I always welcome your input, so take my posts to be nothing more than carrying the discussion along.
TSDguy wrote:
It wasn't a style bashing comment.
Not taken as such.
TSDguy wrote:
I just meant any anything will lose outside of their own rules.
In general, true. However...
TSDguy wrote:
Put a karate 10th dan in a high school wrestling match and my money is on the wrestler.
And there is the problem in a nutshell.
Where is our "
THAT'S NOT UECHI!!!!!" naysayer (a.k.a. Ray) when we need him to dumb down a discussion?
Pigeonholing someone into a nice category can be intellectually lazy. When I think of your comment, I think of one of my instructors who started in judo before kyokushinkai before Goju before aikido before green berets. He would regularly play "wrestling" with karate students who were wrestlers, and beat them at their game under their rules. As author and actor Larry Tan used to say, "If you study enough styles you start repeating yourself, as there are only so many ways to bend the human body."
Two of my UVa students who became Uechi black belts with me came to me after 4 years of college wrestling. Talk about fun... One got a law degree, and another a PhD in physics. Talent is talent.
One of my Uechi peers who studied Bando would regularly enter UVa's Intramural boxing tournament. He won his weight division every year and was twice voted "most valuable boxer." And he wasn't a boxer.
My first style... was not Uechi Ryu, and at times it shows. I also have dan ranking in 2 other styles - one a grappling art. And more and more, I am the norm and not the exception to the rule. So what am I??? I do martial "stuff." I'm not world class, but I do alright.
What kind of stylist is a Rory Miller? He has evolved. His Sosuishitsu Ryu roots show, but he has evolved. I find that this alleged grappler understands principles of the Uechi style better than most Uechi black belts. That's the place many of us are seeking. We want to see beyond the style, and internalize fighting principles. This was the domain of most schools of fighting before marketing packaged a "style" for mass consumption.
- Bill