Woof TT:
"Guess what I was wondering about was what kind of resources do you get access to as a member, and how much it's possible to learn from them. Could you also explain what is meant by "to walk as a warrior for all your days"?"
Our mission is for our members to have genuine growth on their respective missions "To walk as a warrior for all their days".
To this end, the DBMA Ass'n offers
1) The Members site.
2) Vid-lessons
3) Vehicles for training in DBMA
1) The Member's site is large, active, and continuously growing. There is a large library of technique sequences and a huge amount of readings on FMA and related matters of interest-- and as evinced here on the public forum, "related matters of interest" is defined rather broadly!
And there is the Forum. The forum is the equivalent of the campfire for the tribe-- where all come together about matters of shared interest. It might be a question about one of the vid-lessons or about DBMA theory. It might be the instructors sharing the progressions of their class/training sessions e.g. This week we worked "bilateralism"-- here's the progression we used". It might be concerning evolutionary pyschology. And it might be about WW3: political posts are channeled into one of a handful of threads dedicated to these matters and here too the rule is "Friends at the end of the day"! It might be a thread concerning training tips, or another concerning diet. There is "the Fire Hydrant" thread where we keep each other informed of what we are up to and hook up with each other. Etc etc etc.
2) The vid-lessons are usually
shot on professional cameras, and usually casually edited. Because they are vid-lessons and not releases for the general public, we can go into things more deeply than would otherwise be the case. And note the synergy possible-- if there is something you do not understand or a question you would like to ask, then you can do so via the Forum. It is not a matter of "Send your money, here's your video, and good luck!" Rather we look for you and us to have an ongoing relationship.
3) We look to offer people ways that they can personally train in the system. For example:
a) The PTP (Personal Training Program) with me are at a 10% discount to the price for the general public. If a member is attending a seminar and wants to have some private training the day before or after the seminar, I make every effort to adjust my schedule to make that possible.
b) DBMA seminar attendance is also at a 10% discount.
c) DBMA instructors: In a steady but measured way we are expanding the number of certified DBMA instructors and of DBMA "Training Groups". These instructors and training groups receive support from us so that they can best serve you.
The idea is that the interaction amongst these three offers a synergy that yields a sum greater than the parts.
Concerning "Walk as a Warrior for all your days" (tm):
To answer this we delve into a bit of what some have taken to calling "the DB philosophy". In the DB/DBMA philosphy there is a goodly dose of evolutionary pyschology. Austrian Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz is the starting point here.
Most martial arts today are about young males doing what young males do-- they compete in some form of hierarchical ritual fighting. BJJ, Muay Thai, MMA, TWD, Wrestling, etc are all examples of this.
Although we certainly have that in good measure, ours is based more on the tribal energy-- as such the fighting is not so much about hierarchy as it is about strengthening the tribe so that we may stand together to defend our land, women and children. This is what allows us to fight without keeping score and fighting without keeping score allows to fight the way we do. In my humble opinion, if one knows where to look, this tribal energy is present to an unusual degree in the FMA and the FMA are the core of DBMA (speaking in shorthand, DBMA can be said to be an "impure FMA" system).
Thus, unlike in hierarchical fighting, wherein the energy is "up or out" i.e. one tends to quit as one's youthful fighting skill peaks, as a member of the tribe one is always relevant. Given the role and prevalence of weapons in this system, this is IMHO realistically possible-- if in the real world we are cornered into a problem we use weapons as necessary. See for example the story somewhere on this site of an 80 year old Filipino taking down some 16 year old burglar some 30 pounds bigger than him in his home and capturing him for arrest (!)by using a pipe he kept handy.
When we have this sort of capability as our goal, then as our competitive skills decline we still remain motivated-- for we no longer compare ourselves to others or what we were when we were younger.
Does this help answer your question?
Woof,
Crafty Dog
PS: I see that you are from Norway. Please note that our European program is becoming very strong under the leadership of my personal friend and close private student, Guro Benjamin "Lonely Dog" Rittiner of Bern, Switzerland. Not only does he bring me in twice a year (the next time Oct 9-10) but he is authorized to do seminars and PTPs on his own.
PPS: A bit of a tangent, but I mention that Top Dog speaks Norwegian.
