Martial Arts Thug

Well, i certainly wouldn't get insulted if someone tried to disseminate good values and ideas. I don't think any reasonable, tolerant person would be offended either.

 

You're using ridiculous extremes there. The instructor shouldn't have to tell people not to go and punch an old man of he disagrees with you, simply because it is common sense and should have been taught by parents and school teachers etc.

 

The point is, if you use fictional characters from films to back up your uneducated stereotype of sports MAists, how can you claim to be able to judge things? You clearly work on stereotypes and all it takes is a movie to get you making assumptions about people.

I'm not trying simply to dig up an old argument and make this thread go into 40 pages of crap, but it's an example of YOU using very flawed judgement of people. We all do it. The only way to stop people who do MAs from being thugs is to not teach MAs at all.

 

I would feel very insulted if someone came up to me and preached moral values that I didn't need to hear as if I was some kind of potential thug.

 

Like i said in my previous post, it doesn't need to be in any way patronising and/or condecending. Better to preach good behaviour than not IMHO.

 

You're missing my point. The very fact that someone preaches basic moral values to me is insulting, I'm 19 years old for god's sake, I should think my mum did a good job of that long ago.

 

You have to remember that some kids have parents WHO ARE criminals/convicts or are not big influences in their lives. MA is something that can change people for the better if a mentor/instructor takes the initiative.

I really do fail to see how you can be so opposed to this idea?

 

Because I don't need a MA instructor to change me for the better, I'm doing just fine. One of my parents is a convict, and I don't talk to him anymore, but my mum brought me up just fine - why do I need to be told things like "only use martial arts for self defence" when I'm 19 years old?

 

I really want to drop this issue now. It may not be absolutely neccessaary for everyone, but it certainly doesn't harm anyone so i think it can only help things.

 

just out of curiosity, who thinks this would have gone differently had the guy not known MA? the OAP was 67, this guy was 21 and probably in pretty good physical shape.

I find it interesting that you are some kind of savant siphus. When my mum used to work in an institute she met a lot of insane people (obviously). and one thing she found out was that the ones who had committed the most heinous crimes were the ones you would never expect. this guy might have been the picture of morality in class, and a thug outside. or maybe he was a thug all the time and the coach hoped to hone this into the ring? or maybe the other guy was an old kung fu master who the coach had a beef with...

and siphus can you please stop trying to derail threads into an arguement about the spiritaulity or lack thereof in sport MAs, its been done to death. grow up and agree to disagree.

 

And thus, the smack was laid down

 

Do you think that such a person whom would punch an old man would want to learn a soft art such as Aikido?

The oap died due to skull damage after hitting the concrete as he fell; this could have been achieved by a push, or even the worst punch in the world. - Enough to knock the man over.

 

You can't blame the instructor for what a student did. This guy was clearly a jerk who was proud of attacking an elderly person. My guess is the guy likes to feel big about himself so shows off about how 'no-one tells him what to do' since that is the reason he attacked the OAP. I doubt the guy would stick around with an instructor who told him how to run his life. It doesn't take a kickboxer to be able to floor an elderly person, an untrained person could probably do the job just as well. Martial artists attacking/killing is not something common to see in the news, this is a 1 of a kind attack so you cant claim all sport martial artists lack moral guidence since 99.99% of them are doing just fine without. The moral of this story is: some people are just jerks.

 

I guess what siphus means is that a martial art that focuses not only on sport but also on the development of the student will make it less possible for tragedies like this to accur.

Morality is a complicated subject especially nowadays in this consumption society. Many good Masters in martial arts won't preach. They will though, indirectly, show you the importance of morality. The thing with morality is that when it is not put to test one might think it is quite strong. However, that is deceiving for a good number of the times emotion overwhelms it. You might think you are a moral individual and perhaps you are. That doesnt mean that your morality is strong though.

Nowadays Martial Arts have become a comercial product to keep up in this consumption society and, for the public, a quality martial art (one that has good sales) depends only on a single fact: How effective it is at maiming, submiting, or hurting an opponent. Most youngsters care solely about that and look for the gym or dojo that gives them that. To produce somekind of capital many Gyms or Dojos have only concentrated on that aspect of martial arts. A good martial art is not one that only guarantees effectivity in its fighting techniques. A good martial art should also help develop a Mature way of thinking that ensures that the technique taught will be used in the manner they are supposed to be used. That is where the "spiritual" or "moral" side of martial arts kicks in. It is what states the supposed way the techniques should be implemented in day to day life and provides a means with which to build strong enough arguments so that the practitioner chooses that way and avoids the temptation or immaturity that will him them to justify unacceptable conduct. Many martial arts nowadays dont do this and so, I believe, they are not complete martial arts. They are but martial sport or martial training in which people learn how to be most effective in their aggresion. Such martial training is more prone to produce individuals like the one described in the article.

 

If you're a [male body part], MA is only going to grow you a bigger one. And if you're a [female body part], MA is only going to give you another one to crawl into.

And siphus, don't tell me this has ANYTHING to do with sports. I can dig up countless articles about TMAists, many in schools that emphasize "moral development" doing things just as horrible (there is, in fact, a case in my area involving an instructor at a "spiritual" school who molested a 15 year old girl).

 

ah yeah but they arent "real" spiritual maists uber

 

One of my martial art teachers is now in this late thirties but when he was a teenager, twenties and even a little into his early thirties he was involved in a whole lot of fighting. When I was first started training him a while back I didn't particularly like everything he had been involved with but I liked the fact that he was teaching me something that had been tested and proven to work. Anyway to make a long story short there was dojo brother I had and this formerly violent instructor said he reminded him of what he was like when he was younger. So after this dojo brother got involved in something that almost got himself shot the instructor who was not known for anything "philosophical" made a point to him. He did this by telling him a story of when he was assaulted by 15 people(I'm not saying he incapacitated all 15, I'm just saying he did what was needed and survived) and he said there was nothing fun about it. Simple and to the point. I didn't need to hear it because that sort of thing was never my mentality but my dojo brother did because he thought that "thug" image was something to be. The point is it was a message that we all benefited from. And yes I feel an instructor should at some point find the time to do something like this. This actually happened a few years ago but I still remeber it now.

From reading the posts it seems that Siphus may have made negative comments about sports martial artists, I've never really participated in sports martial arts to any real degree so I cannot say that I am personally offended but I do feel that all martial arts should be respected so if he has done that than I would choose to disagree with him. But what I have gotten from some of Siphus posts is that he has a strong appreciation for components of the martial arts that go beyond mere physical movements. And while I don't claim to be a master on any such subjects I feel they are very important and he is more than justified for thinking that any serious "teacher" would make them apart of his or her instruction.

 

no one has a problem with siphus believing that his ma is a way of life. its the fact that he looks down on other martial arts and has an inability to accept that others arent in MA for the same reasons he is.

 

This proves it! Kickboxing and other hard contact martial arts makes people into hopless menaces to society. However, taking TKD or Karate or Kung fu from your local school where they don't do hard contact will make you get good grades and grow up into a respectable citizen.

However, Siphus does have a point. If the spiritual aspect of MA was focused on at the place where he trained, he might have decided not to punch some defenceless 67 y-o dude.
As for Ikken's argument about this dude possibly not being a thug all the time, what kind of person goes off to brag about knocking out someone who'd probably fall down on his own.

Ohhh, I love the way cats are slanging mud all over the place.

 

"might have" is not grounds for an arguement.