Thoughts on the nature of art

A friend of mine has prompted me to think about the nature of art.  Interestingly, he is a street artist, or what certain sections of the media would call a graffiti artist.  There's a profile of him on YouTube, and the author deserves kudos for a great, if short, piece of documentary film making.

I've seen many criticise my friend, quite wrongly, for being no better than a vandal.  The fact that he never paints anything without permission has either not got through to them, or is not the issue for them.  It could be that they don't like what he does, or are actively offended by it.

You have probably heard of Claude Oscar Monet.  He was one of the founding fathers of an art movement called impressionism.  To Monet, and the other impressionists, the fine details of an image were not important: their focus was on using light, shade and colour to leave an impression of what was being depicted.  Prints of Monet's paintings, particularly his series of paintings of water lilies, have graced many walls in recent years, and continue to sell and be produced in large numbers.  In the early years of impressionism, however, the art establishment considered his work worthless.

When Damien Hirst pickled a shark in a large fish tank, I found it repulsive.  I still find it repulsive.  That's the nature of art: not everyone will like it.  If it doesn't provoke a reaction, either positive or negative, can it really be called art?  My own preference is for monochrome line art, or maybe duotone comic art; actually, I love duotone.  If I could find some duotone art to hang on my walls, I would be a very happy man.

The above image can be found at http://valiantonov.deviantart.com/art/white-queen-Duotone-289579745 and, once again, kudos to the artist.  The subject matter is not to my taste, but it gives you some idea of what I consider to be the pinnacle of artistic achievement.  You will disagree with me, maybe, and that is the whole point.  Art is subjective - I like duotone art, whereas you may like full colour paintings, and you may argue that watercolours are superior to oils, and others may take the contrary view, or say they prefer sculpture as an art form.

I know that I went off on a tangent there, but I did not stray from the point I am trying to make.  My friend may use spray cans and concrete (and other surfaces), rather than oils and canvas, and that means some can not accept it as art.  It challenges them, just as every art movement in history has challenged critics.

Do I consider graffiti to be art?  I could be accused of bias here, so I will define what art means to me.  Wherever you are when you experience a piece of art, it takes you somewhere else.  It may be a piece of poetry or a book you read; it may be a piece of music; you may find it in a painting or sculpture.  The very best art takes you to a place, within your imagination, that is outside of your everyday experience.  Would I spend my time looking at a bare concrete wall?  No.  What about the random acts of vandalism committed through the medium of the spray can?  No, they are very much an unwelcome part of the environment I live in.

If you consider a bare concrete wall to be attractive, I won't argue with you, because it is your right to have a preference, but maybe you should seek some form of therapy.  If you don't like street art, that is also your right, but no one asked you to hang it in your home.  Some of us see a blank space filled with something that brings a smile to our face, or makes us feel admiration for the work that has gone into the piece.  To each their own, I guess, but there is a long history of controversy generating fame, so maybe my friend should not be offended by those who don't agree with what he does, but should welcome the fact that his work is being discussed.  His work pushes the boundaries and challenges the popular conception of art: that it should hang in a gallery for the privileged few to view.

Now, please excuse me while I search for a supplier of framed duotone comic art...

Update: An article on the ship which my friend, Andy "Dime One" Birch was involved in painting -  http://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/115872/mystery-of-llanerch-y-mor-funship-graffiti-solved.aspx

Ubuntu

I hesitated writing this, because the subject of Linux distributions is a sensitive one.  When writing about Ubuntu, the fact that this is a system beloved by a large number of people is on my mind.  Let us not forget that Ubuntu is also the first experience of Linux for many, some of whom will move on to other Linux distributions, some of whom will stick with Ubuntu.  For many, and certainly in sections of the media, Ubuntu is not a Linux distribution: for them, Ubuntu is Linux and Linux is Ubuntu.

I should set out my stall by detailing my own experience with Ubuntu.  After starting out with Mandrake (before it became Mandriva), moving through SuSE, Fedora and CentOS, I came to Ubuntu.  I didn't want to like it.  It had become, by that time, so popular that large sections of the Linux community had come to despise it.  However, it stayed on my hard drive for a long time.  I liked having a system that practically looked after itself, and was configured for usability upon installation.

Then, it all started to go wrong.  Like many, I resented Canonical's insistence on changing the location of the minimise, maximise and close buttons to the left of the window title bar.  I quickly discovered how to change back to the traditional way of doing things (I changed GNOME theme), but it worried me that the default would be so unfamiliar to new users, who may never have explored Linux again.  Ubuntu 11.04, given the codename Natty Narwhal, is where Ubuntu and my hard drive parted company.  I moved to Linux Mint, through Linux Mint Debian Edition (still, in my view, rather excellent) and finally, on to Debian.

The change of button location was forgiveable.  To varying degrees, Linux distributors create custom themes for their distributions, and Ubuntu is no different.  If you don't like it, you can always change it.  Mark Shuttleworth's comments about users just having to put up with it, because Ubuntu is not a democracy, however, set many free software advocates against him.  For me, and many others, the last straw was Unity.  It is still the default in version 12.04.

Linux is all about choice.  In all fairness, I can choose to use something other than Ubuntu, and that is exactly what I did.  I resented Canonical imposing their vision of how I should interact with my computer: that is something for which the Linux community have criticised Apple and Microsoft.  To be honest, it didn't help that Ubuntu 11.04 was released with what seemed like a multitude of bugs, and I assumed that Unity had been released half-finished, to be patched later (another Linux community criticism of Microsoft).

The instability of 11.04 is what led me to explore distributions based on more stable implementations of Debian.  For those of you who don't know, Debian forms the basis of Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions, though Ubuntu seems to be moving further away from the distribution it is based on.

Anyway, I was looking at jobs within the computer industry recently, and I saw that a local company was looking for a server administrator.  To my surprise, the advertisement mentioned that the server is running on Ubuntu.  It seems like a strange choice to me.  I know there is a specific server version of Ubuntu, but I still found it strange.  I question the wisdom of running a company server on an operating system that is so popular (and therefore a known quantity and viable target for hackers) and is not, to my mind, as stable or secure as some other Linux distributions.  In short, it would not have been my choice for a company server.  Still, it prompted me to take another look at Ubuntu.  It's lucky that I have some CD-RW discs or, with my propensity for testing Linux distributions, I would have used up my stock of CD-R long ago.

On a positive note, the Ubuntu Software Centre will be relatively easy to use for new users.

There was a time when the concept of software repositories caused problems for new Linux users: the Microsoft Windows method of downloading installers from a website or physical medium was the accepted norm.  Now, the arrival of Android devices with Google Play/Market, and the apps store of Apple devices, have made the concept of the software repository familiar.

If there was a problem, it was with Skype.  As a Debian user, I am probably on shaky ground here.  Debian don't support Skype, even in their non-free repository, so it is necessary to download a package from the Skype website and install it manually.  Ubuntu does support Skype, indirectly, so upgrades to the software will be installed automatically.  In the Ubuntu Software Centre, I browsed the internet section, and looked at chat clients - no Skype.  Searching for Skype gave the message that the package was not available in the current section.  I can imagine a new user giving up here.  What I had to do was go back to "All Software" and search from there.

Bingo!  I clicked through to Skype and Ubuntu Software Centre informed me that a repository with software from Canonical partners (Skype are one of these) would be added.  After agreeing to this, I was given the option to install Skype.

To be honest, I didn't explore much more.  I tried to correct the annoying placement of the window controls, but I could find no way of doing this in the default install.  I know at least one friend who is an Ubuntu fan, so it seems this is not an issue for some people.  Maybe the ease with which everything else works is more of a factor for those who don't wish to explore beneath the surface.

I'm glad that Ubuntu exists.  For many, it has brought the benefits of open source without the steep learning curve (despite the odd decision regarding window controls).  One of the main benefits of open source is the ability to choose Ubuntu or an alternative.  As I use GNOME 3 on my Debian Wheezy install, I can give you my opinion on the ongoing GNOME Shell vs Unity debate.  There is no clear winner.  The window controls, specific to Ubuntu as far as I know, are a little disconcerting.  However, both interfaces have their good points as well as their fair share of annoyances, which will hopefully be ironed out in time.  For me, the known stability of Debian (even in testing form) is the deciding factor, but I also prefer GNOME for its wider community acceptance: it is something of a standard across many distributions.  Ideally, I would use something like XFCE or even LXDE, as they are closer to the classic desktop paradigm, but I must accept that the way we interact with technology is changing.  If I decide to pursue a career in Linux system administration, familiarity with standard ways of doing things would be a definite advantage.

So, Ubuntu is no longer my distribution of choice.  I favour stability over having the latest software, as I assumed most businesses would.  I can't condemn Ubuntu, however.  It is probably still the best distribution for beginners.  Linux Mint arguably has a better "out of box" experience, but it seems that a complete reinstall is the recommended upgrade method for each new release, so Ubuntu is probably still the ultimate beginner's choice.

Fighting Against Nature

Last night, I played a CD which is part of a home study course in counselling.

Listening to the CD, I heard the presenter talk about why potential counsellors should enter a course of therapy themselves: something which has always intrigued me.  The main reason, as I suspected, is that a potential counsellor should understand themselves and their own issues before they are able to empathise with, and support, their clients.  A point which came across very clearly was that most of us are at least a little unhappy with our lives, because we have gone against what we want for ourselves, in an effort to please others.

Recently, I have accepted that a career in counselling will not happen for me in the near future.  For practical reasons which I won't go into here, I must build the existing skills I have gained through working with computers.  By aiming for a career in counselling, I was, perhaps, fighting against my own nature.

As a child, I was something of a maths prodigy.  To be honest, my basic arithmetic was, and still is, no better than the arithmetic capability of anyone else.  For some reason, however, I was more at ease with abstract concepts such as algebra than my classmates.  I can't remember if I discovered my talent for advanced maths or computer programming first, but I will tell you that the thought processes involved are so similar that they could be said to be the same.  Binary notation was almost second nature to me.

My first personal experience of a computer was when a friend of a friend bought a Commodore VIC-20 (yes, I'm showing my age here - it was the early 1980s).  I can't overstate the importance of that event.  This machine before me was not a television - though it needed a TV as a display device - or a washing machine; it was not a video recorder (remember them?) or a microwave oven.  No, this machine could be programmed and expanded to be whatever you wanted it to be, or that's how I interpreted it as a child.  When I later discovered that the computers of the early 1980s were inherently limited, you would expect it to have discouraged me.  On the contrary, I was now hooked.  Overcoming and working within the limitations of the machine through the abstract processes of computer programming became a childhood obsession - one which probably did nothing to correct my inherent shyness and fear of social interaction, unless you count the computer club I attended weekly as social interaction.

One of the defining characteristics of childhood, and one which is lost in the journey to adulthood, is that we just go along with who we are, and we don't resist it.  Ask someone close to you what they wanted to be as a child, and you may catch a glimpse of a dream which has since been extinguished by having to conform with the expectations of parents, peers or society at large.  You might suspect that there is a side to this person you knew nothing about, and that assumption is probably more correct than you know.  There are various clichés about being all things to all people and wearing various masks in different situations, but they have become clichés because they are a true reflection of how we are in reality.

When I was studying Social Sciences, I came across a very powerful concept, social construction.  One of the longest running arguments in philosophy is the nature versus nurture debate.  If you are not familiar with the debate, it concerns whether a child is essentially a "blank slate" at birth, ready to be shaped by the experience of life, or whether that child's potential and personality are already deeply ingrained.  Most social scientists now hold the view that the truth is somewhere between the two extremes: from birth, we have a distinct character, but this is later modified to varying degrees by our environment and experience.  Anything which is determined by our culture, environment, relationships or social constraints is said to be "socially constructed".

There is a point in our early lives where our dependence on our parents and our attachment to the family home are gradually reduced.  We have to deal with the outside world and, according to our character, it is either exciting, an adventure or frightening.  It is also the point where we start to make adjustments to "fit in" with those around us.  As a shy, socially awkward child, I found it difficult.  Naturally, my apparent unease made me an obvious target for bullying from an early age.  From the start, however, I never saw anything wrong in fighting back, or actively striking pre-emptively, because I judged that an attack was imminent and wanted to prevent it.  I never became a bully myself, but I certainly didn't stand for being bullied.  The most important point, however, is that I was assessing the level of threat posed by anyone I was meeting for the first time.  I had started to analyse people.

You can probably see how I developed a talent for counselling.  My shy, quiet nature made me a naturally good listener and, as a matter of necessity, I developed the ability to "read" people very quickly.  Much to my surprise, I found a lack of ease and confidence in people who had at one time appeared strong and confident to me; most importantly, I discovered that I was certainly not alone in what I was feeling, and that others were just hiding their discomfort with varying degrees of success.  Some people, I learned, had even become experts at hiding their anxiety from themselves - something which, I discovered later, always backfires eventually.

Within time, I became interested in what made people the way they were and getting them to be better, rather than working out how to get the best out of a computer.  I even started to study for a degree in psychology, though a series of personal setbacks postponed that achievement.  As luck would have it, my circumstances now dictate that I should return to working with computers, and I am more comfortable with that than I believed I would be.  I have skills as a counsellor, and I continue to use them in voluntary work I am currently doing, but that ability is clearly a social construction, rather than innate.  I can not say, and probably never will be able to say, that it is a role in which I feel completely comfortable.

For the record, my earliest recollections are of wanting to be an astronaut or a palaeontologist.  At the time, space and dinosaurs were things I could not place into context within my life, and it was their mystery and status as things which were unattainable (dinosaurs no longer exist, and space is unreachable by most of us) which made them attractive.  They were, to me, abstract concepts.  The part of my nature which led me through algebra, to computer programming, to Information and Communications Technology in general, has been a part of me for as long as I can remember.  I am what society unkindly labels as a nerd, a geek, a boffin.  I fought against it, partly because of that label and also because I am living in a society which finds non-conformity threatening, but continuing to fight against our own nature only brings us unhappiness in the long term.

I know this has been a very personal post, but I hope it has inspired you.  If you want a snappy sound bite to sum up, I'll oblige.  Sometimes we wear a mask because we fear being recognised for who we truly are, and that others will not like what is beneath the mask; the danger is that we ourselves forget we are wearing one.

Paths Up The Same Mountain

There are countless discussions on various internet forums about which martial art is the best for defence against armed or unarmed attack.  I often read these exchanges, not to discover which art is considered best for the situation being envisaged, but to keep a watchful eye on an attitude that I find rather worrying.

I have often been tempted to join these discussions, and reiterate an old saying: the martial arts are all paths up the same mountain.  The problem with that particular idiom being used in the context of the discussion is that it is missing the point.  At the top of that mountain, you have reached the pinnacle of martial arts training, and the ability to fight is only one aspect of that.

I have known people who've trained in martial arts for decades, and their level of technical excellence is clear to see; some of them have clearly reached the peak of understanding.  Unfortunately, I have seen others who will never reach that level regardless of how long they train, or their technique is exemplary and yet they come across as a macho psychopath who only wants to fight.  The difference is that they have not been exposed to, or have taken little interest in, the philosophical aspects of their training.  To be honest, that is not always the fault of the practitioner: it may be that they were trained under the wrong teacher.

On the flip side, there are people whose fighting ability is not the best, and maybe their time in martial arts is limited compared to others, but they have the right attitude, or spirit, if you like.  So, why do some people reach the top of their game and only learn physical techniques?  Why do we have instructors of many years' experience who only see martial arts as a commodity or a way to develop fighting ability?  Remember that martial arts are paths up the same mountain, but each of those paths will be different.  The journey to the top has equal importance to the destination itself.  If you do not take note of what you see on your way to the peak, or you forget what you have seen, the view from the top loses some of its meaning.  Some will never understand the things they have seen on their journey, because they don't realise that the journey was the important part: without that experience, the view from the top loses much of its meaning.

There are instructors who neglect to teach the moral code or philosophy of their art; this is akin to leading their students up the mountain wearing a blindfold.  Worse still, there are a growing number of modern arts which have completely discarded the moral philosophy of the ancient arts.  I must give credit here to Krav Maga, in the form I have had contact with, for daring to have a moral code and philosophy in times when such things have become unfashionable.

I think that MMA/UFC/Cage Fighting is something other than martial arts.  If we take the analogy of the martial arts being paths up the same mountain, and there being something special at the top, I would regard MMA as the process of building a new mountain and stealing some of the foliage from the original.  Will you see the same thing when you reach the peak?  I'll leave that for the MMA fighters to debate. What I know is that, since the UFC and similar contests have been televised, the attitude towards violence, particularly amongst the younger generation, is particularly disturbing.

As evidence, I offer exhibit 1...

I'm pretty sure the video shows a situation that was set up for the sake of entertainment.  At the very least, the guy presenting the video has some part in creating this unfortunate spectacle.  When I consider that this "entertainment" is being watched by large numbers of young men, I worry for the future.  I also question the nature of the contest itself, which consists of two fighters brawling and beating each other to a pulp as a bloodthirsty crowd cheers them on.

I would be foolish to say that MMA, or any branch of combat arts, is technically inferior to another art: I am not qualified to do so.  What I will say is that it has lost something important.  Those involved may have studied classical arts, though I'm pretty sure they did not reach the top of their mountain, to return to the metaphor.  Maybe some never will.

Is Linus Torvalds a danger to free software?

I saw an article today about Linus Torvalds' opinion of GNOME 3.4, given upon upgrading his computer to the latest version of Fedora.  I've seen many people saying negative things about GNOME 3, and he's entitled to his opinion, but I would say that he should consider the possible effects of his opinion.

There are many precedents for this.  The lead developer, or maintainer, of the KDE DVD copying program, K9Copy, abandoned the project with a message which was very damaging.  He was abandoning the project, his message said, because he no longer had faith in Linux and Open Source.  Again, he is entitled to his opinion, but should have thought about how his comments could affect the faith of others in Linux and Open Source.

To be honest, Linus' comments are not a shock to me.  I remember that, shortly after the launch of GNOME 2, he made similar comments about problems he perceived with the desktop environment.  Actually, he attacked the user friendliness of GNOME, saying that the developers were treating users like idiots.  It's a provocative statement, given more weight by his position as the original author of the Linux kernel and the respect this has bestowed upon him from the wider open source community.  He followed his attack on GNOME with the revelation that he was switching to KDE: GNOME's rival for user interface presence.  It carried a heavy whiff of bias, and a possible hidden agenda to shape the future of the desktop experience on Linux.

Now, we are faced with another attack on GNOME.  I would question the wisdom of attacking the user interface that is used as a default in so many Linux distributions.  Bear in mind that GNOME 3 is something of a departure from the GNOME 2, and is also fairly new; as open source software, it will improve with the passage of time, as did GNOME 2, not to mention the previously heavily criticised KDE 4.  The problem is that Linus attacks subjects like this with heavily charged, emotive statements.  If they are attempts to drive users away from what is now something of a standard (to Debian and Fedora users, at any rate), then he should remember that telling users how they must interact with their computer and their data is a criticism levelled at the likes of Apple and Microsoft; free and open source software is all about choice.  If it is meant with the intention of provoking the GNOME developers, so that they improve their game, then it is also misguided.

The nature of open source means that software goes through a process of gradual improvement.  If you want to criticise GNOME 3, it should be for changing so suddenly, requiring users to adjust suddenly to a new desktop layout which was incomplete - criticisms which could also be aimed at the launch of KDE 4.  My own take on this is that such massive and rapid changes to the user interface ignore the requirements of users, and that is the same problem I have with the change from Mac OS 9 to OS X and the upcoming change from Windows 7 to Windows 8.  As a reaction to this issue, I use XFCE on Debian, but I would never suggest that this is the environment everyone should use.

Free Fighting

Dave, the instructor (or sifu, if you want to be traditional), said that we should all partner with someone we do not usually train with; it isn't a problem for me, because I don't have a regular training partner.  Some people in the class were affected by this, because they seem to have a preference for training with the same person every Thursday.  The problem with learning a martial art using the same training partner regularly is that you learn that person's responses and mould your own accordingly - it's not a good idea, unless there is no one else to train with.

I was placed with a young South African man.  I have trained with him before, but that was Chi Sau, and I'm pretty rubbish at Chi Sau (actually, I attended a seminar on Chi Sau at the weekend, so I should be a bit better now).  Tonight, we had a drill where I threw a punch, which he deflected with a pak sau (slapping hand, of which there are a few variations), throwing a punch back at me, which I deflected with my own pak sau, and it would go back and forth.

I've spoken to this guy at the end of a class, and it seems he studied Wing Chun in South Africa, though he did not specify a lineage (it's debatable whether it really matters, especially after a number of years practising), and he is now studying Aikido in North Wales.  I remembered the Chi Sau session with him, because he pretty much dominated that exchange.  I have no problem with admitting my Chi Sau is not the best, but it was still pretty embarrassing for me.  I'm guessing that he studied for many years in South Africa.

The Chi Sau seminar at the weekend was hosted by Billy Davidson - the head of Ching Mo, our organisation.  I learned a few things at the seminar; one of them was that Chi Sau is a skill which develops over time and with many years of practice.  It took away my shame at being relatively poor at Chi Sau, because I have been a member of the class for less than two years and I don't get to practise Chi Sau outside of the class or seminars, because I have no one to train with.

Now, I was faced with the South African again, but it was not Chi Sau this time.  I still expected his obvious experience in Wing Chun to mean I would find myself in trouble as the drill became more complicated, as I knew it would.  Sure enough, we had to change the punch and pak sau hands without warning each other, so that we could learn to react to the change, and then we had to change our stance, also without warning.  The end result is more like free fighting than Chi Sau, though free fighting limited to one specific attack and one specific defence.

Dave, the instructor, came to me twice, asking me to slow down the changes.  I kept speeding up, quite unintentionally.  My training partner had originally insisted that we train at a range where it was possible that we might hit each other in a real fight, because it would be training more realistic responses.  I had no problem with his suggestion, but was surprised to find him gradually opening the distance up.  I was also catching him very early - his punch was barely able to move out from his chest.  I had dreaded the prospect of training with him again, if I am honest, and I actually found myself outclassing him.  He looked as puzzled as I felt.

I'm pretty sure that Chi Sau improves fighting skill.  I'm also sure, however, that fighting improves fighting skill.  I have experience of free fighting within Judo, Karate and Jujitsu classes.  I also have, I am sorry to say, experience of street fights.  When I am shown a Wing Chun deflection, attack or counter attack, I can tell you that my immediate thought is not how to apply it in Chi Sau; my mind is focused on how it would be used in combat.

One thing I had noticed during the seminar was a tendency to use techniques I picked up from other arts I had studied, regardless of how little time I spent studying them.  It was quite clear that I was compensating for my weaknesses in Chi Sau by automatically playing to my strengths.

It will be interesting to see what happens when we eventually move on to free sparring with the pads and gloves.  So far, my theories regarding how to develop fighting skill have been correct.  Bruce Lee, developing Jeet Kune Do, said that we should not learn forms (kata, taolu, hyung, jurus, anyo or whatever your style calls them), and equated them to learning to swim on dry land.  Some classical arts put an emphasis on forms and maybe don't train fighting skill so much.  Personally, I think both approaches are necessary.

I practise the first two forms of Wing Chun on an almost daily basis.  The forms train the neuromuscular system to develop certain responses through repetition.  If you want to know how your trained responses are actually implemented during a fight, however, you can only do it through fighting, whether that is free sparring or out of necessity.  I would stop short of advising people on how to train for optimum performance in a situation where they need to defend themselves, but my own method is to go through the forms again and again until the movements become instinctual.  If I have to fight to save myself from injury or death, I will forget that I even learned a martial art.

Sticking to predefined techniques is lunacy on the street.  If you have to remember a specific sequence, you will be slowed down by it.  It is better to train responses until they become programmed into you, and then forget they are there - just let them operate by themselves and allow for other responses to make themselves useful to you.  I'm not a purist.  I don't care if I stop someone plunging a knife between my ribs using a technique from Arnis or Wing Chun, for example - only that the knife was made to miss its intended target.

I have picked up many automated responses to various attacks over the years.

When training, respond in the way your training specifies; when fighting, respond in the way that comes to you without conscious thought.  It's that simple.

Filipino stick fighting

I've been thinking a lot about Filipino stick fighting recently.  To save confusion, I will be referring to it as Arnis throughout this post, though it is also known as Arnis De Mano, Escrima, Eskrima or Kali.  In the Philippines, where it is taught as part of the Physical Education system, it is referred to mostly as Arnis - at least it is in the areas of Manila I visited.

I haven't been able to train in Arnis recently.  I created some makeshift training sticks some time ago, and trained as much as I was able to.  I have ordered some genuine sticks now, and will be resuming my training.  Some might ask my reason for training Arnis, when I am already a Wing Chun practitioner.  Wing Chun is a great system, and it works, but there are reasons for specifically training in Arnis.

The UK is increasingly becoming a society in which armed attacks are a reality, especially attacks with knives.  To understand the range of motion and characteristics of a weapon, experience of fighting with weapons is necessary.  As much as I love Wing Chun, and I trust that it can be used against knife attacks, the weapons of Wing Chun (if, for a moment, we discount our own limbs as weapons) are the last thing to be introduced to a student.  Anecdotal evidence would suggest that Ip Man only taught three people the knives form, for example.  I learn martial arts for self protection.  I want to close any gaps in my defensive repertoire as quickly as possible.

Another consideration is improving coordination.  This is something which I have been looking into a lot recently.  It is probably an overlooked aspect of fighting fitness.  Strength, endurance and even flexibility are all emphasised in our training to be martial artists, just as it is with sports, but coordination is seemingly neglected in our training.  Yes, there is an argument that the training itself improves coordination, and I will go along with that.  Practising the Wing Chun forms has led to a marked improvement in the precision of my movements, but I still struggle with Chi Sau.  Some members of the class get to practice Chi Sau away from the class, and I, unfortunately, have no one to do this with, so my coordination is below the level of some members of the class. The only way I could feasibly reach, and surpass, their fine motor skills is to do something other than Wing Chun to improve matters - something which trains similar movements.

The funny thing is that, here in the UK, we are more likely to refer to Filipino stick fighting as Escrima.  The use of Remy Presas' Modern Arnis as the system which is taught in the Philippine education system has led to the name Arnis being used widely in the Philippines.  In some areas, however, Escrima or Eskrima is still used.  Here, Modern Arnis is not so well known, so we tend to train in more traditional Filipino stick fighting systems, and use the name Escrima (or Eskrima) as a result.

It's easy to see how the difference in the systems which are most prevalent could lead to differences in how Arnis is performed in the UK and its native Philippines.  If we look at what has happened to jujitsu in the UK over the time it has been here, it is clear that there is the potential for any introduced art to assume the character of its new host nation.  Ip Ching apparently said something along those lines when members of the class I attend visited his training centre in Hong Kong - the way we do Wing Chun is different.  There is also the example of Lau Gar Kung Fu, which some would argue has completely deviated, in its UK form, away from the original Chinese art.  Recently, I heard that Bob Breen, here in the UK, teaches Jeet Kune Do in a very different way to how Dan Inosanto teaches it in America.  I'm not surprised, even though Bob is technically Dan's student.

As long as it is effective, I really don't care.