architecture and morality

I got to thinking this week about the ethics and morality of blog-writing.

When I started this blog towards the tail-end of last year it was more about having an appropriate ID to comment on other people's martial arts blogs. It was also a place for me to reflect on my own training.

It is a personal journal, but because it's in the public domain and other people read and comment on it, I'm quite careful about naming names. For those that I do name (primarily my instructors), I do my best to do so in a positive and respectful way. One of the reasons I do name them is in the hope that if there's anyone local to me reading then they might be interested in coming along to classes.

I generally won't name the other people that I train with. These guys have signed up to train not to be talked about in my blog! This isn't Facebook, so I feel quite justified in protecting the identities of my training partners.

This was something that I decided for myself, but it's come to the fore recently. Someone that also trains at krav has their own blog where they not only name names but are inclined to seriously 'rip into' the people that they train with. Unfortunately for this person, their blog is visible to those they are friends with on Facebook .... which includes many of the individuals they criticise! Perhaps not the best idea .... I do know that a few of those mentioned in that blog have been irritated by the things that have been said about them.

Now, a blog is a very personal thing, and as individuals I guess we're entitled to express our opinions as we choose, negative or positive. I've chosen to keep my blog for what is effectively positive reflection. Actually, I'm generally quite a positive person anyway, so that's not too hard. On those occasions where I might have something critical to say I'll either front up and say it to the person's face, or I'll go and have a wee rant about it at home and get it out of my system.

Basically - I value and respect the people who teach me and those that I train with. I will not risk the positive relationships I have with them just to try and make myself look better than I actually am. Anything you might read on here which seems to highlight what I've done is just my way of celebrating those little achievements that make me happy. I'm happy to acknowledge the things I'm bad at, and I'll always be first to laugh at myself. There's always room to improve, and I look forward to sharing that journey.