Not exactly, but it’s a lot like hate. Gifted athlete becomes the leaper with the most fingers on the MA scene, gets a couple movies and *poof*, anyone who does any kind of martial art ends up hearing that annoying sound. You know the one. The one that makes you want to punch your friend in the throat while he does it.
He did have some good insights and was diligent in his research. I don’t know if it was him playing up the Chinese thing or what, but he took those good pieces of information and wrapped them up with crappy ass fortune cookie philosophy. ugh. Way to re-enforce a stereotype, dude.
The thing that makes me hate him acutely now (as opposed to background hate) is that after 20 freaking years of dealing with the cat-getting-raped noise from morons, I finally get what the hell he was talking about.
Bastard.
Specifically, his whole “a punch was punch, then it wasn’t, now it’s a punch again.” What? Was he performing a magic trick? Saw his fist in half?
What I finally figured out was he was mapping his process. Everyone whose any good…their process as well.
We all start off in the cargo cult (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult) of our first MA class and ape the motions of the guy with the ugly suit up in front. He tells us if we keep practicing that in 20 years, we’ll have the same power and skill he does.
Actually, what happens is that after fleecing us for 20 years, he takes the money and his mistress to Costa Rica.
So we spend all this time thinking about what cool shit we’re going to do one day with this amazing punch.
Hopefully before wasting too much time, we got our asses kicked by someone’s little sister. The magic punch didn’t come through.
Here’s the fork in the road: Challenge her to a fight in 20 years when we’re ready OR think that MA training was a waste of time and stupid and stuff.
Or (this is the tough one) one could figure out that it was user error. Granted, that slimeball at the McDojo never taught you how to punch, but get over it. It wasn’t his responsibility to give a shit about you. It was (and still is) your responsibility.
This is where we actually learn what goes into a real punch and suddenly is this overwhelming amount of information and skill and you’d swear it was your personal White Whale.
But after a few years (if you’ve been actually training) you kind of forget all those bits. It’s just how you punch. You may no longer have a clue as to how you are doing it anymore. It’s just a punch again. Only this time it can knock some teeth in.
What really bugs me is that I have the sneaking suspicion that all that is a stupid metaphor for much of one’s life. We fake it for awhile, some of us wake up a give a shit and do the hard work of living, and then we get so used to it, we don’t know how to teach others.
Remember. Whatever cool/deep/important things you’ve figured out, learn how to teach someone. You learned it, so it can be taught.
Nobody’s impressed that Jesus could walk on water. He’s the boss’s kid. What always gets people’s attention is that he taught Peter to walk on water. THAT we dig. That sticks with us.
So get over yourself and your aquatic pedestrian tricks. Teach someone else to do it too. If you don’t, you’ll most likely end up saying stupid crap like Bruce and then I’ll hate you too.
Posted by vincebrownlac 