Hi Christopher,

Well, I can't pretend to know everything that has gone on, but there have been a few things I've seen. For one thing, if you are unfortunate enough to read Medieval Swordsmanship by John Clements, you'll notice that the author peppers the book with a series of vitriolic rants against virtually everyone in the world. He reserves a particular brand of venom for sport fencers, re-enactors and members of the SCA. This theme is repeated throughout his literature, from what I've seen.

Also, having spoken with a number of former members of the group, the prevailing opinion within ARMA is that no-one outside the group has any good ideas, and that most members see the rest of the WMA community as the enemy. My personal experience has been that lower-ranked members of the group tend to be agreeable enough, but that the group hierarchy tend to be rude and difficult to talk to, and downright abusive if disagreed with.

Now of course that's largely my opinion, I may have simply been unfortunate and caught them at a bad time, whatever. You may find you have entirely different experiences with them, I don't know.

It is also worth noting that ARMA members seldom attend other groups' events, so most contact with them tends to be via the internet; disagreements do tend to get amplified in this medium and it may be that a lot of issues would be resolved if people had more face-to-face time with members of the group.

@ Mods, I'm not sure if you will deem this post ok or not. Please let me know if this post is deemed too inflammatory; I'm not trying to stir up trouble, just answer a question.

Andrew

Overall you post is very one sided. I will try to present another side so as to add balance without adding fuel to any flames. It's just the other side of the coin.

Quote:

Well, I can't pretend to know everything that has gone on, but there have been a few things I've seen. For one thing, if you are unfortunate enough to read Medieval Swordsmanship by John Clements, you'll notice that the author peppers the book with a series of vitriolic rants against virtually everyone in the world. He reserves a particular brand of venom for sport fencers, re-enactors and members of the SCA. This theme is repeated throughout his literature, from what I've seen.

You have to keep in mind the time frame in which John Clements' book was written. In 1995 and 1996 when the book was actually being written those problems were major problems. And some have yet to go away. One only has to look at one of the current threads on this forum to see people still trying to say that SCA fighting is a martial art.

Quote:

Also, having spoken with a number of former members of the group, the prevailing opinion within ARMA is that no-one outside the group has any good ideas, and that most members see the rest of the WMA community as the enemy. My personal experience has been that lower-ranked members of the group tend to be agreeable enough, but that the group hierarchy tend to be rude and difficult to talk to, and downright abusive if disagreed with. Now of course that's largely my opinion, I may have simply been unfortunate and caught them at a bad time, whatever. You may find you have entirely different experiences with them, I don't know. It is also worth noting that ARMA members seldom attend other groups' events, so most contact with them tends to be via the internet; disagreements do tend to get amplified in this medium and it may be that a lot of issues would be resolved if people had more face-to-face time with members of the group.

ARMA members are rude? ARMA members never make the type of public Ad Hominem attacks that are so often made against John Clements. Yet, even in this very thread I was referred to as Ran Unpleasant. Oh it gets passed off as just joking but it is clearly Ad Hominem. Like so many others you didn't just say that you disagree with John Clements, instead you referred to his writings are a "rant"? ARMA members often disagree with people on forums but we don't refer to what they say as a "rant". And when someone wrote in this thread that, "This thread has become much more offensive than anything the author of the article might have written" he was not referring to statements by ARMA members. In light of this I don't view ourselves are rude.

We also don't view people outside of ARMA as enemies, but we are often treated that way by people. Case in point, look at the reactions from people anytime new material is put out by ARMA. ARMA members don't react that way when we see new materials from other peope. And we surely don't try to refute marterials that we have not even seen! Rather we analysis and tested new marterials in hard sparring, if it works we use it, if not then we drop it and move on.

Ran Pleasant
ARMA DFW

Hello Randall

Randall Pleasant wrote:

Andrew Overall you post is very one sided. I will try to present another side so as to add balance without adding fuel to any flames. It's just the other side of the coin.

Fair enough. I don't know your side of it.

Quote:

ARMA members are rude? ARMA members never make the type of public Ad Hominem attacks that are so often made against John Clements. Yet, even in this very thread I was referred to as Ran Unpleasant. Oh it gets passed off as just joking but it is clearly Ad Hominem. Like so many others you didn't just say that you disagree with John Clements, instead you referred to his writings are a "rant"? ARMA members often disagree with people on forums but we don't refer to what they say as a "rant". And when someone wrote in this thread that, "This thread has become much more offensive than anything the author of the article might have written" he was not referring to statements by ARMA members. In light of this I don't view ourselves are rude.

Actually, I didn't say I disagreed with John Clements at all. It wasn't the "meat" of the text that was the issue (or at least not what I'm talking about here) it was that every few pages the presentation of "Medieval Swordsmanship" would stop and there would be more vitriol. Initially when I read the introduction and first few pages of the book, I sympathised with and even agreed in part with Mr Clements. By the time I got 3/4 of the way through it, however, I was feeling pretty worn down by the continual repeating of the same few points. Hammering those same few things again and again is, in my opinion, a rant. I don't think it was an inappropriate choice of words.

That said, I also don't think I made any ad hominem attacks per se. If I did my apologies.

Quote:

We also don't view people outside of ARMA as enemies, but we are often treated that way by people.

As I mentioned, some former members of ARMA told me that. I made sure to disclose that as it is possible that it is simply bitterness on their part. Others can decide for themselves as to how much weight to put on those comments. Whether it is true or not, it is still going to affect how other people view your group and so it is worth mentioning that those comments are out there.

Quote:

Case in point, look at the reactions from people anytime new material is put out by ARMA. ARMA members don't react that way when we see new materials from other peope. And we surely don't try to refute marterials that we have not even seen! Rather we analysis and tested new marterials in hard sparring, if it works we use it, if not then we drop it and move on.

Well, that's rather the sticking point isn't it :D
No-one has seen it yet. Any word on when we will get anything of substance to see?
You'll notice also that I hadn't posted anything in this thread prior to the one you just replied to, as I am withholding judgement on this new material until I know what it is.

It is also worth mentioning that I haven't seen another group who say that "our new material is right, and everyone else is wrong" which is what most people are getting upset about. Very few people have commented on the material, a lot have commented on the perceived attitude behind the presented article.

Regards
Andy

Hi Randall,

Randall Pleasant wrote:

Condescending? All Craig Peters said in his first post was, "There's a new article from the ARMA up on some of the changes that have been going on in our interpretations in the past three years or so:". Craig didn't say you had to go read the article, praise the article, or change what you are doing. Nor did Craig say that you couldn't talke issue with something in the article. I replied to Steven Reich in my first post not because he had an issue with something in the article but because he had an issue with ARMA saying it took a large step forward in the recreation of these lost arts. Even then my post was composed mainly of questions. Was that really condescending?

Frankly, yes, I perceived it like that. The questions you ask are mainly rethorical, and were besides Steven's point. Instead of highlighting the counter-example he gave, you just quoted the part where he said that the article was not right, and responded about matters of method which everyone agree upon. In all the subsequent discussion you carefully avoided talking about what the article said and instead kept on going about how people were refusing advances. Your whole point seem to have been that we should trust you, not the article, that there were great things done inside ARMA. That you knew better than the rest of us. This is what I feel as condescending.

Quote:

Quote: It's true that some ad hominem attacks have been made, but sometimes the problem comes from a person indeed. Wait a second, are you trying to justify ad hominem attacks? I hope I'm mis-understanding yourstatement and please do correct me if I am mis-understanding you. Every scholarly disagreement involves two or more people but the disagreement never justifies an ad hominem attacks on any one of the individuals.

No, I don't condone ad hominem attacks at all. However, if I act like a jerk, I expect people to point it out (mods, for starters). This does not have to be understood as an element of debate. Ad hominem is not just criticizing someone, it's using this criticism as an argument when you're running short of them. I saw very little of that here... Also note that even Wikipedia points out that ad hominem attacks are not always a fallacy (I'm talking in general here, I don't care nearly enough about it that I'd analyze the whole thread for rethorical structure).

Quote:

Quote: Ex-ARMA members tend to say that they left because of JC personality... Is it impossible to discuss such problems? Isn't it worth pointing out? I don't know him at all, note, but this is part of ARMA's perception from the outside. Are you kidding me?! Talk about a dead horse that has run full speed for the past 10 years. That topic is probably second only to edge-hacking. Don't you remember that ARMAtruth website silliness? Don't you remember all of the silly threads about ARMA being a cult? As we are very aware of there is nothing ARMA can do to stop such discussions. However, in any discussion on a public forum where something is said about ARMA that we feel is untrue or out of context you can expect us to reply with a correction. I would expect nothing less from others in regard to their own organizations. And is that something you really want to discuss? It's just gossip, absolutely nothing but gossip. Does that really have value for any of us as we try to recreate the martial arts of our ancestors?

Honestly no, I've never seen the ARMAtruth website, I don't really want to discuss these things, and it has zero value for our understanding of past martial arts (as much of this thread and of the original article anyway ;) ). But Christopher has asked "What is the problem with ARMA?", and all of these things are part of the problem. Feel free to point each and everyone of them as irrelevant... I have no horse in this race.

Anyway, I shouldn't have posted in the first place as it helps nothing. I'll stop posting in this thread until there is actual content to discuss.

Regards,

Argh. Randall, the problem is the following (actually I DO think you get it, but it's one thing I assume and it's a different thing that I read): there is a great amount of extremely useful material at ARMA, but except a few of them, they contain the same attacks on others, some articles more, some articles less. As long as the article itself is good and useful, I have no problem with it, though stating personal opinion so often in not-opinion-based articles does seem a bit unprofessional. The problem is that growing bulk of articles with nothing else than personal opinions and attacks, where the only supporting point is "I've been doing this for years", which, honestly, is nothing like a point. In Hungary, it's used quite often as a point though as, in "grand bascinets aren't used in the 15th century, I know that because I'm a curator since 1989" or "with sabers you invariably block with your edge, believe me, I'm sure of it due to my 19 years of experience".
...
So in short, I don't have problems with advance. I don't have problems with new content at ARMA. I don't have problems with ARMA. I DO have problems with trying to "sell" non-content as content.

This would've been a much nicer topic if said article would've only been a PREFACE followed by actual content, in which I would've been interested.

Randall,

It may not have been your intent to be condescending, but it’s fairly clear based on the responses in this thread, that some of the people reading the article and your responses do perceive a condescending current in the message.

That said it’s entirely possible that many of the people here have either misunderstood you or have an axe to grind, personally or organizationally. Nevertheless, misunderstood or not, the net effect has been an overall poor presentation of your message, and unsurprisingly, equally poor reception of it. This is ultimately not a problem for the people that are perceiving condescension in your choice of words, or in the word choice of the author of the article.


Best regards,

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for that; yep, i had "got it". :D

But now i think that my questions have been answered to my own satisfaction. I must say that it has been illuminating and at times actually informative. I have formed an opinion of the situation and the individuals involved, for better or worse, based upon the exchanges i've read.

So, i think that i've no more to say upon this topic.

Ciao

Christopher
"a very dull fool; his only gift is in devising impossible slanders:
none but libertines delight in him; and the
commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany.."

Christopher

Actually you got nothing of any real value from Kevin. If Kevin was truthful he would have told you that he did not leave ARMA due to John Clements leadership, rather he was kicked out of ARMA for extremely bad behavior. The director gave Kevin every chance to change his behavior but he refused and kept insulting the membership. By that point it was the ARMA membership that were screaming for Kevin to be booted. Finally after it became clear that Kevin was not going to change his behavior John had no choice but to cancel Kevin's membership in ARMA.

And speaking of truthfullness, I have absolutely no idea what Kevin was talking about in regard to me being insulted and treated by on the private ARMA forum. I have been a member of ARMA since 2000 and although I am far from being a good martial artist I have always been treated with respect by the director and the membership (excluding the insults to the membrship by Kevin).

Ran Pleasant
ARMA DFW

Guys, your dirty laundry is exactly that: your dirty laundry. I don't want to see it outed here. This is a warning to both of you: keep that stuff off this site. Thank you.

When will the articles/content that formed the subject of this thread be available? Enquiring minds want to know etc.

Just found this thread. Scanning through it, I had the following thought.

I'm not so sure it's a bad sign for the HEMA community when different teachers/practitioners/schools get into verbal smackdowns and trash talking. Aren't such things a part of the HEMA tradition, even going back to the masters themselves? I look at guys like Hugh Knight and John Clements who have a little bit of swagger about them and cultivate a personal following as embodying an integral part of the HEMA tradition. You see it a little bit in Silver and in the undeniable influence of personalities like Dardi and Lichtenauer in the tradition.

I mean, in the larger moral sense rudeness and dismissive insults and hubris are bad; but at the same time these problems are not unique to the modern students of various schools. They are a timeless characteristic of the tradition. What I'm waiting for is for the leaders and key membership of various factions to start throwing gloves at each other. Then we'll see.

:D