Rating Racism

Everyone has biases against those of other ethnicity. The question is what do you do about these biases? How effectively you approach this question determines, in my view, just how racist you actually are. Using a simple scale of 1 to 4 stars, here's how I would categorize an individual's level of racism:

1. One star are people who have a high level of awareness of their own cultural biases, they actively work to keep their own biases about groups of other ethnicity in check, and they actively use any privilege they have to keep their environment as friendly to people of all ethnicity as possible. These are people with a solid intellectual understanding around racism and actively work against racism. The best historical example of this is Dr. MLK Jr., the one with the holiday in most of the US.
2. Two stars are friendly people who focus on treating everyone equally, but who aren't particularly focused on issues of ethnicity. They openly recognize racism as a problem in our culture and address issues around racism as soon as possible before they become more problematic. Without meaning to, these people will frequently make minor social errors like bringing up others ethnicity in casual conversation.
3. Three stars are people who generally feel racism isn't a significant issue in today's society. These people are often out of touch with their own cultural roots, and have given very little thought to how their ancestor's behavior influences their behavior today. They frequently make major errors around diversity issues without realizing it, creating potential lawsuits against their employers. The vast majority of people who say "I am not racist" fit into this category.
4. Four stars are people who are overtly racist per say. For example they may exacerbate racial conflicts for political agendas, or belong to groups that have recently been known for being unfriendly towards specific ethnicity. These people are either very defensive of social errors they make, or they are making comments that are intentionally offensive. For example someone with a tattoo that identifies them as unfriendly to certain minority groups is most likely in this category.

The vast majority of the USA are 3 stars racist. The next largest group is 2 stars, then 1 star, and 4 stars racist is the smallest but yet incredibly common category. The number one thing that seems to reduce racism IMHO is education level, though I have certainly met more than a few PHD's who still fall into the 3 star category, and I have met 1 star activists who did not have much more than a GED level of education.

See also: http://youtu.be/_f4oHtXHHYQ?t=11m55s

History of Internal Martial Arts Styles

There's a lot of explanations of what the relationships between the various internal martial arts are, with lots of stories about ancient masters and inclusions of styles so obscure you will never encounter them. I am going to try here to summarize it in a way that only mentions common styles and their relationship to each other. First, understand what Tai Chi is:
http://bfgalbraith.blogspot.com/p/what-is-tai-chi.html

Tai Chi comes from "Wudang Quan," which refers to the old Toaist Martial Arts, just like "Shoulin Kung Fu" refers to old Buddhist martial arts. Wudang Quan is practiced as a style today, and generally looks like a very fast and athletic form of Tai Chi:

Older forms of Wudang Quan also gave birth to the following martial arts styles, starting in the 1600's:

• Chen Tai Chi
• Other old-school Tai Chi like Chen but not Chen, like Wudang Dan Pai, Zhang, etc.
• Hsing-I (a very linear style with a high emphasis on strikes)
• Pa Kua (a very circular style)

In the 1800's Chen Tai Chi was mixed with Hsing-I and Pa Kua and highly standardized by the Yang Family, forming Yang Tai Chi. This became the most popular of all of these arts, and was spread far and wide in China. Yang Tai Chi then in turn gave birth to other styles of Tai Chi:

• "Wu Shu" Tai Chi (has a low emphasis on application and sparring, and a high focus on aesthetics.) This is often called Yang Tai Chi but real Yang Tai Chi has a high focus on application and sparring, and its forms are focused on application rather than on performance aesthetics. Unfortunately this is the most common type of Tai Chi today, and is the style that gives Tai Chi a bad name.
• Chi Kung is exercises originally taught in the Yang Tai Chi, but in Chi Kung no thought is given to application, sparring, or performance, it is only a set of fitness & meditation exercises.
• Sun Tai Chi heavily elaborates on the movement in Yang Tai Chi, expanding it into more of an elaborate kung fu style.
• Wu Tai Chi  emphasizes application and sparring, it is a natural evolution of Yang Tai Chi and is most common style of Tai Chi besides Wu Shu Tai Chi.

All of these above 9 Tai Chi related martial arts are still practiced somewhat commonly today. The Japanese founder of Aikido was a student in China, and had exposure to at least one of these above martial arts there, and Aikido is the Japanese variant of the decedents of Wudang Quan, heavily influenced by various traditional Japanese martial arts.

Yi Quan comes from Hsing-I, and is highly abbreviated and focused on "the basic essentials."

In summary there are two general historical categories of internal martial arts. First are the styles that came before Yang Tai Chi: Chen Tai Chi, other old forms of Tai Chi, Wudang Quan, Hsing-I and Pa Kua. Second is Yang Tai Chi and those that developed at the same time or later, including Wu Tai Chi, Sun Tai Chi, Aikido, and Yi Quan.

Five Fight Factors

Martial Artists success in fights is multi-dimensional, and doesn't come down to any one attribute:


There are 5 factors I look at in a martial artist to gauge their probably success in a conflict; skill, strategy, size, stamina and spite:

• Skill is where martial artists excel. There are two considerations here: variety of skill and depth of skill. Keep in mind there's no such thing as a technique mastered outside of full contact sparring, so when considering the variety of techniques someone has, consider their sparring practices and what variety of techniques they often spar with. How perfected a technique is depends on how strong of opponents they are sparring and how much resistance can their technique overcome consistently.
• Strategy covers those techniques not normally practiced in sparring, such as eye gouges and groin kicks, but also running away, using the environment to full advantage, situational awareness and so on. Non martial arts related activities such as team sports, study and gaming can build strategic thinking. If a nerd waits for you to use the urinal and comes out of the stall with a mechanical pencil between your shoulder blades, you just got outsmarted through strategy.
• Spite is having an aggressive mental mind set that will assist you in doing what has to be done to win. Some call this "will to win," but there are many motivations and reasons to lack empathy that can increase spite in a conflict. Spite means you can't let yourself lose, there is too much on the line for you to let up on your opponent for any reason. Spite is your mental mindset beyond skill and strategy
• Size matters a great deal in self defense. The two sizes mentioned in professional fighting are the two dimensions to pay attention to: body weight and reach. People who are larger than you are harder for you to hurt, and it is easier for you to be hurt by them, just because of simple physics. However superior reach gives your opponent options you simply don't have: this is obvious at striking range where you can easily be "out reached," but even on the ground grappling they have a wider variety of places they can grasp you than your grasping options, and often can land submissions on you that you can't do on them.
• Stamina or in other words physical conditioning also plays a key factor, for two reasons. Most obviously the longer a fight goes on, the more stamina comes into play, and can completely determine the outcome of a fight if one fighter has poor conditioning. Less obviously and more importantly, the more stamina a fighter has, the more they can train and spar, and the more rapidly they can build skill.

Age can take its toll on all of the above, as less techniques become safe to spar with, strategic options decrese, wisdom overcomes mental brutality, bone and muscle density decay, and effectiveness of working out in the gym declines. Keep this in mind:

However some martial artists age faster as fighters than others, and that mostly comes down to how serious and frequently they are injured. One fighter might retire from MMA competition because of permanent injury in his late twenties, while another might not start competing until his early thirties. It is important to spar full contact, but it is also important to spar safely.

Let's take Brock Lesnar for example. With a background in real wrestling and money for the best private coaches around, Lesnar had formidable technical skill in the ring. Strategically he focused on exactly what was likely to win against each individual opponent, maximizing his personal advantages. He maintained a bully like fearless attitude that enraged critics and dominated in the ring. At six foot three and 286 pounds, he had superior body weight and reach. His stamina and conditioning is the stuff of legend, considered extreme even in the world of professional fighting.

From 2008 to 2010 he was the MMA fighter to beat, but then his health soured and he went back to professional wrestling after a few less impressive fights. The following is pure fiction portrayed by Lesnar, but illustrates the five fight factors: