As a writer and a former student of acting, I people watch. Sometimes I’m judgmental when I don’t mean to be. A lot of times I form stories in my head. And most of the time the stories happen on their own. Not sure what it is that makes me do this, but here I am.
If you’ve read my bio, then you know how I feel about the martial arts school I’d come from. But in their defense they have worked very hard to become nationally recognized, especially under the Ed Parkername, and have good relations with certain officials in the Chinese community.
And in the great comedic words of Brian Regan: I don’t want to step on anyone’s beliefs…well…here we go.
I had received an invitation celebrating the head black belt’s 25th anniversary in martial arts, honoring him as teacher and master. The man has done a lot for the school and the discipline. And here’s where I have an issue: the discipline.
I had majored in kinesiology, study of human movement, at university. One of the fundamental principles in learning movement is repetition.
Take writing for example. When we first learned how to write the letter ‘A’, we probably traced dashed lines that formed that letter. The teacher then removed the training wheels and asked us to write the letter ‘A’ on a blank sheet of recycled paper. We learned how to sound out simple words like ‘see’, ‘dog’, ‘run’. Learned the basic structure of a sentence. Then we were taught what a basic paragraph looks like.
Learning martial arts isn’t too far from that. You learn what a fighting stance is, where to put your hands, learn defensive moves like blocking and attacks like punching and kicking. The teacher demonstrates. The student follows.
Once a student learns the alphabet (punching, kicking, blocking), simple self-defense techniques are taught. Someone grabs your shirt, you trap his wrists by grabbing them so he can’t hit you and knee him in the nuts, the balls, the family jewels. More properly known as the groin. (Why are all attackers male?) As the color of your belt changes, so does the complexity of the techniques, like learning how to write a paragraph.
There’s only one problem with this.
When a high school student is given an assignment to write an essay, she must come up with the words on her own. She’ll be given a subject, but she has to do the work.
Fighting is no different. When a person gets attacked, she must fend for herself. Her teacher won’t be there to help. And because people are different, so are their attacks. An attack on a woman will be different than on a man. A man attacking will be different than a woman attacking.
Now, if you’ve watched a boxing match, you’d know that a fight is very dynamic.
Fundamental principle in human reaction: When learning how to cope with two or more different kinds of stimuli, one must train in that similar environment. So if you want to play classical music, then you’ll train to play classical music. Make sense?
Boxers work on technique all the time. Thing is, he can have the best punch in the world, but it’s useless if he can’t hit his opponent. So he focuses on accuracy through different drills like mitt and bag work, and, more importantly, he spars. Not only does he have to contend with his own footwork and where he is in relation to his opponent, he must deal with his opponent’s aggression, physical strength, etc. However, having one sparring partner can become stagnant. Often boxers will have several to mix things up. One person’s tells in poker will differ from another, as an example.
My former school did almost no partner drills or pad/bag work with their general student population. No physical drills in an art that is physical. So what did they do? Practice self-defense techniques in the air. Something Bruce Lee argued against vehemently. Below is a video of how most of the training is done but wasn’t from the school I’m referring to. It’s just a random video that showcases my point.
It was at this point where I’d realized their method of teaching was highly limited. Then came the straw that broke the camel’s back.
We had often made fun of other disciplines like Tae Kwan Do, Karate and such. That once someone gets a black belt, they learn more of the same stuff. They have a saying: You learn more and more about less and less. Clever, yes. Astute? Not so much.
In the school, once a black belt is earned, “new” techniques are learned. All of which are practiced without a partner, in the air, like a student learning to trace more and more complex essays. The value wasn’t there. It’s like a wrestler practicing alone on the mat. If he only does that, he’s not going to fare well against a live person.
They teach: Think outside of the box but bring it to us first and we’ll let you know if we approve of it. My best friend brought them ideas, which they shot down, only to integrate them and call it their own. They gave no credit to my friend. Why? I’m not sure. I don’t think they know. Many of their teachers left, teachers whom I like to term thinkers.
So when I got the invitation, all I could think of was how little has changed there. Certainly, the head black belt has learned a lot. Knowing what I know about human movement, I am certain he’s learned more and more about less and less.
Just watched Black Swan this weekend, starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. The movie is about the character’s psychological breakdown, which parallels Swan Lake’s story between the dark and light side of the Swan Queen (and no, I’m not familiar with the story). A subplot in the movie is Portman’s character’s struggle of technical perfection in ballet versus artistic expression.
Good Girl
When I started to write consistently, I had struggled with wanting to be the good girl versus the bad girl (not sure I’m doing myself any favors here). The good girl is being technically good at writing, and the bad girl is allowing myself to suck and the freedom to just write whatever comes out.
Which is better?
Bad Girl
So I started with the bad girl (yes!). I started to write Nightfall, and allowed whatever to come out, come out. I wrote sixty pages worth of material.
Then I talked to my friend who’s constantly working on being a technically perfect writer. He turned me to books and seminars that taught me how to be a good girl, how to write well technically. They focused on structure, emotional techniques, how to build depth in character, scenes, overall story, and provided a mechanic’s dream full of tools. More than what any writer would use in any single work.
But deep in my heart, I felt the bad girl pounding, wanting to get out and expose herself.
I’d talked to a friend recently, and she told me she wrote a book with her eyes closed. As far as I could tell, she’d done little research on writing technique or structure but was inspired to write. I haven’t read it so I’m not sure of the quality. However, when I was listening to her talk, the good girl inside shook me and said, “She’s crazy!”
Was my friend unconsciously incompetent (the individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it)? Google the four stages of competence and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
To be fair, my technically induced friend does allow for inspiration, and my crazy friend could be a great writer. But these two people showed up in my life as symbols of two extremes because I asked the question:
Which is better?
Choose me. No! Choose me.
In life, too much of anything isn’t good.
Humans can’t live more than a few days without water. But drink too much of it and people can die of water intoxication. Take in what you need. Leave the rest.
Today, I’ve used very little of what I had written during my purely bad girl days. But I learned what not to do, and in the process of my redemption, I had taken the time to learn. In doing so, I found out something interesting about myself that is the fundamental philosophy behind Bruce Lee: When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has not style, he can fit in with any style.
What?
Learn what you need to learn. Leave the rest. You don’t and can’t know everything. Just make sure what you’ve learned doesn’t imprison your soul, that you can still express yourself wholly. Another words, forget what you’ve learned and just go with it.
As renowned photographer, Rodney Lough has said, “Art is the language of the soul.”
I’d just watched a great movie called Man From Earth. The premise is awesome, and without it I wouldn’t have watched it. But during a good-gye party, friends learn that the honorary guest is a caveman who has lived for 14,000 years. That’s right. A bonafied caveman, cro magnon, to be exact.
It was written by famed science fantasy writer, Jerome Bixby.
It’s a fantastic premise because what the caveman reveals is just earth shattering. I’d suggest watching.
One of the things John, the caveman, reveals is that he was a well known religious figure. Everyone in the party at this point doesn’t really know whether to believe his story so far, but to claim to be this certain figure seems heinous. Until John explains how this religious figure got his mythical status. How history can apply layers of mythicism on an individual.
And that got me thinking.
I’d had the pleasure of pitching to Donald Maass, the famed New York agent who wrote How to Write the Breakout Novel. This was my first book on writing. I’d attended his one hour lecture at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference. His whole thing is to write with emotional depth and make your story big. Big with emotions. (Wow. I’m using a lot of fragments today.)
Some examples are betrayal, retribution, and the all time favorite “I hate you, dad!”
In my book, my hero has severe issues with his father. His father left him without saying good-bye after being convicted of a murder. With this, a lot of people assumed that the father was guilty, despite his fervent attempt to prove his innocence. Kinda like OJ hurling down the freeway at 152.5 MPH.
My hero is left with the question of why. Was his father guilty? Did he not love my hero enough? What did my hero do to make his father leave? As the days pass, my hero is forced to answer these questions and begins to layer greatness upon his estranged father.
Sorta like someone breaking up with you, and you can’t stop thinking about all the good times you both had, even though there may have been a lot of bad.
Maass said these past parental issues tend to manifest themselves in other parts of your life. For example, if your father was a perfectionist, forced and punished you to be a perfectionist, then you grow up and torture yourself to be a perfectionist at work. Your relationships go bad because you’re trying to find the perfect man or woman. You can’t seem to settle on any home that you visit, driving your real estate agent crazy. You go into deep debt, buying every electronic device because they keep getting better. You get ten plastic surgeries trying to fit the perfect mold. All because your father prodded you to be perfect. Then, all of a sudden, you yell at a picture of your father, “I hate you, dad!” But what you actually hate is the person you’ve turned into, and, hopefully, as up-lifting stories go, you realize that his world of perfection doesn’t have to be yours. And you begin to live a life that’s true to you.
The point is, when writing stories, sometimes childhood issues bubble up without the character knowing it. He may never know it. She may scream at a jar of honey and remember when her mother yelled at her for spilling honey on their new carpet. It’s a great way of deepening a character.
Old fashioned martial arts schools are behind the times.
Recently in the past few weeks, people have asked why I think martial arts schools are behind the times. Why I referred to the school I used to attend as crap in mybio.
Bruce Lee said it best: ”Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it.”
In earning my kinesiology degree, I learned something about human movement that not only undermined years of martial arts practice, but destroyed the basis of most martial art foundations.
Most schools teach by practicing patterns of movement. There’s nothing wrong with this, but eventually people need to move past this mode of learning.
I remember learning how to write, doing lessons in workbooks. One of them required me to follow dotted lines for each of the letters of the alphabet. Once we graduated from that simple lesson, our class moved to copying simple sentences my teacher wrote on the blackboard. Then she wrote simple paragraphs that we copied into our notebooks. The paragraphs we copied got longer. As we moved up the elementary school echelon, we were taught the structures of the three paragraph essay, then the five paragraph essay. We were given subjects to write about and we wrote. And so on and so forth.
Now, imagine teenagers in high school, or students in college being given homework, copying dotted letters of the alphabet. That is what you have in the traditional martial arts school.
Have you seen old English calligraphy? All those swirls, extra lines, and decorations? How inefficient would that be in everyday writing? A lot of that is in traditional martial arts, as well.
In our particular school, we always made fun of Tae Kwan Do students. They limited themselves to kicking, and when sparring they didn’t allow striking to the head. But one thing they did a lot was sparring. Sparring is the key to truly learning anything.
Kinesiology taught me that people need to be in dynamic environments if they are to perform in dynamic environments. If I taught you a martial arts technique to deal with a right punch, and I drilled that technique over and over again, all you would’ve learned was the technique. What you wouldn’t know how to do is react to the right punch. To do that, you can’t be told that a right punch is coming. And sparring gives you that opportunity.
Yes, learn the technique. Yes, practice the technique. Then forget it.
The above quote by Bruce states exactly how I live my life.
When I first attempted my first three novels, I had no idea what I was doing. Then my best friend suggested many sources that spoke on the structure and techniques of fiction writing. I read them, attended seminars and learned so much. But those lessons didn’t sink in until I sat down and wrote. By the end of my many revisions and writing myepisodes,I had to go back and do one last revision/rewrite. I’d changed so much as a writer that I had to do a line by line examination of my manuscript.
I didn’t want to at first. I knew it would take a long time. But once I dug in, I became more intimately engrossed with my story. And something happened that was unexpected. I fell in love with my story again.
I also realized that I’d broken some rules of writing. I didn’t do it on purpose. That’s just the way the story needed to be told.
Bruce Lee said: ”Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation.” That has definitely worked out for him.
A couple of weeks ago I’d met up with a friend I hadn’t talked to for over a decade. He used to be an instructor at the martial arts school I’d taught at. Read about my opinions about that in my bio.
We’re both writers and we’d talked about writing the story that calls to us. With all the vampiric stories that are being churned both in the publishing and film industry, I don’t blame people for jumping on the band wagon. But the point of being an artist is to express your soul. And if your soul says write a vampire story, then write a vampire story.
When it comes to finding out what you want to do with your life, what story should be written, what path you should take, you need to be honest with yourself. How do you be honest with yourself?
First of all, are you honest with other people? I’m not talking about being a saint, never telling lies, never doing anything wrong. Were human. But do you care about what other people say about you? Do care about what other people think about you? Do you put all your stock in your status in life?
Why is this important?
Because any of this, namely your ego, can block your true self. You become motivated by the things that seem important–the size of your house, the German car in your massive garage, the name brand clothes you wear, the title of your job, bottled water. Do these things matter? That’s for you to decide. Do they matter when it comes toexpressing yourself honestly? No.
When I went to the San Francisco Writers Conference, Richard Paul Evans, one of the keynote speakers said something that really hit home. Especially since he’s a New York Times bestselling author. He said write your truth. Don’t hop on the bandwagon. Don’t be a follower. Lead by leading.
Look at the things that you’re drawn to. Do you love music? Any particular kind? Try that out. Do you love software programming? Try that out. Do you love selling? If you have an affinity for houses, maybe you should be a real estate agent. Or if you love helping people get healthier, maybe you should try physical therapy, personal training, nursing.
Is there a common theme that runs throughout your life?
For me, I’ve always loved stories. And I always loved fantasizing, putting myself in action movie roles, imagining what it would be like to be betrayed by a close friend, finding myself in a fantasy land where I’m a warlord. Since my sophomore year, I’ve tried to write novels. But when it came to deciding a major in college, I never thought of majoring in English or creative writing. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe the things I had to go through as a person lent itself to writing the series of novels that I’m writing now.
I’m not angry about it. Nor do I judge it. I realize that I have stories to be told, and I’m telling them.
There’s one in every organization. A devoted minion waiting to please their master. How do people gain these devotees is something I write about in my book.
This past Saturday I went to a friend’s black belt presentation. Then attended an after party at an instructor’s house.
If you’ve read mybio, you know my opinion of that.
I hadn’t been back to the school for many years. By choice mind you. Most of the students have changed. But nothing outside of that has. They still teach the rigid style of martial arts, the same kind that Bruce Lee rebelled against. But there was something more sinister going on that I’d forgotten over the years.
One of the common beliefs that the students and teachers hold is once someone gets a black belt that person is never wrong, or never questioned. Now, they don’t necessarily teach this, but that notion is enforced.
One indication is this.
One of the things students do is bow to all of the instructors when they enter and exit the school. It’s a form of respect. It’s fairly normal in all martial arts schools. But when people started bowing to black belts at the after party, I shook my head. It’s unnecessary. They were in someone’s home, outside of the formal school setting. And no one stopped it. Brain washed?
Many of the students also take whatever the black belts say as gospel. They don’t realize that black belts are just people with a freakin’ belt colored in black. And this is where the danger comes from.
A good student is one who follows but also thinks for himself. And as a result, they should ask the teacher questions. Why is this important?
A student must follow in order to learn. This is how wisdom and knowledge is passed down. Fair enough. The student should then think, “Does this apply to me?” Not all the time.
Here’s an example: If I were teaching a woman about self defense, she may not have the kind of strength and power that a man has. So accuracy and reaction training is VERY important. She has to be able to make every single strike count because her targets will be much more specific-eyes, nose, throat, solar plexus, groin. Her reaction has to be instant, like avoiding a punch, because a single punch can end her day. And women have to take into account long hair if they have it.
That doesn’t mean I don’t focus on power or speed, which are directly related. But I’d point out what she needs immediately in order to make her dangerous as soon as possible. I’d teach her how men commonly attack women. That way she knows what to look for, and what to attack if she is to be accosted.
If I were to teach a man, I’d still teach him the importance of striking the eyes, nose, throat, solar plexus and groin. But his strength may be enough to offset the attacker without using lethal strikes. So I would point out his physical strengths, his awareness of reach, and the common ways men are attacked.
I’d also get rid of the notion of self defense to both men and women.
As you can see, there are major differences in teaching males and females. And the differences extend to teaching children. They are further distilled down to individuals, depending on who they are.
A lot of these martial arts schools will teach a one-size-fits-all routine that don’t take into account how a person learns, how a human body works, or even the self-worth of the student, the mental side. Add the egos that are displayed in a lot of these schools, the bowing, the not able to question teachers, and the rigid routines, are the reasons why I left.
Bruce Lee rebelled against the gospel type of martial arts. He was one of the first to emphasize mixing of martial arts. There is truth in that, which is why MMA is so prevalent today.
