id rather have less people doing it right than everyone doing it wrong.
I think the problem exists twofold-if people don't know something exists (in this
case 10th Planet) then they'll be more impressionable to other people's (often biased)
opinion about it (esp if they're training in traditional gi, or even just a nogi school
that only teaches the basics). So, if their instructor bashes the system because they've
never seen it or know who Eddie or Vinny Malg is (although that's starting to be a stretch now)
then they may just take their instructor's word as bible and never bother researching or
trying it. But say that student runs into someone else trying the twister, RG, or even
Lockdown/Old School, even if the technique is somewhat flawed, if they can see the principle
and manage to pull it off once in a while (even if it's on a lesser skilled opponent) as they
get better they'll naturally do more research and eventually want to go to the source itself
(in this case Master Eddie). I only discovered 10th planet because I walked by MTRG at Barnes
and Nobles one day and saw for the first time jiu jitsui without a GI and that was different. I
stumbled upon Richard's videos and TFW website within that same couple months. For some
of us who don't live within 90 min of a moon/hotbox/10th Planet the only thing we have to
work with is the MTS subscription, the books, dvds, and whatever we are able to experiment
on with willing training partners (and an instructor who allows us, there are some teachers
who won't let you use the Truck etc in practice). But the student who sees the idea will eventually work hard enough to want to find the people who do it right, and then from there
prove everyone wrong. When I first walked into one of the schools I train at now on ocassion
the instructor off the record openly called RG "crap" and gave the usual objections. The other
week I hit the twister on one of his best female students, and I routinely break down kids
there into Mission Control. Although he doesn't admit it you can tell he's seen I managed to
keep my hope in the techniques alive long enough to practice and eventually find video with proper form to hit it.
I won't say I'm picking sides in this debate
(somewhat of a devils advocate crossed with an unbiased voice) but I feel that Richard means
well (I've spoken with him before and alot of what he does brings him little if any profit,
alot
of the money he charges for the downloads are just to pay for the cost of making the video
and sharing what he had the opportunity to learn from other people before him). I know some
of you may not agree or like what I've typed (and I know I'm still working to earn the respect
of alot of people on the forum) but I feel like for any gaps he's had in his videos I feel like
I've learned alot of good things too. Just my thought, I feel like maybe if people were this upset with Richard maybe they would reach out to him in an email and just ask openly what he
hopes to achieve, if there's anything I've learned in life is that you don't want to rush to judging anyone. If I've offended anyone here I'm sorry, I understand as a ROnin I may still come
across as a clown sometime but I wear the patch proudly on my shorts.
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