Entrevista a Ellis Amdur

[Balor the black]

Interesantísima entrevista a Ellis Amdur que todo interesado en MA debería leer.
El próximo lanzamiento de su libro "Old School" ofrecerá una muy interesante oportunidad de leer y profundizar en muchos de los aspectos de las disciplinas Koryu.
https://freelanceacademypress.wordpres ... tial-arts/

Querría reproducir aquí un comentario sobre el estudio de los Kata que me ha parecido de especial interés:

"

The kata are pattern drills, and those forms sometimes have more to do with how to organize the body, how to develop a specific physical or mental attribute, rather than a simple technique detailing “if he does this, then you do that”.

Sometimes a given element is so important that the kata may not look very martial, even sloppy or stupid to an outsider, but what it is developing has nothing to do with a replica of “combat”, but to train a specific attribute.

Honestly, I don’t see why this is so controversial today.

No one would suggest that the ideal way to train with firearms is to load live rounds, put on vests and shoot at each other! Instead we use a combination of range work, obstacle course-style training and mock-guns that allow the experience of shooting at each other, but are not the same as using real guns in a gunfight.
The reality of training with weapons is to make either the weapons or the environment as realistic as you can make it, while keeping the psychological component intact. And different training highlights different aspects of the totality of the skill that you are trying to achieve.
Combative training must rely on some form of pattern drill, or the mock weapons are supplemented with so much safety gear that the students no longer behave like people in a real fight.

"

Un saludo

[Trent]

Muy buena entrevista, gracias por compartirla .

Honestly, I don’t see why this is so controversial today.

Por un lado tiene razón, esto deberíá estar más que superado. Cuando la gente critica los katas a menudo dan palos de ciego porque los están entendiendo de una forma totalmente incorrecta.

Pero eso no es casualidad y es que cuando entrenas a base de katas es especialmente fácil caer en malas prácticas, malas interpretaciones, y en general mucha autocomplacencia y comodidad si no tienes a alguien que te guíe correctamente. A mi me da la sensación de que en muchos casos se está enseñando esta forma de entrenamiento mal, y por eso cuando la gente lo prueba no le convence.

Saludos

[DCS]

La entrevista tiene cosas interesantes como ...

For example, by the mid-Edo period, the bulk of the membership in martial ryu were not from the warrior class. For many, the ryu could be viewed much like parvenus today joining a golf or tennis club to acquire social capital. I write about the rise of competitive martial sports in the 17th century and rather than merely supporting the claim that this represented degeneration, take the position that this was a response to, what was, in many cases, a stagnation of older combative practices that were now “as-if” rather than practical utility.

y como...

THE COLLECTOR is a fifth level that I add to Liam’s categorization, and is somewhat aside from the others. There are many dying schools in Japan, now held by one or two elderly teachers who find themselves without students. Such lonely old men and women will be “befriended” by someone whose principle goal is to then be granted a teaching license to pad their martial resumes. Such men often have multiple schools that they “lead” or hold a high teaching rank, and they have photos with these elderly teachers and antique scrolls to prove their legitimacy. But the truth is that they have often learned virtually nothing, and whatever they may have been shown was from a teacher doing his or her best with a failing body, mind or both, to convey a little of what he had inherited. The Collector, therefore isn’t really a part of the tradition, nor are they seeking to restore or reinvent for the art’s sake, but for their own egos.

[Balor the black]

DCS,

Sí, creo que la categorización que presenta es muy interesante y cómo la desarrolla todavía más.

[Kopiller]

Ya tengo lectura para las horas de guardia

[Shiro_Amakusa]

A mi me ha gustado especialmente este extracto:

"But today, these arts are archaic, and have been for generations. There was a time that some students would master multiple schools over a life time; now individuals study 30, 40, 50 years without every receiving a menkyo kaiden in one! Instead of young masters fighting and old masters teaching refinement and subtlety, now old masters are revered as some sort of supermen — this is ludicrous. Their knowledge may be great, but age is age, and youth and vigor cannot be ignored in combat. We mystify older teachers and all too-often they mystify themselves. There can manifest as a grasping greed of the elderly, where they simply cannot, and will not let go. It is a new phenomenon, that leads to a real risk of calcification. Honestly, all too often in Japan, I’ve encountered something analogous to an old bull who colludes with the farmer (Japanese culture and tradition) to keep the young bulls away from the cows. But there’s a real potential that his seed gets weaker and his offspring mere shadows of what their ancestors were"