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About the Martial Arts contribution to academics...

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  • About the Martial Arts contribution to academics...

    This is tied in with a post I made a while back ago about a Research paper I'm doing. The topic I'm writing on is how the sports world effects academics and youths today; wether or not sports in schools oriented activities work positively on the youths in school or if they are taking them from there studies (blah, blah, blah.) I'm not really here to have share my opinion on the subject. But I have a question I hope you wouldn't mind answering to help me mark down some research. I have a lot of respect for this website and forum as with a question comes a great deal of information than nonsense.

    My question: Do martial arts help to effect youths in school positively as in health, and moral strength? Or does it merely provoke a negative sense of violence amongst todays youth?

    Being this isn't exactly one of the many questions I have on the brain, it's what happens to be the simplest thing I can think of. But I thought of a second follow up question: Should children be taught such techniques as animal styles, or is there too much risk of them being too immature to responsibly retain such knowledge?

    If there is anything wrong with this post, feel free to let me know as right now I'm a little out of it. And any information on the topic, please let me know as I may be able to add it to sources for reasearch.

  • #2
    ''My question: Do martial arts help to effect youths in school positively as in health, and moral strength? Or does it merely provoke a negative sense of violence amongst todays youth? ''

    Youths have primarily been attracted to martial arts because of the order, discipline and structure of it all. The role of a martial arts intructor is not too far from that of a second-parent, which is what lots of these 'youths' are looking for.. just look at all the teenage wannabe shaolin monks on this forum (a pretty apt description of myself a few years back). Martial arts has often provided direction and discipline in the lives of those lacking it, which is great.

    The negative sense of violence is mainly the result of its potrayal in Hollywood, though admittedly, there is the odd school or teacher breeding a destructive attitude.. but if studied correctly, one often finds that the roots of most martial arts are centred around non-violence.


    peace.

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    • #3
      Everything depends on the individual. I know a girl who took karate for a year in her teens (she had a nasty temper to begin with) and during that year she was angrier than she'd ever been in her whole life. Some people cultivate discipline, some cultivate rage. Some cultivate pretty movements with no power. It all depends on the individual (which means, it depends on both the teacher and the particular student).

      All generalizations you can ever make about a group of people will be riddled with falsehoods, inequities, and exceptions. This also applies to the aforementioned generalization about generalizations.
      Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

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      • #4
        There will always be exceptions to the generalisations.

        People take lessons for different reasons. People take different things from the lessons. True, each situation is unique to a plethora of factors but that doesn't mean you can't form generalisations or see patterns (though admittedly, this can become dangerous).

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        • #5
          it's true that there will be exceptions to all of the generalizations that one could make, but i, for one, do not really think that the martial arts promote discipline or moral responsibility in most people. in fact i think that for most people it causes a fixation upon violence. but again, this is only based on my experience with some people i have known who practice different kinds of MA, being an american living on the east coast, so it might not apply to most of the world. let me give you some quick anecdotes.

          my dad had a friend in college that practice jiujutsu and karate both. i'm not sure these are the styles, because i heard this all from my dad, who was not very much into MA at the time, so he may not have know the difference between "judo" and "kung fu", etc. but that's not important. anyway, this guy was a very mild-mannered kind of guy who had black belts and all that. he was very skilled and would show his skills and demonstrations. while he was young, he had all the appearance of the quintessential zen karate exponent. however, one day, without any provocation whatsoever, he attacked a few people (along with my dad, i think) in the room with him and caused a lot of damage. they managed to restrain him, but from my dad's description he just "lost his mind". this could be for any number of reasons, but suffice it to say that his MA training did not turn him into the zen master he seemed to be.

          another example is my old kenpo instructor (i didn't take that class for very long). after i had been training there for 2 or 3 months, i heard a story that he later confirmed for me. there was some traffic problem, and people were getting pissed. one guy got out of his car and approached the teacher's car, yelling at him, and the teacher's driver's side window was down. the guy reached into the car to grab the teacher, and he immediately drew a knife and cut the guy's face. now, yes, the other guy provoked the violence, but my old teacher's response was so clearly inappropriate that it was put out all over the local papers and we was fined a ****load of money. knowing the guy, it's my belief that a life of MA training put a kind of paranoia to violence in his head that caused such an unreasonable response.

          that aside, just hanging out with friends who have done MA versus friends who haven't has been kind of funny. i'm a guy, and me and my buddies are always pushing each other around a little bit, all in good fun. but push a kid who's done MA, and his entire expression changes, his hands go up and he's ready to fight. it's like they're just waiting for an excuse to get into trouble. talking to some other people (who i don't spend time with personally) gives me this same impression, that they're just sitting, fingers crossed, eagerly anticipating the day that they're ambused in a dark alley so that they can reveal their deadliness.

          traditionally, students would have to prove their character before they could train in the MA. i think that the idea behind this was that, for most people, MA training would do more harm than good, and i tend to agree with that. it's certainly not for everybody, and the way that the MA are advertised in today's society (with the jist of "finally stand up to the bullies that you left behind in high school 10 years ago") doesn't help anything. but, with the lack of any guidelines to screen students, each person has to decide for themselves whether or not martial arts are a good idea.

          - zach

          p.s. as far as the schools go, i think that while the quality of training is largely dependant on the teacher, the teacher rarely is much of a guiding force in how to use that training, in america at least.

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          • #6
            ''There will always be exceptions to the generalisations. '' - which means that there is probably an exception to that generalisation too. erm...

            ''it's like they're just waiting for an excuse to get into trouble. talking to some other people (who i don't spend time with personally) gives me this same impression, that they're just sitting, fingers crossed, eagerly anticipating the day that they're ambused in a dark alley so that they can reveal their deadliness. "

            - that is very true. ppl spend all their time practising these moves, and never get to put it into practise. Sometimes it feels like walking around with a loaded gun.

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            • #7
              I think that in addition to the structure, it provides a good outlet to relieve some stress and can give a sense of accomplishment.. Those that tend to to violence aspect are in the wrong school or in the right school for the wrong reason.
              Nothing is more frightening than ignorance in action - Goethe

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              • #8
                Ok. So then it can be thought that martial arts use is based on the individual; if an idvidual chooses to use what techniques he or she learns as a way to inflict unjust harm or not. But what if that person happens to be say someone of age 8-10. Would teaching a kid of that age a tiger technique, be much the same as giving them a loaded gun to try with there friends? I once saw two kids of about that age practicing a two-man form involving tiger techniques. And at the time it didn't register (because I myself am still a youth, really.), but how does one know these kids aren't going to recess the next day putting their peers in throat locks. Being close to my childhood I remember that every kid could be a potential bully, as they could be innocent.

                Also. Should martial arts be recommended as a school related activiety? If martial arts is a way for some to relieve stress then maybe it would be intresting to introduce with all the other athletic academic teams.

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                • #9
                  For me, martial arts have always been about (or always evolving to the state where they were about) finding the art of peace through the art of war. This may sound a bit odd, but with a minor understanding of taiji (and by taiji I mean not taijiquan but the literal term "grand extremity" the notion of the division of wuji "no extremity" into the grand extremes of yin and yang) it makes perfect sense to me. The art of warfare is the art of deception, look to the east strike to the west. The art of of peace is the art of truth, but even more so a greater truth which comes from the transcendence of true and false.

                  I used to be a great lier. I could lie my way out of most any situation. I did wonderfully in any sort of debate or argument. I was so good at deception that with almost no acting experience (two community theater plays), I auditioned and was accepted on scholarship to one of the top theater schools in the country as an actor.

                  But things change. Lying with words is an absurdity to me now. I can't really do it, and if I force myself too, it appears unnatural, ungainly and obvious to all as a mistruth. Two summers ago I was cooking at a place called the Drawbridge Inne, and the owner (a malicious troll of a woman, god bless her heart) asked me how old I was when she saw me reaching over the bar to grab the beverage gun and pour myself a glass of gingerale. I immediatly said the truth, that I was turning 21 in two weeks (I wounldn't have reached around the bar to grab something if I wasn't under age). She seemed a bit thrown off by my answer, paused, and said "thank you for being honest."

                  I looked back at her, quite surprised by her response, and said "how else could I be?"

                  I used to be able to deceive with words. I also used to telegraph my advances in martial arts. Now verbal deception is as unnatural as drinking crude oil to me, but my body can throw feints and combinations built on false leads without a thought.

                  This is how MA has grown in me. Using the arts of war to know the arts of peace. I don't dance around my courtyard with a fiendishly whirling spring steel wushu sword because I have a desire to fight people with swords, I engage in this savage dance of Mars because it calms my mind and senses. I become the whirlwind and my mind becomes the peaceful eye of the storm. Sometimes I find it difficult to meditate in quiet, peaceful surroundings, and easy to root and center myself amidst a tempest.

                  So for me at least, martial arts has made an academic contribution that far exceeds the notion of academics in my life. Hell it started the path which led me to be in chinese medical school right now. Its done wonders for my life. But my life is not the life every american MA practitioner. We all come to our own realizations. We all train for our own purposes. We all manipulate that which we learn to serve our own means. So the question for each child practitioner is not, should his/her parents be letting them train, but why and what are they training for?
                  Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

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