Skepticism & Spirituality in the Martial Arts

[DARPAChief]

It's understandable that time and informality inhibit Matt's ability to cover much of anything but generalizations; suitable, surely, for a general audience. But I...can't...RESIST!

One of the mistakes we make as atheists is to diminish those kinds of experiences...

Similar to Matt, I share an aversion to the word "spirituality"; the noun has no less than nine definitions last I checked. What's more, the subjectivity that accompanies the word, nay, the topic of spirituality in general, is enough to leave me gasping for air. Atheism is no such thing. Atheism is simply a negative response to the question of belief in a deity or deities. There is, absolutely, no solidarity thereafter. For example, there are Buddhists that consider themselves atheists. Francis Collins, an invaluable contributor to the Human Genome Project, is an Evangelical Christian. My skepticism, and I suspect Matt's skepticism, has lead to atheism. It's a crucial distinction.

Kano's great innovation, as I understand it, to the martial arts was to take Jujutsu (it was all called Jujutsu back then, it was all one lump sum, lump term) and let's train [unintelligible], against resisting opponents, and he created guys who were very good, and they put out a challenge a lot like the Gracies did, and they beat everybody.

Sumo has been the pastime of Japanese well before any schools emerged, and to this day it's as alive as anything. There were combative grappling arts of Japan that also trained in aliveness. Meiji era grapplers went Dojo busting and many, including Kano's own Tenjin Shin'yo Ryu and Kito Ryu, practised with freestyle training. If Kano simply developed a powerful style that incorporated randori, it would have only added to the fray. Kano's real success was in unifying the old schools under one umbrella, providing a neutral medium upon which anyone could compete, and distilling weaponless grappling into a safer, sophisticated combat sport. Naturally, the best way to get good at Judo is to train in Judo. Thus, in between social stigma and WWII, hundreds of old schools disappeared. Others gradually turned into Judo or relegated pressure-testing to Judo. Very, very few kept on with or eventually reinstated resistive elements.

Additionally, it was never all "Jujutsu". It's one thing to say "Jujutsu" or "Judo" and mean "grappling" in general, but Matt does not give one the benefit of the doubt here. In reality, the multitude of names for the grappling arts are distinct if not by apparent meaning then by interpretation inherent to the school itself (e.g. torite is literally taking someone's hand; capturing a hostage, for instance. Kogusoku is associated with armoured grappling in Yagyu Shingan Ryu, yet the term deliniates the dagger and associated grappling in Takenouchi Ryu). In fact, so much did the old schools bitterly resent such sentiments that the Dai Nippon Butokukai, the pre-war nationwide body for martial arts, actually classified them as Aikido to try and avoid controversy!

Obviously, Matt Thorton is an authority with a message people need to hear. For that, I think we can forgive the odd error. They're still errors, though. I hope they don't persist.

[DARPAChief]

Whether I can forgive myself however, is a different issue. Torite is literally more along the lines of "one who takes". :ohno:

[Jim_Jude]

That Matt guy... I don't know, there's some about him, I just don't trust him. Maybe he secretly does systema late at night, when no one is watching....

[WayOfLife]

Great video, agreed with almost all of what he said. I don't really agree with the religion thing he was talking about, but its cool. The physical "aliveness" stuff was spot on.

[Charles Brown]

I keep on hearing that TMA and JJJ in particular train with no "aliveness." When I first signed up on this forum, I asked about Danzan Ryu JJ. People told me that it was a TMA and a JJJ, so there'd be no aliveness or live sparring. I'm glad that I took the free classes to see for myself. We spar every day. Sometimes it's just takedowns. Sometimes it's takedowns to tapouts. Either way, we train live every class. I'm enjoying it tremendously. I'm glad that I didn't listen to generalizations. Plus, our instructor just signed up a BJJ purple belt to cross train us. That's going to be great.

[DARPAChief]

Is this manner of training the norm for Danzan Ryu?

[battlefields]

I keep on hearing that TMA and JJJ in particular train with no "aliveness." When I first signed up on this forum, I asked about Danzan Ryu JJ. People told me that it was a TMA and a JJJ, so there'd be no aliveness or live sparring. I'm glad that I took the free classes to see for myself. We spar every day. Sometimes it's just takedowns. Sometimes it's takedowns to tapouts. Either way, we train live every class. I'm enjoying it tremendously. I'm glad that I didn't listen to generalizations. Plus, our instructor just signed up a BJJ purple belt to cross train us. That's going to be great.

You keep hearing wrong, dude. Or you are hearing what you want to hear. Nobody says they (TMA and JJJ) don't, just that they rarely do and the ones that do are the ones bullshido would recommend. Bullshido advocates "aliveness" in training, no caveats, just straight out, "testing the techniques you learn in an alive manner is the best way to make sure those techniques work in the real world". So when you hear "TMA and JJJ suck because they don't train in an alive manner" we are actually saying "the TMAs that theorise about their techniques rather than testing them against a resisting opponent have no idea if those techniques will work in the real world".

This isn't rocket science, we are not some bogeyman forum that hates TMA. If you have proof of someone saying that no TMA or JJJ does alive sparring, provide it, but this forum will likely tell you to check out a class before passing judgement on it, provided there is no other information.

Also, you're cross training with a purple belt? Sounds less like your school is quite progressive and open to new ideas, something many (notice I said many, not all) TMA schools are not.

[Charles Brown]

I don't know. This is the only DRJJ school that I've trained at.

Edit: However, there is a lot of Judo in DRJJ, so I'd have to think yes.

Is this manner of training the norm for Danzan Ryu?

[Charles Brown]

Well, in my short tenure at these forums, that's the vibe that I got. Perhaps I was wrong. My apologies. It's worth noting that my sensei has a solid wrestling background and incorporates wrestling into our training too. So, maybe he does have a modern concept of combat that other JJJ instructors do not. I don't know. As I said earlier, I'm glad that I gave this school a try. It's also worth noting that the sensei is a medic on a local swat team and likes to give defensive tactics classes, which I also find beneficial. All around, I'm very happy with my school. When I get around to it, or when I feel like slacking at the office, I'll do a write up.

You keep hearing wrong, dude. Or you are hearing what you want to hear. Nobody says they (TMA and JJJ) don't, just that they rarely do and the ones that do are the ones bullshido would recommend. Bullshido advocates "aliveness" in training, no caveats, just straight out, "testing the techniques you learn in an alive manner is the best way to make sure those techniques work in the real world". So when you hear "TMA and JJJ suck because they don't train in an alive manner" we are actually saying "the TMAs that theorise about their techniques rather than testing them against a resisting opponent have no idea if those techniques will work in the real world".

This isn't rocket science, we are not some bogeyman forum that hates TMA. If you have proof of someone saying that no TMA or JJJ does alive sparring, provide it, but this forum will likely tell you to check out a class before passing judgement on it, provided there is no other information.

Also, you're cross training with a purple belt? Sounds less like your school is quite progressive and open to new ideas, something many (notice I said many, not all) TMA schools are not.

[battlefields]

That "vibe" is not created by the members here, it is usually cast as a strawman argument by anyone who is more than ankle deep invested in a dead art.