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Need a review on this analogy.

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Thorsteinn:
I came up with this when being told that I was not a martial artist/historical swordsman for reasons X, Y, and Z. I came up with it to show how dumb the crap I was being told was. Can you give me feedback?
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Imagine that you are in Yosemite Valley.




And in this Valley we find upon the cliff, 300 feet up, a sport climber.




20 ft away we have a trad climber.




And 20 ft beyond him we have a free solo climber.



All three are sending their individual routes.

The Free Soloist turns to the Trad guy and says "Your not a real rock climber because you use protection like cams, nuts, and ropes. If you were a REAL rock climber you would only need a chalk bag, shoes, and your own will."

The Trad guy turns to the Sport climber and say's "Your not a real rock climber, because you clip in to bolts that are pre-set, and carry no more protection than the quick draws you need to use on those bolts. If you were a REAL rock climber you would climb unbolted routes and use cam's, and nuts to keep yourself safe."

The Sport climber says "What the hell?". He then looks up, down, left, right , and behind him. He sees the 300 foot drop, he sees the rock to which he holds himself, and he sees that all three of them are upon the same face and climbing the same rock. At which point he shrug's his shoulders, and continues up upon his way.
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Did that make sense to you? Did you see the point I was making?

-Ivan

Sir William:
An excellent analogy...I got your point.  I seldom enter debates such as this because I know what I know as does the other person and I'm not going to change my outlook because you don't agree.  Anyone who indulges in the practice of any martial art is in fact a practitioner/martial artist; as for historical swordsmanship, who is to say which avenue is the correct one to travel?  Whether you go in for SCA, WMA, HEMA, JSA or any of the other acronyms- they all have their place and they all have their own belief systems w/regard to eastern and western medieval disciplines, no one is more right than the other.  Well, ok, JSA has much in the way of documentation, tradition and schools of technique that we lack on the western front but you know what I mean.

Why did anyone feel it necessary to even say such a thing?

Thorsteinn:

--- Quote from: Sir William on 2011-03-04, 14:27:27 ---Why did anyone feel it necessary to even say such a thing?

--- End quote ---

Thank you & What do you mean?

-Ivan

Sir Patrick:
If I'm not mistaken, I believe Sir William is poking fun at the same people you are (narrow-minded, hairsplitters who think their way is the only way.)

Edited because I can't spell when I'm tired!

Sir James A:
The analogy seems sound to me, the only pitfalls I can think of up front are that we aren't "historical" swordsmen in that we aren't personally historical, but students of a historical art. IMO, if there was a historical art, which has been validated by fechtbuchs, and we are learning it, we're one of two things: students, if we simply read, or practitioners, if we pick up a blade. I can't think of any way to invalidate it if we call ourselves "practitioners of historical swordsmanship" or "martial arts students". Martial Arts does not mean Asian, like most people have been brain-drilled by movies. Martial is war, Martial Arts, the arts of war. Just because Sun Tzu wrote the book with that title, doesn't give him trademark ownership. :)

Though as with Sir William, I am wondering who said such, and why they feel justified in saying it?

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