Here is my fear: people hide behind English because they do not understand the question being asked. How do you teach someone to do a technique? You might say "Now I'm going to teach you the small elbow wrap", but you DEFINITELY say "Grab my wrist".
LANGUAGE IS SUBJECTIVE. English is not a good language to describe martial arts. There are no good languages to discuss martial arts, because everyone has their own expression, every language has their own description, every school talks about something different.
What does 'stacking' mean to you? I've encountered at least three meanings that I can quote off the top of my head, two of them martial-arts-related, and they are vastly different one from the other.
I asked a question about Daito-Ryu which illustrated my point so elegantly and so beautifully that I feel it stands on its own. If you read the chain of comments, you will see that not only have I narrowed down the topic of my question multiple times, but I have in fact narrowed it so much that a moderator insisted that it became subjective, which is exactly the problem I want to avoid. I tried to play nice by reusing the language that was given to me, and suddenly that language became too narrow because it was one person's definition.
In addition, some of us learn martial arts from Russia, France, Japan, China... We may not even know the same word for "open hand with fingers all together and straight out and thumb tucked in", and someone may tell us that is an incorrect definition of shuto because I forgot to mention that you pull back on the thumb and extend on the pinky finger to obtain the right kind of tension.
Assuming that someone cannot understand what is in a video is exactly the same as assuming that someone cannot understand the English in someone's question.
Do we need to know what Mikhail or Vlad are saying, when they are speaking Russian and explaining the concepts of the Systema strike? Sure, that'd be nice. Do we need to know what Mikhail or Vlad are saying, when they're not saying anything and -showing on multiple people- how the strike works? We don't. Because we can see it.
Did people learn from teachers who SPOKE to them? No. Traditionally, they were SHOWN something, and practiced it. Then they were corrected.
The ideal solution is for me to post this kind of video. It's an instructional video. It shows a few applications based on the opening technique of Isshinryu's version of Chinto kata. It has the WONDERFUL advantages of being by an American and having English as well as a demonstration of every part of the movement being explained, so I can point at a single part and ask what that movement does. It has the disadvantage of containing the answers, so there's no point in asking the question.
Are we also going to insist that people who do not speak English well (English is my fourth language, and only because I don't count Latin) must pass the TOEFL, or prove in some way their ability to communicate in English, before we can ask questions? (I am referring here to the following quote from an answer: Dismissing the idea of using words shows bad communication skills, and not even trying is much worse.) Yes. Not trying is bad. But dismissing the idea of using words does not necessarily show bad communication skill. That is a conclusion you can only take if you don't take into account what we are trying to communicate.
Let's take a simple example of when English (or Japanese) fails, which is taken from the Bubishi. Yes, I am cheating, because I am talking about potentially spiritual concepts. Wait.. Am I cheating? Well, I don't think it's relevant to this question.
A person's heart is the same as heaven and earth.
The blood circulating is the same as the moon and sun.
You can read more about it here. If you press the link, you will notice I did not give you the translations given in the website. Because they're translations. And because the concepts are spiritual and indicate things that words cannot describe, things that even the Chinese, with their extremely imageful language, could not pin down. Other examples: non-action, or The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.. Actually, as it turns out, the West has a very similar concept, with the god that is bigger than you can comprehend (which means words cannot explain it).. But now I am REALLY digressing off the main topic, though I am certainly still making my point.
Now, let's be fair. sometimes you don't need a video. This video is a great example of something you can explain without a video. Let me tell you, so you don't have to click. And when you click, you'll know exactly what you're watching, because I told you. This is a video that shows at multiple speeds low, middle and high blocks in a fairly culturally traditional karate style. It says that first when the strike comes, you move off the line and back, then you parry with a hand, then you counter with something (many examples are shown).
On the other hand, sometimes you need a video. Because describing the earlier example of DaitoRyu as "Okamoto-sensei is kneeling. An uke grabs his wrist. Okamoto-sensei lifts his hands, then the uke writhes in pain. Okamoto-sensei brings his hands down, then the uke falls to the side and rolls" will unfortunately lead to the "They're faking it" answer, which is incorrect. And the video CLEARLY did not help, but NEITHER WOULD HAVE THE WORDS, because the person answering clearly is not familiar with this particular technique. Unfortunately, the words would not have tipped off anyone to what technique I meant unless they were familiar with Daito-Ryu, but with the video, someone who has the right training can understand, see and put some words that will satisfy the question and qualify as an answer.
TL;DR Video is sometimes a better medium than words.
