Everyone does this...

[Wapptor]

Indeed they are a serious thing.   And one of the facts of life about anything, including Martial Arts Schools, is that shopping around is necessary to find a good one.  There are indeed yahoos who think that all they need is their own black belt and this provides a licence to make money teaching.

Indeed, I completely agree with you on this point, and you said it a bit more carefully than I probably should have, it is however what I was trying to say/get at. :D I have seen quite a few martial arts, although I cannot say that I have taken the world tour pete suggested, I do understand enough about them I think.

[Before I go into this critical discussion of a somewhat tricky topic, let me give you my credentials just so that I may have a bit of authority/respect in the martial arts. I hold a black belt in taekwondo, the original taekwondo brought over from Korea in the 1960's. It is unchanged an unaltered, it is the same devastating fighting style that Korean knights developed over 2000 years ago on the battlefield. It has not been modernized, nor Americanized. The organization is a small group of people, it is run by Duk Sung Son, the man who brought Taekwondo to the states and the same man who named it Taekwondo, or hands and feet, the art of. It is the same style that this man taught at West Point military academy when he came over to the U.S. during his early career, it is also the same style that the military made tapes of, in order to instruct soldiers self defense on the battlefield (although I doubt the efficiency of learning a martial art from tapes). So I can assure you that it is indeed a very serious, very lethal and very authentic and ancient fighting technique. Less than 1% of the people who join make it to black belt, I am part of that >1%.

And here is where we are going to differ a lot.   Frankly, they damn well SHOULD be run by a drill sergeant type.    This is not a game being taught.   They are teaching you skills for HURTING people.  If you don't learn some discipline on the way, you are just a loose cannon being sent off into the streets.   The entire POINT is to learn at the same time how not to NEED to use them in real life.   And if you don't get that, then it is just as well that you stay home and play D2.

I go to classes twice a week, it may be the single greatest and most influential part of my life. My instructor IS firm at times, however there is a different between what I referred to as a "drill sergeant" and a reasonably strict teacher. You are right, the power to kill is a dangerous gift indeed, but that does not mean that it needs to be taught in a necessarily cruel way. My instructor is a great man, no doubt, he is firm and strict during class, he wants us to work hard and give him the same respect he gives us. After class he is a nice guy, he is not condescending or mean (he does not shake your hand in an attempt to break small bones :P ). Obviously it is not a game being taught, but there are instructors who yell, scream, intimidate and even strike their students. Experience shows that such a regressive mind on the part of the teacher just generally does not lead to good karate, physically, mentally or spiritually. So I agree that a teacher must enforce the seriousness of the martial art, but a drill sergeant only weakens the mind, a necessary part of any martial artist.

I studied Karate back in about the same time frame as Occhi studied Tea Kwan Do.   I started due to an unfortunate incident in a bar in Athens, Greece, where I was attacked by a large and angry man.   Luckily for me, it was a bar frequented by the boys of the Seventh Fleet, and they were quick to jump to the aid of a lady.   :D    On my return home, I enrolled in the Karate class, thinking that it would have helped me in that situation.    Two years of study made me realize that no matter how competent I might be, a six foot plus two hundred pound plus angry man was still going to overpower this five foot four inch 115 pound woman.   The best defence was to make sure I didn't get into such a situation again.   Well, that and never sit with my back to the door in a bar again either.   :P

Heh, good for you. I think you do understand the situation well. We generally have three rules of self defense in our style, although you might laugh, I think it is generally true and something you discovered for yourself:

1) Dont be there!
2) If you are there, LEAVE!
3) You didn't listen to #1 and #2!

It should keep one safe enough B) .

The discipline of martial arts is the most important aspect of them.   The physical training, the knowledge of how and where to move, punch, kick are all secondary.  

This is where I will be forced to disagree, and if this becomes someone's attitude after learning a martial art, I am forced to sum up that the martial art wasn't truly good enough as a pure martial art. Discipline and physical conditioning come hand in hand. It is impossible for one to gain physical prowess without discipline, it is the discipline that allows the student to use his/her physical prowess effectively. We (myself and the people who also enjoy the same martial art) train ourselves as if we knew we would be attacked tomorrow, the moves themselves are definitely not secondary. It is my experience that a school in which people take the martial art for everything EXCEPT for the actual fighting aspect of it, in that they would revert to normal street fighting techniques in a real life situation, that they would be better off finding another school if they are truly serious. The discipline comes through this however and is EQUALLY important.

We have a sort of creed in our style, it is: "SPEED POWER BALANCE FOCUS CONTROL". This is a factor in everything we do. The SPEED and POWER are the obvious physical elements, and they exist in tandem, they add to eachother. BALANCE is different, since it has a physical aspect, at least so that one may not fall over. However a good student also requires mental and spiritual balance. Mental is as you discussed, the ability to control one's emotions or their temper for example. The ability to remain calm and be able to explode when called to. Spiritual is the energy resources that a student must be able to tap into, although this is the most ethereal aspect of karate, it is essential. If the student lacks the mental and physical aspects, he will never be able to latch onto the spiritual and thus never truly perform effectively. FOCUS is the singular thought, the complete physical, mental and spiritual energy directed into one action, one pin point area. It is the culmination of many years of work. CONTROL is the ability to fully control one's body. Control is what allows my instructor, during an exercise to throw a full force round-house kick and have his heel brush my eyelashes. I do not flinch, I know he will not hit me.

Discipline is a product of all this, it is the students willingness to go and follow the same repetitious cycle, night after night after night, in an attempt to constantly improve his skills. Discipline comes from listening to your instructor, to trying to correct yourself and better yourself although it may be VERY HARD. Discipline is the willpower to, no matter how tired you may be, put ever last bit of energy in your body into every move, for as long as required no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much you would rather not. And discipline IS the restraint, that when someone hurts you, or makes a petty offense that you do not simply deliever grave bodily injury to them, but walk away knowing you are better than that. Discpline is an integral part of any martial art, but if it is secondary I believe that it is more of a meditation class than a martial art, with maybe some exercises thrown in to keep the wastline trim. Although I do not mean to be hostile, this is just my opinion from a point of experience.

The martial art I participate in is very serious, I trust it completely, I would use it if I ever had to. I am somewhat biased, I belong to a great organization, a great community of people, I DO think that I participate in one of the greatest martial arts in the world. But I do think, like this discussion began, that there are plenty of wahoos out there teaching many half @$$ed martial arts. It is necessary to find a good one, I think I have.

-Wapptor

<edit>: typos...