Musings and a rant about martial arts.

L

LawDog

Staff Emeritus
A little background info, first:

Some friends and I attend an informal fencing salle in Wichita. We meet whenever we get the urge and have a good time.

In fencing, you have three styles: Foil, Epee, and Sabre. Epee simulates the rapier after the 'First Blood' rule, and Foil simulates before the rule. Simply put, Epee is wounding and Foil is killing.

We have this kid (well, he's a teenager) who practices with us, on the Foil. He's practicing the Art of the Rapier as a killing weapon. His Daddy and Mommy watch pretty often, and they seem to be happy with his progress. All well and good.

Anyhoo, tonight we're done and some of the guys are practicing kick-boxing forms. The kid has changed into street clothes and is watching from the side of the floor. In comes his mother, and she sails across the floor, back all stiff and fairly radiating displeasure.

Never one to leave well ehough alone, I wander over and ask her if I can help her.

She points at John, who is executing a rather pretty jumping knee strike and hisses, "I didn't realize this place was so violent. I will not have my son learning how to kill!"

Somebody mark the calendar, for the Dog has been struck speechless.

Her son has spent the last couple of months, with her approval, learning how to stick a rapier through the torso of an opponent. Would someone please tell me how that's less lethal than a kick to the head? "You can use two feet of steel to perforate bodily organs in alphabetical order, but don't even think about punching your opponent in the mouth." :confused:

God must really love idiots, 'cause He sure made a lot of them.

One wonders how long it will be, before the Mommies of the World find out that people are learning how to kill other people without weapons. Goodness.

*sigh*

LawDog

[This message has been edited by LawDog (edited July 11, 2000).]
 
Lawdog,
The lady needs to be educated about the sport of Taekwondo.
My son began Taekwondo training at age 12 an is now 24 and holds a black belt. Perhaps she should check out the website listed below to learn more about this sport.
http://www.ustu.org/

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"Lead, follow or get the HELL out of the way."
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DorGunR:
Lawdog,
The lady needs to be educated about the sport of Taekwondo.
[/quote]

I must respectfully disagree. The lady needs to be educated. Period. But I fear it's likely too late.


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"...and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
Luke 22:36
"An armed society is a polite society."
Robert Heinlein
"Power corrupts. Absolute power - is kinda cool!"
Fred Reed
 
Take her to a hockey game to watch the parents kill each other.

I think I have some insight. Fencing is a ritualized sport that is removed from its violent beginnings. You strike at confined areas wearing padding and you score points.
You never conceive of taking your foil to the street. Just like the javelin, we are past worrying about the UN sending a phalanx of Spartans down the street of San Antonio to take away my short sword ( :)).

But kick boxing, you can actually use on the street to be a vicious little boy.

That's scares her. Far cry from my dad who taught me a little boxing and who was a boxer in his youth. My parents also sent me for some martial arts lessons specifically for the self-defense purpose, although I admit I was a lackadaisical student.

I agree that this mommy won't buy the mystical nature of self-respect that is part of the martial arts kant.

So the issue is the perceived reality of the violence implied in the training.

PS. I once was driving near the middle school and saw a young lad throw a kick into a little girl's ribs. I stopped and saw if she was OK. I chastized the young man who ran away. I called the school and discussed it.

I don't know if he was a serious student of the Martial Arts but he needed a stern talking too.
 
Quotes that seemed appropos:

"The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes." -- Mark Twain

"You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, by definition, half of them are even dumber than that." -- J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs

"Some Scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." -- Frank Zappa

Let's hope the boy didn't inherit his mommy's brains; no sense in passing along no sense.

pax
 
Over here in Asia judo, karate, arnis, tae kwon do, and the like are practiced in school much the same way that Americans play baseball, basketball, and football.

It's unfortunate that I used to call "hysterical bored housewives" are now called "soccer moms" and have significant social and political clout.

Why? There's a reason, but it's so tedious and boring to explain that most people would fall asleep.
 
Um, pardon me, but wasn't the very origin of "sports" as an alternative to combat or based on combat-related skills? Didn't the modern notion of "sportsmanship" came from chivalry, a code of honorable battlefield behavior? Like any other skill or behavior, it boils down to self-dicsipline, self-control and values by which any 'martial art' is practiced. Send idiot mommy back to Fantasyland, and make her stay there, before she breeds again, OK?
M2
 
hey, was her name Rosie? :rolleyes:

------------------
"It is easier to get out of jail then it is a morgue"
Live long and defend yourself!
John 3:16
NRA lifer
GOA
GSSF
KABA
 
As a student of the Japanese sword, I'll have to second Glenn's observation.

Swords are "quaint". Gentlemen and Samurai in their regal regalia learned to use them and embodied within the social view of the rapier and katana a sense of aristocratic sport. Such weapons are anachronisms today; nobody walks down a dark alley in fear of being perforated by a two-foot needle. Ignorant parents think it is quaint for their non-football-jock athletic son to learn a low-impact sport wrapped in rules, formality, safety gear, and anachronism.

What soccer moms don't realize that, in ceremonial garb and pretty fluid motions, is that I'm learning to quarter someone before the pieces can hit the floor, and that teenager Johnny is learning to perforate an opponent's organs in alphabetical order in under four seconds. Why? The soccer moms don't see decapitations and human pincushions several times each night on TV, don't hear about muggers with broadswords, and generally have no mental connection to the reality of what is being learned.

An unspoken joke in my sword class is that my large company, despite the enforced no-weapons policy, subsidizes on-premises classes to teach employees how to punch, break, beat, club, perforate, disembowel and dismember people. To the "outsiders", it's just another sport.

But when the ignorant managers and soccer moms watch what's really going on and make the connection to their distorted view of defense, they get scared out of their minds: damn the reasoning, bigotry full speed ahead.
 
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