About Organizations

So over the years I have jumped through many hoops of Martial Arts schools over the years. I have practiced at places where fighting was the emphasis and where cult like behavior took over and another place where I was the youngest by 30 years. A set of experiences that really lead me down many paths and wasted a lot of time and effort.

This has lead me to the decision that what I teach will all fall under the umbrella of my own family art. I am not creating a new style! I am not mixing styles! I am using what works for me and staying away from the cult of personality or the religious figure head that is involved in many traditions.

So my first real adult martial art was Aikido and I still love much of what I learned while I was involved with it. This story is also from my perspective and may have information that is not accurate due to others clouded judgment of the death of their master. The late Bill Soza passed away in 2002 and he had basically had been grooming an heir to his school who would take over after his death. Lynn Fabia was the heir as she would come to every event to make sure Bill was taken care of and helped in the way a Uchi-deshi would in the modern world. Everything pointed to her taking over.

The sudden pancreatic cancer took his life in 3 months after diagnosis and soon after his death his family took over the school pushing out many in line. His wife and son were now running the school and many bad things happened while wrestling for control of where the organizations loyalties were. Many long time students just simply left and new groups sprang up. Over 6 years being a part of the organization I had never seen or heard, other than a small mention, that Soza had a son. The fall out for all the clubs was that with his son now as the head of the school there were massive changes in curriculum and massive dues owed if you wanted to stay a part of the group.

This behavior lead me to feeling that:

1. Firm lines of passing on to the next generation must be built into everything a school wants to be.

2. Minimization of drama is essential around those who control money, practices, and curriculum.

3. A way to hear complaints and respond must be open and not hidden behind closed doors. (Other than for legal, or personal moral obligations. E.G. rape, abuse, child endangerment etc.)

4. That an organization should not be in control in the minutia of how someone teaches every technique to the point of restricting someone from teaching. (I will give an example in a future blog post.)

5. Teachers should be paid, staff  should be paid, bills should be paid, board members that take on responsibilities as volunteer should be first in line at a pot luck but not be paid.

6. The amount a organization charges should always be reasonable to allow students to learn. Exclusivity of wealth rarely breeds good martial practices and rather is based on greed.

The outcome of the Aikido school was a lot of hurt feelings and a general disgust of everything to do with organization.

Things that I am working on

So I am working my way through a large Tai Chi  DVD set and I needed something else that is a little mindless comparatively. This does not mean that I think that stick fighting is mindless but that the effort I have to put into it is much less than trying to change super small inner body angles to help get more still and develop energy channels.

Secrets of Sinawali

It is a straight forward approach to add weapons practice without the need for dropping what I am really focusing on. There is an added bonus that my brother is really digging it and I am able to help teach him how to objectively look at martial arts videos and learn from them.

It is a real skill to develop watching and a critical eye. This allows any student to see what a master might be doing at an ever more subtle level and a master to try and correct what a student is doing. My own experience came from working with the late Bill Soza as a teenager. The first time he worked with me as a novice I was so confused how he moved and I was hitting the ground tapping (internally begging for mercy) so quickly. We lived in Kansas and he would come about every six months from Dallas Texas.

We would see the basics of what we had been learning from him but then he would show us the new stuff he had been working on. My Sensi would video tape the seminar and then we would pick apart what he showed for the next six months between seminars. By the next time Soza would come he would show a new aspect of what he had already taught and the loop would start again.

This training instilled in me an need for critically watching and later feeling of how to learn from other. As an example I trained with a guy who only did I-Chuan (Yi-Chuan)and had studied under Gregory Fong. This guy was issuing power into a heavy pad in this really strong way with his hands. I watched him as my brother took hit after hit on the pad and I noticed both the feeling and the motion he was doing. I then had my turn hitting the pad trying to emulate what the I-Chuan guy was doing with some success. Then I figured a way to do it with my kicking practice. It did not make it into my normal training routine but I like to use it as example of how to use a critical eye to learn things.

Now I am teaching my brother how to learn a set from a video so he starts to develop that critical eye so he can adjust what I am doing and how I am practicing. The other advantage of adding a short stick training makes me more able to partner practice while my brother gets strong enough to start throwing me. There is something I miss about repetitions with a partner because I have predominantly been doing solo forms for the last 6 months.

The traps in martial arts

Here are some quotes from Divine Roots of Chinese Martial Arts from Youtube. 

"Chinese people believe that their culture has divine origins. 
Whether Chinese medicine, Martial arts (Wushu),  Fung shu they are all passed down by gods. Martial arts, aside from training the body, raising ones moral character is essential. It is only when your morality is high can you develop external techniques and innate abilities. Just making your body strong does not make you a true martial artist." LongFei Yang, NTD Martial Arts Competition Judge.

After watching this video I am struck with the focus on following a path. The person interviewed tells his story of doing one style of martial arts and then when he ran into an old man he tried to fight him. He then goes on to say that he got beaten and started studying with him and has been with him ever after.

One way to look at this is that the person being interviewed followed the path of least resistance until he found something that resisted him. Then he became the same as the thing he resisted and teaches that as the final point of his growth. I am not saying he did not continue to grow but I believe that this style of narrative is so influenced by culture in a way that does not allow him to further his personal journey. 

The thing that I am trying to instill as I move forward with what I teach is as follows. 

1. Personal growth should not just end when you hit something that resists you. When you lose it is an opportunity to set your ego aside for a moment and look at what is going wrong with what you are currently doing.

2. Learn from what you lose. An example would be to take lessons from the person who defeated you. 

3. Don't lose your personal identity through your transformation. Because you may be a master at one art and are now a student should you let go of all you know. Take in what you learn with an open mind and notice when you are frustrated or things contradict what you learned before. This is not an easy task but a necessary one to truly move forward. 

4. Continue to grow even after you feel you are at a new high level from learning. I am not saying take up new arts or challenge more opponents (unless it is what defines your identity) but to re-work what you know and practice with people who will genuinely tell you when you mess up.

Just some thoughts that I feel is a trap in Martial Arts.