Posted by KC Elbows on April 02, 2003 at 15:36:14:
The Tape
Once, some instructors, exercizing their right for self determination, decided to leave the moo.
After they left, a tape was circulated to the schools. In this tape, these instructors were shown at the point of exhaustion, practicing fomr. Of course, due to the exhaustion, their form involved some struggling. After all, that was how moo practiced back in those days- til they dropped.
Text was flashed across the screen inferring that these individuals had not come to a sufficient understanding of their form. No attempt was made ot relate this to their level of exhaustion, nor was there any clips of these instructors doing the fomr fresh.
However, following this, there is a clip of Jerry Barfield doing the same forms fresh as a daisy, in a nice uniform untainted by the sweat of effort. Text is flashed across the screen to suggest that he does have sufficient understanding of his forms. Jerry was involved in the production of this tape.
This is a classic example of defaming. It is actually much different than saying John Kim of Oom Yung Doe never jumped off of an 11 story building and floated 'light as a feather', because the fact is, whole schools worth of people saw that tape, and copies are easily obtained if you truly want them. This action, involving one professional taking part in the defaming of other professionals, is much more likely to succeed in court than say, suing me for claiming that the laws of physics make no exceptions for Jerry Barfield's aging grandmaster.
The Prodigy
Okay, there once was a prodigy in the moo, he was considered by the inner circle the equal of Jerry Barfield in forms, and he was universally liked and respected by the students and instructors under him. His name was Alex.
One day, Alex decided that being a moo instructor was not making him a better person, so he just left. This made Joe Jakosalem and Frank very angry. See, Joe was jealous of Alex, because Alex was so very much better at martial arts than Joe.
So Frank and Joe, they got the ranking members under Alex together and asked what people thought of Alex. Everybody loved him. Everybody.
This angered Joe even more, because not only was Alex so vastly and qualitatively superior to him in movement and martial arts, but now in popularity as well.
So Joe and Frank would ask periodically what people thought of Alex, and surreptitiously, during classes and in between these questioning periods, they would make life miserable for those students, in what several have referred to as the most brutal period in moo history, until just about all of those students left, and the remaining students knew better than to answer with their honest feelings.
So then, Joe and Frank got these people together, and told them that Alex had gone crazy.
Unfortunately...
Alex came back to the area a year later, and seemed as mentally fit as ever. The students knew better than to talk about it a lot with Joe or Frank, undoubtedly on account of Joe's jealousy, because of his martial arts not being as good and all, especially since Alex had learned some mantis since last they met.
So you see, calling a sane man crazy to his students is a better example of slander/libel than, say, this story could be misconstrued as such regarding Joe and his jealousy, because so many of his contemporaries remember that that was exactly how he was about Alex, and so many of their students remember very clearly how Frank and Joe were behaving, and have substantiated the details so well from a number of sources without even the slightest variation in that tale.
It's really too bad, Joe isn't a complete waste, he just was so jealous that anyone could be better than him, and Alex most certainly was. As for Frank, well, Frank's Frank.
*; =qq(