Steve
Mostly Harmless
There's a lot here that I agree with. It's a lot, though, and in the interest of limited time, I'll just hit a few quick points.
First, bigger picture, the discussion has moved quite a bit from whether someone who has no practical expertise in self defense is qualified to teach it, to a larger discussion about how generations of application can lead to the development and innovation within a skill set. I think it's interesting, and I've got a few comments, but the two topics are tenuously connected. Bringing back the cooking analogy, we're no longer talking about a bona fide expert chef developing a system for teaching people how to cook (with or without food). We're talking about a person who is aware that cooking exists, trying to figure out how to cook with a group of like minded people. Or more accurately, charging a group of like minded people for the privilege.
If you're suggesting that this group of curious folks could, with food and fire, figure out how to cook, sure. I think they could. But they'd have to cook a lot of food, and whether they could ever achieve a level of proficiency (much less expertise) is a huge question mark that depends on several things: skills they already have, the quality and depth of the available resources, and application (i.e., actually cooking food). In other words, take a guy who has eaten a lot of cooked food, and who has cook books and the tools (oven, etc) available, and who then cooks a lot of food, he might be able to figure it out with no formal training. Given a lot of application (cooking food), he might even get pretty good. What he's learning, though, will be limited to what he knows he can learn and his creativity. He may never reach even basic proficiency relative to someone who was taught to cook by someone who was competent to teach. And he won't know that until his skills are tested. Without any external calibration, he is developing (or not developing) skill in a vacuum. I've said many times, you're always learning something. This is analogous to a bunch of ninja deciding to rediscover effective grappling internally.
Take the folk wrestling example and apply that to the development of MMA. 30 years ago, MMA was a completely different thing. Skills were rudimentary and fragmented. Fast forward, after three or four generations of focused application, and the skill set is fairly well defined and the skill level is much higher than in the early days. Applying the skills (ninjutsu, sumo, sambo, judo, bjj, western boxing, JKD, just off the top of my head) in a different context exposed a lot of holes in the skill sets that were invisible to the practitioners prior to UFC 1. In less than a decade, the sport had evolved significantly. By 2005, the sport had evolved into roughly what it is today. Skill levels had rounded out, and there was far less specialization. This would not have happened without application. And by application, I mean, on a broad level with a lot of input and innovation from a diverse background of complimentary skill sets. Take a group of feral dancers who want to fight in MMA. They train for 30 years and think they've got it all figured out. They send their best fighter to compete in an MMA event. How do you think he does? That's what you're talking about with the bujinkan rediscovering grappling.
So, all that to say, when I talk about application, I'm trying to keep things clean and clear. But Gerry is right. There is application within a self defense school. Everyone is learning something. I just don't think it's self defense. I don't even think it's practical skill. A person who trains in Tae Bo is learning movements that mimic boxing and kickboxing. They are becoming skilled at those movements. Eventually, given time, a person who commits to Tae Bo could become an expert in Tae Bo. But that doesn't mean they are expert at kickboxing. It doesn't even mean they could use that movement in the context of a fight, even if the instructor emphasizes that he teaches Tae Bo with a self defense orientation.
