Comments on: When violence is the answer

By: Scott in SF

Scott in SF — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:54:24 +0000

Ymarsakar,
I didn’t understand the link from JKB. I practice and teach martial arts because it expresses something about my true nature. I don’t really care if it works in some lab, bar, street, or prison intake counter. I don’t really care if people like it enough to clap either. But I do teach it as performance and medicine. Games are fun, and games need rules. Dominance and submission are the meat and potatoes of comedy and tragedy both. To the extent that violence facilitates that dance, it is a dangerous sometimes life threatening social activity.
There are evil people in the world and if they decide to attack it is usually because they have all the advantages. Yes, it is possible, sometimes, to respond with martial prowess, but an experienced evil person is probably going to do damage to you before you figure out what is happening–if you ever figure it out.
As far as demonstrating prowess goes, I love it. It is dance, it is art, it is beauty.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:26:23 +0000

The TFT instructors are very humble. More so than the SCARs guru and originator Larkin used to work with.

In both situations, what judges something’s worth is reality or the field. If it works, it should work in the field, and if it works, then it must contain truth that cannot be ignored based upon style or original preferences.

There is an objective standard for judging the efficiency of TFT member’s skill set, retention, and teaching ability. In MMA and BJJ, which I am regularly familiar with in terms of people’s use of the acronyms, there is a lot of talk about competition, throw downs, or fights. To prove you are good, you must fight. Tim Kennedy, of the Army’s MMA division, is a case in point. Sometimes you fight to get pts and be declared the winner, other times people fight for the finish, without regard for points. Still, because there are rules, your victory is invalid should you break them. So while the ending isn’t entirely predictable, it is also not entirely chaotic either. THere is some order, artificial human order, impressed upon the circumstances.

Scott in SF, what did you think about the link JKB provided, specifically in terms of the ramifications of social vs asocial violence?

By: Scott in SF

Scott in SF — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:14:19 +0000

Ymarsakar,
Like Rumsfeld, I despise all these acronyms and never use them myself but– TMA is Traditional Martial Arts, CMA is Chinese Martial Arts, JMA is Japanese Martial Arts, IMA is Internal Martial Arts, KMA is Korean Martial Arts, MMA is Mixed Martial Arts, BJJ is Brazilian Jujitsu, and it goes on and on…
My own view on the superiority trip is influenced by Daoism. If you set off on a trancendent religious path, that is, any path of self-perfection, you are a ripe candidate for a superiority trip. There are two ways to avoid the superiority trip:
1. Subordinate yourself to someone or something you think is more powerful than you are. This doesn’t always work because you can actually do both at the same time, but at least if you are saying talk to my friend Smith and Wesson you don’t believe you are Smith and Wesson.
2. Lighten up. Even while attending Harvard, you always have the option to remember that you are just an empty bag of flesh like the everybody else. The purpose of some religious rituals and rites is basically to get you to regularly lighten up. Daoist meditation is a good example.
I believe that martial arts can be practiced without the desire to dominate, without worshipping superiority, and without knowing for sure whether any of it is of any value.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:46:50 +0000

Btw, I thank the individuals that have presented such useful links on violence here. As a lowly student of the great equalizer, violence, these are very interesting material to one such as me. I need not practice their particular field of training or fighting, to get the benefit of wisdom. For if wisdom is true, then it applies to all human endeavors, fleet or fowl.

only in TMA circles

What are TMA circles?

I have since encountered individuals who I am convinced believe in a creator and yet, self assume the power of being a better person themselves.

Using Aristotelian virtue, conforming your behavior to a higher standard in such a fashion that you train yourself to act instinctually better and to instinctually desire the better things in life, is not a bad thing. It is only a bad thing, if in this process, you adopt the arrogance and full sin of character vices. Of course, sin is a Christian idea but no less applicable here.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:48:50 +0000

I listened to a speech yesterday, and a politician who I really respected (disagreed with on almost every issue, but respected) lost my support. He made the statement that since he had written letters to the families of war dead and seen some of the coffins delivered that he knew “first hand” the cost of this war. It was delusional and profoundly disrespectful. Profoundly disrespectful gets used as a whine a lot. That’s not what I mean here- to know the names but not the smiles or touch of the people in the coffins; to compare watching and writing from safety to wondering if you will get a call tonight or if the incoming alarms are real this time is not only profoundly disrespectful for those who are in danger. It is also profoundly disrespectful to the very concept of truth. There is no parity of experience between those who watch and those who do. Only the most self-absorbed of the watchers can even pretend that there is. I had thought that this man was far, far above this. One of my budding heroes is hollow.

I think we all know who he is talking about here.

By: JKB

JKB — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:34:33 +0000

I’ve been reading this self-defense writer’s website. On the page linked, he discusses the “violence never solved anything” crowd and how to deal with them. His suggestion is to force them to prove their absolute statement rather than you contradict it. But near the end he comes those who take this stance’s hidden agenda:
The more you keep on coming back to this idea, the more you will reveal a fundamental contradiction in their thinking … namely that violence is okay as long as they are the ones doing it (or controlling those who are, e.g. the police).

That of course is the real issue. Violence for your teachers is okay as long as they are the ones doing it, just not the evil Bush.
Unless your instructors’ street and bar fight stories include a chapter on the criminal investigation and civil suits that followed, I’d be skeptical. Especially as to whether they actually used the moves in fighting for your life situation, i.e., self defense.
[having trouble embedding the link. Here is the website:
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/violentsolution.htm

By: UncloudedFall

UncloudedFall — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:08:19 +0000

Funny vid post!
In answer to the final question you pose, the answer is never. It is a mistake to think that the co-curriculum of approved spirituality is found only in TMA circles. Even when you enter into the (by comparison) very small world of combatives, you find it. Granted some there find this offensive and state that what they are teaching is the application of effective violence, and that they view it as no part of their syllabus to instruct a student on their spirituality, beyond ensuring that such instruction is not being sought out in order to facilitate a criminal act.
Why does this occur and and with such frequency in the broader self defense community? I suspect the answer lies with the appeal of the left itself. The power of seeing yourself as a better person, and by extension, others as lesser people. As why so many need this? You got me there. At one point I put it down to a disbelief in God, which then gave someone the go ahead to self assume such power over others. I have since encountered individuals who I am convinced believe in a creator and yet, self assume the power of being a better person themselves.

By: Scott in SF

Scott in SF — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:08:36 +0000

Anyone interested in this question should read: Meditations on Violence by Sgt. Rory Miller. I bought a stack for my students. His Website is here, he's got a new book coming out which is a citizen's guide to police violence (no official title yet.) Self delusion is the norm in martial arts classes. Self-defense, as we understand it, is an American political-legal concept, it did not come from Asia. On my blog I've written a hundred entries about the actual roots of martial arts. Before the 20th century in China fighting, religion, acting, dancing, singing and the ability to recite history were all one subject. Be especially wary of what you are training not to do. Be aware that in an assault, moral people are all likely to freeze--that goes for Marines, prison guards, housewives, teens, and trained martial artists too. Martial arts really should be understood as a form of daily exorcism. Here is a great article on the unique issues of teaching women to fight!

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:29:54 +0000

All of the male teachers have war stories about the street fights and bar fights they’ve been in, and how they used the techniques to defend themselves.

Write one of those stories up and I’ll definitely make the case for why they’re operating under false premises.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:16:36 +0000

Thank you Tonestaple I copied and saved that to a word document named quotes. Ymarsakar a great post on martial arts and social sports. I can't remember how many times I have forced myself from doing what I learned as one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children.It's illegal do do that.