Information at Cross Purposes

There's tons of information out there on any given subject that seems to contradict each other. People give information to people without the people who want the information truly understanding what they're asking.

Part of learning is not just asking questions, but knowing the right questions to ask. The cure is to ask questions and to keep asking questions and not to stop even if you're satisfied with the answer.

I see this all the time in many subjects from heating and cooling your house to physical fitness. Problems usually arise because someone has a problem, but instead of truly understanding it they go out and find a patch. The patch makes more problems, so they get another patch. It's like a massive game of telephone where the actual problem never actually gets addressed because it was never actually discovered, but you end up with a weird "fix" to the problem.

A recent example of this comes from bodybuilding. I'm not a bodybuilder, but I like to stay in shape to look good for my mate and everyone else. There's a lot of weird contradictory information about what it takes to get big muscles because of one piece of information that's usually lacking, because a question is never asked. Are you on steroids? Steroids almost completely changes the way you train, because they circumvent your body's natural processes. If you're on steroids you train a specific way, which is almost opposite to the way you have to train when you do it naturally. On steroids you work out for volume, so you do relatively low weight for lifting and do it a lot. If you're not on steroids and work out this way you will not see the same results, because you're not on drugs. However if you ask a bodybuilder what type of work out he does, he'll tell you and he's not lying, he's just not telling you the information you really need. I'm not on steroids by the way. I don't have big muscles either.

This happens in martial arts as well. Sports, aesthetics, combat, fighting, self defense, fitness and spiritualism have all been blended together to give us a bunch of information at cross purposes. Training for all of these is different yet many people think they're all the same. They model their training off of professional fighters, but don't understand that professional athletes train in a cycle with well defined training plans because they know exactly when they need to perform. It's on a calendar. In combat there are a huge amount of resources that go into each battle with each aspect of the larger military campaign assigned to a different type of unit, which each have their own individual goals and training. In self defense it's prudent not to push yourself so hard that you can't respond to a sudden violent attack. All that training doesn't do much good if you're limping down the road because you train full contact five days a week, and a half starved hobo just has to push you over to get your wallet, when otherwise you could have just ran away.

Technique for example is an illusion. There is no such thing. There are effects on the body. If I trip someone, it's not because I used my foot, hand, a chair or a fart, it's because the other person lost their balance. I made them lose their balance, but it's the result that's desired not how I get there. I don't care how I get there. However, if I train in a system where I need to learn a specific gesture or choreographed scene to get my next colored belt than technique is important. I will be tested on how I get to the result. The result is usually an assumed afterthought.

If the focus is on self defense than technique is less important than result. If the focus is on sport and who can do a specific group of techniques better than the other person than technique is very important. Sport is the cart before the horse. But, technique is important right? Nope, it's not. It's as if a soldier would stand up in the middle of combat and say "hey, time out guys. This dude didn't kill this guy right. He didn't use the right technique." Like they care as long as it gets done.

This is where these inane arguments about how long you should practice a technique for come from and when you've "mastered" something. As if there is such a thing. You practice until you die. End of story, let's move on to something more productive.

All this different information leads to a lot of wasted effort. Patches on patches on patches. People who train in techniques to get belts, because they believe they'll get skill, but all they have are belts and a dictionary as if owning a dictionary made you a writer. They add more technique to patch their kata because that's not real and then they add more techniques for different scenarios to patch the fact that they don't know how to use the movements they already have creatively to get results. They add more patches and techniques from other parts of karate to try and "understand" movements that they never sat down and studied to begin with as if being in a thousand one day relationships is the same as being in one thousand day relationship. Add to the fact that this is all just pissing in the wind when it comes to the complexity of violence and what it takes to survive the conflict physically and survive the aftermath mentally and spiritually.

The point is if you're a karateka sit down and look at what  you have right now. How can you use it? How can you abuse it? Do you really understand it? People survive in harsher environments with just a loin cloth and their wits. I think we can all learn to use what we have around us and inside us instead of looking for more imaginary fixes to made up problems.

Modern Violence and Karate

The key to understanding old school karate and their training methods is violence. Not the type of violence that most people are aquainted with, such as movies, television and sporting matches, but social and asocial violence. Violence is what links the past and the present.

The past is filled with such extreme violence that in comparison the conflicts of today look about as dangerous as chamomile tea. Any injury could become infected and lead to death, or cripple you and cause you and your family to starve due to lack of income. The stakes were much higher in the past. They didn't have many of the safety stops that we enjoy in the first world, such as medicine, law and order, and welfare. However, the criteria for surviving in those conditions are very similar to surviving a violent conflict today. Avoidance and ruthless efficiency.

Even old manuals on civil self defense arts mention the importance of avoiding conflict and escape. Along with behavioral rules to be respectful, to mind your manners and to keep your mouth shut. It's not empty character building. It's how you stay out of fights and survive. If you're nice, respectful and courteous to everyone you meet, the conflicts you have with people drop significantly. According to Marc MacYoung, the best indicator that you're about to be attack is you're being an asshole.

The physical part is very similar as well. The opponent should be downed in one move. The longer the conflict goes on the chances of injury and death go way up. Attack and defense must be simultaneous and you must have a handful of moves ingrained so deep that you act automatically.

Reading about modern day violence is what made me understand karate the most. I suggest that if you want to study karate more deeply you look to modern texts on violence, social behavior and crime. It's a bridge to the past.

Keep in mind that this is not an endorsement of karate for self defense. Karate can be used for self defense, but it must be remembered that karate was developed during the 19th century in Okinawa. The moral, ethical and legal ramifications are different for that time period and environment than the time and place we live now. Know your laws.

History and Tradition

I read a lot of karate books and books about violence, because I'm essentially on my own. Books become my teachers. Almost all of the old karate books have a section on history. Patrick McCarthy's Bubishi has an entire section on the history of the work before it even starts for context. There are a few things that all of these books agree on.

1. There is no orthodox karate
2. No one really knows what the movements mean
3. Old karateka practiced few kata
4. There are many variations of kata and none are "correct"
5. No one truly knows the history of karate 
6. There were no styles in the traditional sense just local flavors
7. Karate has evolved and changed

I find it troubling that it's almost the opposite of the modern karate paradigm. Uniformity, lineage, usually at least 15 kata, styles and tradition.

I believe economics is the answer to this, but who knows.

Rant: Bad Training ( I warned you)

Let me tell you a story.

When I was in the Marine Corps, we were encouraged to not raise our hand at the rifle range for help when we had a malfunction. You'd think it was to encourage you to clear your own weapon malfunctions, which is partly true, but not the reason they encouraged this. The reason was that people had gotten their hands shot off in combat because their weapon malfunctioned. They didn't know what to do, so their brain made them do what they had always done when they had a malfunction and didn't know what to do, they raised their hand. Goodbye fingers, hello having the nickname "Lefty."

I'm going to put this in a little bit of context. The average none infantryman in the Marine Corps, which is basically the entire Marine Corps, spends about one week on the shooting range to qualify with their service weapons and hopefully earn some points toward a promotion. Of that week, most of it is spent waiting, waiting to shoot, raising and lowering targets for other Marines in "the pits" and waiting. You might spend 30 minutes in all on the firing line a day, actually firing your weapon and most of that time is spent waiting. Waiting to shoot or waiting for everyone else to finish shooting. For the entire week it's only 2.5 hours of trigger time, maybe. Of that 2.5 hours, you might have three malfunctions or none. If your rifle is in really bad shape (they don't give the good ones to the desk jockeys), or you've decided to not spend any time cleaning your rifle, you might have a malfunction that makes your rifle completely inoperable and you can't fix it. Basically you might spend two minutes raising your hand, so someone can help you fix your rifle, usually a range coach.

This means that this insignificant amount of time in a fairly none stressful environment can cause you to injure yourself in an environment that has almost nothing in common with it besides being surrounded by other Marines and having a rifle. It takes a few minutes to ingrain this habit and it can cripple you when it counts. What do you think is going to happen when you do thousands of repetitions of a bad habit every month?



I hear all the time people say "this is for fighting not self defense, when we're defending ourselves we do X," but they never practice X. They also say "if you can't find a good school just pick out the good stuff from the ones you can find, or train at most decent school."

This isn't possible. You can't switch gears like that and you can't magically undo all the bad stuff you're practicing in class because you don't like it. If you're putting in the repetitions and the training than your brain doesn't care. It doesn't care what you "know."

Training has to be done carefully, it has to be done correctly and it has to be done in the correct context. Bad training can get you killed, crippled or send you to jail. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, but you shouldn't knowingly or unknowingly ingrain bad habits if you plan on staking your life on something, and you shouldn't tell other people to settle or give up when their life might one day be on the line.

Know the Law!

Nothing disgusts me more than watching some idiot demonstrate a technique that they claim is self defense. It usually goes something like this.

"You look at someone's girlfriend or accidentally splash him with water and the guy comes after you and wants to kill you. You block the first punch, throw him to the ground, break his elbow and then stomp his face in and walk away."

They always create this fantasy that leaves you with no option but to use force and usually lethal force. The above example is lethal force and in most places this situation would be called murder.

Yes that's right, murder.

This isn't television people. It's not a game. It's real life with real consequences. For some reason people believe that if you aren't using a gun than you're not using lethal force. Not true.

You need to know the law, federal, state and local.

Once you know the law, you'll find that many martial arts techniques are more for combat and assassination than self defense.