Couple Things On My Mind...

Wake Up, Martial Arts In America

The Martial Arts are coming of age in America, and with them are some ingrained, reflexive habits wearing the guise of "tradition" that are better done away with. To the casual observer, there is an interesting dichotomy in the varying levels of respect in the martial arts among students, masters and the average man (or woman). Behavior and inference we accept in the martial arts world would be held in the lowest regard in any other aspect of normal life.

For instance; I was standing in line to get some coffee this morning from a sidewalk vendor, and another man bumped into me as he turned around.

"Pardon me" he said, "I didn't realize you were there"

"It's no problem" I replied "No harm done"

What I found to be amazing about this is that the gentleman didn't threaten me, insult my system, say distasteful things about people I knew or try to have his children attack me. Nor did I. We just smiled, got our coffee, and went about our merry way. I don't even think he knew any martial arts.

As I look around the world of martial arts, I see that there are some people who simply don't get enough coffee. Or maybe they get too much.
 

Some people have to proclaim themselves to be the king of the hill, and this syndrome has only exacerbated as the years have gone by. Some must have the loudest voice, no matter how much - or how little - they really know. They constantly make fools of themselves with the continuous slander of people they have never met, ongoing accusations and rumor mongering to paint themselves in a better light, or repetitious postings that do nothing more than re-arrange the exact same words over and over. This must stop, if we (as martial artists) are to go any further. Only in the martial arts is this kind of nonsense tolerated. In any other case, people would be fired, dismissed, court-martialed or DISCIPLINED. But because it comes from a "World respected (really?) teacher" everyone assumes that it must be accepted behavior.

I was once told that you don't need a mouth to do Martial Arts. One has but to look around on ANY discussion board and see that this is probably for the better. One rotten apple,as they say, spoils the bunch. An untrained, ordinary man on the street can accomplish what a well known martial arts instructor cannot, and probably has no hope of ever achieving: HUMILITY.

My Philosophy

While I'm on the subject...I don't believe in shortcuts in the Martial Arts. Either put in the work, or get the fuck out of my way. None of my students have ever heard me say "That's enough, you don't need to do anymore. You can stop there. You have all you need."

Doing a thing with minimal effort often produces substandard results, and I see evidence of this everywhere; Cooking, education, I.T., and especially martial arts. I don't believe you can streamline your training to avoid "time in grade" work on the floor, and even if it were possible, I would reject such training out of hand. I don't honestly believe anyone really "masters" a thing at all, but you have to take various levels of competence to new heights. You must ask yourself; "What level of incompetence am I willing to settle for"?

The only way to learn how to fight - is to fight. Anything less, and you are wasting your time.

Farewell, Eureka

It's official. After years of faithful support, subscription and belief that something good was on the horizon - I have once again been left to my own devices. The Sci-Fi channel (which the bottom-feeders have deigned to rename) has decided to cancel "Eureka". Probably the second-best show on television today. Certianly the best show on the Sci-Fi channel.

You know...I remember when the Sci Fi channel first came out, there was all kinds of good shit on it; MST3K (the new episodes), Painkiller Jane (the original one) The Invisible Man (AWESOME SHOW!!) Frank Herbert's "Dune", The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne and a dozen others. You could catch some serious B-Grade Sci Fi movies on late night, and they always had a showcase for new entries into the bizarre, the mysterious and even the frickin' hilarious (Tripping the Rift debuted here).

In the early part of the millennium, the channel went through what I like to call the "Stargate Phase". Stargate SG-1 was showing several hours of the day, and Farscape seemed to take up the rest of it. There were some gems, of course..."Children of Dune" came out around this time, and gave me hope for the future of the channel I had grown to love. You could catch reruns of "The Night Stalker", or the new "Battlestar Galactica", or check out "Friday the 13th - The Series" before watching a Twilight Zone episode. It was everything a channel with the words "SCI-FI" in it was supposed to be.

Alas, those the Gods wish to destroy, they first make angry (Or proud, depending on which translation you read). First came the programming directly from some producers' ass: The remake of Flash Gordon, Scare Tactics (Shannon Doherty was REALLY hard up for work) and my all-time favorite: "Being Human". (Except, it was an American remake. Which sucked HUGE balls.) Anime Mondays wasn't great, and they seemed to be employing people from other networks (Why the fucking shit was Law and Order shown on Sci-Fi?!??)

WWF wrestling on late night programming. As if that wasn't travesty enough, they lined up a cooking show (WTF?!?!?) for the early-morning crowd. And all those poltergeist - ghostbusters - talk-to-your-dead-relatives shows...a doom herald if ever there was one.

And then they changed the name:

Like Jesus...I am weeping. I'm sorry. I really am. But it will be a cold fucking day in southern India AND Hell before I call this genre that I love so much THAT. Lord, but that name reads like a disease you catch between your toes. This from Wikipedia: "Syfy, in several languages, does not suggest imagination or science fiction so much as the syphilitic^"

A quick look at future programming reads like an MTV lineup after they introduced "The Real World"; Ten "Reality TV" shows, and three original pilots planned.

Ten Reality TV shows.

On Sci Fi.

Fucking TEN.

That's ten more than needed, or I can tolerate.

So, after an 18 year love-affair with this network...Farewell. Perhaps someday, the network execs will wake up and realize why this channel was so popular when it came out, and like MTV, has lost the glossy coating and mass-appeal it once had.

...Then again, this is Hollywood we're talking about. Might as well be Mars, for all the sense they make.

On the other hand...Maybe it's time?