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So... about your sig - MMA and then being a monk? WTF?

Are you RPing or are you for real?

What's so bad about MMA? And are you actually training MMA? or are you just watching UFC and copying?

You're a ******** retard. You talk s**t about MMA, about how those guys are grown up thugs, yet most fighters have college educations.

And you want to be a monk. Last time I checked, the monks you see on TV are no different than circus clowns performing tricks for tourists. What's so real about your Shaolin bullshit?

I'm not an MMA fighter, but MMA takes alot of hard work. If you're training MMA with the mindset you have, you probably get beat up all the time at training. WHere the ******** are you fighting? Or do you mean SPARRING, because anybody can spar.

Post a video, you ******** n00b

To be fair, he could just wanna be a bonafide normal Buddhist monk....not a Shao Lin monk/actor.

That certainly does not make sense what-so-ever.

(posts 2nd time around, hopefully it'll work this time)

Aiya, looks like I'll have some explaining I'll need to do. I'll go down the list of your post...



First off, lol, what the hell? Did I really strike that much of a cord with you? You really need to get over yourself if I made you THAT angry over my last post.

Now, your point about a lot of them going to college, yes, I don't deny that either. Let me tell you about a friend I had back in high school. He used to hold some sort of underground fighting thing (not really underground, just wherever there was open space and dark >_> ), he would have people place bets, and often try and make matches where he knows 1 side is going to win so he could bet on him and make a lot of money. Aside from that, he's also the lets go party and get as wasted as we can type of person. He's currently going to college. I know plenty of people like that. Just because you go to college doesn't automatically make you any better, hell, it doesn't even make you any smarter even, I know plenty of idiots attending a college. The reason I used the word thug is because of what I see on TV and what I've seen in real life. People after they win act like they just accomplished something great, like they're king of the world, running around like they've really accomplished something more than just beating a person up. That's essentially ALL they train for. Their main focus is to beat somebody up and that's it. I don't reallyknow of any MMAtists that get into zen, philosophy, or self improvement for a reason OTHER than fighting. That's one thing I have a problem with. Not to mention my second fight in MMA, which I'll get into a bit later.

Yes, a previous poster was right, I could become just a monk in general, not a shaolin monk. Though I'm not entirely sure yet, though I'm leaning more towards shaolin. Quick lesson, usually monks make their money via donations from other people (think of it like a church collection plate where they don't have to pass it around to get people to donate). Unfortunately, when you live around a very poor area, you don't always exactly get all the donations you need in order to feed everyone. People approach the shaolin monks very often and ask them to do things such as demonstration, a lesson on their culture, history, and people, ect. If they've run out of money for food, they figure it's better to showcase than to starve to death, so that's when they either let cameras tape them, or go to the public and give a demonstration, ect. As for your little comment about them being circus clowns or whatever, lets try not to make fun of people who are simply more mentally, physically, and spiritually developed, ok? That just seems stupid to me. stare

I know MMA takes a lot of hard work. I never said anything to the contrary. I know a few MMAtists, and I know how hard they work, they do train very hard and I'm impressed with how much blood, sweat, and tears they can put into training sessions. My argument was never against their hard work. Why in the world would you bring it up then, is beyond me.

If you couldn't guess it, I do not train in an MMA gym, I train in a traditional MA dojo. Our mindset is to save our lives in a no holds bar encounter, not a ring or even a tournament (We're really traditional). In a ring, I gotta put in a realtively good amount of focus, cause the gloves and tape on them prevent me from moving my wrist freely, or at least as much as I want, and, obviously, I cannot do anything like kick the groin or punch the throat, as since this is nothing more than a sporting competition, I do not want to hurt my opponent. Are you talking about that mindset? Or do you mean the they only focus on hurting other people mindset? Because if it's the latter, then wouldn't that make me focus just as much so I avoid getting hurt?

You asked me to post a video, idk if you ment my training or my MMA, I don't have either. My record is 1-1, and here's an article about my first fight with a picture of my opponent afterword: http://windycitymma.com/index.php?id=14

The part of my article is: In heavyweight action, Youlian Banov of Mt. Prospect, IL faced off against Scott "Irish Pitbull" Furr from Lafayette, IN.

The massive Furr outweighed Banov by 40 pounds and his fiery demeanor had everyone thinking Furr would simply overwhelm his stoic adversary with brute force.

Banov, however, came out in a stance that paid more homage to karate than mma which seemed to befuddle Furr who was unable to elude Banov's crisp strikes and was quickly bloodied.

Furr was able to rally in an attempt to turn the match into a brawl and landed some big shots that bloodied Blanov's nose. But Banov recovered quickly and landed a big left that snapped Furr's head back. Banov did not waste the opportunity and swarmed the woozy Furr for a win by TKO at 2:37 in the first.

The only correction is he outweighted me by 67 pounds, not 40. He was 20 pounds over the heavyweight weight limit.


Now as for my second fight, here's a nice little encounter that really hardened my view on the thuglike image. The quick details, during the entire time they made us wait, they played music that had the bass turned up so high, you literally could not hear the other parts of the song. The halftime show was a bunch of half naked girls dancing, and the "main" girl being extremely overweight with appearently a really big butt, which the dancing paid more homeage to a stripper/cheap whore combination than anything else. And for the grand finale, it seems both my dad and friends that were there all saw a lot of money being passed around, a good portion of the people passing the money were promoters, other fighters, and during halftime even the ref. My dad was backstage with me and saw a lot of it, I was more focused on warming up in my area of the room than other people's actions. Though I do remember one fighter coming in and complaining the referee did something that was appearently complete and utter bullshit, making the match a draw instead of his victory (which according to my dad and friends again, was blatently obvious that the ref was trying to pick sides).

Finally, my fight. I'll give a step by step and explain how the fight went, from the first bell. We come in, circle each other a bit. He hits me with a kick to my calf. I slowly come in, throw and hit him with a punch. He goes down and picks up my legs. I get my arm around his neck and start choking, but I lose my grip over his head and he takes me to the ground. He throws a punch which connects while I'm on the ground, pulls back to throw another, I get my hands ready to block/counter. Ref jumps in, pulls my opponent off of me, and says the fight's over. I get a little pissed off, thinking he declared him the winner, but he told me I won. He said it was illegal to hit me on the head when that was the only part of my body on the ground. We're in illinois, and a lot of rules are different, especially for ametures, but something still didn't seem right to me, as I don't ever recall reading that. The ref doesn't even raise anyone's hand, as the crowd began to throw bottles and whatnot into the ring.

I get home, and a few weeks later I get curious over that rule the ref said, so I go on line and look at illinois rules, and there's nothing of the sort. I go look at the official results on line, and it said my opponent won on the count of strikes. My friends and dad previously talked about how they've seen a lot of money being thrown around, so it didn't take much for me to put 2 and 2 together. And that's the story of my 2nd fight.



For those wondering why I'd do something as violent as MMA while wanting to become a monk, well, there's a reason I'm not a monk yet. I still don't have the correct mindset, and there is a part of me that does enjoy the thrill of competition, as much as I wish it doesn't. I see it was a great way to test at least some of my MA skills, and a very good form of training. But I am not proud of this, either. I'm not a perfect person, I have flaws, and that's just one of them.


Now, here's where I'm going to get a bit insulting and do a bit of flaming. You actually called me a ******** noob. Who in the HELL, above 13 years old, calls somebody a noob in an actual real life argument outside of video games? Do you seriously expect me to take you seriously after you call me a noob? Did you seriously call ME a ******** retard, then proceeded to call me a ******** noob? My God....

no, it wasn't just that 1 bad experience, I had this opinion long before I even had my first match, that experience just made my mindset a lot more set on it. I personally don't like the celebrating because I do not like any form of gloating or bragging of any sort, and the celebration is a form of gloating, and sometimes it is just way overdone. Yes, you worked hard, but that doesn't make you special, plenty of people worked hard. It just so happens you worked harder than that 1 particular opponent, I don't see a reason to run around the ring screaming your head off. It was one opponent.

Yes, on TV you do see a lot of that. But it is not always the case. I heard from one of the people that schedules fights for me that in the first place I fought, I left early right after my match, but soon after the next match or something, the fighters ended up getting into a fight backstage because of some trash talking or something. Probably because of too much gloating.

The first (at least eastern) martial arts, shaolin kung fu, was created not for the purpose of beating other opponents, but bodhidharma saw the other shaolin monks shivering in cold because of the weather, and knew there's no way they could become any form of spiritual leaders if they couldn't even take care of their own bodies. Shaolin kung fu was born, by a bunch of monks, so there was the first eastern martial art, I think it's safe to assume that some philosophy was put into it. You can train in the martial arts without any form of philosophy, that's pretty much all I did my first 2-3 years of training, I only wanted to become a fighter, only know deadly fighting techniques, quickest way to kill my opponent, ect, without really caring about any other aspect. Eventually it dawned on me that I cannot become the best martial artist I can be just like that, and life is just a lot better if you do put those into play. Granted, the samurai originally focused only on killing techniues, because they were in a constant state of war. But as things quieted down, the sword that gives life began, it'll prolly take me another 2 hours of typing to explain the meaning behind the sword that gives life, so I'll skip that for now unless you want me to go deeper into it.

Yes, you are very correct about the fighting aspect, any martial art that sacrifices it's brutal fighting aspect is not a true martial art in my class, just some philosophy class with a bit of exercise. Even the most peaceful of martial artists aknowledged if you have to be in a confrontation you should end the fight as quickly as possible, which usually required a lot of brutality to make sure the opponent stays down and leaves you alone. Martial arts is not some zen class, nor is it some barbaric form for murdering people. Balance of yin and yang, be as peaceful as a calm lake, but as fierce as a hurricane. The way I see it, at least. Needless t osay, I disagree with your idea that martial arts is not a way for spiritual enlightenment. You won't exactly reach nirvana, but you can become a lot more in touch with yourself and who you are, as I've seen personally. It was only around the 1930's which some of the greatest martial arts masters alive during that period got together and said that they needed to lighten the image of the martial arts, which I know at least 1 kata in my MA was a result of that.

If a person wants to learn a martial art for the sole purpose of fighting, I feel that is only a bastardized version of the true soul of the art. You consider the moral standards to be false, but I don't. But it's really funny that you brought Miyamoto Musashi into this, as he is one of my favorite martial artist, and I have spent a great deal studing his entire life. A book I'd reccomend on him is "Miyamoto Musashi: His Life and Writings" by Kenji Tokitsu. It goes into as much detail as it can about everything. I don't ever recall him being refered to as sword saint, but demon of the sword sounds about right, though I can't fully recall what the exact nickname was. I don't recall the book or any other reading of him dancing on the grve of his opponent, either.

BUT, it's kind of funny, not to insult you, I'm sorry if I do, but you clearly do not know anything about Miyamoto Musashi. A short, broken down version of his life. Up until the age of 30, he had the mindset which you have and I used to have. Then he realized there was something more to the martial arts than just slaying his opponents, he felt that wasn't the only goal. He WAS a master of philosophy, zen, tea ceremony, painting....all the stuff I talked about, basically. He felt at the end of his life the ultimate level of martial arts was to be able to defeat your opponent without having to kill him, achieving kizeme. Which after the age of 30 he did quite well. Some things to note, he also felt like I do that any martial art that takes the war aspect out of it is not a true martial art, and any martial art that was all about killing your opponents was not a true martial art, neither. A good portion of my ideals came from him.

If you wish, I can go into further detail about my ideas and philosphies of the martial arts (warning, it'll be long, lol), ideas such as the sword that gives life and how the peaceful aspect can make you stronger. But just so you know, I understand why you feel the way you feel, as I said I used to feel the exact same way.