The Information Age and Martial Arts.

Discussion in 'Karate' started by GaryWado, Jul 25, 2015.

  1. GaryWado

    GaryWado Tired

    Perhaps the wrong place to post my musings, but I as I “get on a bit” and am very proud of my students, I consider their journey a little different from mine – and rightly so...

    Today, it would seem everything is available on the information superhighway!
    There’s nothing it cannot answer.

    Question to the other old codgers then...What was your experience of Martial Arts before the Internet?

    How much were we in the dark?

    How much were we led astray?

    Did your sensei know everything!

    If not, was that a bad thing?

    There were no books! (Or very few on Wado anyway)

    There was no You-tube!

    Training was hard!

    Kumite was tough! (Probably because that’s the only way instructors knew (all martial and not so much art ;) )).

    Did you we end up that bad, or was there a bigger journey of self discovery going on there that perhaps younger martial artist don’t have these days?

    What do you think?
     
  2. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    People are in better shape these days, generally.
     
  3. YouKnowWho

    YouKnowWho Valued Member

    The online video can prove something that we might not believe it could be possible in the past.

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNK8qYrd964"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNK8qYrd964[/ame]
     
  4. aaradia

    aaradia Choy Li Fut and Yang Tai Chi Chuan Student Moderator Supporter

    Unfortunately, bogus video's also give "evidence" that sucks in people to believe ridiculous things.............Oh because they saw it on a video! I am not usually one to post video's calling out another MA, but this one is just so fraudulent, I will make an exception. Because it illustrated my point.

    Some people actually look at the stuff like this and think- see? Video Proof in Chi energy doing amazing things. The gullible get suckered in. (Skip the first minute.)

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJr2BdUTYkU"]The Wondrous World of Chi Power - YouTube[/ame]
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2015
  5. John Titchen

    John Titchen Still Learning Supporter

    Hugely in the dark compared to how we are today. You had to rely on what your instructor told you, a paucity of visual and written information in a few magazines and books and what you could see in movies.

    I would say I was given a lot of duff information as well as being given 'no' information. As a result I had to question and test everything. That's a personality thing. In the present day I could have filled those gaps with information, but then I would most likely have quit karate and started something else rather than actively seeking out what was in karate but not being taught.

    I was fortunate to have a very knowledgeable instructor, however neither he nor his pioneering Japanese instructor knew much by modern standards because the information was not disseminated or available.

    Yes.

    Ah the books. Many of which were so bad/light that you can't get them these days. Reading book reviews in the back of Terry O Neill's Fighting Arts International and ordering them. :) Borrowing books and learning kata from them and vhs videos so that I could concentrate on observation better when the instructor did the kata in class.

    This was a bad thing. Being limited to a few vhs tapes, which in turn were limited to the people who could afford to make them. Having to fast forward or rewind the tapes. Youtube puts up the good, the bad and the ugly but at least it can all be seen. Yes there's bad stuff out there and people can learn from it, but there's also good stuff that can show how bad that stuff is which in the old days of poor quality or bogus teachers students did not have access to.

    Yes, but so is a lot of training these days. I've had light training in the past, I've had hard training in the past. I've had both in the present.

    Kumite can be tough now. The difference is that these days people have the sense to walk away from unsafe instruction and have other clubs they can go to which will probably make them better quicker.

    The lack of information and alternatives created people who trained hard but never really advanced, people who quit because they could see the flaws, people who quit for other reasons, and people who learned to ask questions and study and think outside the box. So that for me is a mixture of good and bad. We have all that today, but the people who just train hard and accept what they are taught are in the main being taught by instructors who have greater access to knowledge, the people who quit have more alternatives and the people who question have more information at their finger tips. The only potential downside of that is that the latter don't have to work so hard to get 'good' and don't undergo the experience of doing their own research, but only a minority ever did.

    Things are better now.
     
  6. Kframe

    Kframe Valued Member

    I was in karate briefly in karate, until my school closed with out warning. Since then ill say that, its because of the internet that I don't trust any form of karate instruction.. From any school here.

    Im sorry but its a poorly designed system if it takes you 4+ years just to learn the basic movements, before actually being taught the martial art..

    You just cant be sure anymore of who is teaching quality or not. I have taken to calling this the age of martial mistrust.

    As to being in the dark I would say so. I mean look at all the karate systems, and Korean karate systems, that do karate kata. Or watered down karate kata, and yet they don't do any form of pressure applicable bunkai or application. Locally to me, Tang soo do and TKD.

    I mean, why do the various karate styles even bother with kata if their not going to study them? Just a waste of class time that could be spent on usefull pad or partner drilling..

    All this because the practitioners were stuck in the dark ages.
     
  7. YouKnowWho

    YouKnowWho Valued Member

    The

    - wrong training method is form/kata -> application.
    - The correction training method should be application -> drill.

    When you can see your goal and also see what's needed to reach to your goal, you will have faith in your training path.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2015
  8. Karatebadger

    Karatebadger Valued Member

    How much were we in the dark?
    As much as anyone was in those days. We were practising an art from the other side of the world, transmitted through a few hardy souls who trained overseas or who came here to train. Plebs like me got the information second or third hand from a reasonably reliable source.

    How much were we led astray?
    Not so much led astray (apart from the obvious charlatans) as had to make do with what we had access to.

    Did your sensei know everything!
    No

    If not, was that a bad thing?
    No, I have yet to see a single, all-encompassing font of knowledge.

    There were no books! (Or very few on Wado anyway)
    I had to learn my kata from typed descriptions, not even pictures! With some instruction in lessons of course but I'm not good at learning quickly in a lesson, I need to work it out in my head in private.

    There was no You-tube!
    I had to keep my own hilarious cat.

    Training was hard!
    Aye, lots of knee-crunching, wrist-grinding, shoulder-destroying stuff that you wouldn't be encouraged to do anymore. And that was just the warmup...

    Kumite was tough!
    Still is in some schools.

    Did you we end up that bad, or was there a bigger journey of self discovery going on there that perhaps younger martial artist don’t have these days?
    I think younger martial artists are going to have a more productive MA experience due to the improvements in the science around training, nutrition and fitness, as long as they care to take an interest. We probably trained harder because it was what we liked to do, we didn't have many other things to do for fun and there was a certain mystical macho culture that was really quite positive to be a part of. That seems to be relegated to specialist gyms these days.
     

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