Martial Arts

[TheWesDude]

when you are looking for a school, i would worry less about the name, and find out how often they do "tournaments".

if they do more than 1 a year or 1 every couple years, find another school. a school that does tournaments is less interested in actual defense and more about how to win in a tournament.

lifting weights is the enemy of a martial artists. lifting weights does not build your body, it builds muscles. martial arts gives you power and strength without adding muscles. the easiest people for me to beat in a fight have always been people who do karate or tae-kwon-do or people who lift weights regularly.


i did a non-specific martial arts school for a number of years in my youth. i will now tell you about 2 "guest lecturers" that he had. at least once a year he would have a "guest lecturer" come over to his home/dojo ( same plot of land ) and for the whole weekend we would have a training/learning camp.

1) aikido:

guy came over on a saturday and brought his own bags. he had some normal corn, rice, and water bags. he then hung up one of each and plastic mats under them. he then proceeded to break each bag in order by punching them with his left hand ( he was right handed ). he was in his 50s and had been practicing since he was about 10 he said.

2) wing-chun

this was an old asian lady in her mid-late 50s who looked like a wind would blow her over. she had been practicing wing-chun since her early 20s after an abusive husband. she then had the "biggest" guy in our class who did weight lifting every day and was a professional trainer at a gym. she gave him a steel pipe, and had him swing it at her head with all his strength. she proceeded to block it with her fore-arm. it left a red impression but didnt leave a bruise or break her arm.


aikido will teach you strength and how to destroy someone.

wing-chun teaches you how to stop anything they will throw at you.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Crni Vuk, strictly speaking, Katas are replaced in KM for the benefit of real life training and repetition for the benefit of 'more useful' muscle memory. the idea is that repeating a movement is all fine & dandy against imagined opponents, but a lot more useful when actually done against a person.

that said, KM does have a lot of things that could be compared to Katas anyway, but are a lot less structured. it might not feel like a Kata when practising, but basically you're doing the same in my eyes.

Its a complicated issue cause one can not make a all inclusive statement particularly when talking about the different martial arts or martial arts in general. Most of the different directions have different targets and thus focus on different situations.

One of the targets with the Kata is the memory of correct movements its one of the ways to retain the correct completion of certain techniques so they do not get loost over the decades and time. In this it is less important to make a 100% acurate Kata (which is impossible anyway) but keep the movements as close as possible to the Kata form. Of course I am just speaking here from the side of Judo. The target behind it can vary from one form the the other.

Kano and Mifue are both people that have practised much with the Kata, and Kano made it a integral point of Judo with a reason. But that as as said has to do with the principles of Judo which is not the actual "self defence". Though I would still say that the Kata plays even a role when it comes to fighting (speaking of a contest)

...
aikido will teach you strength and how to destroy someone.

wing-chun teaches you how to stop anything they will throw at you.

And Judo will teach you how to avoid geting in a situation where you need it

(you know I am just joking a bit)

 

[SuAside]

1) aikido:

don't know what kind of aikido you've taken, but in my experience the only thing aikido does for the first few years is increase your confidence under false pretenses and make you a danger to yourself.

all the training goes 'easy'. you get wrist locks, throw people, etc. all is fine and dandy. but then you fight someone outside of training, and suddenly all those fancy moves don't work because the person doesn't cooperate...

it's true that aikido does have very nice stuff, but to correctly execute it all you need like 5 to 10 year experience.

i have done several tests with this, with friends from Krav Maga & a friend that does Budjinkan (sp?) and have tried it on people with equal or greater experience in aikido and each and every time they were baffled that their fancy moves resulted in nothing. hell, for some students of the first two-three years, we didn't even have to fight back at all. you could basically hand them your wrist and laugh while they fumble trying to wrist lock it.

YMMV, of course, like for Tai Chi. we know it mostly as that zen stuff that is of little use. but with a good teacher Tai Chi is also a very good martial art!

 

[Radwaster]

TheWesDude wrote:

1) aikido
2) wing-chun

Your descriptions sound more like chi kung demonstrations then either of these martial arts.

Aikido does take a long while to get good enough to make the joint locks, throws etc. useful in rl. But it's good for learning how to use an opponents momentum against them - which I found very useful in rl street aggro back in my street punk days.

SuAside wrote:

suddenly all those fancy moves don't work because the person doesn't cooperate...

No doubt true in 'friendly' gym practice but the (simple) moves done hard and fast break/dislocate wrists, elbows, and shoulders when the opponent doesn't cooperate. (Luckily I only ever had to go as far as wrists). This is of course contrary to the 'spirit' of Aikido as pushed in the west by followers of that vicious-little-nationalist-turned-saintly-man-of-peace Ueshiba...

The problem with any martial art is that when you're drunk or otherwise intoxicated you'll be at least as much a danger to yourself as to an opponent - and that's precisely when you are most likely to get caught up in a fight.

 

[Chancellor Kremlin]

Yes, wouldn't it be beautiful if there was a martial arts/hand to hand combat system developed exclusively for fighting when in an intoxicated state?

As far as I know, some Krav Maga academies use smoke, dim lighting and loud urban music to simulate 'dance floor/nights out' brawls, but I am yet to find an instructor willing to train their pupils while drunk. That would be pretty sweet.

The answer off course is drink moderately. Enough to have a good time, but not enough to become a danger to yourself and others, something every drunk inevitably becomes.

 

[Radwaster]

Chancellor Kremlin wrote:

Yes, wouldn't it be beautiful if there was a martial arts/hand to hand combat system developed exclusively for fighting when in an intoxicated state?

There must be a Taoist master somewhere in China teaching that stuff! Wish I could remember the title of the movie that featured a drunken Taoist puppeteer who fought with glove puppets...

And to be honest knowing how to disable some fuckwit that decides to take a swing at you is better than not knowing, whether you're drunk or not. Fortunately this seems to happen less as you get older, at least to me. Let the youngsters slug it out amongst themselves I say!

 

[Crni Vuk]

Not drunken, but pretty close to it I guess

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9wq7QC1Qi0[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Iic9EUqdA[/youtube]

 

[Radwaster]

Drunken style always looks funny.

I always liked the look of the Pa Kua (Ba Gua, or whatever the spelling is) styles for deceptive movements. Never had a chance to learn it though so no idea how effective it may be:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P0AlsAp8f8[/youtube]

And I could watch this woman doing Tai Chi all day - or at least until she beat me up. Sit back. Be entranced. Forget about the fighting...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFZUIgaxlsI[/youtube]

 

[Brother None]

boxing and wrestling absolutely kick ass and are easy to pick up in and are super useful in real life situations

What? Heck no. If you're a boxer in a fight, you try to punch the other person in the face because you know he'll go down then, but that's it. You can punch hard and fast and you have the stamina of a bear, so boxing (which I've done, I haven't done any other fighting sports) is a great sport for the sporting aspect. If you do it on a non-competitive level, just for the exercise, plenty of schools even forego any hitting each other in the head, which makes it easily one of the more injury-free sports.

Real life? Please. Have you ever seen how boxers fight? SuA is being kind by only mentioning the groin. By instinct, boxers do not look at the opponent's feet, and they do not protect anything below their waistband. It's not just the groin, even something as simple as kickin' 'em in the knees won't just always work, it'll work really well because boxers go off-balance fast if you attack their legs. It's pretty danged useless, as a fighting sport.

'cept for punching hard.

all the training goes 'easy'. you get wrist locks, throw people, etc. all is fine and dandy. but then you fight someone outside of training, and suddenly all those fancy moves don't work because the person doesn't cooperate...

I gotta ask at this point: how many times have you been forced to defend yourself in real life?

 

[iii]

...BN...

"Hit to the groin! Knee to the head!"

I have been training Judo for 9 years, I tried boxing for a while and I am training with a friend who is giving Ving Tsung (WT/VT whatever) some weird close quarter hand brawl basics (mostly some efficient grips/kicks and some "dirty" tricks)...

I would go away from any situation as long as one can avoid a fight. Fuck honor if that means that have to walk around with bruises, a brocken nose or scars for the next weeks.

 

[generalissimofurioso]

I've gotten along fine in life fighting dirty.

Biting, scratching , gouging, throwing dirt/glass/sand (Pocket Sand too) and spitting have gotten me out of most of my fights.

Then again, most people refuse to fight me when I start imitating a howler monkey and make noises that make even myself uncomfortable.

 

[SuAside]

I gotta ask at this point: how many times have you been forced to defend yourself in real life?

depends on what you call noteworthy. i'd say 2-3 times. but never lifethreathening or anything. last thing was years ago when i was a steward at a big student party/event thingy.

but i'd say i've never been 'in serious trouble', so i might as well say never. if anything, KM has made me more willing to be aware and avoid situations like that, though of course you can never totally avoid them altogether.

 

[Eternal]

Drunken Master.. man I miss that time in Jackie's career. Back then he was amazing, heck he is still amazing but more of a acrobatic type than a martial arts type. He was in crazy good shape then, I would have loved to have seen a movie with chan and lee.

 

[Radwaster]

Bruce wins every time...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeg_5bba6-M[/youtube]

 

[Crni Vuk]

Drunken Master.. man I miss that time in Jackie's career. Back then he was amazing, heck he is still amazing but more of a acrobatic type than a martial arts type. He was in crazy good shape then, I would have loved to have seen a movie with chan and lee.

well ... thats sadly the issue with good actors getting older. Damn god knows I would kill for more movies with such actors like a Christover Walken, Chan or the Gouvernator in their best years!

As I think 50cent once said, Bruce Lee somewhat did it right in his eyes. He died in a way where everyone just remembers him when he was on the peak of his fame and form.

 

[Talisien]

I would have to agree with the people who have commented in favor of Krav Maga. It's a down-and-dirty, no-nonsense form that doesn't give a damn about looking pretty. It strips away a lot of what I dislike about the older, more common forms, mainly the attitude that x attack has to be met with y response to succeed. Krav Maga is all about, "If you're alive when it's over, and not too badly hurt, you did the right thing." It's about survival, pure and simple. The MCMAP system currently being taught to the United States Marine Corps is very similar in that respect, and a fairly effective form with a broad scope of application as well.

My two cents on martial arts training in general:

In a serious, real-life situation most martial arts will get you killed if you're not highly proficient. It's pretty rare you're going to come up against a situation you can't talk, or walk, yourself out of; when you do you're liable to find that all of the practice you've done in that nice, safe classroom setting doesn't mean a damn thing because the four punks that have you backed in a corner aren't going to give you time to center yourself, take a stance, and decide what move to use.

The vast majority of martial arts don't teach you how to handle someone threatening you with a firearm of some kind, either. Any form that teaches swords, nunchaku, kama, sai, or another archaic weapon that doesn't easily equate to a knife or baseball bat/pipe/ other random similar blunt object has just wasted a lot of your time when it comes to real-world combat. People aren't using those kinds of weapons (except a random nutjob or two), but they do carry knives, baseball bats, and guns. If you want to learn a martial art form for self defense and it doesn't teach you to handle those coming at you, move along.

In the last two years I've been shot once and stabbed three times during serious, real-world confrontations; I've avoided injury in seven more encounters in that time, and just plain avoided dozens of potential encounters. I've been training in multiple forms of unarmed combat for almost 15 years now (since August of 1994); basic grappling, Aikido, Tai Chi, Shotokan Karate, Judo, Tae Kwondo, and most recently Qian Do (a composite form similar to Jeet Kun Do, but defensive in nature). I've also studied several forms via books and the internet (youtube FTW!) that there are no schools for in my area, most notably Krav Maga and Wing Chun. Had I not had the experience I do, I would be dead. Period. The only forms that were useful in any of those encounters were the limited Krav Maga I know, and Qian Do. The mindset that is taught with both of those forms was far more important than any move set might be.

Basically, if you aren't going to devote yourself to learning a form and learning it well (or learning what is most personally useful from several forms and finding a way to make it all mesh like I did), get yourself a gun or a tazer because you're only going to survive by pure luck when you come up against someone who wants what you have and doesn't care what condition you're in when they are done taking it from you. And even if you know what you're doing in the classroom, you'd best get some practical experience or you're still going to get hurt. And I can give you an example of that, too.

The instructor I had for Shotokan- the first form I learned, and the one I spent the least time on- was a fourth dan blackbelt. He had been practicing Shotokan for some 30 years. One night, not long before I quit taking Shotokan, he was jumped by one guy in the parking lot after closing the dojo for the night. My instructor spent four days in intensive care, and the guy who jumped him was unarmed and untrained in any form of martial art. He simply kicked my instructor in the groin when my instructor tried to assume the much-vaunted Horse Stance, then proceeded to curb-stomp him for several minutes.

30 years of training in a classroom had done NOTHING to prepare him for a too-common, real-world situation. Without practical experience, all the knowledge in the world won't do you much good.

(Sorry for the text wall, lol. [/rant] )

 

[Radwaster]

He simply kicked my instructor in the groin when my instructor tried to assume the much-vaunted Horse Stance

Shame he hadn't learned Tsien Ying Kung (retracting the testicles).
But seriously if some bastard gets the drop on you and gets a disabling blow in then you're probably fucked however much training or rl experience you've had with any combat system.

In the last two years I've been shot once and stabbed three times

Shit man, I'd move away from Ohio if I were you!

 

[PastaMasta]

I used to do boxing, it was pretty cool but I just lost intrest in it. Thus me gaining weight and becoming the forum monkey i am now confined to this PC chair.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

No martial arts for me, I simply don't have the build.

Get a taser/gun, a knife/switchblade and some knuckles. That's exactly what I will do.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Shame he hadn't learned Tsien Ying Kung (retracting the testicles).
But seriously if some bastard gets the drop on you and gets a disabling blow in then you're probably fucked however much training or rl experience you've had with any combat system.

what is interesting when people with no actual training in martial arts or real experience manage to handle a situation with highly trained martial arts experts, you know the "lucky punch" situations. You hit a bit randomly, but you hit, and you hit the right spot, over, finished. Nothing more to do. It was either a hit to the temple, groin or eyes. Who knows.

With the focus about a real fight, most martial arts try to prepare the fighter for eventualities even the most advanced martial arts style (from my perspective) will try it, thats why a training with repetitive movements and adaption to new situations is so important for all. But even with the best training there is no garantue, never. And thats why I think no one can claim from "his" technique to be the best one, or his martial arts to be the best solution for fighting, real fighting of course.

What I see as target for martial arts and a real benefit from it regardless of what style you train is the control,the try to control your own body and movements, with training physicaly and mentaly. The better you can achieve this the higher are the chances in my eyes. But the issue is that no situation can be controled to the maxiumum. Thats like one would say he is trying to catch a arrow in the flight or avoide a bullet. There is always a certain limit and always thousands of different situations and multipliers to it.

What we did in sometimes in Jujutsu was training a defence/attack on the ground with severl people very close around you. The only target was to get out of the situation as fast and save as possible. To say that. Its impossible. You can push your self to the absolute limit, but its impossible to get up from the ground, break trough the circle and NOT get a punch or kick somewhere. And my trainer always said even with much experience, which is helpfull, you still never ever want to be in such a situations, but it cant be avoided sometimes. Even if youre always alert. A party, maybe a soccer/football/ice hockey game and the fans start a riot and you find your self suddenly in the wrong courner of the game ...

No martial arts for me, I simply don't have the build.
...

sure ... if even blind people practise the art of judo ... as long you can type I say ... you somewhat could practise martial arts ! (blieve it, we have heavily handicaped people training with us and even if they cant do everything, they still can do a lot. Its not so much the question what you can do, but what you want to do which you also answered. Using a weapon ...)