PART ONE
In my first post I had a little fun explaining why I generally have no time or patience for the kind of “intellectually deregulated”, moronic, infantile and often slanderous nonsense that the internet is notorious for and of which the martial arts “community” generally sets a “new low” in low standards. I ended up deciding to include this blog on my new web-site only because of all the decent, sincere and well-meaning people that I came into contact with since the launch of my first self-defense APP (“Top Ten Most Common Street Attacks”). This APP came out a couple years ago, and as I mentioned, quickly rose to be the highest selling self-defense APP on the entire world-wide APPLE network.
Since that time we have followed up on requests with a “Top Ten Weapon Attacks” course and programs on “Fight Finishers”, “Offensive Ground work” and “hand Gun disarms”. With each successive release I had the pleasure to communicate with different sorts of sincerely interested people from all around the world. What this experience reinforced in me was that I was not alone out there.
Hence, to return to the opening question of my first post, which was: “do we really need yet another self-defense blog”, and was I the guy that needed to do it? The answer to these questions I had some fun thinking about and answering in that first post. Once I had overcome my personal disinclination, I had to answer my own question from a more objective perspective. I then reached conclusions that boiled down to a simple “no”, if the blog was going to be the same old tired nonsense based on unfounded opinions, untested assumptions, untried methodologies, or worse yet, the small minded, ego fantasy land of “chest pounding”, “tough guy tall tales” or “who taped who out”. However, the answer was a resounding “yes” if I could contribute by doing something different and hopefully much better.
As for the APP program itself, I didn’t have complete control over those projects, that’s just the way it is when you are a “hired gun” for an APP development company. For example, I wasn’t always pleased with the editing of the video segments since important segments were sometimes being cut short or being removed entirely. In particular the marketing campaigns seemed heavy on the silly kind of hype that I am not a big fan of. Nevertheless, in general I was pretty happy with how the instructional segments turned out since I wanted to make them as close to the kind of instruction I give in person and most importantly covering the topics that were statistically relevant.
However, in the last year or so I came to realize that this APP Company has little or no commitment to customer service and that they are attaching my name or image to all kinds of silly ads and written material that I didn’t write or endorse. Much of it is just plain stupid and actually contradicts what I teach. Worse yet, they appear to be selling “my” “on line, digital down load programs” with no technical support and don’t bother returning the e-mails of the customers who could not access the material they paid for.
This is unacceptable, and I want the public to know I was completely unaware of this and that I was involved with this company only as an employee hired as the self-defense consultant to supply lessons for them to market and sell primarily via their phone APPS. People assume that because my name and image is all over their web site and APP ads, that this is my company or my business and I am the one being paid by them for these APP lessons. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Originally, I did insist that my personal phone number be included on the web site so that I could ensure I would be able to interact directly with the distance students and be able to give people the kind of customer service I believe In. Therefore, I have only recently found out about this state of affairs from people who called me on that line trying to figure out why they were not getting the lessons they had paid this company for.
Therefore, part of the purpose of this blog will be to help rectify that situation. I stand by my material and anyone who had a negative experience with that company or web site is free to call me and I’ll personally do whatever I can including free lessons if you are in the local area and did not receive your on line instruction. Also, I have my lawyers looking into this because I will simply not be part of anything that can be construed as an “on line scam” so anyone out there that has paid for the material and never got it, please send me an e-mail with the info so that I can pass it on to the lawyers and accumulate “evidence” if this company is knowingly defrauding people.
At this point I’m not sure it is intentional and may just be an example of lazy, shady people with no commitment to customers service hiding behind someone else’s image while they run a purely automated business model with no consequence. This company owes me money as well and therefore has not returned communications or responded to my lawyers in quite some time, so even we have no idea what is going on. Rest assured I am looking into it. In the mean time, I am going to add tonnes of free material on this web site that anyone interested can access including some things that were previously only accessible on the other web site for a fee. Hence, this Blog can firstly help me to continue to give clarifications, updates and “customer support” to those “long distance” APP students and I am very happy to do so; but a blog has the potential to do and be so much more.
To be honest, the idea of doing something “different” and “better” with this blog did not seem that difficult, not because I claim to be all this or all that, but simply because of how just plain dumb or misguided so much of the information coming out of the “self-defence industry” is. Now, don’t get me wrong, when I write about “low standards” and all the fakes, phonies and frauds in the martial arts pseudo profession people may conjure up the wrong images. Stereotypical images of “used car” like salesman with their hair slicked back and wearing flamboyant multi coloured belts or uniforms (I’m thinking of Elvis’s belt and gi with sewed on 70s collars as I type this.) or fat slob “ex-somethings” with no hair at all on their bald heads barking orders and living some drill sergeant fantasy and stuff that people think they would recognize and not fall for because they are experienced consumers.
Nothing could be further from the truth, sure the martial arts world attracts all kinds of unhealthy personality types for reasons we will discuss later, but the fact remains that some of the silliest stuff is very well packaged and marketed. Some of the largest, most beautiful and successful martial arts schools in the world are no more than glorified baby-sitting services on the one end of the spectrum or sports gyms at the other. They may be staffed and run by very pleasant, well meaning, often very charismatic, very clean, healthy, professional or athletic people who have unprecedented records of “customer service”, paper credentials, tournament victories or whatever and who you would probably like and trust very much…but… who have absolutely no knowledge, probably no skill or interest in real world self-defence… but are only too happy to put “self-defence” on the their school’s sign and to take your money to provide a service for which they know they have no real competence in, knowledge of or facility for.
In short, these “martial arts masters”, for lack of a better term, can often be very professional and good at their jobs. They may even be fantastic athletes who can do all kinds of things ordinary folks, including myself, can’t do. What is the problem then, you ask? The problem is what these people think or want their job to be is not what the public thinks their job is, or should be and for what they believe they are paying for! This is what creates the phony “pseudo profession” that I have written about many times. To put it simply, and I am being completely sincere, the “martial arts world” or “self-defense industry or community” can be the worst place to get self defense knowledge and training from!
The biggest culprit is what I call: “the o’l martial arts bait and switch” and is a classic problem for the “self-defense consumer”. Believe me, I have been there myself. Statistics show that something like 90% of the population is interested in “self-defense” on some level. To contrast this, the interest in classical or “traditional” martial arts was, I believe, less than 5% of the population in the pre BJJ/MMA era when I was coming up. Sport based programs may have had a little higher population appeal but would be limited to the younger demographic.
Can you see the problem with building an industry around this model? The public doesn’t really understand or want what we are selling, (“traditions”, tournaments, “boot camp” ego fantasy etc.) but does want and need self-defense. So we pretend to be in the business of “self-defense” to “bait” them into the school then we actually give them what we are interested in or know about and “switch” them onto that. All over the world instructors are knowingly or unknowingly doing this to people every day and may even have done it to themselves!
This kind of indoctrination is not an entirely negative thing, far from it. People who come to enjoy something stay with it and any martial arts program or combat sport can supply a great work out, social interaction, a feeling of accomplishment and higher self-esteem and all those other very positive things. “Glorified babysitting service” type martial arts schools are extremely popular because parents need someplace to send their kids and hopefully get something positive out of it.
The problem is that most sports and recreational activities like yoga or Dance can do those positive things as well, maybe better. What is supposed to make the Martial Arts different is the very important and higher idea of being able to protect yourself and the people you care about when it counts and not just in abstract theory. In this era where bullying of children has reached such epidemic proportions that we need a national day of recognition but its business as usual in the pseudo profession, personally I find this offensive. If we start to relegate the most important aspect of what we are supposed to be doing for people to secondary importance or worse yet-remove it entirely, except it or not-as an industry we have become fraudulent.
I hate to say it, and at times in my career I was unconsciously guilty of it as well, but the basic truth is if you are a martial arts instructor and make any claim to teach self-defense or from a style like Brazilian Jiu-jitsu which has a history of preparing people for the real world and became well known in North America because of real fighting events(and therefore people expect we know about such things) then: It doesn’t matter how many stripes you have on your belt, how hard you work out, how many tournaments you have won, how long you “walked the beat”, how many grave yards you claim to have filled, how long you have been teaching, who your famous instructor was or how fantastic your reputation is (among the flunkies you give belts to) the moment you take someone’s money for something you have no intention of doing and in fact are opposed to, or try to talk them out of, you become a fraud; it’s that simple.
If your “style”, sport, belt, “student retention” or unfounded opinions, ego or agenda is more important than the truth (or at least the search for it), If people come to you with a sincere need, (to learn self-defense) and you mislead them, steer them away or “bait and switch” them because that’s not your thing or it makes you look good if they win some goofy tournaments, or “we will get to that later”-but never do; you are a fraud and a phony, not the other guy who didn’t win the tournament…you- get used to it.
The basic problem for the self-defense consumer and the key element in the “pseudo- profession” is that it is fairly difficult to be an actual “expert” in self defense but it is extremely common to be an “implied expert in self –defense”. What is the difference you ask young grasshopper? Its really pretty simple and in a sense it is kind of a society wide or cultural “bait and switch”. Actually, its even simpler than that, its merely believing that one thing is the equivalent of another thing when its not. For example , some might think, I was given a “black belt” therefore I know how to fight and defend myself or I was in the Military therefore I know how to fight, or I won a tournament thus I know how to fight and defend myself. What is worse is when the public comes not to just except this but to rely on it and demand it as what is called in the marketing world as “credibility indicators”.
So how do we establish credibility and avoid staying a laughable “pseudo profession”? That is a tough question and is the essence of what we will be attempting to discover through this blog. But what we must not do is keep buying into or propagating the same old untested assumptions. That is why I have no problem with being an “anti-martial arts master”.
What do I mean by “anti-martial arts master”, well , one of the first things I tell my students is that unlike very nearly every other instructor or “master” out there, that I am not a “world champion” of anything and don’t want to be,(although I have done my share of competing in various combat sports and martial arts). I am not an ultra-high black belt in any martial art (although I am a black belt in multiple styles) . Therefore, I don’t have any grandiose title like “shihan”, Guru or “great grand master and enlightened pointer of the way”( I just made that one up but I kind of like it so now I am wondering if it will fit on my business card.) and I don’t want to. I have not had access to “secret” or esoteric training known only to me and passed down in secret from a now deceased ultra master. I am not a ninja or “one of the deadliest men alive”. I have not invented a “new style”, I do not come from a famous family of martial arts instructors or fighters. I am definitely not an “ex” something (you fill in the blank, Cop, soldier, special ops spy etc.) or any of the other things that are supposed to prove how good I am at my job.
The main reason that I am none of the above things, is because I have been too busy actually doing my job! That job is being a full time professional self-defense instructor, researcher and practitioner who has spent nearly a life time often actually having to defend myself…gasp!.. in the real world and as an ordinary citizen. Part of that job as a professional self-defense instructor is analyzing and researching those experiences as well as, many other peoples, and developing even better solutions that keep normal people whole and safe. Do you know why that is necessary? It is necessary because in the real world no person and no performance is perfect and that certainly includes my own. Only Masters can do things perfectly every time and in every situation therefore they don’t need to look for better solutions…or apparently even have to workout. But for mere mortals like me, research and development is a big part of improving our survivability.
It was not always fun or even very smart for that matter, but I grew up believing that the role of “warriors” in our society was to do the difficult things and take the risks and lumps that others should not have to. This kind of approach to life and martial arts was not designed to create champions but it does reveal cowards. Any coward can fight the fights he knows he can win, on or off the matts but a warrior fights the battles that need to be fought.
Furthermore, I have never been so idiotic or ego motivated to believe or to try and convince the public that I would, should, or could do this on my own or in isolation. I have always given credit where credit is due and have merely built on the success and teachings of that excruciatingly tiny minority of self-defence professionals who had done the same before me, such as the founders and staff of the original Gracie Academy in Rio long before there was sport Jiu-jitsu.
In today’s over hyped martial arts world this may not sound like much, but to found a truth based profession on- it’s everything! We as a profession need less “champions” who are in it for themselves and want you to pay them so that they can work out (or worse yet- not work out, yea we are talking about you Marcus) and more professionals who want to help their clients. We need less “masters” that just thrive off some ego fantasy of walking around telling people how tough they are while being laughably obese. How, about we replace that painfully accurate comic stereo-type with professionals who while lacking the magical “deadly skills” of the “masters” may actually know how to fight, because they have had to do it. If not, then at the least live healthy life styles of relevant training not small minded ego nonsense of “who taped who out”- well into middle age and beyond.
Of course men like Helio Gracie should be a role model and inspiration to us all since I was told he worked out every day until he died at 95…and was trying to improve his jiu-jitsu right until the end. But that is a very high bar to set, instead of trying to be “masters” why don’t we start with “merely” being professionals. Instead of constantly undermining our profession with the petty and small minded pursuit of “symbols of greatness” why don’t we actually try and be great, that means in the very long haul. Also, I think, it starts with being great at giving people what they come to us for, and I mean every one not just young gifted 20 somethings we can send to a tournament and live vicariously through their success.
This really is the very simplest distinction between a “sport” and a “profession”. Sure, if I were a Doctor I’d probably rather be treating some exotic disease and maybe get my name in some text book. That might be cool but it’s not my job if I’m the only doctor in a town that needs me to look after the mundane things, that while not as “glorious” still negatively affect their lives. I need to look after my clients real needs not keep ignoring them and sending them away so I can pursue my own agenda and keep looking for someone with that rare disease I can use to get famous.
Perhaps worst yet, I could keep telling my patients how healthy they were so they would keep coming back to pay me and tell more people how I am the best doctor in the world, while in fact they were all succumbing to various ailments that I didn’t want to deal with but at least I kept them happy and gave them “self-esteem”… like the best baby sitter. It’s the not so talented people that a true self-defense profession is based on, in a sense the “unhealthy ones” and it is those people, for example, that the authentic Brazilian Jiu-jitsu was developed for in the first place.
There is a lot more things I want to discuss with my mind-set of being the “anti-martial arts master” so next time I’m going to do something I don’t believe I have ever heard tell of any self-defence instructor ever doing-it is going to set the standard of what it really means to be the ANTI-MARTIAL ARTS MASTER, but for now I want to finish part one with a quote from a person that never had to say he was “a master” but proved it every day by how he actually lived and taught, by the healthy life style choices he made and the commitment to his craft that actually could positively impact the ordinary people around him.
“A Jiu-jitsu instructor should be judged not by his most athletic student but by his least athletic student.” – Helio Gracie