That’s not really material.
Phil popularized some stuff in the US, that WAS truly original work of another person.
And a lot of it was not particularly technically sound.
Some of it was, though, and, once I went back and read all of the original works in context, it did change the way I taught Judo.
And, respectfully, read your own post, again.
It’s not like I am a Phil fanboy.
He, and his dealings, tore my Judo community apart.
Which I find, and found annoying, and still have not healed.
But, he did have a contribution factor, too.
Scars, and tiger stripes on bellies, and asses, are the price of giving birth.
Births are often messy affairs.
And live births are better than dead ones.
Yeah, I realized that when I wrote, it, LOL.
Must be the T8R.
My issue was he presented them as his own ideas as time went on.
Of course, his “business practices” color my view of him as well.
The white to red to white belts are and were all colorful, weren’t they, and aren’t they.
Red and White Belts for everyone!
Their reverse, certainly.
When we go into the halls of the dead,
We leave our knowledge, our treasures, our material possessions behind.
Stoic, Buddhist, or servants to pettiness, or fear, as mortals before we die,
As the dead, our hearts are guaranteed to be lighter than feathers made of lead.
As Achilles told Ulysses after his death, “fuck my name, I would suck the dick of a law man for a hot dog, or even a bit of shade, let alone a little glimpse of pussy”.
And the dead can only be summoned with blood sacrifices, as pale, bitter, and jealous shades of the living.
Even former Kings in the land of the dead, are lower than the lowest slaves in the land of the living.
If we are to believe the Greeks, and we have no reason to believe they lie.
Of course, that’s just ego.
When we die, we rot, into nothingness.
However, mathematically, given enough trials we were guaranteed to exist, and we are guaranteed to ti have existed, and exist again.
Patterns, repeat, maybe because the universes are lazy.
More disturbingly, for other reasons.
Right, don’t speak ill of the dead. Something like that.
I had a friend who said, dying doesn’t suddenly turn you into a saint…
It gets you half way though
I have a question. What about coaches that don’t care if you come often or not and just pay your dues. My judo coach yelled at me one time because I was gone for two weeks. I told him I had walking pneumonia. He then went on to tell the class I was sick and the rest of you better have pneumonia or something for not showing up for two weeks.
Sainthood has nothing to do with it in this context. It’s inside judo history in America, so there was a lot going unsaid that both of us understand already.
Did you call him and tell him you would not be at practice because you have walking pneumonia?
Did he try to contact you to check on you?
There is a book, KARATE STUPID by some dude who went to train in Japan to pad his teaching CV or sumthin’. He was admitted to the main branch dojo there and promptly got drunk at some nightclub and injured his foot falling from some raised platform. He called to say he had to take two weeks off because of the injury. When he went back, everyone was pissed at him and they rode him even harder during training and he did not know why. Later he was told that he should have shown up daily TO WATCH THE CLASS, and did not need to be told.
Of course, I am not trying to say having pneumonia is the same thing. But that is the mindset.
(The book is NOT recommended BTW. Think Twigger’s ANGRY WHITE PYJAMAS but without the literary merit, insight and honest self-reflection).
I’m familiar with that mindset via Judo. You had better be so sick are in bed… to not show up, or have a note from your medical provider…
I was in a car wreck, on my way to Judo training, in Fort Worth, TX. I lived in a city about 2 hours or so away, and it was a Saturday. This was before cell phones, BTW.
So I show up late by about an hour, of a 2.5 hour training session, with my Godan, Japanese, AJC champion (weight class), and silver world medalist in 1975, AND my home sensei.
My home sensei walked up to me, his judogi soaked through with sweat, and said “YOu better have been in a fucking car wreck or worse, or you are going to die”.
Then when I explained, I had indeed been in a car wreck, he went to the dai-sensei, and I did not end up dying anymore than usual.
No I didn’t call him and when I showed up later he said I should have called.