As happens often on these Forums, both you and John are right, IMHO.
Bill: Fonzie was a glamorized (note to Icon O'Clast: that's glamourised) motorcycle gangbanger. His real-life counterparts would far more likely have been the tormentors than the rescuers.
And John did understand to some extent your meaning that attitude without backup capability is meaningless and dangerous.
John: Fonzie was not only a fictional character, he was a highly sanitized
(viz.for Brits: sanitised) fictional character. In the context of the show his advice was substantially the same as a frequent poster to these threads who touts the virtues of actually mixing it up and learning some judo/ju jutsu skills!
So you, see you're both right, and your both, wr... wr... wr....
AYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
student
[This message has been edited by student (edited May 10, 2000).]
John may be right. I don't want to get into an argument about Fonzie's character, as it is a distraction from the major point. It seems senseless for me to defend the reputation of a fictionalized character when it was the advice that was the point.
I will say one thing though. One should not assume that anyone who wore a black leather jacket, T-shirt, and jeans, and rode a British motorcycle was a gangbanger (whatever that is). If that's the case, then I was guilty as charged .
Funny...I never felt the part. I just liked to ride, and liked to have an attractive female companion on the back (like, duh....). Leather and denim saved my hide (literally) in my three motorcycle wrecks.
- Bill
[This message has been edited by Bill Glasheen (edited May 10, 2000).]
"Peaceful Warrior" just says it all, to me. Consonance and disonance. They exist together, not seperatly. Real warriors LOVE peace. The more I learn about violence the more I appreciate avoiding it. Blah, blah, blah, I could go on....
To quote two of my favorites on these forums;
"..the Simpsons are starting" and,
"Peace"
------------------
"There ain't no graduation from this kind of education"
All-
Well, what a stir this created.I certainly apprecate everyone's efforts to help explain stuff, and sorry if my characterization of Fonzie hit sensitive areas in some people's pasts.:-)'Get your motors runnin', head out on the Highway...'
Also accept the statement abut a frequent poster suggesting we should mix it up and do jiujitsu.This of course in the dojo under cotrolled conditions, on mats, and with a wonderful thing called the tap or tap out.:-) These innovations make the practice not an actual fight, and overall safer than karate sparring without armor.
Unless you are gonna go in the vale tudo.
Also when I advocate a mix-up in dojo, I advocateuse of protective armor, as getting hit in certain ways in certai areas as Evan can tell you, might be a bit dangerous, which is why those Okinawan styles do use armor.:-)
Now as funny as the Happy Days series was, and I saw a lot of it,Fonzie's character used to bug me because of how sweet he was.Had they shown a more realistic version occasionally having to struggle with the 'dark side', it would, imo, have been better. Instead they went for the laughs, which is understandable, but gave people, especially young people, this idea that the neighborhood hood(s) are the people to go to when you ave trouble.
I mean, Fonzie could solve any problem, do any thing except admit that he was wr-wr-wr or sor-sor-soooor- you get the idea. Even that was funny.
Episodes of the program explained that he was some kind of reforming gang leader, and knowing the actual qualities , as a reporter , of some of these folks,I don't think their virtues should be praies, even taking it back into the so-called 'innocent ' fifties.
Author Harlan Ellison actually masqueraded as a Gang member in the fifties, and was accepted as one 'Cheech Beldone' into a New York Street gang in the Fifties, writing it up in book form later.
The violence, the rape initiations for girls, the stabbings, cutting, slashings, shooting and knife fights described ae no fiction but clear reporting of what happened, even Ellison wound up personally involved in some of this, the fact that he'd had Ranger training probably saved him.
Yes, the Fonze was a funny fictional character, like the fictional 'Soprano' Mafiosos on cable now,though their portrayel is considerably more towards the dark side,but I still think, context accepted,it is a misleading image.
I do not speak of long-haired bike riders, I wore long hair myself after the Vietnam War was over in which I was, during the tail-end, somewhat involved in the training phase(North Vietnamese Interpreter), and though I didn't ride a bike,it took me a while to get back to what we call 'normal'.
You get geared differently during wartime, and this don't mesh too well with peacetime.
Anyway, no disasters.But I remember being in an Inner City Junior High School with ungraduated 25 year old leather clad Fonzie types, threatening e daily with knives, fists, and razor blades, and beating on me at their whim, and they were not funny.
Which started me in martial arts, and for a very long time, I was not funny either.
I thank God for protecting me , for keepin me from murder, and for setting me straight when I needed it most.
I now know a young man who's dark side is threatening to overwhelm him, and who is like myself at that age, a highly proficient martial artist.
If he meets the wrong situation, someone is going to die- and partly to blame is this stupid macho image the media and movies put out about martial artists.
Why does Ed Gruberman think he needs to beat people up?He does, and that is the fat. That's a very funny skit, I have it on tape and like Happy Days, it sometimes cracks me up- but the line between fantasy and reality is no longer blurred for an older and wiser me.We should however think of the effect on the young of the real macho posturing of some martial arts participants who may have good skills, but not realize the effect of their words.
Just weeks ago I told a young an who said he wanted to learn martial arts to learn how to fight better, that he needed, at twenty-one, to learn not to fight at all if possible.This guy was a street fihter wh goes at the drop of a hat, I told him, 'you are an agressor. You do not need martial arts to learn how to make your aggression so ffective that instead of lumping each other, you kill or injure severely."
he hadn't thought of it that way.I gave the guy a Book of Proverbs and Prayers.
Sorry for the distraction. I got tripped up there a bit (points well taken, John) in the process of contributing to your discussion. I hope my message was not lost.
No problem some of the best discussions on your forum spin off of another one.
Billy B.
I agree with your take on the Peaceful Warrior.
In one discussion with a native elder we hit upon something that had been in the paper that some soldiers had done. (Sorry I have forgotten the story now). I asked the eternal question about how they could have done such things.
The elder replied "because these men were just soldiers not warriors."
They say that the way of the martial arts is the way of peace. It is true that we have the power to really inflict some pain on people but we choose not too. The other day i was threatened with physical assault, i nearly laughed in the guys face because he didnt realise that i could have really hurt him. Instead i apologised for the misunderstanding and he walked off, no harm done. Most people say that only cowards do this, people who are scared to fight, this is very untrue. In fact you are a better martial artist if you can prevent a fight by just using words instead of your fists. Anyone can use their fists, but not anyone can use words though. They say that you are a good fighter if you can beat your opponent into submission but you are a better fighter if you can walk away from one without anyone getting hurt.
Remember it is better to walk away from a fight unscathed than to fight and every one gets hurt.
.