Martial arts discussion thread

[Bartrim]

Karates starts back tomorrow but I'm out for up to 4 weeks

[GoktimusPrime]

That sucks dude. Hope you get well soon. Perhaps you can use this time to do some reading? Unfortunately finding good literature about martial arts (especially in English) is really hard to find. A lot of books and most magazine articles in print are just a waste of time and money... unless you just stand in the Newsagent aisle and read without buying (but I think some martial arts magazines are wrapping their mags now ).

One book I'd recommend is "The Sword Polisher's Record: The Way of Kung-Fu" by Adam Hsu - it's a collection of his best essays. While it's written from a Kung Fu POV, almost everything in the book can also be applied to Karate too. The only section that wouldn't be relevant would be when Hsu talks about the myths of Shaolin. There's a section about separating the myths of Northern Vs Southern Kung Fu which I guess would only interest you if you're interested in the wider ancestry of Karate (as Karate is descendent from Southern Kung Fu (Fujian Kung Fu to be more precise)). Otherwise I'd say the majority of what the book talks about is relevant to Karate too.

If you'd like a more light-hearted entertaining read, maybe try Angry White Pyjamas by Robert Twigger - it's an autobiographical account about Twigger's time living in Japan where he studied Yoshinkan Aikido.

Anyway, here are some book reviews:
The Sword Polisher's Record
Angry White Pyjamas

[GoktimusPrime]

Training Rantage

I started attending a new school last September and I've come across an interesting kind of martial artist -- the Forms Collector.

These people love to learn forms for the sake of learning forms and not much else. Every class is entirely focused on teaching and practising forms but NOTHING about how to use them. In other words, there's no training involving the application of techniques.

There's absolutely NO contact training at all. The teacher sometimes tells us the applications for certain moves (which I remain highly skeptical of) but we NEVER have any drills or exercises to practice them. When I say that I'm skeptical of them, I don't mean that I think the moves themselves don't work (otherwise I wouldn't bother learning them), but I don't agree with the explanation that the instructor's providing. But because we never have any 2 person activities, there's no way to 'test' them for ourselves. Everyone just believes the instructor's explanation without question.

For example, we're told that this move is meant to be used for breaking your opponent's arm whilst simultaneously kicking them in the shin. (o_O) Btw, the explanations are RARELY given. Most of the time we're taught moves with no explanation given.

It seems that I'm currently training in a school where everyone seems to be the martial arts equivalent of sealed collectors! They have NO interest in ever using their training in self defence so I don't think anyone really cares about how to apply their techniques (hence why nobody ever thinks about it or questions the explanations). Everyone at this school just loves collecting these forms but have no intention to ever use them. Cos I gotta say, most of the people at this school would get royally smashed if they were ever attacked for real. (-_-)

I only just finished learning one form - and I'm still not confident with it, and the instructor already wants to push me along to learn the next more advanced form! And she told me that if I wanted to, I could go ahead and learn the weapons forms! What?? (o_O) I'd rather consolidate my knowledge of the basic form first and master that first before moving onto the next one. Better to be competent in one form than to learn a heap of advanced forms but not know how to use them.

*sigh*

[Bartrim]

Given the ammount of choice you have up there. I'd be switching schools. I really hated KRMAS at first as it is a young westernised martial art. But now I love it because of it's practical applications... that and it's mixed martial arts. Ah the joys of making an arrogant 15year old tap while wishboning his legs.

[GoktimusPrime]

Given the ammount of choice you have up there. I'd be switching schools. I really hated KRMAS at first as it is a young westernised martial art. But now I love it because of it's practical applications... that and it's mixed martial arts. Ah the joys of making an arrogant 15year old tap while wishboning his legs.

Guh, I've looked at 5 different martial arts schools around my area and I found:

+ School A: Observed one class, thought it was rubbish. I know someone who's a black belt at that school and he once told me that 70% of what he learns is BS.
+ School B: Can't seem to make up their mind what style of martial art they're teaching. Tried a lesson, wasn't impressed.
+ School C: Claims to teach traditional martial arts, but in reality their training is more focused on MMA. I actually trained with them for over a year as it was the best school I could find in my area... they did have a few self defence classes which were ordinary, but better than nothing. Their fitness training was quite good actually. This school's since closed down.
+ School D: Participated in 2 classes, not impressed. I've talked to 5FDP about this school too. Everything martial arts "do not" that you can think of, they do.
+ School E: A gym-based school. Completely competition focused. Tried a lesson with a friend who's also a martial artist, neither of us were impressed.

So yeah, this is the 6th martial arts school in my area that I've found. There's another school that's a bit further away that I haven't tried yet, but anyway, the reason why I'm currently sticking with this school is:

1: Their style is similar to what I've already done. If I went to this other school, it's a completely different style and I would have to start from scratch. It may also be counter-intuitive to what I've already learnt, i.e. I may have to "unlearn" my previous training in order to learn a completely different style.

2: No annual membership fees, no uniforms, no belts, no grading. Only have to pay for lessons. I'm guessing they don't have to pay for insurance since nobody ever does freakin' contact training! But having said that, their lesson fees are just as (if not a bit more) expensive than other schools that DO have contact training/sparring (although again, they don't have annual membership fees, which is what schools usually collect to pay for their annual insurance).

The actual forms/techniques their learning are traditional and workable, as I've read and heard a lot about it before. The problem is I don't have, from my perspective, a good teacher in terms of someone who can teach me how to USE the techniques in a fight. What I wanna do after I've learnt the forms is to find someone else who's learnt it and show me how to bloody use them!

But you know what's interesting... because most of the students at the school don't care about using their forms, I find most of them are really sloppy (even the teacher sometimes) and just not as well coordinated as myself and one other student who have done other martial arts before (there's another guy there who has a black belt in Karate and practised it for 20 years). Both myself and this other guy tend to pick things up faster and are able to "predict" how the forms should go. Just last week we were learning a form and the senior student who was teaching us veered off on a weird 45 degree angle off course, and didn't realise he'd done so until much later on when he realised he was facing in the completely wrong direction. Both the Karate guy and I knew what had happened. The head instructor came along to 'troubleshoot' and she had trouble figuring out what happened. The Karate guy spoke up and said that this appears to be a linear form and that several steps back we'd veered off.

Several times before I've recommended that people should use linear reference points (e.g. line on the ground, relation to the walls etc.) as visual guides to their movements during the forms. I mentioned this again, but was duly ignored. (-_-) Although the teacher can see that I'm picking the form up quite well and last week told me that if I keep progressing this way I could become her "star student" and now she's keen to push me along to collect them all! But I'm not interested in collecting forms for collecting's sake... I want to be able to use them.

Anyway, I'm going to decline her offer to learn the weapons forms for now and just focus on learning the unarmed forms... practise it until I'm confident, then find someone to teach me the apps. Then after that, I might consider learning weapons. Cos learning weapons forms is just something you do for fun, it's not gonna be condusive to self defence. And it's more expensive cos you gotta buy the weapons! (and then I might need to acquire permits etc., I once put myself down as a reference when this Karate instructor I knew was applying for a permit for Karate weapons). Getting the Megatron permit was a pain in the rear enough as it was.