Revisionist History

I came across a link to the March, 1989 issue of  Black Belt Magazine that readers here might find interesting. As you can see from the image, it's a piece on silat, featuring Pendekar Paul de Thouars, and his "protégé," Stevan Plinck.

The article, written by Lilia Howe, who is, according to the article, Dan Inosanto's sister, has in it a lot of dubious historical material–I've discussed the problems of oral history at length in various postings here and on my other blog–but what is indisputable is that the student in the photographs with the Pendekar is our own Maha Guru Stevan Plinck.

Pictures. Grainy, dark, but right there in black-and-white, and the article is full of them.

The article mentions that the Pendekar is very choosy about who he teaches, and that Stevan Plinck is one of two students who have the art as he teaches it. Below, a snapshot of a graph in the story:

So, in 1989, the Pendekar was allowing that Guru Plinck was an adept at the art he renamed "Serak," from "Serah," and since there weren't any letters in the following issue from Paul allowing as how the writer misrepresented him, one assumes that such a statement was allowed to stand because he said so. 

In several places, there are interviews with other senior teachers who speak to this–you can go here, for instance, and read it. Or check out some of these links.

Now, to be accurate, because somebody said something doesn't make it so; however, if he's quoted that way and if he doesn't deny it, that probably means the writer wasn't too far off.  

Here is the wonder–and for some, a big drawback–of the internet: Once something is put there in public, it's out there, and while it might be hard to find, diligent folks can uncover it.

What does this mean? Well, it means that if  you said, "I never said that!" and somebody can access an article showing that you did? If, on Monday, you said it was so, and on Tuesday, you said it wasn't so, one could argue that either (or both) statements could be wrong, but that you contradict yourself stands there baldfaced on its own.

"Hey, I never said that!"

Why, yes, yes you did. And here it is, right fucking here ...

In a court of law, a sharp attorney would elicit inspection of this kind of revisionist statement thus: Well, sir, on Monday you said this; but today, you said the opposite. So my question is, were you lying on Monday, or are you lying now ... ?

Why do I bring this up? Because I am pissed off. And because somebody needs to say it.

Because in our martial art, and this is no secret to long-time players, some of our seniors are big on revisionist history. They change it to suit their whims, and it is wrong. And downright ugly at times.

How does this happen? Typically, like so: A teacher has a falling out with a senior student, and they part company. The teacher, who has extolled the virtues and skills of his student until that point, can and usually does, rescind ranking in the system—hey, he quit, so his certificate isn't going to be renewed. 


The teacher can do that. 

However: The teacher can't take away the knowledge the student has, so instead, he belittles it: "Oh, him? Well, he only studied with me for a couple-three years, and I never gave him the final secrets, so he never really had the art."

Really? But that's not what you used to say.

"Well, he had it when we were getting along, but now that we aren't speaking, he doesn't have it any more."

Uh huh. So that's how it works. 

We have a term for that where I come from: Bullshit. 

Personally, I find this kind of behavior reprehensible. It rises from an insecurity and a mean-spirited place where one tries to inflate one's own talent by attacking another's.

It's happening again, which is not a surprise to me, but it is no less despicable, and here is the thrust of this:

Anybody who says that Maha Guru Stevan Plinck isn't the real deal in this art? They are full of crap. They don't know what they are talking about. 

Anybody. 

I hope I said this clearly enough. Be sure you get the name right if you want to tell somebody I said it: Steve Perry, that's S-t-e-v-e P-e-r-r-y. And if you have a problem with it? You can put it where the sun don't shine.

And have a nice day.

Bleh

Because I have opted to walk away from the battlefield of silat nyah-nyah, life being too short, I don't look for, nor particularly care what my old sparring partners who are still at it have to say. They have their views, I have mine, we will just have agree to disagree, and have a nice life.

Still ...

Recently, I heard another story and I had to shake my head. I'm not gonna name names, and if you are somebody who wants to get all het up about stuff because you think I'm talking about you, be my guest. Almost certainly you will be wrong, and steaming your own ears for nothing.

Here are the broad strokes: A well-known and well-respected silat teacher offering a seminar away from his home base thought he'd be well-mannered and drop by another teacher's place for a friendly visit. Same general art, different branch, no apparent ill-will between the two. 

So he gave them a call. 

Turned out he had the wrong number, so he sent an email. Hey, I'm gonna be in the neighborhood, how would it be if I stopped by?

Understand that this teacher has the chops, and something he could share, and was willing to do so, teacher-to-teacher.

To which he got a response that was, in essence, Sorry, but you aren't up to our standards, we have aligned ourselves with another faction, and so, uh, don't darken our doorway.

Fair enough. If you want to tell it like it is, that's your right, but ... what a waste.

You have no doubt heard the old saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face. I have certainly remarked a time or two on the unfortunate instance wherein somebody moving along at a good clip suddenly feels an insane urge to pull out a gun and shoot himself in the foot. 

Here is such an instance.  Here is a world-class teacher, holding out a hand, offering somebody something they don't have, and who would, if they had the chance, be thrilled to get it once they saw it. And over here is somebody who turns away because of a foolish political stance.

Back in the day, before the first Star Wars movie came out, George Lucas shopped the book tie-in around to various publishers. Nobody wanted it. They didn't think it was worth anything. Finally, a small start-up line made an offer, and Star Wars made them rich.

This wasn't in the same category, of course, but it does make me, as a martial artist, shake my head in wonder at the outright stupidity that permeates dojo politics.

Dude, you could have been a contender, and you shut the door on the guy who could show it to you. 

Tragic. 

Martial Art Musing

Broad, sweeping, all-encompassing generalizations–including the one I am about to make–are, in my experience, wrong more often than not.

Here's the one under discussion today:

Martial arts don't work for self-defense.

I heard that one again recently, and I had to smile.

This is, not to put to fine a point on it, demonstrably horseshit. All anybody needs to is provide one example where a martial artist used his or her skills to survive an attack and the black and white statement is false. 

A swimming pool full of white paint becomes, however slight, gray when you add a cup full of black paint. 

Having used a martial art to defend myself, I can personally attest to the statement's invalidity.

Now, once you start ladling in the qualifiers, the statement changes. Some martial arts won't work some of the time. I'm good with that. (But not "most martial arts." That requires knowledge I don't have–I don't know most martial arts. And neither does anybody else, so that one ought not to be used.)

Perhaps somebody might say, "In my experience, I've never seen a martial art that works for self-defense." That I can buy.

But either/or needs an absolute level of certainty that doesn't exist when this argument gets trotted out. There may not be exceptions to every rule, but there are plenty such to be found here. Any one will do.

It is amusing that most of the time when you hear this statement, it is pronounced by somebody with a fairly deep background in martial arts. They learned something, took it onto the street, and it didn't work the way they expected. So they revised their technique, adjusted it, made it into something that would fly.

Which I read as, "My traditional martial art didn't work in that instance."

However, the repair is, by my measure, still a martial art; it's simply an improved version, and it's how martial arts came about in the first place, and how new ones have been created ever since.

Shift it enough, it's not traditional any more, but where does one draw that line? Three hundred years? Fifty? It's still walking and quacking like a duck, and calling it an eagle doesn''t make it so.

Hey, that block didn't work, I got a broken nose! But when I changed it, thus, now it does work, and next time somebody threw that punch, I didn't get a broken nose and I decked the sucker!

Serious folks who train and alter their stuff to improve it? More power to them. Sometimes they come up with ways that make things better. 


Sometimes, they are just cherry-pickers who think one from this art and two from that one are all they need, and such can be blended together without any worry about their underpinnings. Sometimes, they are probably right.

Sometimes they are simply wrong. Not everything can be isolated and kept functional. If you take the salt out of a bread recipe and put it on a plate, you don't have a different kind of bread, you have salt.

I'm not a bad-ass streetfighter. Never claimed to be, never was, never will be. Lot of guys out there who can take me out without raising their heartbeats. But I do know a bit about martial arts, and I'm here to tell you, sometimes they work just fine. If you are going to make claims, then don't overstate them. It just makes you look ignorant. 

Revisiting the Iceberg

I know a guy–probably most of the folks who drop round here know him, or somebody like him–who has been swimming in the Sea of Violence so long he doesn't have to hold his breath when he dives under the water, because he has developed gills. 


He's not like most of us. He doesn't think like most of us.


People in martial arts, who train long enough, and especially those who use their training, eventually can get to a place that is usually referred to as "beyond technique." That's not literally so, but it can be to a level of functionality that is like zanshin or zen or some altered state wherein they Just Do It. They move with optimum efficiency, they are focused (and not focused, if you understand what I'm driving at here), into that realm where it all starts to look alike. They don't choose one from column A and two from column B, they don't have to think, the tools are part of them. This is mastery of motion, and not limited to the physical actions once things commence, but an awareness that permeates most everything they do, most of the time.


How great that must be. 


These folks are going to be outstanding players, with abilities that will seem almost magic to somebody watching them. Not somebody with whom you want to fuck around.


There are all sorts of old sayings about who can do and who can teach, but the two don't always go together. Because you can do it doesn't mean you can easily pass it along; and you can teach a thing without being able to do it yourself–look at any world-class gymnastics coach if you don't believe that. Doing and teaching are related, but not the same skills.


The ideal is somebody who can do and who can teach, and those folks are rare jewels. 


Brings us to the iceberg. I've used the story for years, talked about it, put it in books, and here, but a recap for those who came late to the party:


In a children's aikido class I watched many years back, the teacher, who was second or third dan, spoke to the students, using an iceberg as a metaphor. About how what you saw above the water was only ten percent of what was there, and how ki was like the ice below the surface, and how one could access that hidden part, and why. It was a great metaphor, he delivered it well, and from where I sat, it was a terrific teaching tool. 


Then a little boy who looked to be about five raised his hand. 


Yeah?


"What's an iceberg?"


Sometimes in martial arts–or in anything, really–the teachers are so far along that they lose track of the fact that newbies might not know what an iceberg is. That a reasoned, well-delivered lecture on a five-strike combination ending in a takedown will blow right past somebody who doesn't know how to make a fist. 


That Just Do It is a waste of time when you are speaking to folks with no knowledge about how to Just Do it. 


You can't run a track race in the Olympics until you learn how to walk. 


Which is why you use baby steps. Why you check the level of the students to see what they know, then build on that. That before you can transcend the rote, the drills, and the pre-set one- and two-step dances, you have to go through them. 


People who think you can skip over all that and get right to zanshin? I don't believe it.


I don't think they believe it, either. They just forgot what it's like to not-know.


(This is part of my on-going argument about why a world-class teacher better spends his time with students who are advanced enough to not need as many baby steps. It's not that the teacher can't teach beginners, it's that anybody who knows the basics can do that; but who is able to teach the advanced class?)


As a writer, I often break the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Sometimes on purpose. I do it for an effect, and because I know what the rules are, but choose to ignore them for my own purpose. I'm not trying to score a good grade in Mrs. Cowsar's English IV class, I'm trying to communicate with a reader, and if I want to use ellipses when I'm supposed to use dashes, if it serves my purpose, then I'm going to do it, and when the copy editor gets all excited and changes it, I'm going write "stet" in the margin and put it back the way I had it. 


Who you want covering your back in a dust-up is a master. But he or she might not be the person you want training you, unless they have that skill, as well. 


Find somebody who can do both? Buy a ticket and win the lottery. 

Simple Sequence - Meet Timing

 Steve throws a high R. punch at Cam's head; Cam blocks, R. arm–

–and steps in, R. lead, for a R. elbow strike to the ribs–

–the force of the impact and Cam's lower center of gravity combine–

–to take Steve's balance, knocking him backward, as Guru observes.

(Steve's ribs were sore for most of the following week, and bruised for two weeks.)

(Photos by Ashley "Mouse" Chung)

In this class, a technique showing the first of several ways to time a defense, which are: 1) Meet 2) Advance 3) Retard, or 4) Monty Python ("Run away!")

Meet-timing is what you are apt to do when you aren't quite ready and have to hurry, and the most simple, requiring the least amount of time and distance. 

Advanced, you get rolling before the attacker gets where he wants to get, beating him to the punch, and as such, needs a skosh more time. 

Retardation involves unexpectedly changing the distance a bit once the attack is in motion, so you aren't where the attacker strikes when he gets there. Also needs a bit more time than a direct meet.

Monty Python, (aka evasion), is when you have time to get out of the way without getting smacked.

There are other things to receiving an attack, of course, but these go to the timing and distance aspect of a one-on-one you see coming. Which you use depends on when you realize the shit is about to hit the fan.

You can also attack with these timings, and can mix and match them to draw an attack when you want it, or for more than one opponent. 

Stutter-steps, bounce-steps, kuda-kuda, stealing distance, feints, offering openings, breaking rhythm, lot of other things are there. But meet-timing is the "Oh, shit!" move you throw up when you miss the chance to go first ...

Knife Fighting Redux

Another discussion on another site, and the will-you-or-won't-you-get-cut? argument popped up again, so I thought here would be get a good place to speak to it ...

I've mentioned this before, but it bears restatement: After a long run of classes wherein we spent the entire sessions going back and forth with practice knives, bare against the blade and knife v knife, the conclusion I reached was that any kind of a knife fight was a bad idea for anybody allergic to the ER.

That against somebody who knows more about a knife than which end to hold and which end to poke with, such encounters are almost certainly going to result in cuts or stab wounds.

That would be the default position, and a contingency for which plans would have to be laid. If I get cut -- when I do -- then what? 

You can't stop because your arm is bleeding and say, "Time out! King's X!"

Not to say that you couldn't get stabbed and survive. Most people who are stabbed do survive. Not even to say that being cut or stabbed means you would lose. But given the numbers of practice encounters I've had with trained players on both sides of a blade, getting sliced somewhere was almost certainly going to be part of the deal–and we were stopping it down. Real lines, but not full speed nor killing intent. 

A trained knife guy who goes bugfuck on you with a knife is going to cut you if you stay there. Period.

If I have a knife and you don't and we engage, I like my chances better than I like yours, no matter who you are. I might not win, but you will bleed unless you are light years ahead of me in skill.

So when I get into the discussion about such encounters, those folks who say that they don't think that's gonna happen, based on their actual experiences, I don't find them completely convincing. 

Hey, I had an actual experience, too. And I didn't get cut. But I know it was a fluke, the guy was probably stoned to the gills, and I was lucky. You don't base a self-defense system on luck, nor on the other guy being inept. (Though that might make for a fun fantasy story.)

Sure, the street guys might have danced with attackers who were waving knives, but if I had to guess, I'd make it that those attackers weren't any kind of adepts with steel. Because if they were, steel beats flesh, else we'd still be fighting wars barehanded.

So if I think I'm gonna get cut, I have to see no other good option if I am going go there. If I don't get cut, then hooray! that's gravy. If I think I won't get cut and I do? Not so good.

That's what my experience tells me. Your mileage may vary. 

Fighting and Philosophy

Kerambits, L. to R.: Crowner, Rollert, Pippin

Even though I'm not actively involved in the silat wars online any longer, that doesn't mean I never have discussions about this, that, or the other. Martial artists exchange views, and there are a couple high-level ones I talk to now and then.


I find this useful. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we don't, and as long as the expression of views stays reasonable and doesn't venture off into ad hominem attacks or my-stuff-is-better-than-yours-nyah, nyah! these conversations can be beneficial. 


I'm happy with the path I'm on, and don't feel the need to leave it for somebody else's, but I am willing to exchange views. 


I get asked a question I haven't thought much about, and I have to formulate a reasoned response. 


I hear something I've heard a thousand times before, I offer the opinion I have come to about it, and why. 


I hear something I haven't heard before, and I have to think about how it fits into what I know. Unless you are already at the top of the mountain–and I'm not–then the view along the path can vary, and you can jaunt down a side trail if it looks interesting and pick up something you might have missed otherwise, without having to jump to a different mountain. That's how it happens, at least for me. 


Always something new I can learn ...