Ironwood's First Time

Ironwood's First Time

Weiss Schnee slid her lean arms around the General's broad shoulders, rests her lips next to the General's ear, and said.

"Nervous?"

General Ironwood leans back and melts into Weiss's embrace, his beard brushed against the sleeve of Weiss's dress and he savored the scent and sensation of Weiss's presence through the silk. Ironwood then looked up into Weiss's eyes and said.

"Nervous? Yes. Yes, I am."

Weiss chuckled as she traced the line of Ironwood's beard which wrapped around a jaw chiseled from granite.

"First time?"

Ironwood shrugged and said.

"No, I've been nervous many times."

In all honesty I'm getting a little bored of people absolving the Jedi Order of even allowing slavery because the Order was drafted. Muhammad Ali was drafted and he resisted, and others have as well. There's always a choice, however dire the situation. The idea that a 'moral' organisation of Force Users powerful enough to lead the war effort, with abilities, lightsabers and mind tricks, couldn't even think to try is patently ridiculous.

The Reasons the Jedi Order isn't "good" anymore by the peak of the Republic

Slick: "It's the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved. We serve at your whim. We do your bidding. I just wanted something more."

In the canon, as it is, Slick accuses the Jedi of keeping his brothers enslaved and nobody, not even Anakin or Obi-Wan, deny it. He didn't even accuse them of starting the slavery and system, just helping maintain it. The fact is, the Jedi could advocate for clone rights and side with actually helping people who need them in a meaningful way but they don't because they maintain the status quo, the Republic, however vile and corrupt it gets. Even when they're told, as part of Palpatine's cover story, that their men's brains have just been a little neutered by the 'inhibitor chips' to keep them less aggressive and essentially more servile.

Choose your side, a corrupt state blatantly sliding in to fascism (and believe me it wasn't subtle) as it fights separatists or actually freeing slaves being abused and killed right in front of you. The Jedi choose the former for the vast, vast majority of the War.

This is because...

Master enablers, again

Jedi Master Dooku: "The Jedi blindly serve a corrupt Senate that fails the Republic it represents."

More than once, the Jedi are accused of siding with corrupt entities over victims. This is shown explicitly in the Tales of the Jedi, but it continuously remains obvious with the clones and the Ahsoka trial. Now, I've heard people accusing panicking teenage Ahsoka of "making herself look guilty", but the Jedi weren't even fully convinced of her guilt. The reason they jettisoned her was primarily political.

This is what Mace Windu says in response to Obi-Wan's protest that things don't quite add up and Ahsoka could be innocent.

Mace Windu: "I understand your sentiment, Obi-Wan. But, if the council does as you suggest. It could be seen as an act of opposition to the Senate. I'm afraid we have little choice."

Apparently, innocence is a matter of "sentiment". Again, politics, their dated mandate and the system matter more to the Jedi Order than fighting for the right thing. When laws are unjust, it is a moral imperative to resist them, and allowing unjust courts and slavery is too big a pill to swallow even for war. Plenty of fascist states had soldiers and civilians follow inhumane orders, systems and laws throughout history, it still doesn't absolve them of just going along with it.

Not all that Compassionate

Ahsoka: "It's every citizen's duty to challenge their leaders, to keep them honest, and hold them accountable if they're not.”

From enabling slavery as opposed to resisting to just flat out callous decisions like never investigating Pong Krell's casualty numbers to leaving clones' bodies to rot while pausing a high stakes mission for the late Evan Piell to have a Jedi funeral, none of the Jedi's individual-based kindness absolves them of their role in the Republic's corruption and the systematic hierarchy of slavery that is GAR, draft or no.

Fives: "We are loyal soldiers. We follow orders, but we are not a bunch of unthinking droids! We are men! We must be trusted to make the right decision, especially when the orders we are given are wrong!"

At the end of the day, Fives was more of a hero than any of them and it shows. Resist, regardless! Sure, be smart and tactical, but resist, regardless. The fact we're even debating on the morality of system-propping organisations and characters allowing slavery for "the greater good" is making me despair.

Q&A: Multiple Martial Arts

A lot of times in the comics/superhero stuff somebody will have this whole long laundry list of different martial arts they’ve studied. I can see how it could be beneficial to dabble a bit in different styles, but is there a point where it would be better to just stick to one style and learn that really well? Is there truth to the “knows every martial art” master, or is it mainly just the author trying to make their character sound impressive?

This the result of someone trying to make their character (or themselves) sound impressive and in the process, cuing you in to the fact that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Achieving mastery of a single martial art is a lifelong exercise. This will take decades of hard work. Even if you were to live forever, there simply wouldn’t be time to learn every martial art, as they evolved and changed. There isn’t enough time to keep up with everything, to say nothing of catching up.

If we focus on getting a character’s martial arts to basic combat proficiency, instead of actual mastery, that’s still going to take years in most traditional schools. You learn the fundamentals, and gradually learn to apply them.

If you’ve been paying attention to the blog, you’ll know this is the exact opposite of how practical hand-to-hand training works. If you’re studying something like the modern law enforcement variant of Judo, or MAP, you’re going to be learning how to use it on someone immediately, because you need to be up to speed within eight weeks of starting the class. This is proficiency, not mastery. You’re also going to need refreshers and updates because this is not static.

To an extent, when you start learning a new martial art, you need to start over. It’s not like you master a martial art, and then you can just roll over and pick up another one. You need to go through the basics, because they will be different. In many cases this is a point of failure. You have trained your muscle memory to do things one way, and you’re now being asked to do it differently. You’re being asked to do it, “wrong.”

I was supremely lucky. In college, I took Shotokan for the phys ed credits. The class’s Sensei was an off-duty cop who taught Karate as adjunct faculty. This meant he was more understanding of the residual Judo positions in my muscle memory. For example: he was more concerned that my curled knuckles on a palm strike were in a braced position, rather than that my fingers were extended. From a Karate perspective, I was trained to do it, “wrong.”

For many martial artists who try to start a new discipline, they will not have the benefit of an instructor who shares their background. Quirks that are a result of their previous teaching may be viewed as flaws. If you have a solid foundation. If your hand to hand style has a solid identity, this is fine. It will result in conversations with your instructor, and they may, or may not, be accepting of that. If the differences are irreconcilable, it may be impossible for you to learn this martial art.

So, we’re basically left with three real groups who practice multiple martial arts.

The rarest are actual masters. They’ve mastered a martial art, and now they’re auditing others. They’re not masters of those arts. They’re not even practitioners. They’re looking for something new to learn. In some cases they may be looking to start their own martial art. This is slightly more common than you might think. Most often these new martial arts are referred to as a school or style of the original martial art. The basics are the same, but there will be distinct elements that reflect the school’s founder. In some cases, you may see entire “genealogies,” where one school resulted in another, and another.

You can find masters who have extensively studied two martial arts, with the intention of producing a unified style. An example of this would be Ginchin Funakoshi, who fused two of the Okinawan schools of Karate together to create what would become Shotokan.

I skimmed over this, but it is easier to learn multiple schools of the same martial art. The fundamentals should be compatible, and even at more advanced levels, there will be similarities that make life easier for the martial artist. In contrast if you step out of your martial art entirely, you are, at best, starting over.

The second group are practitioners who have a martial art, and are looking for any techniques they can adapt. This is similar to the masters above, but tends to occur on the practical side. These are martial artists who are looking to expand their repertoire. Being able to perform the martial art as a whole is less important than being able to replicate specific techniques for themselves.

Mixed in with this group are experienced martial artists who are looking for, “something.” I made this sound a little mercenary earlier, but it can be philosophical, or even spiritual. A martial artist can take classes in another martial art simply because they’re curious about that style’s philosophy.

The final group have no idea what they’re doing. They’ll join a school, take classes until their interest wains, wander off, and then their interest is piqued, they’ll scamper in someplace new, and repeat the process. They have no foundation, or worse, it’s an unworkable mess of a half-dozen other martial arts. These are the ones who will proudly proclaim, “I’ve studied a dozen different martial arts.” You’ve studied eight, do you have belt rankings in any of them? Of course not.

Now, in defense of the last group, it is important to find a martial art that fits you, and that means you might jump through a few before you find one that’s a good match. That’s not who I’m talking about. I’m talking about the ones who bounce the moment things stop being fun.

Learning martial arts, particularly in traditional schools is not easy. It takes time and dedication. You need to find the drive to keep going even when you feel like giving up. You will be pushed beyond the limits of what you thought you could do. That is difficult. I would argue, it is worthwhile.

The funny thing about this entire concept is, there’s no point. Okay, so martial arts have their own strengths and weaknesses. Learning a second martial art can help shore up some of those weakness, in theory. In practice, if it’s a reputable martial art, those weaknesses won’t matter much. You were trained around those weaknesses, and they probably can’t be exploited in any meaningful way. Most of the time, picking up a second martial art wouldn’t benefit you. (Yes, there are some specific edge cases, where two martial arts may compliment each other, but that gets into very technical territory.)

Learn your style. Stick to it. The value in “dabbling,” is in expanding your knowledge of how other people solve the challenges they face. It can be valuable, but don’t do it at the expense of furthering your training.

-Starke

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Q&A: Multiple Martial Arts was originally published on How to Fight Write.

"Weren't those ships used for colonizing India and the Slave Trade?"

We need to go back to using sailing ships full time like immediately. Yes it would take longer to get places but the Aesthetic is unmatched

Like there is nothing sexier hthan this

To be fair, there is a lot of food wasted due to policies and regulations imposed by an increasingly globalist government. Perhaps the problem could be solved not by making food a right, but by allowing food producers to deal with excess food in a more efficient manner.

UN vote to make food a right.

by geo.ranking

This meme is from this post by @intermundia but I didn’t want to hop on a pro-jedi post with my slightly anti-jedi take so here we go

While I agree that they don’t kidnap babies, they do show up at people’s doorsteps telling parents that their children will only achieve their full potential being trained by the order and therefore being removed from their families, putting said parents in the very uncomfortable position of being either a selfish asshole by refusing or a kind enlightened soul by agreeing to give away their beloved child possibly to never see them again.

And while sure, you are free to leave, what life are you leaving to? You have been alienated from your people and homeland for years, can you just go back? What about the shame of being a failed jedi? What about being a young adult with no formal training other than military and being a swordfighting monk?

How are you gonna get a job? The years you could’ve taken an apprenticeship in some academy were replaced by learning battle strategies and meditation - very few job opening require those skills. Do you have to return your lightsaber? Are you “allowed” to use your skills despite being a non-jedi?

They pried that well of energy inside you open and now you don’t know how to contain it, will they be there when you stumble towards the dark side? After all, if it weren’t for them you wouldn’t have all this power to begin with.

And enough about jedi that leave, what about jedi that are expelled? Ahsoka was expelled (granted, to go to jail after the Jedi did fuck-all to help the child soldier that had been risking her life for them for years), and… what?

She clearly wasn’t good on cash - her shitty speederbike made it clear, as well as her inability to pay for having it fixed;

She had nowhere to go - she wasn’t roaming around lower Coruscant instead of being back in her homeworld for a reason;

Her only tradable set of skills was mechanical engineering and she learned that ONLY by virtue of havin Anakin as her master - besides that, all she knows is fighting and feeling a debilitating need to help everyone that consistently puts her life at risk.

Sure, you’re free to leave the order.

And then what?