I have often been asked; what is the
difference between training in the martial arts today, compared to that of
thirty-five years ago? It’s an interesting question and one that I hope to briefly answer
in the following post.
It is my opinion that martial art training
today now serves an entirely different purpose to what it did when I first
started. Today, I believe that there’s a lot more emphasis placed on ‘personal
development’ as well as health and fitness, rather than just gathering
knowledge on learning how to fight.
This doesn't mean to say that over the years
martial art training has become less effective; we are still using the very
same techniques as when I first started. The main difference today is the
overall attitude toward our practice, which I believe is not so extreme or
intense – As one Master explained to me – “we are not preparing people for battle anymore.”
Personally, I think that learning how to defend
oneself is still a vital part of our practice, however thankfully attitudes within
our society have considerably changed over the last three-decades. Although hostility
and violence in Britain still exist on many different levels, I generally think
that we now live in a much more liberal and tolerant society than we did thirty-years
ago.
Another difference today is our actual teaching
methods. What I’ve really noticed in the past few years, especially within my own
particular martial art system of Kuk Sool Won, is that the level of instruction
has improved enormously. These days many martial art practitioners seem to have a deeper understanding of their art form and there is now regular access
and detailed tuition from high-ranking Senior Master's, something, which was almost
unheard of during my early years of training.
So what else has changed? Today lessons are much
more shorter, lasting approximately one-hour, as opposed to the two-hour
lessons, which we used to have. I think this is mainly down to today’s hectic lifestyle.
Shorter classes do make it handy for people to attend more regularly , with many people now
having to work some very strange hours on a variety of different shift
patterns.
One other noticeable fact; today there are now
considerably more female practitioners. Back in the early eighties, practicing
martial arts was very much a macho-male orientated activity. When I first
started there were no women that trained. Eventually as the years passed more
and more ladies became interested and actively involved.
In the early days of my training, everything
was much more forceful and intense. Any smiling or displaying of emotion was
often considered a sign of weakness. Our training was mentally as well as
physically demanding. The structure of our practice wasn’t really
designed for the feint-hearted; actually, come to think of it, it was more like
being enrolled into the Armed Forces.
On many occasions I recall my instructor
walking around the class and physically testing the students in a variety of
different ways. I eventually came to the conclusion, he wasn’t really a malicious
person; it was just his way of toughening us up. Unfortunately this type of
training didn’t always go down well with everyone and some promising young
martial artists sooner or later fell by the wayside. We nicknamed this process the act of "culling" students.
In a funny sort of way, I really enjoyed this regimental
type of training. It always seemed to bring out the best in me and it also reminded
me why I started martial arts in the first place – mainly to learn how to stand
up for myself. Today, many health & safety, as well as new safeguarding regulations do
make an instructor think twice, before acting irrationally and irresponsibly.
Many of the ‘older’
practitioners like myself, still talk about this type of training, which is often referred to as
'old-school', with the military style drills and the Sergeant Major type
of approach. Our mantra back then was, "No Pain No Gain"… it was this type of
mentality that got us through some really tough sessions and made us who we are today.
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