Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 07:16:44 -0700 (PDT) From: eskrima-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: Eskrima digest, Vol 9 #188 - 4 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.8 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Sender: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net List-Help: List-Post: X-Subscribed-Address: rterry@idiom.com List-Subscribe: List-Id: Inayan Eskrima / FMA discussion forum, the premier FMA forum on the Internet. List-Unsubscribe: Status: OR Send Eskrima mailing list submissions to eskrima@martialartsresource.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to eskrima-request@martialartsresource.net You can reach the person managing the list at eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Eskrima digest..." <<-------- The Inayan/Eskrima/Kali/Arnis/FMA mailing list -------->> Serving the Internet since June 1994. Copyright 1994-2002: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource The Internet's premier discussion forum devoted to Filipino Martial Arts. Provided in memory of Mangisursuro Michael G. Inay (1944-2000). http://InayanEskrima.com See the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) FAQ and the online search engine for back issues of the Eskrima/FMA list at http://MartialArtsResource.com Mabuhay ang eskrima! Today's Topics: 1. GM Giron (Garry Bowlds) 2. Teaching for money (Todd Ellner) 3. Instructors in Ethiopia? (Ashley Bass) 4. Best Memories of GM Giron (Q) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: Garry Bowlds To: "'eskrima@martialartsresource.net'" Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 12:03:25 -0700 Subject: [Eskrima] GM Giron Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Hello, I was fortunete enough to spend a whole day with GM Leo Giron several years ago while teaching Serrada at the school of the late Suro Mike Inay. He spent hours talking about his experiences during WWII fighting the Japanese in the Phillipine jungles. It was fascinating listening to his blow by blow descriptions of his encounters. His son Michael was gracious enough to beat the crap out of me that day, and then carefully explain exactly how he did it. They both had a great influence on my approach to fighting. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to meet and workout with many of the great Escrimadors such as Masters Giron, Sarmiento, Canete, and Inay before they passed away. My condolences to Michael and the students of GM Giron. He will be missed. Guro Garry Bowlds --__--__-- Message: 2 From: "Todd Ellner" To: Cc: , Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:34:55 -0700 Subject: [Eskrima] Teaching for money Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net [Note: this longish piece comes out of a discussion on the silatworld mailing list. But itseems appropriate in the other forums I'm posting it on. Feel free to tell me to go to hell if it isn't.] Another difficult one. And one I go back and forth on regularly. I don't have any ultimate answers, just a list of issues, concerns, and wild-ass guesses summarized below: Everyone gets paid Nobody who is sane, rational and has a choice continues to do something if what they get out of it doesn't match what they put into it. Relationships end. Workers quit their jobs. Unrewarding hobbies get dropped. The key is figuring out what you're in it for. You don't raise children to make a financial profit - or if you do I want to introduce you to some friends in the FBI and the Children's Services Division. But you get a continuation of your family, joy, and many other things you can't get any other way. What do you get out of teaching martial arts? It's time you could spend doing something else, like training in martial arts or making money or sharing a beer with a pretty woman (or man if that's your preference). For some the benefits are social. You get a group of like-minded people who share your rather unusual interest. There is a great deal of pleasure to be had in being a leader in a community. Or it might be a support network. In a traditional culture the guy who teaches the people of the village how to defend themselves earns a lot of respect - a rock hard currency. And it can be a lot of fun. The question is, is money a legitimate reward for teaching martial arts? The Art is free, but my time is worth something My own teacher has said this a couple of times. He's always willing to work something out or even let payment slide completely if a serious student just can't afford his (very reasonable) fees. But he has a wife, children, a mortgage, a business to run, church activities, and hobbies. The time he spends teaching us is time he could (better) spend on these important things. What, besides money, can we as students do to pay him back for the time and effort he puts into teaching us? I've met other people who are very good at martial arts but don't have much else in the way of marketable skills. Is it wrong for them to make a living the only way they can? Different cultures at different times have come up with different answers to this. The Chinese, for instance, don't ever seem to have made any bones about making money at just about anything. Whether they will sell to a gwai-lo like you or me is a separate issue. Ueshiba Sensei learned his first styles a technique at a time and had to pay cash for every one of them. But centuries earlier trade was a disgusting thing; samurai expected maintenance from their lords and let other castes deal with the monetary aspects of life. Choose your values, make your choices, stand by the results. Motivating the students Guru Plinck just gave the nod to Tiel and myteaching a few of our friends in our home. Both of us don't feel right taking money for this, especially since we aren't anywhere near ready to be considered gurus. We told him as much. He gave us the same advice his teacher gave him. "You have to charge them something or they won't take it seriously." If someone has to give up something of value to learn he or she is more likely to appreciate it and work hard. It doesn't have to be money. Look at a newly trained Marine. Odds are he's damned proud of what he's done. The uniform and the hash mark wouldn't mean nearly as much if he hadn't had to sweat and bleed and take fifty eight kinds of abuse from his DI to get there. He paid. And got something for it. Some of our students have a little bit of money. Others don't. But we've listened to what our teacher told us and try to obey the spirit of his advice. So the ones who don't have any money - the one who can't work until he can get surgery on his hands, the college students who have a choice between food and rent this month - do something for us. Take care of the dogs if we are out of town for the weekend. Teach us how to shoot. Something. The ones who have a little money join AWSDA or make a contribution to the local battered women's shelter or give something to our Guru. Or they put money into a fund that we use to buy equipment for the class or get training of our own so that we will be able to teach them better. Motivating the teacher Like I said, people don't do something unless it provides them with something they value. Love of the Art is one of those things. Other times it's not enough. We've been broke before. I bet lots of other people here have as well. There are times when the price of a tank of gas or dinner at the local taqueria means a hell of a lot. Look at what happened in Serrada Eskrima. The late master Angel Cabales was poor most of his life. In order to make ends meet at the end he had to charge a lot for what he used to give away for practically nothing. Some have said that he traded ranking for money when his financial straits were dire and he had huge medical bills to pay. A sad fate for a proud, skilled warrior. None of us would say that that was a good thing. Would it have been better or worse if he'd been able to make enough from teaching to put something aside over the years so as not to be reduced to that? I'm not sure of how the calculus comes out. But it's not a question that can be answered easily and off-hand. Respect We get something important from our teachers. If it's important to us should we give back something that's important to them? If so, what limits do we place on this? To what degree do we decide what is proper for them value? To what degree do we respect their wishes and desires in this? There are teachers who take advantage of this respect. Their demands physically, psychologically, financially, or sexually abuse their students. They bring shame on all of us and deserve to be hounded by publicity, shunned, and in a just world would be tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail. Duty Some teach out of a sense of duty. Duty to pass on their art as a sacred trust. Duty to provide for the common defense. Duty to innocents so that others will not suffer what we have had to suffer. Should this be the only motivation? And is it incompatible with making a living? I love to code. I also get paid a living wage for it. Does it make what I produce any better or worse? Maybe. I certainly think it's never quite good enough. But there are deadlines to meet and that stage in every project where you need to ship the product even if it means shooting the engineer :-) One of the principles that I'm finally coming around to appreciate is "Best is the enemy of good." Does this apply to teaching martial arts and self defense? What are the legitimate compromises you have to make between your desire for the perfect situation with just the right students teaching exactly the way you want and getting something worthwhile out there that is less than ideal? What standards can we use to make this determination? Pay back vs. pay forward There are some times when you can't pay back, you can only pay forward. There have been times (which I don't consider an appropriate topic for an open forum) when martial arts has saved my life in more ways than one. You can't repay someone for that. You can only pass it on to others and hope that it will help them some day. Krises don't grow on trees (and if they do where can I get a seedling?) In order to teach a full self defense curriculum we use up a kickshield a year and a $1000 protective suit every four or five years. Now that some of the students are ready for multiple attacker scenarios we're going to at least triple the number of protective suits. It costs money. We're not rich enough to buy all of this out of pocket. Plus the occaisional broken window, wear and tear on clothes and training knives, a pot of coffee every week, range fees, firearms and ammunition (for those so inclined), electricity, first aid supplies and so on. It adds up. Add to that the cost of our own training so that we can stay current and become better teachers and it really starts to cost. Plus the time we take off work (like this afternoon's Silat lesson). Is it wrong to pass any or all of these costs on to our students? If so, why? If not, why not? Watering down the Art The best martial arts school I have ever seen is a commercial one. True, the owner runs it out of strongly (fanatically?) held moral values such as protecting women from abuse and assault and keeping his brother police officers alive and unharmed. But he charges for it. And makes money at it. If he didn't he wouldn't be able to maintain the facilities, give away training to those who can't afford it, experiment with equipment (like the room with rain, wind, cars, stairways, fences, popup targets and a simulated subway car - honest to Cthulhu) and the rest. He does something undeniably good, and there is NOTHING watered down about what he teaches. At the other end you have the much maligned strip-mall McDojo. It's probably not your cup of tea. It's certainly not mine. But the successful owners are getting what they want out of it, and so are the students. What they are getting is probably not the ability to efficiently-yet-artistically render someone into cat food or hard core physical training or the complete transmission of a complete martial science. But that's probably not what they are really looking for. Is it wrong for the parties to do this and get what they want out of it? To what degree does it harm the rest of us who have different needs and values? --__--__-- Message: 3 From: "Ashley Bass" To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 20:26:25 -0400 Subject: [Eskrima] Instructors in Ethiopia? Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Can anyone offer some suggestions, please? ashley ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All the busy little creatures Chasing out their destinies Living in their pools They soon forget about the sea... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~N.P.~~~~ --__--__-- Message: 4 From: "Q" To: Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 20:31:21 -0700 Subject: [Eskrima] Best Memories of GM Giron Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net I have had significant time training under GM Giron over a decade while training under Guro Inosanto...just training around. But one of my best memories of GM Giron was later in his life about 80 y/o or there abouts. We were at GM Giron's class about 5 years ago mostly taken over by Guro Somera that day. The class was typical Largo review. GM Giron was ill but present. Guro Somera said nothing. My Friend a certificated instructor in Largo and 70's JKD certifed student said nothing. I of course forgot most of my Largo and "thought" nothing. At least an hour went by and GM Giron could not stand it anymore especially since I was training right in front of him. GM Giron rose to his feet and came over to me with a pained expression on his face either from his illness of my Largo Mano. He grabbed my stick hand by the wrist and pushed the punyo up into my palm so that there was no punyo. His only acented words were, "This is L-A-R-G-O M-A-N-O. There is no punyo. This is not Doce Pares or something like that". I think that is all he said to any of us that whole day. If you like that story I have a gem about Guro Suwanda. Regards, Carlton H. Fung, D.D.S. Torrance, Ca. --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list Eskrima@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima http://eskrima-fma.net Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com. Copyright 1994-2002: Ray Terry and the Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply. Remember 9-11! 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