Martial arts discussion thread

[GoktimusPrime]

I've found that most of the time, the people that are arrogant and go looking for fights are the ones with all style and no substance.

Indeed... and conversely the best fighters are often the ones who don't brag at all and show little to no outward sign that they have any fighting skill. The "Mr. Miyagi" kind of people.

It may also be the case that those who promote Wing Chun via Bruce Lee posters were actually ignorant of his less-than-noble past.

His dubious past aside, Lee rejected the teachings of Wing Chun (and by extension all traditional (or what he called "Classical") martial arts) and founded Jeet Kune Do. Some of Lee's views on martial arts may be described as... questionable. E.g. Bruce Lee believed in no set stances or forms/patterns -- things that are fundamental to many traditional martial arts, including Wing Chun. Oh, and the fact that the practice of set stances and forms has worked quite successfully for centuries/millenia of pre-machine gun warfare. IMO generations of brutal combat > one guy's published opinion.

From what little I read, Donnie Yen originally had a slightly similar background to Bruce, but perhaps not to the extent that Bruce was (and certainly didn't go around trying to tick people off).

Heh, yeah, as far as I can tell, Yen's antics were pret-ty tame compared to what Lee got up to. And besides, Yen isn't worshipped as a martial arts god by a lot of people -- he doesn't float around purporting to be some high authority on the subject.

[Sam]

Indeed... and conversely the best fighters are often the ones who don't brag at all and show little to no outward sign that they have any fighting skill. The "Mr. Miyagi" kind of people.

There is a Chinese saying regarding hiding one's true skills... "The real man never gives himself away". I am sure the Japanese have a similar saying.

[GoktimusPrime]

There is a Chinese saying regarding hiding one's true skills... "The real man never gives himself away". I am sure the Japanese have a similar saying.

Replied here

[Bartrim]

I've been convinced by my sensei to enter the local MASA tournament. I didn't want to enter as I feel my skills aren't equal with those I'll be against but I understand what this tournament means for the growth of our dojo and martial arts in the local community so I'm taking one for the team.

[GoktimusPrime]

Just think of the benefits of fighting against someone who's a superior opponent -- which is the way people should always be training anyway. Remember that the objective of a fight isn't to win or even defeat the attacker, but to survive. You just got to evade them, wait for the opportunity to present itself, then "one hit one kill" (Karate's core motto) -- terminate the fight as swiftly as you can. Many traditional martial arts attribute themselves with names of predatory animals - tiger, mantis, snake etc. -- so like a predator you patiently wait for the opportunity to strike, and when the opportunity strikes you waste no time to just take out your "prey" in a single (or small number of) 'deadly' strike. You watch any documentary of an animal preying on another... once they strike, the struggle is over almost as quickly as it started. That's what you should aim for. The length of your fight should be measured in seconds, not minutes.

Good luck!

I recently discovered there's a Goju Karate Dojo not too far from me -- well, it's a bit further away, but they have a lesson on Saturday mornings. I spoke about it with my wife and she's cool with it. So I'm seriously thinking about checking it out sometime in the near future. I already know that Goju is an authentic and traditional style of Okinawan Karate (so it's "battle tested" )... I just hope that the school and instructors are good. Here's hoping!

[GoktimusPrime]

So had my first Goju lesson this morning. I went there early and had an interesting chat with the Sensei. He seems to be a traditionalist, although he says that their school also caters for competition fighting, but he says that it's not something that he's personally really into. We also discussed the belt grading system... I told him about how I've only seen Dojos in Japan that just use 3 belts, and he said that when he started learning Karate in the 1970s in Australia, there were far fewer belts than there are now. But he said that it's actually the students who like to have more belts! Sensei said that he also wasn't a big fan of competition fighting and also said that comp training was counter intuitive to traditional Karate training since it imposes rules. Sensei told me that during their Kumite/sparring sessions, the only rules they impose are:
+ No eye gouging
+ No hits to the face, but light contact is allowed
+ No hits to the ribs, but light contact is allowed
...that's it! He told me that except for those restrictions, anything else is fair game!

The school didn't offer any free trial lesson (), so I ended up paying $30 annual membership/insurance and $10 for the lesson. Comparatively much cheaper than what I paid for my GKR trial.

Anyway, thoughts about the lesson...

We started doing Kihon/basics --- attacking and blocking in the air. The hall had mirrors, which was handy. The blocking techniques feel very traditionally Okinawan -- nice tight blocks. Also, if you're doing a block wrong, Sensei will give a practical demonstration as to why the technique is wrong; e.g. if there's a hole in your defence, he'll throw a strike and narrowly miss by centimetres, or if your block is at an incorrect angle, he'll press against you so you can feel your defence collapsing. From a traditionalist POV, this is just common sense... but having been away from a traditional MA class for so long, it felt like such a relief seeing someone teach this way! As with GKR, all the white belts stood at the front row near the entrance/exit with Sensei in front. I prefer classes that do it the other way around, with seniors lined up near the instructor, while juniors are right up the back. I personally prefer the seniors at front method because the seniors behind method feels like "the blind leading the blind." With all the Sempais behind us, we white belts can either look at Sensei or at each other for reference. This Sensei actually walked around the hall while we practised, which is very good, but of course when Sensei is out of your line of sight, the next nearest person you can look at is the student next to you -- which is what I did, and Sensei later said, "He's just started too, so don't copy him." Well... okay. In seniors-in-front classes, as a beginner because everyone in front of you is more senior than you, then you constantly have people who are more experienced to look at. The only people who don't have other students to look at are the most senior students, who wouldn't need that sort of assistance anyway. There's also another historical advantage to having seniors-in-front too (i.e. in feudal times, any invaders to the school would have to fight through the most senior students first, rather than using noobs as your first line of defence (unless you see them as disposable pawns)).

After basics we then did some fitness activities that didn't seem to bear any immediate relevance to martial arts (i.e. didn't use any martial arts techniques) -- two person sit ups, crunches and bare knuckle push ups. We then paired up and did non contact drill work at a distance. My heart sank at this stage and I thought, "Oh please not this again..." but then afterwards Sensei told us to step into contact range, and we practised the same techniques again but with contact. What a relief! Although my main criticism would still be that everything was still too "choreographed." We all had to attack/block in unison, and pause when told. We only moved on Sensei's command which I don't feel is as effective as a teaching method as just letting students continually move at their own pace. In Tai Chi we would start slowly, then gradually increase the speed and strength of the attacks according to how much we could handle. Doing everything according to choreographed voice command also meant that we actually did fewer repetitions of each technique than if we'd just been allowed to pace ourselves. :/ We did do some basic grappling and counter-grappling stuff too, so that was good... although I could tell that some of the other students in the class weren't very familiar with proper/decent grappling techniques (i.e. how to grip/grab the wrist or gi properly) -- the all too familiar problem of partner over-compliance. But to Sensei's credit, he didn't reprimand me for not being overtly compliant, rather he just demonstrated the techniques on me to show my partner how the technique could still work against a more resilient grab.

So yeah... this Dojo feels MUCH more traditionalist in attitude than GKR. And so it should -- this school's lineage traces directly to Ryukyu/Okinawa and Fujian, China (Fujian Kung Fu being the precursor to Okinawan Karate). There are some elements of the class that I thought could've been better, but to be fair, it's only been one lesson. Perhaps future lessons will prove more constructive, especially as I progress. Here's hoping!

Oh, apparently Goju's been influenced by Baguazhang (a Northern Kung Fu style (Fujian is Southern)), and I've done some Bagua training before (it has some similarities to Tai Chi, which is also a Northern Chinese Kung Fu style), and I honestly don't see much similarity. I see more similarity between Baguazhang and Aikido --- there's some evidence that suggests that Aikido may have been influenced by Bagua... it's something that a lot of martial artists will debate over, but consider this: Ueshiba Morihei developed Aikido immediately after returning to Japan after living in Japanese-occupied Manchuria in the early 1940s. Even some of Ueshiba's former students believe that he learnt/developed his mastery of internal power while in Northern China/Manchuria.

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This guy has impressive skills with a sword... people are calling him the "Heisei Samurai"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M9up8WL1iM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzhs1Z8Rwnk

[KalEl]

After basics we then did some fitness activities that didn't seem to bear any immediate relevance to martial arts (i.e. didn't use any martial arts techniques)

Are you against fitness and endurance training? IMHO Though not using martial arts techniques, fitness training in any form is relevant. Cardio vascular health and strenth is a fundamental park of Martial arts.

If you Can't Breath, how can you fight.

Not looking for an argument just curious on you comment is all, that being said im glad you are giving something else a go and hopefully it is more suited to your 'tastes'.





In more personal news, I hit the bag tonight for the first time in a year give or take. (more kicked, but you get the point). Glad to see there is still some power there mind you all be it a bit slow.

[GoktimusPrime]

Oh no, I'm not against it at all - and I totally agree that fitness and endurance and conditioning are all important. It's just that in Tai Chi we had fitness and endurance training that was always somehow relevant to our martial arts training, e.g. meditating in stances, doing forms very slowly with weights (where we had to hold our punches and kicks in mid air), Tai Chi Push Hands is a form of resistance training too (but also a direct fighting practice exercise). The reasoning was that we could do other forms of non-martial arts related exercise between classes, but that martial arts class times were for martial arts training. Also, meditation deals with autogenic breathing, which research has shown is absolutely more relevant to survival stress reaction/timing. While I totally agree that improved fitness will improve breathing, it's that autogenic form of breathing that's more relevant to a fight situation.

I have no objection to fitness and endurance training -- I would just prefer it if it could be done in a way that was more directly relevant to martial arts training. But this is just my personal preference... I'm not saying that there's anything 'wrong' with those exercises per se.

Another difference that caught me off guard is that Goju pivots on the ball of the foot, whereas in Tai Chi we pivot off the heel. I think both methods have their merits -- pivoting off the heel is a centripetal movement which provides greater stability and is more optimum for close range attacks, whereas pivoting off the ball is a centrifugal movement and may be more optimum for longer range attacks. I've always been taught to pivot off the heel though (as Tai Chi likes to get in very close)... so that's something different I'm gonna have to get used to in Goju. But I do like how this school does focus not only on how your end stance looks like, but how you actually transition into those stances. It's something we always focused on in Tai Chi too, and I found that GKR totally glossed over it. I saw a lot of students awkwardly performing katas because they only thought about the individual stances that they needed to get to, but without consideration of how to get there... especially during turns (I personally think they should teach the twisted stance as a stance on its own -- because they do actually go into it during the kata, but don't appear to realise that they do).

[KalEl]

So it's more than you aren't used that style of fitness training. Fair enough mate.

We both agree though, correct breathing is key to all.

[GoktimusPrime]

So it's more than you aren't used that style of fitness training. Fair enough mate.

Yeah, pretty much.

Another thing I didn't mention is that the hall is really clean -- I trained barefoot, and for the first time ever it didn't freak me out! It's even cleaner than Dojo floors in Japan - which still get grotty despite the fact that they make all the students get down and run up and down to clean the floor with rags. Ever seen that scene in Spirited Away where Chihiro and others are scrubbing the floors by hand? That's exactly how students have to clean the Dojo at the end of each lesson in Japan. I dunno who cleans the hall at this Goju Dojo, but they do a damn fine job. Possibly also because the class is in the morning, so we're the first group of people to use it and it hasn't been dirtied by other people throughout the day. <shrug>