[quote]Vash wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Let me guess it was an Isshinryu Sho Dan testing where you had to fight with no pads, where every minute they threw a fresh opponent at you with no break for 30 minutes to a hour, with the last half of the fights being the black belts turn.
If it was Isshinryu you are the third person I know of who had their sternum broken from an Isshinryu Sho Dan test. Those Sho Dan initiations are way too brutal. I know way too many people who have permanent damage from testing. One guy I know of had kidney failure and ended up in intensive care fighting for his life afterwards.
That was with the old organization my school was involved with. Shortly after, we distanced ourselves from them, and are now under a direct student of Tatsuo Shimabuku. My nidan test a few years ago was physically demanding, but none of the four people testing was injured. [/quote]
Mitchum or Advincula?
[quote]
With Isshinryu, it really seems like there are a few groups that are “bust the head, bust the body, the lucky survive” in mentallity. [/quote]
Ain’t that the truth. I trained with teachers who had the mentality that students quitting enhanced the schools image and the higher the rank of the drop out, the greater the enhancement of the schools image. Therefore blackbelts were rare and it was almost unheard of for a blackbelt to make it past 2nd degree.
Then this constant turnover in students meant that we constantly had to waste our time teaching new students instead of learning anything new or working on what we already did know.
Once we made it to blackbelt that was fairly much the end of our learning. I was a shodan for over two years before I got to learn Sunsu, Kusanku Sai, Tokumine bo. All we did for two years was knee and elbow heavy bags with no new knowledge. But then when it was time for us to test for Nidan we had to drop everything in our lives to do a crash course in the things we should have been learning all along. When my cousin died during this I couldn’t go to her funeral because it would have been held against me that I missed a workout. I had to sacrifice my relationship with my family for the dojo but I still got no respect for it.
That is why when I say my knowledge was hard won I mean it. I don’t demand any of the ass kissing that my teachers demanded from their students. I share knowledge for free. But all I get in return is disrespectful you’re a TMA guy bullshit.
[quote]
I’m lucky to associate with people that see it as a method of growing in combative and athletic ability, while still keeping our friends and training partners as whole as possible. [/quote]
You are lucky to associate with people like that, especially in Isshinryu. Because the mentality I had to deal with it is all about ego stroking by tearing people down. Where if you can fuck someone up so they never do martial arts again you have really accomplished something important.
It is why Isshinryu today is a dying art. All this emphasis on ego has been self destructive. Because we have been too mean and nasty to be popular and financially successful like the Tae Kwon Do people. But we also have been so mean and nasty that good students are getting crippled for life, so we don’t produce the best fighters like we used to.
[quote]
Damn! That is the kind of risk we take fighting with guys who are way bigger. One of the good things about sport martial arts like MMA is weight classes. But it is also why all the trash talking by MMA guys is so offensive.
Ever since the T-Cell Alpha and this Combat Sports forum opened up, I haven’t had ONE PM with regards to my OMA being “teh suckz.” The new attitude really seems to be to learn from everyone, not knock their goals, and develop a knowledge base as broad as it is deep. In fact, the only “MMA vs TMA” comments I get are IRL at the gym when I’m doing kata or bagwork, and a UFC/WWE fan come in to look good for his friends.
Sifu, the new mindset here is more open and intellectual than it’s ever been. A great time to be a karate man.[/quote]
The attitude hasn’t changed here. I stayed out of this forum for the first few months it was around because I just knew the mentality here. Finally I gave it a try. The third thread I post in I get denegrated as a TMA guy. When it comes to martial arts T-Nation is just as much of a joke as it ever was. Just look at the name of this forum, Combat Sports.
Martial arts are not sports. Sports martial arts are not the same as self defensive arts. Ask any billy badass MMA stylist and they will tell you there is nothing sporting about kicking someone in the nuts. Even though it’s street fighting 101. I have had enough of retarded arguements about style.
But it doesn’t mean I won’t participate in the threads. I can be just as arrogant and disrespectful as an MMA stylist. In fact as I think about it I will probably get onto the my style is better than your style bandwagon that is so popular here. Maybe we can get this forum renamed to something more accurate like “My style is better than your style”.
