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Piper and the African martial arts- my take on the matter
There has been a lot of discussion recently about African martial arts, about who is African and who is not, about what it means to be African, about whether African martial arts should be taught to non-Africans and about whether any of this matters at all.
We all have a worldview, every single one of us. This world view determines how we interact with the world around us and with the people we meet. We hold certain basic truths to be valid and, to us, indisputable and without these truths we would probably not be able to operate coherently in our interactions with others.
I, for example, believe that all increase of knowledge is a good thing, that we evolve and that martial arts systems should evolve and that this evolution is both good and necessary. To use a recent example, look at what the Gracie’s did for the martial arts world. Before they brought their “Gracie Challenge” to America, and made Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a household word. All kinds of fantasy arts claimed to be effective styles of hand to hand combat. Magazines showed self defense sequences using flying spinning kicks and other fantasy techniques being used to overcome an attacker. Then the Gracies rode into town and the town was never quite the same.
For the next couple of years, if you wanted to the effective in terms of hand to hand combat, you became a student of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Not so long ago, Matt Hughes beat Royce Gracie and in so doing, demonstrated what most of us had understood by then anyway. Pure BJJ was no longer the sheriff in town. Mixed Martial Arts had taken over that position. And yet, as we all know, MMA would not exist today if it had not been for the Gracies and a Mixed Martial Arts fighter who does not understand or practice ground fighting, which owes so much to BJJ, will not last very long.
All of this is a good thing, there has been a tremendous evolutionary process at work here and the beneficiaries of this are all the martial artists of this world. If they choose to benefit from it, that is. There are still millions of folk practicing traditional, handed down, untested and non-functional nonsense but, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
All of which may be interesting but might not seem to be connected to the whole “African” issue. My good friend Lloyd, who is a lot more patient than I am, has got himself caught up in a long and, I believe, fruitless discussion with a group or groups of African Martial Arts exponents in the U.S.A. For those interested, the posts are on www.pipersystem.com . I do not want to restart the whole mudslinging match, but would suggest that the same course of action would be advisable as when a fundamentalist Muslim gets into an argument with a Zionist fanatic.
The only win-win scenario being that one of them exits stage-left and the other one exits stage-right and they keep on walking in their respective directions. Given that they are in the USA and we are in South Africa, this should be do-able.
I got along well with Kaya, when he was down here, as is clearly visible in the photo of the two of us in the photo gallery on www.pipersystem.com. I found him to be “muy simpatico”, as my Spanish ex-wife would have put it. I will always have good memories of the conversation we had. And 52, with its sneaky footsweeps, ankletrips, elbow shots and its unique rhythm is a wonderful art which, given different circumstances, I would have loved learning, but I understand that this will not be happening and that’s cool with me.
It is difficult for me to express my opinions honestly and in a straight-forward manner and yet in such a way that I do not merely pour more oil onto the flames.
What we have here are truly two utterly different world views. The mistake, I believe, is when the fact that both sides practice “African Martial Arts” is used as some kind of reason for trying to create a mutual exchange of information, techniques and the like. The same thing happens to me when I am introduced to German tourists as a “German” and then find that a life spent in Africa has left me with having nothing in common with the average German.
Physically there is no problem here. I watched both men grade and what they had picked up in three weeks was pretty amazing. My congratulations on that. And if Lloyd and Nigel were to study 52 for a similar amount of time and at the same intensity, I think they would do just as well, and for pretty similar reasons.
That however, is where it ends. We have something amazing, Piper (and “Form” style and other things). They have something just as wonderful. 52 blocks and, no doubt, a variety of other things as well. We want to share what we have with the world; we want the level of martial arts ability world-wide to rise by a few millimeters, thanks to what we are putting out there.
They feel that they are still oppressed by the people they see as their oppressors and from that perspective it makes perfect sense that you would not want to give someone like that a gift consisting of something that is incredibly precious to you.
From where we are standing it looks as if they are perpetrating the same racism they feel so bitter about. It appears to us as if they keep on tearing off the scab so as to make sure that the wound keeps bleeding, but, as they would say, we are not in their shoes and do not and could never understand. Agreed.
They see themselves as African, which to them is a sacred and special identity. That much I do understand. To us and to every baggage handler and taxi driver whom they might address as “brother” they are American tourists, raised in America and representative of American culture, with broad American accents, having nothing in common with a Xhosa or a Zulu (which they have some kind of fixation on, maybe because Shaka was powerful and the Zulu occasionally kicked white ass, which they as the oppressed have never been able to do??). In that specific sense even I, with my German Passport, having lived here for 42 years, am more African because I have lived most of my life in Africa. (For the record, I consider myself a “Capetonian”, if Cape Town issued passports and was a separate entity such as Athens, Thebes and Sparta in ancient Greece, I would have gotten my Capetonian passport long ago.)
Again, we are both speaking English but not communicating at all.
And so it continues. So, I repeat my novel and to me utterly sensible suggestion as to how to resolve this concept. I like 52, but I can live quite happily without it. They like Piper, but they can quite happily live without it, although of course they don’t have to, since two of their number have already absorbed the basics and since hopefully both Nigel and Lloyd will be presenting seminars in the USA sooner or later and since there will be e- books and possibly other resources available.
Any kind of mutually beneficial relationship would depend on a giving from both sides, which, by their own admission, they are not interested in or only interested in under such conditions as would probably be unacceptable to us. There have even been certain suggestions that we would need to ask some sort of blessings from so-called African elders in the States, some of whom have probably never even been to Africa. Not that such a trip would have any relevance to being a “heavyweight” elder in these communities in the states, since being African is an identity, not a field-trip, they might say in response. We have as much use for such blessings as we might have for a 10th Dan certificate from some martial arts organisation.
Anyway, to close this off. Guys, my passport says German but my heart(and that is all that matters in the end) is Capetonian. And , looking at Cape Town’s position on a map, that, as far as I am concerned, makes me an African. Not your kind of African, not enough tint for that, but an African nonetheless. I wish my friend Kaya well, and, should I ever meet him again, I will certainly have a happy smile on my face and love in my heart. It would be nice if he would feel the same way. As for the rest, I will take my own advice and let my African/American friends travel down their road in their world, which is not the same world I am living in.
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