Thing I've noticed about TMA and "purity"

[Deltafarce]

Just my observation, the TMAs are really concerned about their art being pure.

"This is the ancient xyz" oh yeah we call that a kimura

"This is the ancient abc". Yeah we call that a hip toss.

They lose their minds and go on for hours about how all these techniques were passed down thru their art.

To me it's just comical, there's only so many ways to twist a arm or choke someone am I really suppose to believe none of these arts learned techniques from each other.

 

[Vitamin C]

The only people with any legitimate concern about purity are involved with drugs.

 

[SummerStriker]

If you don't have art purity as a concern, then you have people cross training, looking for a better way. If they find a better way, they can make the head man look bad. Worse, if you allow it, there isn't anything stopping any martial art (other than strange contest rules) from turning into JKD or MMA.

If you can appeal to art purity, the head men can stop training and learning. You can have an objective best, according to the text, and you don't have to keep up with the times. It is much cleaner and easier.

Look how far JKD and MMA have come. What if some 9th Dan Hapkido black belt came out with a blog and said, "purity is over - belts are awarded for effective responses to the following situations and for participating in MMA sparring with strangers."

How much Hapkido do you think would be left in 4 years?

 

[Aprentice]

The only people with any legitimate concern about purity are involved with drugs.

haha nice

 

[futang17]

"This is the ancient abc". Yeah we call that a hip toss.

Joe Rogan...that you? But seriously there's a big difference between hip tosses... o goshi, harai goshi, uki goshi, and goshi kuruma... just saying

although i've notice that a lot guys going around calling all throws as hip tosses are always interested in knowing the name of a sweep, arm bar, choke... yeah it's just a modified armbar

 

[Risin1]

If you don't have art purity as a concern, then you have people cross training, looking for a better way. If they find a better way, they can make the head man look bad. Worse, if you allow it, there isn't anything stopping any martial art (other than strange contest rules) from turning into JKD or MMA.

If you can appeal to art purity, the head men can stop training and learning. You can have an objective best, according to the text, and you don't have to keep up with the times. It is much cleaner and easier.

Look how far JKD and MMA have come. What if some 9th Dan Hapkido black belt came out with a blog and said, "purity is over - belts are awarded for effective responses to the following situations and for participating in MMA sparring with strangers."

How much Hapkido do you think would be left in 4 years?

Exactly!!. These guys have a deep need to feel important and in some regards holy to the practioners of their respective arts.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Joe Rogan...that you? But seriously there's a big difference between hip tosses... o goshi, harai goshi, uki goshi, and goshi kuruma... just saying

although i've notice that a lot guys going around calling all throws as hip tosses are always interested in knowing the name of a sweep, arm bar, choke... yeah it's just a modified armbar

I don't think there's a big difference between koshi guruma, uki goshi, and ogoshi. And I'm a Judo black belt. Harai has a different throwing action, so call it something different. Okay. Literally the only difference between Koshi guruma and O goshi is hand placement. Judo has too many names.

 

[jujijimmy]

I don't think there's a big difference between koshi guruma, uki goshi, and ogoshi. And I'm a Judo black belt. Harai has a different throwing action, so call it something different. Okay. Literally the only difference between Koshi guruma and O goshi is hand placement. Judo has too many names.

Wrong, koshi guruma you put your hips all the way across to the other side, so that uke goes across your back. O goshi not so far.

 

[FishinWithFredo]

"Who's the knucklehead, wanting respect?"

 

[Bayonet]

And uke goshi half as far as o-goshi... still all hip throws, though.


People who get a bug in their ass about "lineage" are just trying to find something to be snobbish about . Human biomechanics are the same the world over, so it's not a big stretch to find out that people all over the world found out that a hip toss worked; and then named it whatever they wanted to in their own language. There's likely no "origin" art, just a bunch of scattered cultures working on the same problems with the same tools.

By the way, it's pretty fun to point out to all these "pure" TMA LARPers that the grappling styles they so look down on likely predate their style by, y'know, thousands of years....

 

[BrainBar]

Just being devil's advocate here.......

But I think some of it is just to protect the integrity of the art or sport. For example, the MMA McDojo's popping up all over the country.

There are guys who have
A) A bunch of tattoos and a shaved head
B) Won a couple tough man fights or "underground MMA" matches
C) Do roids
D) Are athletic enough to be a challenge

Who have opened up their own "MMA" gyms, hung some bags, laid some mats, and have very little if any formal training in wrestling, boxing, muay thai, jiujitsu, judo......and some who just buy the MMA books from Barnes and Noble and teach from those books, and many people find that to be just a turn off from the sport and from martial arts in general.

I think the "Fight Club" culture that is getting into MMA turns away some people, and the adherence to some tradition kinda offers the opposite. Not knocking anyone who trains or runs one of those garage style fight club gyms. But they aren't for everybody.

 

[Jonas g33k]

At least judo names are really descriptives. So as long as you understand japanese it's logical that ko uchi gari is a small inner sweep.
On the other hand BJJ has a lot of silly names... This is grinding my gear actually... Vaporizer, guard of the galaxy or tornado guard are just silly names. Someone who isn't in the game wont understand what's the meaning of it.

Also I'm more fluent in Japanese than in English so that may explain this issue with BJJ names.

And BJJ is concerned by purity. A LOT. We care about lineage. We hate that blue belts could be awarded online or during seminars. We look for McDojo...
All of this because we don't want that our art lose its effectiveness.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Wrong, koshi guruma you put your hips all the way across to the other side, so that uke goes across your back. O goshi not so far.

Show me the difference in real practice and not just in no resistance kata and maybe I'll give a shit. It's a meaningless distinction that does nothing other than obscure the similarity of the throwing motions. Very similar to hiza guruma and sasae tsuri komi ashi. Same throw, just slight difference in where you're blocking. Why two different names? Names are only useful insofar as they reflect meaningful differences in techniques, and neither of those differences are meaningful IMO.

 

[Zankou]

I have noticed "reification" is especially intense in judo ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)

... where people think that having a different name for a move is incredibly significant from a taxonomic and metaphysical perspective ... like it's just obvious that ude-garame is the same move with slight variations (kimura/americana same damn thing), but holy shit koshi guruma is totally different from o goshi. The fact that one set of variations in physical grappling is given different names, while another set of variations is not, is seen as deeply significant.

As is highly characteristic of TMAs and their DivineRevelationGuru complex, features of the art that originally were flexible, contingent, or contestable are often later rigidified and given ridiculously elaborate explanations and ex post justifications to show that the Revelation, indeed, did descend upon Jigoro Kano, and he did recite the pure words of the archangel Gabriel, and his words must be heeded. If you can't understand that, it's because you are still an infant on the path. Oh, back in the day, men were pious, now they are all heathens.

Whereas I'd say names are just names, and there's no reason to be beholden to terminology that is archaic, unhelpful, or misleading. Of course the committed Kano acolyte would charge me with crass ignorance of the Truth of the Founder, which only those of purest heart can understand.

 

[Thai Otoshi]

At least judo names are really descriptives. So as long as you understand japanese it's logical that ko uchi gari is a small inner sweep.
On the other hand BJJ has a lot of silly names... This is grinding my gear actually... Vaporizer, guard of the galaxy or tornado guard are just silly names. Someone who isn't in the game wont understand what's the meaning of it.

Also I'm more fluent in Japanese than in English so that may explain this issue with BJJ names.

And BJJ is concerned by purity. A LOT. We care about lineage. We hate that blue belts could be awarded online or during seminars. We look for McDojo...
All of this because we don't want that our art lose its effectiveness.

"Guard of the Galaxy"!? Are you serious???

Sounds like some 10th Planet shit. They always have goofy names for their moves.

 

[BrainBar]

Tradition should be beaten out of martial arts....by an "MMA street fighter" wearing black gloves...with dragons on them......and in shorts with a skull and blood splatter, and a t-shirt with a gargoyle with a battle axe chopping a gi in half.............who owns an alarm clock that has arms which wake him up with strikes to the face, just so he doesn't accidentally become "sporty".

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

The "purity" aspect of TMA is just part of its culture. Every martial art community has its own culture. MMA, BJJ, Wrestling, etc all have culture distinct to them.

 

[Jonas g33k]

But the judo hip toss are different from a mechanical point of view.
One will be pushing upward, one will be wrapping around, one would be pulling forward...
Of course when you fight, you mix all of these. Your hand pull, your hips push, your other hand wrap...

But the separations between koshi guruma, o goshi and tsuri komi goshi make sense for pedagogy. Each throw focus on one aspect of the "hip toss".

And let's not forget one of the greatest pleasure of judo, having pedantic arguments while watching video of championships .

 

[Uchi Mata]

I have noticed "reification" is especially intense in judo ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)

... where people think that having a different name for a move is incredibly significant from a taxonomic and metaphysical perspective ... like it's just obvious that ude-garame is the same move with slight variations (kimura/americana same damn thing), but holy shit koshi guruma is totally different from o goshi. The fact that one set of variations in physical grappling is given different names, while another set of variations is not, is seen as deeply significant.

As is highly characteristic of TMAs and their DivineRevelationGuru complex, features of the art that originally were flexible, contingent, or contestable are often later rigidified and given ridiculously elaborate explanations and ex post justifications to show that the Revelation, indeed, did descend upon Jigoro Kano, and he did recite the pure words of the archangel Gabriel, and his words must be heeded. If you can't understand that, it's because you are still an infant on the path. Oh, back in the day, men were pious, now they are all heathens.

Whereas I'd say names are just names, and there's no reason to be beholden to terminology that is archaic, unhelpful, or misleading. Of course the committed Kano acolyte would charge me with crass ignorance of the Truth of the Founder, which only those of purest heart can understand.

Agreed. Sambo is the only martial art I know of that doesn't seem to fall into this trap. If you show a sambo guy hip throws that would have 5 different names in Judo, he'll spout off some Russian that mean 'hip throw' for each of them.

As an aside, there's few things funnier than watching two Judo yellow belts arguing about whether some throw they saw an Olympian doing should be called tai otoshi or seio otoshi, or de ashi or kosoto gari. It makes my sympathetic to the American Judo cranks who don't use Japanese terminology (though their reasons are more explicitly anti-traditional than mine...I just don't think it's useful). When I teach takedowns in BJJ, I'll alternate between the English and Japanese terminology, though the Japanese is mainly just a matter of habit.

 

[Uchi Mata]

But the judo hip toss are different from a mechanical point of view.
One will be pushing upward, one will be wrapping around, one would be pulling forward...
Of course when you fight, you mix all of these. Your hand pull, your hips push, your other hand wrap...

But the separations between koshi guruma, o goshi and tsuri komi goshi make sense for pedagogy. Each throw focus on one aspect of the "hip toss".

And let's not forget one of the greatest pleasure of judo, having pedantic arguments while watching video of championships .

On the contrary, I think it hurts pedagogy because it gets students to focus on arcane little technical details ("I'm working on koshi guruma, so I have to get my hips slightly farther across than when I work on O goshi") instead of the important things like getting good pull, good footwork, etc. Trying to match some 100 year old ideal of what a throw looks like vs figuring out the general throwing motion and practicing good kuzushi is a real problem for students who are too focused on practically meaningless distinctions between throws.