Ryukenkan Dojo - Tauranga New Zealand
"Karate in Paradise" - It's a rough task, but someone has to do it!
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Ryukenkan Dojo - Tauranga New Zealand "Karate in Paradise" - It's a rough task, but someone has to do it!
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Mafia Arts A Satirical look at Martial Arts schools and the practices and politics within… Warning: If you are in a serious frame of mind, or physically incapable of laughter – don’t read this article. New Zealand readers (and perhaps our West Island comrades <cheeky grin>) have just seen the end of the first series of “The Sopranos”, a high-paced thrilling story of a Mafia family in New Jersey. Anyway, enough of the TV review, after watching the whole series, it left me thinking about the apparent similarities between the Mafia and the Martial Arts… hence we move onto Mafia Arts… Let’s take a look at the operations of a Mafia family. We have the “Soldiers” or “Henchmen” (sorry, I don’t know the formal term), then in charge of them ,we see the Capo, or captain. Above the Capo, we have the Boss of the family. There are a whole bunch of families (each with a Boss, Capos and hench-people), and here is where the politics begins. Families have wars, families work together, families appear to work together while secretly having a war. The fun never ends! Now with that framework in mind, pause reading for a moment and see how your school fits into that mould. At the bottom , we have the students (“henchmen” and “henchwomen” I guess), they are all feverishly loyal to their Capo (Instructor) and totally live to do his/her bidding (or so we Capos would wish!) but occasionally we need to “send a message” out to our hench-people that discipline is the rule, not the exception. Each Capo has his or her different rackets which they run. Maybe it’s a self defence racket, or perhaps they teach a seminar racket, or maybe a natural healing racket. Perhaps it also extends to racketeering in the media – writing articles like this one! Above our Martial Arts Capos, we have the Boss (Head of the System), each Boss demands extreme loyalty. Each Boss also has their own racket, which generally involves skimming off the top of the Capos rackets (affiliation fees) along with a whole host of other rackets, normally run at a larger scale than those of the Capo. Failure to make good with your “tributes” can lead to having a limb removed (Most Instructors have felt the Boss’s wrath of being late with fee payments) Right about this point in time, some of you may be thinking “Nah, this guy is full of…” – but think about it… the politics are rife and everyone sees them, except perhaps the lowest hench-people (beginners and junior grades) who only see it when a big war looms (system splits). Sometimes, in the Mafia world, one family will shake down the rackets of another family – just to wind them up. Gee, I can’t remember the last time that happened in the Mafia… er, Martial Arts… Earlier on, I mentioned about how a Capo sometimes needs to “send a message” out to his crew. I don’t know about you, but to me, hundreds of press ups has about the same appeal as a bullet-ridden body with a dead rat stuffed in the mouth! Drug peddling is also at large in some Mafia Arts communities. I can think of plenty of Capos who openly sell natural health supplements to their crew and clients. In the early days, Mafia crews were famed for wearing slick suits, of similar cut and design (Al Capone and his boys come to mind here). We used to see this in the Mafia Arts, everyone wore the same suits, same cut, same colour. Nowadays, we see our Mafioso strutting their stuff in a more relaxed manner. We see different colours, different styling of suits. We see Capos wearing their own personal colours and cut. We see Bosses wearing individual stylings which no one would dare to copy. Once upon a time, the Thompson Machine Gun (Tommy Gun) was the chosen weapon of a mobster. We’ve seen nunchaku and shuriken have a similar fame within the Mafia Arts I believe. Finally, let’s move onto the politics, We see families who work together. We see families who used to work together, but don’t anymore. We see families who would run down each others Bosses and Capos if they crossed the street in front of their cars! Nobody likes politicians (mobsters) – except perhaps politicians (mobsters) or their mothers. We make our best efforts to duck, bob and weave around the sensitive topic of Martial Arts politics (hot flying bullets) but at the core of it, every Instructor (Capo) will, at some point or another, become embroiled in hot political debate (a savage gunfight) At the bottom line, we are all nothing more than politicians (mobsters) who wear funny pyjamas (slick suits) during waking hours and, at times, prefer to let our hands and feet (Tommy Gun) or weapons (drive-by shooting) do the talking.
And let’s face it – there’s nothing quite like a good gun fight just for fun! Hmmm, I think I’ll run for Government – I hear it’s legalised racketeering!
Originally written in 2000, Copyright Marty Rickard 2006 - All Rights Reserved
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