Why do you think people LARP/Bullshido?

**Dr. Sleepless** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 6:32am

After a rousing session of sparring the other night and doing some crappling, I was walking to the dressing rooms to get changed when one of the mother's stopped me to ask me if I was going to show up more often. I told her that I would try and then she proceeded to ask me if what I did hurt. I was confused by this question so I asked her, "You mean the class we just took? The one your son was in?" and she said, "No, the kickboxing stuff you did after class." and I replied with, "Not really, you pretty much learn to shrug off most of everything. Pain goes away with a little time."

This kind of hit me then and I realized something. I don't actually think about my well-being or think of pain as a consequence of doing full-contact sport fighting. This is why I was so confused by the question.

Let's take Baby Albert for example. If you don't know the experiment with Baby Albert the gist of it is, BA was sitting in his crib and Mr. Watson would show Albert a little white rat and bang on a loud sounding thingy, I forget what exactly at the moment (it's 4:22am), but after a while, Baby Albert would cry every time he saw white fur. This was a learned response for poor littler Albert. Fur = pain. And pain = crying. Because crying = white fur goes away. And white fur goes away = no more crazy noises.

So I'm thinking to people who don't do full contact fighting is because of a series of learned responses. Full-contact sparring = really getting hit. Getting hit = pain. Pain = no good. But here's the catch, how do you become "tougher" and seem more like you can handle yourself without having to get hit? Maybe Bullshido'ing originally was just a defense mechanism to fight off having to go through the flowchart and just stop. Maybe to them the flowchart goes: full-contact sparring = really getting hit. Getting hit = pain. Pain = no good. To protect from pain, one must not get hit. This is where they start screwing with everything. If I practice _____ where _____ = whatever bullshit exercise that ranges from chi blasts to point sparring to whatever it is they do. They take this and add it to the formula to try to change it. So then it turns to:

full-contact sparring = really getting hit. [Bullshido crap here = not getting hit] not getting hit = good.

So, are we just forgetting that there are consequences to doing Martial Arts? Like pain, injury, etc.? Do we just not care anymore? Are we less sane for not fearing for our well-being? Should we really be getting so pissed off at people who are just simply following a course of thought that is maybe just some really twisted way of protecting their own hides? (The answer is yes by the way)

What do you think? It's 4:30am and I may very well wake up and start questioning what the hell I just posted. Discuss until I return.

**HearWa** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 6:50am

You're analyzing this too much. People LARP because they're stupid.

**sochin101** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 6:55am

I think people invest a certain amount of time/money/effort into something (especially if they are new) and only realise the suckiness after a time.
Faced with either admitting they made the wrong choice, wasted money and are less likely to win a fight than a hawt chick who does cardio kick-boxing, they carry on regardless, ignoring the holes in their art.

Self-delusion is easy... admitting you were stupid often isn't.

**Sokaku** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 8:19am

There's nothing bad about LARPing I think, but LARPing and thinking what you do makes you strong and a decent fighter, now THAT is stupid.

**Odacon** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 9:25am

Have a look at this crowd:

http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50426

I honestly think they and 90% of LARPers are just doing it for fun, and that they know it's no use.

**sempaiman** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 9:31am

I think you got way to much idle time, take dance lessons or something....

**M1K3** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 10:05am

I think a lot of adults get into bullshido for a couple of reasons which tie together. Usually they have never participated in real sports that require hard work, pain and dedication. They have never have served in the military where pain, hard work and dedication are inflicited on you. They are afraid in general and want to learn how to protect themselves but because of the previous reasons don't have the ability to reconize bullshit when it is being handed to them. They are sold a bill of goods that you can be small, weak, fat, out of shape, etc and still be the d34dly. That these skills they are learning are much better than hard work, sweat and pain. The final step is that the majority of them are never put in a situation to find out what they have been studing dosn't work so the bullshit just keeps going on.

That, and the majority of people are pussies.

**leere_form** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 10:17am

i LARPed in aikido because i didn't know any better..

now in judo i don't often stop to consider how fucking crazy i am to be doing a sport like this.

i considered it last night, when i was (accidentally) thrown full-force on my right shoulder, which made a nice popping, crunching sound and now i'm out of judo and jits until it heals.

hooray, full-contact sparring.

does this turn me off to judo? nope. i just hope i heal fast so i can get back out there.

so, the short answer: losing for real sucks a lot more than just pretending to lose, but winning for real is incredibly gratifying.

**Eldarbong** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 10:22am

People LARP for many reasons. I asked this guy who was recruiting for a WuShu dojo on a local MA forum if there was sparring in WuShu and he said "No...it's too dangerous!"... then he linked me to a bunch of google vids about WuShu.

**wei-chi-student** · Posted On: 1/27/2007 10:43am

I think its mostly due to the paradoxic nature of the motivation of many MAists. Like they often say: they want to learn how to fight to avoid fighting. Why do they want to avoid fighting? Beeing beaten up or even worse: seen or heard of someone beeing beaten up, causes major discomfort for many children. Especially if its only hearsay. Once they get older they realize there's a cure for their fears: MA! But MA comes in different colors and sizes, some of them seem just as bad as the schoolyard beatings they want to avoid in their adult future , but some promise them to make them competent fighters, even dangerous, without the pain and the fear the primarily want to avoid.

The main thing in my oppinion is that both problem and solution take place in a fantasy world. Most of the threats which initially got them to start the MA they chose were purely imaginary, like homeless people, poor people, people of diffent color, agressive older kids all just wanting to kick their ass (as if they had nothing better to do), rob them of their posessions etc.

Is fear the only reason for people to LARP/bullshido? Heck, no, feeling like a big bad ass fighter sure feels fun, and if you can have it without getting your nose bloodied... why not?

But i firmly believe that BS-level and fear felt by the avarage practitioner facing people completely foreign to him are strongly correlated with each other.