Emergency: Martial arts are to be provided in EVERY SCHOOL!

Reviews, Videos, and Everything Else Martial Arts in the News
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Exerpted:

April 24, 2005
Guest Viewpoint: Legislature ought never forget ‘The People’

Every two years, the Oregon Legislature convenes to conduct “The People’s” business. At least that’s the stated purpose of every bill that is introduced: All legislation begins with the words, “Be It Enacted By The People Of The State Of Oregon …”

With that profound statement, the sponsors of a bill profess to speak for “The People” of this great state. In a typical session, several thousand bills are introduced.

Anyone who reviews every bill - a daunting task - will find plenty of examples where “The People” would likely agree with the sponsors. Thankfully, many legislators go to Salem intending first and foremost to represent their constituents. They understand, correctly, that it was for this purpose that they were elected.

But there are also numerous cases where “The People,” if they had their way, would consign a bill to the recycling bin. These are bills typically born of powerful special interest lobbying or legislators putting their own agendas ahead of “The People’s” business.

The number of bills in the 2005 session is smaller than usual so far. But the mixture is typical in that it includes the good, the bad and the downright silly.

Many good bills have been introduced. Among them are about a dozen to crack down on Oregon’s methamphetamine epidemic (e.g., Senate Bills 375 through 379). There is an anti-spyware bill (House Bill 2302) and several measures (such as HB 2365) to undo the nonsensical school zone speed law from the 2003 session.

SB 295, aimed at the Coburg speed (revenue) trap, and SB 624, to prohibit insurers from using credit history as part of rate determination, are part of the “good” mix. So are bills such as our own HB 2484 to give citizens a greater voice in public processes.

These are only some of the current bills that most Oregonians would likely agree are “The People’s” business. They are responsible measures aimed at addressing real issues. However, many other bills would almost certainly never be enacted by “The People.”

Arguably heading the bad category is SB 769 which would authorize in-state college tuition for illegal aliens. Close behind is HB 2331 to revoke the annual minimum wage adjustment - a direct violation of a voter mandate. These and other similarly irresponsible bills should never even have been introduced.

Every session has its downright silly bills. Leading the 2005 list are HB 2344 and HB 2503 to require schools to provide martial arts training. Both are declared to be “emergency” measures! Joining them in silliness is SB 905 to rename the Historic Columbia River Highway in honor of Ronald Reagan. Such measures do nothing but waste the Legislature’s time, and these aren’t the only examples.

Full aritcle at
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/04/24/ed.col.ritter.0424.html

Hah, more MA in schools legislation news.
Surely there can be more than adding MA to a school’s curriculum if the real intent is to combat the epidemic of obesity.

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Here are the texts of HB 2344 and HB 2503

2344 says schools must offer Tae Kwon Do
2503 says schools must offer Martial Arts

These bills are are the creation of Korean Republican Oregon State Legislature John Lim - rep.johnlim@state.or.us

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Gee I wonder what special interest group he represents snicker.

Gringo Grande

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Here’s another story about it: http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=6043

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Bwah hwah hwah, I can hardly wait to see McPublicSchoolTKD. What is the man trying to do, screw over the TKD dojangs in his state by removing their kiddie market?

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I believe there is similiar legislation in the works in Las Vegas. My girl mentioned something about it. I didn’t think it was a bad idea.

As with anything it is going to depend on the implementation. Look at the Japanese model. I think they have Judo in physical education.

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Las Vegas!? That’s where my family lives. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Now I’ll have to defend them from ninjas!

cues Sho Kosugi vs. ninja hit team groove from “Revenge of the Ninja” (1981)

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Judo has all that “perfection of character” stuff attached to it (or at least it did when they introduced it into Japanese schools). This, on the other hand, only reaffirms my belief that TKD is really just a huge Korean pyramid scheme.

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silly idea

Yeah, putting Martial Arts in schools to combat obesity is an idiotic idea. I mean, the Japanese did it, and look what a bunch of fat-asses they are.
I personally think it’s rediculous that the current phys-ed classes teach things like baseball and capture the flag. Good excercise to be sure, but with a high crime rate like we have today, people need to know how to defend themselves. How to square-dance, on the other hand, doesn’t strike me as all that urgent.

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So here’s a question. If in the State of Oregon the vast majority of 12-18 year olds has a few years of McTKD under their belt, do you think that future brawls we see on video will involve chamber punches and double roundhouses?

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This is true. If they put the money into hiring someone who has actually trained properly in it, then it could be good. Unfortunately, though, I suspect they’ll use the same gym teacher who does all the other gym classes, you know, the one that looks like they’ve never run more than about 5 feet at a time in their entire life.

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Most states have laws and regulations requiring high schools to hire qualified instructor. If it passes, we will have to see what is called a “qualified instructor”.

When I was in high school, two of the coaches were Judoka (Resnik 2nd Dan, and Whelan, 6th dan) and 9 weeks of Judo was part of the curriculm in the the 2nd year PE classes. The school also offered sport karate/kickboxing as an after school program for anyone who wanted.

I think this is a good idea, but considering that there are two versions of the legislation, one specifinh TKD and the other generic MA, I think we can see where the real focus of this is.

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Well, I don’t think that it would really be possible for the public schools to implement quality TKD. The reason is that for insurance and legal purposes the public schools would not want to have students actually punching and kicking each other. So, it would necessarily be noncontact things like punching in a line, memorizing forms, and so on.

Furthermore, public school class sessions are usually really short; 30 or 45 minutes. There’s barely enough time to get changed, stretch, work out, and get changed again.

I think that a public school TKD program would be doomed not only to being pointless no-contact TKD, but to not even having more than around 10 minutes or so to devote to actually working on TKD.

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I think Judo would be great…

but folkstyle/freestyle wrestling would be a good alternative for all the Asian-haters

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Do they still hate and fear asians in the midwest, like in the 1980s and the whole brouhaha over superior imported Japanese cars?

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Whatever. Let them take their B.S. martial arts, at least maybe it will give them some exercise.

That’s pretty cool your high school had Judo. All we had was wrestling.

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They were also the wrestling coaches.

Edit: I did not start wrestling until after High School, and I suck

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don’t know if it’s as bad as it used to be, down here in Florida they’re polite but still racist, they just don’t realize that they are

exchange I heard at a hibachi between two rednecks while the cook was still standing there:
“What do you got to do to do this job?”
“Hell man, all you got to do is be fast with knives and look like a Jap”

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Oregon is just a weird state period. Does anybody take that state seriously? They try to pull a lot of crap laws there.

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This was the context of what my girl was saying:

(Granted she is now 34 and not the physical specimen she was doing cross country track in high school, but she is doesn’t fit the stereotypical out of shape gym teacher either. She is an excellent motivator and actually keeps her kids interest in PE class. They are involved and active in her class. Even when she teaches dance.)

She was talking with her male counterpart about the feasibility of bringing martial arts into the gym. The male teacher scoffed and balked the whole time. He KNOWS he isn’t qualified to teach martial arts…and feels like he would be expected to teach something he doesn’t know. (Side note: most PE teachers do this with most activities. IE: My girl knew NOTHING about lacross when she introduced it as an activity to her girls. She had to learn the rules, design lesson plans, and do skills drills, etc. The kids have fun, and several have gone on to play lacross at home or competitively AFTER her class). My girl had no problem with the martial arts in gym - provided there was funding. (critical note: most legistlators are quick to mandate something, but fall short when it comes time to pay the bill. See No Child Left Behind as an example).

My girl said she would contract out to a qualified martial arts instructor for the duration of the activity. It is something she wouldnt feel comfortable teaching, although she has done Judo and probably knows more about martial arts than many people on this site. Living here in Las Vegas, a major city, she would have no trouble finding good people to teach. Get Laimon, Nick Blomgren, or any host of other quality trainers. They would probably love it, as some of the kids might sign up for their regular classes after the public school segment ended.

That problem that we all see is that some standardized program of McDojo-esque TKD would be required by state lawmakers and actually dumb down the level of martial arts as well as give a false sense of security. Let’s be real here, no matter what KIND of training is given even muay thai + BJJ, will 10 year olds be able to defend themselves in 6 weeks training 2 hours a week? 12 hours of instruction TOPS? No. That is unrealistic.

It will however get INTEREST from the kids. You would be suprised how many gym teachers just throw a basketball out there and dive in their roll books for the rest of the class, leaving the kids to either play or sit and talk. Getting the kids interested with different TYPES of activities including martial arts is the key to getting them moving around. Get them to take a few classes at school and they might be interested in signing up after school where real progress can be made. Whether that activity is dance, gymnastics, martial arts, or freakin ping pong. The idea is to get the kids away from the bench, turning the TV off, and playing.

Like I said earlier. I am all for the idea. But good implementation is the key.