Kim Taylor

Unless you have better information, most of these people are immature, many of them highschool or younger, and a smaller group are mid twenties but still parent depended in college. They are not yet adults, and it is rare to find one in this age group, that has the maturity to approach a martial art correctly. I envision these people as the same ones that are going to have attitude problems when they finally get a real job, and realize they have to do what the boss says. The internet allows people to find kindred spirits more easily, and therefore if they are unwilling to conform to a normal, then can find others like themselves and use that to justify what they want to do. It doesnt change the fact that many of them are living in a fantasy land. Normal person+anonymity often equals something outside their normal persona.

Yes but you can find a way to make a living without a boss, and you can found a sport or martial art with these same people that you link up with on the net, so why bother looking for what you already know you want? Why not ust go do it the way you want?

Kim.

because we are hard wired to seek approval?

conditions are based on life experience and knowledge. Most research on the net would show a 'hierarchy' in dojos, and also traditional use of a sword in films etc (most peoples direct mental link I guess) involves 'death of the bad guy'...
I have had guys turn up from theatre groups who have asked for special death blows, choreography for sword fights, and other fantasy type ideas. These people influence what Joe Public sees, so it is natural that is what the public expect. It is up to us to change the opinion...

I can't think of anything less interesting in the theatre than a realistic sword technique. I was just thinking today of one I saw from Bokuden ryu on tape... shoto comes running from across the room directly at daito (uchidachi). Shoto runs just a little bit faster as daito starts to cut and is suddenly inside, down on one knee and daito has a shoto in his ribs.

It was the coolest technique I'd seen in years, lasted about 0.2 of a second and would be missed by half the people in the theatre but damn...

Kim.

exactly... you can now guess how long the actors lasted in my class....

To address your two questions in sequence...

Why don't people just start their own arts/sports?
People want assurance that they're "doing it right" and "learning something worthwhile," especially if they've never done something before. This assurance usually comes in the form of an authority figure, regardless of whether or not the source of their authority is valid. Additionally, learning an existing art or sport gives you a place in something larger than you; you can find other people who do it and talk about it, whereas starting your own art or sport would rob you of that opportunity in the short term.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who do go out and do just that; some posters on this forum like to mock their youtube videos. If what they want to do is hit each other randomly and pretend they're in a real sword fight, then that's what they're allowed to do, even if some posters here seem to enjoy making fun of them.


Why do people on the net set pre-conditions to their study of kendo or other arts?
Sometimes I don't think it's much that they have preconditions for study, but that they're expecting a certain thing and disappointed when kendo doesn't happen to be that thing. Imagine someone who's grown up reading exciting stories about cricket and learns that baseball is in America, but is sort of like cricket! But then when they go to find out about baseball, they learn that it's really not like cricket at all.

A terrible metaphor, but I think it gets the point across...

The implied third question is, I think, "Why don't people just try anyway, despite it not being what they expected?"

Well... there's a tremendous time and money investment in either art after a while; I don't think there's anything wrong with being intimidated by those investments if you're not sure the art is what you want. There are so many other things out there to do.

And frankly, kendo (and its practitioners) can look pretty intimidating.