Martial arts discussion thread

[Bartrim]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dADz2E5xcmc

A funny boxing match. I love when people claim to be street fighters and think they are so tough only to be KTFO. This guy had no technique and I was surprised that the fight lasted aslong as it did.

On a serious note I am concerned over whoever gave this guy a fighters licence when it is clear he wasn't ready to box professionally. This could easily lead to someone untrained suffering a serious injury.

[Oldschool78]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zStRY...eature=related

Check out the last fight on this clip.

[Bartrim]

Lyoto Machida vs Ryan Bader has been announced as the headline fight for UFC on FOX in August. Two of my favourites going against each other on free to air. Don;t have to buy a PPV to watch them two fight

[KalEl]

Lyoto Machida vs Ryan Bader has been announced as the headline fight for UFC on FOX in August. Two of my favourites going against each other on free to air. Don;t have to buy a PPV to watch them two fight

awesome

[GoktimusPrime]

One of my colleagues practices Yang Tai Chi, but she's recently started learning Chen style - as opposed to me who started with Chen Tai Chi then moved onto Yang. It was funny... she was telling me that she's finding Chen style difficult because she finds it "so different" from Yang, whereas I find Yang trickier because I started with Chen. For those who may not know, Chen style is generally uses more "broader" circular and "explosive" movements, whereas Yang is relatively more linear and their footwork lacks the ferocity of Chen.

[GoktimusPrime]

Had a rather unproductive lesson tonight despite the fact that we had TWO senseis in the school. (-_-)

3 things that I found disappointing tonight:

(1) The partner that I worked, who's like 5 levels above me (but the 2nd most junior ranking student; so we got paired together) just has NO idea on anything... stances were virtually non-existent, no concept of distance and absolutely no concept of putting any force behind the punches (even in non-contact, you can tell when someone throws a proper, solid & forceful punch). Really... I had NO reason to even try and counter my partner's punches as they ended so far away that they weren't even making contact. And if they did... my 2 year old hits harder than that. *sigh*

(2) No partner rotation. I was stuck working with that same partner all night. *sigh* Last week was better when we rotated - got to work with some brown belts too.

(3) Endless use of repetitive rote learning I know that there are benefits to rote learning in the beginning of a lesson when you're familiarising students with core concepts, but once you've done that, then bloody well move on and engage in some more deep learning! But our entire lesson was based on moving from one rote activity to another. I would never even teach a Year 7 class entirely in rote (they'd go absolutely bonkers from boredom for one thing)... this was an adult class... people who are cognitively developed.

This is like my Yang Tai Chi school all over again - cos that was endless rote learning too. Teaches you the moves just fine... but did teach me to use it in a fight? Nope! Likewise each lesson I'm feeling more and more confident in executing moves and doing the katas... but do I feel like I could use any of these moves if someone suddenly jumped me in a dark alley? I doubt it. Even beginners should be able to execute what they've learnt instinctively appropriate to their ability level. i.e. a beginner should be able to execute beginner level moves like it was second nature. e.g. if some tried to kick me, I should block it with a basic gedan-barai without thinking about it. But if you kicked me now, that would not naturally come to me. Conclusion: I do _not_ have a deep understanding of gedan-barai. I can do it in a kata, I can do it in a drill (either single or with a partner) just fine... but unless I can do it in a more spontaneous scenario (e.g. spontaneous/randomised partner work, sparring etc.) then my knowledge of this block is only superficial.

The Sensei I spoke to on Sunday told me that they do lose student retention because people don't like the repetition -- and previously when I've spoken to people who "used to do Karate," and I asked them why they stopped, they usual answer is "It was too repetitive and it got boring." Sensei said that people today lack patience... well... then adapt and create more engaging lessons!! That's something that classroom teachers face everyday. It's a FACT that kids today are used to being constantly stimulated -- from the moment they wake up they have television, mobile phones, computers etc. -- then they sleep. Generation Y are used to constant stimulation. And Generation Z (those born in 1995 or later) are gonna be even worse, as they are the first generation of people who have never known the world without the internet. My daughter already knew how to shuffle through photos on a smart phone when she was 1. Welcome to the digital generation.

[GoktimusPrime]

Went to a Thursday night class today - "new" (to me) Sensei and students. Unfortunately yet another mundane lesson... everything was very set routine, repetitive... extremely basic (even the stuff the coloured belts were doing). Everything seemed geared toward "performance" -- doing the moves nicely, doing the katas nicely. At NO point did we do any work that was remotely useful for direct fight applications. This is really a lot like my Yang Tai Chi school all over again. It's like most people are "forms collectors," more interested in just collecting forms, collecting forms, but nobody seems interested in using forms. (-_-)

So anyway, I'm nearing the end of my first month of GKR - and from tomorrow I will have attended seven lessons and I don't feel satisfied - certainly don't feel like I've gotten by $60 worth so far ($70 after tomorrow night), on top of the $65 3 month trial membership fee. I've attended 1.75 lessons per week, and so far all I've learnt has been:
+ 6 stances, but only taught applications for 3-4 of them (and Heikodachi isn't even a fighting stance).
+ Four punches, but have mostly practised this against thin air.
+ 6 blocks, mostly practised against thin air. I've only done partner work TWICE, and the second time my partner was so massively out of range (as one Sensei said, a lot of these students seem too scared to come in really close)... I was getting more benefit out of fighting thin air!
+ NO randomised/spontaneous drillwork. In the two times we did partner work, everything was set routine - the entire class had to even attack and defend simultaneously... it was completely choreographed! At NO time were we allowed to do partner work at our own pace!
+ No sparring. Now I can accept this, as sparring isn't a traditional martial arts practice (although it is useful) -- and I can certainly understand not allowing junior grades to spar. But traditional martial arts schools will still allow beginners to do contact partner work with random/spontaneous elements constantly thrown in (so it becomes kinda like "controlled miniature sparring").

So after dishing out $125 in fees ($135 after tomorrow), and attending 1.75 classes per week, after my first month of GKR I've paid a lot of money and learnt very little in return. Everything I've seen has reinforced my perception that GKR seems useful for people who have zero prior martial arts or sports experience and below-average motor skills.

Then there's this:
Interesting things to note about the history of Taikyoku Shodan Kata, according to the official GKR web site...
+ It was created in the 20th Century in Japan, thus it is NOT a traditional Okinawan Karate kata.
+ It was created with the explicit intention of simplifying Karate when it was taught to children in public schools.

This explains everything. It explains why the kata is so incredibly simple and why the training seems aimed at teaching people with underdeveloped motor skills... because that was its original intent!! Now when it comes to teaching children who have immature motor skills and many have limited athletic experience, yes, this makes perfect sense. But when teaching:
+ Adolescents and adults who have matured motor skills
+ Adolescents and adults who have experience in a previous kind of physical activity (e.g. sport, dance, another martial art)
...I fail to see the benefit of teaching us in such a slow and basic manner. Other than massively prolonging learning and making students attend more classes and pay more fees before they can get up to the point where they can start to learn some actual decent fight techniques. Everything continues to be superficial rote learning with no real focus on deep knowledge. I see students learning how to memorise the performance of katas and techniques like just regurgitating knowledge (which is what rote learning does), but as I've said before, I still see even brown belts who can't stand in stance properly (). Tonight Sensei had to correct some of the coloured belts because they couldn't make a proper fist. Coloured belts... these people have trained for years to attain these ranks and they can't make a decent fist?? Perhaps this is another result of constantly punching thin air and having no contact -- because if you slog a pad or boxing bad with a sloppy fist, you'd feel it!

Each time I go to GKR I think of what Bruce Brazos said to Sam Witwicky in Dark of the Moon: "Impress me.". Two more months to go...

[GoktimusPrime]

Btw, one good thing I liked about last night's Sensei -- she spoke ENGLISH! I mean, when she wanted us to do a head high punch, she said "Head high punch"! So much more understandable than the Senseis who speak in "Senseinese". But still... a few words she tried to say in Japanese and I had no clue what she was saying.

I've been to 6 GKR Karate lessons so far, and it's only dawned on me about 5 minutes ago what "Hai-koo-dach" is... because I keep on thinking "Haiku stance?" Do they want us to stand in 5-7-5 syllable structures?!? But they're actually trying to say Heikoudachi (平行立). O M B G ! Seriously... if you can't say it right, just say "Open Parallel Stance." Then everyone will know what it means! For anyone who may not know, it's said like "Hey-koh-dah-chi", and _not_ "High-koo-duch" like all my Senseis say it.

I once met a Kenjutsu Sensei -- German fellow, who pronounced "Sensei" in the German way, so he said "Sen-sigh" (like how "ei" is pronounced in German words like "Nein" and "Einstein" etc.)

[GoktimusPrime]

Finally got to spar!! \(^O^)/

...but it's meant to be non-contact sparring, which feels completely counter-intuitive to me. How are you meant to spar without making any for of contact? When I spar I make _light_ contact, what I call "tip-sparring" where I just lightly tap the target (e.g. face, shoulder, chest, stomach etc.) like when someone taps you on the shoulder to get your attention or when kids play tips at school -- that amount of force (or lack thereof). It's enough for you to feel that I've made contact, but it doesn't hurt. But nonetheless, any time I even made light contact my partners or Sensei would be quick to remind me, "Hey, it's non-contact!"

And I wasn't contacting just to be a Dojo-troll... but as I'm sure you can all appreciate, when you've had some martial arts training, when you go into a sparring situation you just go on automatic instincts based on your training. There's little conscious thought. And my training is to penetrate my opponent, not stop in front of them. So I had to work really hard to pull back all my moves, but it's hard and goes against everything I've been taught! It was a lot like the G1 cartoon - where everyone just shoots around each other like Imperial Stormtroopers, but hardly anyone actually hits their target!

People just stand there throwing punches in front of each other like pew pew pew pew pew pew pew, but nobody ever lands a hit. Or imagine playing a game of Chess where it's against the rules to Check your opponent!

The Sensei from Sunday was absolutely right -- all I had to do was get really close and they just didn't know what to do. Everyone else was just standing in their spots and throwing punches at each other, like Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. I advanced in on my partners, so we ended up move around half of the hall (as my partners kept back-pedalling in desperate attempts to distance themselves away from me - but I can walk/leap forward faster than they can backstep!). I decided to give my first partner a sporting chance and I put one hand behind my back to fight him with one hand. He asked me, "What's wrong with your hand?" and I said, "Nothing. I just wanna give myself a challenge." But still, because I kept closing the gap, he just didn't know how to effectively counter me.

With my second partner it was a similar story... so I just started walking aggressively toward her, but otherwise using no technique. I didn't have a proper guard up, no stances, I left myself completely wide open... the only thing was I was walking into her personal space - much like a schoolyard bully does when they want to intimidate you by invading your personal space. That's it. Then she tried to plow a hit into me... not very well, and I grabbed one shoulder and spun her around 90 degrees so that her back was facing me -- a precursor to doing a headlock, but I didn't go ahead with the headlock (being all non-contact and stuff)... I just had my hands on the shoulders... not even tightly -- but it completely freaked her out, so I stopped sparring with her after that.

With my third partner... dear me... she would randomly block and punch the air. Like I hadn't even thrown a punch, she would do a block. What's she blocking?? Then when I throw a punch and stop it front of her, a few seconds later she'd block. Yeah, kinda late.

With my next partner; a brown belt, I just decided to go on the defensive... he kept throwing all these punches at me which were easy to block. So then I used one hand... yeah, easy enough. Then I put both my hands behind my back and started dodging/evading punches or blocking them with my shoulders -- then I went on the offensive (with no hands)... so again, just needed to get in close before my partner started struggling with what to do with me. But even then, I wasn't even charging that hard (because again, I was seriously restraining myself for the sake of "non contact"). Then that was the end of sparring, and we went back to good old rote learning fighting against the air and practising katas (but no applications!) for the remainder of the lesson.

I'm finding this non-contact rule... difficult to work with. Oh, and there was another newbie there today - first lesson tonight, but he'd done Kyokushin Karate before. And after the lesson when I spoke with him he did mention how incredibly easy everything felt. And one of the brown belts I spoke with before class did say that the learning curve in GKR is v e r y slow; and I said that I can see how that would be beneficial for children and people with underdeveloped motor skills (or learning difficulties)... but for adults with average motor skills and learning ability, I find it to just be too slow, and the brown belt agreed with me.

Active associative learning >>>>>>>>>>> rote learning.

Btw... is anyone still reading this? If not, then I'll stop logging my GKR journey here. I won't be offended at all if nobody wants to read about it - seriously. If only 1 or 2 people are interested maybe I can continue it in PM rather than hogging the thread here.

[Oldschool78]

I like to read them. Its a good insight into a newbs point of view in a new club. Helpful too, as you've tried different styles.