Lesson #578: Tying Your Sarung

Hey brother, can you spare $15,000 for a long distance Silat course?

I ordered the two disc special edition of “The Mist” off Amazon last night (Thanks for the gift certificate, Masterhawke!!) and as usual, the offer for expedited delivery came up. Me being the impatient sunofabitch I am, I hit “yeah, baby!” and sent it in.

I have no idea where the next synapse carrying this thought came from, but it occurred to me: If Amazon failed to deliver my DVD by Friday as agreed, I would be on the horn at 2:31 in the afternoon wondering what the hell was going on with my expedited shipping. If the DVD just never came at all, I would be LIVID. Indignant. Outraged. Probably murderous as well. Complaints@Amazon.com would be freaking flooded, as would their call center, with my around the clock inquiries about my order. I would write blog articles, web posts, hit the forums, you name it. Now, all I would have really lost in real-time money would be a little over $20.00. But you know how it goes: It’s the principle of the thing.

So answer me this: How can a man who pays some guy claiming to be a martial arts instructor umpteen thousands of dollars for a distance learning program, and when he either gets booted out before he graduates for some imagined slight or finishes whatever level and STILL has nothing to show for his efforts not be at least a little concerned when all is said and done? How can a student who has invested his precious time, effort and money into his martial education fulfill the required tasks and still walk away empty handed?

From the dozens of friends I have who went through this to my own personal experiences, I have seen this recurring phenomena time and time again. Mostly, when all is said and done, we’re just so happy to be out of the affair without having gone bankrupt, we just want to wash our hands of the whole thing and say screw it, at least now I know better.

Where the hell is our outrage?

I did an online search for Pencak Silat Distance Learning programs tonight, and almost cleared a dozen for different teachers in America. Overseas weighs in with another 9. That’s Silat-specific, not “Martial Arts” in general. I typed that in first & almost broke Google. So let me see, how much money is this industry pulling in, with no quality control of guarantee of product?

You promised something, and didn’t deliver. You were paid, and fed us bullshit while you deposited the checks. You either ad-libbed as you went along or just outright lied about what you were teaching whenever it was convenient. We sent in video training updates, and you used them as handy drink coasters, you son of a bitch. Then you give us certificates that you later go online and disavow as “jokes” or “gift certificates”, you deny us the legal right to say we trained this, and even try to intimidate us into not going anywhere else either.

What’s next, a man selling magic beans? How do you sleep at night?

I have been a member of a couple of organizations in the past that are a source of pride for me, because they were led by men of integrity and they delivered the goods: I have skill in Pencak Silat. (Of these, Mande Muda and the Suwanda family will always be first and foremost.) But these are, pitifully, few and far between. I have seen and participated in many more that I would have been better off just burning the money, or wiping my ass with it. At least that way I would have gotten SOME use out of it.

The thing is, there’s no way to tell how good or bad a person’s martial arts are unless you cross hands with that person yourself. Even then, if they’re good, can they transfer that ability to you as well? Furthermore, will you have to take out a second mortgage on your house to get halfway through the course? You don’t know these things, you see, which is why you’re going the distance training route in the first place. And since my Google search returned almost no reviews from a finished student of any of these courses, making an informed decision is still a crapshoot.

Something that I appreciate is when my videos on youtube reach someone in a remote area with no training opportunities. But those are just quickie three to five minute lessons, and I don't charge for that. I have been inundated with emails asking me to either produce DVD’s or a distance training program of some kind. I’ll make a few DVD’s, but after seeing the horrible mismanagement of most online Silat courses, I’m wary of any “phase progression” or “long distance student” series. I’ve seen it crash and burn too often.

One thing I truly believe is that the charlatans far outweigh the righteous in this life, and none are so slippery as the God screamer, the political nutbar and the martial arts head case.

Caveat Emptor doesn’t even come close nowadays. Does anybody know the Latin vernacular for “Bend over, here it comes again”?