IMHO forums stink!

Web forums are the bane of my existence. Political forums were my first foray into this weird and ridiculous virtual world. Yes, politics is weird already and the opinions thrown back and forth might as well be wet cow manure. I've only attempted a few times to get into discussions, especially when Bush was elected the second time. Wasn't worth it. Way too much crap tossed about that the truth was muddled. And Christian/religious debate forums can be just as much a nuisance. Oh my word, I've never seen so many people try their best to outsmart each other, it wasn't even funny. And if they weren't trying to outsmart each other, they were trying to outmature or outwisdom each other!

Forums are like that anyway, people laying out their writing "savvy" to be heard. I admit, I always did my best to sound knowledgeable whenever I was pulled into a commenting tete-a-tete. Thing is, whenever the person I was debating with started to give worthless opinions based on anecdotal evidence just to prove his point, I would stop talking to him. I don't want to deal with simple-minded and unsubstantial arguments. But even with the correct arguments, if I followed through with the conversation to the bitter end, what good would that have done? A man convinced against his will...

Yes, I'm sure there are people who excel at this forum thing - strong, brilliant Christians who do their best to represent Christ well, who have their heads on straight. They do exist; I'm still following the writings of a few of them. There were some great points made on the political forums and I've read incredible discussions on theology in the Christian debate sites where I'm always learning new things.

But what really captures my capra aegagrus are martial arts forums. A few of them in particular.

I trained in Jeet Kune Do Concepts for some time and it helped me to be a more open-minded martial artist. I also came from a traditional karate background so I understand the "my style is superior" mindset as well. Once I understood the martial arts, that it's the scientific analysis and practice of self-defense with the progressive development of an individual, I became even more appreciative of the different martial arts of the world. I even thought I could learn a few things from some martial arts forums and talk to like-minded people. Some martial arts forums are decent. Then there are a few that allow for the most obnoxious people to puff out their chests. Those are intolerable. Three sites are black-listed, and I won't honor them by even mentioning their names. They have some childish punks running their comments off. Yes, they may sound intelligent, but in the end, they don't have the openness and courtesy for me to afford them any respect. In fact, because of their lack of credibility, I have no use for their opinion.

In my martial arts development, I'm at the point where the principles of Guided Chaos/Ki Chuan Do is my source of greatest learning. I don't see any other approach to self-defense teaching and practice that is going the direction I'm going - in GC/KCD I found something like the unified field theory of martial arts. There are others I learn from, like TFT and Fast Defense, but Guided Chaos is my bread and butter. There are those in the self-defense community who bad-mouth GC/KCD. Apparently, they've never practiced it and I don't think they ever took the time to even try to understand it. Then I realized, in the self-defense community, there are those who have the "my style is superior" mindset like in the traditional martial arts community. I've learned to leave those people alone. I've also learned to leave those forums alone. If they choose to be close-minded, then I can't do anything about it. I on the other hand will continue to train and keep my eyes peeled so I can learn different approaches. Doing so will only help to develop me beyond the narrow confines of elitist and isolationist thinking.