5 Stars of Expertise

 I am a huge likert scale fan, and I have found that there are 5 levels of expertise in martial arts, and that this also goes for other subjects, and it applies to the difference in my personal skill levels when it comes to fighting vs. dancing. So let's apply it to fighters first:

1. A one star martial artist is someone who's fighting skills are a result of being athletic, naturally tough, or having taken a few hours of self defense training. There are life long martial artists who are only at this level because the way they train martial arts has little application for fighting.
2. A two star fighter is someone who has trained to fight specifically in the past casually but on a regular basis, or someone who has multiple elements from one star (a weightlifter who has taken a self defense class for example.) It could also be someone who on the job uses a system for manhandling opponents such as police, bouncers, or hospital security.
3. A three star fighter is what popular language calls a "black belt," in other words someone who has studied enough fighting to teach classes on how to fight. People who have trained martial arts in a way that is good for training to fight for multiple years usually fit into this category. This is the category most combat sports coaches fall under.
4. A four star fighter can be identified one of two ways. First they are the best student of a three star fighter/martial arts instructor, identified as being formidable enough to defeat their own instructor in a fight. (If an instructor can NOT produce this kind of fighter, than what kind of fighting instructor are they?) Second, this could be a fighter who fights in higher level tournament competition, or a fighter who fights in public matches.
5. I didn't know 5 star fighters existed until I found myself on the mat with one in a knife fight. People had warned me that there are these really dangerous people out there you will rarely see in competition, but which are feared by 3 and 4 star fighters. Ramsey Dewey describes a Tai Chi fighter like this who the high level Sanda fighters in China sometimes train with. Things I have noticed about them as I have encountered them myself: A. Most of their training time is spent on developing their own skills, not teaching others. B. They are NOT into publicizing their abilities, their skill level is a legal liability to them if they have to use it in a real situation, and since they aren't pro fighters or instructors they are not making money from people knowing what they can do. C. They are all into free sparring, but they don't want to take the injury risk of training in fight camps to prep for matches or tournaments, least bit participating in those fights. As a result, they do NOT accumulate the same career ending combat sports injuries pro fighters do, which allows them to train longer and accumulate more skill than what you would seen in say the UFC. 

How can I say there's a higher level of fighter beyond a UFC champ? There are two factors: 1. UFC fighters are train for the highly specialized rule set of the cage. 2. UFC fighters train for long extended matches, relative to real fights that typically end in less than 30 seconds, they are literally training for a specialized type of fighting that is not most fights. UFC champ BJ Penn learned this the hard way:

Now that was a VERTICAL left hook that knocked out BJ Penn, a highly specialized technique that requires a significant amount of training, but this is not to show that guy BJ Penn was up against was some 5 star fighter (though it's possible,) only that UFC is not the ultimate standard for what constitutes "good fighting" as that skill set can be inadequate for most types of fights.

I classify myself as a 3 star fighter. Most of the keyboard warriors who criticize me would not last 30 seconds against me, that's just the reality. I am however fully aware that an average MMA fighter going at it at a Casino every couple of months, is a level of fighting skill entirely beyond me. I am highly specialized in knife fighting and practical strategy for self defense and in that one area I might be 4 stars, but over all I am very typical 3 star fighter.

What I have come to realize as I have started dancing and exploring different venues and dance cultures, is that I am a 5 star dancer. I show up at clubs where there's something going on I find entertaining, and my biggest concern is that the other good dancers will stop dancing just to observe me. But I don't teach, I am there for my own personal entertainment and frankly to steal other people's dance moves I like and modify them to make them my own.

Why?

When most people go to a dance, they dance a few songs. I dance all night. If 50 songs are played and they dance 5 songs and I dance 50, I got 10x as much practice that evening. Most people who enjoy going to dance venues maybe around twice per month. I prefer to go twice a week. This means I get 50 x 4 (200 times) more experience dancing than most other dancers. The other issue is though I took a very long hiatus from dancing for 25 years, before that I had been to hundreds of dances, always with the intent of getting better at dancing. Then I do something others don't: train at home on my own time. In my senior year of high school, I would practice dance moves to a metronome with a mirror alone in the basement. Then there's the formal training: a year of ballet in grade school, and a year on a ballroom team in High School. And then yes, there's the martial arts thing on top of all that, adding to my over all physical coordination. Finally, I study all forms of dance whenever I can (with a few exceptions for safety reasons (such as daggering or break dancing,) though I enjoy observing those more physically dangerous forms of dance.) I have recently added salsa footwork and some sort of mambo footwork into my repertoire, and I have taken a local Zumba instructor (who was rumored to be an excellent dancer before she got into Zumba) seriously as a dance floor rival. I've been to Country events, Islander events, etc. etc. even thought he main scene in my area right now is really EDM. 

So... I don't even know how to teach my moves to others... I tried to show one young lady at a club a few weeks ago for a move I had done, "it's just a crip walk with a knee roll from Jazz dancing..." and she was just left looking at me wondering what any of those words meant. I think back on the price I paid to learn each element of that technique and realize there's no place she is going to learn it, and as a 5 star dancer I have no incentive to teach it.

I am not the best dancer in the world, I suspect that for example Flint Flossy is probably a better dancer than me. However you have to be at a fairly elite level far beyond the average dance instructor or professional dancer to adequately challenge me on the dance floor.

Blinding Makeup

I admit I watched the first 4 seasons of Love is Blind more or less as they came out. It really got me thinking in a more nuanced way about romantic relationships. However my big take away was a lot stranger: Men don't like makeup. 

There are a few different situations in Love is Blind where the relationship is going well until the man sees the woman and then something strange happens: though he's happy with her physical appearance, he suddenly stops trusting her. In a few cases towards the end of the relationship (mid seasons) she stops putting on make up and the man suddenly warms up to her, and in at least one case actually says it was the make up putting him off.

When a man sees a woman's face that has a lot of makeup on it, he doesn't know if he likes her face or not, what he does know is he is looking at a woman who feels like she needs to wear makeup. It is at least in my opinion ALWAYS more attractive to see a woman's face without makeup on than with makeup on. A lot of the subtle intricacies of a woman's face that can make her unique and stand out from others are covered up by makeup. A whole bunch of laddies standing around with faces that look almost exactly the same because of the latest trend in makeup is very off putting. A woman standing near that crowd who used NO makeup (all other factors being equal) instantly stands out as far more attractive than the ones with the painted masks on their face.

Of particular alarm to me was a recent trend with long fake eyelashes. They were hideous and universal. It was almost like someone in the makeup industry wanted women to be less attractive to men. In the show "Too Hot to Handle" on Netflix where the show's producers attempt to reign in notorious sexual behavior with their contestants, we frequently see these attractive women with and without their makeup on, with the gigantic eyelash thing being a big part of their makeup routine. In every scene the women are always far more attractive without their makeup than with their makeup.

So what's with all the makeup? I am reminded of scams like Mary Kay that are pyramid scheme style companies who sell makeup. When a woman attempts covers up her faces it is inherently deceptive regarding what her real face looks like, and this deception is expensive to her because makeup is not free. In an MLM makeup scam, that deception is then used on the woman to drag her into the scam, leading her to think makeup is more normal and valuable than it actually is.

Now don't get me wrong I get that little makeup used with careful moderation is not some great evil. However it's clear to me that it has gone way too far in recent history, now having the opposite effect of what it was originally intended to have, making women look like clowns instead of looking good.