{"id":5269,"date":"2018-02-06T12:24:32","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T12:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/?p=5269"},"modified":"2021-04-05T14:44:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T14:44:09","slug":"auto-didact-mark-hatmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/06\/auto-didact-mark-hatmaker\/","title":{"rendered":"You, The Auto-Didact by Mark Hatmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/h2>\n\n
\n\nNow, there's a title that needs some explaining. Sounds like I'm way off track for Western combat study and, perhaps, being a bit pretentious but, due to a bit of creative bankruptcy I can think of no better way to label what it is we do as Western combat enthusiasts. Eastern arts, for the most part, have a built in hierarchy of adherence to lineage traditions.\n\nIn other words, \"My Master was taught by this master and he was taught by...\" and so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong, direct lineage can be an excellent index of quality information transference but, it is not a guarantee of excellence. (Recall Joe Frazier's son Marvis. Marvis's boxing career seemed to be helped neither by the genetic lineage of his legendary father nor his father's hands-on coaching.)\n

Western Perspective<\/h2>\nWestern combat arts have less of a grounding in strict lineage lines--oh, it's out there don't get me wrong, but it is just not as dogmatic in most cases. It can be speculated that this obliviousness to lineage (not disregard) in the United States is rooted in the concept of self-made men\/Yankee ingenuity\/fierce independence that this nation fostered in its early years.\n\nWe can see evidence of this in our early frontier scufflers, wrestlers, and pugilists who learned their trade via the bumps and bruises accumulated in impromptu friendly (and unfriendly) pick-up matches rather than journeys to temples, or pilgrimages to a guru's hermitage.\n\nThey would hone their science by trial and error and by self-study (the less pompous word for auto-didacticism). We have numerous examples of these self-guided scrappers, whether they be John L. Sullivan honing his skills in pick-up matches or Ed \"Strangler\" Lewis trying out holds he learned from a guide by Evan \"Strangler\" Lewis.\n\nWe can also credit the fact that many of the western arts fell into disfavor (real pro-wrestling going fake) or, fading from common use altogether (as with many sword styles) with breaking up lineage lines. Whatever the reasons for this lack of emphasis on lineage it has not staunched the flow of solid information in the least.\n\nIn fact, it may be a boon for the western arts. Where the eastern arts often have a readily accessible and long line of tradition to draw from, this very characteristic may (notice I'm using the word \"may\") staunch experimentation. Western arts, with their less clear delineations, lead many practitioners to have to experiment with concepts, ideas, tactics, and technique not handed over on a silver platter. Again, this is not to say that all eastern arts fall outside of this experimental category but, it is far more common to find experimentation in the western method.\n\nEssentially, we are all auto-didacts. We are all self-taught. Whether you learn at the feet of a guru or, from the latest DVD, it is the individual who chooses to take the information and make of it what he can. Auto-didacticism seems to exist to a greater degree in western combat artists as the shallow lineage lines call for exploration.\n

Final Thoughts<\/h2>\nThis exploration leads to a form of combat archaeology in which the serious student devours every book, DVD, manual, that he or she can get his or her hands on. The serious student scours any and all resources he can, whether it be studying the reproductions of an old woodcuts, peering at photographs of the wrestling postures cut into the rock tombs at Beni-Hassan, reading the latest boxing manual, or popping in the newest DVD of choice.\n\nThe auto-didact is, in this sense, an archaeologist as he attempts to piece together obscure or forgotten ideas and reassemble them and synthesize them in a manner that is pertinent and valuable to the western combat artist of today.\n\nToday's methods of archaeology and auto-didacticism can, in a sense, be called a direct lineage to that spirit of Yankee individualism that fired many of our wrestling, boxing, western combat forerunners. Today's archaeologist has media and technology at his disposal to aid his task that were undreamed of a mere 30 years ago, let alone a century ago.\n\nIt is this thirst for knowledge that makes the diligent hard-training, DVD-using, cyber-literate auto-didact of today a direct lineal product of men such as Ed \"Strangler\" Lewis deciphering that Evan Lewis booklet over 100 years ago. It's a grand tradition. One that we should all be proud to be a part of. I know I am.\n\n \n

You, The Auto-Didact by Mark Hatmaker<\/em><\/p>\n Click here for instruction from Mark Hatmaker <\/a>\n\n

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Introduction Now, there’s a title that needs some explaining. Sounds like I’m way off track for Western combat study and, perhaps, being a bit pretentious but, due to a bit of creative bankruptcy I can think of no better way to label what it is we do as Western combat enthusiasts. Eastern arts, for the Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5269"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12894,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269\/revisions\/12894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}