just as you have which try to equate that disagreement with the person being 'offended' or 'emotional' or 'upset' when they really aren't, it's a way of trying to diminish the person who disagreed with you. It's saying 'I'm right' you are just being 'triggered or a snowflake or emotional' so I don't have to actually consider that it might just be a disagreement over opinions. When you look at all conversations as 'sparring' and that there has to be a 'winner' then nothing is achieved, there's no communication or even learning others opinions because as you read them you aren't taking in what the other is saying you are already forming an opposing view to post.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Whether you think that style bashing is offensive or a moral imperative, the fact remains that this forum has rules which forbid it. Those rules were put in place so that practitioners of different styles could have friendly conversations without every discussion devolving into repeated iterations of "your style sucks" "no, your style sucks!" Everyone posting here had to agree to those rules in order to create an account. If your conscience won't allow you to refrain from style bashing, their are other forums devoted to that sort of discourse.

If you are actually concerned about saving students from being misled by "fraudulent" instruction, then you need to think about how to do that effectively.

Let's pretend for a minute that you are the ultimate expert in combative effectiveness and can rate with perfect accuracy the quality of a given martial art or instructor. Let's say that you are talking to a student of WWMA (Worlds Worst Martial Art) and you want to convince him that he is going down the wrong path.

You: WWMA sucks. It's totally ineffective. You'll get killed if you ever try to use that on the street.
WWMA Student: Nonsense. It's the best art around. My teacher is amazing. He tells me that your training is what sucks.

At the end of the conversation, have you saved anyone from ineffective training? Nope. The person you are talking to has absolutely no reason to accept your evaluation of his art over his own.

That's even if you are 100% objectively correct.

Someone who is really devoted to learning and progressing will always keep open the possibility that their judgment is not always 100% correct.

I've been training martial arts for 36 years. I have a black belt in BJJ, an instructor's license in Muay Thai, some assorted ranks in other arts, and a fair amount of experience training with a wide variety of representatives of different systems. I regularly discover useful concepts, techniques, and training methods from other systems - even when I personally consider those systems to have significant flaws.

So - how do you effectively influence others when you have strong opinions about what works and you want to help people avoid going down the wrong path? I can understand the urge. I often see examples of training which I consider to range from suboptimal to downright useless or counterproductive. There's definitely a temptation to say "for crying out loud, stop that crap," but doing so is unlikely to convince anyone of anything.

Here are my general guidelines for offering criticism:

• Wait until feedback is asked for. If someone isn't in the market for critique, they are unlikely to listen to it.
• Ask questions to understand the purpose of a given training method. Sometimes you'll see something that looks completely wrong from a combative perspective, but fail to realize that it's intended to build a particular attribute or isolate a certain skill and it's not intended to represent anything directly combative. Other times it might actually be combatively effective, but only in a specific context which you aren't familiar with.
• Keep criticisms specific and concrete and constructive. "Your art sucks" is unlikely to get a helpful response. "I notice that in this drill uke is feeding a punch from too far away. This changes the timing and angling needed by the partner responding to the attack and will likely lead to bad habits" is more likely to start a productive conversation.
• Be open about your qualifications for offering a given critique. If I were to say that a certain mount escape being presented is low percentage then I can say that is based on my experience as a BJJ black belt who has spent thousands of hours doing live grappling on the ground with partners having a huge range of body types, experience levels, and martial arts backgrounds. If I were to say a certain sword fighting technique is questionable, then my level of confidence and authority would be much lower, because my experience with swords is much more limited than my grappling experience.
• Be polite and respectful and listen with an open mind. People are much more likely to listen to you respectfully when you listen to them respectfully.

 

[hoshin1600]

this is the equivalent of style bashing.

 

[hoshin1600]

bash·ing
ˈbaSHiNG/
noun
informal

1. violent physical assault.
   "nine incidents of gay bashing were reported to the police"
   • severe criticism.
     "press bashing"

bashing some one or something is not beneficial to anyone.

Why Are People Mean? Part 1

"Decades of research indicates that there is much truth in the popular belief that people are mean to others in order to feel better about themselves".

"Researchers have discovered that it is threatened self-esteem that drives a lot of aggression"