NO MORE TRAINING!

Martial arts is a phenomenon that has steadily swept the United States in the last couple decades and now, as it continues into its stellar orbit with the UFC and amateur MMA rings across the country, many people are getting into the art of whoop-ass. A lot of them actually do really well with their matches and get the ability to walk away with inflated egos that they fought hard to carry.
Some folks don't want to learn Jiu-Jitsu and take other classes like Tae Kwon Do or Karate in order to become better fighters. In addition to that, many boxers are stepping out of the hidden gyms. It seems that we are teaching our country how to fight and defend pretty adequately with no shortage of training camps.

• One thing I see less and less of, it seems, is the ability to teach that the arts are not for fighting, the arts are for peace. Training schools from any background churn out great athelets and fighters but where is the great discipline? What happened to great self control?
• What did the sensei teach the "karate guy" from Pensylvania who assaulted another man with a baseball bat? He made threats and followed up with violence!
• How about the woman from Arkansas that knocked out another girl and then, continued beating her while she was down. Where was the discipline training here?
• This problem even sits in the professional field of MMA (though, it rarely happens) with 'Rampage' Jackson and his driving antics. (Notice the support he gains from the reporter, this type of encouragement is trouble.)

I don't mean to imply that martial arts is a bad thing for our society. I would just like to see more responsibility coming from people that practice martial arts. As is the case with any undertaking in which you develop more power than others, without the self discipline to take on the power of martial arts and treat it (and now, yourself) as a weapon equally as dangerous as a shotgun, or a nuclear warhead, you are a danger to yourself and to those around you...including the people you love the most. I urge you to consider these things before taking up martial arts. If you are already in a school or training privately, please understand there is a time and place for war but peace is the desired result, not destruction. If you are a teacher, please consider teaching from the path of peace, even while training cage fighters.

Maybe it is a bit cheesy, but I often think about Spider-Man and the lesson he learned early in his crime fighting career that, "With great power, comes great responsibility."