What's the use?

Discussion in 'Ninjutsu' started by Please reality, Apr 19, 2014.

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  1. Southpaw535

    Southpaw535 Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    To offer an anecdote for the kind of attitude people are talking about as damaging this sub forum, the moment I gave up with interacting with this art properly was when I started a thread asking about a local dojo I was curious about training at since I find the concepts of ninjutsu quite interesting. Instead of a "hey, cool to hear you're thinking of joining us!" I got jumped on immediately for calling it ninjutsu (despite that being the name of the forum) and berated for not having done a bunch of googling to find the answers myself.

    Granted that was a couple years ago now but the members who did that are still very active today and from what I've seen lurking they don't seem to have changed much. That attitude was also enough for me to say "screw it" to trying the art since if that was the kind of attitude I could look forward to from the community then I'd rather spend my time and money elsewhere.

    Its been said already but other artists don't get ****y at newbies or curious folks asking questions. I've seen bjj white belts ask when they should compete multiple times and I'm happy to type out my reply multiple times because, rather than feel like they should of scoured the forums beforehand, I'm just happy to see more people getting into the sport and as a hgher graded member I feel a responsibility to help newer people when they ask for it.
     
  2. Dean Winchester

    Dean Winchester Valued Member

    Just don't talk to me about koryu, I'll want an agreement signed in blood and your firstborn.
     
  3. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

    I'm doing an Aikido weapons grading next week , so we can compare notes on sword use :evil::evil:
     
  4. Dunc

    Dunc Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter


    I'm sorry to hear that

    Please don't conflate posters on MAP as being the norm in the buj
     
  5. John Titchen

    John Titchen Still Learning Supporter

    Well to be fair to the stylists who frequent this forum to discuss their art (I have no idea what to call them without giving offence) I was pretty short with Chadderz the other day on the karate forum.
     
  6. Dean Winchester

    Dean Winchester Valued Member

    Good luck with it, fingers crossed for you.
     
  7. Dean Winchester

    Dean Winchester Valued Member

    Yeah but that's why Chadderz is kept around the place, it's like keeping a BOB by the door for when you come home after a bad day at work.


    :D


    We all get snippy at times jwt. :)
     
  8. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

    It wasn't always like that , my time in the Bujinkan was due entirely to seeing my old instructor and some of his guys on here leading to a friendly pm exchange and me turning up to have a look.
     
  9. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    I probably deserved it.
     
  10. TomD

    TomD Valued Member

    I think what PR is trying to say, is that he has doubts on the motives of some of the people who come here to ask questions or contribute to the discussions. He is a person who is quite generous with knowledge I think and does answer a lot of questions, sometimes not in a way that people like, yet that is not what q and a is about, isn't it?
    I have my question marks with some of the people who have nothing to do with ninjutsu and who have no intention of studying it (which is apparent from the disdain they display for the BJK) who come asking questions here and when they get an answer they do not really like, they continue discussing the subject to death. It happens quiet a lot. Sometimes the T-word springs to mind, especially when said persons keep on rehashing the same material and apparently won't accept answers given to them. The the question from the OP arises, "what is the use..."
     
  11. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    As a fairly regular interloper in this forum, I do find it annoying when an interesting point of conversation emerges, only to be drowned-out by the same old haranguing from the same old ninja trolls.

    As if having the exact same argument for the umpteenth time will have a different result?

    Critical comments can provoke good discussion, but it seems that obvious trolling and ridicule is allowed to an extent not seen in other forums.

    Regarding nomenclature: I don't find this forum any more full of jargon than the BJJ or Karate forums. I have to use Google for all of them. It's not a big deal. Yes, it might be likely that the example you watch on YouTube will not be up to snuff, but it will give you a general idea. Like anything, you will never really know what a technique is like in all its minutiae until you've studied and applied it.

    An analogy:

    Someone who's never studied or watched MMA peruses MAP's MMA/Submission Fighting forum.

    They come accross a discussion involving the term "GnP". They dilligently google "mma gnp", only to see a guy flailing his arms like clubs, with seemingly no technical finesse whatsoever. "It's just unskilled brutality" they say in the MMA/Submission Fighting forum.

    What is the response?

    Are they spoonfed every last detail and nuance of the pendulum motion to keep your centre of gravity over your opponent, of how important the direction of force and mass is, and how easy it is to counter an unbalanced strike from mount?

    Or do they get told they won't understand until they get themselves to a gym? That, until you experience it for yourself, there is little point reading about minutiae of technique you wouldn't grasp?
     
  12. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    If somebody came to the submission forums and asked me what an omoplata was I would describe it to the best of my ability, and probably post a video of it being demonstrated, and a video of it being used in a fight.

    If someone was to say that ground and pound (I don't like the short "GnP") looks like unskilled flailing (it kinda does if it doesn't knock the other guy out) I would educate them on what is happening with a video I provided, or if they asked a bout a certain video.

    It's called patience and reasoning.
     
  13. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    I'm glad you answered this point Chadderz!

    Because I was particularly thinking of a few days ago when Hatsie said pretty much that exact thing about ground and pound.

    Your response was something along the lines of: "I used to think the same thing until I started training MMA". You did not patiently explain exactly what is involved in ground and pound.

    You might have been more polite than PR in your reply, but the end result looks the same to me.
     
  14. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    Haha, so I did! Although he didn't actually ask me about it.
     
  15. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    That's a little different than secret stuff that we can't even have access to until we embark on a life journey to understand ninjutsu and Japanese culture though isn't it, often involving what appears to be basic stuff. And isn't politeness key? I can name a few members of MAP where politeness has caused issues just like the one in this thread too (I'm probably one of them at time :p). It's a little more common here. The attempt to politely be impolite is especially aggravating.
     
  16. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    But don't forget, a lot of the time it isn't people asking in here; it's people trying to tell Takamatsuden practictioners everything that's wrong with their art.
     
  17. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Combat sports are designed for public spectacle and consumption. It's in their nature to be public (secret game-plans, training regimes and psych-out strategies notwithstanding). Presumably, those who go in for public competition are more likely to be the kind of people who generally like sharing things with the public.

    From what I've gathered on MAP, the Bujinkan is far from being the only MA school/tradition in Japan with an initiatory structure that is not in the public domain (it would kind of ruin the journey if it were).

    I don't know about anyone else, but at school I was taught nothing about Japan other than its involvement in the Russo-Japanese war and WWII. For Gaijin to get to grips with another culture, customs, history etc., and the fact of the sheer breadth of material involved, it just seems like apples and oranges to compare its ethos to boxing, Judo or MMA.
     
  18. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    So if Ninjas don't like sharing, what is the point in a forum? >.<
     
  19. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Not public? Well I would bring up MOD Simon's last post then. What's the point of having a ninjutsu section? Seems counterproductive to the nature of the martial art, and given that mentality it has a great potential to cause conflict between the "perceived" trolling attempts.

    I've had the opportunity to study Japanese culture in a deeper depth than some people may have due to some history courses and my own interest in military history. I can say with confidence that there are certainly some anti-west sentiments (wether the poster realizes it or not, lol) that were consistent with Japanese culture in the past (not sure how strong it is now). That in itself is a little ironic, being that this forum is based as much in the "west" as it could possible be. I wouldn't join a Japanese based forum and claim everyone needs to study their western culture to understand me or what I do, why does it come up here? The attempt to bridge the gap is the responsibility of the person who holds the foreign idea in comparison to the majority, not the other way around. There won't be any understanding otherwise, just a clash between somebody who appears elitist and people who think it's possibly a bunch of malarky.
     
  20. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Dear Chadderz and Ero:

    It's not that nothing can be shared. Because discussion does happen here.

    But why should they have to share everything in the minutest detail?

    Sometimes points of discussion are raised that some people (including some X-Kans) do not get. Trouble is, no amount of written explanation can fix that. So why do people get angry at not understanding something?
     
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