Training half of martial arts bugs me.

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

They are not mutually exclusive and so the water gets muddied there.

Quite often an art that teaches heritage uses that heritage to support its effectiveness.

So I may do krav maga because I think Israelis are cool. But I don't do krav maga because if the Israelis do it it has to work.

Yup. And if you have multiple goals, such as heritage and effectiveness, then you'll have a longer list. At some point if your list of required pros is too long or specific, you may have to decide what's more important. Or figure out a way to get it. So if I really really want to learn wushu because I think it looks awesome, that might be something I'm not willing to give up. But I also want to learn how to actually fight. But none of the wushu places near me teach me to fight. I now have to decide which is more important. I can train wushu and give up on combat effectiveness, or train MMA at the gym next door and give up on the cool flips and flashy sword stuff.

Or I can do both, so I learn both things. Or train wushu and then compete in amateur MMA fights and dog brothers fights to learn how to actually apply it. So without them teaching me combact effectiveness, it doesn't mean I can't learn combat effectiveness, so long as I know that's not what I'm getting going into the school.

 

[Buka]

I would love to eat your cooking!

And I'd love to cook for you.

Other than grilling steaks or burgers, and sautéing fish, the only things I'll make guests/friends are Chicken - Marsala, Picatta, roasted, soup, or stuffed with goat cheese and baked. Any kind of risotto dish - any kind at all, shrimp and pasta dishes, Bolognese sauces, omelettes, omelettes, omelettes. Vegetable pies, killer eggplant parm....and I mean killer. Crazy kind of sandwiches - only imagination holds you back. Tarts, especially lemon, elaborate antipastos, and some other various things.

The problem I have with cooking is I really don't understand the process. I'm slow, but I don't care. The concept of making an entire Thanksgiving dinner and having everything all ready at the same time is so foreign to me, I just don't know how anyone can do it.

But, man, I love to eat. I know everyone says that, but packing away groceries is an art form.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

"Or, for the sake of discussions, we can just listen a bit and see if there's something useful to discuss.

You seem to think we all owe you some proof. Nobody does, except maybe the folks who train you."

That is a refusal. Which is clearly a purposeful attempt to hide information.

You have to understand that my bias is generated by your dishonesty. I see these sorts of. I never said that, I never meant that, you didn't understand my intentional vague posts, I don't have to show evidence, I don't have to support separating truth from fiction.

And that adds up to a bias.

Without evidence to the contrary it is a very reasonable bias.

It allowes you to work off hypotheticals and anecdotes and this faith based discussion.

I should be having this problem discussing a religion. Not martial arts. Which is a practical mesuable activity.

You keep asserting that my training is based entirely on hypotheticals and anecdotes. That's ignoring a large part of my training. Which you do because it fits your narrative.

But go ahead and call me dishonest, if it makes you feel better.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

And I'd love to cook for you.

Other than grilling steaks or burgers, and sautéing fish, the only things I'll make guests/friends are Chicken - Marsala, Picatta, roasted, soup, or stuffed with goat cheese and baked. Any kind of risotto dish - any kind at all, shrimp and pasta dishes, Bolognese sauces, omelettes, omelettes, omelettes. Vegetable pies, killer eggplant parm....and I mean killer. Crazy kind of sandwiches - only imagination holds you back. Tarts, especially lemon, elaborate antipastos, and some other various things.

The problem I have with cooking is I really don't understand the process. I'm slow, but I don't care. The concept of making an entire Thanksgiving dinner and having everything all ready at the same time is so foreign to me, I just don't know how anyone can do it.

But, man, I love to eat. I know everyone says that, but packing away groceries is an art form.

Man, I feel that. I'm not sure I've ever finished three dishes at the same time.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I see your point. It's a bit of semantics, really, "gradual" vs "progressive."

So, let's apply your model here to something outside of martial arts. I mentioned cooking before, so let's stick with that.

Person A is a James Beard award winning, Michelin star rated, classically trained chef. Let's call her Chef Jane. Chef Jane owns two successful restaurants and has worked in the field for over 30 years. She is a bona fide expert in the field, respected even among other successful chefs. She opens a school to teach people to cook, using a system she creates that she has called "Jane-cook-do." She rents a warehouse and sets it up with everything one might need to cook minus the food. She has ovens, bowls, mixers, plates, you name it. No food, though.

She gets a group of people who enroll in her school, and they meet three times per week for about 1 hour, maybe 2. They work through a very thoughtfully crafted curriculum that starts with easy recipes and then works up to progressively more complex recipes. Students are required to practice all of the techniques, from knife skills, to building up their baking muscles by stirring cement, to any other kind of simulation you can think of. Over time, these students gain ranks, until after a period of time (let's say ten years) they attain the rank of "chef." Most students drop out, but Person B, let's call this person Frank, is serious about this. Being a chef is his life's dream. After 10 years, Frank has never touched any food, but he has practiced every technique, and has memorized hundreds of recipes.

I'm trying to go out of my way to say that Chef Jane tried to think of everything. Absent food, she has really tried to deliver a thoughtful, comprehensive culinary education to her students... just without access to any food. Everything else has been taken into consideration.

Two questions:
1: Can Frank cook?

2: Is Frank competent to teach someone else to cook?

Isn't there a point between professional chef and not touching food?

 

[Steve]

Isn't there a point between professional chef and not touching food?

Yeah, in an Mma gym there is. just as there is in a boxing gym, or a BJJ school. Like the amateur who trains at the cordon bleu.

But in a ninja school, there isn’t. No food to cook, and as @Monkey Turned Wolf and I agreed earlier, you really can’t fake it, no matter how long you train. You are, at the very best, approaching the cusp of transferring the training into application. Like Frank. You might transition pretty quick, but will probably suck for a while.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

How can that be possible?

If your instructor tells you that a front kick is to use your toes to kick on the target, when you use it on heavy bag and it hurts your toes. You will ask your teacher to get the right answer.

A flawed technique is easily to find out through testing. If a person doesn't care about testing, he deserves to learn flawed technique.

It's deeper than that, John. If I teach you a technique and tell you it will work against X attack from Y style, how will you know that's not true? (Think of the many takedown defenses that claim to be able to handle shoot fighters, but would fail miserably against a shoot fighters.)

 

[Gerry Seymour]

What martial arts are you specifically describing? I was having a think about it and I can see the argument that say boxersise doesn't need any real martial value and shouldn't claim it. And say that would be fine.

I don't think it's specific arts. Some of the people I trained with definitely seemed to fall into the group he's describing, while others definitely did not.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yeah, in an Mma gym there is. just as there is in a boxing gym, or a BJJ school. Like the amateur who trains at the cordon bleu.

But in a ninja school, there isn’t. No food to cook, and as @Monkey Turned Wolf and I agreed earlier, you really can’t fake it, no matter how long you train. You are, at the very best, approaching the cusp of transferring the training into application. Like Frank. You might transition pretty quick, but will probably suck for a while.

Why is it style-specific? Or are you talking about them training to be ninjas (which they can't really practice)?

 

[Steve]

Why is it style-specific? Or are you talking about them training to be ninjas (which they can't really practice)?

It’s application specific.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

If I teach you a technique and tell you it will work against X attack from Y style, how will you know that's not true? (Think of the many takedown defenses that claim to be able to handle shoot fighters, but would fail miserably against a shoot fighters.)

If I don't have intention to test it, it will be my fault.

A student who has no desire to test his skill is a student that any MA teacher wants to ignore.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Why is it style-specific? Or are you talking about them training to be ninjas (which they can't really practice)?

Speaking from my own time in the Bujinkan: there was no sparring; techniques were mostly practiced against highly unrealistic attacks; there was a fair amount of mystical woowoo; neither the students nor teachers seemed to grasp the difference between (somewhat) high percentage moves, low percentage moves, and no percentage moves. Oh, and everyone seemed convinced they were practicing the deadliest, most effective art around. (The epithet “partial art” was frequently used to describe other systems.)

Despite all that, there were elements of Bujinkan training which I think helped my growth as a martial artist and carried over as I moved on to systems with live training. However it was definitely practicing in the kitchen with no food and no way to test which recipes were good and which were crap.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

If I don't have intention to test it, it will be my fault.

A student who has no desire to test his skill is a student that any MA teacher wants to ignore.

Unfortunately there are a whole bunch of martial arts instructors out there who only want that kind of student.

 

[drop bear]

You keep asserting that my training is based entirely on hypotheticals and anecdotes. That's ignoring a large part of my training. Which you do because it fits your narrative.

But go ahead and call me dishonest, if it makes you feel better.

It is not about feelings. That is why I showed the evidence.

Your quote.
The place where your argument falls flat is the use of the word “refusal”, where you clearly paint it as a purposeful attempt to hide information.

Also your quote.
You seem to think we all owe you some proof. Nobody does, except maybe the folks who train you."

 

[drop bear]

Yup. And if you have multiple goals, such as heritage and effectiveness, then you'll have a longer list. At some point if your list of required pros is too long or specific, you may have to decide what's more important. Or figure out a way to get it. So if I really really want to learn wushu because I think it looks awesome, that might be something I'm not willing to give up. But I also want to learn how to actually fight. But none of the wushu places near me teach me to fight. I now have to decide which is more important. I can train wushu and give up on combat effectiveness, or train MMA at the gym next door and give up on the cool flips and flashy sword stuff.

Or I can do both, so I learn both things. Or train wushu and then compete in amateur MMA fights and dog brothers fights to learn how to actually apply it. So without them teaching me combact effectiveness, it doesn't mean I can't learn combat effectiveness, so long as I know that's not what I'm getting going into the school.

So faith based.

So long as the belief makes you happy then it has merit.

People might subscribe to healing crystals because they meet girls. But that doesn't make healing crystals work.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

So faith based.

So long as the belief makes you happy then it has merit.

People might subscribe to healing crystals because they meet girls. But that doesn't make healing crystals work.

If you got faith based out of that, you need to reread it. I specified that it might not work, and that if that's the case try something else that does work, while you train it for whatever you do want. In the case I gave, cool performance xma stuff.

 

[drop bear]

If you got faith based out of that, you need to reread it. I specified that it might not work, and that if that's the case try something else that does work, while you train it for whatever you do want. In the case I gave, cool performance xma stuff.

But we are still seppartating works from doesn't work.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Speaking from my own time in the Bujinkan: there was no sparring; techniques were mostly practiced against highly unrealistic attacks; there was a fair amount of mystical woowoo; neither the students nor teachers seemed to grasp the difference between (somewhat) high percentage moves, low percentage moves, and no percentage moves. Oh, and everyone seemed convinced they were practicing the deadliest, most effective art around. (The epithet “partial art” was frequently used to describe other systems.)

Despite all that, there were elements of Bujinkan training which I think helped my growth as a martial artist and carried over as I moved on to systems with live training. However it was definitely practicing in the kitchen with no food and no way to test which recipes were good and which were crap.

I remembered you talking about that in the past. My point was that any style can add resistive training and other events to put the food back in the kitchen to varying degrees. Lack of application, while a common trait in some styles and even families if arts (I'm looking at you, aiki arts), isn't an inherent characteristic of the style.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

If I don't have intention to test it, it will be my fault.

A student who has no desire to test his skill is a student that any MA teacher wants to ignore.

If you only test it in the same group, you may think you've tested it. But if nobody is using the training against the shoot fighter it claims to work on, it may not.

This is a major advantage of having folks in the group who apply outside that group, at work, in competition, sparring with folks from different styles, etc. They often ask better questions and see weaknesses others may not. They improve the casual students who don't test it outside that school.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

It is not about feelings. That is why I showed the evidence.

Your quote.
The place where your argument falls flat is the use of the word “refusal”, where you clearly paint it as a purposeful attempt to hide information.

Also your quote.
You seem to think we all owe you some proof. Nobody does, except maybe the folks who train you."

Yeah, can see why you'd read it that way.