A while back, I picked up the June, 2015 edition of “COMMON GROUND”. For those of you who are not from the greater Vancouver area or have never heard of “common ground”, it’s a local free Vancouver, British Columbia, based publication. This magazine specializes in articles about optimizing and alternative health, holistic well-being, spirituality and political awareness. No, I am not talking about Justin Trudeau’s book of the same name-although I read that as well as part of my research for the Canadian federal election that we had back in October of 2015.
However, this “Common Ground” is a small but very professionally done magazine that always has some interesting articles without the usual “corporate agenda” and advertising. Therefore, I highly recommend this publication for everyone but particularly those who are pursuing Jiu-jitsu or the martial arts as a broader “way of life” and health system…which I hope we are all interested in.
Jane Goodall was on the cover of this edition as part of a story on the dangers of genetically modified foods, but for this post I want to draw your attention to a piece about Dr. David Sackett. For those of you who have not read the article, it’s called: “David Sacket-health care revolutionary, Pioneer of evidence-based medicine” By Alan Cassels.
As the title of the article suggests, it has nothing to do with martial arts or self-defense, at least not directly. Why then am I writing about it in a self defense blog? Well, firstly I hope to expand these blog posts beyond just a narrow approach to Jiu-jitsu, MMA and self-defense and to be including related topics on general health, fitness and personal development.
Yea, I’m thinking we can leave “who the toughest man in the world is” or all the chest pounding about the latest new “deadliest” system from all the laughably obese “experts”, rankings, brand of Gi or other deep insights about those heroic survivors of all those lethal tournaments, to the 3 million or so other self defense/Jiu-jitsu blogs out there.
In this blog I’d like to cover some topics that might actually have some relevance to normal people hoping to improve some part of their anatomy or physiology other than their egos or the part of the brain responsible for creating infantile fantasies. Yes sir, once again, I am talking about trying to elevate the realm of self-defense and Jiu-jitsu from just another recreational sport or, worst of all, an often derided pseudo profession-to something more akin to a science based on real live facts and research.
For me this has been a passion, for the last 25 years my goal has been to elevate the role of “self defense instructor” to at least the level of a true profession and hopefully one governed by the scientific method. A relevant, respected profession, whose members are recognized for their years of training, education and verifiable and valuable expertise, similar to how we view engineering or medicine.
In Fact, the health and medical professions at various places and times in history have had a close relationship with Jiu-jitsu and other martial arts, the two often went hand in hand. The old Japanese Jiu-jitsu masters were often bone setters. In Hawaii, many of the followers of the founder of Danzan-Ryu, Prof. Okasaki, followed in his foot steps and also were trained as therapeutic masseurs. Furthermore, Carlos Gracie became better known as a herbalist and dietitian in his later years.
In the western world the profession of physician became one of the most esteemed occupations. In contrast, how many parents want to hear their children say: “I want to be a self defense instructor when I grow up”? That would probably make most of them cringe and who can blame them when we see so many laughably obese hippocrates looking like the very antithesis of health and professionalism.
How about Running schools that are little more than baby sitting services and doing more research on how to hold martial art birthday parties than on how to combat real life violence; do you think the public respects this? They may enjoy it and pay for it…in the same way they do a clown but I for one don’t want to turn my profession into a clown act. When was the last time your Doctor had to put on a rubber Nose? Hence, anyone hoping to professionalize the self-defense profession dreamed of so much more and looked to the medical profession as our ultimate role model.
Therefore, imagine my surprise when I came across this article praising Dr. Sacket for: “having ignited a revolution 25-years ago, promoting the need for data in decision-making, which ultimately became ‘evidence-based medicine’, reshaping modern healthcare.” This was such a startling statement to write, that the author then anticipated the disbelieve of the reader by writing: “I can hear the readers blurting out ‘WTF’? What was medicine before it was ‘evidence-based’?”
He sure had it right, that was precisely my reaction but as I continued to read I went from surprise and curiosity to a sort of bizarre deja vou. I had a hard time believing what I read next but at the same time it was so excruciatingly familiar. Let me quote it for you here:
“Sackett railed against several millennia of ‘eminence-based’ medicine, where the unchallenged opinion of the old generation trumped observations from rigorous scientific study.”
Man, I really was stunned when I read the above and for a couple of reasons. Firstly, All I had to do was replace his name with mine, and “self-defense” instead of “medicine” and we would have described the major purpose of this blog and the “rot” at the core of the “pseudo-profession” of self-defense that inspired my blog and my entire stand on the self-defense industry.
But far more shockingly, was the idea of unfounded opinions and baseless assertions having had that much negative influence on what people, my-self included, always assumed was an ultra-rigorous science-based profession. It really was eye opening for me and should be for you.
Many people might think that I am often over stating the problems in the self-defense industry and how much utter nonsense there is cumming out of it. However, these revelations about what the medical community was like, not so very long ago, should put that impression into perspective. Think about it; if a profession like medicine with such high standards of education that has to begin with a thorough grounding in applied sciences and the scientific method can produces generations of people spewing unfounded opinions think what other disciplines must be like!
Next time we will look into this a little more deeply and explore why so much of the martial arts profession, in its current form, cant have the positive aspects of the medical profession but must have the negative aspects. Furthermore, we will see how Sackett helped to change this in health care and what we can do in the self-defense field to usher in a new era of “Evidence-based self defense”.