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Phil
Doherty is Editor of Martial News.  PHIL DOHERTY: MY students are always asking me questions. Which is something that I encourage. But when I'm asked questions in the pub about martial arts I always get wary. Some of you may think I'm a bit paranoid, a bit strange perhaps, but I always get a little ball of dread in the pit of my stomach when I hear the words "Well, show us somethink then!" You just know that if you do "show somethink then" it won't end good. If you do it half-heartedly the clever dick will just say "that wouldn't work" and if you apply it vigorously they squeal like a pig and shout how you tried to break their arm/leg/ finger etc. Or - quite likely take a wild swing for your nose. (I once got a kick in the unmentionables ...well, I was young and stupid...) And, have you ever had: "what would you do if I walked up behind you and hit you over the head with an iron bar?"... I don't know about you but I think I'd fall to the floor and lose a load of claret personally... I mean, what type of stupid question is that? Did they expect me to say I'd bend it around my titanium skull because I'm a man of metal... Or maybe levitate quickly out of range...or use my laser eyes to melt the bar in their hands? I'm a human being for god sake, not a flipping demi-god from Dungeons and Dragons with mystic powers...you hit me I bleed. Another annoying thing the great unwashed do when they find out you do martial arts is walk past and try and get a jokey punch in to you, quickly followed by: "I could've had you there..." I recommend breaking their arm the next time they do it...harsh but fair. And how many times have you heard: "Ohhhh...I'll not mess with you then..." What? If I wasn't a martial artist you were planning to beat me up???? Are you a psycho???? And of course my favourite: "Can you kill some one with your bare hands?" My stock answer: "Yes - let me show you..."
PHIL DOHERTY: I was reading some newspaper in the US the other day and in one of them they had a picture of a boy, 7, breaking boards. I think this is just wrong. A seven-year-old's joints are not fully formed and doing - what I believe is just stupid in anycase - breaking boards could cause untold damage to young joints and bones. And why break boards in any case?????? Its not as if you are going to fight a piece of wood! When I first starting doing Wado Karate many many years ago we also broke boards for demonstrations and it was also part of the training I did in Taekwondo. But quite frankly its just pants and - if you really give it some thought - has absolutely no practical use...unless you need firewood and have lost your axe! If a seven-year-old can break a piece of wood why bother seeing adults doing the same thing. I'm I supposed to be impressed by a 20-stone man doing the same thing that a seven-year-old can do? I've heard the arguments its about testing a person courage and strength etc... Doesn't really wash for me however, as like I said I've never been attacked by a piece of wood (sticks yes but not by a small bit of pine from the local timber yard) and I think its time this was confined to the dustbin. But its not just breaking boards...take doing press ups on your knuckles on hard surfaces...this is just lunacy if you are talking about kids. Yes, what a great idea we'll but the full body weight on growing joints to see if they can take the pain and grow big callouses on their hands. Hello, planet Earth calling, these are children for Godsakes! Do we really what our kids with malformed hands???? People will no doubt howl that its traditional....bollocks. Most of these arts that do these things are not even a 100 years old and old schools of martial arts in my, albeit limited knowledge, didn't teach kids. This is MODERN times - just because something is "traditional" doesn't mean its right! Knowledge has moved on and having children doing something which clearly has no real purpose and could cause damage that won't come apparent to years later is stupid. Children trust their instructors - as do parents - but that is from a baseline of ignorance. And while I'm on a rant here's another stupid thing that martial arts schools inflict upon kids without any real thought to the damage it causes. Punching and kicking thin air...many of my contempories are suffering bad knees and shoulders because of this in their later years. Yes - years ago when martial arts first grew in popularity the damage these things do wasn't widely known - but it is now and there really isn't any excuse to continue these nutty practices anymore. Yet thousands and thousands of kids up and down the country will be punching and kicking thin air as they march up and down sports and church halls this week. Buy some flipping focus pads and kick shields for godsake. If you want to do those things as an adult, fine, that's your perogative but don't inflict them on young bodies just because its "traditional" (which must be the most over-worn expression going, just makes me laugh at how many arts call themselves this when in truth they are nothing but traditional, having usually a Grandmaster who is still alive or barely under the sod). Why
not email me at phil.doherty@martialnews.co.uk
with your suggestions and comments on Martial News.
This is taking - like most thngs - more time than first anticipated. But bear with us as we change. We will be opening up a onsite store. This will sell combat clothes and equipment at cheap rates. All the region's clubs will get a special cut-price rate onsite making buying even cheaper. Every purchase will also mean money for charity as we'll give away a tenth of the small profit to good causes. We have also added a Cage Fight Night section for fight fans so its easier to buy tickets. Again this event at Castle Morpeth will be looking to add money to our total raised for Help For Heroes. Want to support those who supported the country...then come along and enjoy a night full of action. Back to the rest of the site - yes the pages have been expanded outward. Its best viewed on full screen on Google or Bing. In time all the pages will expand outward and be given a revamp. Next on the agenda are the blogs and the rest of the "back" pages such as the tutorials etc We hope you like the changes...
PHIL DOHERTY: LIFE can be a fickle thing some times. You just think you might be getting somewhere and something hits you like a bus out of the blue. I'm having one of those weeks where everything that could go wrong appears to be trying its hardest to do so and is usually succeeding. But never mind its Martial News' birthday. Its hard to believe its been an entire year since we fist launched Martial News...its probably flown by because of the hard work that has gone on behind the scenes to get up and running every month. The team all put a lot of effort into making it a success. And it has been a huge success - in fact more so than we ever imagined.STUDENTS COME AND GO BUT THE ARTS
REMAIN
You miss them, their comradery, their presence and their chatter in the all-important after class yak session (which if you come from the North usually consists of mutual ribbing...). But you can't hold onto people if they want to go. Nor should you as an instructor. If a student leaves to start their own club it is far better to let them go and help them get established because isn't that what parents do when their children grow up and leave the nest to feather their own? Instructors - although they may not realise it - are in a way surrogate fathers and mothers for many students. Its through their instructor that some people first learn the value of self-worth and real achievement (which is one of the many reasons why the invention of the coloured belt system by Kano Sensei really is genius). The instructor may the only person in some people's lives where they have heard persistant praise and real constructive criticism. They grow from the overall martial arts experience of physically seeing and feeling themselves develop both the bodily skills but also the mental side as well, where their attitudes, beliefs and expectations are expanded over time until they grow in confidence and self-awareness. Some students leave because new things catch their young minds, others because they've grown bored with the repetition, some because of personal problems while others because girlfriend/boyfriend pressurise them to do so...etc etc. If students leave then its best to keep a door open for them to return than slam it in their face. When you left home did your father or mother say "...and don't come back!". Most likely not... Like the proverbial bird you have to let it go for it to come back to you. And if they don't return then wish them on their way to wherever and whatever the spinners of fate have directed...
TWITCHY... PHIL DOHERTY: I Don't know about you but I always get twitchy during the festive season. You know what I mean, restless. I guess that's what happens when your body expects to go and do some exercise and you can't because classes are shut for the hols. I find myself pacing up and down like some mad demented zoo animal, with a wild glare in my eye... So I'm glad classes are back and the familiar structure of my week has been restored (The wife's happy - I'm not getting under her feet as much!). Its funny how when training stops - even for a brief time - you start to miss it, and part of that missing is the structure that you construct your weeks by. I know I go training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday...so I plan everything else around those nights (This can drive the missus mad!). My body knows I train on those days and, I suppose, it's adjusted its internal clock to expect a certain level of physical exercise on those days. If I don't get it man, then I get twitchy. (Does that mean if I'm attacked it would be better on a training day because my body expects it? Answers on a postcard...) IN WITH THE NEW AND OUT WITH OLD
PHIL DOHERTY: Hello...I hope everyone had a good Crimbo and New Year. This is supposed to be the time of the year where we get rid of our bad habits, make resolutions and attempt to change our self for the better. I never bother because I always fail so miserably that experience has taught me its not worth even attempting! I guess I'm too weak-willed or too stuck in me ways for great intentions to any chance of flowering into real changes. But aren't we supposed to be striving to improve ourselves all of the time and not just at New Year? And isn't that the primary function of martial arts? To help us strive for improvement? Now, I don't actually believe that practicing martial arts actually makes a person a better person. Afterall we each carry our particular charactistics with us from an early age. So, if you are an argumentative person then martial arts will not fundamentally change your personality. You'll still be an argumentative person... But one area where martial arts can really help - especially with youngsters - and that is confidence and self-worth. All right, you may not be the best Karateka or Taekwondoist in the world...but so what! As long as martial arts is improving your perception of yourself and making you more confident surely that is worth a shelf-full of plastic trophies and acolades, nice though they are to look back on. Another area where martial arts can have an impact is discipline, and I mean self-discipline. On a personal note I started in Wado Ryu Karate and my instructor then Alfie Currah was an ex-para who instilled discipline into us in a positive way. His classes were hard but fair. He would make us do press ups and sit ups if we got a techniques wrong. We loved it and we loved him for it. Why? Because he made us realise that real discipline begins inside yourself. We could've told him to "bugger off" and refused to do the press ups. But we didn't, instead we groaned and laughed and did exactly as he told us to do. See - we needed HIS discipine to build up our own discipline. A few years later I realised how important what he taught me really was. This was when I cut all my fingers off on my left hand (yes completely severed in an industrial accident) and had three of them sewn back on. I was told by the medical experts I would NEVER practice martial arts ever again. They told me I would never be able to form a fist again with my left hand. But I had - thanks to Alfie - self-discipline. When the physios said do ten of a particular exercise to improve my disabled hand I did 20. It really, really hurt - your hand is the most sensitive part of your body and has more nerves in it than anywhere else - and it would've been all too easy just to give in...as I had seen others in the same predicament do over the long period of my rehabilitation. But I was determined and I had self-discipline to go through the pain barrier to achieve what I had to do. I cried but worked at it, refusing to give in to the pain, determined to prove the medical experts wrong. I ended up with one of the best hands ever done by the Queen's plastric surgery unit at the RVI. I can form a very good fist that can strike with near full power. And did I give up martial arts? Obviously not. This instilled discipline has helped me throughout my life as has being a martial artist. I, like most of us, have had hard and dark times, times when it would have been all too easy just to give in, run away or self-destruct. In those times I've always been able to turn to my self-discipline and the confidence that martial arts and Alfie developed in me all those years ago. However - as those who know me will agree - I'm still an argumentative git!
YIN - YANG - ROUND TWO PHIL DOHERTY: THERE feel better now... It just never ceases to amaze me how a small minority of people are just closed to seeing anyone else's point of view...and frankly I need a good old rant against everything and everyone. But this is my soft side... Here's a rhetorical question: Why is it that people seem to need to feel superior... because what I'm really talking about is that terrible British condition - snobbery, but in this case of a martial flavour. Now, I was being deliberately provocative in the earlier blog...I want to shake the tree. I respect the martial arts but not a person who tries to use them in a negative manner...to exercise martial snobbery over others. As I said - this snobbery is in all branches and systems of martial arts - Mod and Trad - because it doesn't enamate from the systems but from individuals. And frankly I've been lucky to meet few of these because its my experience that most people are opened minded, at least enough, to appreciate the differences if not embrace them. Most of us aren't snobs... We enjoy other arts and what they do without the need to judge. I speak to people all the time from art to art, system to system - Mod and Trad - and the vast majority of people I have spoken to are just interested in martial arts and love talking about it. But we all know these snobs are out there...we have all met some one at some time who just doesn't get the Yin-Yang of what we collectively do. The "My arts the best in the world..."; the "Your art is rubbish because you don't know the secret...; the "That's not authentic because you don't belong to such and such a organisation; the "Well you know, my art goes all the way back to the Stone Age; well what you do is all right if you just wannaaaaaa......" And haven't just wanted to shout the blog below in their face! I suppose like all snobs those people see the rest of us as the "others". We are the outsiders, them, the great unwashed...and not the chosen. Everyone should have pride in their system...but they should also let others have pride in theirs. Below I was being provoking and rude - because that's how I see martial snobs. Rude. Martial arts are meant to be Yin-Yang, hard soft, soft hard. It's meant to enclose all ways of doing things and all reasons for doing so. If it didn't then it - The Martial Arts - would be seriously incomplete. This is why all martial arts deserve respect - even if you'll never do it yourself - because otherwise you are just dissing yourself. PHIL DOHERTY: I'm a MOD - not a TRAD - I used to be a TRAD but got fed up with people back biting, infighting and being negative towards each other. I grew up and wanted to have a more grown up attitude than name calling and put downs The reason why I made the above statement is because there is one thing that I simply cannot be bothered with in martial arts and that is the pathetic game of one-up-manship. You see it all parts of our martial world. Both traditional and modern. Instead of "My dad's bigger than yours!" read "My traditional lineage is longer than yours!" Swop "My system is more authentic than yours" with "My c*ck is bigger than yours!" How can some thing be more authentic!!!!!!!! Got news for you - ITS ALL MADE UP! Yes, somebody INVENTED all the different systems! And they ALL started off as something new, or evolved from something else. So, when some one comes up to me and tells me that "You shouldn't train with such and such because its fake" and "What they are doing isn't real!" I roll my eyes and reach for the Pampers for the soiled little darlings - coz they are frankly talking... Real! Not real! A punch is a punch a kick is a kick and it doesn't matter if it the system is a 1000 years old or a 1000 hours old if the person connects with a powerful front kick to your b*llocks I'm sure the last thing that will go through your mind as you bend over doubled in pain is "That's not real! You can't do that because you haven't got the correct lineage!" Its the same when MOD people tell me that this Trad system is "rubbish" and that Trad system "won't work". Context please! Its no good saying sport karate won't work in the street...doh, its a SPORT! If the people practising that form of karate wanted to be street killing machines they'd be doing karate-jutsu... And don't tell me that modern MMA is the ULTIMATE fighting art coz it isn't...try using MMA against a Kenjutsu expert and see how far shooting in will get you minus your arms! If you do Kenjutsu lets see how far you get against a Kyudo expert at 100 yards...for that matter. Ditto street combat systems - please go to the cage, have half your arsenal taken away from you by rules and see what happens. Street combat is quick and brutal and doesn't have rules - but MMA guys will be a hellavu lot fitter than you and in the cage will most likely knock ten bells out of you because you will have to compete by their RULES! (I recommend biting and nut grabbing! Or biting his nuts which I once witnessed in a take-on-all-comers wrestling match at Blackpool Pleasure Beach! The wrestler wasn't expecting that from the punter when he took him down and into a North-South! The punter then got absolutely flannelled by a female wrestler who jumped in to save her neutered colleague!) And as for MMA guys thinking that cage fighting equates to self-defence...pleaaaasssee! Half the moves you see in MMA done on the street will quickly get your head kicked in by your opponent's mates. Yes, please roll around the ground while the thugs stomp all over you! Worse, see yourself in court on a murder charge because you shot in with a double leg takedown and...smashed the opponent's head into the concrete killing them with a fractured skull. I've covered enough news stories on so-called one punch deaths thank you very much - that isn't self-protection that's a SPORT. If I had a pound for the number of times I've been told that by someone that their system is authentic and traditional and others aren't I'd be stinking rich and enjoying the sunshine in the Med. This is usually said by someone who practices an art INVENTED less than a century ago (Here take your pick: Wado Ryu; Shotokan; Taekwondo; Judo; Aikido; Hapkido; many Japanese Ju-jitsus; many forms of Escrima; Brazilian Jui-jitsu etc etc etc ad nauseum). And you can shove your lineages where the sun don't shine because tracing your art back 1000 years won't help you on a dark night in alley facing half a dozen drug crazed youngsters armed with knives and intent to cause you GBH. Being a good sprinter and long distance runner is the martial art I'd recommend in that situation... And save the mystic rubbish for the fairy tales...its fake and has been replicated by sceptics so many times I don't want to even go there. If not the magician Randy has a cool £1m for the first person who can fly around as seen in Kung Fu movies...go and collect it! Now I started this blog with a statement about TRADS and MODS. The truth is MODS can be just as bad. I was once told by a Krav guy that Ju-jitsu was rubbish...hello, Krav has more Ju-jitsu in it than some ju-jitsu systems! I was told that I was a "disgrace" for mixing up different countries traditional systems by a Taekwondo guy who obviously didn't know that his system is a mixture of Korean and Japanese styles...and is as modern as they come! I've been reliably informed that the modern art of Aikido is the ultimate martial art because it uses yielding principles. Obviously never seen Judo or Ju-jitsu, Tai Chi or a zillion other arts then. A MOD street combat instructor stated that traditional martial arts don't work. Tell that to half a dozen doormen I know who use arts like Aikido and Shotokan karate etc. Seems to work for them mate! I once witnessed a Jeet Kune Do guy being dropped by a Kyokinshinkai Karate guy outside a pub after he said karate was cr*p and wouldn't stand against a modern system. Cue two rapid leg kicks to the thigh and one Jeet Knue Do guy lying on the ground yowling "You've broke my leg!" (which he hadn't - just give him food for thought!). Its all a load of B*LLOCKS. Do your art, enjoy it and show and respect the differences whether they are TRAD or MOD!
BUSY BOY PHIL DOHERTY: As I mentioned in my last blog I've been a very busy boy recently... On Friday, Oct 30th we held our Cage Fight Night up at The Alnwick Gardens. And tonight (Sunday, Nov 1st) I'm busy finishing off Martial News for the November First Edition. Strange thing is though I'm bone tired through lack of quality sleep and stress I still love to talk shop as it were. I never get sick of talking to other martial artists, regardless of style or system. While others, over the years, have fallen by the wayside and given up training I've keep going, week-in week-out...I guess like thousands of other instructors up and down the country. Its true that some times I ask myself "Why?" while I'm wondering if its all worth it. Like when you rush up to training on a horrible night and find only the cats turned up to train, or everyone has turned up to train but the caretaker has forgotten to open up! Oh boy! But I suppose its like yin-yang those dark days are balanced by the good times when students excel at a grading or you do a demo without making one major cock-up (rare - but nice!). Then you know why you do it, or at least I do. I guess the combat arts are just too deep under my skin after 26 years of practicing them for me to seriously consider every jacking it all in...beside, I'd miss all those chats with students and instructors... Yours in budo - Phil Doherty TIME FLIES... PHIL DOHERTY: I've had a busy few weeks recently turning the website interactive and preparing for the Cage Fight Night up at Alnwick. If you click on the ads they will take you directly to the websites of the club's and businesses advertising on site. These are part of the changes that are taking place with Martial News, albeit more slowly than I anticipated. Ah...there is always so much to do! But so little time to do it! Its a bit like that with the martial arts themselves...there are so many systems I'd love to have time to train in. But unfortunately there is not enough time in the world to train in the multitude of systems and styles that exist today. I was asked recently by a parent which was the best style to learn. I truthfully replied all and none of them! It depended on why she wanted her son to learn for, I said. And more importantly why HE wanted to learn in the first place. Explaining that our organisation doesn't teach anyone under 16-years of age because of the nature of the systems we teach, I suggested that she talked to as many instructors of the club's in her area as possible before committing to a particular club. I didn't want her wasting her time, you see, blindly choosing the nearest club or class and then finding it not to her son's liking, or being led to believe that that systems is the "best" because someone else says so. Many students just go along to the first system or closest class to them, or the one that advertises the most, without really giving it much thought as to why they want to learn a martial art. They don't ask questions even of themselves never mind the instructor. And, if they are not careful, they can find themselves going down a "Way" that really wasn't what they were looking for afterall. And when you get to my age you realise why time is so precious, and why you shouldn't waste it. But what of the instructors? How many of us - me included - have told some one they could join without first asking the prospective STUDENT what it is they are looking for? Guilty M'Lud! Surely we have a duty though to make sure what we teach is appropriate to what the student needs are. Afterall we are the experts! Gotta go - haven't got the time you see, must finish off this second edition, walk the dog, speak to the wife in passing and round me awol kids up for their dinner, speak to my business partner Darren and write a load of publicity up for the fight night... ADVERTISEMENT
CAGE FIGHT NIGHT AT
THE ALNWICK GARDEN
 DFM Martial Arts presents
its Cage Fight Night at The Alnwick GardenThe event will feature some of the top MMA and kickboxing clubs in the region in an explosive night of non-stop action There will be pro, semi-pro and amateur MMA and full-contact and semi-contact K - 1 and kicboxing Book your ticket
by phoning the Ticket Hotline on 0191 4401368 The event is being
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News
BOXING VERSUS CAGE
FIGHTING
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CAGE FIGHT NIGHT AT
THE ALNWICK GARDEN
DFM Martial Arts presents
its Cage Fight Night at The Alnwick GardenThe event will feature some of the top MMA and kickboxing clubs in the region in an explosive night of non-stop action There will be pro, semi-pro and amateur MMA and full-contact and semi-contact K - 1 and kicboxing Book your ticket
by phoning the Ticket Hotline on 0191 4401368 The event is being
sponsored by Martial
News
LAST
MONTH'S EDITION - SEPTEMBER - SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE
FLASHY WEBSITES... PHIL DOHERTY: Hello and welcome to Below the Belt, a wry look at the world of martial arts. Some one recently asked me why Martial News hasn't been made into a flashy website. First off because its a NEWSPAPER not a magazine. Think of an all-colour, picture stuffed mags (any topic) that you see on the newsagent shelves and then compare that to a newspaper. I think you'll agree they are not the same beast. Nor are they meant to be. Secondly, we are a regional newspaper that reports local club news. Local newspapers DO NOT have flashy, all-singing and dancing websites - instead they have functional sites that are easy to navigate with clear sections. However, the website we have been using is a prototype and we, as I've mentioned before, are going to be changing it over the next couple of months or so. The first of these changes - small ones - you may have already noticed in this month's edition. We've got rid of the borders and have highlighted the background behind text. But the biggest change will be when we switch to a Content Management System. This will allow us to build forums, interactive blogs and other features. But please don't expect Martial News to be some kind of all-singing, dancing website with flashy intros, white on black pages (known as a WOB) because Martial News is a NEWSPAPER and not a magazine. We like our plain jane site...in fact we are proud that its that way... We are here for the local clubs, instructors and of course, and most importantly, the students who are the life-blood of martial arts. So we will NEVER just concentrate on big clubs and associations - we don't care if your club only has only three members or even less! Send your stories to us and we will try our hardest to get them online and always free of charge... LAST
MONTH'S EDITION - AUGUST - SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE
PHIL DOHERTY: Hello and welcome to Below the Belt, a wry look at the world of martial arts. IT never ceases to amaze me how people will act like sheep. Of course I don't mean people walk around bleating all day - though I know a few that do - I mean people will do and say whatever they think everyone else thinks or what they have been told to think. They never question... Its the same with martial arts... Most people, told this art or that system is the be-all-and-end-all of combat science, will believe it to the point they think any other system is inferior. Or worse think their way is the only way. Nothing wrong with having pride in one's system, style or club, mind you. Those can be very positive expressions. So, why are some people closed-minded - or, as a friend once said blind-minded? Why don't they visit other clubs and styles and train in multi-style seminars? (Even on multi-style seminars I've known club's to do their bit then refuse to participate in anybody else's sessions. Personally, not only do I think that is the height of bad manners, it also show a high degree of arrogance!) FEAR: People are generally scared of the unknown and unfamiliar. They shy away from anything out of their norm because it makes them fearful or uncomfortable. To walk into another dojo or kwon requiries courage, especially if you are doing something completely different from your core art because you are back to beginner again. There are all those neurotic fears to contend with: "What if I make a big mistake"; "Wonder if they'll like me", "Does me bum look big in these new bottoms...". But there is also the fear what you have previously learned won't hold water against the other system - this would of course attack a core belief. (This is irrational. Yes there are some systems that find it easier to overcome some systems...but in turn they have nemesis as well!) There is also the fear the new Dojo will use you as cannon fodder and everyone will line up to take a piece of you! (I've had that happen before! Best thing to do is give 'em as good as you get! They hit you hard - hit them hard...eventually they'll stop being ars*s! And respect you...but its a legit worry.) In truth the majority of dojos, dojangs and kwons will be welcoming and be interested in your background. But isn't martial arts supposed to be about conquering fear? If we are the off-spring of warrior tradition shouldn't we striding towards the point where death holds no fear for us? Yet we are fearful of entering another domain, another system or way of viewing and doing things...somebody else's training hall... ARROGANCE: This of course can be a two-way street. Some people won't train with other clubs even in their own systems, never mind a completely different style. Its as if coming in contact with "others" will somehow, "contaminate" them, make them unclean and corrupted. They have to keep their club-style "pure" and "undilutted" and this type of instructor will fill their student's heads that everything else is "inferior", theirs is "the ultimate in martial science", and everything else "doesn't work" etc blah blah blah etc... These type of instructors usually have fits when you turn up at the training hall asking to train - and the higher the grade you are, the higher their paranoia becomes. They will usually make it quite plain they don't want you there and this will transmit as hostility from their students. You are an "outsider" or an "in-comer". At the end of the session the instructor will most likely indicate that the club "is not really for you..." (Don't go back - if they are so insular as that they probably haven't anything worth a damn to show in anycase!) But of course the above really comes down to fear. In the above case its the INSTRUCTOR'S fear that you will show his students he's talking a load of b*llocks... PROPAGANDA: Some times people really believe their own propaganda and truly think their style is the best thing since the bread slicer was invented. These types of instructor usually have a narrow experience of martial arts. They've done one system for years and can't comprehend that there can be equally valid answers to common problems. They boldly tell you that: "Its an interesting trick but just do this (my) way...much better!" (Your way's just a "trick"...) They could actually teach you a lot - they've immersed themselves in one art and may know it inside-out - but they might not teach you anything useful as well. (You'll be able to tell within a few weeks.) But even if they really do know what they are talking about (within the confines of their own art) you'll have swallow your tongue and curb your own arrogance! Which brings us to our own arrogances. We all can be a bit arrogant some of the time because - like those lined up above - we are human. Maybe we think we know it all, or that we are certain our system is "obviously" the best, and if only every one else could see that they'd give up their pallid imitations and just come and do our style... (This of course completely omits the point that people do martial arts for a variety of different reasons; some for self-defence, some to get them out of the house, others to compete, while some - like me - because they love the science, mechanics, principles...oh, all of it!) FULL OF CR*P: As instructors will tell you there are plenty of young bucks, full of what Cousin Jonathan from America likes to refer to as spunk, who become so cocky they think they are invincible and simply don't need to learn any more or any thing new. (Ah...the idiocies of youth...) These students are usually yet to get within even a sniff of a new black belt...yet think they are old, wise dogs. In reality they are still wet pups. They tell you that they aren't "...worried about grappling coz I'll smash his face in!", or alternatively; "...worried about punches, kicks and strikes coz I'll throw him!" Ahhhh....best laid plans of mice and youth... They'll grow out of it! Hopefully...but often don't until they get it knocked out of them! If you are about to visit another club, or take part in a multi-style seminar, then best leave any arrogance at the dojo door. Have fun and keep an open mind. You might not like all of it, you might think its flipping Ace...but you'll never know unless you try. Personally I like training with other clubs and different styles. When I visit a club or train with some one I always ask questions - even if I've done that technique before and know it quite intimately. I also resist the urge to say: "you can do it this way as well"...least I try to. Just because I know a technique doesn't mean that some one can't teach me a new facet of that technique, something I didn't know or would have thought of before. Everyone is different and they may have a unique perspective of that technique that would never occur to me. Sometimes they can refine the technique you know to make it work even better. Soak it up. Secondly, when I train with other people I go as a STUDENT a not as a rival instructor - I'm there to learn their knowledge not show mine! I'm a Mod - I used to be a traditional guy... a Trad - but now I'm a Mod. But I train with traditional instructors on a regular basis...I like training with them because they will always surprise you or make you view things slightly differently. Besides - traditional arts have many answers and crucial understandings of key principles...thanks to those who walked the Way in days gone by. I also like training with modern ways because they are are stretching our understanding of fighting arts in general as well as challenging the old status quos. I'm a Mod...and believes the arts of self-protection must evolve for the future, change and become more in tune with modern world. Even though I draw from different traditional wells and blend the water - what results is still water. Go and have a taste of some thing different...it might quench you. Yours in Budo Why not email me at phil.doherty@martialnews.co.uk with your suggestions and comments on Martial News. |
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 KICKBOXING CLASSES Walker Wallsend South Shields Washington benkennedy2003@hotmail.com 07595 160019 www.tynesidekickboxing.org  APRIL 18th Metro Radio Arena Newcastle Tickets cost £35 (tiered seating) and £60 (table – sold in pairs or groups of 10) Credit Card Booking and Information
Line 0844 493
6666 (24 hour 7days) The Metro Radio Arena Internet Site:-
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6006 Special
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for further details  FIGHTERS WANTED MIXED MARTIAL ARTS AND K-1 KICKBOXING EVENT TO BE HELD AT RIVERSIDE LEISURE CENTRE MORPETH, NORTHUMBERLAND, JULY 10TH EMAIL - DARREN.CURRAH@MARTIALNEWS.CO.UK |
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