Martial arts discussion thread

[GoktimusPrime]

Having recently moved to a new address I'm gonna be checking out a nearby "Practical (Self Defence)" Tai Chi class. Here's hoping they're half decent...

[GoktimusPrime]

The Practical Tai Chi group breaks off towards the end to practise sword forms, which I have no interest in. With all due respect to those of you who practise weapon arts, it's just highly unlikely that I'd ever be able to use a Chinese sword in a self defence scenario. Even if I did, they use those flimsy and super light weight Wushu swords. I tried using one tonight and with each powered thrust I had the blade wobbling all over the place like a bowl full of jelly. The idea of using this kind of sword in actual combat is just laughable. I didn't learn any sword forms in my old Tai Chi school, but I know that some of the more senior students who did used fully weighted metal swords, or similarly weighted solid oak swords... not these flimsy aluminium blades.

So tonight I asked the head instructor (who teaches Yang Tai Chi to a separate group, whereas the Practical Tai Chi I do is Chen Style) if she wouldn't mind if I came and joined her group from next week when the Practical Group goes off and does their sword work. Thankfully she agreed. She did warn me that they do a different style of Tai Chi, but I said that I'd rather do a different variant of bare handed combat forms over a sword form. It'd probably be more practical for me.

[GoktimusPrime]

Olympic Judo Medalist Beaten Up in Brazil. Some of my friends who aren't martial artists are surprised by this, but for those of us who know better, this should come as no surprise at all.

This is precisely what happens when you take a martial art and modify it as a competitive sport. You take away some 90% of the art's most effective techniques, so it's little wonder that even an elite level professional competitive martial artist would get bashed in a real fight, because only about 10% of his actual repertoire is probably remotely useful in an actual fight. And in Judo's defence, they don't claim to be anything else - Judo schools don't claim to teach self defence. They are very upfront and honest about the fact that they are just a sport. I've seen Judo teachers say to prospective students looking to learn self defence to go find something else.

But of course, there are a LOT of other martial arts schools out there which similarly teach martial arts for purposes other than self defence (e.g. competitive sport fighting, demonstrations, holistic meditation etc.). Some of these schools are honest about not teaching self defence (such as the Yang Tai Chi school I trained at), but many - a lot of them - don't make this disclaimer. And as such they are potentially giving their students dangerous false confidence. Taekwondo is an Olympic Sport. I've done some training at a sport Taekwondo school... it was complete rubbish. I've also sparred with a person who was an international champion black belt in Taekwondo. He had just returned from an overseas comp where he spent an entire lunch time constantly boasting about his achievements and all the trophies and medals that he'd won. He agreed to a friendly spar with me and I was able to beat him in just a few seconds (grabbed his throat then pushed him onto the ground while he was choking). I am not a good fighter (I'm not even physically fit)... if a short fat nerd like me can beat you in a fight, then you really can't be that great. Karate has been approved to become an Olympic Sport to debut in the 2020 Tokyo games. You all know that I tried Karate (2 different styles) a few years ago, and I left it feeling bitterly disappointed. Many Karate schools now are already teaching a more competitive sport-oriented form of Karate which is massively watered down from what Karate should look like, and I fear that once Karate becomes an Olympic Sport that it will get worse. The number of sport schools will outnumber the schools that can actually teach proper self defence even more than they already do now. Right now it's already really bloody hard to find a good martial art school for proper self defence and as we see martial arts becoming more and more commercialised the rarer it is to find schools that don't compete or indulge in any of the modern commercialised stuff and focus purely on traditional techniques for self defence.

But many schools will keep the words "self defence" in their advertising material to attract students who are looking at learning skills to protect themselves, only to be taught movements that possibly put them in greater danger than if they didn't do any martial arts training at all. It's practically a form of false advertising.

[GoktimusPrime]

Just read an online comment from an Aikido practitioner saying that Tai Chi is like a 'Chinese (version of) Aikido.' Ya know, despite the fact that Tai Chi pre-dates Aikido by 260 years. This would be like saying that Baramada is the Aboriginal version of Parramatta.

Coming up next: how Diaclone Battle Convoy is a Japanese version of Bayformers Optimus Prime!

[GoktimusPrime]

Egyptian Judo fighter refuses to shake hands with or bow after losing to an Israeli. I can understand his political reasons, but if it meant that much to him then he should've withdrawn from the match entirely. If you agree to compete then you agree to follow rules and protocols including either shaking hands with or bowing to your opponent. Refusing to do so is just being a bad sport and little wonder that he was booed by spectators.

[GoktimusPrime]

I used to use rubber knives but I find that they really break too easily during rigorous practice - they always break where the blade meets the handle - and each knife can cost anywhere between $10-15.

So today I popped into Kmart and bought a $2 foam pirate sword. As it's scaled for infants it ends up being roughly the size of an actual knife. Okay, it looks silly but it functions the same as the rubber knife; i.e. giving you a physical knife-like object to react against and simulate being cut or stabbed with. Being far softer I think that the foam may actually be more resistant to snapping off than rubber, and even if it does break, I only paid $2 for it instead of say $12.

Anyway, for anyone else who may have experienced a similar dilemma or if you'd like to practice knife defence but you don't want to waste your money on an expensive rubber prop, then perhaps this can be a cheap yet equally effective alternative.

[GoktimusPrime]

In recent weeks I've been informally training with another dad at my daughter's Saturday school - he has a background in Wing Chun Kung Fu. Today another dad joined us who has zero experience in any martial art, but he was able to pick stuff up super quickly and said that everything we were doing was very naturally intuitive and instinctive.

Here's how our training works. We don't actually explicitly teach any techniques, but rather we use exercises/activities which promote or trigger defensive techniques. These activities work for anyone regardless of their previous experience - i.e. regardless of style or even for someone who's completely untrained. The activities focus on presenting each other with stimuli for which we need to react to. Here's what we did today:
* Reflex drills. The defender stands in a neutral and relaxed position; similar to how you would stand at a bus stop or train station or standing in a queue. i.e. not a fighting stance. Defender takes three slow, calm breaths with eyes shut. During this time the attacker(s) place the focus pad(s) in random positions close to the defender's body (e.g. few cm away from face, head, shoulders, chest, stomach, groin etc.). When the defender opens his eyes, the attacker(s) 'press the attack' by tapping the defender's body with the pad(s). This gives the defender only a second to react to the randomly presented threats. Difficulty can be adjusted by placing the pad(s) closer or farther away from the defender's body (thus adjusting allocated reaction time). Occasionally the attacker(s) will do nothing at all. So there's no guarantee that there will always be a threat when he opens his eyes - it's random. We don't prescribe any defensive techniques; if the pads are not hitting you then you're doing it right.
* Knife defence drill. I brought along the aforementioned $2 foam pirate sword to use as a knife prop. Similar to the previous activity we didn't prescribe any techniques unless we wanted to explicitly 'troubleshoot' stuff, but otherwise the main goal was to not get "killed". Getting 'cut' proved unavoidable, so the goal became to avoid getting critically cut (e.g. being cut or stabbed in vital areas); trying to disable the attacker with a minimal number of cuts to non-vital areas. In a real scenario we would most likely need stitches for superficial cuts and possible lacerations, but we focused on trying to avoid more serious puncture wounds and stabs.
* "Tip sparring." Pretty much free sparring only that we're hitting each other with the same amount of force that kids do when playing tips in the playground. e.g. if I can tip my opponent on the face then it counts as a 'punch' to the face. Only the other experienced guy and I did this, we didn't include the untrained guy. Although he did reasonably well in the knife exercise so I might try to think of a way to safely include him. Maybe "attack" him with focus pads so that he has softer things to react against, although he seemed keen to pick up some of my Tai Chi techniques before.

As far as the more experienced guy and I are concerned, we're not interested in teaching our techniques to each other, but rather training together to practice our respective techniques. i.e. I'm not teaching him Tai Chi and he's not teaching me Wing Chun, but we use our respective techniques against each other. The other benefit of cross-style training is that it takes you out of your comfort zone and forces you to use your existing techniques against a different fighting style.

So yeah, our sessions aren't aimed at trying to teach each other any explicit techniques but rather to hone and refine what we already know. I think this kind of informal training is very useful for maintaining what you may have already formally learnt, and for untrained people to perhaps pick up a few things.

[Bartrim]

Finally back to training. Been twice this week... Now very sore lol.

[GoktimusPrime]

Same place?

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Interesting 16 min video:
Why Wing Chun Cannot Handle Boxers or Wrestlers (warning: contains some coarse language)
While this person is from a Wrestling/Wing Chun background, I find that what he says is pretty much applicable across all martial arts, so I do recommend watching this when you have a spare 16 min. The crux of what he's saying is that an endemic problem with martial arts teachers today is that they teach form over function. He makes an interesting analogy with driving and defensive driving. I often use the language analogy; the idea of teaching students the words and grammar of a language and ultimately how to get excellent results in language tests, but not how to actually be competent in using it. This is commonly seen in countries like Japan where their education system churns out thousands of students learning English every year who can even beat native speakers in an English exam... but cannot hold a sustained conversation in English. Likewise I come across many (many) martial arts practitioners who become incredibly good at performing forms and techniques and can pass grading tests with flying colours and attain a whole rainbow's worth of coloured belts... but cannot fight.

[Bartrim]

Yep same place. Even though I'm in Sydney for work. It's a 4 day on, 4 day off roster so I come back to Ulladulla on my days off. So I figure I might as well keep training at the same place.