By Matthew Schafer
copyriht 2013, All Rights Reserved
I have long known that I’m rather opinionated; I have no problem with that as I believe it is how you go about being opinionated that determines whether or not you become one of those people that walk down the street and have others grimace and say, “Shit, here comes that guy.” I’m actually quite careful about expressing my opinions because I learned early on that most people couldn’t care less what you have to say. Therefore, I largely limit the expressing of my opinions to my wife and through written word. I feel this is acceptable because regardless of what I write people have to voluntarily read it so if they don’t want to hear my opinions they just don’t read what I write, and my wife, well...she kind of has to listen to me because that’s the way it works, she’s trapped.
My wife, Mary, listens to my opinions and she either finds them interesting and it lead to a discussion, disagrees with me to a large part which also leads to a discussion, or she is disinterested but like the dutiful wife she is she sits graciously and pretends to listen all the while in her head she contemplates things like what character from the movie “Magic Mike” is the most bangable. The only opinion I have about this topic is that no one named “Tatum” can be bangable; say “Tatum” to yourself a few times...I bet each time you say it, it becomes less appealing. The word makes me think of either a potato gum or a gum that comes from your taint. It’s like going through the school lunch line and seeing the lunch ladies in the kitchen drop fistfuls of warm tater tots down the back of their pants and then do deep squats until the potatoes are smashed together between their underwear and bare oversized buttocks forming a potato paste that’s drenched in ass sweat. Just as you’re about to vomit the person next to you says, “Really? Tatum again? I have yet to get a scoop of Tatum without at least one hair in it!”
Anyway, I want to talk about the actual benefits and the reality of guns. (That’s right, it seems like my segue from potatoes covered in ass sweat to a hot topic like firearms is the simple and solitary word “anyway”) First, it really bothers me when people make the use of firearms special. Every time I hear the terms “gun violence,” “gun crime,” or “gun deaths” it is like nails scratching on a chalkboard. Why do these terms exist? Why don’t people just say “violence,” “crime,” and “deaths?” Why include the word “gun” as if it makes the crime special or unique.
There needs to be a distinction between violence and criminal violence, crime and violent crime, but why is there a distinction between violence that involves guns and violence that doesn’t? As I’ve mentioned numerous times more people in the US are killed with baseball bats than any other weapon so why don’t we say “baseball bat violence”, “baseball bat crime”, and “baseball bat related deaths?”
When you get right down to it there are three main classifications of weapons: 1.) impact weapons like a bat or a stick, 2.) edged weapons like a knife, razor, or broken bottle, and 3.) projectile weapons like a bullet, arrow, or missile. (there is also chemical and biological weapons but that is off topic) In the US more people are attacked with and killed with edged weapons then bullets so why aren’t edged weapons special? To me it makes no sense to make guns special and it only serves to single them out and put the connection in people’s minds that guns equal violence, crime, and murder.
That is a very important point. Our brains work largely on associations, which mean that it likes to connect something new to something old and it likes to connect things with other things in general. If I say the word “General” and ask you to give me another word there is a good chance that you’ll say “Motors.” Why, because people often see the name General Motors and a connection in the brain builds between the two worlds (you could also have said “electric” or several other things, that isn’t the point) If I show two words together constantly you will start to think of one when you think of the other. So, if someone says “gun” then there is a good chance that violence, crime, and/or death also pops up in your mind, often without you knowing it. It works the other way too, if you say “crime” there is a good chance somewhere in your mind the word “gun” also comes up. The human brain is quite easy to program and marketers use this all the time to tie things together like beer with sex, the act of being beautiful with certain brands of makeup products, or certain clothes with a high level of athletic ability.
In terms of causing injury there are four main benefits of having a gun. First, if I have a gun I can cause injury from a greater distance; without a gun, if I want to injure someone that is on the other side of the road I have to walk over there first and get them at a close distance so they are in my “work area.” However, if I have a gun and I can effectively use it then I can stand where I am, fire across the road, and get my injuries from there.
Second, it is a labor saving device. You don’t need a gun to cause injuries, in fact every single injury that a gun can cause you can cause without one, by simply throwing the person on the ground and repeatedly stomping on them. The reason getting shot stops people and sometimes kills people is because the bullet injures the central nervous system (the spine, brain stem, or the brain) so the body cannot communicate with itself and it shuts down and/or the bullet tears a hole and causes internal bleeding which, if left untreated for long enough, can cause loss of consciousness and death.
So, if you come home and find someone about to rape your spouse (men do get rapped) you may decide that in order to stop the rapist you want to puncture their liver, crack their ribs, create massive internal bleeding, and then reassess the situation. If you walk over and throw them on the ground and start stomping on them you might be able to accomplish that in 10 seconds or less, but if you had a labor saving device like a baseball bat you might be able to cause that 2 seconds, and if you had a firearm you might be able to cause that in less than one second (maybe, bullets are very unpredictable). You are very capable to causing the same injures but the firearm lets you get inside their body faster than you can with your bare hands.
The third benefit is it allows you to engage multiple threats rapidly. If you have a gun and four attackers you can fire at them in rapid succession to hopefully injure all of them quickly. This does take a bit of training and hopefully you have a semi-automatic handgun with 15 rounds (or better yet a rifle with a 30 round magazine) instead of a 6 shot revolver because even if you don’t miss you will most likely have to put several rounds in each person (like the woman that recently shot an intruder in her home while protecting her two daughters, she got lucky because after shooting at him 6 times not only did the guy not drop dead but she got lucky because he got scared, ran to his car, and drove away even though he had 5 bullet holes in his head, neck, and shoulders). You can certainly engage the same four attackers with your bare hands and prevail but it will requires far more training. It is far easier and safer to keep your distance and engage them with a firearm or a non-lethal weapon like pepper spray (not mace).
The fourth benefit to a firearm is it requires less intent to do the same amount of work (get your injuries). In most altercations is it the intent to cause injury or death that tips the scales either in your favor or out of your favor. America is quite unique because here where a private citizen can own a gun and be as well armed as the criminal element it is only, in most cases, intent that gives the criminal their advantage. The criminal quite often has no special training and no special...anything really, but what they do have in the intent to grab you by the throat and squeeze until the last drop of life leaves your body. The average citizen doesn’t possess that and so they just stand there and do nothing while they are murdered.
Since most people lack the basic and proper intent to cause injury to their fellow man in extreme situations they have three options: 1.) they can do nothing and end up being an accomplice in their own murder, 2.) they can come to people like me learn it (it is a perfectly learnable skill and has nothing to do with “right” or “wrong” and won’t make you a more aggressive person in your everyday life) so now they respond to the murder’s intent with their own intent and now instead of just standing and being strangled to death they might do something like simply reaching overtop their grip and easily pulling the hands of their throat (it’s simple physics and very easy), breaking their jaw with an elbow, breaking their wrist, dislocating their shoulder, and then looking around to reevaluate the situation, see if you have to do more, and if there are more threats in the area; or 3.) they can buy a gun and get properly trained so instead of doing all that physical stuff they can just fish out their gun and pull the trigger a few times (and pray because it is rarely that easy).
A gun reduces the amount of intent a person needs to have, and this is easier on most people both physically and mentally. It requires a lot of intent to be confronted by a violent criminal who is most likely bigger and stronger than you are and who is coming at you with murderous intent and to be able to look back at him and see his throat, his eyes, his neck, his knee, his groin, his...whatever...and say to yourself, “Ok, I don’t care what this guy plans to do to me, because THAT belongs to me!” and then step in and make your entire world consist of nothing but breaking that one thing that you’ve chosen, and once you’ve broken that and this guy is screaming or laying on the ground clutching a body part you do that over all over again and as often as necessary to make sure that that violent criminal is no longer physically able to harm you. Unpleasant at that is, that is what it takes to save your life. Even if you have a gun it may malfunction, you might be out of ammunition, or whatever the case may be, guns don’t always work or may be not be readily available and that is why competence in hand-to-hand combat is paramount.
If I could boil all my teachings down, if I could distill the last 26 years of my life into one master teaching that would save people's lives it would be this: intent is the heart of hand-to-hand combat; if you have sitting within you the intent to cause serious injury to another living thing and perhaps kill it if you ever needed to, to save your life or the life of someone else, then you’re on an equal playing field with the criminal element and every altercation you go into starts with a 50/50 chance of you coming out alive. However, if you lack that you are at a huge disadvantage and in any altercation you get in with a violent criminal you probably have less than a 5% chance, and I hope you’re not cornered in a room because you’re best bet at that point it start running as fast as you can and hope for the best. (Luckily if someone pulls a gun on you and you turn and run 95% of the time they won’t try to shoot you and if you do shoot at you they probably won’t hit you and if they do statistically you have a 97% chance of surviving, provided you’re only shot once) An instructor of mine once told me that if we could just bring in a big 50 gallon drum of intent and pump it into us he could simply hand us a diploma and send us all home.
It takes a lot of intent and training to be confronted by a violent criminal and then instead of cowering in fear like he expects you to do, you step in, grab his wrist as hard as you can, and then use your body weight to snap it like a twig. It requires little training or intent to pull a trigger which is why firearms are so useful and attractive for self-defense.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that gun owners shouldn’t have training and intent because having training and intent will only make you more effective at using your firearm and more efficient at handling it and the real experts have lots of all of the above, but from a purely physical standpoint someone with no training and very little intent could still pull a trigger. Perhaps that person with little intent that pulls the trigger is a violent thug or maybe it is a 76 year old grandmother whose physical limitations prevent much anything beyond pulling a trigger to protect her from some thug who has just broken open her front door.
When you get down to it I guess people preface “violence,” “crime,” and “death” with the word “gun” because it reflects their own fear. Although most people probably can’t articulate it the way I did, most people realize the radically lower amount of intent that it takes to pull a trigger and that scares them. What I’ve found over the years is that anti-gun people are usually scared of the idea of themselves owning a gun. If you ask them to describe why sooner or later it comes back to them not feeling they could handle the responsibility of owning or even handling a gun and because that scares them they project that fear to everyone else and therefore they’re scared of other people having the responsibility of owning or even handling a gun. After all, if it is too much for them then surely the person down the street couldn’t handle it either.
Question an anti-gun person, or perhaps that isn’t fair, so lets say a person who only thinks guns themselves, in inanimate objects that they are, are very dangerous so only certain people should own (not talking about criminals and the mentally handicapped) and sooner or later pretty much everyone will talk about not wanting a gun in their own hands. They often picture an evil gun sitting in their innocent hand and they’re instantly uncomfortable because they don’t want the responsibility of that perceived power a firearm offers them. They want that perceived power away from them because it is too much so they want to send it out of their hands, out of their homes, their neighborhoods, and even out of the hands of a responsible gun owner.
Over the years I have come to the conclusion that most people who are anti-gun are really anti-gun because they fear the perceived power and responsibility that they would have if they owned a gun and so they don’t want one and don’t want anyone else to have one either. The good news is that this really boils down to a lack of education and training; I have also seen that most people that are properly introduced to firearms and are educated and trained in their use not only lose their fear but find their prior fear kind of silly. Once you are properly trained and educated you come to the realization that there isn’t too much difference between a gun and a stapler. Both are tools that serve a specific purpose, operate in a somewhat similar manner, and have no free will of their own.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Friday, January 4, 2013
The Case For Assault Rifles and Why We Need Them
By Matthew Schafer
All Rights Reserved
Some people ask why the average citizen needs a rifle that can carry over 100 round clips and shoot 1000 rounds a minute, and those kinds of people should be told to go sit down while the adults are speaking because there isn’t anything about that that is actually correct. I understand that is insulting but this is a serious issue so if you’re not really informed you can’t really contribute in a positive manner. If you think the average citizen can go to a gun store and buy a weapon than can do what I just described, and if you think that that is what the currently proposed assault weapons ban is about, then you’re simply not informed.
FDR banned the private ownership of assault rifles nearly 80 years ago and they are still illegal today, this fact should be known to everyone. What the public has available to them today are not machine guns or even actual assault rifles, they are semi-automatic rifles that have adopted many of the cosmetic features of actual assault rifles. The cosmetic features that our rifles today have adopted make the weapon more ergonomic and more comfortable to use and they make it more convenient to operate. Many of the features actually make the weapon safer to own, but what none of them do is make the weapon more lethal.
Before I get into specifics, I want to point out that studies show that when “assault weapons” were banned in 1994 it had ZERO effect on crime! Not only that, when the ban expired in 2003 and people could legally own these weapons again crime when DOWN, not up. In fact, violent crime has gone down 50% in the last 20 years resulting in this being the most peaceful time in human history.
That’s right. Human beings on this planet have never been safer than they are right now. Some may say, “What about mass shootings? We have been hearing a lot about those lately.” Mass killings are a result of mentally unstable people existing on this planet and it is unfortunate but they will always happen. However, those too are at an all-time low. Mass killings in America peaked in 1929 and with one exception they have been decreasing ever since.
Economist John Lott is widely regarded as the foremost expert on the subject of violent crime and firearms. Years ago after he began his study of the subject he authored a book called “More Guns, Less Crime” and this book, now in its third edition, is the most precise and involved study of violent crime and firearm use in the world. This book does not contain any opinions but rather contains real data and statistics that show one thing: when gun ownership goes up violent crime goes down.
The FBI, which has studied this since its creation, has been telling us the same thing. The ONLY thing violent criminals fear is getting injured or killed, and if they know that citizens in an area are likely to be armed they will stay away from that area. Largely as a result of the work of John Lott the majority of US states passed laws allowing private citizens to obtain a license to carry firearms concealed upon their person and the result surprised many. When the bill was purposed many shouted from the rooftops that allowing people to walk around with guns would result in the streets turning into bloodbaths, violent crime would skyrocket, and society would turn into a version of the movie “The Road Warrior.” What happened was exactly the opposite; violent crime rates dropped, gun violence dropped, and communities became safer.
On the subject of concealed carry, called “right-to-carry,” John Lott said, “All the results indicate that violent crime falls after right-to-carry laws are passed …. There is a large, statistically significant drop in murder rates across all specifications. The before-and-after average comparison implies that right-to-carry laws reduce murder by roughly 20 percent. In all cases, right-to-carry laws cause the trends in murder, rape, and robbery rates to fall.”
So, how did this whole witch-hunt start? Those uneducated about firearms noticed in the 1980’s that legal and publically available rifles were starting to look like military style rifles (adopting cosmetic features) and the mistake was made that their local gun store was selling fully-automatic assault weapons. Unfortunately, a large group of Americans who have more than likely never handled a firearm let alone fired one and have received all of their firearms training from TV shows and movies didn’t understand the difference and decided that modern semi-automatic rifles look too scary and they need to be made illegal.
I am not going to make an argument that we need assault rifles because that is a moot point, assault rifles have been illegal for nearly 80 years, but I am going to make an argument for why we need modern semi-automatic rifles.
My first argument is the very simplistic: why wouldn’t we need modern semi-automatic rifles? The only difference to the average person between a semi-automatic rifle and a bolt action rifle is you can carry a few more rounds and you can fire quicker. That is it. It is not some godless killing machine...it is just a rifle. What I have found is that most people don’t understand what an assault rifle is and they are confused about its capabilities.
The truth is that if you go to the gun store and by a .223 caliber rifle is may have a cool sounding name like a “Bushmaster AR15” and it may look like the military M4 assault rifle but it is not. Most states have laws that limit magazine (what people incorrectly call a “clip”) capacity to 10 rounds or less (you can get higher capacity but depending on your state it may not be legal) while the M4 assault rifle can carry 20 rounds to over 100 rounds depending on how it is fed. The M4 can shoot in bursts (it will fire 3 to 5 rounds every time you pull the trigger) and it can often fire on fully-automatic (it will keep firing as long as the trigger is depressed and there are rounds in the magazine). The .223 you bought at your local gun store can legally hold about 10 rounds and can only fire once every time you pull the trigger, because it is a rifle…that is all it is, it’s not a machine gun.
Government compiled statistics show that semi-automatic rifles, while scary looking, are used in less than 1% off all crime in the US. So, what are we getting bent out of shape about? Even if you just look at mass shootings like what happened at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook you’ll see that semi-automatic rifles are rarely used. Most mass shootings are accomplished with handguns and shotguns.
The simple truth is that semi-automatic rifles are not very attractive for the criminal element. Why? First, why get a semi-automatic rifle when you can get an actual assault rifle? Criminals don't’ get their guns legally and they can get their hands on actual fully-automatic assault rifles and submachine guns so why would they bother will semi-automatic weapons?
Second, they are more expensive. Most criminals either get their firearms by stealing them or they buy them from other criminals for extremely low prices; for example, a criminal might sell you a revolver for $100, a semi-automatic handgun for $250, a shotgun for $150, and then a semi-automatic rifle for $800. Most criminals will stick with the handguns and shotguns every day of the week and statistics prove it.
Third, they’re complicated to use. Most firearm experts would consider the average police officer barely proficient with their weapon so how skilled do you think the average criminal is? Most criminals fire their weapons rarely if ever, they instead use them to intimidate their victims. Criminals are often great at violence but have little to no training. The most common firearm used by criminals is a revolver (Smith & Wesson .38 to be exact) and that is because they are cheap, easy to use, and easy to operate. In a semi-automatic weapon there are different levers and such to manipulate and if your gun jams you have to stop and manually clear it, but in a revolver you just put your rounds in and keep pulling the trigger and that is all there is to it. Criminals don’t train and most of them don’t know to properly shoot a gun so a semi-automatic rifle is the last thing they would want.
Fourth, they are hard to conceal. If you’re going to rob someone on the street or hold up a liquor store you’re not going to be walking around with a rifle for everyone to see. Criminals rarely use any kind of rifle.
So, why should the public have access to semi-automatic rifles that happen to have a cosmetic appearance similar to military issue assault weapons, other than the fact that there isn’t really a good reason to take them away? People need them for their own defense. It is as simple as that.
It is estimated that every year 2.45 million crimes are stopped by private citizens who own guns. Statistics also show that whenever there's a spike in guns sales there is almost always a sharp decline in gun related crime. We’ve seen over and over that a well-armed public equals lower crime and safer streets; where in America is there the highest concentration of guns? Chicago. What major city in America has the lowest number of gun violence? You guessed it, Chicago.
We’ve seen, over and over, what happens when the general public is denied access to firearms, just look at what happened in Australia; the Australian government had to make home invasions illegal because when people had guns they never happened but as soon as the public was disarmed they happened in epidemic proportions and prosecutors didn’t know how to charge the perpetrators.
Why do we specifically want a modern semi-automatic rifle for personal defense? A small portion is principle because there is no logic in taking away guns that just look scary; however, the main argument is because they are a better more effective weapon than a handgun. I can defend my family better with a semi-automatic rifle than I can with a handgun. It is a better weapon and it is as simple as that.
My family is simply safer with a semi-automatic rifle in the house then they are without one. Hopefully nothing bad ever happens to my family and hopefully I will never have to pull a gun, let alone a trigger, with the intent of taking a life but if I have to I want to have the most effective weapon possible. I have a .38 revolver in my bedroom but in all honesty I wouldn’t go to that weapon if someone was trying to break into home or harm my family because that gun isn’t a very effective self-defense weapon. It is underpowered and not very accurate. When you shoot a criminal that is out to harm you or your family you want to shoot them and stop them right away and there have been criminals shot numerous times with a .38 and not even realized they had been shot. A shotgun would be better but I wouldn’t have the control and accuracy I’d have if I got out a semi-automatic rifle.
A major problem is that often people have been brainwashed by Hollywood and they don’t understand what it takes to put someone down. On average you will have to shoot someone 3 to 4 times in the torso to make them stop and you just might have to shoot them 5 or more times. There are police officers who have had to shoot suspects 10 or 15 times to stop them, and there have been soldiers who have had to shoot enemy combatants over 20 times (with actual assault rifles) to stop them. People just don’t fall down dead when they get shot, you might just have to put 10 or 15 bullets in someone to save your life so why not do that with the most effective weapon possible?
Consider this last argument: if the new “assault weapon” ban passes it will ban law abiding citizens from possessing many semi-automatic rifles and handguns as well (while criminals are largely unaffected because they don’t get their guns from a gun store) and those that already possess them will be allowed to keep them but they will have to be registered under the “Federal Firearms Acts” (FFA). Every single weapon will go through a thorough registration so the government will know exactly what you have in your home. The problems with this are, first, you cannot take those weapons across state lines without permission from the government which currently can take up to 4 months. If millions of weapons were added the strain on the government would be so great it could 9 or 10 months to get approval. So, if you wanted to go to another state to visit relatives (for example) but your concealed carry handgun fell under this stupid ban you can’t just go, you might have to wait 10 months or more until you can do get permission to do something as inane as that. It is absolutely ridiculous to have to plan your travels perhaps a year out in advance.
Second, historically every time a government has required mass registration of firearms a disarming of the public has followed...every time in every country. What will most likely happen if this ban passes is those firearms will be registered, and then nothing will change because there is no logic to this ban and these weapons are not being used by criminals, just like nothing changed under the last ban in 1994, and sooner or later another mass shooting will happen. When the next mass shooting happens, or maybe one or two beyond that, they will say it since things aren’t changing they need to confiscate our registered firearms and those weapons will be taken away. After disarming the public to that degree it won’t be hard to keep going and in 50 years criminals will be running around with actual assault rifles and the general public will only be allowed .22 caliber single shot rifles to defend themselves with. This is not the smart direction to go in or the direction our founding fathers would have approved of.
Bottom line, the only people buying up and using semi-automatic rifles are law abiding citizens. Criminals don’t want them, especially when they can get their hands on the real thing, so it is only responsible law abiding citizens that will suffer if we take them away.
All Rights Reserved
Some people ask why the average citizen needs a rifle that can carry over 100 round clips and shoot 1000 rounds a minute, and those kinds of people should be told to go sit down while the adults are speaking because there isn’t anything about that that is actually correct. I understand that is insulting but this is a serious issue so if you’re not really informed you can’t really contribute in a positive manner. If you think the average citizen can go to a gun store and buy a weapon than can do what I just described, and if you think that that is what the currently proposed assault weapons ban is about, then you’re simply not informed.
FDR banned the private ownership of assault rifles nearly 80 years ago and they are still illegal today, this fact should be known to everyone. What the public has available to them today are not machine guns or even actual assault rifles, they are semi-automatic rifles that have adopted many of the cosmetic features of actual assault rifles. The cosmetic features that our rifles today have adopted make the weapon more ergonomic and more comfortable to use and they make it more convenient to operate. Many of the features actually make the weapon safer to own, but what none of them do is make the weapon more lethal.
Before I get into specifics, I want to point out that studies show that when “assault weapons” were banned in 1994 it had ZERO effect on crime! Not only that, when the ban expired in 2003 and people could legally own these weapons again crime when DOWN, not up. In fact, violent crime has gone down 50% in the last 20 years resulting in this being the most peaceful time in human history.
That’s right. Human beings on this planet have never been safer than they are right now. Some may say, “What about mass shootings? We have been hearing a lot about those lately.” Mass killings are a result of mentally unstable people existing on this planet and it is unfortunate but they will always happen. However, those too are at an all-time low. Mass killings in America peaked in 1929 and with one exception they have been decreasing ever since.
Economist John Lott is widely regarded as the foremost expert on the subject of violent crime and firearms. Years ago after he began his study of the subject he authored a book called “More Guns, Less Crime” and this book, now in its third edition, is the most precise and involved study of violent crime and firearm use in the world. This book does not contain any opinions but rather contains real data and statistics that show one thing: when gun ownership goes up violent crime goes down.
The FBI, which has studied this since its creation, has been telling us the same thing. The ONLY thing violent criminals fear is getting injured or killed, and if they know that citizens in an area are likely to be armed they will stay away from that area. Largely as a result of the work of John Lott the majority of US states passed laws allowing private citizens to obtain a license to carry firearms concealed upon their person and the result surprised many. When the bill was purposed many shouted from the rooftops that allowing people to walk around with guns would result in the streets turning into bloodbaths, violent crime would skyrocket, and society would turn into a version of the movie “The Road Warrior.” What happened was exactly the opposite; violent crime rates dropped, gun violence dropped, and communities became safer.
On the subject of concealed carry, called “right-to-carry,” John Lott said, “All the results indicate that violent crime falls after right-to-carry laws are passed …. There is a large, statistically significant drop in murder rates across all specifications. The before-and-after average comparison implies that right-to-carry laws reduce murder by roughly 20 percent. In all cases, right-to-carry laws cause the trends in murder, rape, and robbery rates to fall.”
So, how did this whole witch-hunt start? Those uneducated about firearms noticed in the 1980’s that legal and publically available rifles were starting to look like military style rifles (adopting cosmetic features) and the mistake was made that their local gun store was selling fully-automatic assault weapons. Unfortunately, a large group of Americans who have more than likely never handled a firearm let alone fired one and have received all of their firearms training from TV shows and movies didn’t understand the difference and decided that modern semi-automatic rifles look too scary and they need to be made illegal.
I am not going to make an argument that we need assault rifles because that is a moot point, assault rifles have been illegal for nearly 80 years, but I am going to make an argument for why we need modern semi-automatic rifles.
My first argument is the very simplistic: why wouldn’t we need modern semi-automatic rifles? The only difference to the average person between a semi-automatic rifle and a bolt action rifle is you can carry a few more rounds and you can fire quicker. That is it. It is not some godless killing machine...it is just a rifle. What I have found is that most people don’t understand what an assault rifle is and they are confused about its capabilities.
The truth is that if you go to the gun store and by a .223 caliber rifle is may have a cool sounding name like a “Bushmaster AR15” and it may look like the military M4 assault rifle but it is not. Most states have laws that limit magazine (what people incorrectly call a “clip”) capacity to 10 rounds or less (you can get higher capacity but depending on your state it may not be legal) while the M4 assault rifle can carry 20 rounds to over 100 rounds depending on how it is fed. The M4 can shoot in bursts (it will fire 3 to 5 rounds every time you pull the trigger) and it can often fire on fully-automatic (it will keep firing as long as the trigger is depressed and there are rounds in the magazine). The .223 you bought at your local gun store can legally hold about 10 rounds and can only fire once every time you pull the trigger, because it is a rifle…that is all it is, it’s not a machine gun.
Government compiled statistics show that semi-automatic rifles, while scary looking, are used in less than 1% off all crime in the US. So, what are we getting bent out of shape about? Even if you just look at mass shootings like what happened at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook you’ll see that semi-automatic rifles are rarely used. Most mass shootings are accomplished with handguns and shotguns.
The simple truth is that semi-automatic rifles are not very attractive for the criminal element. Why? First, why get a semi-automatic rifle when you can get an actual assault rifle? Criminals don't’ get their guns legally and they can get their hands on actual fully-automatic assault rifles and submachine guns so why would they bother will semi-automatic weapons?
Second, they are more expensive. Most criminals either get their firearms by stealing them or they buy them from other criminals for extremely low prices; for example, a criminal might sell you a revolver for $100, a semi-automatic handgun for $250, a shotgun for $150, and then a semi-automatic rifle for $800. Most criminals will stick with the handguns and shotguns every day of the week and statistics prove it.
Third, they’re complicated to use. Most firearm experts would consider the average police officer barely proficient with their weapon so how skilled do you think the average criminal is? Most criminals fire their weapons rarely if ever, they instead use them to intimidate their victims. Criminals are often great at violence but have little to no training. The most common firearm used by criminals is a revolver (Smith & Wesson .38 to be exact) and that is because they are cheap, easy to use, and easy to operate. In a semi-automatic weapon there are different levers and such to manipulate and if your gun jams you have to stop and manually clear it, but in a revolver you just put your rounds in and keep pulling the trigger and that is all there is to it. Criminals don’t train and most of them don’t know to properly shoot a gun so a semi-automatic rifle is the last thing they would want.
Fourth, they are hard to conceal. If you’re going to rob someone on the street or hold up a liquor store you’re not going to be walking around with a rifle for everyone to see. Criminals rarely use any kind of rifle.
So, why should the public have access to semi-automatic rifles that happen to have a cosmetic appearance similar to military issue assault weapons, other than the fact that there isn’t really a good reason to take them away? People need them for their own defense. It is as simple as that.
It is estimated that every year 2.45 million crimes are stopped by private citizens who own guns. Statistics also show that whenever there's a spike in guns sales there is almost always a sharp decline in gun related crime. We’ve seen over and over that a well-armed public equals lower crime and safer streets; where in America is there the highest concentration of guns? Chicago. What major city in America has the lowest number of gun violence? You guessed it, Chicago.
We’ve seen, over and over, what happens when the general public is denied access to firearms, just look at what happened in Australia; the Australian government had to make home invasions illegal because when people had guns they never happened but as soon as the public was disarmed they happened in epidemic proportions and prosecutors didn’t know how to charge the perpetrators.
Why do we specifically want a modern semi-automatic rifle for personal defense? A small portion is principle because there is no logic in taking away guns that just look scary; however, the main argument is because they are a better more effective weapon than a handgun. I can defend my family better with a semi-automatic rifle than I can with a handgun. It is a better weapon and it is as simple as that.
My family is simply safer with a semi-automatic rifle in the house then they are without one. Hopefully nothing bad ever happens to my family and hopefully I will never have to pull a gun, let alone a trigger, with the intent of taking a life but if I have to I want to have the most effective weapon possible. I have a .38 revolver in my bedroom but in all honesty I wouldn’t go to that weapon if someone was trying to break into home or harm my family because that gun isn’t a very effective self-defense weapon. It is underpowered and not very accurate. When you shoot a criminal that is out to harm you or your family you want to shoot them and stop them right away and there have been criminals shot numerous times with a .38 and not even realized they had been shot. A shotgun would be better but I wouldn’t have the control and accuracy I’d have if I got out a semi-automatic rifle.
A major problem is that often people have been brainwashed by Hollywood and they don’t understand what it takes to put someone down. On average you will have to shoot someone 3 to 4 times in the torso to make them stop and you just might have to shoot them 5 or more times. There are police officers who have had to shoot suspects 10 or 15 times to stop them, and there have been soldiers who have had to shoot enemy combatants over 20 times (with actual assault rifles) to stop them. People just don’t fall down dead when they get shot, you might just have to put 10 or 15 bullets in someone to save your life so why not do that with the most effective weapon possible?
Consider this last argument: if the new “assault weapon” ban passes it will ban law abiding citizens from possessing many semi-automatic rifles and handguns as well (while criminals are largely unaffected because they don’t get their guns from a gun store) and those that already possess them will be allowed to keep them but they will have to be registered under the “Federal Firearms Acts” (FFA). Every single weapon will go through a thorough registration so the government will know exactly what you have in your home. The problems with this are, first, you cannot take those weapons across state lines without permission from the government which currently can take up to 4 months. If millions of weapons were added the strain on the government would be so great it could 9 or 10 months to get approval. So, if you wanted to go to another state to visit relatives (for example) but your concealed carry handgun fell under this stupid ban you can’t just go, you might have to wait 10 months or more until you can do get permission to do something as inane as that. It is absolutely ridiculous to have to plan your travels perhaps a year out in advance.
Second, historically every time a government has required mass registration of firearms a disarming of the public has followed...every time in every country. What will most likely happen if this ban passes is those firearms will be registered, and then nothing will change because there is no logic to this ban and these weapons are not being used by criminals, just like nothing changed under the last ban in 1994, and sooner or later another mass shooting will happen. When the next mass shooting happens, or maybe one or two beyond that, they will say it since things aren’t changing they need to confiscate our registered firearms and those weapons will be taken away. After disarming the public to that degree it won’t be hard to keep going and in 50 years criminals will be running around with actual assault rifles and the general public will only be allowed .22 caliber single shot rifles to defend themselves with. This is not the smart direction to go in or the direction our founding fathers would have approved of.
Bottom line, the only people buying up and using semi-automatic rifles are law abiding citizens. Criminals don’t want them, especially when they can get their hands on the real thing, so it is only responsible law abiding citizens that will suffer if we take them away.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Too Dangerous To Spar, Revisited
By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
I have received a few emails about a previous article of mine entitled "Are Martial Art Techniques Too Dangerous For Sparring?" and while it seems the article was well received by most maybe I did a poor job of expressing my main point. In that article I stated that neither myself, my school, or the style that I study spars and we don't believe that sparring is really a beneficial method of practice.
The two main arguments I put forth were (1) that since sparring eliminates so much of the martial arts for safety sake what you're left with is not your martial art, its kickboxing, and (2) in real violent encounters people don't put their hands up and square off in fighting stances and they simply don't resemble kickboxing matches, so why kickbox in the first place? However, while both of those are valid arguments, based on a couple responses I got I think the issue is context so that is what I will try to go over here.
First I should say I'm not trying to stop anyone from sparring as part of their martial arts training and I could not care less if people spar. All I'm doing is stating why my style doesn't do it and address the ridiculous comeback proponents of sparring use by asking if a style is too dangerous to spar with.
My first taste of sparring was studying boxing at 9 years old and then a couple years later when my Kenpo instructor had me join the American Taekwondo Association and enroll in the local Taekwondo school. Having already studied martial arts for about 5 years I found most of it easy and often confusing, but what really tripped me up is after I got my yellow belt and started sparring, which happened after about 6 months.
I remember the first time I put on pads and sparred, it came after a great class we had on the importance of forms. In Kenpo we learned mainly by exercises and drills, we only had two forms and used them primarily as warm ups so all the form work was new and I really got into it. Afterwards we put on pads and paired off for sparring. Not even thinking about it I assumed a back stance and when my partner punched I hit his arm with a near perfect inside forearm block followed by a front snap kick and left reverse punch to the body. I didn't hit my partner hard but I did have near perfect form. My partner started swearing and complained that I was trying to hurt him and said his arm was "killing" him as a result of my block.
After agreeing to go softer he threw a front snap kick and I stepped into a horse stance and hit it with a low block causing him to fall to the ground holding his leg. My instructor came over and explained to me that I was "doing things wrong." I explained that I was doing the Taekwondo we had just been working on and he told me I should be dancing around on my toes and not doing the same blocks we learned in the forms. "But, that’s not Taekwondo that's kickboxing... I'm here to learn Taekwondo... it works... ," I said pointing to my unhappy partner who was rubbing a bruised calf. I was told that Taekwondo is a form of kickboxing and I replied, "No its not!"
We spent maybe 5% of our time sparring and the other 95% of the time being drilled on proper form; so 95% of our training was contradicting the other 5%... and I was the only person in the school bothered by this. I ended up staying until I got my black belt and when I started teaching I made it clear that we had a "martial arts portion" of the class and a "kickboxing portion" of the class. One day I was talking to a very skilled brown belt who got his clock cleaned by a black belt who wouldn't last 10 seconds if they fought for real and I quietly said, "Don't worry about it, it is just kickboxing, it doesn't prove anything and unless you plan on doing that for a living who cares?" The chief instructor was standing behind me and my time at that school was pretty much over after that.
I believe martial arts are all about self-defense and because of this belief I approach the martial arts from a different context then a lot of people. Most people I know think that martial arts are about competing, either with someone in a classroom, someone at a tournament, or someone trying to take your life. I don't want to compete and don't care who is bigger, faster, stronger, or more skilled. I want to protect myself and my family from violent individuals.
Most people dismissively say that the reason I don't put on gloves and spar is because my skills are too deadly to spar with. I respond by saying, "You're right, and so are yours which is why you don't spar with them either, you kickbox."
If you study "modern martial arts" that are comprised mainly of punching and kicking techniques then sparring and competing is fine, but if you study "old school martial arts" that are made up primarily of strikes to the temples, eyes, ears, throat, sides and back of the neck, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, groin, knees, and ankles then sparring becomes much more difficult.
The thing with sparing is that safety is the utmost concern, and rightly so, so a lot of techniques are not allowed. The problem is that all the things they take out in order to spar are the actual "meat" of the martial arts. Strikes like eye gouges, ear slaps, forearm strikes to the throat, palms to the chin, elbows to the back of the neck, shins to the groin, kicks to the knees, stomps to the kidneys and ankles, and such things are the real "meat and potatoes" of the martial arts and the fancy stuff is just the icing on the cake. The icing on the cake is not the meal, learning how to drive a palm strike through someone's chin is the meal. These are the things that cause injuries, put people down, and save your life when someone else is trying to take it. That is also why I don't spar.
The problem with sparring is that it is a competitive activity. How would you like to compete in an eye gouging competition? Or, how about an ear slapping competition? How would you like to grab another guy and see who can punch each other in the throat the best, or shin kick each other in the groin better? The only way that you can practice these dangerous techniques in a meaningful way without seriously injuring someone is to go slow and work with a cooperative partner.
If we were going to practice a backfist to the head then we could probably spar with that and no one would get hurt. However, how about if we practice backfists to the kidneys, would you want to spar with those? There is no way that I'm going to spar with someone that is trying to backfist me in the kidney. I've been nearly put on the floor by someone hitting me in the kidney while going slow under controlled conditions.
Sparing can teach you some valuable things, but you can learn the very same things from doing controlled drills. We do a lot of drills that get people used to being attacked with random movements and drills to get used to be attacked suddenly and aggressively. With the right drills you can get the benefits of sparing and practice striking vital points while keeping your students from getting injured and drowning in lawsuits.
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
I have received a few emails about a previous article of mine entitled "Are Martial Art Techniques Too Dangerous For Sparring?" and while it seems the article was well received by most maybe I did a poor job of expressing my main point. In that article I stated that neither myself, my school, or the style that I study spars and we don't believe that sparring is really a beneficial method of practice.
The two main arguments I put forth were (1) that since sparring eliminates so much of the martial arts for safety sake what you're left with is not your martial art, its kickboxing, and (2) in real violent encounters people don't put their hands up and square off in fighting stances and they simply don't resemble kickboxing matches, so why kickbox in the first place? However, while both of those are valid arguments, based on a couple responses I got I think the issue is context so that is what I will try to go over here.
First I should say I'm not trying to stop anyone from sparring as part of their martial arts training and I could not care less if people spar. All I'm doing is stating why my style doesn't do it and address the ridiculous comeback proponents of sparring use by asking if a style is too dangerous to spar with.
My first taste of sparring was studying boxing at 9 years old and then a couple years later when my Kenpo instructor had me join the American Taekwondo Association and enroll in the local Taekwondo school. Having already studied martial arts for about 5 years I found most of it easy and often confusing, but what really tripped me up is after I got my yellow belt and started sparring, which happened after about 6 months.
I remember the first time I put on pads and sparred, it came after a great class we had on the importance of forms. In Kenpo we learned mainly by exercises and drills, we only had two forms and used them primarily as warm ups so all the form work was new and I really got into it. Afterwards we put on pads and paired off for sparring. Not even thinking about it I assumed a back stance and when my partner punched I hit his arm with a near perfect inside forearm block followed by a front snap kick and left reverse punch to the body. I didn't hit my partner hard but I did have near perfect form. My partner started swearing and complained that I was trying to hurt him and said his arm was "killing" him as a result of my block.
After agreeing to go softer he threw a front snap kick and I stepped into a horse stance and hit it with a low block causing him to fall to the ground holding his leg. My instructor came over and explained to me that I was "doing things wrong." I explained that I was doing the Taekwondo we had just been working on and he told me I should be dancing around on my toes and not doing the same blocks we learned in the forms. "But, that’s not Taekwondo that's kickboxing... I'm here to learn Taekwondo... it works... ," I said pointing to my unhappy partner who was rubbing a bruised calf. I was told that Taekwondo is a form of kickboxing and I replied, "No its not!"
We spent maybe 5% of our time sparring and the other 95% of the time being drilled on proper form; so 95% of our training was contradicting the other 5%... and I was the only person in the school bothered by this. I ended up staying until I got my black belt and when I started teaching I made it clear that we had a "martial arts portion" of the class and a "kickboxing portion" of the class. One day I was talking to a very skilled brown belt who got his clock cleaned by a black belt who wouldn't last 10 seconds if they fought for real and I quietly said, "Don't worry about it, it is just kickboxing, it doesn't prove anything and unless you plan on doing that for a living who cares?" The chief instructor was standing behind me and my time at that school was pretty much over after that.
I believe martial arts are all about self-defense and because of this belief I approach the martial arts from a different context then a lot of people. Most people I know think that martial arts are about competing, either with someone in a classroom, someone at a tournament, or someone trying to take your life. I don't want to compete and don't care who is bigger, faster, stronger, or more skilled. I want to protect myself and my family from violent individuals.
Most people dismissively say that the reason I don't put on gloves and spar is because my skills are too deadly to spar with. I respond by saying, "You're right, and so are yours which is why you don't spar with them either, you kickbox."
If you study "modern martial arts" that are comprised mainly of punching and kicking techniques then sparring and competing is fine, but if you study "old school martial arts" that are made up primarily of strikes to the temples, eyes, ears, throat, sides and back of the neck, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, groin, knees, and ankles then sparring becomes much more difficult.
The thing with sparing is that safety is the utmost concern, and rightly so, so a lot of techniques are not allowed. The problem is that all the things they take out in order to spar are the actual "meat" of the martial arts. Strikes like eye gouges, ear slaps, forearm strikes to the throat, palms to the chin, elbows to the back of the neck, shins to the groin, kicks to the knees, stomps to the kidneys and ankles, and such things are the real "meat and potatoes" of the martial arts and the fancy stuff is just the icing on the cake. The icing on the cake is not the meal, learning how to drive a palm strike through someone's chin is the meal. These are the things that cause injuries, put people down, and save your life when someone else is trying to take it. That is also why I don't spar.
The problem with sparring is that it is a competitive activity. How would you like to compete in an eye gouging competition? Or, how about an ear slapping competition? How would you like to grab another guy and see who can punch each other in the throat the best, or shin kick each other in the groin better? The only way that you can practice these dangerous techniques in a meaningful way without seriously injuring someone is to go slow and work with a cooperative partner.
If we were going to practice a backfist to the head then we could probably spar with that and no one would get hurt. However, how about if we practice backfists to the kidneys, would you want to spar with those? There is no way that I'm going to spar with someone that is trying to backfist me in the kidney. I've been nearly put on the floor by someone hitting me in the kidney while going slow under controlled conditions.
Sparing can teach you some valuable things, but you can learn the very same things from doing controlled drills. We do a lot of drills that get people used to being attacked with random movements and drills to get used to be attacked suddenly and aggressively. With the right drills you can get the benefits of sparing and practice striking vital points while keeping your students from getting injured and drowning in lawsuits.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Modern Attacks, How Far We Haven't Come
By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
One thing that really surprises me is how people think that we today are so much smarter and so different than people that lived a hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago. It seems that most most people think that today we are so much more evolved and, I dare say, better than our ancestors. After all, those dimwitted rubes we read about in the history books didn't know how to make a light bulb! Those morons had to walk everywhere because they were too stupid to build cars...they didn't even have double ply toilet paper! Those cavemen!
The simple truth is that humans have had the exact same brain for a long time. Homo-Sapiens are at least 200,000 years old and the best we can tell our brain, as it is today, may be 36,000 years old or even older. Most people find it hard to believe but scientists have found evidence 36,000 years old of humans with the "modern traits" of art, music, open trade between peoples, and religious style burial rites. Regardless of the actual number of years, it is safe to say that the human brain has had the exact same capability for the last 7,000years. So how are we smarter?
The simple truth is that we are not smarter, more creative, or more resourceful than our ancestors were 7,000 years ago. Today we merely have more information and more technology. The reason we have light bulbs and MP3 players today and we didn't have them 7,000 years ago isn't because we are smarter, it is simply because we have had the necessary time required to figure them out. It is the same reason that in a hundred years we will probably have computers the size of your thumb nail, or smaller, and a person's normal looking sun glasses might have hard drives in them that can store every song ever made and project turn-by-turn directions on the lenses.
My point in all of this is that when people talk about martial art today being more effective in self-defense than they were in the past they are probably misinformed. Yes, we have more information about psychology, physiology, and physics than we did 2,000 years ago but we still have the same brain, the same arms and legs, and the same violent tendencies. A violent assault today will look the same, functionally, as a violent assault in 1654 ad and the same as it would it 3728 bc. We are no better than those that came before us, and if we are greater it is because we have stood on their shoulders.
I try, best as I can, to be open minded about wrestleboxing (my name for "ultimate fighting" as I don't agree with the term "mma") but I have a very hard time ignoring it and that is probably because they shout so loud. Wrestleboxers talk about how they are pinnacle of the martial arts world, about how everything that has ever happened in the entire history of combat has led to them. What a load of crap! Most of them have little to no technique and don't know how to get out of a choke hold, which is yellow belt material in my dojo. I watched a documentary a while ago about Bruce Lee's impact on today's society and for a reason that baffled me they started to interview wrestleboxers. Then the guy that owns the UFC, I think his name is Dana White, really put his foot in his mouth when he made the comment that the martial arts have evolved further in the last 10 years, because of wrestleboxing, than they have in the last 10,000 years. I am going to assume he was just hyping his business because I can't believe someone could be so uninformed to believe that. All it takes is a look in a history book to see that people were doing the exact same thing in Greece over 2,000 years ago, and then far, far, before that. Wrestleboxing isn't new or special, it is just an example of how fads happen in a cycle, the same way my wife was wearing bell-bottom jeans awhile back.
The real purpose of this article isn't to complain about wrestleboxing, it was to talk about how people don't understand martial arts in context. People believe that the martial arts are archaic forms of combat that don't "work" anymore. I agree with this idea on many levels because a typical Karate class doesn't prepare someone to survive a violent assault. Guess what...it isn't meant to. While there are instructors and styles out there which deal specifically with self-defense, most instructors teach their art as an art form. The issue isn’t' what Karate, for instance, teaches it is how they teach it. Even the autobiography of Gichin Funakoshi spoke about he and others purposely changed Karate to make it more of an art form. What they changed was the tone and focus of the art (from causing injuries to people to "character development").
I've used to go a gym that had a boxing club in the basement and a Shotokan Karate club on the third floor. Both classes let out about the same time and the parking lot would fill with people in boxing attire and people wearing pretty white Karate gi and various colored belts. The boxers were a young cocky bunch and more than once I saw fights break out. The interesting thing is this: out of 5 fights I witnessed 4 ended with the boxing student "winning" and only one ended with a Karate student "winning." When the boxing student "won" they did so by charging forwards and repeatedly throwing punches until they hit something and then they kept it up until their opponent was on the ground; when the Karate student won he, a senior black belt, did so with a front kick and an elbow to the head. When the Karate student lost they went home with black eyes and bloody lips but when the boxing student lost he had to go to the hospital.
After studying the whole thing I realized why the fights had come out as they did. The senior black belt in Karate "won" his altercation because he was seasoned through years of Karate training and he was just technically better than the boxer he fought, who was one of the top fighters in the club. Karate should be a superior methodology as it is far more advanced and has many more options and tools available to it. However, the boxers won for one very good reason...not because boxing is better but because the training was more specific. Over the 25 years I have spent in the martial arts I realized that martial artist train to DO techniques while boxers train to hit people. After I realized that I retooled the way I and my students train and introduced several new drills to get us used to using our techniques to hit people. Since then the martial arts have sprang to life anew and make more sense that they ever have before.
The last thing I'll say in this here is that I recently read another article about how the "ancient" martial arts just aren't adequate to deal with "modern attacks." What? The only modern attack I can think of is maybe a missile shot from a predator drone. Even firearms aren’t really a "modern attack" because firearms have been around just as long as most of the martial arts that are practiced today (the most widely practiced form of Karate today is Shotokan , and while Karate itself dates back about 400 years, it dates to about 1922). When it comes to hand-to-hand combat there is no such thing as a "modern attack". If you go back 2,000 years you'll still see people attacking each other from behind, hitting them with sucker punches, dancing around in fighting stances, wrestling, and just plain old attacking with pure violent intent. The idea that what we do today is so much more advanced or different than what people did in the past is just plain wrong. If you put a top UFC fighter up against a top Greek Pankration fighter from 250 bc they would find each other fairly well matched (although the rules in Pankration were not as strict as they are in the UFC so the "modern" guy would probably be at a disadvantage).
When the orient started becoming westernized in the mid 1800's the societies changed and tried to become more, I don't want to say civilized, but maybe more civil. When that happened the martial arts had to become more civil too, but what happens when a fighting system become less violent? It becomes less efficient. The martial arts became less violent but all you have to do is put that back in there; reintroduce the intent to cause injury with every blow, get them back to training to use their martial arts techniques for hitting people and shutting down the body by causing injuries and you'll get the efficiency back. However, people attack you today exactly the same as they attack you 5,000 years ago, that didn't change.
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
One thing that really surprises me is how people think that we today are so much smarter and so different than people that lived a hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago. It seems that most most people think that today we are so much more evolved and, I dare say, better than our ancestors. After all, those dimwitted rubes we read about in the history books didn't know how to make a light bulb! Those morons had to walk everywhere because they were too stupid to build cars...they didn't even have double ply toilet paper! Those cavemen!
The simple truth is that humans have had the exact same brain for a long time. Homo-Sapiens are at least 200,000 years old and the best we can tell our brain, as it is today, may be 36,000 years old or even older. Most people find it hard to believe but scientists have found evidence 36,000 years old of humans with the "modern traits" of art, music, open trade between peoples, and religious style burial rites. Regardless of the actual number of years, it is safe to say that the human brain has had the exact same capability for the last 7,000years. So how are we smarter?
The simple truth is that we are not smarter, more creative, or more resourceful than our ancestors were 7,000 years ago. Today we merely have more information and more technology. The reason we have light bulbs and MP3 players today and we didn't have them 7,000 years ago isn't because we are smarter, it is simply because we have had the necessary time required to figure them out. It is the same reason that in a hundred years we will probably have computers the size of your thumb nail, or smaller, and a person's normal looking sun glasses might have hard drives in them that can store every song ever made and project turn-by-turn directions on the lenses.
My point in all of this is that when people talk about martial art today being more effective in self-defense than they were in the past they are probably misinformed. Yes, we have more information about psychology, physiology, and physics than we did 2,000 years ago but we still have the same brain, the same arms and legs, and the same violent tendencies. A violent assault today will look the same, functionally, as a violent assault in 1654 ad and the same as it would it 3728 bc. We are no better than those that came before us, and if we are greater it is because we have stood on their shoulders.
I try, best as I can, to be open minded about wrestleboxing (my name for "ultimate fighting" as I don't agree with the term "mma") but I have a very hard time ignoring it and that is probably because they shout so loud. Wrestleboxers talk about how they are pinnacle of the martial arts world, about how everything that has ever happened in the entire history of combat has led to them. What a load of crap! Most of them have little to no technique and don't know how to get out of a choke hold, which is yellow belt material in my dojo. I watched a documentary a while ago about Bruce Lee's impact on today's society and for a reason that baffled me they started to interview wrestleboxers. Then the guy that owns the UFC, I think his name is Dana White, really put his foot in his mouth when he made the comment that the martial arts have evolved further in the last 10 years, because of wrestleboxing, than they have in the last 10,000 years. I am going to assume he was just hyping his business because I can't believe someone could be so uninformed to believe that. All it takes is a look in a history book to see that people were doing the exact same thing in Greece over 2,000 years ago, and then far, far, before that. Wrestleboxing isn't new or special, it is just an example of how fads happen in a cycle, the same way my wife was wearing bell-bottom jeans awhile back.
The real purpose of this article isn't to complain about wrestleboxing, it was to talk about how people don't understand martial arts in context. People believe that the martial arts are archaic forms of combat that don't "work" anymore. I agree with this idea on many levels because a typical Karate class doesn't prepare someone to survive a violent assault. Guess what...it isn't meant to. While there are instructors and styles out there which deal specifically with self-defense, most instructors teach their art as an art form. The issue isn’t' what Karate, for instance, teaches it is how they teach it. Even the autobiography of Gichin Funakoshi spoke about he and others purposely changed Karate to make it more of an art form. What they changed was the tone and focus of the art (from causing injuries to people to "character development").
I've used to go a gym that had a boxing club in the basement and a Shotokan Karate club on the third floor. Both classes let out about the same time and the parking lot would fill with people in boxing attire and people wearing pretty white Karate gi and various colored belts. The boxers were a young cocky bunch and more than once I saw fights break out. The interesting thing is this: out of 5 fights I witnessed 4 ended with the boxing student "winning" and only one ended with a Karate student "winning." When the boxing student "won" they did so by charging forwards and repeatedly throwing punches until they hit something and then they kept it up until their opponent was on the ground; when the Karate student won he, a senior black belt, did so with a front kick and an elbow to the head. When the Karate student lost they went home with black eyes and bloody lips but when the boxing student lost he had to go to the hospital.
After studying the whole thing I realized why the fights had come out as they did. The senior black belt in Karate "won" his altercation because he was seasoned through years of Karate training and he was just technically better than the boxer he fought, who was one of the top fighters in the club. Karate should be a superior methodology as it is far more advanced and has many more options and tools available to it. However, the boxers won for one very good reason...not because boxing is better but because the training was more specific. Over the 25 years I have spent in the martial arts I realized that martial artist train to DO techniques while boxers train to hit people. After I realized that I retooled the way I and my students train and introduced several new drills to get us used to using our techniques to hit people. Since then the martial arts have sprang to life anew and make more sense that they ever have before.
The last thing I'll say in this here is that I recently read another article about how the "ancient" martial arts just aren't adequate to deal with "modern attacks." What? The only modern attack I can think of is maybe a missile shot from a predator drone. Even firearms aren’t really a "modern attack" because firearms have been around just as long as most of the martial arts that are practiced today (the most widely practiced form of Karate today is Shotokan , and while Karate itself dates back about 400 years, it dates to about 1922). When it comes to hand-to-hand combat there is no such thing as a "modern attack". If you go back 2,000 years you'll still see people attacking each other from behind, hitting them with sucker punches, dancing around in fighting stances, wrestling, and just plain old attacking with pure violent intent. The idea that what we do today is so much more advanced or different than what people did in the past is just plain wrong. If you put a top UFC fighter up against a top Greek Pankration fighter from 250 bc they would find each other fairly well matched (although the rules in Pankration were not as strict as they are in the UFC so the "modern" guy would probably be at a disadvantage).
When the orient started becoming westernized in the mid 1800's the societies changed and tried to become more, I don't want to say civilized, but maybe more civil. When that happened the martial arts had to become more civil too, but what happens when a fighting system become less violent? It becomes less efficient. The martial arts became less violent but all you have to do is put that back in there; reintroduce the intent to cause injury with every blow, get them back to training to use their martial arts techniques for hitting people and shutting down the body by causing injuries and you'll get the efficiency back. However, people attack you today exactly the same as they attack you 5,000 years ago, that didn't change.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
History of The Belt Ranking System
By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
There are many myths in the martial arts, but the two I hear the most, which are recited in nearly every martial arts school I know, are (1) that the martial arts originated in the Shaolin Monastery in China and (2) how the belt ranking system originated. I have talked in other articles about how historians have shown that the martial arts did not originate in the Shaolin Monastery so here I will talk about where the belt ranking system originally came from.
The most common version of the myth I hear is that originally the martial arts only used one belt and it was white (sometimes they say it was a white piece of rope). As the student practiced over the years their belt became darker and darker due to absorbing sweat, blood, and dirt. The myth goes that if you saw someone with a belt that had become black you knew they were an expert. This, while perhaps romantic, is totally false.
There are actually three different components that make up our modern ranking structure and we need to look at each of them to fully understand our history. The three components of our ranking structure are the use of colored belts, the ranking structure that the belts symbolize, and the concept of the "degreed black belt". Each of these has a separate history that is connected to the others.
The use of colored belts comes from Japan and it was originally a way to organize competitors for tournaments. The Japanese take competitions very seriously and there is no shortage of things to compete in, such as swimming, flower arranging, diving, running, painting, sculpting, dancing, singing, serving tea, etc. In organized tournaments there were two different levels of competition: beginner and skilled. Either you were a skilled competitor with a local, regional, or national ranking or you were a beginner trying to become skilled.
If you were going to hold a swimming contest, for example, perhaps hundreds of competitors would show up dressed in their traditional kimonos and you would need a quick way to tell which division each person was competing in. The answer the organizers came up with was that someone competing in the skilled division was to wear a black obi (a thick traditional fabric belt worn around the kimono) and a beginner was to wear a white obi. This manner of marking competitors gained popularity and more and more organizations decided to adopt it but they didn't always use obi, sometimes they wore headbands or ribbons tied around their arms. It is from this practice that we get the wearing of the white belt for the beginner and the black belt for the skilled practitioner.
The actual ranking system itself also comes from Japan and it is called the "Dan System" (pronounced "Don" and meaning "level.") For some competitions having people separated into beginner and skilled divisions was enough but for more complex and popular games they needed a way to rank people within those divisions, and the most complex and most popular of all was the game of "Go".
Go is an oriental version of chess and taken very seriously in Japan, China, and other countries throughout the world. Sometime around 1680 a go competitor named Honinbo Dosaku, who is considered perhaps the greatest and most influential player in history, introduced the "dan system". Under this system each player was ranked at a certain level based on their experience, record, and handicap. Skilled players were given a rank of "1" through "9", with the rank of "1" representing that the person was ranked at the first level which was called "Shodan", meaning literally "lowest level" and the rank of "9" representing the person was ranked at the highest level, called "Meijin" meaning "brilliant man." Honinbo Dosaku based this ranking system on the ranking system already used in China for go competitions called the "9 Pin Zhi".
If you were not considered a skilled player you were put into a group called "Kyu." Originally there were no rankings inside Kyu, everyone was lumped together and the goal was to get good enough to progress out to the level of Shodan. What got you out of the Kyu division was purely skill and there was no time restraints making you wait a certain period of time. In the same way when the martial arts started using belts the Kyu ranks were very informal and if you could demonstrate enough skill to get your black belt in a short period of time they gave it to you. Later on Go organizations started adding ranks within the Kyu division and today there are 30 ranks in the Kyu system. A student today in Go starts out with a rank of 30 Kyu, the lowest rank possible, and works up to the rank of 1st Kyu, which is the highest rank in the kyu system and then goes on to the Dan Ranks; in modern go, kyu means "pupil" and dan means "skilled player".
When the martial arts started out they did not have a ranking system at all and you were either a student, a senior student with limited authority during class, or a teacher. As time passed and more formal schools emerged your teacher might issue you a certificate called a "Menkyo Kaiden" which translates to "certificate of total transmission." This meant that you had learned the total art from that teacher and were qualified to teach it. The issuing of these certificates were fairly rare because it could take numerous years of hard work to earn one, like today people moved around so they sometimes had to learn from numerous instructors, and some instructors just didn't give them out.
The way the belt system came to the martial arts was by a Japanese man named Kano Jigoro (1860-1938). Growing up Kano Jigoro was a particularly small child from a wealthy family and had a problem with being bullied. To remedy this he began studying Jujitsu which is a martial art consisting of joint breaking techniques and throws. In 1868 Japan went through a change of government in the "Meniji Restoration" and the country became more and more westernized. Soon the violent practice of Jujitsu fell out of social favor and a lot of instructors quit teaching.
In 1882 he founded a new art called "Judo", meaning "the way of gentleness". In the new modern westernized Japan Jujitsu and its violent techniques were considered unfashionable and not necessary so many practitioners tried to distance themselves from it by learning it in secret. Judo was to be a gentler martial art that was based on the teachings of Jujitsu but was also a sport that anyone could learn and compete in. It was to be a gentle modern sport for the new modern Japan.
Judo thrived and soon Judo competitions happened with the same frequency as swimming or dancing competitions. Being a competitive activity with no real ranking system, Kano Jigoro adopted the wearing of belts that had already been in use for hundreds of years. There were no martial arts uniforms back then so they practiced in kimonos and beginning and intermediate competitors wore white obi over their kimonos and advanced competitors wore black obi over their kimonos. This was the extent of the ranking system in Judo at this time; either you were a white belt or a black belt and technically the founder of Judo was the same rank as his other black belts.
Since Judo was a sport it didn't take long for Kano to start adopting Dan ranks as some form of the system was used by most athletic associations. He started by adding 5 levels, 1st Dan through 5th Dan, with himself holding the highest rank. At this time there were still no ranks within the Kyu system and only the two belt colors were used. Later, Kano's school won a competition against a leading Jujitsu school leading to Judo being more popular and more Jujtsu systems adopting the Dan system. When Karate was brought to Japan from Okinawa by Gichen Funokoshi there we no belts or dan ranks used in Karate but Funokoshi adopted them in an effort to make Karate more accepted by the Japanese.
In 1895 the Japanese Emperor Meiji decided that throughout the county's fast paced westernization it need to protect and embrace its warrior heritage so he created an organization called the "Dai Nippon Butoku Kai", meaning the "Greater Japan Martial Virtue Society", which operated as part of the Ministry of Education. The Dai Nippon Butoku Kai was the official government organization that had the authority to organize the martial arts and standardize and regulate their ranking systems. By this time most martial arts in Japan had adopted a ranking system and the ones that hadn't would soon be forced to.
In 1899 the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai published the official rules for Judo competitions. They also standardized levels to the Kyu and Dan grades. Under their system a student starts out as a white belt without any rank whatsoever, and then tests for 10th Kyu and works up to 1st Kyu. Once a student had demonstrated competency in the basics of the art he is considered to be a serious student and is awarded is 1st Dan and the rank of "Shodan", or "lowest level". While some people in America consider a Black Belt to be an expert, in Japan the first three dan ranks are considered student rankings.
Traditionally, Shodan means you have learned and are competent in the basics of your art, you are ready to learn some advanced teachings, and the student is often allowed to teach lower belts; Nidan (the second Dan Level) means they are more polished in their basics, they are ready to learn more advanced teachings, and they are often allowed to teach the upper Kyu ranks; Sandan (the third Dan Level) is the final student ranking and means they have fully competent in the basics, are competent in a good deal of the advanced training they have received, and are allowed to teach students on their own, normally up to one rank below themselves. It is at the rank of Sandan that the "Yudansha" (holder of a Black Belt) is permitted to be called Sensei (teacher, or "one who is further down the path of learning than I"). By the time someone reaches 4th or 5th Dan they know and are competent in the entire system.
While in America most people are eligible to become a "master" at 4th Dan, in Japan 4th and 5th Dan are considered to be "experts". 6th Dan and above are considered "master level rankings" and are honorary rankings given more for time spent in the art and total lifelong contributions to the art rather than physical skill (although in some traditional systems you can be considered a "master level practitioner" at 5th Dan). The highest ranking in Japanese martial arts is 10th Dan and is generally reserved for the founders or leaders of the style.
While in America some 1st Dan are considered experts and even open their own schools or start their own clubs, in Japan if you start your own school you are expected to be a 6th Dan or higher. The Japanese consider 6th Dan to be the rank of "head teacher."
After WWII American soldiers stationed in Japan studied Karate, Jujitsu, and Judo and when they returned they introduced the arts to the general public. It is from these returning soldiers that most martial art knowledge came to America, but with it comes a problem. Most soldiers did not spend more than a few years studying while in Japan and they were not qualified to teach let alone own their own schools. In addition there is a long tradition in the martial arts of deliberately withholding the real teachings from untrusted students. While in Japan there were teachers who offered to teach Americans, most teachers wanted nothing to do with us; after all we did just defeat them in war and were now occupying their country. There are many accounts of American soldiers harassing teachers, threatening them with violence or arrest, or even vandalizing their school if they refused to teach them. As a result most ended up giving in, but in the tradition of masters in both China and Japan, it is widely believed they taught them the movements but left out real applications. In this way they could pacify the Americans but keep the fighting secrets only for the Japanese.
A result of these perhaps unqualified soldiers returning to open schools and introduce the martial arts to mainstream American were sometimes low quality teachings and lots and lots of misconceptions. One big misconception was that 1st Dan was an expert rank. People saw that only the teachers wore black belts so they assumed everyone with a black belt was an expert. As time went on masters from other countries have come to America and tried to correct that, and other misconceptions, but most have found that it was easier to "go with it" because it was those misguided people who paid their bills.
The Belt System in Korea and China
In 1904 Japan gained control over Korea and sought to turn it into an expansion of Japan. In order to make the country as Japanese as possible they outlawed native martial arts while encouraging the practice of Japanese martial arts like Jujitsu, Judo, and Karate. Not all native Korean martial arts survived this occupation but after it ended the Korean martial arts emerged as versions of Karate, using the same uniforms and ranking systems.
A main difference in the ranking structures of Japan and Korea is most Korean arts only have 9 Dan ranks to the 10 used by the Japanese. The reason for this is that to Koreans 9 is a special number because it is the highest single digit multiple of 3 which they consider to be a sacred number.
The Chinese martial arts had no formal ranking system but schools in America started to use the Japanese ranking system and giving out belts in the 1960's because students had come to expect it. Currently most Chinese martial arts taught in the US have some type of belt system, although most use lightweight sashes tied at the side of their body instead of thick belts which are tied in the center of their body as a way to separate themselves from Japanese and Korean systems.
An interesting note is that companies making martial art uniforms did not come about until the early 1900's and most people in the US had to buy Judo uniforms from Japan until the 1970's when they became widely available. Before this people either didn't use uniforms or belts or they made them themselves. Until belts became widely accessible a teacher normally gave his student a white belt when they started training and the student had to die the belt different colors when they were promoted. This may be an origin of the myth that a black belt is black because it has gotten darker over the years.
Origin of the "Degreed Black Belt"
One thing most people don't know is that before 1964 there was no such thing as a "degree" of black belt. The black belt was used to symbolize that a person had status under the Dan System, but each rank had a specific name:
"Shodan" is the first level in the Dan System and means "lowest level".
"Nidan" is the second level in the Dan System and means "second level".
"Sandan" is the third level in the Dan System and means "third level".
"Yodan" is the fourth level in the Dan System and means "fourth level".
"Godan" is the fifth level in the Dan System and means "fifth level".
The above five ranks were symbolized by the wearing of a Black Belt. To attain these ranks the student would often have to go through a formal examination or compete for them in a competition. However, exceptions were made for weaker practitioners or practitioners of special status.
"Rokudan" is the sixth level in the Dan System and means "sixth level".
"Shichidan" is the seventh level in the Dan System and means "seventh level".
"Hachidan" is the eighth level in the Dan System and means "eighth level".
The above three ranks were symbolized by the wearing of either a Black Belt or a belt of red and white sections. Traditionally formal examinations were only required up through Yondan or Godan (Fourth or Fifth Dan), and all rankings over 5th Dan were usually awarded without a formal examination and given for time in grade and total service to the perspective art. Service to the art was considered practicing, teaching, judging testing's and tournaments, doing work for the schools, writing papers or books about martial arts, or being a spokesperson for the art to the general public.
"Kudan" is the ninth level in the Dan System and means "ninth level".
"Judan" is the tenth level in the Dan System and means "tenth level".
The above two ranks were symbolized by the wearing of either a Black Belt or a Red Belt. It should also be noted that because the ranks in the Dan System is what was important some martial arts did not use belts at all. In systems like Iaido (art of drawing the sword), Kendo (art of fencing with the sword), and Jodo (art of fighting with a short stick) they did not use any outward representation of rank at all.
If you were promoted to the fourth level under the Dan System, for example, you were given the title of "Yodan" and that is what your certificate would say. The concept of "degrees of black belt" came from Grandmaster Ed Parker, a man who is known as the "Father of American Karate."
Grandmaster Ed Parker (March 19, 1931 - December 15, 1990) was the person to really make martial art mainstream in America. He taught Elvis Presley, many other celebrities, appeared on TV and in movies, and was the first person to have a large chain of schools in America. He was a considered by many to be a larger than life figure and a tireless self-promoter.
Grandmaster Parker, who was born in Hawaii, began training in Kenpo in the 1940's under the legendary Professor William Chow. He was promoted to Shodan in 1953 and soon after moved to the mainland and opened his first school. His main school was in Pasadena and called the "Pasadena Kenpo Karate Studio". In 1957 three brothers named Jim, Al, and Will Tracy started taking classes there and in 1959 the school was turned over to them to run and they did until 1962 when they opened their own school.
This was the first time someone had tried making martial arts a large scale commercial venture in America and while Grandmaster Parker knew martial arts he was still learning about running a successful business. The Tracy brothers became important to Grandmaster Parker because they put a selling system in place that made the schools more profitable than ever, and they organized the teaching methods and standardized what was being taught throughout all the schools. They made Kenpo more organized, more accessible to students, and more profitable and Grandmaster Parker was usually quick to adopt most of what they did as the "official way." However, there were several areas on contention between Grandmaster Parker and the Tracys.
Grandmaster Parker created his own organization called the "Kenpo Karate Association of America" (KKAA) and it was through this organization that he gave out rank. However in 1964 one of Grandmaster Parker's students opened a school in Ireland so he turned the KKAA over to the Tracy brothers and he started the "International Kenpo Karate Association" (IKKA). Under the IKKA Grandmaster Parker had different requirements for promotion than he had in the KKAA and when asked the Tracy brothers agreed to join the IKKA on the condition that they and their students would be held to the old, and they felt more, standards of the KKAA.
A big area of contention, and there many, between Grandmaster Parker and the Tracy brothers was giving out rank. Grandmaster Parker felt that he had the right to give out rank freely to whomever he wanted often without examinations or putting together a panel of other black belts. Grandmaster Parker would try to bribe students from other schools with a promotion to Shodan if they joined his organization and there were stories of him just giving brown belts their Shodan just because he liked them, because they did a favor for him, or just because he felt he didn't have enough black belts.
The Tracy brothers didn't approve of this manner of giving out rank and it became the biggest area of contention between the two organizations. As the organizations grew this became more and more of an issue and Grandmaster Parker knew he had to do something so he solved this the issue in a way that would have made a Judo expert proud... he sidestepped the entire issue and just stopped using the Dan System!
In order to get around the established ranking standards he started putting "1st Degree Black Belt" on the certificates instead of Shodan. This created a lot of controversy at first because there was no such thing as a "Black Belt rank", it was the Dan rank that was important and the belt merely symbolized that the individual has some type of Dan ranking. "Black Belt rank" was just something he made up and it had no real meaning; it was a way for him to circumvent the Dan system with something similar enough where the uninitiated Americans ready to join the "karate craze" wouldn't know the difference.
Due to Grandmaster Ed Parker popular status most of what he did was blindly accepted by Americans who didn't know any different. Today in America most rank certificates say "1st Degree Black Belt" instead of 1st Dan or Shodan, and it is my experience that most martial artists don't understand a Dan Rank is or what Shodan means.
Honorary Titles
The last thing we'll cover here is the honorary titles given out in the martial arts, there are two non-traditional titles and four traditional titles commonly used in the martial arts. We will cover the nontraditional titles first. Non-traditional titles: Master and Grandmaster
The ranking of "master" again comes from the game of Go. At the start of the 17th century the Japanese Emperor instituted four Go schools in Japan where people devoted themselves full time to the practice of the game. Higher ranking players, often at the 5th Dan level and above, were considered to be "Master Players" due to the sheer devotion and skill needed to attain those rankings and play at those levels.
When the martial arts fully adopted the Dan System under the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai between 1895 and 1899 they also adopted the concept of "Master Players" as well as various samurai titles not used in Go. While the Japanese martial arts didn't have the actual title of "master" they did have several titles that expressed the same concept.
The title of "master" didn't really come into common usage until after WWII when American soldiers learned martial arts under Japanese instructors. The literal title of "master" most likely came about from the English translations of the various titles their instructors had. When the soldiers returned home and opened their own schools they talked about the "masters" in Japan and when the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans came to America to teach they ran with it. After all, "master" is a fairly simple title that is easy to understand whereas traditional titles like "Hanshi" have a deeper meaning that is harder to translate.
Today the title of "master" is used by most martial arts and granted to those as early as 4th Dan in some styles and as late as 9th or 10th Dan in some styles. The title of "Grandmaster" is a modern creation and is usually given as a title above master and designates the highest ranking in a given style. The origin of the title of grandmaster could come from a translation of the title "Hanshi", which is talked about below.
People ask me what the title "master" means and it really depends on deep you want to go with your explanation, but in my opinion the easiest definition for our culture is this:
A teacher is someone who is capable of teaching students.
A master is someone who is capable of teaching teachers.
A Grandmaster is someone who is capable of teaching masters.
Many systems have gotten away from using the title of "master" in favor of the term "master instructor" which is simply someone with a higher level of expertise than a regular instructor.
Traditional Titles: Sensei, Sifu, Renshi, Shihan, Kyoshi, and Hanshi
"Sensei" is a traditional Japanese title meaning "teacher" and it used not only in the marital arts but in the regular school system as well.
"Sifu" is a Chinese name meaning "teacher" it is used in the regular school system as well.
Renshi, Shihan, Kyoshi, and Hanshi are tradition titles that date from the time of the samurai. These titles are Japanese honorifics and are honorary titles that may have different meanings within different organizations, and are totally separate of rank. For example, one person may be a 5th Dan Renshi, and another person may be a 6th Dan with no honorific title. These titles speak more to a person's character that their martial ability. These ranks are solely used in arts with a Japanese heritage are not found in any Chinese or Korean styles.
"Renshi" means "expert trainer". This title is usually given to a person who ranks 4th or 5th Dan.
"Shihan" and "Kyoshi" both mean "master teacher" or "teacher of teachers." These titles are normally given to people who rank 6th through 8th Dan.
"Hanshi" is the highest title awarded in marital arts and can also be translated as "teacher or teachers" and some translate it as "grandmaster". The translation to "grandmaster" is more of a translation of the concept of the title and not a literal translation.
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
There are many myths in the martial arts, but the two I hear the most, which are recited in nearly every martial arts school I know, are (1) that the martial arts originated in the Shaolin Monastery in China and (2) how the belt ranking system originated. I have talked in other articles about how historians have shown that the martial arts did not originate in the Shaolin Monastery so here I will talk about where the belt ranking system originally came from.
The most common version of the myth I hear is that originally the martial arts only used one belt and it was white (sometimes they say it was a white piece of rope). As the student practiced over the years their belt became darker and darker due to absorbing sweat, blood, and dirt. The myth goes that if you saw someone with a belt that had become black you knew they were an expert. This, while perhaps romantic, is totally false.
There are actually three different components that make up our modern ranking structure and we need to look at each of them to fully understand our history. The three components of our ranking structure are the use of colored belts, the ranking structure that the belts symbolize, and the concept of the "degreed black belt". Each of these has a separate history that is connected to the others.
The use of colored belts comes from Japan and it was originally a way to organize competitors for tournaments. The Japanese take competitions very seriously and there is no shortage of things to compete in, such as swimming, flower arranging, diving, running, painting, sculpting, dancing, singing, serving tea, etc. In organized tournaments there were two different levels of competition: beginner and skilled. Either you were a skilled competitor with a local, regional, or national ranking or you were a beginner trying to become skilled.
If you were going to hold a swimming contest, for example, perhaps hundreds of competitors would show up dressed in their traditional kimonos and you would need a quick way to tell which division each person was competing in. The answer the organizers came up with was that someone competing in the skilled division was to wear a black obi (a thick traditional fabric belt worn around the kimono) and a beginner was to wear a white obi. This manner of marking competitors gained popularity and more and more organizations decided to adopt it but they didn't always use obi, sometimes they wore headbands or ribbons tied around their arms. It is from this practice that we get the wearing of the white belt for the beginner and the black belt for the skilled practitioner.
The actual ranking system itself also comes from Japan and it is called the "Dan System" (pronounced "Don" and meaning "level.") For some competitions having people separated into beginner and skilled divisions was enough but for more complex and popular games they needed a way to rank people within those divisions, and the most complex and most popular of all was the game of "Go".
Go is an oriental version of chess and taken very seriously in Japan, China, and other countries throughout the world. Sometime around 1680 a go competitor named Honinbo Dosaku, who is considered perhaps the greatest and most influential player in history, introduced the "dan system". Under this system each player was ranked at a certain level based on their experience, record, and handicap. Skilled players were given a rank of "1" through "9", with the rank of "1" representing that the person was ranked at the first level which was called "Shodan", meaning literally "lowest level" and the rank of "9" representing the person was ranked at the highest level, called "Meijin" meaning "brilliant man." Honinbo Dosaku based this ranking system on the ranking system already used in China for go competitions called the "9 Pin Zhi".
If you were not considered a skilled player you were put into a group called "Kyu." Originally there were no rankings inside Kyu, everyone was lumped together and the goal was to get good enough to progress out to the level of Shodan. What got you out of the Kyu division was purely skill and there was no time restraints making you wait a certain period of time. In the same way when the martial arts started using belts the Kyu ranks were very informal and if you could demonstrate enough skill to get your black belt in a short period of time they gave it to you. Later on Go organizations started adding ranks within the Kyu division and today there are 30 ranks in the Kyu system. A student today in Go starts out with a rank of 30 Kyu, the lowest rank possible, and works up to the rank of 1st Kyu, which is the highest rank in the kyu system and then goes on to the Dan Ranks; in modern go, kyu means "pupil" and dan means "skilled player".
When the martial arts started out they did not have a ranking system at all and you were either a student, a senior student with limited authority during class, or a teacher. As time passed and more formal schools emerged your teacher might issue you a certificate called a "Menkyo Kaiden" which translates to "certificate of total transmission." This meant that you had learned the total art from that teacher and were qualified to teach it. The issuing of these certificates were fairly rare because it could take numerous years of hard work to earn one, like today people moved around so they sometimes had to learn from numerous instructors, and some instructors just didn't give them out.
The way the belt system came to the martial arts was by a Japanese man named Kano Jigoro (1860-1938). Growing up Kano Jigoro was a particularly small child from a wealthy family and had a problem with being bullied. To remedy this he began studying Jujitsu which is a martial art consisting of joint breaking techniques and throws. In 1868 Japan went through a change of government in the "Meniji Restoration" and the country became more and more westernized. Soon the violent practice of Jujitsu fell out of social favor and a lot of instructors quit teaching.
In 1882 he founded a new art called "Judo", meaning "the way of gentleness". In the new modern westernized Japan Jujitsu and its violent techniques were considered unfashionable and not necessary so many practitioners tried to distance themselves from it by learning it in secret. Judo was to be a gentler martial art that was based on the teachings of Jujitsu but was also a sport that anyone could learn and compete in. It was to be a gentle modern sport for the new modern Japan.
Judo thrived and soon Judo competitions happened with the same frequency as swimming or dancing competitions. Being a competitive activity with no real ranking system, Kano Jigoro adopted the wearing of belts that had already been in use for hundreds of years. There were no martial arts uniforms back then so they practiced in kimonos and beginning and intermediate competitors wore white obi over their kimonos and advanced competitors wore black obi over their kimonos. This was the extent of the ranking system in Judo at this time; either you were a white belt or a black belt and technically the founder of Judo was the same rank as his other black belts.
Since Judo was a sport it didn't take long for Kano to start adopting Dan ranks as some form of the system was used by most athletic associations. He started by adding 5 levels, 1st Dan through 5th Dan, with himself holding the highest rank. At this time there were still no ranks within the Kyu system and only the two belt colors were used. Later, Kano's school won a competition against a leading Jujitsu school leading to Judo being more popular and more Jujtsu systems adopting the Dan system. When Karate was brought to Japan from Okinawa by Gichen Funokoshi there we no belts or dan ranks used in Karate but Funokoshi adopted them in an effort to make Karate more accepted by the Japanese.
In 1895 the Japanese Emperor Meiji decided that throughout the county's fast paced westernization it need to protect and embrace its warrior heritage so he created an organization called the "Dai Nippon Butoku Kai", meaning the "Greater Japan Martial Virtue Society", which operated as part of the Ministry of Education. The Dai Nippon Butoku Kai was the official government organization that had the authority to organize the martial arts and standardize and regulate their ranking systems. By this time most martial arts in Japan had adopted a ranking system and the ones that hadn't would soon be forced to.
In 1899 the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai published the official rules for Judo competitions. They also standardized levels to the Kyu and Dan grades. Under their system a student starts out as a white belt without any rank whatsoever, and then tests for 10th Kyu and works up to 1st Kyu. Once a student had demonstrated competency in the basics of the art he is considered to be a serious student and is awarded is 1st Dan and the rank of "Shodan", or "lowest level". While some people in America consider a Black Belt to be an expert, in Japan the first three dan ranks are considered student rankings.
Traditionally, Shodan means you have learned and are competent in the basics of your art, you are ready to learn some advanced teachings, and the student is often allowed to teach lower belts; Nidan (the second Dan Level) means they are more polished in their basics, they are ready to learn more advanced teachings, and they are often allowed to teach the upper Kyu ranks; Sandan (the third Dan Level) is the final student ranking and means they have fully competent in the basics, are competent in a good deal of the advanced training they have received, and are allowed to teach students on their own, normally up to one rank below themselves. It is at the rank of Sandan that the "Yudansha" (holder of a Black Belt) is permitted to be called Sensei (teacher, or "one who is further down the path of learning than I"). By the time someone reaches 4th or 5th Dan they know and are competent in the entire system.
While in America most people are eligible to become a "master" at 4th Dan, in Japan 4th and 5th Dan are considered to be "experts". 6th Dan and above are considered "master level rankings" and are honorary rankings given more for time spent in the art and total lifelong contributions to the art rather than physical skill (although in some traditional systems you can be considered a "master level practitioner" at 5th Dan). The highest ranking in Japanese martial arts is 10th Dan and is generally reserved for the founders or leaders of the style.
While in America some 1st Dan are considered experts and even open their own schools or start their own clubs, in Japan if you start your own school you are expected to be a 6th Dan or higher. The Japanese consider 6th Dan to be the rank of "head teacher."
After WWII American soldiers stationed in Japan studied Karate, Jujitsu, and Judo and when they returned they introduced the arts to the general public. It is from these returning soldiers that most martial art knowledge came to America, but with it comes a problem. Most soldiers did not spend more than a few years studying while in Japan and they were not qualified to teach let alone own their own schools. In addition there is a long tradition in the martial arts of deliberately withholding the real teachings from untrusted students. While in Japan there were teachers who offered to teach Americans, most teachers wanted nothing to do with us; after all we did just defeat them in war and were now occupying their country. There are many accounts of American soldiers harassing teachers, threatening them with violence or arrest, or even vandalizing their school if they refused to teach them. As a result most ended up giving in, but in the tradition of masters in both China and Japan, it is widely believed they taught them the movements but left out real applications. In this way they could pacify the Americans but keep the fighting secrets only for the Japanese.
A result of these perhaps unqualified soldiers returning to open schools and introduce the martial arts to mainstream American were sometimes low quality teachings and lots and lots of misconceptions. One big misconception was that 1st Dan was an expert rank. People saw that only the teachers wore black belts so they assumed everyone with a black belt was an expert. As time went on masters from other countries have come to America and tried to correct that, and other misconceptions, but most have found that it was easier to "go with it" because it was those misguided people who paid their bills.
The Belt System in Korea and China
In 1904 Japan gained control over Korea and sought to turn it into an expansion of Japan. In order to make the country as Japanese as possible they outlawed native martial arts while encouraging the practice of Japanese martial arts like Jujitsu, Judo, and Karate. Not all native Korean martial arts survived this occupation but after it ended the Korean martial arts emerged as versions of Karate, using the same uniforms and ranking systems.
A main difference in the ranking structures of Japan and Korea is most Korean arts only have 9 Dan ranks to the 10 used by the Japanese. The reason for this is that to Koreans 9 is a special number because it is the highest single digit multiple of 3 which they consider to be a sacred number.
The Chinese martial arts had no formal ranking system but schools in America started to use the Japanese ranking system and giving out belts in the 1960's because students had come to expect it. Currently most Chinese martial arts taught in the US have some type of belt system, although most use lightweight sashes tied at the side of their body instead of thick belts which are tied in the center of their body as a way to separate themselves from Japanese and Korean systems.
An interesting note is that companies making martial art uniforms did not come about until the early 1900's and most people in the US had to buy Judo uniforms from Japan until the 1970's when they became widely available. Before this people either didn't use uniforms or belts or they made them themselves. Until belts became widely accessible a teacher normally gave his student a white belt when they started training and the student had to die the belt different colors when they were promoted. This may be an origin of the myth that a black belt is black because it has gotten darker over the years.
Origin of the "Degreed Black Belt"
One thing most people don't know is that before 1964 there was no such thing as a "degree" of black belt. The black belt was used to symbolize that a person had status under the Dan System, but each rank had a specific name:
"Shodan" is the first level in the Dan System and means "lowest level".
"Nidan" is the second level in the Dan System and means "second level".
"Sandan" is the third level in the Dan System and means "third level".
"Yodan" is the fourth level in the Dan System and means "fourth level".
"Godan" is the fifth level in the Dan System and means "fifth level".
The above five ranks were symbolized by the wearing of a Black Belt. To attain these ranks the student would often have to go through a formal examination or compete for them in a competition. However, exceptions were made for weaker practitioners or practitioners of special status.
"Rokudan" is the sixth level in the Dan System and means "sixth level".
"Shichidan" is the seventh level in the Dan System and means "seventh level".
"Hachidan" is the eighth level in the Dan System and means "eighth level".
The above three ranks were symbolized by the wearing of either a Black Belt or a belt of red and white sections. Traditionally formal examinations were only required up through Yondan or Godan (Fourth or Fifth Dan), and all rankings over 5th Dan were usually awarded without a formal examination and given for time in grade and total service to the perspective art. Service to the art was considered practicing, teaching, judging testing's and tournaments, doing work for the schools, writing papers or books about martial arts, or being a spokesperson for the art to the general public.
"Kudan" is the ninth level in the Dan System and means "ninth level".
"Judan" is the tenth level in the Dan System and means "tenth level".
The above two ranks were symbolized by the wearing of either a Black Belt or a Red Belt. It should also be noted that because the ranks in the Dan System is what was important some martial arts did not use belts at all. In systems like Iaido (art of drawing the sword), Kendo (art of fencing with the sword), and Jodo (art of fighting with a short stick) they did not use any outward representation of rank at all.
If you were promoted to the fourth level under the Dan System, for example, you were given the title of "Yodan" and that is what your certificate would say. The concept of "degrees of black belt" came from Grandmaster Ed Parker, a man who is known as the "Father of American Karate."
Grandmaster Ed Parker (March 19, 1931 - December 15, 1990) was the person to really make martial art mainstream in America. He taught Elvis Presley, many other celebrities, appeared on TV and in movies, and was the first person to have a large chain of schools in America. He was a considered by many to be a larger than life figure and a tireless self-promoter.
Grandmaster Parker, who was born in Hawaii, began training in Kenpo in the 1940's under the legendary Professor William Chow. He was promoted to Shodan in 1953 and soon after moved to the mainland and opened his first school. His main school was in Pasadena and called the "Pasadena Kenpo Karate Studio". In 1957 three brothers named Jim, Al, and Will Tracy started taking classes there and in 1959 the school was turned over to them to run and they did until 1962 when they opened their own school.
This was the first time someone had tried making martial arts a large scale commercial venture in America and while Grandmaster Parker knew martial arts he was still learning about running a successful business. The Tracy brothers became important to Grandmaster Parker because they put a selling system in place that made the schools more profitable than ever, and they organized the teaching methods and standardized what was being taught throughout all the schools. They made Kenpo more organized, more accessible to students, and more profitable and Grandmaster Parker was usually quick to adopt most of what they did as the "official way." However, there were several areas on contention between Grandmaster Parker and the Tracys.
Grandmaster Parker created his own organization called the "Kenpo Karate Association of America" (KKAA) and it was through this organization that he gave out rank. However in 1964 one of Grandmaster Parker's students opened a school in Ireland so he turned the KKAA over to the Tracy brothers and he started the "International Kenpo Karate Association" (IKKA). Under the IKKA Grandmaster Parker had different requirements for promotion than he had in the KKAA and when asked the Tracy brothers agreed to join the IKKA on the condition that they and their students would be held to the old, and they felt more, standards of the KKAA.
A big area of contention, and there many, between Grandmaster Parker and the Tracy brothers was giving out rank. Grandmaster Parker felt that he had the right to give out rank freely to whomever he wanted often without examinations or putting together a panel of other black belts. Grandmaster Parker would try to bribe students from other schools with a promotion to Shodan if they joined his organization and there were stories of him just giving brown belts their Shodan just because he liked them, because they did a favor for him, or just because he felt he didn't have enough black belts.
The Tracy brothers didn't approve of this manner of giving out rank and it became the biggest area of contention between the two organizations. As the organizations grew this became more and more of an issue and Grandmaster Parker knew he had to do something so he solved this the issue in a way that would have made a Judo expert proud... he sidestepped the entire issue and just stopped using the Dan System!
In order to get around the established ranking standards he started putting "1st Degree Black Belt" on the certificates instead of Shodan. This created a lot of controversy at first because there was no such thing as a "Black Belt rank", it was the Dan rank that was important and the belt merely symbolized that the individual has some type of Dan ranking. "Black Belt rank" was just something he made up and it had no real meaning; it was a way for him to circumvent the Dan system with something similar enough where the uninitiated Americans ready to join the "karate craze" wouldn't know the difference.
Due to Grandmaster Ed Parker popular status most of what he did was blindly accepted by Americans who didn't know any different. Today in America most rank certificates say "1st Degree Black Belt" instead of 1st Dan or Shodan, and it is my experience that most martial artists don't understand a Dan Rank is or what Shodan means.
Honorary Titles
The last thing we'll cover here is the honorary titles given out in the martial arts, there are two non-traditional titles and four traditional titles commonly used in the martial arts. We will cover the nontraditional titles first. Non-traditional titles: Master and Grandmaster
The ranking of "master" again comes from the game of Go. At the start of the 17th century the Japanese Emperor instituted four Go schools in Japan where people devoted themselves full time to the practice of the game. Higher ranking players, often at the 5th Dan level and above, were considered to be "Master Players" due to the sheer devotion and skill needed to attain those rankings and play at those levels.
When the martial arts fully adopted the Dan System under the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai between 1895 and 1899 they also adopted the concept of "Master Players" as well as various samurai titles not used in Go. While the Japanese martial arts didn't have the actual title of "master" they did have several titles that expressed the same concept.
The title of "master" didn't really come into common usage until after WWII when American soldiers learned martial arts under Japanese instructors. The literal title of "master" most likely came about from the English translations of the various titles their instructors had. When the soldiers returned home and opened their own schools they talked about the "masters" in Japan and when the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans came to America to teach they ran with it. After all, "master" is a fairly simple title that is easy to understand whereas traditional titles like "Hanshi" have a deeper meaning that is harder to translate.
Today the title of "master" is used by most martial arts and granted to those as early as 4th Dan in some styles and as late as 9th or 10th Dan in some styles. The title of "Grandmaster" is a modern creation and is usually given as a title above master and designates the highest ranking in a given style. The origin of the title of grandmaster could come from a translation of the title "Hanshi", which is talked about below.
People ask me what the title "master" means and it really depends on deep you want to go with your explanation, but in my opinion the easiest definition for our culture is this:
A teacher is someone who is capable of teaching students.
A master is someone who is capable of teaching teachers.
A Grandmaster is someone who is capable of teaching masters.
Many systems have gotten away from using the title of "master" in favor of the term "master instructor" which is simply someone with a higher level of expertise than a regular instructor.
Traditional Titles: Sensei, Sifu, Renshi, Shihan, Kyoshi, and Hanshi
"Sensei" is a traditional Japanese title meaning "teacher" and it used not only in the marital arts but in the regular school system as well.
"Sifu" is a Chinese name meaning "teacher" it is used in the regular school system as well.
Renshi, Shihan, Kyoshi, and Hanshi are tradition titles that date from the time of the samurai. These titles are Japanese honorifics and are honorary titles that may have different meanings within different organizations, and are totally separate of rank. For example, one person may be a 5th Dan Renshi, and another person may be a 6th Dan with no honorific title. These titles speak more to a person's character that their martial ability. These ranks are solely used in arts with a Japanese heritage are not found in any Chinese or Korean styles.
"Renshi" means "expert trainer". This title is usually given to a person who ranks 4th or 5th Dan.
"Shihan" and "Kyoshi" both mean "master teacher" or "teacher of teachers." These titles are normally given to people who rank 6th through 8th Dan.
"Hanshi" is the highest title awarded in marital arts and can also be translated as "teacher or teachers" and some translate it as "grandmaster". The translation to "grandmaster" is more of a translation of the concept of the title and not a literal translation.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Are Martial Art Techniques Too Dangerous To Spar With?
By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
I often get asked by other people who study martial arts if my school, style, etc. spars full contact. When I tell them "no" they often get concerned telling me that full contact sparring is the only way to make sure our techniques "work". They then ask me what kind of sparing we do engage in and I tell them we don't spar at all... and suddenly in their eyes I have become the biggest fraud on the planet, a disgusting creature so low I should be so ashamed of myself that if I had any integrity at all I should give my black belts back, return every dime I've ever made from teaching martial arts, advise my students to burn any belts and certificates I've given them, issue a public apology, and walk away from the martial arts world in disgrace. It's a good thing I didn't tell them that I'm also not a Bruce Lee fan or they'd probably shoot me on the spot.
First of all I find it funny that some people think you need to get all padded up and spar in order to see if techniques "work". If you want to know what "works" then study sports medicine, that will tell you more about what "works" (damages the human body) then sparing ever will.
The next question people usually ask me is if we don't spar because I'm one of "those" people who think that my style is too deadly to spar with? My answer is that all martial arts are too dangerous to spar with and that is why people don't do it (they kickbox instead). The thing is my instructors and I look at the martial arts in a little different context then most people. We look at martial arts as being primarily forms of self-defense and don't care for competitions. If you study "modern martial arts" that are comprised mainly of punching and kicking techniques then sparring and competing is fine, but if you study "old school martial arts" that are made up primarily of strikes to the temples, eyes, ears, throat, sides and back of the neck, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, groin, knees, and ankles then sparring becomes much more difficult.
The thing with sparing is that safety is the utmost concern, and rightly so, so a lot of techniques are not allowed. The problem is that all the things they take out in order to spar are the actual "meat" of the martial arts. Strikes like eye gouges, ear slaps, forearm strikes to the throat, palms to the chin, elbows to the back of the neck, shins to the groin, kicks to the knees, stomps to the kidneys and ankles, and such things are the real "meat and potatoes" of the martial arts. These are the things that cause injuries, put people down, and save your life when someone else is trying to take it. That is also why I don't spar.
The problem with sparring is that it is a competitive activity. How would you like to compete in an eye gouging competition? Or, how about an ear slapping competition? How would you like to grab another guy and see who can punch each other in the throat the best, or shin kick each other in the groin better? The only way that you can practice these dangerous techniques in a meaningful way without seriously injuring someone is to go slow and work with a cooperative partner.
If we were going to practice a backfist to the head then we could probably spar with that and no one would get hurt. However, how about if we practice backfists to the kidneys, would you want to spar with those? There is no way that I'm going to spar with someone that is trying to backfist me in the kidney. I've been nearly put on the floor by someone hitting me in the kidney while going slow under controlled conditions.
Sparing can teach you some valuable things, but you can learn the very same things from doing controlled drills. We do a lot of drills that get people used to being attacked with random movements and drills to get used to be attacked suddenly and aggressively. With the right drills you can get the benefits of sparing and practice striking vital points while keeping your students from getting injured and drowning in lawsuits.
When you decide to spar you take so much away from the martial arts that you end up not doing the martial arts, and you end up kickboxing. Martial arts and kickboxing are two different things and there really isn't any reason to do kickboxing if you study the martial arts. You most likely will learn bad habits and get an unreal view of what criminal violence actually looks like. If you are assaulted by a violent criminal it won't resemble a kickboxing match; they won't tell you that they are going to assault you beforehand and let you get into a fighting stance while they do the same. You're not going to dance around on your toes with the violent criminal trading jabs. That is nonsense but that is what most martial arts schools and wrestleboxers (people who do "ultimate fighting") would have you believe.
Today some people scoff at styles that don't spar and think those styles are ridiculous in their belief that their techniques are "too dangerous to spar with". However, if you were to tell them that you suddenly changed your mind and now you agree with them, and then climb into the ring with them and announce that you'd be happy to spar with your techniques so in addition to throwing punches and kicks you will be doing eye gouges, throat strikes, groin strikes, ear slaps, clawing, striking the neck and the front of the knee, joint breaking, neck breaking, and you just might throw in a bite or two... suddenly they act like you're crazy... after all if you did that someone could get hurt!
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
I often get asked by other people who study martial arts if my school, style, etc. spars full contact. When I tell them "no" they often get concerned telling me that full contact sparring is the only way to make sure our techniques "work". They then ask me what kind of sparing we do engage in and I tell them we don't spar at all... and suddenly in their eyes I have become the biggest fraud on the planet, a disgusting creature so low I should be so ashamed of myself that if I had any integrity at all I should give my black belts back, return every dime I've ever made from teaching martial arts, advise my students to burn any belts and certificates I've given them, issue a public apology, and walk away from the martial arts world in disgrace. It's a good thing I didn't tell them that I'm also not a Bruce Lee fan or they'd probably shoot me on the spot.
First of all I find it funny that some people think you need to get all padded up and spar in order to see if techniques "work". If you want to know what "works" then study sports medicine, that will tell you more about what "works" (damages the human body) then sparing ever will.
The next question people usually ask me is if we don't spar because I'm one of "those" people who think that my style is too deadly to spar with? My answer is that all martial arts are too dangerous to spar with and that is why people don't do it (they kickbox instead). The thing is my instructors and I look at the martial arts in a little different context then most people. We look at martial arts as being primarily forms of self-defense and don't care for competitions. If you study "modern martial arts" that are comprised mainly of punching and kicking techniques then sparring and competing is fine, but if you study "old school martial arts" that are made up primarily of strikes to the temples, eyes, ears, throat, sides and back of the neck, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, groin, knees, and ankles then sparring becomes much more difficult.
The thing with sparing is that safety is the utmost concern, and rightly so, so a lot of techniques are not allowed. The problem is that all the things they take out in order to spar are the actual "meat" of the martial arts. Strikes like eye gouges, ear slaps, forearm strikes to the throat, palms to the chin, elbows to the back of the neck, shins to the groin, kicks to the knees, stomps to the kidneys and ankles, and such things are the real "meat and potatoes" of the martial arts. These are the things that cause injuries, put people down, and save your life when someone else is trying to take it. That is also why I don't spar.
The problem with sparring is that it is a competitive activity. How would you like to compete in an eye gouging competition? Or, how about an ear slapping competition? How would you like to grab another guy and see who can punch each other in the throat the best, or shin kick each other in the groin better? The only way that you can practice these dangerous techniques in a meaningful way without seriously injuring someone is to go slow and work with a cooperative partner.
If we were going to practice a backfist to the head then we could probably spar with that and no one would get hurt. However, how about if we practice backfists to the kidneys, would you want to spar with those? There is no way that I'm going to spar with someone that is trying to backfist me in the kidney. I've been nearly put on the floor by someone hitting me in the kidney while going slow under controlled conditions.
Sparing can teach you some valuable things, but you can learn the very same things from doing controlled drills. We do a lot of drills that get people used to being attacked with random movements and drills to get used to be attacked suddenly and aggressively. With the right drills you can get the benefits of sparing and practice striking vital points while keeping your students from getting injured and drowning in lawsuits.
When you decide to spar you take so much away from the martial arts that you end up not doing the martial arts, and you end up kickboxing. Martial arts and kickboxing are two different things and there really isn't any reason to do kickboxing if you study the martial arts. You most likely will learn bad habits and get an unreal view of what criminal violence actually looks like. If you are assaulted by a violent criminal it won't resemble a kickboxing match; they won't tell you that they are going to assault you beforehand and let you get into a fighting stance while they do the same. You're not going to dance around on your toes with the violent criminal trading jabs. That is nonsense but that is what most martial arts schools and wrestleboxers (people who do "ultimate fighting") would have you believe.
Today some people scoff at styles that don't spar and think those styles are ridiculous in their belief that their techniques are "too dangerous to spar with". However, if you were to tell them that you suddenly changed your mind and now you agree with them, and then climb into the ring with them and announce that you'd be happy to spar with your techniques so in addition to throwing punches and kicks you will be doing eye gouges, throat strikes, groin strikes, ear slaps, clawing, striking the neck and the front of the knee, joint breaking, neck breaking, and you just might throw in a bite or two... suddenly they act like you're crazy... after all if you did that someone could get hurt!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The Two Jobs of the Martial Arts
By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
I joined the military right out of high school. I was from a small town and couldn’t wait to leave so as soon as I could I packed my bags and shipped out to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training. I spent four years in the Air Force and serving my country is one of the greatest things I ever did.
One of the things that always stuck with me happened during the first week of basic training. My T.I. (training instructor, more commonly known as a drill sergeant) brought us into a class room, sat us down, and asked for a show of hands of everyone who joined the Air Force to earn money for college and numerous hands went up. He then asked for a show of hands of people who joined to see the world, learn skills they could use as a civilian, and who joined to do “cool” stuff like fly planes and drive tanks.
After questioning us about our motivations for a few minutes he nodded and looked down, and then he looked back up and got deadly serious. He then said something I’ll remember for the rest of my life; he said:
“Great! Those are all great reasons to join the military and each and every one of those are achievable. But…regardless of why you joined…you have to understand that we are in the business of conducting war. Each and every one of you, regardless of the job you do, can end up in a combat zone and it doesn’t matter if you’re a cook or an accountant…someone could hand you a rifle and send you out to kill the enemy. I don’t care why you joined, I don’t care what you think you are going to be doing while you’re here, and I sure as hell don’t care what your career field is…the military only has TWO JOBS! The TWO JOBS the military has are…1.) To Kill People, and 2.) To Blow Shit Up! Each and every one of you will either be in the business of killing people and blowing shit up, or you will be supporting someone so they can kill people and blow shit up! Those of you who joined to go to school or see the world…great! You can do that…but NEVER forgot the business you’re in. If you do you can get yourself, the person next to you, and possibly dozens of people…or more…killed.”
That brought it home for me. It was straight forward and it made sense. All the fancy technology and titles, and all the cool weapons and training, it all has one purpose. To put on the uniform of the US military and to forget the basic job that the military does it to put your life in jeopardy and do a disservice to your fellow soldiers and your country.
Now, how does all this apply to the marital arts? It just so happens that just like the military has two jobs, the martial arts have two jobs. When we fail to understand these two jobs we fail to understand the martial arts, and when we do that we’ve lost our way and we are putting ourselves and our students in danger.
The two jobs of the martial arts are: 1.) To enable us to cause injuries to people, and 2.) To enable us to not have to cause injuries to people. That’s it. Now sure, we can always go above and beyond that and add fitness, medicine, and spiritual development; however, if we don’t focus on the two jobs of the martial arts then what we will have won’t actually be martial arts. We have a lot of martial sports like Judo and Wrestle-Boxing (ultimate fighting) but they’re not martial arts (Judo and Taekwondo can be martial arts depending on how they’re taught but in most schools, like ATA schools where I learned Taekwondo, they are just sports).
The martial arts have lost their way by distancing themselves from the concept of violence. The martial arts in large have shunned violence as destructive and told people that good technique will overcome violence. The problem is that that doesn’t work. Who are the most successful people during a kumite or wrestle-boxing match? 9 times out of 10 the most aggressive and violent person is the one that wins even if their opponent is better technically.
Violence is the reality. To shun the notion of violence is delusional because guess what you will be encountering in a self-defense situation…VIOLENCE! Violence is not good or bad, it is merely a quality. Violence is defined as the excretion of physical force with the intent to injure or abuse; it is an all-out single minded intent to hit a target and cause an injury and it is what wins violent encounters. It is the reason that the old masters were more able to use martial arts successfully in self-defense than a lot of people are today; they knew that technique needs that single minded focus and intent in order to work.
The second job (to enable us to not have to cause injuries people) includes understand what the martial arts are for, having respect for our abilities, situational awareness, de-escalation skills, anger management, and everything else.
As instructors, if we embrace the truth of these two jobs it will help us to better serve our students. Also, if we sit them down and explain this to them like my T.I. did to me it will help them to better understand what they’re training for and help to keep the safe.
Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved
I joined the military right out of high school. I was from a small town and couldn’t wait to leave so as soon as I could I packed my bags and shipped out to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training. I spent four years in the Air Force and serving my country is one of the greatest things I ever did.
One of the things that always stuck with me happened during the first week of basic training. My T.I. (training instructor, more commonly known as a drill sergeant) brought us into a class room, sat us down, and asked for a show of hands of everyone who joined the Air Force to earn money for college and numerous hands went up. He then asked for a show of hands of people who joined to see the world, learn skills they could use as a civilian, and who joined to do “cool” stuff like fly planes and drive tanks.
After questioning us about our motivations for a few minutes he nodded and looked down, and then he looked back up and got deadly serious. He then said something I’ll remember for the rest of my life; he said:
“Great! Those are all great reasons to join the military and each and every one of those are achievable. But…regardless of why you joined…you have to understand that we are in the business of conducting war. Each and every one of you, regardless of the job you do, can end up in a combat zone and it doesn’t matter if you’re a cook or an accountant…someone could hand you a rifle and send you out to kill the enemy. I don’t care why you joined, I don’t care what you think you are going to be doing while you’re here, and I sure as hell don’t care what your career field is…the military only has TWO JOBS! The TWO JOBS the military has are…1.) To Kill People, and 2.) To Blow Shit Up! Each and every one of you will either be in the business of killing people and blowing shit up, or you will be supporting someone so they can kill people and blow shit up! Those of you who joined to go to school or see the world…great! You can do that…but NEVER forgot the business you’re in. If you do you can get yourself, the person next to you, and possibly dozens of people…or more…killed.”
That brought it home for me. It was straight forward and it made sense. All the fancy technology and titles, and all the cool weapons and training, it all has one purpose. To put on the uniform of the US military and to forget the basic job that the military does it to put your life in jeopardy and do a disservice to your fellow soldiers and your country.
Now, how does all this apply to the marital arts? It just so happens that just like the military has two jobs, the martial arts have two jobs. When we fail to understand these two jobs we fail to understand the martial arts, and when we do that we’ve lost our way and we are putting ourselves and our students in danger.
The two jobs of the martial arts are: 1.) To enable us to cause injuries to people, and 2.) To enable us to not have to cause injuries to people. That’s it. Now sure, we can always go above and beyond that and add fitness, medicine, and spiritual development; however, if we don’t focus on the two jobs of the martial arts then what we will have won’t actually be martial arts. We have a lot of martial sports like Judo and Wrestle-Boxing (ultimate fighting) but they’re not martial arts (Judo and Taekwondo can be martial arts depending on how they’re taught but in most schools, like ATA schools where I learned Taekwondo, they are just sports).
The martial arts have lost their way by distancing themselves from the concept of violence. The martial arts in large have shunned violence as destructive and told people that good technique will overcome violence. The problem is that that doesn’t work. Who are the most successful people during a kumite or wrestle-boxing match? 9 times out of 10 the most aggressive and violent person is the one that wins even if their opponent is better technically.
Violence is the reality. To shun the notion of violence is delusional because guess what you will be encountering in a self-defense situation…VIOLENCE! Violence is not good or bad, it is merely a quality. Violence is defined as the excretion of physical force with the intent to injure or abuse; it is an all-out single minded intent to hit a target and cause an injury and it is what wins violent encounters. It is the reason that the old masters were more able to use martial arts successfully in self-defense than a lot of people are today; they knew that technique needs that single minded focus and intent in order to work.
The second job (to enable us to not have to cause injuries people) includes understand what the martial arts are for, having respect for our abilities, situational awareness, de-escalation skills, anger management, and everything else.
As instructors, if we embrace the truth of these two jobs it will help us to better serve our students. Also, if we sit them down and explain this to them like my T.I. did to me it will help them to better understand what they’re training for and help to keep the safe.
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