Martial arts politics?

Question

how would you describe it?

Answer 1

In one word...sucky. Fortunately the organization that I belong to tries to keep it at a minimum, unfortunately whenever two or more people get together there will be some form of politics. I try to avoid any of the intrigue and steer clear of it, but sometimes that's not always possible. One good rule of thumb I have found is if it is petty, don't take sides. If it is impotent, make your stand and back it up, but do so with logic, and don't make it personnel, a lesson I sometimes forget, as recent events on here will show.  

Answer 2

can't describe it but it would limit the entire essence of martial arts

Answer 3

The same as any other kind of ploitics....it's BS and is for people who would rather talk about doing or point the finger at someone else for doing as opposed to going and doing themselves.

Any time that you get people together in any kind of a group you are going to have some degree of cliches and some amount of internal politics, it is as unfortunate as it is true. People are just that way it seems. The best thing for you to do is to try to distance yourself from it and leave youe ego at home. When I was kickboxing, we kept puke buckets scattered around the gym, our trainers had them all labeled with little signs that said "Ego here" and they made a habit of telling us that was exactly the worth of ego. I have to say I agree, not that we don't all suffer from letting our ego get to us every once in a while, but the more in check you can keep it the better off you will be. It is the same thing with internal politics in any type of group, try to stay out of it keep your ego in check and get your work done and let as much of it roll off your back.

You will also get politics between groups who study different types or styles of amrtial arts, and it still boild down to the same thing. People letting their egos and attitudes guide them instead of using some common sense and logic. I've seen more of it than I would care to in the 32 years I have been involved in martial arts and evrytime it makes me hang my head and feel ashamed whether I was invlolved or not. It is just a shameful situation, every person in any martial arts should feel a sense of brotherhood for any and every practitioner of any and every style of martial arts. We are after all looking to acheive the same thing, bettering of ourselves. I loved competitive fighting and spent many years concentrating on that, but I hold no disrespect for paople who have no desire to fight competitively. It isn't for everyone and I accept that. I have seen people ready to go at each other because this one was BJJ and thinks Karate or anything other than BJJ or MMA sucks, and seen people ready to go after each other because this group is doing Japanese martial arts and this group is doing Chinese martial arts. It's hard to beleive sometimes.

The worst one that I ever personally got involved in was a confrontation between some Karate (Japanese) artists and some Kempo (Chinese) artists. I tried to defuse the situation by pointing out that Karate has only meant empty hand since around 1840 -1850 when they redid part of the Japanese language, previous to that it meant China hand. It was changed basically because Japan had started industialising and advancing itself well past China in that aspect and didn't want to give that acknowledgement to China anymore. Well that blew up in my face big time, the karate guys no longer cared about any of the other Kempo guys I had all their attention at that time, and not in a good way. It didn't end up coming down to a fight, but I was sweating that it was. I love competitive fighting but can't stand real fights, they prove and resolve nothing. I got backed into a pretty tight corner that day and had to do a lot of very fast very serious talking to get out of it. I told them it wasn't like that change had anything to do with them or their instructors this is something that was done well over a hundred years ago by a government and didn't have anything to do with martial arts or martial artists. I ran into a couple of them several weeks later and they apologized and said they had checked with their instructor and did some shecking on it themselves and they found out I was right. It worked out alright and I even went and trained with some of those same guys for 2 years, but I was still humiliated to have gotten into a huge arguement over where our arts originated.  

Answer 4

Within Judo and various styles of Jiu-Jitsu its a bit sticky.

As far as Judo is concerned, I am all for the formation of another U.S. Judo organization to prevent the sportification of Judo.  Judo is being twisted into a garish spectator sport: no blue gi; no golden score; no 4 minute matches; and no 'koka' level shiai's.  Judo is a martial art and not a sport.  And I would love to see Judo removed from the Olympics.

I won't mention styles, but some styles of Jiu-Jitsu are so tempermental that it is almost childish if not girly for their Yudansha to squabble and faction off into dozens of different styles or organizations.

Answer 5

Politics is the reason I am no longer affiliated with anyone from my past.

It's really amazing how a practitioner could be awesome, highly skilled and the ugliness of politics will always make them look like a monster.

Politics is a burden on those who have creative ideas that can help others.

I have been told by high level Chinese practitioners that once you have ingrained your art into your life, that you need to see what you can do to enhance it so your students can benefit and the art can flourish.

I have re-introduced concepts that have been forgotten or just overlooked. Many "teachers" learn a concept and understand how it works but do not infuse it into their art.

What good was it then? what was the purpose of learning it if you are not going to incorporate it in your art?

One of my pet peeves is the application of the concepts and ideas of the Poem of the Eight Fists of the Bubishi.

One of the verses says: "the feet must advance and retreat, separate and meet".

Look at your art and see if this is what your footwork looks like.

Politics can take the inner-most essence out of anything. If what we practice is an art, how can we allow the interference of politics to destroy it?

Politics is a destructive force.  

Answer 6

In my experience I describe it thus:  it is similar to the old saying that goes something like this:

'money (politics) is the root of all evil.'