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.

GNOME 3.4

GNOME 3.4 has been released - http://www.muktware.com/articles/3469/gnome-34-review-impressive-elegant-fast.  At one time, a new release of GNOME would have been something to interest me, though not so much now.

The problem with user interfaces now, and GNOME is no exception, is that they consume a lot of resources.  I started as a KDE user, on Mandrake Linux, as it was then.  Later, via Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu and Linux Mint Debian, I became a GNOME user.  Over the past year, I have switched to XFCE on a Debian Squeeze base and, finally, to LXDE on a Debian Wheezy base.

You will notice that I have gradually moved towards more minimal and resource friendly environments, and it's not because I have an old computer, or one that is lacking in specification.  Even on my dual core machine with 3GB of RAM (enough for almost any Linux environment), the difference in responsiveness can be felt.

My problem with the increasing hardware demands of operating systems is that computers are being replaced while they are still usable, because they are no longer powerful enough to run the latest user environment.  The unfortunate by product of this is that many people, not being financially able to keep up with perpetual upgrades, are being priced out of the information age.  If my suspicion that GNOME 3, Unity and the upcoming Windows 8 are optimised towards touch screen computing is true, then the problem will get even worse.

Clearly, the old model of how a computer works is in the process of being made obsolete, and the internet tablet/smartphone interface is replacing the traditional desktop experience.  I hope it doesn't happen.  While the decision to develop an ARM version of Windows 8 is obviously good for the British economy, it suggests an intention to move computing towards being increasingly mobile.

What is worrying is that these devices have a built in obsolescence - they are not upgradeable, and consumers are encouraged to purchase the latest iteration of their chosen device when the old one is no longer supported.  In contrast, I could buy an old Pentium 4 PC for less cost than an internet tablet, install Debian with LXDE and have the same work environment I currently use.  In short, there is no need to replace a computer until it breaks!  The businesses which throw their computers into skips, for transportation to landfill sites, should consider donating them to charities, who may keep that old version of Windows or install a light Linux variant.

I'm glad that GNOME is out there as a choice.  For those who want to follow the current trend, it will at least provide an easy transition into Linux and open source.  My worry is that we are heading towards the path of inbuilt obsolescence and a two-tier society, from a technological standpoint.

News from the Philippines

As stated previously, I don't read my newsfeeds often.  I have an interest in what's going on in the Philippines, however, because I know quite a few people there.

Some news stories from the Philippines which caught my eye...

The Russian foreign minister wants his country and the Philippines to work together more - http://www.itar-tass.com/c154/365297.html

A Filipino producer of educational materials is working with Microsoft to bring classrooms in the Philippines into the digital age - http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=28664.  As an advocate of open source solutions, I take this as largely good news which could have been better.  There are a few Filipino Linux distributions, and the Philippines is still a relatively poor country, with its own language and culture.  My concern is that Microsoft has an agenda of creating a dependence on Microsoft technologies, which is clearly not in the interests of a country like the Philippines, or any country on Earth, to be honest.  There are better solutions, but Microsoft has the power to implement this scheme and maybe it will not close the door to other solutions being investigated later.

A Japanese firm has been contracted to finish the third terminal at NAIA airport - http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/asia/philippines/2012/03/15/334652/Philippine-airport.htm.  There is a touch of irony to this, as KLM (one of the largest European airways) has recently withdrawn its flights to Manila.

There is ongoing debate about the RH (Reproductive Health) Bill.  Supporters of the bill point to the high rate of teenage pregnancy in the Philippines - http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95076/PHILIPPINES-Lack-of-services-fuels-teen-pregnancy and say that it does not go against the teachings of the Catholic church or the state constitution - http://www.philnews.com/2012/17a.htm.  As I am not native to the Philippines, I shouldn't really step into this particular battle, but I will say that the RH Bill, as I understand it, has the sole intention of educating young people about their sexual health.

By blocking the bill, the church is effectively saying that its congregation can not be trusted with their own free will, so any information which contradicts the teachings of the church must be withheld from them.  Whether knowledge of, and access to, contraception will create an environment within which promiscuity is the norm is clearly not the point.  The high rate of teen pregnancy shows that teenagers are already sexually active, and the population of the Philippines continues to grow at an exponential rate.  While sexually transmitted infections are still comparatively rare, they are on the rise.  Is the Catholic church being irresponsible in its opposition to the RH Bill?  I'll leave that question open.

On a more positive note, it has been suggested that the country's economy is poised to improve immensely - http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=29109 and that it may become a popular destination for those facing retirement - http://globalnation.inquirer.net/30927/dot-it%E2%80%99s-more-fun-to-be-a-senior-in-philippines.

So, those are the stories about the Philippines that caught my eye.  I'm not sure if this will be a regular feature, but I do love the country.

The news

I don't often have the time to read my collection of RSS and Atom feeds, but today was one of those days when I had the time.

The first story that caught my eye was Linus Torvalds having rejected a job at Apple (http://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-linux-linus-tovalds-steve-jobs,15082.html#xtor=RSS-181).  This was about ten years ago, so we are told.  I can certainly understand why Apple would do this - Linux was, and still is, on its way to being a major threat in the market for operating systems.  Apple was also in the process of rebuilding Mac OS on top of a Unix foundation, and clearly didn't want to build a Unix environment from scratch.  As it turned out, OS-X was eventually built on top of a Mach microkernel/FreeBSD foundation.

At the risk of upsetting a few people, if they were to offer Linus the same opportunity right now, I would urge him to jump at it.  I fully understand that Apple wanted him to relinquish his interest in Linux, but let's consider what difference that would make right now.  The kernel development team has grown to a point where Linus' job as maintainer could feasibly be done by a lot of people.  We can't underestimate his importance in creating the Linux kernel in the first place, but it has now developed a life of its own.

While I can understand his reluctance to give up his creation to someone else, it will always be his creation.  My argument is that a new figurehead might not be a bad thing.  Over the years, I have seen Linus express certain opinions which have alienated large numbers of Linux users.  His views on which desktop environment or Linux distribution are the best are interesting, but he has sometimes come over as something of a control freak, wanting us all to fall in line with how he wants things done.  Linux is all about choice, and dictating how users should use their computers is a bit too far down the Microsoft or Apple road for me.  I am sure that many would disagree with my views, and I am in no way trying to lessen his contribution, but I'm saying it would not be the end of the world if he jumped ship at this point.

Someone who HAS fallen on his sword is Charlie Kravetz, project leader of the Xubuntu project (http://www.muktware.com/articles/3423/xubuntu-project-lead-charlie-kravetz-resigns?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+muktware%2Ffeeds+%28Muktware.com%29).  Some may question why this is important.  Well, many were dismayed, and still are, by Ubuntu's choice of Unity as a desktop environment.  I would say that many switched to Kubuntu as an alternative but, to be honest, KDE's huge memory footprint is a drawback.  For those wanting a more traditional desktop environment, XFCE is becoming increasingly important.  Xubuntu has XFCE as its desktop environment, but also has the entire Ubuntu software repository at its disposal.  At the time of writing, it could still be considered a minority distribution (though as someone running LXDE on Debian Wheezy, I realise the irony in that assertion).  It will get bigger, though, I am guessing.  Those who still find it a resource hog can check out Lubuntu (http://lubuntu.net/), which runs particularly well on old hardware.

As noted above, I think that sometimes a change of leadership can breathe new life into a project, and unquestionably a change of perspective.

It was a surprise to discover that five Far Eastern stock exchanges run on Red Hat Linux (http://www.muktware.com/news/3449/red-hat-powers-more-50-global-trading-volume?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+muktware%2Ffeeds+%28Muktware.com%29) but, thinking about it, I don't know why I was surprised.  Here in the West, our governments don't seem to have realised the benefits of open source but, elsewhere in the world, the advantages it brings to government institutions in terms of cost savings a reliability are well known.  If our leaders would stop dragging their feet on this, maybe we would recover from our current financial slump more quickly and move towards a more sustainable model of governance.  It would be a start, anyway.

After years of singing the praises of traditional headphones and avoiding in-ear devices, I finally gave in to temptation and ordered some AKG in-ear phones.  Then, I saw this - http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/03/when-earbuds-attack-a-cautionary-tale-nsfw/ - so I will be using the AKGs as a spare pair, I think, and going back to traditional headband phones.