Women of Kamatuuran
- Thread starter tuturuhan
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tellner
Senior Master
Abraham Lincoln once asked "How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg?"
When someone answered "Five" he replied "No. Calling a tail a leg does not make it one."
Kamatuuran may translate to truth. It doesn't mean that what you are necessarily teaching the truth. What it does is provide a frame that puts you at a rhetorical advantage. The polite listener grants at some level that you are providing The Truth(tm). Disagreement is at best error and at worst a lie.
For someone who lays claim to Taoist credentials you seem awfully fond of Western dualism. Why? How does this square with the idea that at its very core each of these supposedly opposite concepts contains the essence of the other?
1) Naginata became a "female" weapon in fairly recent times, during the brutally imposed period of totalitarian peace known as the shogunate. When swords and halberds were used in war men learned the nagainata. Traditional systems include it in their curriculum. The distinction got legs in a period when there was no war, there were no reality checks and Japanese culture took some odd inward-gazing turns.
2) Lots of styles have founder's legends. How does this demonstrate that men and women should be taught differently? How does this square with the fact that Wing Chun is primarily practiced by men? If the legends are correct, and we have no more reason to believe they are than are any other founding myths, Ng Wing Chun was a Buddhist nun, not a Taoist.
3) By your own standards women should not be taught math since it's a "male" activity. The reason that many learn better in all female settings is very simple. In a class of mixed men and women, the men tend to dominate the discussion and the instructor's attention. Young women (especially) feel much less free to speak up or put themselves forward when there are men around. In classes where they feel free to take on the "masculine" traits of speaking up, getting into the conversation and not acting "hidden", "secret" or "dark" they perform better. The implications for your chosen teaching methods should be obvious.
4) How much of the difference is biological, how much is training, how important the differences are and what they really are are all matters of serious investigation, much of it exceedingly preliminary. What you are doing here is looking for justification for attitudes you already had, for validation. You might better serve your students by looking to learn something you didn't know before, to try and find out what will best serve them and allow them to become better fighters.
And there is the essence. Your students are there to serve you. You are not there to serve them. They are there for your benefit, not you for theirs. That explains all the important differences. If you teach in order to impart knowledge and help the students gain skill you will approach it one way. If you teach in order to benefit yourself you will do it in another.
I certainly do not deny the personal benefits that come from teaching others. If nothing else you learn humility when the entire class faithfully copies exactly what you did, including every mistake and imperfection. They are side-effects. When they become the goal teaching itself suffers.
Arrrr, 'ee be welcoom, then!
... hmmm, that won't do—World Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day still eight months off...
But seriously, and back on topic, this latest long post of your is again right on the money, tellner. I don't know if it will be enough to get the light to come on where it (badly!) needs to, though...
Not kind, true! (and another very good post!) And I'm bowing to you!
On a little point mentioned about women doing maths, Dr. Rosi Sexton is a British female Pro MMA fighter who recently fought in America and has been signed by Bodog. Her doctorate is in advanced mathematics.
tuturuhan,
I asked before in another thread, but I think you got distracted by some other posters.
Have you ever seen or worked with Mr. Michael DeAlba of Farang Mu Sul who is also in the SF Bay area?
Thank you,
ss
I asked before in another thread, but I think you got distracted by some other posters.
Have you ever seen or worked with Mr. Michael DeAlba of Farang Mu Sul who is also in the SF Bay area?
Thank you,
ss
tuturuhan,
I asked before in another thread, but I think you got distracted by some other posters.
Have you ever seen or worked with Mr. Michael DeAlba of Farang Mu Sul who is also in the SF Bay area?
Thank you,
ss
Sorry, for not replying. Yes, I have met him. One of my students, Felipe Macay, 5th degree Okinawan, who is also a student of Clarence Lee is a good friend of Michael De Alba.
He was orginally, a hapikdo instructor. He created his own style and does a knife fighting method. He is quite popular in Portugal where he does seminars and has a pretty big following. The last time I saw him was at his tournament in San Francisco.
Would you like me to get more information for you. I could ask Felipe?
tellner
Senior Master
Thank you, sir, I was just asking. Mr. DeAlba used to train in Hwarangdo, I know, and he's also a member here on MartialTalk.
Do disrespect meant just asking a question.
The first lady in the video link is using a blade for her demo. Could you tell me what the blade is made of? Was it a live blade or a trainer. Both have negatives and positives. She has nice flow, I was just curious to the length of the blade and the mass of the blade.
Last edited by a moderator:
Thank you...for the respect.
Gura (teacher) Michelle Bautista is using a "kampilan". It was a "live blade". It was more than 42 inches.
In my opinion, you are correct, their is a huge difference between a "live blade" and a trainer. There is also a difference in the following major ways of using a live blade.
1) In the air...you worry only about cutting yourself.
2) Against a target...you learn eye hand cordination to the target and
the diffences between the percussive nature of the stick vs. the slicing, thrusting, manipulating nature of the sword.
(Each sword is different. Each sword talks to you as to how it wants to be held. Each culture (e.g. japanese, chinese, pilipino, indian, european) has an influence on how the sword wants you to use it. Each individual sword, as a different, height, length, weight, construction of material, and balace. In our method, "today" we strive "to be like water" to any weapon that is wielded, regardless of original culture or style.)
Please view the following and note the following:
1) footwork-allowing the practitioner to not simply go forward and backward, but around the opponent.
2) slicing-How the blade is turned "palm up and palm down" as the practitioner "goes inside" to slice the neck in a fluid manner. This particular demonstration illustrates how the "tai chi sword" demands to be used in a "push sword" manner.
3) manipulation/reaction-to the opponent as the defender, counters the intitial strike.
4) free-style-note that the action is freestyle and not arranged or planned. Of course, it is not real combat. The fight would have been over, after the first counter-thrust or counter-slice.
chinese gim/sword moving target: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZkrOZWI8OU&mode=related&search=
In the second video, done with a non-moving target. The emphasis is again on the circular footwork to come in and out in terms of distance. More importantly, the weapon is a live blade...demonstrating the finesse and control needed not to harm the human target. Note again the thrusting to the body and the slices to the neck.
gim non-moving target: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HT3skN_u1s&mode=related&search=
Best wishes,
Tuhan Joseph T. Oliva Arriola
guramicmac
Yellow Belt
I would like to respond as a woman trained by Tuhan Joseph Arriola and a 4th degree black belt Gura in his school.
In reading through these threads, there are presumptions being made that having differences and disparities between the genders is a bad thing. And perhaps in our egalitarian society we have now made them out to be.
Before becoming a student of Tuhan I had done a few years of judo, then proceeded to look for a Filipino martial arts school. I went around to many schools. Some that preached the equality between men and women in their words, but in the end when you looked at who were the advanced students and who were the better fighters, none of them were women. And though the teachers talked about how "great" the women were, they were essentially lying to them, because they weren't that good and any of the men would have taken them out. And I was friends with the teacher of that school. Sure the men and women did the same exact things, taught the same techniques. But what we fail to recognize is that more often than not, the teacher has a bias to which techniques are taught more often or not at all and usually, and I'm at fault of doing this as well, of only teaching the techqniues that fit our (the teacher's body) whether that be a man or a woman. Thus, what happens is that really everyone is just learning the techniques that fit say a short stocky young man's body. So what happens to the women, the older men, the tall guys. Well, they try to conform, they try really hard to learn these techniques, but will they ever be as good as the person whose body fits them, usually not. And then they'll see that they just can't get any better, so they quit or they move on to the next style hoping to learn more.
Tuhan's style and technique of distinguishing the genders forces everyone to truly examine what each other's strengths and weaknesses really are at any given moment of our lives. What was different from the other schools I had visisted, when I first entered Tuhan's class, was the sheer diversity of those training with students from 10 years old to 50+ years, men and women. This is a style and a school that would be relevant at any point of our lives.
I can say that some of the men of the school would comment on how sometimes Tuhan was often harsher on the women, an expectation to do certain techniques better than the men. Was he being mean? No. He was being real and honest because in reality if we were going to actually defend ourselves, then we did have to be that much better in order to live.
One time he sent me through what I called the gauntlet. He had me spar every single guy in the room one after another. He told them to swing and to swing with everything they had as hard as they could and Tuhan left me out there, made me defend myself. And the words that still ring in my head today that he said, "she has to know. she has to know what a real punch looks like." how fast it really comes.
It's not to say the women never wield the heavy weapons nor that the men never wield the knife. But it's a matter of the responsibility of the teacher to control when a student has the ability and the responsibility to properly handle a weapon. It's not "fair" but it's right! I don't want to die, at least not in a martial arts class because my teacher let someone wield a weapon they couldn't handle in the first place.
When a parent lets their oldest daughter drive at 16 but doesn't let their son drive til he's 18, is that fair? No, not on the surface. But if she's the responsible and mature one and he's the reckless goof, is it fair then? It's certainly to me to the other drivers who have to drive on the road with them!
I was cooking at the stove at 7 using a step stool to reach the burners to cook omelettes. My brother was never allowed to cook without supervision well into his teens. Why? Because he would he would have burned the house down! It's not fair, but it's right!
And I'll tell you right now, there isn't a man in the school who doesn't have the highest respect for the skills of the women in the school. But why is that? Because we start from our strength and build from there. Do we all start from the same square on the board? No and why should we. But in the end, we learn to learn from each other's differences, to understand how each body moves, their strengths their weaknesses and we understand that in our opponents as well. It makes us all better fighters.
In this society we often look to cure our failures, our regrets. All the talk shows are about our problems. And what does it get us? more failures, more problems, more regrets.
So why not begin with our strengths? Why not build on success? It's not to say we only train in what we're good at, but it allows us to understand how to make our weaknesses stronger. We get to see the range of how a technique works. Learn how they fit into each individual body. And each person reveals something different something more to learn.
The other assumption made in threads here is that we are only looking at the individual's progress. But the way in which Tuhan teaches, it's not about me, by differentiating genders, by understanding differences, we all learn ten times as fast because it's not about me, it's about all of us. It's not about how I do a strike, it's about how he strikes and him and him and her and her and him. And I don't see one way, I get to see 10 ways, 20 ways to do the strike.
Tuhan's way of teaching made me a better teacher. As a woman, I have to understand a man's body to teach my male students what they need in order to be better. And sometimes it means teaching them techniques I'm not really fond of or very good at because I'm not 6 ft 200 lbs. We don't start from the same spot, but we eventually grow to learn what the other is good at.
We can argue politics and semantics easy enough in a online board. But if you came and saw it, you wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe that that guy there has only 6 months of training and that woman picked up a weapon for the first time last month. People try out one class and they think it's hard. But I think they think it's hard because they've never imagined the full capacity of what they're capable of. Wouldn't you want to know that? Don't you want to see just how far you could really go? But this is not possible to see when we're treated "all the same" and it's not possible when we don't see, acknowledge, understand, and learn our strengths and weaknesses and our differences.
Regards,
Gura Michelle Bautista
Kamatuuran School of Kali
In reading through these threads, there are presumptions being made that having differences and disparities between the genders is a bad thing. And perhaps in our egalitarian society we have now made them out to be.
Before becoming a student of Tuhan I had done a few years of judo, then proceeded to look for a Filipino martial arts school. I went around to many schools. Some that preached the equality between men and women in their words, but in the end when you looked at who were the advanced students and who were the better fighters, none of them were women. And though the teachers talked about how "great" the women were, they were essentially lying to them, because they weren't that good and any of the men would have taken them out. And I was friends with the teacher of that school. Sure the men and women did the same exact things, taught the same techniques. But what we fail to recognize is that more often than not, the teacher has a bias to which techniques are taught more often or not at all and usually, and I'm at fault of doing this as well, of only teaching the techqniues that fit our (the teacher's body) whether that be a man or a woman. Thus, what happens is that really everyone is just learning the techniques that fit say a short stocky young man's body. So what happens to the women, the older men, the tall guys. Well, they try to conform, they try really hard to learn these techniques, but will they ever be as good as the person whose body fits them, usually not. And then they'll see that they just can't get any better, so they quit or they move on to the next style hoping to learn more.
Tuhan's style and technique of distinguishing the genders forces everyone to truly examine what each other's strengths and weaknesses really are at any given moment of our lives. What was different from the other schools I had visisted, when I first entered Tuhan's class, was the sheer diversity of those training with students from 10 years old to 50+ years, men and women. This is a style and a school that would be relevant at any point of our lives.
I can say that some of the men of the school would comment on how sometimes Tuhan was often harsher on the women, an expectation to do certain techniques better than the men. Was he being mean? No. He was being real and honest because in reality if we were going to actually defend ourselves, then we did have to be that much better in order to live.
One time he sent me through what I called the gauntlet. He had me spar every single guy in the room one after another. He told them to swing and to swing with everything they had as hard as they could and Tuhan left me out there, made me defend myself. And the words that still ring in my head today that he said, "she has to know. she has to know what a real punch looks like." how fast it really comes.
It's not to say the women never wield the heavy weapons nor that the men never wield the knife. But it's a matter of the responsibility of the teacher to control when a student has the ability and the responsibility to properly handle a weapon. It's not "fair" but it's right! I don't want to die, at least not in a martial arts class because my teacher let someone wield a weapon they couldn't handle in the first place.
When a parent lets their oldest daughter drive at 16 but doesn't let their son drive til he's 18, is that fair? No, not on the surface. But if she's the responsible and mature one and he's the reckless goof, is it fair then? It's certainly to me to the other drivers who have to drive on the road with them!
I was cooking at the stove at 7 using a step stool to reach the burners to cook omelettes. My brother was never allowed to cook without supervision well into his teens. Why? Because he would he would have burned the house down! It's not fair, but it's right!
And I'll tell you right now, there isn't a man in the school who doesn't have the highest respect for the skills of the women in the school. But why is that? Because we start from our strength and build from there. Do we all start from the same square on the board? No and why should we. But in the end, we learn to learn from each other's differences, to understand how each body moves, their strengths their weaknesses and we understand that in our opponents as well. It makes us all better fighters.
In this society we often look to cure our failures, our regrets. All the talk shows are about our problems. And what does it get us? more failures, more problems, more regrets.
So why not begin with our strengths? Why not build on success? It's not to say we only train in what we're good at, but it allows us to understand how to make our weaknesses stronger. We get to see the range of how a technique works. Learn how they fit into each individual body. And each person reveals something different something more to learn.
The other assumption made in threads here is that we are only looking at the individual's progress. But the way in which Tuhan teaches, it's not about me, by differentiating genders, by understanding differences, we all learn ten times as fast because it's not about me, it's about all of us. It's not about how I do a strike, it's about how he strikes and him and him and her and her and him. And I don't see one way, I get to see 10 ways, 20 ways to do the strike.
Tuhan's way of teaching made me a better teacher. As a woman, I have to understand a man's body to teach my male students what they need in order to be better. And sometimes it means teaching them techniques I'm not really fond of or very good at because I'm not 6 ft 200 lbs. We don't start from the same spot, but we eventually grow to learn what the other is good at.
We can argue politics and semantics easy enough in a online board. But if you came and saw it, you wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe that that guy there has only 6 months of training and that woman picked up a weapon for the first time last month. People try out one class and they think it's hard. But I think they think it's hard because they've never imagined the full capacity of what they're capable of. Wouldn't you want to know that? Don't you want to see just how far you could really go? But this is not possible to see when we're treated "all the same" and it's not possible when we don't see, acknowledge, understand, and learn our strengths and weaknesses and our differences.
Regards,
Gura Michelle Bautista
Kamatuuran School of Kali
Cruentus
Grandmaster
The whole thing seems so ridiculus on so many levels to me that I don't know where even to begin.
Rather then waste precious time debunking what I think is a load of, eh, stuff, I'll just say this:
Good luck to you folks out there who enjoy training in that particular system with these particular training philosophies. If it helps you, great; I am happy for you. I just know that it isn't for me. I also know that I am not alone in this. But if it suits you, as long as no one is being hurt by it, then have fun and best wishes.
Take care...
Rather then waste precious time debunking what I think is a load of, eh, stuff, I'll just say this:
Good luck to you folks out there who enjoy training in that particular system with these particular training philosophies. If it helps you, great; I am happy for you. I just know that it isn't for me. I also know that I am not alone in this. But if it suits you, as long as no one is being hurt by it, then have fun and best wishes.
Take care...
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