Personalities of Martial Arts

So I've been looking at a bunch of Martial arts stuff online, which yes I used to do that in the past, but I had lost interest in it before. In a way I had closed myself off to my martial arts practice and limited myself. But somehow and for some reason having re opened my learning process (I hadn't stopped practicing or teaching) I have learned a few things... especially looking at Brazilian Jiu Hitsu and the Japanese arts.

A) Martial Arts started getting really modernized more in Japan yeah? I mean unless you want to count the European Martial arts.. but I think I will leave those separate for other posts. But basically the martial arts became more sports for a civilized society that has a modern military there. So you get Judo and Karate becomes like Kickboxing and the hands move up higher and that is the more modern stance.

B) Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in terms of techniques is exactly the same as Japanese Jiu jitsu, but it brings it back to the street because Japanese really looked down on street fighting by that time.  But with people holding their hands up in a more modern way, interestingly, this makes it easier to take someone down to the ground. Once on the ground, in sport, to prevent eye gouging and all that they would just stop.

But if you stop practicing on the ground and sparring on the ground, even if you want to eye gouge, you may not be able to get into that position.

Basically When I see all the Jiu Jitsu sparring and even the techniques, positions for dirty moves often come up. Bruce Lee had on screen answers to these techniques. Biting and punching of balls. But here is the thing, these things are always open. But you need a way to practice where you aren't going to maim each other. So basically, I'm all for the Jiu jitsu way..

But then those techniques tat they do use.... they can still kill someone, your friend and brother, if you use it on them unsupervised. So I would actually rather introduce more "obviously" dangerous techniques into sparring and don't go full force (like Dragon and tiger claw) even if you don't get the satisfaction of tapping someone. In the end, you always have to take it easy on your sparring partner, and even in an MMA fight there is the ref and rules in place and honestly, they go full force but it isn't like they bite each other... which Mike Tyson did and when I heard his side, in a way he was right to do I do not blame him.

In fact once when sparring I was so keyed up that when my friend fell and he tried to wrap his legs around me when I fell next to him I saw his balls and with Adrenalin... well I'm not saying I bit his balls, but I was in that mindset... perhaps this is because I was sparring to exhaustion and I was sparring the way I did my forms at that time... not as a playful work out way. I still have not found that middle ground that honestly, most children find naturally. Noah sort of is better, Jonah is like me... and I have a student now who really only knows how to go full force... but at the same time is very beginner so does not protect himself.. he reminds me of one of my Si Hing's that I often clashed with over push hands and I feel like it is Karma that me student now has the same Kung Fu personality of someone who I had crashed with when I began to surpass them in the martial aspect of the art...in fact, it is because of this student and his father's questions about grappling that I have really become so obsessed with jiu-jitsu.
In the end I find that really all the martial arts are more or less the same,, and at the same time vastly different.


Even the ones that are the same are different.

I watched Helio and Rickson Gracie talking about the difference between Japanese and Brazilian Jiu-Jistu.

The techniques are the same.

But the way they are done, it is true, their personalities are different. Even from school to school it is different. But the same goes for say, Hung Gar.

The same goes for White Crane! Person to Person it is different and group to group even more so.

And I realize that yes I will start using a lot of stuff I see but also trying to distinguish my style from my past and from my present in many ways. The most notable way is actually more in the way I have been approaching Lion Dance. And also I have decided to be the student as much as possible. I want to be 95 and still learning new things. That doesn't mean I am not a Sifu. Of cousre I am Sifu. But a Sifu can be a student 99% of the time. That way that 1% of the time he or she wears the Sifu hat he has learned 99 out of 100 things to teach, draw parallels and reference from.