There is a huge diversity of belief when within the mainstream LDS faith, with possible differing opinions on many topics. Here I will explain what my current opinions are on various common LDS disagreements.
My basic principle behind all these opinions is "quality of evidence over quantity of evidence." In general a witness statement is more accurate: 1) how soon it was after the event happened, and 2) from a first hand witness. When we get into recollections from long after the events happened or start playing the telephone game, evidence deteriorates in quality. This has caused me to be what I call "Vanilla 90's LDS." In the 90's we generally considered embarrassing "facts" about the Church to be attacks by anti-Mormons:
1. I think the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica, at the dates suggested in the book. The quality of evidence for the Mesoamerican hypothesis is superior to alternative theories:
2. I don't think Joseph Smith Jr used a "magic rock" to translate the Book of Mormon, I think he did it with the tools that came with the plates...
3. I seriously doubt Joseph Smith was a polygamist. In a nutshell:
4. I think polygamy has always been a sin, and that when ever it has been practiced, it has been a mistake. I don't think God has ever commanded anyone to do polygamy, I think it's a social contagion that forces of evil use as a weapon of mass destruction against humanity:
5. I don't have a big problem with Brigham Young going off the rails and the LDS Church still being of God. Jesus had Judas, that doesn't mean Jesus wasn't the real deal. Normally when organizations change as much as the LDS Church did between the time of Joseph Smith Jr. and the time of Brigham Young, that organization will continue to go off in that crazy new direction. Instead with the LDS Church we saw big course corrections making it like what Joseph Smith Jr. established in the first place. I take this as evidence that this is not "The Church of the Prophets of Latter-Day Saints," but "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."
"Ex Nihilo" is the belief that God created the world out of nothing. The "Problem of Evil" is an argument against God existing: it is impossible for a Good Creator of the world to exist because the world has so much evil in it. This Problem of Evil argument depends on God creating the world out of nothing and thus intentionally bringing forth evil.
But the Problem of Evil's premise of Ex Nihilo is totally and completely wrong:
God created (past tense) the universe out of chaos? Consider all the great religious teachers throughout history, Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus, more recently Martin Luther King Jr., Joseph Smith Jr., Pope Francis, etc. What is the one thing they all ask us to do in the name of God? Be better people than we are NOW. IF God has spoken through ANY of these leaders, God is using this world as a tool to help make us better people. Therefore God is creating (present tense) the universe out of chaos.
As evil (chaos) preceded good (creation,) when one of God's creatures exercises free will to chose evil over good, that's not God's fault. Evil was already there, and bringing forth creatures with free will into the universe IS more opportunity for creatures to choose good and thus become good. Creating creatures with free will is a risk God takes in order to make the universe a better place.
Some have wondered if evil is the shadow or absence of good, or does evil have it's own agenda? I say it is both: the status quo of the Universe and our world is dark and chaotic (as Earnest Becker said "...red in tooth and claw, destroying all she creates...") and that the only significant justice and mercy that comes to the Universe that we know of is established by humanity (literally through humans.) God is literally using his children to make the world a better place. Evil is the default state of the universe, and good is thus the shadow or absence of evil.
But I mean shadow here in a most sinister sense: a predator stalking it's prey. Good consumes evil: bad situations are a creative opportunity to create better situations. Evil can cry and squirm and tell nasty stories about good, and though much evil may eventually escape good's hunt, evil's protest will not keep good from having it's feasts. The universe is a massive lemon grove with no delicious fruit, but God & friends are lemon-aid enthusiasts.
Push Hands refers to a wide range of exercises within the Martial Arts. Most fighting styles that train in push hands do not practice all these types of push hands. Here I will describe the general types of Push Hands:
The most common form of push hands is done as an exercise to build the attribute of of feeling what your your opponent is trying to do. The most common of these drills is single-hand push hands in Tai Chi (though there are also other sensitivity drills in Tai Chi that are both one handed and different from this one, and two handed sensitivity drills):
Again push hands is trained in many different fighting styles. Here are push hands sensitivity drills found in Goju Ryu Karate:
Tai Chi is well known for improving the attribute of balance, aka fall prevention. Part of how this is done is with push hands drills were two resisting partners try to get each other to move one of their feet. There are actual completions in this type of stationary push hands, and most "internal" Chinese fighting styles have practitioners who participate:
Resticed Step (or "fixed step") Push Hands is a bridge between Stationary Push Hands and free sparring. Because no one wins fights by simply getting someone to move their feet, Fixed Step Push Hands allows for higly limited foot movement in order to create the kind of momentum that can result in putting the opponent on the ground or out of the ring. There are different variations of Fixed Step Push Hands competitions, and each variation is very technical:
Moving Step Push Hands is essentially the safest possible form of free sparring. The object is to get the opponent out of the ring or off of their feet; basically Sumo without the head contact. The most injurious techniques such as slamming your body down on your opponent, striking, joint locks, etc are not usually allowed:
There is a lot of variation in Moving Step Push Hands. In some schools or competitions they allow elbow or shoulder strikes to the body, or wrist locks, and various other grappling techniques not usually seen in other Moving Step practices. For example here is a training video from Chen Village which shows an in house Moving Step Push Hands workout allowing quite a bit of head contact:
You know how in boxing it gets boring when the referee has to break up the fighters from the clinch? Moving Step Push Hands is essentially that fighting which should be allowed instead of having referee interference. Moving Step Push Hands is then a base to build on for other types of free sparring, such as fighting on the Lei Tai or sparring with weapons.
In Tai Chi and other marital arts we often see instructors adding more striking techniques from forms to the Moving Step Push Hands for free sparring. Just for example, here is a casual Tai Chi practitioner in black pants applying his Tai Chi free sparring against a Kickboxer in a Lei Tai fight, and you can clearly see his Push Hands technique:
Another range of combat that can be built on Moving Step Push Hands is weapon free sparring. For example:
The term "Martial Arts" is vague and could mean anything from doing Tai Chi line dancing in a park to fighting in a Sumo tournament. But usually when people say "martial art," what they usually mean is training in a specific fighting style. This is complicated by people not understanding the difference between training in a fighting style vs training for open fighting. While fighting styles have self defense applications outside of open fighting, open fighting is any competition where different fighting styles can be used against each other.
Here are examples of different martial arts to help you distinguish between fighting styles and open fighting in the future:
MMA is the most obvious example of open fighting. One of the most famous MMA matches of all time was Holly Holm vs Ronda Rousey. Ronda Rousey had a winning streak of 10 undefeated MMA fights using primarily her background as an Olympian level Judo player, and she primarily relied on Judo inside of the cage. Holy Holm trained with the same Gym and coach as notorious MMA dirty boxer Jon Jones, with coach Michael Winkeljon, who learned to fight from Kenpo master Bill Packer. What proceeded was a classic Kenpo vs Judo MMA match, with Holm using Kenpo style low kicks ("oblique kicks") instead of Thai kicks to weaken Rousey's legs before knocking out Rousey with a classic traditional high kick, and during the fight used the "just stand up" strategy traditional martial artists insist fighters should use in MMA when entangled on the ground:
Wrestling is an example of fighting styles that are clumped together to be mistakenly referred to as a type of open fighting, when in fact these individual wrestling fighting styles aren't employed against eachother (outside of some other form of open fighting like MMA.) American Folkstyle is the most serious Get Up Grappling, Greco Roman studies how to grapple without using your weaker arms against the opponent's stronger legs, and Freestyle is what people typically think of as Olympic Wrestling. A wrestler in the USA might practice all three types of wrestling, but they will be the first to tell you that these three wrestling styles are strategically different from each other, and different approaches have to be trained to succeed in each one.
Judo is a good example of a fighting style that is often mistaken for open fighting. It is very rare that a non-Judo practitioner will try to participate in a Judo competition. Even though each individual Judo practitioner specializes in their own personal subset of techniques, all Judo blackbelts are expected to be able to competently execute the same curriculum of techniques.
Submission Grappling is actually a collection of different open fighting rule sets. Examples of fighting styles that compete in Submission Grappling competitions are Sambo, Catch Wrestling, Gracie Jiu Jitsu, 10th Planet BJJ, various styles of Japanese Jujitsu, etc.
Boxing is probably the open fighting most often mistaken for a fighting style. If you compare Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s "Philly Shell" fighting style to Mike Tyson's "Peekaboo" fighting style, both have practitioners who are famous and competent boxers, but everything about the fighting styles are different: stance, structure of their strikes, internal vocabulary for describing techniques, footwork, head movement, training methodologies, etc. This is also true of Muay Thai were many people mistakenly believe that all Muay Thai gyms share the same exact set of strategies, techniques, and training methodologies, which is not the case at all.
French kickboxing, known as Savate, generally has a the same set of techniques, strategies and training methodologies from gym to gym, and is thus a cohesive fighting style which other styles generally do not compete in. Same is true of Dutch Kickboxing, notorious for their brain damaging hard sparring practices, a hybrid of a Dutch style of boxing and Kyokushin Karate. Note that practitioners of the fighting styles of both Savate and Dutch Kickboxing have competed in Muay Thai open fighting.
Karate is an example of how many different fighting styles get confused with each other because they were put in a category together, even if they were never part of the same fighting style at any point in known history. This is also true of Kung Fu, but to a much greater degree because Kung Fu is much older.
Sumo is a classic example of a highly competitive fighting style, that though highly regarded as a sport in and of itself, is not regarded as open fighting precisely because only Sumo trainees fight in Sumo tournaments.
Moving Step Push Hands is open fighting similar to the fighting style of Sumo, but without palm strikes allowed and a more technical scoring system. A wide variety of martial artists from different fighting styles, often practicing different fighting styles from Tai Chi, test to see who is best at staying in the ring and on their feet.
San Shou is an example of how different nearly identical practices can be confusingly similar but refer to totally different martial arts, yet be called the same thing:
"Wushu San Shou" is the type of Wushu focused purely on fighting. This is the type of San Shou people earn degrees in at Universities in China. These fighters mostly fight only other Wushu San Shou fighters, and is thus a fighting style with best practices for specific techniques and strategies.
Tournament Lei Tai Fighting that uses a rule set similar the Wushu San Shou rule set, but which is used at tournaments for fighters from very different Kung Fu systems to compete against each other, is also sometimes called San Shou. This is is some of the oldest open fighting around today, with numerous fighters trained in different fighting styles participating. This is what was meant by "San Shou" before "Wushu San Shou" ever existed:
"The standard of truth has been erected. No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done." —Joseph Smith, 1842
Unhallowed has two definitions: 1. unconsecrated, secular, or 2. unholy, wicked. A hand in this context means an individual with an agenda working to achieve an objective, or in other words an agent. So the Unhallowed Hand would be a Unconsecrated Agent or an Unholy Agent. The succession crisis after Joseph Smith's assassination happened because it wasn't expressly clear to everyone who should be the leader of the LDS if both Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed simultaneously (as they eventually were,) so that Brigham Young could then be considered the Unconsecrated Agent leading the LDS. However I suspect Brigham Young has played a far more sinister role in the history of the LDS, and that the title of Unholy Agent or Antichrist may apply to him.
What is "the work" that will not be stopped from progressing? From Joseph Smith's personal view it could be only one thing: the LDS religion Jesus founded through Joseph. Why were people mad at Joseph Smith and wanted to have him killed? No matter how you look at it, the biggest factor was rumors of polygamy, and more than anything else was causing mobs to combine, persecutions to rage, and eventually in the case of the Utah War (1857-1858) literally the US Army assembled against the LDS . To this day Brigham Young's calumny, in accusing Joseph Smith of pedophilia and adultery in the form of a rewriting of history to justify Brigham's own foul sexual practices, is one of the biggest philosophical problems holding back the growth of the LDS faith.
Brigham Young also introduced other false doctrines LDS have since totally rejected in favor of what Joseph Smith taught before. Let's look at how Brigham Young's Antichrist doctrines confused the plain and precious truths of the Gospel:
Adam-God theory degraded Jesus Christ's (same as Jehovah in the LDS) role in the Universe, placing Adam somehow above Jesus. In Joseph Smith's view and in the LDS view today, Jesus was the principle creator of the world including the human species. Brigham Young taught that Jesus was something less.
Brigham Young's "Blood Atonement" doctrine taught that adultery was so serous that Jesus Christ's atonement alone was not sufficient to save someone from that sin, and that the adulterer would have to pay with their life in order to be saved. Adultery would be a surprisingly common sin for Jesus's sacrifice to not cover, so that again we see Brigham denying the power of Christ established in the Bible, Book of Mormon and teachings of Joseph Smith.
The most obvious sign of a benevolent all-knowing God is he would tell you to completely abstain from alcohol and tobacco, because of the suffering caused by the health and social consequences from the recreational use of these substances. IF Jesus is God, you can pretty much tell what church is His by looking at who takes this rule the most seriously. The LDS rules around forbidding these substances were revealed in 1833, "...adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints..." clearly intended for all LDS members. However Brigham Young went so far as to make and sell whiskey, which has about 4 times the alcohol content of any wine ever described in the scriptures. Brigham Young refused to promote the LDS rules regarding substances established by Jesus through Joseph Smith, and instead encouraged members to break those rules.
Today the LDS and most other believers highly frown on divorce, because of the consequences it has on individuals and society as a whole. Jesus in Mathew Chapter 5 vs 31-32 describes divorce as a form of adultery. After all the huffing and puffing Brigham Young did over the importance of marriage, Brigham had 10 divorces!
Brigham Young twisted specific verses of scripture to mean the opposite of what they obviously meant. For example Jacob Chapter 2 is part of a huge sermon against polygamy, where "seed" has been established as "righteous people" and "things" have been established as various sins or abominations. Verse 30 reads "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things." In context this clearly means "I command you to be monogamous, otherwise you will sin." However Brigham Young considered this verse to be an exception allowing polygamy, undermining the intention of the entire sermon.
Today in the LDS community we have high expectations of our leaders, and though everyone is a hypocrite sooner or later, we really expect them to do their best to live the gospel. We also expect them to refrain from judging people as much as possible, only enforcing the most important rules in the LDS faith. This is all reflected in Mathew Chapter 7 where Jesus warns us about being hypocrites and to tread lightly when we judge others. Brigham Young on the other hand pretty much just made up the rules as he went along to suit his whims, constantly threatened people with an adverse afterlife for not going along with his Anthichrist schemes, and (as per this list) was probably the biggest hypocrite in the history of the USA.
If the LDS is a religion that is primarily about following modern prophets, then this means that the LDS religion was completely derailed at the time of Brigham Young, right? Not according to the prophecy above from The Wentworth Letter, which specifically said any such Unhallowed Hand would not stop the LDS religion from spreading throughout the world. Let's look at LDS spiritual practices to see how high priority "following the prophet" actually is. In order to even become an LDS member in the first place, you have to embrace the "First Ordinances and Principles of the Gospel", which are:
“The First Presidency have of right a great influence over this people; and if we should get out of the way and lead this people to destruction, what a pity it would be! How can you know whether we lead you correctly, or not? Can you know by any other power than that of the Holy Ghost?” — Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 6:100
Yes indeed Brigham, yes indeed. LDS reject the "Trinity" creed, and believe that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are separate individuals, so then why is the name of LDS not "The Church of Heavenly Father of Latter Day Saints," or "The Church of the Holy Ghost of Latter Day Saints," or "The Church of the Prophets of Latter Day Saints?" The Unhallowed Hand has shown us that regardless of who sits on the throne in Salt Lake City, Jesus Christ is the true leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Ranking Martial Arts videos are extremely shallow and uninformative. First they are nowhere near specific enough. Second they have poorly considered critieria. Third the scales they use on YouTube are pure trash.
So how specific would you have to get for these ranks to be meaningful? Even Kung Fu critic channel Fight Commentary Breakdowns has come to acknowledge that Choy Li Fut (CLF) is one of the premier fighting systems in traditional Chinese Martial Arts. But not all CLF schools are into free sparring, because of the vast encyclopedia of techniques within the system, there are hundreds of forms to the point were you either have to sacrifice forms practice time for free sparring, or free sparring time for forms practice time.
In the late 90's, the Twin Tigers CLF school in Bremerton WA produced various combat sports fighters including Margaret McGregor. Meanwhile an hour away, the White Snake CLF school in Seattle WA didn't believe in free sparring because it created "sloppy technique," and sulked about not being invited to perform at Chinese cultural events. About 5 minutes away from White Snake, a Mak Fai CLF club dedicated Friday evenings to free sparring, even though they were more recognized for their Lion Dancing.
All quality control issues within Kung Fu aside, these Ranking Martial Arts videos have similar problems when describing other martial arts. They frequently consider Boxing to be a cohesive fighting system when in fact we see drastically different training methodologies, techniques, strategies and definitions from gym to gym within the same cities* (for example Bumble Bee's Boxing [side stance, jab-centric, everyone fights orthodox, spastic hard free sparring] vs Cappy's Boxing [more front stance, safer free sparring] in Seattle.) Another common mistake is considering "wrestling" to be a cohesive martial art without specifying weather they are talking about American Folkstyle, Greco Roman, or Freestyle, which all have very different implications for self defense strategy. This failure to specify continues as they consider Aikido, Karate, "kickboxing," etc.
Typically what they are ranking, regardless of what they say they are ranking, is how effective these martial arts are in MMA. However MMA is not very appropriate for self defense because it doesn't address self defense issues outside of the cage or defending yourself with legally viable options. MMA is a horrible lens for evaluating martial arts when MMA strategy is so different from what you need for self defense training.
Very little consideration is given to the types of grappling that is useful for self defense. The Internal Skill is taking people down while you remain standing and able to maneuver under hostile conditions. Escape Grappling is getting out of an entanglement on the ground if you get taken down or end up on the ground on accident. Most people making these Ranking videos do not even understand these self defense grappling issues in the first place.
Little consideration is given to the health aspects of how these martial arts impact the practitioner. Is being a brown belt in BJJ better than no training at all for self defense, if in your BJJ training you have earned yourself various back and joint problems? Is boxing helping you defend yourself if your speech is becoming slurred and you are developing potentially fatal neurological problems?
I have said this before, but more consideration needs to be given to weather or not the martial art teaches physical and practical skills of value in the first 100 lessons. Most of these Ranking Martial Arts videos are being made by life long martial artists who can devote a large amount of time to training. This makes it harder for them to see things from the average martial art consumer's view, who has considerably less time to devote to training. Judo can make you deadly in 5 years. Cool story, most do not want to do anything close to as dangerous as Judo, nor do they want to devote all of their spare time to learning any martial art for 5 years.
There is only so much of YOUR personal opinion that OTHERS find meaningful, and only so much precision actually matters. The scale they have been using in these videos is trash: S = Super, A = top grade, B = Good, C = mediocre, D = bad, F = total waste time. Some also include an "E" in there, being generally unfamiliar with the American grading system, though there's no "S" in that grading system either. Notice how they just can't settle with an A, they just have to have that extra special higher-than-A. That is the level of intellectual discipline these childish videos adhere to.
A Likert scale would be the appropriate way to scale in videos like this. Likert puts things on a 1 to 5 star scale, where agreement is what is being measured. Agreement is key because it is literally what is being evaluated (the opinion of the creator.) 1 to 5 is appropriate because any more precision then that (say "5++") is not actually meaningful to anyone besides the creator. 1 = I can't agree with this in any way. 2 = I think this is incorrect. 3 = This could be correct, but I am not convinced. 4 = This appears to be correct. 5 = I know this is correct.
When multiple authors come together, their scores can be averaged to give us a familiar 1 to 4 scale rating. Let's say I do a Ranking Martial Arts video on grappling styles, and include BJJ, Freestyle Wrestling, Judo, american Folkstyle and Greco Roman. Let's say I rate American Folkstyle at 5 stars, but the other person making the video ranks it at 4 stars. Now we have a shared ranking of 4.5 stars. This then translates to the following comprehensible evaluations: less than 2 stars = trash. 2+ stars = mediocre. 3+ stars = Good. 4+ stars = Amazing.
Conclusion
*If you are going to make a martial arts ranking video, use a Likert scale, use meaningful criteria, and be specific:
All martial arts have blind spots. As a martial arts consumer advocate, it think it is important to look at the reasons why people do NOT train, and then look at issues with specific popular "combat sports" that are popularly recommended because of their practical hands on fighting skills they teach. In general combat sports provide built in training motivation and quality control as the next match or tournament is always approaching. Far more importantly combat sports always incorporate the most important aspect of martial arts training, free sparring.
However there are universal problems with virtually all combat sports:
1. Risk of Injury: As Penn & Teller described in 2010, virtually all martial arts, though I would add especially combat sports, come with a much higher risk of injury from participating in them than not participating in them. Without any self defense training at all, you probably won't have an encounter in a self defense situation that will injure you as badly as participating in combat sports probably would.
2. Sacrificing long term health for short term performance: training in a health practice like Tai Chi or Weight Lifting usually keeps longevity in mind, but when training for sports your top priority for training is doing whatever it takes to be victorious in your next competition. You might be surprised at how bad that actually can be for you:
3. Huge time commitment: when you are training for sport, you are in an arms race with other athletes, and the main personal resource you are spending that can give you a competitive advantage is how much time you spend training.
4. Basic self defense questions unanswered: there are three basic self defense problems that have to be answered by any self defense system. First there is getting attacked by someone with a knife. Second there is being attacked by someone much larger than you are. Third there is getting attacked by more than one person. Combat sports generally disregards these questions because these questions are not important for the next upcoming competition.
Now lets look at individual combat sports we see frequently referenced in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA,) and why not:
Good luck finding wrestling clubs that train adults.
Wrestling is even more injury prone than most other combat sports, because of the high emphasis on landing on top of the person whom you are throwing.
While most of the wrestling in the USA is American Folkstyle, some is not American Folkstyle nor is most wrestling outside of the USA, and as such does not train Get Up Grappling, while being just as injury prone as American Folkstyle, including: Greco Roman, Free Style Wrestling, Judo, etc.
Boxing is one of the best martial arts of all time for self defense against multiple attackers, because of its high level footwork and practical, potent strikes. But aside from the universal problems with combat sports:
Most boxing gyms prefer "hard sparring" which is the least safe type of free sparring, and training boxing casually long term can lead to neurological health problems.
Boxing has more blind spots than most martial arts, with no strikes allowed besides your fists and virtually no grappling or take down defense.
Third boxing relies heavily on closed fist strikes to the head, which puts you in danger of boxer's fractures and infections from teeth lacerations on your hand.
Muay Thai is probably the best martial art for most martial arts consumers, because of it's high emphasis on practical techniques like low kicks, tripping throws, knee strikes and elbow strikes, as well as it's high emphasis on very safe free sparring. However, besides the universal problems with combat sports:
There is a high level of pressure on people who are getting good at Muay Thai to compete, and the intense training for that fight and the fight itself is far more injury prone than casual Muay Thai training.
Muay Thai has some reliance on closed fist strikes to the head, which puts you in danger of boxer's fractures and infections from teeth lacerations on your hand.
BJJ has the best quality control of any martial art because of their ranking standards being tied to tournament performance: if you are a higher belt, you are expected to win against any lower belt in a BJJ tournament. However, besides the universal problems with combat sports:
BJJ is highly specialized and seriously lacks relevance to self defense situations: most of the submission holds can easily accidentally kill someone (potentially creating worse problems for you than getting attacked in the first place) OR trades injuring the attackers limb for you being down on the ground with the attacker being angry with you.
BJJ is even more time consuming than other combat sports over the long term: to reach black belt you can expect to train 10 hours a week for 10 years.
Though BJJ is better at avoiding the big injuries found in Wrestling styles like Judo and Greco Roman, BJJ's free sparring doesn't have the same longevity benefits as the safer free sparring in Muay Thai, and usually BJJ practitioners are experiencing joint or back problems long before they reach black belt. For self defense, is it better to be a black belt with back and joint problems or to have no self defense training at all?
BJJ is somewhat socially destructive because it discourages the practice of other martial arts. Two popular MMA gyms within 90 minutes of where I live were started when BJJ organizations forbade the practice of Muay Thai and/or FMA at locations that were already teaching multiple martial arts. The whole point of UFCs 1-3 was to try to show that there was no reason to practice any other martial art besides BJJ.
So with this all said, even though combat sports for the most part have good free sparring practices and quality control, they are insufficient for the needs of the average martial arts consumer as explained above. This is why it's important for us reconsider older options and construct new options as we move into the future.
