Garry Smith – Page 3 – Conflict Manager

Curriculum Matters – Garry Smith

Many years ago, it seems like several lifetimes ago, I worked in further and higher education. I taught sociology, plus a few other subjects as diverse as map reading and orientation (theory and practice), psephology, statistics to name a few, and I managed a programme responsible for half of the college’s total recruitment. It was overall an interesting period in my life bearing in mind less than 10 years earlier I had walked into that same college as a student with no qualifications at all.

The programme that I ran started with 300 enrolments a year onto part time courses typically lasting 2 to 3 days, within 2 years I had absorbed another programme area into mine and expanded it. We then recruited around 3000 students a year. A lot of students attended a series of courses and some continued onto full time study and eventually to university. I learned a lot from the experiences and together with my experiences managing a number of companies, creating a few companies, and being a director of a few, has helped me in setting up and running my own company for the last 9 years.

So this morning I was chatting with my wife Karen over tea/coffee in the conservatory, I was running some ideas past her, again, she is a very patient woman having put up with me for 28 years. It is true that she knows me better than I do myself. The ideas I was running past her were ones I have also discussed a lot with my CRGI colleague and friend Jayne. I am also influenced by some of the things I have read recently and our steadily growing student numbers.

To date our curriculum offer has had 3 strands, Ju Jitsu, self defence and self defence and fitness, each with its own separate and differentiated content, aims and objectives. I am comfortable with this and yes it is proving successful, we incorporated the Ju Jitsu into our offer in September 2014 and created a management triad of myself, Bill and Jayne and we have around 8 other senior black belts who we consult with when making any significant changes to the Ju Jitsu. The self defence is run solely by me although both Bill and Jayne teach this too.

The decision we have taken is to expand our number of classes and the curriculum offer. There are a lot of very small factors influencing our decision and a few bigger ones. Going for growth presents many challenges but I have realised I am currently sat snugly in my comfort zone. It is an easy thing to do like boiling a frog; I have sat here with the water slowly warming around me so to speak. Luckily for me, I hope, I have an inquiring mind and am open to the opinions and ideas of others. Insular thinking is the cause of stagnation and the enemy of progress. So message received, thank you Karen, thank you Jayne, it is time to begin the process of putting ideas into action.

There will be no sudden change, there is much yet to discuss, but it is now a time to commit to action. I am currently reading Smarter Faster Better; the Secrets of Being Productive and it is very interesting, Duhigg uses great analogies and storytelling to put across some fascinating ideas and concepts, it is consolidating and building on my prior experiences and learning. It has given me the encouragement I needed to make my decision to expand the business.

Instead of thinking about all the crap that is out there, see previous articles on McDojo’s, Warriors etc, it is time to build on what we have created so far and take it to the next level, we have good product delivered well by competent, well informed people who I trust. So I am listening to the voices of those I trust, preparing the ground with the start of a business plan, bringing in those who can help make this happen and visualising the journey ahead. The old maxim that “the only thing constant is change”, Heraclitus, is true.

So it is time to build the team and develop a more expansive, or at least expanding curriculum offer. This is not simply a lets bolt on whatever we can method of building, grabbing random martial arts to fill the timetable so we appear to offer everything to everybody. I have seen that happen and I have seen it fail. Firstly I have made a formal business offer to Jayne and am pleased she has accepted, there is a lot to do and we need to build an academy with a coherent curriculum.

When the terms curriculum or curricula are used in educational contexts without qualification, specific examples, or additional explanation, it may be difficult to determine precisely what the terms are referring to—mainly because they could be applied to either all or only some of the component parts of an organisations academic program or courses.

Having a background in academia I am keen to avoid misusing the terms curriculum or curricula. I personally think it is central to building a lasting and coherent educational organisation. For me, and I would like to think us, the term curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a specific course or program.

In many cases curriculum is often defined as the courses offered by an organisation, school or college depending on how broadly those using it define or employ the term.

For ourselves curriculum typically refers to the knowledge and skills our students are expected to learn, which includes the learning standards and learning objectives they are expected to meet; the units and lessons that are taught as well as any books, materials, videos, presentations, and readings used in a course; and the methods of assessment, (grading/tests), we use to measure student achievement and learning. This will involve learning facilitated at the Academy and supported by digital learning packages developed via CRGI.

So we have our emergent plan based on experience, observation and discussion, we have our ambition to build a growing thriving learning organisation and we have the intention of basing it on a sound academic foundation. We have some support from Sheffield Hallam University and we will seek to accredit our learning in appropriate ways where that will improve our offer.

If this does not work out, and it is clearly a work in progress, then we may just be forced to return to the back of an envelope.

So what is the moral of this tale, well we run a Dojo, but it is an aspirational Dojo. The professionalization of what we do is important to us, it is what differentiates us from our competitors, and it is our USP,(unique selling point). As we progress this will be key to our ability to market what we do as gold standard and as such allow us to develop a commercially viable business. We have seen a number of full time Dojo’s come and go as they launch on a well meant wing and a prayer.

Anyone who has built a house, or even an extension, will know that you cannot do so on dodgy foundations. Carefully defining what will be our curriculum offer is the foundation of our expansion; it is worth taking a little time deciding what it will be and how it will facilitate the kind of high quality learning experience we want it to provide where both the learners and the organisation itself operate with a growth mindset and culture as opposed to a fixed one.

We are sure we will learn valuable lessons along the way but if you have already done this and wish to offer us some advice, we are all ears, thank you.

The Worlds Inside Our Heads – Garry Smith

In recent articles I have tackled, well offered my opinion, on the old chestnuts of the McDojo and the not unrelated ninja/warrior/grandmaster crew. I suppose the common theme in these two articles is unreality, many people in the martial arts and especially the self defence world emphasise how what they teach will work in reality. Well who’s reality, or who’s version of reality?

This is a sensitive subject among instructors in particular and I have witnessed some epic name calling and insults in recent years, all put out in the public domain, as one tribe calls out and insults another tribe. Sometimes the dummy has been well and truly been spat out and most often they are challenging each other’s credibility. My system is better than your system, my gang is better than your gang, it often gets really silly especially the threats of violence, all made in writing on a public forum. Lawyers love that.

Anyway I digress; the thing with reality is that it is perceived differently by different people and different cultures. Each individuals beliefs, values and norms affect how the perceive reality and how they produce and reproduce reality on a daily basis. Humans being active agents in creating their worlds far more effectively than other animals do not only help create and sustain, produce and reproduce, worlds external to themselves but worlds inside their heads too.

Well guess what, martial artists and self defence instructors do this too, we all do and it all helps us create our sense of self. We all occupy multiple roles and we all manage multiple relationships and each comes with its own set of rules and appropriate behaviours. Together they form a whole; we are in effect made up of a sum of parts. With the majority there is balance between these parts and this presents a reasonable balanced whole, it is what we call normal. Now just as reality is open to interpretation based on how it is perceived so is normal. So we may have many similarities on how we perceive both reality and normality with others in our culture or sub culture and this will differ from how reality and normality are perceived in other cultures. Cultural relativism is the idea that a person’s beliefs and activities should be understood based on that person’s own culture.

Shared meanings, values and beliefs exist at a societal level, but they can vary greatly between cultures within that society, between subcultures and interest groups they can vary even more. Hey presto, fertile ground for conflict because if I define what I see and experience as real and normal, and that is reinforced by my tribe (echo chamber), then what you say is real and normal cannot be, in fact it sucks.

So we get the name calling and the insults because we operate to different codes, like any conflict it happens because people lack tolerance. It also happens because some people are so busy bigging themselves up the need to knock other people down, or try to. This kind of interpersonal conflict has existed right through evolution and can be observed in other species too, we have not learned as much as we think during our long evolution. Well, it’s tiring and reflects badly when the public see people, warriors remember, sometimes masters and grandmasters too, slagging each other off. Not only do they denigrate the ‘other’ but in the opinions of some themselves too and the ‘industry’ too.

Personally I enjoy sitting in my own backwater steadily seeking to improve what and how I train, trying to help others improve too and I hold firmly to the belief that I should be training all our students to be better than me, helping all our instructors to be better than me. I am no saint, I make mistakes, I fuck up, however, instead of looking quickly around for an excuse or a scapegoat I apologise and make good. I am not really interested joining in the chest beating behaviour, driven by ego, by those who post memes reminding that a warrior must be humble and the first thing s/he (its almost always he) must conquer is their own ego, then off they go like wind-up toys winding up their chums to have a go at that bunch of ****** from over there.

Unfortunately in our profession there are many people who have not yet left the playground, well I have a solution, stay away from the playground, come along and play with the cool gang who can accept and discuss differences without all the yah boo name calling, because after all we know it’s all inside your head.

Paunching a Pigeon – Garry Smith

On my birthday recently my wife and I decided to do something a little different, careful, it is not that kind of an article although it does involve me and another bird with two lovely breasts.

We decided, a few months in advance, to visit the Northern Shooting Show that was being held for the second year in Harrogate (the posh part of Yorkshire). So an a reasonable if chilly birthday Sunday morning we folded back the roof of the car and sped off on our jolly.

I had watched a few promotional videos on Youtube and had a fair idea what to expect, remember guns are not as much part of British culture as they are in the USA. The last time I had regularly fired weapons was a long time ago as an infantry soldier in the Territorial Army, the Yorkshire Volunteers, well apart from shooting the odd rat or beer can in the back garden with my air rifle that is, I was in the regimental shooting team back then.

Anyway the first thing I did was have a go with an AR15 .22 on a portable range and my wife had a go with a Beretta and we both got good groupings. We then had a saunter round the outdoor stalls, watched a bit of the air rifle shooting competition, watched the retrievers being put through their paces in a competition that looked a lot of fun, the we went into the big exhibition halls as the sun was refusing to come out and it was pretty cool. Here we found masses of interesting things to look at and to play with, I even bought 3 really neat little knives for a mere £5.

At the back of one of the halls was a bushcraft area and this was on my list of key things to visit. We really enjoyed the ferreting display with Mark Davies, this was really entertaining and educational in equal measure and my wife got to hold a cute baby ferret…….

The next stall was a guy who was showing people how to field dress game for the pot, we got their when he was dressing a pigeon, by hand. So we watched as showed us how to assess if the bird was healthy, he removed the wings, then the head, cleaned out the crop, then he inserted his thumbs, one at a time down into the body, the first along the back bone, then the second along thr breast bone, then with both thumbs slid back in place he spilt the bird open.

This exposed the breasts and he then showed us how to remove the breasts using the thumbs. Hey presto two lovely pigeon breasts ready to cook. I had never seen this done before, virtually everything we eat comes from a shop, the meat from a local butcher or preprerared from the supermarket.

I had prepared pigeon years ago with a knife but it was messy, this was easier and less mess, I was impressed. He then asked for volunteers to try this on two more pigeons, step forward one willing volunteer and I was joined a minute later, after some persuasion, by a woman who had been watching too. So I paunched my first wood pigeon, yes there was blood and giblets but I successfully retrieved the breasts, no tools needed, not even my nice sharp little knives.

So after washing the blood off my hands I was quite pleased with myself. I had tried something new and got it right, nothing life changing but it told me a little more about myself. I have a great love of the outdoors, I never fail to be please when surrounded by flaura and fauna, I have no wish to kill or harm anything unless I am going to eat it and like most people hat is done for me virtually all the time. The moral of this tale, and a major part of my upcoming book, Exit the Dojo, (teaser), is that we are increasingly, and to our cost, detached from nature and the natural world.

I do grow some food, vegetables and fruit and my grandchildren learn where food comes from. I have one daughter who is vegan and another who is vegetarian, the latter ones children eat meat. We need to see where our meat comes from. Toby Cowern is the CRGI survival expert, mine is an interest that grows out of my use of the countryside, its mountains, lakes and woodlands, the wild moors in all the weathers our temperate climate provides. Would I kill and eat a rabbit, a sheep, a cow? Yes I would and I would want to know that every bit of that animal that could be used would. In my predominantly white western consumer orientated society, living in a country of shopkeepers as Napolean, once said, we are alienated from nature, we need to return to older ways occasionally to get in touch with our species being, the experience of the last 50 generations has not wiped out what was learned from the previous 5,000 generations, we are tool users, but before we had tools the opposable thumb set us apart for our hominid cousins, and incorporating meat into our diet fuelled the massive growth of the brain.

Paunching a pigeon is a primal act, we need to recognise and learn to love the primal in us.

Book Review – ‘Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive’ by Charles Duhigg.

Having previously read Duhigg’s book on Habits I must admit this one is not as good a read, Habits was exceptionally well written and packed with incredibly interesting material. However, smarter faster better is still full of some very interesting information and very well presented, I think some of my slight disappointment is tainted by having previously read quite a bit of what Duhigg covers, so maybe that tainted my experience.

There are some really interesting anecdotes that certainly help us to see how we can become more productive but the stories dominate the narrative. I enjoyed the book overall but was left wondering how this moved me forward in terms of business skills, that is why I bought it after all. If you are new to business management then this is a good starting point in your education, for those with some experience there are some very interesting ideas presented and Duhigg does tell a good story.

The book, which is divided into a series of chapters (Motivation, Team, Focus, Goal Setting, Managing Others, Decision Making, Innovation, Absorbing Data, Appendix and Notes), is well laid out and organised but I got to the end feeling something was missing if much better informed, a strange feeling. Would I recommend it? Well that would depend on what you want from it, will it make you, me, smarter faster better? Who knows, for me nothing really jumped out and said I must do this…… Who knows it may for you, as I said earlier it depends where you are starting from.

Canned Monkey – Garry Smith

I recall a not too distant holiday in Majorca, We were staying in a nice enough hotel in Palma Nova just around the corner from where my sister lives. It was nice enough and we got what we expected and no complaints.

However, it was not all good and the big downside was that just as we spotted the ‘special offer’ so did some less desirable members of the herd. To be fair there were a group of women, very large women with big mouths and limited intellects who when not smoking and drinking freely shared their banal observations with all around the pool. They were both English and from the North, (like us) and they fulfilled the stereotypes held by foreigners and southerners alike. Three generations of grossly obese, beer swilling ignoramuses that were clearly living the dream, no problem with that even if they were a bit annoying. BUT, then came the group from hell, or probably Manchester.

They were joined a day or two later by six shaven headed cretins who on arrival embarked on a binge drinking adventure with no regard for anyone around them. Their language was foul, I swear a lot, too often according to my wife, but these guys did so often and loudly confident that their intimidating appearance and drunken state would deter any objection, and it did. They deliberately intimidated staff and guests alike.

On their first evening one of them almost fell on me in reception he was so drunk and then headed off on the town. Two of them actually abused one guy in a neighbouring room on their second evening and in a threatening group monkey dance way that had me at reception getting what constituted security over there and recommending the hotel call the Guarda Civil. The hotel bottled it.

Like the good boy I try to be these days I did my bit then stepped back, let those who know the turf deal with the problem. It would have been incredibly enjoyable to crack a few heads there and then but I did not fancy explaining to the Guards Civil or spending several days sweating it out in a Majorcan jail. After all they would see a shaven headed earring wearing northern Englishman hardly physically distinguished from the pond life. So off to our evening meal having pointed out the offenders to hotel staff, a nice chat with a couple on the next table then off with them for a few drinks in the inside, as opposed to poolside, bar, nice.

This hotel had replaced staff, in its bars, with machines. Wine, beer and soft drinks were all self service with only spirits poured by the staff. Efficiency driven up, costs down and no controls on consumption. Our friends began on Vodka and beers from 10am onwards. They were very drunk by lunchtime and continued and they kept getting served.

So, later that evening, when the scrotes had enjoyed a good solid 10+ hours of drinking, it got a little bit personal. There were we, my wife and I, with two new friends from London having a very nice chat when two of the above mentioned specimens appeared, in fact I did not notice them go to the bar behind us where the smart barman told them you had to pay for drinks in this bar, you did not but he wanted them out with as little fuss as possible. That is when I started hearing voices.

Now normally when people hear voices it is a sign that they are going, or have gone mad. I suppose, on reflection, that I went slightly mad there and then too because the voicing my ear, in its drunken slurring way was asking me if you had to pay for drinks in here mate, mate, I was not his ****ing mate. Why oh why do they come to me, is there a sign above me that I cannot see that says welcome all idiots. Well it was a cut the air with a knife moment and I just ignored him, my three companions were silent and the look on my wife’s face said it all, it was a potential bloodbath, not mine either. I kept my gaze on the table in front of me as the adrenaline kicked in. Then the voices said “I know you don’t like me mate”, spot on there then, “but I just want you to tell me if we have to buy drinks in here”, the world was standing still.

When I looked up they were leaving the bar arms around one another like lovers heading for bed. I distinctly remember my wife saying something including certain well known instructions to leave, now!! I thought she said it as they were leaving the bar, in fact she said it as they were speaking to me, adrenaline is a tricky little thing as we know, messes with the head for sure, she said she could see I was seething and she was right, I was ready to go all guns blazing and sitting and not reacting was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Keeping the monkey in his cage was damned difficult but I did it, I came down pretty well too and the couple with us looked quite relieved when we made a joke out of it. A small incident with a long fuse is how I see it, the long fuse being two days plus of prolonged and deliberate anti social behaviour, abuse and drunkenness. In fact it was two days plus of group monkey dancing, a prolonged group monkey dance where they strutted their stuff in the hope that some females would be attracted to some sink estates shitiest specimens, the kind of bloke most likely seen on the Jeremy Kyle Show (like Jerry Springer), in fact the only ones showing them any attention were the fab four previously mentioned.

It was not a freeze in the classic martial arts sense in that I could not act, I could have let the monkey free and splattered them both and enjoyed it. Instead I deliberately did not act or react in anyway and it worked for me, that time, it may not work another time but that we cannot know as each circumstance will have its own variables. The behaviour of these guys since their arrival was out of order in every sense, the script for their holiday clashed with the script for my wife and my holiday.

These guys were the archetypal bad image of Brits abroad, uncouth, ill mannered, uncultured drunken yobs. They leave the rest of us with a reputation we do not deserve. At arm’s length I observe, it is the sociologist in me or in this case possibly more anthropology, their monkey dancing continued in the next few days but was more subdued, they remained drunk but remained drunk at large in the resort rather than the hotel. We enjoyed our last few days in relative peace, nice trips to the beach, a beautiful meal at my sister and brother-in-laws apartment, sun shining and good books to read.

So how do we keep the monkey in control? Well I guess there are many answers for many situations. On this occasion the do nothing option worked well, nobody got hurt and it all blew over. Maybe I am far too sensitive but I really do not like being approached in this way by unpredictable drunks, drunks who I suspect are prone to violence, I have a pretty good identikit I use that keeps me safe. I also am older and wiser and confident in my ability to deal with situations, either by defusing them or stopping them with a controlled explosion of my own. My training keeps my mind and body prepared and even on this holiday I hit the gym for 1 hour each day but one. A younger less experienced, less well trained me would have let the monkey gain control, there would have been a confrontation of some sorts and with alcohol fuelling it would not have ended well, I have had to live down too many next days in the past, this time I managed to keep the monkey in the can.

Book Review – ‘A Geography of Time; The Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist, or How Every Culture Keeps Time Just a Little Bit Differently’ by Robert Levine.

Now that is a title for a book. I have to admit that this book has been sat waiting to be read for around 2 years, every time I went to start it something or other got in the way, that is kind of spooky really. Anyway I took this, plus one other long awaiting paperback on holiday recently and by am I glad I did.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and unreservedly recommend it. Do not be put off by the title, long though it is, the content is superbly delivered and thoroughly entertaining. I found myself writing articles in my head to do with timing in training (obviously, criminal behaviour, understanding subcultures, a whole list of ideas leapt out from reading this. Levine does make a number of references to martial arts and I did find myself picturing my training as I read these sections.

The beauty of this book is that it allows each reader to evaluate how they experience time and see how others perceive time very differently. I found the examples used incredibly interesting and enlightening, whilst Levine uses sometimes opposing perceptions of time to explore their cultural roots I found myself thinking in terms of how attackers attack and how criminals think and behave, I found myself thinking of how people construct illogical arguments against logical ideas and the reverse.

This is a book about time and so much more. The actual concept of time is a relatively recent construction, still virtually unknown to some remote culture, and ironically I made time to read this on holiday. Time and how we use it dominates our lives either directly or indirectly, how we use our time is to me incredibly important so I found by reading a book on time on holiday a way of squaring the circle so to speak. Instead of reading novels like my wife I put in some valuable hours increasing my body of knowledge, my second book which I need to continue with is ‘Emotional Intelligence’ by Daniel Goleman.

For the record I also completed, finished off that is, 6 draft articles for Conflict Manager magazine, held 3 meetings via Hangouts and exchanged numerous emails for CRGI and my business in the UK. Yes it was on holiday but I do holiday things when I am ‘at work’ you see the two blur for me, I am a non linear person as far as 9 to 5 goes. I have learned to see and organise time to suit myself, I think that is a central message of the book, I am a fully trained A Type for sure but I can really enjoy doing nothing, some days I simply crashed on the sunbed and in and out of the sea, pool, ice cold shower, trust me it was hot. I learned about Giri, I learned more about the brain (from both books), I learned things about tribes of people I had previously never heard of, I learned a whole ton of stuff and made a whole ton of notes, This was a holiday that I will remember for all time (sorry could not resist that).

So here is a tip, a hot tip, 1 visit Croatia, 2 Take this book, 3 Make time and read it. That is it.

Bride of Frankenstein – Garry Smith

Anyone who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s will remember those old black and white Hammer Horror films, Dracula, Frankenstein and their spin offs, bride of, son of. Well this article is a spin off in that ilk, In my last article ‘Not my circus, not my monkeys’, I reassessed my opinion on the McDojo, this is not a part 2 but an exploration of something writing that article made me think about. Let me explain.

As I was writing I received an email from my friend and fellow instructor Bill Barrott containing a link to a Youtube video, the message read “Watch this video. It’s what I always do to anyone who even looks at me funny. This is the real deal!” Take a look.

OK so Bill was joking, we are used to his regular emails sharing all sorts of martial arts goodies and baddies. So I decided to take a look, the title screen drew a sardonic smile, ‘Kinje-Te, the forbidden fist of the ninja’. Here we go again. Sure enough it is Grandmaster Ashida Kim, and yes I have seen this before circulating on social media, usually being mocked in the same way we have all laughed at the no touch knockout merchants and the jedi jitsu brigade. I hit the pause button quickly.

Chuckling I replied to all, “I got 3 seconds in there, because I have seen it before. This has to be a spoof, IF this is for real may their poor dead souls rest in peace.” I thought I had the source of the inspirational Master Ken from whom we have all learned so much, but Bill assured me it was no spoof and sent me a link to a pdf book by said Grand-master Ashida Kim. Here it is, help yourself..

https://helixlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/2559866-ninja-hands-of-death-ashida-kim.pdf

I gave it a go, I got about 3 paragraphs into the first chapter before deciding I had better things to do. The cover picture and ‘Hands of Death’ were off putting but for me the opening paragraph echoed the Youtube clip.

Entitled KATA DAN’TE – Dance of the Deadly Hands, the book opens with, “Ninjitsu has been called the most savage and terrifying martial art known to man. The Ninja, practitioners of this unholy science, are, without doubt, the most effective and ruthless fighters the world has ever known. Much of this reputation is based on their skill in battle and espionage.”

Now I am going to be clear here, this is not lets slag off Ashida Kim time, but ripping off ears and testicles, tearing off faces etc with our bare hands is all a bit far fetched for me. The thing is if you put yourself out there in film and print you invite comments both positive and negative, mine are merely my opinion on how I perceive things. I like martial arts in general, I like the diversity, some stuff looks great other stuff less so. I hear claims like deadliest art known to man, savage and terrifying techniques and begin to switch off. Likewise when I hear Steve the plumber from Oldham, fictitious by the way, referring to himself as a warrior because he trains Shotokan twice a week, I switch off there too.

For the record, I am a 4^th dan in Ju Jitsu, no stranger to getting into fights in the past either, I am not, never have been and never will be a warrior, I will never be a master or a grandmaster either (1). We now live in a world where biological gender and identity are becoming confused in ways none of us could have imagined even a few years back, where a white women was running a black rights group because she relates to being black so she ‘self defines’ as black, some identify as transpecies and these do not have to be real species either, they can be alien species or mythological species, You think I am kidding?

“Riviera identifies as a dragon. He decided this 15 years ago after having what he describes as prophetic dreams of a past life. As an “otherkin,” he is one of the hundreds of Australians who identify as another species—whether from Earth or myth.”https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-trans-species

And if that is not enough what about those who define themselves as transable? Becoming disabled by choice, not chance: ‘Transabled’ people feel like impostors in their fully working bodies, like this guy.

“When he cut off his right arm with a “very sharp power tool,” a man who now calls himself One Hand Jason let everyone believe it was an accident.

But he had for months tried different means of cutting and crushing the limb that never quite felt like his own, training himself on first aid so he wouldn’t bleed to death, even practicing on animal parts sourced from a butcher.

“My goal was to get the job done with no hope of reconstruction or re-attachment, and I wanted some method that I could actually bring myself to do,” http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/becoming-disabled-by-choice-not-chance-transabled-people-feel-like-impostors-in-their-fully-working-bodies

I could go on, and on, I personally feel that I am a rich person born into a poor person’s body.

I have written before in Conflict Manager about identity and the presentation of self. It is very simple to label those who present differently to the world as oddballs, loonies even, and that way we make a clear distinction between them and us. Personally I think there are many in today’s society that are very troubled, confused, ill, attention seeking even.

The phenomena of trans whatever’s has probably been with us for a very long time. What has changed is access to audiences is now in the hands of anyone with a phone. But back to my world of martial arts and self defence. Like the McDojo the ninja, the warrior, the jedi jitsu have a right to exist, indeed I can argue that the world is a better place for them and not a worse one.

They are only problematic when they use their kung fooey powers to exploit the gullible and vulnerable. Just like the McDojo. Everyone has their right to an opinion, everyone has the right to be a ninja if they wish, to stride around like a warrior, when not plumbing of course Steve.

As children we learn by experimenting with other roles through play, being mummy and daddy, a racing car driver, a soldier or a nurse, anyone remember playing doctors and nurses?

Why do we have to stop playing as adults if it gives us pleasure? Think about that for a moment, are we all not playing nicely when we step into the dojo?

The more disturbing question is when imagination morphs into mental illness. For me, this is just my opinion backed by science, there are two genders. Gender confusion is a mental condition not genetic as are many of the other confusions noted above including our Ninja friends. You are not alien you are screwed up, if you want to disfigure yourself then so are you, I will stop there. Gender identity politics, whatever is fueling this nonsense is stupid and if we play stupid games we win stupid prizes, well you play, I opt out. But hey ho live and let live, you have the right to be who or what you want to be, and I reserve the right to my opinion that you are a loon.

So if you believe you are a Ninja, a warrior, an ‘otherling’ or even the Bride of Frankenstein remember it is all in your imagination. I am pretty sure nobody reading this in Conflict Manager Magazine is one of the above but we work in an industry within a society where the frequency of imaginary identities appears to be growing so should not be surprised that these imagineers are within the industry itself.

These are my opinions, my thoughts, please tell me yours. Oh one last one, what about the guy who is now the new Hitler, yep, you got that, take a look.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/neo-nazi-changes-name-to-hitler_us_5913907ce4b00b643ebb12e5?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003

editor@conflictresearchgroupintl.com

When I took over the running of what was previously Abbeydale Ju JItsu Club, I created a management triad including Jayne and Bill, We reviewed how we operated then consulted with all the black belts, we held a big black belt breakfast meeting when we discussed and agreed the changes we wanted to make.

A couple of these changes were important for me and it was great the others agreed. We got rid of the use of the title Sensei, students call us by our first names now. We stopped standing in ranks, we bow on and off in a circle now with everyone facing everyone. We just do a standing bow now, no kneeling and prostrating ourselves.

Respect is gained by behaving properly and acting correctly.

Book Review – ‘The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements’, by Eric Hoffer

Sometimes in the rush to keep up with the latest releases we fail to catch up with some older works, especially ones that predate our arrival on this spinning rock. Mass and social movements was one of the modules on my undergraduate course at the University of Warwick, taught by Professor Jim Beckford, the course was excellent and well put together but I cannot remember a reference to Hoffer, not surprising really as we were in the sociology department and not philosophy. I am still interested in how mass movements emerge and grow, be they scientology, radical Islam or popularist politics focused around Brexit or Trump, they do seem to share certain characteristics.

So when I started seeing increasing references to quotes from Hoffer, I had to take a look, I was particularly intrigued by the true believer aspect. I have been a true believer in several guises, I found sanctuary at times in the shelter offered by groups seeking to change the world for a better place. Many of us have been through this phase, those emotions, some are still there, others move on.

I found the book very interesting and thought provoking, it was what I expected. It was dated but still incredibly relevant. I sit writing this on Easter Monday, yesterday I was greeted by ‘He is risen, hallelujah’ messages on Facebook from true believers, I later watched clashes between Antifa thugs and pro-Trump thugs on the same platform, I read about the rhetoric emerging from North Korea as America and the Chinese tighten the noose around Kim Jong-un’s neck. All of which are understandable if we look at the how these people, groups and societies for their belief systems and how this informs their behaviour and actions.

We now live in an increasingly echo chamber world, I would have loved to read Hoffer’s thoughts on how that was accelerating the ease with which we become true believers. There were things in the book that would have benefitted from a more recent view but it was written post WWII at the beginning of the cold war, the reader needs to exercise a few gymnastics and if they do this book is very useful to analyse what we see around us today.

The Jonestown Massacre was post ‘True Believer’ but I bet Hoffer would have used it, referring to the 918 members of the Peoples Temple cult led by one James Warren ‘Jim’ Jones, who committed suicide by drinking a cyanide laced drink in November 1978. Jones was a Disciple of Christ pastor and was a voracious reader, as a child and studied Stalin, Marx, Hitler, Mao and Ghandi carefully noting the strengths and weaknesses of each. Jones was a charismatic leader made for the true believers, and he found them.

For me there was another interesting angle. I really enjoy the diversity of the world of martial arts, it is where I train and I earn income from it. I am always happy to explain how we train in Ju Jitsu, its strengths and weaknesses, yes you got that right, weaknesses. You see I am not a true believer in the sense that I can ‘sell’ my martial art as the new way to train and live complete with warrior code of behaviour, Bushido. I see too much of what my friend and Conflict Manager contributor Jamie Clubb calls Bullshitsu, (put his forthcoming books on this subject on your must read list), out there.

The world is full of Kool-aid drinkers and there are plenty of them in the martial arts too. If you think a friend is beginning to get a taste for the Kool-aid do them a favour, buy them a subscription to Conflict Manager and Conflict Research Group International. Go read Hoffer, it is very thought provoking.

Reviewed by Garry Smith

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys – Garry Smith

I took a call the other night from someone interested in joining our Ju Jitsu training. He had clearly spent some time on our website and was just checking out when he could come along and try us out. I asked him a few questions about previous experience, general health and fitness etc. He told me he had another place to check out and I asked him who that was out of interest and he named the local McDojo. He explained he was impressed with the experience of the instructors based on how long we had been training and our dan grades and this was likewise for the McDojo. Again no problem as when anyone compares us and them, they come to us.

I agreed that he should check us both out but also told him to check out threads on the Sheffield Forum and look at some of their Youtube videos. I did tell him that we have taken on some of their ex students, 2 x 14 year old second dan black belts, who could not punch their way out of a paper bag and who we evaluated as around our green belt standard. That is a big difference.

Last night I saw a post on Facebook by a friend, in real life, who I respect and he posted about a particularly well known person in the martial arts scene who is franchising his McDojo brand left right and centre. He posted one of their videos that they have made publically available and it got the usual slating. Nothing nasty, but if you post videos of unrealistic defences against unrealistic attacks then people who do know what they are talking about will criticise.

The thing is people flock to this guys clubs and the McDojo near us has plenty of students. Before I proceed do I think they should be closed down? No, and there are a number of reasons I will set out to support their right to exist.

Firstly before I sat down with my laptop last night I had been out for a meal with my wife. It was a sunny spring evening so I picked her up from work in my VW convertible with the top down and my new Five Finger Death Punch CD playing. We drove through beautiful countryside to Upper Bradfield with our little dog Bertie, to have a drink and a meal at the Old Horns Inn, mine is a pint of Lancaster Bomber Ale please…..

My wife had the Salmon and Chorizo with salad and I had Elvis’s Last Burger, don’t ask. Why do I tell you this, because everything in the last paragraph and this happened because we, I, made choices. I chose that car, I could have bought many other cars. At one point I was deciding between a new motorcycle or a convertible, sod that, I got both. I chose the CD, we chose our drinks and food, we chose where to eat and nobody else. Choices.

Nobody told us what to do, we made our choices of our own free will from the many options available. We are not wealthy or poor, we are selective, we would like to think we have good taste, we like nice things. There has been lots of making do in our lives but now we can enjoy a reasonably good standard without having to keep up with the Jones’s.

The person making the enquiry re training, remember them, has every right to shop around and make their choice, for now that person is going on information gleaned from websites, well we know how that can be, a website can say anything. We offer a simple deal, come along and try a session for free, ask anyone any questions, we do not want your contact details, if you do not want to join us we will never contact you, payment is PAYG or bank transfer that a student can cancel immediately if they cease training, there are no contracts, no tie ins, no leadership training, no guaranteed black belt. We now have waiting lists for some sessions, the others are filling up and we will have new classes starting later this year. As instructors we work really hard and are continually seeking to improve ourselves and our training. We take training seriously and we make it a fun thing to do. We do not advertise that much and we welcome comparison. If people need to make choices let them, we do not do hard sell, we offer training not double glazing.

Everything we charge for is on our website, there are no hidden costs and no huge monthly payments that cannot be cancelled if you leave. Often this is the opposite of the McDojo which is exactly why they attract such a level of derision from those in the business. But think on this, the public does not know what it does not know.

As my co-editor, senior instructor and erstwhile training partner Jayne pointed out: the biggest problem we have heard about from our local McDojo is people finding out that they have been sold poor quality training, especially when it’s children who can’t make an informed choice to later find out what they’ve learnt is worthless at any other club, or worse still during a conflict in the street. I have had more than one conversation, once they find out I teach Ju Jitsu, with parents of 8/9 year old black belts who are suspicious of their supposed ‘child prodigy’, the ‘I have been had look on their faces’. I have had a 17 year old meltdown, literally, in one of my self defence classes when they realise their black belt in Karate MMA, yes you read that right, is actually not going to work in reality.

If you are told that somebody’s training is the best you will ever receive and you have no benchmark how do you choose? If you are told that their training is like a Rolls Royce as opposed to somebody else second hand Lada, which would you prefer, if you have no other comparison.

We all operate in a market economy and an unregulated industry; some people sell crap, they may not know its crap themselves, just like dead people do not know they are dead, they can’t because they are dead, doh. They are Hoffer’s ‘true believers’ who have found their holy cause, plus it’s a cash cow too.

Some McDojos attract extra criticism because we think they know they are selling crap and that that is immoral; well how do we know that, unless they say that is what they are doing we cannot know it, it is just our opinion. And that is the rub, a dojo becomes a McDojo because it is perceived as such. The thing is we all perceive things differently, if the student of a McDojo is having a great time it is of no concern of mine, if they feel ripped off and leave that too is of no concern of mine. Here is why, they are not a competitor, we are not on the same playing field. To those with no benchmark we may look alike at first but anyone doing due diligence will soon see the differences.

Now as many reading this will be practitioners in the martial arts or a related field I will ask you a few questions.

Do you get angry because some outlets sell bad food, poor quality clothing, rubbish cars, fizzy beer (not real ale like I drink)? How do you define bad, or good for that matter? Is there an agreed measure or standard we can use?

The answer to those questions was, I hope, no. McDojo’s exist like shops full of tat on any high street and some will be attracted to them and other repulsed. Another friend of mine said that they actually serve a purpose as they provide a home for the kind of student he does not want at his club.

I know people see them as bad for our industry, but in an unregulated market there will always be a range of products on offer. Do I dislike the McDojo, yes, but that is because I have an informed opinion based on experience, study and empirical evidence. Do I laugh at the ridiculous techniques they film to attract the gullible? Yes. Do I wince at the eye watering cost of their ‘guaranteed’ black belts? You bet. Do I think their students are being conned? Definitely, absolutely 100%. Do I think they have as much right as us to exist? Yes I do.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.