Martial arts discussion thread

[GoktimusPrime]

Sorry Gok but I read your posts in this thread and I can't help but think your someone who reads a little bit too much into the theory of things and idolises the 'old masters'.

I have a preference for traditional styles for reasons I've mentioned before.

In reality it is better to practise simple techniques as your fine motor skills rapidly get thrown out the window and all your fancy techniques that have been practised with a compliant partner (most schools are guilty of this as are most demonstrations on youtube and ones shown in this thread) do not work.

I absolutely agree.

The difference between training and a real fight is fear. There is no fear in training because you know you're in a safe environment. And you _will_ be scared in a real fight (unless you're incredibly brave or stupid, and Aristotle did imply that there's little difference between the two ). And studies show that one thing that occurs when you're afraid is that you LOSE your fine motor skills. Hence why learning fine motor skills for self defence is bollocks. However studies also show that gross motor skills are optimised when you're afraid; so it makes more sense to learn techniques that work on gross motor skills instead.

So I'm in complete agreement with you there.

You were reluctant to answer if you had ever been in a real fight earlier, if you have you will know this to be true, hence why a lot of 'martial artists' or 'blackbelts' get snotted in a real fight. They have either never been exposed to real violence before or not trained for it or they are ineffectual as there perfectly practised roundhouse punch or spinning dragon magic kick with no shadow didn't turn into the fight stopper like it did in the dojo/kwoon.

90% of a fight is psychological and I find a lot of competent fighters actually avoid getting into fights rather than experiencing them. I agree that a lot of well trained martial artists _do_ get creamed in real fights. This would be, as you've implied, due to ineffectual training.

A lot of what you type has sound principles as I have read a lot of this before but instead of taking other peoples words as gospel broaden your horizons and expose yourself to other styles and training so you can actually comment on it from experience. You bag out some styles for being 'sport' styles etc but in reality a lot of these guys who train in these styles are better equiped for a real fight than you and your traditional stylist practitioners.

I don't think I ever "bagged" out sport styles. I simply said that I'm skeptical for reasons that I've mentioned before.

But I have repeatedly said time and time again that ultimately the best style is the style that WORKS for you - even if it's a sport style. And I have also said that sometimes a practitioner of a sport style CAN be a better fighter than someone from a more traditional background.

A classic example would be Mohammed Ali and Bruce Lee. Mohammed Ali practised modern boxing, what I consider to be a sport style. Bruce Lee's background was in Kung Fu and he developed Jeet Kune Do, what might be considered to be traditional. But if you put Mohammed Ali and Bruce Lee - in their prime - in a cage fight, I would put my money on Mohammed Ali.

Mohammed Ali was a bloody fantastic fighter who actually understood and executed the concepts of traditional martial arts BETTER than a lot of traditionalists; i.e. "float like a butterfly sting like a bee" = you need to be hard and soft = yin and yang. For all of Bruce Lee's training in traditional styles he was - at best - a mediocre fighter.

So while I have a preference for traditional styles, please don't think that it means that I therefore disregard anyone who practises sport styles.

I've said this before too - the important question is NOT "what style do you do?" but "Can you fight?"

Just wondering how long you have been training for?
Considering you can spar with your arms tied behind your back and with a blindfold you must be impressive,

No, I've never said I was impressive. I just happened to be sparring against a very ineffectual opponent at the time.

But the most important thing is how do you train your techniques? If it is with compliant partners and bouncy bouncy touch sparring (think NAS tournaments, and taekwondo to generalise) then you are wasting your time. Practising technique with non compliant partners and Pad work/bag work and controlled sparring with contact is essential.......

Absolutely agree. I dislike training with overly compliant partners. Your partner needs to compliant enough to keep your training safe - but not too compliant that they're letting you win or not providing a realistic challenge.

or you could just do Tai Chi instead and tell everyone you are a martial artist lol

That's an unfair generalisation.

First of all, there are many styles of Tai Chi - some are usable in fighting, some aren't. Secondly, even with the fighting styles of Tai Chi - you have competent practitioners and not so competent practitioners.

As someone once said to me, "The individual matters more than the style."

[Hot Rodimus]

I am confused Gok, or it could be my ignorance of Tai Chi, I have heard of a few styles but never really seen much more than people practising flowerery moves in the air.
How is this going to be of use? Yes most of the moves performed in Tai Chi are actual combative techniques and if you really analyse them you can find brutal techniques that eyegouge twist necks etc but it lacks real training methodologies
I do believe that any style trained in the 'right way' can work or be adapted to work in real fight situations. I am not saying your wrong but I have never seen tai chi practitioners hit pads or spar etc. I do profess ignorance when it comes to Tai Chi but I would be suprised if it was effective.

I would also be interested if anyone has clips off youtube of martial arts working in real fights. Whenever I have seen footage of traditional martial artists spar with hard contact or get in a real fight it always ends up looking like kick boxing or boxing.

I am probably coming across as arrogant or a hater of traditional styles ( I have trained in Shito Ryu Karate,Wing Chun, Goju Karate in the past and had a great time doing so.). I don't intend for this to happen but from my real life experiences my opinions differ greatly from what has been posted by others and as this is a 'forum' I thought I would throw my two cents in.

[Hot Rodimus]

How long have you been training Gok?

[GoktimusPrime]

Tai Chi works like many other internal styles of martial arts (e.g. Aikido, Jujutsu, Baguazhang etc.) in that it relies more on principles of biomechanics for fighting rather than brute strength. Do not be deceived by the "flowery moves" into thinking that Tai Chi can't be an effective fighting form - for example there's one move in Chen Taiji where you grab your opponent's scrotum then proceed to "start the lawnmower" as you tear it off and simultaneously deliver a punch to the face.

But keep in mind:
1/ Not all styles of Tai Chi can be used for fighting. Some styles are purely for health. The main fighting forms of Tai Chi (also spelt "Taiji") are Chen, Wu and Yang. So if you want to learn more about fighting Tai Chi, I would recommend investigating those styles.
2/ Not everyone learns Tai Chi for self defence - even a lot of people who practice the fighting styles do so for health purposes.
3/ One weakness I see in a lot of Tai Chi training is that they start their exercises already in contact. For example one typical form of practice is an exercise called "push hands" and people usually start in contact before pushing against each other. The problem with this of course is that in a real fight, your attacker isn't going to be so compliant as to let you make contact with them first before you both start pushing against each other. It's better to practice what I call "sticking" (others may call it "searching") in order to locate your opponent's limbs and then you can commence pushing. The problem with the way a lot of people practice push hands is that they don't practice 'sticking' first. So the problem is - as you've pointed out before - overcompliant partners in training.

But this doesn't mean the techniques are flawed or the style is weak... it's a training issue.

I have trained in Shito Ryu Karate,Wing Chun, Goju Karate in the past and had a great time doing so

I'm ignorant about Shitoryu, but I've tried a bit of Wing Chun and Goju. I like the way Wing Chun penetrates an opponent's defences and I like the tight defensive blocks of Goju.

How long have you been training Gok?

A few years - but I very badly take massively long breaks between training which is slack and it's something I'm working on changing (long story - PM me if you really want to know more).

In terms of my competency, I'm by no means an advanced fighter. I would optimistically describe myself as being an 'intermediate' fighter - i.e. better than a novice, but definitely NOT an expert.

[GoktimusPrime]

While we learn techniques we partner up with someone our own size, but once we learn the techniques we switch partners around to learn about leverage and throwing people of different shapes and sizes.

That's good. It's good to always practice with different people, not just because of different size but also different speed, tempo etc. Even in the same style/school everyone fights differently; I find fighting forms are like handwriting - it's unique to each individual and no two are exactly identical. Having two people from the same school trained in the same style is like watching two people write the same text in the same language... but the actual handwriting itself is uniquely distinct.

I also questioned my sensei last night because he was explaining about how all the moves in our kata including the prep are actual fighting moves. One movement we do is an eye gouge. I questioned the honour of using an eye gouge. He told me that while it wasn't honourable KRMAS concentrates on practicality and if you ever get into a situation where you need to use the techniques chances are your opponent wont exactly to be concerned with honourable fighting techniques.

Very true.

And I suppose this is where some of my skepticism about sport fighting comes from because when you fight as a sport you are fighting within set conditions and set rules; whereas when training to fight for self defence we should never assume that anything will be set. For example one of the single most common mistakes I experience with sport fighters is that they often leave their groin exposed, and I've even met some sport fighters who outright REFUSE to guard their groin (instead they just demand that I don't attack there) - insisting that it's a "dog" move. Of course it's a dog move... but as your sensei says, we should never assume that our opponent carries a sense of honour that prevents them from using cheap moves.

My question about the eye gouge would be that it seems to me to be more of a fine motor skill technique, which as Hot Rodimus pointed out before, is impractical in a real fight where you're scared poopless. Furthermore, I've heard people say that eye gouging is overrated as even dogs will continue fighting with eyes bitten out. But I suppose it all depends on the exact scenario and situation too... <shrugs>

I am probably coming across as arrogant or a hater of traditional styles.....I don't intend for this to happen

I'm glad you cleared it up. And I'm sure I sometimes come across as an arrogant hater of modern styles too - which isn't my intention either.

but from my real life experiences my opinions differ greatly from what has been posted by others and as this is a 'forum' I thought I would throw my two cents in.

We're all entitled to our own preferences and opinions. You're right about me having a greater theoretical knowledge of martial arts than a practical one though. I recognise this as a weakness of mine and I do definitely plan on changing this.

If there's anyone in Western Sydney willing to get together on a casual basis for some friendly training, I'd be up for it. I have all kinds of equipment to keep it safe. All styles and levels of experience welcome of course... we are all students of the martial arts.

[Hot Rodimus]

having boxed and done muay thai before and sparred against those guys I would still back one of these guys in a street fight over any traditional stylist, especially if both have only been training for a short amount of time.
Having trained in traditional and 'sport' styles I have pretty much moved on to only being interested in training in sport styles... I will throw judo in as being a sport style too lol.
Ask yourself, which styles are respected world wide for striking? muay thai and boxing. Grappling - Brazilian Ju jitsu and judo most likely, both very much sporting styles. What makes them effective? All of them are relatively simple in their approach and techniques but most importantly they are all trained in a manner that prepares students for what a real fight is like.
If you train in martial arts, ask yourself when was the last time you got hit in class? Sure most people learn this stuff so they don't get hit but if you have never been hit your never going to know how to not get hit or what to do when it does happen.
Once again I don't intend to put down traditional styles as they do have a lot going for them but for a lot of them to advertise they offer 'self defence' is a joke and it really cause for false advertising claims lol

[Bartrim]

My question about the eye gouge would be that it seems to me to be more of a fine motor skill technique, which as Hot Rodimus pointed out before, is impractical in a real fight where you're scared poopless. Furthermore, I've heard people say that eye gouging is overrated as even dogs will continue fighting with eyes bitten out. But I suppose it all depends on the exact scenario and situation too... <shrugs>

The eye gouge in our Kata comes after a back elbow. I believe it is in only in there because our arms extend completely in the opposite direction in that movement and they want us to show martial intent.

[GoktimusPrime]

Ask yourself, which styles are respected world wide for striking?

I think that entirely depends on which people you ask and which circle you're looking at.

muay thai and boxing. Grappling - Brazilian Ju jitsu and judo most likely, both very much sporting styles. What makes them effective? All of them are relatively simple in their approach and techniques but most importantly they are all trained in a manner that prepares students for what a real fight is like.

It depends on the training. And this applies to both all martial arts - sport or traditional.

In my experience a lot of muay thai fighters that I've sparred with are just shockingly POOR at defending their genitals and often hitting them in the groin is just too easy. And as I said in my last post, I've come across some (not all) sport fighters who, instead of thinking, "Gee, I need to keep that area guarded," just outrightly _refuse_ to do so and instead just tell me not to attack there (i.e. they're asking me to be a compliant partner, which as you pointed out is a training flaw).

Of course traditional styles work. They were forged in war across countless battles fought before the advent of the machine gun. The evolution of traditional martial arts is a lot like Darwin's evolution by natural selection - survival of the fittest. Hundreds of years ago if you went to war trained with an ineffective martial art you would be quickly killed in battle. Simple as that. If a traditional style can equip someone to defend themselves against an armed enemy combatant whose sole preoccupation in battle is to kill you quickly (so they can move on and kill your comrades and win the war), then surely it can work in modern civilian street self defence.

Scientifically speaking in order to demonstrate something you need to be able to consistently repeat a result over and over and over again right? If we look at the pre-machine gun history of martial arts... that's your continual repetition and we can see consistent results. Techniques that survived have done so because they've repeatedly worked. If we take sport martial arts and observe the volume of people around the world who train in it versus the number of people who actually become good enough to win tournaments and be considered exceptional fighters, I'd argue that those exceptional fighters would be a selective portion (arguably a minority?) of all people who practice sport martial arts. YES - you can also make the same conclusion about traditional martial arts, I will accept this - and I would say that this demonstrates the decline in the quality of traditional martial artists (note I said artists, not art).

Theoretically speaking, if we could wave a magic wand and undo the invention of the machine gun, then teach different martial arts to various armies of the world (say for example if the Australian army learnt a sport style and the North Korean army learnt a traditional style etc.) and then had a world war -- THEN we could see how well the styles and practitioners would fare! Of course this is impossible.

I'm not to say that learning a traditional martial art is an instant guarantee that you will be an effective fighter. It all depends on the training, as well as other factors like teacher competency and student competency. The best martial art will still fail at the hands of an incompetent practitioner. It's like say taking a really well made car and letting a bad driver drive it - then they smash the car. Do you blame the car or the driver?

If you train in martial arts, ask yourself when was the last time you got hit in class? Sure most people learn this stuff so they don't get hit but if you have never been hit your never going to know how to not get hit or what to do when it does happen.

Legally you're not meant to get hit in class. A martial arts instructor has the same legal duty of care as a school teacher and is lawfully bound to maintain student safety. Students can and do take legal action if injury occurs were reasonable means have not been taken to ensure student safety and/or treat injury if it occurs. I'm aware that a lot of martial arts teachers do ignore these regulations - and as many instructors have told me, it's a major factor as to why the insurance premiums for instructors keep going up every year... a cost which is then passed onto students with increasing fees.

Now I do agree that people do need to be conditioned to take hits... but there are safer and more legal ways to do this beyond allowing students to actually hit each other. Because if simply getting hit was enough, then just smack yourself with a hammer all over every day and you should be invincible. Traditional martial arts use body hardening conditioning exercises like arm knocking and leg knocking. I've seen this done in Goju Karate so perhaps you've experienced it. Others exercises like Pigua also involve striking yourselves in places like the body just to condition it to being hit. The difference between this and allowing yourself to be hit is that you can control the degree of how hard or soft you want to be hit. The idea is to start of with gentle bumping then gradually increase the severity as your tolerance improves. It's the same with any kind of conditioning -- if I started doing weights for the first time I wouldn't jump onto 100kg dumbells straight away. You start with something light first then gradually lift heavier weights as you get stronger.

I visited a Goju Karate Dojo in Japan and this black belt asked me to punch him in his stomach as hard as I could as many times as I wanted. I belted away as his gut and he didn't flinch! This was obviously done through gradual conditioning. I know that Seido Karate practitioners do little punches over their body as they do sit-ups.

Some sport martial arts and non-martial art sports have stuff which conditions endurance too. Practitioners of any art that involves throwing/falling like Aikido, Jujutsu, Judo etc. are naturally conditioned because their bodies are frequently hitting the mat. Anyone who plays a sport that involves tackling (e.g. rugby) have good endurance too for obvious reasons.

So there are ways of conditioning the body to endure hits in a safer and more legal way beyond just hitting people.

Once again I don't intend to put down traditional styles as they do have a lot going for them but for a lot of them to advertise they offer 'self defence' is a joke and it really cause for false advertising claims lol

You know what - the majority of martial arts schools I come across - traditional, sport or otherwise - do not teach proper self defence. And it's simply because the training is wrong.

If traditional martial arts are unworkable, then what the hell did people do in battle for the last several centuries and millenia of human conflict?? You think the Spartans just stood in front of the Persians and hurled "Yo Momma" insults? Or that the Romans Legion just carried weapons for the fun of it?? It's not as if it's only been in recent times that effective martial arts were suddenly invented and anything before it didn't work.

Just because a lot of people don't know how to use traditional martial arts properly doesn't mean they don't work. Imagine if you found a group of children with Transformer toys, and most of them didn't know how to transform them properly. Does it mean that all Transformer toys are crap and poorly designed? Not necessarily... it could just be a group of kids who don't know how to play with them properly

[GoktimusPrime]

My last post was written in a rush, so it probably comes off as being more defensive than it ought to be. So here's a hopefully more measured response...

having boxed and done muay thai before and sparred against those guys I would still back one of these guys in a street fight over any traditional stylist, especially if both have only been training for a short amount of time.

That's too much of a generalisation for me. There are too many variable factors. If I had to make a bet I'd look at both fighters individually and decide which one I thought was better. Even though I have a preference for traditional arts, if I thought the sport fighter was better I'd back the sport fighter. As in the hypothetical Mohammed Ali (sport fighter) vs Bruce Lee (traditional fighter) scenario, I would definitely put my money on Ali, not Lee.

Having trained in traditional and 'sport' styles I have pretty much moved on to only being interested in training in sport styles... I will throw judo in as being a sport style too lol.

I can accept that. You've tried both traditional and sport styles and find sport styles work better for you. That's great - as I always say, do the style that works for you. For me I've tried both traditional and sport styles too and my interest is primarily in traditional styles cos I find that works for me. But I would never recommend that you abandon doing sport styles and change to traditional if traditional doesn't work for you.

Once again I don't intend to put down traditional styles as they do have a lot going for them but for a lot of them to advertise they offer 'self defence' is a joke and it really cause for false advertising claims lol

As I said in my last post, this is a widespread problem among all martial art schools - regardless of being traditional or sport oriented. In my last post I talked about my experience with sport fighters with poor groin defence - but to be fair, I've also encountered traditional fighters with poor groin defence too.

I once sparred with some Karate fighters - and I was once sparring with this black belt 3rd Dan, and during the skirmish I grabbed his groin expecting him to be wearing a cup (as was the regulations of this Dojo). He wasn't. As soon as I felt his scrotum in my hand I immediately released and profusely apologised - he said it was okay as I had "let go just in time" and we both had a good laugh about it later. But I find the difference between this guy and those Muay Thai fighters mentioned in my last post is that the Karate fighter admitted that it was his fault for leaving his groin open and knew that he simply needs to keep his groin better covered. In other words, he was willing to learn from his mistake.

The muay thai fighters I sparred with vehemently refused to accept the suggestion that they should protect their groins. The next time I came to spar with them I actually used my own money to purchase an external groin guard (because they didn't have any guards of their own) and brought it along to the school and offered it to my partner for use in sparring. My partner angrily threw the guard away and stormed away from me complaining about how people can't attack the groin because it's an illegal target in competitions. I was told that I either had to guarantee not to attack the groin otherwise I was disallowed from sparring.

So I was given 2 choices:
A/ Become a more compliant partner, or...
B/ Leave

I went with option B. I have no hard feelings against those sport fighters, but if they expect me to become a more compliant partner and lower my standards, then it's just a waste of time for me.

[Hot Rodimus]

on the t hub again so hard to type but i think u misunderstood me gok. by getting hit in class i did not mean kids getting snotted. look at boxing, muay thai and mma classes. use protective equipment....unless they are meat heads lol. this still allows reasonable contact to be made without injury and law suits. students usually arent thrown in the deep end either.

i didn,t say traditional martial arts are ineffective, i said in an earlier post that any style can be made to work if trained right, which is my point. it is pretty fair to say alot of traditional schools dont train in a way that prepares students for real violence. and yes some sport styles are guilty of this to but it would be a minority as their very nature dictates students learn to hit properly, get hit and lots of hard sparring.

i agree that traditional styles would have been very effective back in the day but few if any train like they did back then. they werent worried about law suits from students they were worr about dieing and the training would have been gruelling. now with the commercialisation of martial arts and it becomming a busiess ppl are more likely to make things easier to retain students and boost revenue but preach they teach the methods of old.