Martial arts discussion thread

[Bartrim]

The rep from one of my supply companies came in today and told me he is brown belt at Kyokushin Karate and showed me some you tube videos of Kenji Midori. All I can say is

[GoktimusPrime]

My knowledge of Kyokushin Karate is limited, but I know it is definitely a legit style of Japanese karate. I visited a Kyokushin Karate Dojo in Japan once.

[GoktimusPrime]

Okay... I have a bit of a dilemma here... I teach self defence as a school sport and it seems that one of the students who's signed up for the new sport season (beginning next week) is a disabled student (wheelchair bound). And of course, the single most fundamental aspect of fighting is standing (stances). So if anyone here has ever had any experience teaching, training with or have even ever observed martial arts training with mobility challenged students, I would really appreciate any advice.

My current thoughts are:
+ Everything will have to be very internal as this person's disability means that have very little muscle mass. The student will need to rely purely on biomechanics and not strength. So atm I think most of what I'll be teaching will be modified Taiji w/ some Aikido.
+ I will need to teach him breakfalling techniques quite early. Usually breakfalling is a technique I teach later... as most instructors will tell you, you do NOT ever want to fight from the ground. But given this student's condition, he would most likely end up on the ground and have to defend himself from there. Standing and fighting just isn't an option for him.
+ I will need to teach him self-defensive techniques from a sitting position (e.g. Suwariwaza), but it would have to be modified since the student cannot use his legs.

...I'm honestly not entirely sure how I'm going to modify these techniques. I suspect it will have to be trial and error. :/

[Bartrim]

Maybe you could concentrate on strike techniques Gok. We spent all of our last lesson doing strikes. Our white belt kata is all upper body technique which is kinda hard to do after 80 pushups(yeah I'm out of shape)

[GoktimusPrime]

This student has very little muscle mass - he gets exhausted just from handwriting (he has aides who help him in class; often taking over the task of handwriting when he is too fatigued to continue). As such, I think doing external techniques wouldn't be terribly practical for him. Even if he did learn how to strike, I doubt he'd be able to deliver them with sufficient strength to be able to use them in a practical self-defence situation. And unfortunately he has been a victim of unprovoked bullying before. (sadly there are people out who are willing to attack even wheelchair-bound victims )

So I need to think of something that he can physically do given his disability, and can hopefully work in a self-defence situation. Teaching this student is definitely going to be a challenge as I'm going to have to disregard the single most core feature of fighting -- stances. As I once heard a Karate teacher say, "If your stance is wrong, all your Karate is wrong." - and this is something that I'd wholeheartedly agree with. Unfortunately you just cannot apply this principle with someone who physically cannot stand. So it flies against everything I've learnt and know about martial arts - and I'll have to teach him the one thing I always tell my other students not to do -- leading with their hands!

So far my ideas are:
+ Modified Silk-Reeling. Silk-reeling is a basic technique I teach to all of my students anyway.
+ Modified Suwari-waza.
+ Modified Push Hands

...any other ideas are welcome, but due to the student's condition external techniques like striking aren't really possible. As such all my ideas atm are confined to more internal techniques.

[Bartrim]

Why don't you talk to the student and ask what they hope to gain from the class

[GoktimusPrime]

The sport is specifically called "Self Defence." This was done intentionally so that there can be no confusion about our objective. Also, this student has told me before in the past that he wants to learn self defence (again, he specifically said "self defence" and not "martial arts").

[GoktimusPrime]

Today I spoke to someone who is a senior ranking martial artist who also has a history of getting in trouble with authorities for aggressive violent behaviour. People like this should either never be taught martial arts, or if they are, should only be taught passive defensive techniques. Unfortunately this is not the case -- this person's style is external and I believe he has been taught aggressive, offensive techniques. (-_-) This is an all too common occurrence... teachers just teach their students so long as they pay their fees and attend classes. A responsible instructor should either refuse to teach aggressive students or modify the content that they teach to them so that the techniques cannot be used to attack others.

*deep.sigh*

[Bartrim]

Today I spoke to someone who is a senior ranking martial artist who also has a history of getting in trouble with authorities for aggressive violent behaviour. People like this should either never be taught martial arts, or if they are, should only be taught passive defensive techniques. Unfortunately this is not the case -- this person's style is external and I believe he has been taught aggressive, offensive techniques. (-_-) This is an all too common occurrence... teachers just teach their students so long as they pay their fees and attend classes. A responsible instructor should either refuse to teach aggressive students or modify the content that they teach to them so that the techniques cannot be used to attack others.

*deep.sigh*

That was the first thing I learnt. Our whole techniques are based on a defensive point of view. Our instructor actually made a humourus/ interesting point. If someone wants to rob you of your mobile phone. Don't fight them, let them take it as it'll be obsolete in 6 months anyway

[GoktimusPrime]

well yeah - no material possession is worth fighting for. Except maybe Time Warrior.

Self defence techniques are learnt in situations like:
+ Someone is obstructing your nearest point of exit and you need to get through/around them in order to escape.
+ Someone has already launched an attack on you without making any demands (e.g. surprise attack). Like it or not, the fight has already started and you need to react.

Unfortunately we have certain members of our society who start fights unprovoked just because they can (typically angry people with low self-esteem who feel like randomly lashing out at strangers).