Saturday, June 22, 2013

Children & Martial Arts

 First, I want to start by saying that it was nice to meet you in the live training Lian. It was a great experience although we had some connectivity issues. I am looking forward to meet your husband if he ever have the time for training live. I would like to meet you too Ryan. I want to start by a question: do children belong in the Martial Arts? I have seen some of Shi Zu Freddie Lee stating that Martial Art is not for children. Now, let us understand that it is me talking, not Shi Zu! I always like the raise that question: what is "Martial Art". Let us explore the word "martial" again. In "martial", we see military, violence, combat, struggle, hardship. Now here is the other word: "art". In "art", there is self-expression. Children are extremely self-expressive. There is no doubt about that. They like to play a lot. Now should they be trained in the Martial Arts? My answer is no. But if they are really interested about it, you better train them hard and show him the reality of life instead of letting him watch Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles...you name any bullshit show you might think of. I will explain my reasons and hope to not offend anyone.
 There were three sons of my cousin's cousin. Two of them practice Taekwondo. I just learned that today. Interestingly, they idolize Bruce Lee because they love to watch Enter the Dragon. As for me, I think I understand this movie too much to watch it over and over again. But the kids would watch this movie over and over again without having a full understanding of the deep message Bruce was trying to communicate to the audience. They just love the action and his fast kicks. Of course most kids who watch his movie would want to be like him in that way. They do not understand the movie yet because it is not their time yet. I understand that. Now here is what disappoint me the most. I was sparring with them today and to be honest with you, their technique sucks! They cannot possibly be at a high level. Are you kidding me?? They are so predictable and you actually tell me that they can win against big guys? What is this? Some sort of movie roles they are playing? Oh here is another one: they cannot jump rope for shit! Makes perfect sense now. Their technique sucks because they suck at the jump rope! I asked one of them how many push ups he can do. He said ten, and I told them to try giving me 10. I watched him execute the push ups but he did not perform them with good form. You are telling me these kids are going to survive any dangerous situation they encounter? Don't make me laugh! These Taekwondo schools are one of these schools who is proving Penn and Teller right about the Martial Arts as Bullshit. Penn and Teller do not know anything about Martial Arts but they know more about Martial Arts than these kids! I take a good quote by George Carlin: "Bullshit is what binds us together." But you know what; he is right. America is full bullshit and a lot of Martial Arts schools are part of that bullshit. I guess I can put together and say: "Bullshit is what binds these so called Martial Arts schools together". This is ridiculous.
What is going to be more disappointing is if these kids get to a real life threat they will not be able to survive because they have been living in fantasies for so long by so called masters they will tremble like crazy. I am not offending Taekwondo but to make it as real as possible, some emphasis needs to be on the fitness instead of just letting learn the techniques without even a little strength behind them. Can we just do that first? Maybe when they get a little older, they might be exposed to the techniques after they understand why it is important not to hurt someone for their own benefit. In that way, Martial Art schools will liberate themselves from mister Bullshit! That's the reason why I got to FMK in the first place. I want to represent something real. I do not want to represent out of shape fucks! I do not want to do that. I want to represent Shi Zu Freddie Lee. I do not know if he sees himself that way but to me, he is the next Bruce Lee. Maybe there are people like Freddie Lee out there but since I met Freddie Lee, I see no reason to not join his kwoon. He had made a big impact on my life and I cannot thank him enough. Happy Very Late Father's Day Shi Zu Lee!

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing the post. I enjoyed the reading. It's good to see more blog activity on here.

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    1. Oh thank you. I thought you would run away from it because I thought I would offend a lot of people. I am at a point where I take the Martial Arts seriously. It cannot be a playground! I am not crazy am I?

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  2. It was nice meeting you too. I hope I'll be back on the live training again soon.
    I think kids do need to have a lot of understanding before they should learn the martial arts. They have to be able to understand that fighting is a serious thing. On TV and in video games, people just run around beating up bad guys all the time like it's nothing. And people in action movies fight over everything like it is going to solve all problems. Kids have to know that there are consequences for actions, and that beating up people doesn't solve many problems, but just creates more.
    Right now, my daughter works out with me, but she's not supposed to do the kicks and punches. Not until she understands things a bit better.
    I'd like to know what Sifu thinks about teaching young girls self defense. By the time my girl is 11 or 12, I would like for her to know some self defense moves so that if some guy were to grab her, she could lay him flat on his back or something. I don't want her to be a fighter, but I do want her to be able to protect herself.

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    1. You are right about the action movies and video games. They are the reasons kids do not understand that fighting is not a game. Even Bruce Lee failed to make them understand that reality. That's why they cannot learn these lethal techniques yet. Once your daughter has reached 11 years old, I believe she is allowed to learn self-defense techniques. I wouldn't want her to be a fighter either. Hopefully Shi Zu would agree on that.

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