Likes Likes:  0
Page 1 of 11 1 2 3 4 5 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 160

Thread: Dave Lowry, Budo, Self-Defense, Traditionalism, and Elitism

  1. #1

    Default Dave Lowry, Budo, Self-Defense, Traditionalism, and Elitism

    Editorial at The Martialist


    Deliberate satire.
    Last edited by Sharp Phil; 11th January 2006 at 12:07.
    - ©Phil Elmore 浪人
    315.391.1626

    Publisher, The Martialist™
    For Those Who Fight Unfairly

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2000
    Location
    Trippin'
    Posts
    4,373
    Likes (received)
    3

    Default

    Wibble. Lazarus warning.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Gifu-ken, Gifu-shi, Nagara Miyaji-cho
    Posts
    286
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default

    I must be already corrupted by budo elitism. I agreed with most of what was said in the article, but failed to see why it was a bad thing.

    Also, Phil, there's more to TMA than mere self-defence... that's kinda why we bother studying these 400-year-old systems instead of just brawling with each other to figure out what works best. :P

    These losers aren’t in the club, but the uninitiated will think they are, and this we cannot tolerate.
    Close. More like (quite often) "these losers aren't in the club, but they're making the uninitiated think they are, and this we cannot tolerate." It's called "fraud."

    It is an insult to our honor and our dignity. It is a violation of the sense of elitism with which we cloak ourselves – and that masks the very shortcomings of ego and skill we are so quick to identify in others.
    Now you're just trolling. Unfortunately, there's not much I can say or do to refute that point, other than to deny it and hope you're honourable enough to take my word for it.

    See if I say "I have nothing to prove," you'll say I'm a coward or hiding my true inability. If I say "let's throw down in the dojo," you'll go to great lengths to explain how that's not really self-defense and your martialism is too d34dly to spar with. If I decide to put my skills to the test against yours in nitty-gritty reality, chances are one or both of us will end up dead or seriously injured and the other will likely be facing the long arm of the law (making such an outcome economically impractical; I'm staunchly in Bastiat's camp ). In either of those three cases, you could simply say I had a wounded ego, skill or not.

    As for shortcomings, doesn't a statement like that seem just a bit too generalized for such a surely intellectual individual as yourself? Surely not ALL (or even most) sincere traditional martial artists are overly proud folk who lack true self-defense skill. Take a look at Kunii Zen'ya, for instance (yup, you can tell I just got done reading my Christmas copy of Legacies of the Sword).

    Let me ask you this, Phil: What would you accept as evidence that TMAists are NOT the fumbling egomaniacs you seem to paint them as?
    Roberto Valenzuela
    Owari Kan-ryu sojutsu (尾張貫流槍術)
    Shinkage-ryu heiho (新陰流兵法)

    "Be intelligent, but do not be artificially intelligent." --Kung Fu Proverb

    "Culture Check: Korean Arts still determined to make indigenous martial history from 4,000 year old cave drawings. France counters by claiming Savaate developed from hunting woolly mammoths before Ice Age." --The Nth Degree

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Cobourg ON
    Posts
    59
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default

    the evanescence of any real training by phil should give one pause when reading his recondite hyperbole.
    he seems more interested in raising his left eyebrow whilst holding sharp blades in a terrible posture, giving those in the know a glimpse into his jejune attitude.
    treat advice from phil like you would treat it from ashida kim.
    He tries to obfuscate the reader into believing he has a perspicacious view of the martial arts by using large words and lengthy discourse over a laconic, ponted article.
    so i write this riposte to phils risible and supercilious view of his own importance in the martial arts world.
    Shawn Bailey

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2000
    Location
    Trippin'
    Posts
    4,373
    Likes (received)
    3

    Default

    Yep, you certainly gave that the Phil Elmore word treatment. You lost me after the word "The".

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    NC
    Posts
    751
    Likes (received)
    1

    Default

    Wow, I always wanted to be an Elitist! Now I am.
    R. Kite
    Budoka 34
    "Study hard and all things can be accomplished; give up and you will amount to nothing".

    -Yamaoka Tesshu

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2000
    Location
    Warwick,RI
    Posts
    421
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default

    Personally, I rather enjoyed Mr. Lowry's article.

    I guess I'm just not seeing the alleged elitist bias here.
    Krzysztof M. Mathews
    http://www.firstgearterritories.com

    Every place around the world it seemed the same
    Can't hear the rhythm for the drums
    Everybody wants to look the other way
    When something wicked this way comes

    "Jeremiah Blues, Part 1"
    Sting-The Soul Cages

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Surrey, England
    Posts
    802
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default The middle way

    Phil

    I actually agree with you regarding how Mr Lowry's writings are extremely easy to read and even easier to disagree with. I for one found issue with his Koryu Snobbery article coming from a background of seitei iai with koryu as part of it. Much of Mr Lowry's article seemed to be chucking mud at seitei'ists to which I found a bit unpallatable.

    However I would further argue that your dedication and immersion in serious training and not over publicising your abilities or your art as a whole as to not be a million miles away from Mr Lowry's approach to MA.

    As previously mentioned, I DO take offence at those who are misrepresenting TMA to the public as I do percieve what I do to be the real thing. Yes it is arrogant but no I don't go around making spurious claims about my ability and background.

    All the same I think some of your article holds some valid arguments but I would say the same about Mr Lowry's too.

    You are both skilled authors by the way (I don't mean that in an ironic way either).
    Andy Watson

    Minoru hodo
    Kobe o tareru
    Inaho ka na

    http://www.simenergy.co.uk

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Birmingham, AL
    Posts
    824
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default A little confusion there, Phil.

    Phil, that's an interesting take, but you do a little trick with it. You sort of switch out "self defense" for "martial arts" in your final summation.

    The fact is, there are "martial arts" like karate and aikido and there are the non-traditional mixes of wrestling and such.

    If you want to wear the black belt, there is a whole tradition associated with it, and part of that is the samurai quality of "understated elegance" which the flaming purple striped gi and stars-and-stripes hachimaki do not represent. In fact, since the idea of the white gi/black belt is to reflect the Zen ideal of a clear mind, the bizarro costumes imply a mind full of something altogether different than that of the traditional masters who did not even participate in such discussions as this. Any question could be answered in kumitachi, kumite or randori. And the answer might well involve blood and death. Which is all the more reason that the clear and polished mind is important to preserve, along with the ettiquette and various formalities associated with the traditions.

    In the world of sports, we can see a constant deterioration in sportsmanship that I trace back to John McEnroe's childish and egotistical displays on the tennis court some decades back. To me, that was where sports really blossomed into the self-centered ego game that has most clearly expressed itself in the recent football game in which Marcus Vick STOMPED on the knee of the fallen opposing player who was threatening Vick in NO WAY WHATSOEVER.

    As bad as that is, there are people who are defending Vick and excusing his behavior.

    But that is what we can look forward to in the world of martial arts as more an more homemade systems adopt all the trappings (a gi [if more suitable to a belly dancer than a karate man] a belt [always at least 7th degree] and an asian name for the art) of traditional martial arts.

    If they don't like the traditional arts, why do they keep the names and terms (even when they make up their own "style") used by the tradtionalists?

    No, Phil, the problem is not that these folks "don't belong to the club". The only club here is people who care about the truth and those who will twist and distort the truth for their own egos and monetary gain.

    I've told the story before of how I showed a girlfriend a group photograph in which I appeared with Minoru Mochizuki, aikido 10th dan. I said, "That man is a tenth degree black belt."

    "Really?" the girl said. "You know, my cousin in South Carolina is a 10th degree!"

    And in her mind, her cousin's ten or fifteen (let's give him 30 years) of training with five or six "grandmasters" in South Carolina was completely equal to Mochizuki sensei's sixty-five years of grueling training among 5 million judo players, receiving the deepest information directly from the greatest martial artists of the early 20th Century in Japan (Ueshiba, Kano, Mifune, Toku, Funakoshi and others whose names would not even be known in America).

    It's not that I studied with that man and the girl's cousin did not. It's not that I was "in the club" and he was not. It was that he had started his own club, using the name and symbols of the club I was in. He was stealing from my sensei and from me and all people of simple truth.

    And it was not just a club. He was being paid to teach people who thought they were learning from a 10th degree black belt.

    It's not "the club" but the outright fraud on his part and the absolute uncaring ignorance of his students that insults me.

    You know, if all the MMA and "self-defense" people would just call their arts that, dropping all the black belt and gi distortions, there would be no such discussions.

    But why don't they just sell their courses as "self-defense"?

    Because the name "karate" sells and "self-defense" does not. Martial Arts "sell" and "MMA" does not.

    So the problem is in their trying to represent themselves as members of a club to which they have never paid dues. Which is a point when you, yourself, have paid in sweat and blood as well as money and other sacrifices.

    In short, they want what we have and they are willing simply to take it (the visible part that they can copy) without paying anything at all for it.
    Last edited by kimiwane; 11th January 2006 at 15:55. Reason: age related babbling
    David Orange, Jr.

    -------------------------------------------------------

    "That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
    Lao Tzu

  10. #10
    Join Date
    May 2000
    Location
    Warwick,RI
    Posts
    421
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default

    Well spoken, Kimiwane.
    Krzysztof M. Mathews
    http://www.firstgearterritories.com

    Every place around the world it seemed the same
    Can't hear the rhythm for the drums
    Everybody wants to look the other way
    When something wicked this way comes

    "Jeremiah Blues, Part 1"
    Sting-The Soul Cages

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Surrey, England
    Posts
    802
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by kimiwane
    I've told the story before of how I showed a girlfriend a group photograph in which I appeared with Minoru Mochizuki, aikido 10th dan. I said, "That man is a tenth degree black belt."

    "Really?" the girl said. "You know, my cousin in South Carolina is a 10th degree!"

    And in her mind, her cousin's ten or fifteen (let's give him 30 years) of training with five or six "grandmasters" in South Carolina was completely equal to Mochizuki sensei's sixty-five years of grueling training among 5 million judo players, receiving the deepest information directly from the greatest martial artists of the early 20th Century in Japan (Ueshiba, Kano, Mifune, Toku, Funakoshi and others whose names would not even be known in America).
    How very true and familiar!

    "You do Japanese swordsmanship. My mate owns 5 katanas and is a samurai and ninja master!"

    Grrr
    Andy Watson

    Minoru hodo
    Kobe o tareru
    Inaho ka na

    http://www.simenergy.co.uk

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Birmingham, AL
    Posts
    824
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default Another Point

    To those who agreed, Thank ya. Thank ya very much.

    to continue,

    Another thing that bothers me about this is the implied shallowness of the material to be covered in martial arts. To think that a man like Mochizuki sensei, who was uchi deshi to both Ueshiba and Mifune and a close associate and protege of Jigoro Kano had no deeper experience in his martial education than Master Bobby Brown of Hackitall, MO, who learned from Grandmaster George Tuffle and Great-Grandmaster Lester Figgleteen, who both come from smaller towns than Hackitall, is just sad.

    Mochizuki sensei associated with people in the highest levels of Japanese government and he was, himself, deputy governor of three provinces in Mongolia during WWII.

    If you want to learn ANY Japanese art, that's the kind of guy you want to go to.

    Compare it to colleges. A real martial art is so deep and broad that it can be compared to a university. How can someone who never even attended a university turn around and "found" a university (as well as serving as the chief instructor in All Subjects)?

    I've been working in Occupational Epidemiology for the past five years as a Project Coordinator. I've traveled with some high level doctors and have traveled alone on their behalf. I have been introduced by these doctors as "an epidemiologist". So let's say I have a "first degree black belt" in epidemiology. Does that qualify me to give myself a PhD and set up my own epidemiologic consulting service? Or, more apropos of this discussion, create my own Department of Epidemiology?

    Of course not. I am aware of and largely conversant in the many areas of this job, this science, but it is thousands of times deeper than I can go in it.

    That being said, there are MANY people who can go as deep as this science and even expand the very science through their knowledge and innovative thinking. They work out of places like Oxford (though we have some internationally influential doctors here at UAB). That's the kind of martial artist Mochizuki sensei was.

    What I am saying is that traditonal martial arts are not shallow things. They are very deep and they do merit more respect in and of themselves than most any individual person, frankly. They contain centuries of very deep knowledge. Most of us can study for many decades without really scratching the depth to be found in these arts. To see bohunkuses appropriate this culture and reduce it to "kroddy" and clownish "uniforms" and absurd belts representing ridiculous ranks is disappointing to say the least.

    Let's set the bar as high as possible (for ourselves as well as our students and others) instead of as low as we possibly can.
    David Orange, Jr.

    -------------------------------------------------------

    "That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
    Lao Tzu

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Baton Rouge, La.
    Posts
    356
    Likes (received)
    1

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by kimiwane
    Phil, that's an interesting take, but you do a little trick with it. You sort of switch out "self defense" for "martial arts" in your final summation.
    The other trick being done here is the "pox on both your houses," disdaining people belonging to each extreme end as being biased towards their particular viewpoint, where theose at the Martialist are wonderfully free and independent. Thus there sin is, by Phil's reasoning, they don't belong.

    In general, Phil, I do agree that Dave Lowry is a pompous !!! who derides anyone not doing what he's doing. However, I happen to agree with him that there are lofty ideals that are worth fighting for and preserving from the commercialness that pervades American society. And I don't agree that self-defense is a right (I certainly wouldn't say that anyone I'm willing who wants to kill me has a right to life, much less to 'self defence')... or even a privledge. It's an instinct. As to who gets the best of it, it's those who train the hardest and have the best strategy, a method that transcends TMA, redneck fu, the folks at the Martialist, etc.
    --Neil Melancon--

  14. #14
    Bustillo, A. Guest

    Default

    [QU I'm sorry..... can't be diplomatic this sec.. Davie.....love your book Moving Troward Stillness,, you are excellent story -wise , but your latest article in BB mag ... por favor .... you don't know what the the hell you are talking about.. what real experience in fighting do you have ....ever had besides toillet training with one leg pants off.. , I can hear it now....budo is more than that [I]no joda.... ---besides eating sushi... / keep writying about theory... and wearing a white hakama being a samurai .

    if i'm banned from here for telling it like it is .... so be it...

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Surrey, England
    Posts
    802
    Likes (received)
    0

    Default Civility

    In general, Phil, I do agree that Dave Lowry is a pompous !!! who derides anyone not doing what he's doing
    Neil

    Just to keep the discussion civil, I don't think Phil actually referred to Dave as a pompous @$$ (I'm assuming that's what you meant). There are valid arguments on both sides of the table but let's not get into insulting each other please. That way leads to moderators closing down threads.

    Just bein' civil
    Andy Watson

    Minoru hodo
    Kobe o tareru
    Inaho ka na

    http://www.simenergy.co.uk

Page 1 of 11 1 2 3 4 5 ... LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •