A noticeable uptick in “my kung fu is better than your kung fu” rants has hit the shooting community lately.
Here’s the thing: your kung fu is not your kung fu.
First, stop pretending that your kung fu is the only kung fu. You are not the only person who knows how to handle a gun. You are not the only person who understands the difference between IPSC and the OK Corral. You do not exist on some higher plane because you like to shout “warrior” and “fight” a lot. People have been shooting guns (and shooting other people) for hundreds of years. Clearly, the vast majority succeeded without your particular flavor of Secret Sauce. You might have some awesome stuff, but odds are it’s not magical dust that deflects bullets.
Second, stop pretending you invented kung fu. Call me a victim of my particular academic background, but where I come from we learned to cite sources and give credit. If you’re teaching the same exact grip that everyone and his brother has been using since Weaver went the way of the dodo, don’t pretend it’s your baby. Don’t take what you learned last year in a 2-day shotgun class and suddenly start talking about “the shotgun method” you’ve developed.
You can be an absolutely fantastic instructor teaching a tremendously effective program without suggesting that everyone else is doomed or that God delivered The Warrior Method to you on a tablet.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
“You can be an absolutely fantastic instructor teaching a tremendously effective program without suggesting that everyone else is doomed or that God delivered The Warrior Method to you on a tablet.”
Someone owes IT a new keyboard. Spit-take worthy, Todd.
You’re not the only one who’s noticed a lot of this lately.
It’s getting bad out there with the shameless self promotion… unfortunately there are a lot of “warrior” groupies enabling this (who should also know better)…
Sounds like you’re just jealous that my kung fu is better than yours…or maybe its the other way around:-)
I hereby dub this industry boring and redundant…and boring.
Right on!
I call them Ninja skills. Something I thoroughly enjoyed about your AFHF class was the lack of Ninja skills, just good basic skills to learn for the moment when things go bad.
Amen. [sigh]
I understand the importance of marketing and “brand identification”—but some people seem to start believing their own marketing blurbs, and suddenly we get Al Gore inventing the Internet.
🙂
I had to laugh out loud recently while watching a youtube video of a self-appointed shotgun guru.
He loaded up 7 shells in a Mossberg 930 SPX, fired all seven in a tough, tactical looking, over-forward leaning stance, then…
He backs up and scans his area while with his eyes and shotgun. He does this numerous times. It looks all cool until you realize – HE IS SCANNING AND POINTING AN EMPTY SHOTGUN!
He had already fired all 7 rounds he had loaded. Dude, reload or drop the scattergun and go to your pistol, but to do an overly animated scan with your head and empty shotgun…
Oh well, what do I know, I’m just a couch potato, country-boy.
Dann in Ohio
Excellent!
My sensei can beat your sensei up.
But I have a training cert that says Im a 9th level ninja!!!!
The same conflict that has been going on for centuries.
Please put “My KungFu is better than yours.” on a PistolTraining.com t-shirt and bring it to class in ATL in March. I’ll buy it. That’s hilarious.
Great post.
First off its Gung fu you white devil. And secondly brazilian ju jitsu kicks all the kung/gung fu ass these days.
And besides my penis is bigger than everyone else’s anyhow.
USPSA is just a sport! IDPA is for real, for real!
Tastes great! Less filling!
I have a black belt… it holds my gun and holster…
Dann in Ohio
Recently took a pistol course in which the instructor started by saying that he teaches “A” way, not “THE” way. And said that if the techniques he teaches just don’t work for you, then use ones that do.He also gave credit for some of the things he teaches to the people who first came up with them.
He must have read your post by time travel.
I don’t know anything about Kung-fu, but I mix a mean batch of Kool-aid.
Wait… There is a difference between IDPA and the OK Corral?!
How bout this instead:
My skills as an internet commando are far superior to your skills as an internet commando.
or
Well, I’m on the mall security tactical response unit!
I’m a 12th degree white belt.
This is just marketing. There is currently a proliferation of people trying to make tactical instruction a full-time gig. Knowledgeable shooters are not the target market for most of these guys, so they sell themselves on being tacti-cool.
These same knuckleheads though are the same people first in line to buy the latest and greatest. Whether we like it or not, that is the largest portion of the firearms industry. There is a reason why S&W makes a Judge-ripoff and H&K still sells their guns with shitty sights… it’s all about the Benjamins.
Reminds me of something I read once:
“Men use equipment to sell their own selves. As if with the nut and the flower, the nut has become less than the flower. In this kind of Way of Strategy, both those teaching and those learning the way are concerned with colouring and showing off their technique, trying to hasten the bloom of the flower. They speak
of “This Dojo” and “That Dojo”. They are looking for profit. -Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings, 1644
Apparently this is not a new phenomenon…
Ahh, screw M4carbine.net…You’ve taken 6 carbine classes from LAV and Kyle Defoor, but you are overweight and can’t punch your way out of a wet paper bag. The odds of you having an heart attack at age 40 are about a 1000 times greater than you ever getting into a gunfight with your BCM/Daniel Defense carbine.
hahahahaha
+1 to LOKNLOD. One disturbing thing I’ve noticed is how people that used to be affiliated with a school, after they leave and strike out on their own, immediately bad mouth everything taught at the former school.
I have no time for “I am better than you” posts.
Luckily, most good instructors don’t fall into this category. The guys who actually know what they’re doing aren’t the ones who feel the need to label themselves as “special” or claim that they invented pants.
Who needs pants on the range?!
Dude, have you been outside lately? I’ve taken to wearing multiple pairs!
I can honestly say I’ve invented nothing when it comes to shooting. Everything I do and teach, was taught to me by others, like Todd here, Ernest, Jarret etc. And I always give full credit when discussing technique.
The day I figure out some ultra super technique is the day I have a heart attack in surprise.
I honestly try to train as many different methods of a skill as I can, giving credit where is due. It means I’ve done my job and might actually know something. Although the matador cape fighting technique might be my own, not sure.
Is it considered an extra serious warning sign if the instructor has named a technique after himself?
^ not necessarily, because I can think of Rogers/Chapman/Harries for flashlight technique. I think those guys were legit for their time.
What instructors were you thinking of, Tam?
As one who has virtually “gone to war” with some instructors and their claims (as Todd can testify!) it’s not a new trend, but it is always a disturbing trend. To me the saddest part of the “Mine is better than yours” are the number of sycophants that leap to the defense of their chosen WarriorNinjaInstructor instead of maintaining an open mind, even to the point of defending criminal behavior, dishonest actions, and false claims. There is no one-size-fits-all “best”, just varying degrees of “different”.
We could end this silly debate by simply acknowledging that every technique taught and marketed as the “latest and greatest” is simply an adaptation or repetition of a Jeff Cooper technique. There is nothing new.
BK – I wouldn’t say that every “tatest and greatest” technique is “an adaptation or repetition of a Jeff Cooper technique” as I think many of those were tried and found wanting by the Colonel.
I can just hear his reaction to putting red dot optics on pistols – “Why?”
+1 on BK’s post. 99.9% of the sound techniques being taught today can trace their roots back to Jeff Cooper and the Modern Technique. Great Post!