Modern Fechtmeister

[David Craig]

Keep in mind Dave that if this false claim, joking or not is heard by the wrong people it can lead to more unessasary contraversey. You know how sensative some people can get.

Gary,

True, and one thing Justin might want to do is to ask his group members to read this thread. That way they'll see just how seriously some people take what they are doing. Maybe reading this thread might help convince them to stop using the term fechtmeister.

David

[David Craig]

The fact is, Asian martial arts long ago lost their martial soundness, and no other European martial arts group compares with the ARMA, in efficiency or knowledge-base.

Mike,

Really, all Asian martial arts have no "martial soundness"? That's quite an assertion. As for other European martial arts groups, I assume you've visited them all and seen their leaders and senior students in action? If not, on what basis do you feel qualified to make such a sweeping claim?

David

[Mike Chidester]

Really, all Asian martial arts have no "martial soundness"? That's quite an assertion.

Many Asian masters will agree with it, and even question the necessity of martial soundness in their arts. While there exists the possibility that somewhere a group of people is practicing a version of kenjutsu that actually uses combat-effective techniques, I'm not going to hold my breath until its found.

As for other European martial arts groups, I assume you've visited them all and seen their leaders and senior students in action? If not, on what basis do you feel qualified to make such a sweeping claim?

Assume whatever you'd like--in this case, it wouldn't be terribly far off from the truth.

Now then, this is tangental to my initial post, so if you'd like to discuss further, by all means PM me.

[David Craig]

Mike,

Many Asian masters will agree with it, and even question the necessity of martial soundness in their arts. While there exists the possibility that somewhere a group of people is practicing a version of kenjutsu that actually uses combat-effective techniques, I'm not going to hold my breath until its found.

You wrote "Asian martial arts," which, as I'm sure you are aware, include far more than just kenjutsu. But in any event, I question whether anyone has the requisite knowledge and qualifications to judge the "combat-effectiveness" of a wide range of disparate martial arts -- let alone to state such an opinion as a fact.

Equally, I find it difficult to believe that there are too many people around who have spent the required time and effort to travel the world analyzing the skills and practices of every WMA group out there, to the point that they could somehow be able to make a definitive statement that one group is incomparably better than all others.

I think ARMA is an excellent organization that is certainly one of the premier groups involved in WMA. If I didn't think so I wouldn't bother with it. But, in my view, making arrogant sweeping statements of superiority that denigrate all other groups -- and passing off such partisan opinion as fact -- is a good way to alienate outsiders.

David

[Jake_Norwood]

This conversation is pretty dumb at this point, guys.

1. ARMA's a great organization. It includes many of the best out there, and certainly a high percentage of the total best, if for no other reason than the fact that ARMA is the largest organization of it's type. But until you've fought others, or at a minimum seen them display what they know and can do, you can't say that you're better, whether that refers to individuals or groups.

2. If someone is ribbing their buddy with the term "Fechtmeister," and it's just a joke, then there really is no harm, so long as the title is not taken seriously, or used in situations where onlookers might take it seriously.

3. There are no "masters" currently, if for no other reason than because there's no body with the authority to certify them as such, as was done "back in the day." Furthermore, any organization at this time claiming such authority should be properly labelled as pretentious, preposterous, and potentially perilous to the art as it currently stands.

I mean, seriously, is any of this not obvious? Is there any reason to really discuss any of this stuff, especially in a thread of this size?

Jake

[Mike Chidester]

3. There are no "masters" currently, if for no other reason than because there's no body with the authority to certify them as such, as was done "back in the day."

So is it your belief that there will never again be masters? Because otherwise, it's got to start somewhere.

[Jake_Norwood]

First, my briefest background.

I am a linguist. My education is in historical comparative linguistics, in fact. I've studied Latin and German, which are really the languages responsible for the term "master" when it comes to fencing.

Master, from Latin "Magister" and German "Meister" mean "Teacher." That's it. I wish we could use "Master" that way now. It would simplify things, and it wouldn't bother me a bit.

We know that in Germany and England the title of "Master" was awarded to a fencing teacher by the government as essentially a license to run a school. That's horribly abbreviated, but it does for now.

We know that not all masters were equal. Not all masters fought to the death, as far as we know. Not all masters may have ever been in an actual fight. Therefore, all of these common arguments against modern masters fall flat.

As a student of modern linguistics, though, I know that what a word used to mean is much less important that what it means now. And here, the word "master" implies at least equivalent skill if not to Fiore and Talhoffer than to their contemporary professional teachers.

However, and this is important...

There is no body currently qualified to declare anyone a master, nor a body of sufficient skill to draw candidates from. An approved teacher? Shoot, I've got that from the ARMA. So am I a master? Back in the day you couldn't even make Provost until you'd been training for 7 years. Then it was at least 7 more to master (that's old London rules, IIRC). This is training under a certified master. We don't have that today, and I don't think we will for some time. It is, frankly, horrifically premature.

As was stated earlier, even the best of us are currently hardly neophytes. We're still arguing over the proper interpretation of the Krump and Schiller, two of the five *fundamental* german techniques!

No one--absolutely no one--is even close yet. Anyone who says they are is absolutely full of it. Completely. They're selling something. Sure, we're all making leaps and bounds of progress, but I would conservatively estimate another 20 or 30 years before there was a skill base wide enough to even consider picking a few of the most knowledgeable and most skilled individuals to begin looking at possible Master-level certifications...and even this would breed some distrust in my eyes.

On the same account, we have to watch how sensitive we are to people joking about it. A joke's a joke, even if it's unwelcome.

I believe that one day, decades away, we *might* have individuals who are "that good." But not today. Not me, not John, and not anybody on this or any other forum.

I had a conversation with JC once. We laughed and agreed, "It's not so much that we're really good--everyone else just sucks worse than we do!"

I believe that. I'm not that good, and yet I'm better than pretty much everybody I've fought. JC's better than I am. Stew, Casper, Tim Sheetz, Shane Smith, Stacy Clifford...these are all guys that give me a run for my money, who I'll beat on a good day (and lose to on a bad one, without fail).

None of that "upper crust" of skilled individuals is even intermediately skilled by ancient standards, IMO. I doubt they'll disagree.

Jake

[david welch]

So is it your belief that there will never again be masters? Because otherwise, it's got to start somewhere.

Maybe someday in the far, far future, we will understand enough and have people Knowledgeable enough to feel like they can hold the title "Master of Defense". But today isn't that day.

It's times like this that somebody needs to whip out that graphic with the concentric circles out.

I can't recall where I saw it, but If I remember correctly, it was something like:

Imagine a circle the size of a hula-hoop. This is what the masters knew.

Imagine a circle about half that size inside the first. This is what we think they knew.

Imagine another the size of a dinner plate. This is what we can document they knew.

Imagine another one in that the size of a saucer. This is what we have translated.


Size of a marble... what of that we think we have figured out.

Size of a BB... what our "best of the best"... people that I am absolutely in awe of... can actually do.

And that's who you want to call a "master of defense"?

[Justin Blackford]

Dave said:

In reply to:
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Keep in mind Dave that if this false claim, joking or not is heard by the wrong people it can lead to more unessasary contraversey. You know how sensative some people can get.


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Gary,

True, and one thing Justin might want to do is to ask his group members to read this thread. That way they'll see just how seriously some people take what they are doing. Maybe reading this thread might help convince them to stop using the term fechtmeister.

David

Well, you were right, man! Not only did it get them to stop using the unwelcome term, but it almost turned them off the whole idea of continuing studying the Art by seeing the length of this debate. Good Lord! I'm gone for a few days and the pages ballooned up to 6 in number! I understand where everybody is coming from, but this whole thing got dragged out much farther than it needed be. I'm sorry I brought the whole thing up.

My apologies.

Justin

[Jake_Norwood]

Hey Justin.

No worries. This thead got out of hand on its own, not because of you.

Jake

[Mike Cartier]

does this mean i have to stop printing Grand Master Mike on my business cards? <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Jake_Norwood]

You mean for your rap label?

Jake