How I have neglected you.

I am sorry my friends. I have not been a good friend. I have not done my part in battling the martial arts crappola online. It is not like I have not been thinking of you. I have, almost every day. But I am going to get up off of my knees, stop with the puppy eyes, and jump back into the fray.

Today, I am going to jump on the practitoners of brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling. Now, I am a fan and a practitioner of both. While it is not my forte, I do appreciate it, as a viable and practical art in most instances. My problem is with the practitoners themselves. Many times, they are quite holier than thou as it pertains to their martial arts studies.

Now as a person with a healthy respect for tradition, I am a little put off by the arrogance of many grapplers. Now, the grappling world in general seems to be populated by a group of folks who totally disregard martial arts traditon. Thye talk about how they dont have to call their teacher "sensei" or sifu, and that they dont have to bow in class. I think that people in America still think that bowing is capitulating. It is not. It is an Asian handshake. And it is not like the teachers dont bow back to you. They bow also. But hey, what do I know, I just work here.

Kind of piggy-backing from an earlier thread, we need to realize what is goin to happen to the grappling styles if there is no philosophical or traditional base. One, the sport will NEVER grown behind the tiny niche that it currently occupies. For a sport to grow, there has to be leadership, focused leadership at that.

Second, the image of grapplers needs to be softened. I have never seen a bigger collection of tatooed muscle-heads than the times I have been to brazilian jiu-jitusu tourneys. Kind of pathetic actually. Shaven headed, acai-drinking wanna tough guys all doing exactly what they claimed to hate about traditonal martial arts. They dont want to bow out of respect to their classmates and teacher, but they touch or clap hands at the beginning of matches. They do not like learning the japanese terms of their old art, but run around using Portuguese words and flashing hang loose signals in pictures.

And I can hear it now, " but brazilian jiu-jitsu works in a real fight." News flash jerky, long before you had ever heard of jiu-jitsu, people were defending themselves with traditional martial arts every day. Now go put on your over priced kimonos and pick up a copy of portuguese in 10 minutes a day. Tchau!

And you know that I LOVE kids....

so it is almost with a sad heart that I make this post/observation. When I was a kid, ya know back when we rode chariots to school, martial arts training was different. We went, warmed up, worked on our techniques, worked our drills, sparred, and went home. That was it, no frills, no nonsense. Now every now and then there was a bloody nose, or a kick in the nads, but other than that, not a whole of excitement went on that did not pertain to the training.

And you know what? We loved it. We went in pumped and ready, and we left tired and satisfied. We did not need games to make class more interesting, or camaflouge gis to look cool. We had plain white gis, and they were wrinkled and sweaty when we left. Ahhh the joys of life. We knew why we went to class, and that it would be serious business until we were dismissed.

So what has changed? Now, kids have to change drills every 5-10 minutes. They wear more body gear than your average knight from the Round Table. It seems that it is almost taboo to teach a tough, focused class anymore. I have read in almost every recent martial arts magazine about how a class has to be fun. Well of course kids should enjoy class. Why do anything that you dont enjoy? But if your martial arts class is mistaken for a Gymboree, I think that there is a problem. Ninja nights? Little Dragons programs? Pardon me while I buy myself a break! At what point did our children become so weak and weak-minded that everything has to be a game?

I liken it back to the days before answering machines. Before, if nobody picked up the phone, we just called back later. Now, if we cannot get a hold of someone for 20 minutes, we are all in a panic. Same thing with martial arts. How are we going to teach kids to persevere, and tough out the training if they have never had to suck it up? How about making them do just one more situp? One more set of side kicks? Trust me, it wont kill them. Almost half of American kids are overweight. Let's do our part to fix the problem huh? And by the way, if you are reading this post Emily, this one is for you :)