Q&A: Multiple Martial Arts

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

This blog is supported through Patreon. If you enjoy our content, please consider becoming a Patron. Every contribution helps keep us online, and writing. If you already are a Patron, thank you.

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

I am going to fuck off your page, but I want to put this out for the Anti-Jedi guys who might see this.

The point of the Prequel trilogy was that the rise of Palpatine was the fault of the Republic. The Republic gave up its liberties for security and got a Dictator for their troubles. Even then the Republic was not aware of what they had given up, as seen in Padme's words: 'This is how liberty dies, to thunderous applause.'

It was in the political arena, the Republic Senate, that the battle for liberty was truly fought by senators like Padme, and Organa, who opposed bills that granted Palpatine greater powers or expanded the Republic Army, and petitioned that Palpatine relinquish his emergency powers towards the end of the Clone War.

But notice that the Jedi do not participate in the pivotal political conflicts that marked the fall of the Republic. The Jedi did not oppose Palpatine on his political moves throughout the Trilogy and the Clone Wars series. When Palpatine appointed the Jedi Generals over the Clone Army, the Jedi Council served. When Ahsoka was framed and brought before a military tribunal, the Jedi Council stripped Ahsoka of her Jedi rank and threw her to the Republic Military.

Sure, the Jedi may be fighting a war, but they were not fighting all the time, and Yoda was good friends with Padme. It can't be that hard to get some updates on Senate happenings over the cantina table at breakfast.

Ultimately, the fall of the Republic in the prequels was due to the Republic giving up its liberty and allowing an Empire to rise as a result. The Jedi were simply the first in line to give up.

I've seen a lot of posts on my feed lately that have, in some way shape or form, said "the story of the Jedi is tragic cause the Jedi caused their own genocide" followed by a list of just...stuff that's either untrue or the other option would've been worse in that game of roulette that Palpatine set up specifically to force the Jedi to make questionable decisions and wear them down with the weight of them. (Untagged posts btw, if you're gonna post shit along these lines please for the love of fuck tag it "Jedi critical," there are tags for a reason)

So I'm here to outline why that's complete and utter bullshit in one easy, simple to understand, post! No matter what the Jedi did, or what you think they did, they did not cause their own genocide. The fault of their genocide is solely on those who chose to commit said genocide of their people and culture.

Ignoring the fact that Palpatine's entire plan, the whole point of everything that we see in the Prequels, was to kill off all of the Jedi and erase their culture--so he was gonna figure out some way to do it, with or without Anakin/the clones/Dooku/etc.

You cannot make someone commit genocide against you.

That is the stupidest argument ever.

Committing genocide is a choice, one that you actively have to make over and over again--which we see Anakin do, even long after all (or all except a measly few survivors, most of which were literal children in the Prequel-era and couldn't have possibly done anything to piss Anakin off) of the Prequel-era Jedi--aka the ones that people say "brought this on themselves"--were dead!

The Jedi Order as a whole could've been the shittiest, most repressed group of arrogant assholes the galaxy had ever seen. They could've called Anakin a whiny bitch to his face and told him that Dooku should've gone for his head instead of his arm. They could've danced on his mother's grave and had tea parties with the Tuskens.

And guess what?

They still could not have made Anakin and Palpatine commit genocide against them. It was their choice, and their choice alone.

The only people that had no choice in committing that genocide were the clones and guess who took that choice away from them? Because it certainly wasn't the fucking Jedi!

Which is hilarious because most of these posts I've seen have said something along the lines of "the Jedi used the clones as slaves," ignoring the fact that--even if that were true (and it's not)--Anakin and Palpatine used them as slaves too!

And it was so much worse when they did it because, not only were they not given a choice, they were fucking mind-controlled in order to commit genocide against their will! So they didn't even get the choice to refuse and face the consequences of that--which is an option for them during the Clone Wars, albeit a shitty one.

So no, the Jedi did not bring anything upon themselves.

Start holding Anakin responsible for his own shitty decisions, and start tagging your damn anti-Jedi and Jedi critical posts properly!

Anakin should have dipped the moment space Jesus came to his shithole planet and baby boy asked if they were there to free the slaves and the whole council (all the way from the jedi temple, yes) said "no <3".

Sick and twisted fr fr.

I would have to say Padme did not compromise herself, and when she chose Anakin everything had gone to Empire so I guess it was a moot point anyway.

Still, entirely agree with you on everything else.

I think the crux of the disconnect between Prequels era fans is that the Jedi supporters believe the Jedi are good and right, and it is on this that we should support, and the Jedi critical fans are like no one in this era is good and right, including the Jedi, and the fact that you won't admit the Jedi are wrong is driving us insane

Because frequently when Jedi supporters are arguing with me, they are dismissing the notion that the Jedi could ever do anything wrong and then bring up how awful Anakin is as a way to say I am wrong, because I support Anakin

Which I don't support Anakin????

I like him, he is an incredibly compelling character especially as someone who knows what it is like to repress your feelings and want so badly to hold onto the ones who care for you

But I don't support him, it's actually because I relate to him that I don't, I wish I could save him, I have compassion for him, but he killed people, he committed genocide, twice??? In the Prequels??? He is exactly the type of person who terrifies me in real life, I don't support him

My love of his character writing does not mean that I am overlooking his clear moral failings or even that agree with him, because I don't, I actually love his character more because he is written to be so flawed morally, he is an exploration of emotional repression and how wanting power, even if it is to save someone else can still make you a bad person, it is this complexity that drew me to him as a character

I am drawn to morally complex characters in spite of the fact that their actions go against my morals, because I personally find morally complex characters to be more compelling

So why then, if I like morally flawed characters do I have such an issue with the Jedi and their morals in particular

Quite simply, it's the way they aren't written (especially in the Clone Wars) with that same moral complexity, they are written as if they are moral good

And it is this framing of them that a lot of Jedi supporters have clearly sided with and made their reason to support the Jedi, they believe the Jedi are good and believe that fans should support morally good characters so they can't understand why I wouldn't support them

But the Jedi aren't morally good and I find the inability to acknowledge that alarming

The Prequels movies do a much better job of showing how their inaction leads to bad things, but even in the Prequels there isn't a full of acknowledgement of how far they have fallen

Whereas the Clone Wars just doesn't acknowledge it, at all, they flatten the story down so it has no moral complexity, they have clear cut good guys and bad guys, the Jedi are the good guys, no matter what, the bad guys are the Sith, their is the occasional attempt at making the morality of the Clone Wars more grey but it is inconsistent, and overall the approach is a binary

The issue is, in painting the Jedi as morally good, the Prequels era glosses over how they aren't, they aren't objectively good, no one in the Prequels era but in pretending that they are, you make the meta around the canon morally complex

You have people defending the Jedi's use of the clones, choice to ignore slaves and chain themselves to the Repiy, handling of Anakin and the Padawans in general, involvement in the war and everything else because the Jedi are framed as good guys

I have yet to meet anyone defending Anakin's actions because he is so clearly framed as the guy falling to the Dark Side, we are meant to mourn his fall but we aren't meant to think he was in the right

Not everything the Jedi did is bad, but enough is that placing them on a pedestal and calling them the heroes, acting like they don't deserve this slander when Jedi critical fans are just pointing out how the Jedi are morally compromised, is messed up

There is no moral high ground when it comes to the Prequels, everyone compromises themselves (including Padme, she stayed with Anakin,), but some fans want to act like there is and so we have a disconnect

I haven't watched the Wrong Jedi arc in a while because it's too painful, but I just saw a post (no offense to the OP if they somehow read this!) that I disagreed with... And being that this is the internet, I decided to write a post about it. Because.

So the post said -- I believe -- that Ahsoka let her emotions cloud her better judgment when she decided to leave the Jedi Order. And... no. I really disagree with that. Really.

Let's look at the situation. Ahsoka is roughly seventeen, and she's been fighting on the frontlines of a war with her roughly 22/23 year old master for three years. This is already a terrible, exploitive situation. That alone, had Ahsoka been made aware of how sick it was that she had been a soldier since she was fourteen, was grounds to leave the Jedi Order.

But in the Wrong Jedi arc we have Ahsoka framed for a crime she didn't commit, and then we have the Jedi Order expelling her from their Order -- a seventeen year old child who has very few connections and support outside of them -- with full knowledge that a) the Republic is probably more invested in cleaning up the mess than getting justice (I think this was said in the arc) and b) they will execute this seventeen year old girl.

Maybe the evidence pointed to Ahsoka. But the Jedi Order should have waited. They had the power to protect her, they had knowledge of her character, and they had people -- Anakin, Plo, and Obi-Wan -- who could testify to Ahsoka's character, that she would never do what they were accusing her of. They should have given people time to investigate, to make sure it wasn't a frame up job. She was a child, and she was under their protection, and they threw her to the wolves.

You want to know why I don't like the Jedi Council? Because only TWO of them voted to protect Ahsoka: Obi-Wan and Plo Koon. Yoda didn't. Mace didn't. Everyone else didn't.

Then, after Ahsoka goes on the run, they task Anakin -- if I remember correctly -- with finding her and bringing her in. That's a) sick b) traumatic for both of them and c) a conflict of interest. The whole thing was a dog's breakfast of an operation.

So. To sum up, Ahsoka was scapegoated, betrayed, and traumatized by how the situation was handled. She was nearly executed. It was Anakin's 11th hour intervention that saved her. After that, maybe -- MAYBE -- the Jedi Council's actions could be forgiven. It was a bad situation and perhaps they did the best they could and acted according to their consciences.

BUT THEN.

They don't apologize to Ahsoka. They don't admit wrongdoing. Instead, they try to pass it off as the will of the Force. "Your trauma and pain was necessary to make you a better Jedi." It's not their fault. It's not that they failed to protect a child (regardless of what age is considered adult in this world, she's still a padawan, meaning she is under their care). It's not that they spat on everything she did for them. It's not that they immediately believed she did it, even if it made no sense. It's not that they pitted her and her beloved master against each other. No. It's the will of the Force.

And Ahsoka -- in a moment of stunning maturity and bravery -- sees right through their idiocy and dishonesty and calls them on it, which is something we see basically no else do. Ever. They offer to induct her back into the Order, as though nothing happened, as though everything they did was part of some grand plan they had, and she turns them down. She realizes that she is not safe in the Order. She's not protected. She's not valued. She is a tool and a resource, and they can and will throw her away if it is expedient. She realizes something that Anakin -- heartbreakingly -- never will. (He was a slave and he only stopped being a slave because Qui-Gon saw a shiny Force sensitive who he thought would be useful. He was always something of an object to Qui-Gon and to much of the Order, even if they didn't realize it.)

So she leaves. She leaves to discover who she is outside the Order. This hurts her. It hurts her a lot. She loves Anakin, she loves Obi-Wan, and she loves Plo. If she had let her emotions dictate her decision, she would have stayed with the Jedi. She would have stayed where it was familiar, where she knew what was expected of her and who she was expected to be. But she didn't. She chose to make the safer, braver decision to leave. To leave the cult she had grown up in.

It was not Ahsoka's job to remain in the Order and fight in a war she never consented to being involved in. It wasn't her job to be their soldier. To stay wouldn't have been selfless. It would have been stupid. It would have only hurt her.

So yeah.

Atlesian Lien will do fine:

"Atlesian Lien? For this?" the merchant said as he played with the furry tufts on his Caracal ears and considered the offer, "no. No, for Menagerie furniture of this quality? I need something more ... real."

General Ironwood, exhausted by a day of haggling with the cagey merchant, simply waved his hand and said.

"The Lien will do fine."

"No," the Merchant said, "they won't."

"The. Lien. Will. Do. Fine." Ironwood said with another wave of his hand.

"No. They won't!"

With the sense that a quick sale was further from his pocket than ever before, the Merchant poked Ironwood in the chest and said.

"What, you think you some kind of Huntsman, waving your hand like that?"

Ironwood then removed his glove and showed the Merchant his mechanical hand. He then placed the hand on a nearby boudoir and cracked the wood with a casual flex of the iron digits.

"On second thoughts," the Merchant finally said, "Atlesian Lien will do fine."