Tea and cakes and fists. And bullets.

Earlier I heard some guy who went to a Taekwondo school talk about Taekwondo practitioners beating Muay Thai practitioners and then close up with "It's not the style, it's the guy behind it." I would have kicked him in the face, if I could see where his face was.  The god of this land has given me the fortune of not having to see stupid people's faces.

A style is not a set of techniques. Otherwise a low belt rank in Karate would be considered a different style than a higher one. We all know this is not the case. You could opt to call them different arts, but even then, these arts aren’t exactly mutually exclusive.

You could make an argument of different martial arts having different ways of doing things, such as snapping a kick instead of swinging it, but all in all the same thing is accomplished, and either one can be done by any person. If I, someone who has learned a set of movements, used something from somebody else’s set of movements, would my “style” suddenly be theirs? No. Did I use a technique from their “style”? You could say so, but you’d also be a dipshit. Ways of doing things do not belong to specific people or organizations. In the end, we all have the same sort of body, some with better bodies than others. Because we all have the same sort, we all have the same ways of moving. A martial art is made by picking out movements that are favorable, then compiling them. Then somebody may choose to name their set of movements, just as people name their writings or drawings. Others can then choose to learn from it. If there was a painting made by certain techniques, and somebody picked up on them and painted their own picture using techniques they learned from the painting, is it the same painting? It is not.

A style would be better used to describe the way a person carries himself using said techniques. An example is if somebody favored using a movement to strike at openings in the opponent and hope to hit them, and consistently did that in order to achieve a favorable result, versus somebody who would use the same movement not to strike, but to trap the movement of the opponent to gain a clear advantage in position. Yes, it is possible to do this from one movement you idiots thinking “what no that would be a different technique”. One movement can very easily achieve different results. If you are currently thinking “yeah they might be the same movement but it’s a different technique if you use it as something else” you are probably retarded. You just have to think for yourself instead of waiting for your GREAT AND WISE MASTER (read: bastard suckering you into paying him so you can learn how to move around by yourself, unless he actively gives you his own philosophies and observations and lets you understand it, instead of just dropping you shit and going “YOU WILL UNDERSTAND IT IN TIME” then he might be kind of cool, but then you wouldn’t be waiting for him to give you shit to use, probably.) to give you something to use for each specific spot. Yes, I am also saying that people who only learn one martial art and then violently refuse to pick up anything else, instead of finding any useful variety of movement and using it are retarded and unnecessarily elitist shit-pricks.

Anyway, if you use this definition, you could easily read "It's not the style, it's the guy behind it" as "It's not flailing around like a retard and hoping something hits that matters, it's the body of the asswad flailing around like a retard that does".

I think some people are misinterpreting the "technical" aspect of martial arts.  Earlier Mikasi passively stated the uselessness of drills, and I must correct this.

Drills were never of use for  Mikasi.  She was practically done with them as soon as she started.  She is one of those odd cases where a person fully understands how to move their bodies.  To her, practicing is useless, she makes her movements in fighting as naturally as one breathes.  She has simply put more of her time into figuring out her body.  Most of us are not like that.  We were preoccupied studying language, handwriting, numbers, social rules and other things of that sort.  That is what the drills are.  They allow our bodies to learn how to move more naturally.  Running a drill is studying. It takes what previous people have learned and transfers it to ourselves.

It is true that some people get ahead of themselves when learning the movements, and it is true that flow is just as important as the movements themselves, maybe more-so.  But that does not change the fact that it is essential for many of us to drill the movements into our bodies first.  You must also keep in mind that the movement is not the be all end all movement for any situation, and that it should be applied in various methods in various angles.  If you have troubles with them, don't worry so much.  It's not that you are lacking talent, it's that you're working a new math equation and putting it into use.  In extreme cases it may be like learning division before subtraction.  It will work fine for a while, but once you get to more complex numbers it falls apart.  You may get a number very close to the answer, but it will be a failure nonetheless, in several different tail ends of the number.  Just start from the ground up and study hard.

For most of us, starting out is much like writing with your non-dominant hand.  It looks horrible doesn't it?  It looks similar to the writing of your dominant hand when you were three or four years old.  Part of it is genetic, the rest of it is a lack of experience.  It's the same thing as you being unable to move fluidly or strike hard.  I have experienced such a stage myself.

On a similar note, breaking objects.  No the board you broke was not somebody's skull.  It is not a method of building confidence.  It's a demonstration of  how much commitment should be put into a strike.  It's very silly that I have to say this.

Fighters these days have the pleasure of learning backwards. In the day, people would learn by just doing things. Eventually they would find more and more efficient or more and more powerful forms for specific situations, and add that to their pool of abilities. Those powerful forms became techniques. One who could find an extremely effective technique would become feared. Those fearful techniques would be passed on to the next generation, and to the next. We don’t have to spend our time figuring out what the strongest of strikes are, nor would we risk fighting all day to learn it.

Now, we have the current system. People start out learning how to do those specific strong techniques, and start out trying to defend themselves from those strong techniques, before they even know how to move around to get anything at all working. Instead of dealing with "What's something I can hit them with here?", they deal with "This hits them here, how do I make it happen?". Even sillier folk even think "I can do this, so I'm invincible" without batting an eye at the prospect of getting there. Some even think of things systematically, like "If this happens then this will happen and then they'll do this and I'll do that" and all that fun stuff. So, what most people are missing nowadays are the basics of the basics. We know the movements, but we do not understand them. We use them, but we do not know why we use them. We slice through the air with our forms, not knowing what it is truly meant for. We are blind. With this, an art becomes just that, an art; a simple pile of nice moves to deal with other nice moves. Specific answers to specific situations. A natural fighter would learn flow then form; now, we learn form then have to figure out the flow. The art is a weapon to supplement your natural strengths.

This is probably due to the nature of passing things down. Example, perhaps one person is very good at throwing extremely strong hits. Someone else gets good at blocking, evading and countering to respond. A response to this could be to start using quick light shots to avoid being countered or blocked, while throwing a quickly moving person trying to evade off balance. Eventually the style passed down will be that of the quick light hits in their "perfect" form, after being made to respond to evasion in their greatest forms and so on.

The result is a multitude of styles that nobody knows the reason behind. Instead of learning what to do, we know what to do but have to find the reason for them, or when to use them.
We know how to move, but not how to fight. We end up head butting with our hardest hitting attacks. Or even worse, we merely wait for something specific we can take advantage of, and don't understand how to force the advantage ourselves.

When Lee Hsiao Lung came in, nobody knew how to deal with him. Everyone had believed in specific styles, he preached "style with no style" and attacked in a very streamlined manner that was seemingly impossible to deal with.  He would do things people would not think of.  He was feared not because he knew the strongest forms, but because he had an understanding of them, and was not limited to them. He understood how far he could deviate from them and still be effective.  He took control of the fight instead of waiting for the opponent, yet did not blindly charge in.  The crowning piece was that he built himself a fantastic body. 

Then you have the modern prize fighter, they fight in an extremely streamlined manner and will often win by sheer force. The methods of dealing with such a manner have fallen out of favor due to the lack of understanding behind it, and it becomes "useless fancy fluff", so it becomes a contest of head butting with strong techniques, and the winner is the one with better body and reaction. Well, understanding will come eventually perhaps. Eventually it will all run full circle. Let's try hard to push shall we?

Yeah.

http://tenhou.net/0?log=2009110520gm-0049-0000-x2873eb47acb4&tw=3

Greatness is a great mountain.

Masses gather at the the foot, and look to the endlessly high top with awe.

A brave few begin to climb the path, and the masses will look up scorn.

The reason is that it shows them humans just like themselves can climb it.   It is a reminder that others are after that which they have given up.  It is a matter of pride.  They think highly of themselves; They think, "If I could not climb, why do you think you can?  What makes you so much better than me?".  They cannot stand the prospect of just another person being greater than they.   That humans are not weak, only they.

As one continues to climb, the scorn may no longer reach.

The air becomes thin, one begins to breathe the thickening envy and expectation.
Burning determination boils the blood.  The hot blood moves the body through the anguish.

Even higher, the path becomes thin, one begins walking upon the thick of competition.  One clears their path by shoving others over.

Stain the flesh with blood and sweat.  Continue on, and even the strongest can no longer reach to pull one down.

Continue further.  Envy becomes awe, competition becomes respect, and blood and sweat become trophies.  One's position becomes the dreams and will of the next batch of brave few.  One becomes legend.

Recently I have seen that even legends may be overtaken.  Perhaps you could only call it a god.

Time will tell; may even gods be taken down?