Martial arts discussion thread

[GoktimusPrime]

I completed a First Aid course today and some aspects of it made me think about some martial arts stuff.

• Our First Aid instructor told us that in 2015, the #1 most dislocated body part was the fingers. This made me mindful of why good MA instructors teach students to keep their fingers and thumbs not protruding, either in a tight fist or relatively close together -- certainly not splayed out. Even when you grab or grapple an opponent, you should be sticking to the part of the body that you're grabbing with the outside of the arm facing the opponent, and them turning your wrist to initiate the grab with the pinky leading first and eventually to the index finger and thumb pincing (similar to the way your fingers move when playing piano keys from pinky to thumb). But I've seen my fair share of students who simply reach their hands out to grab.

• Anyone who's ever done CPR training will know that you compress the chest using the heel of your palm and not the palm "ridge" (directly beneath your fingers) or your fingertips (unless it's a baby). This made me think about styles that deliver the forward kick impacting with the heel of the foot vs those who impact with the ball of the foot. The heel of the foot absolutely issues more power, just as compressing with the heel of your palm does. Kicking with the ball of the foot may offer a few extra cm in distance, but it's fairly negligible. I prefer to impact with the heel of my foot. Especially bearing in mind that in self defence, the primary purpose of the front kick is to push or repel an oncoming attacker; it's the "bugger off!" kick. Also, this is Spartaaa!

• When we talked about bleeds, cuts, protrusions etc. it made me think about why you should never face your wrists towards your opponent. This is why you should always keep your wrists facing either towards each other or facing yourself

There was even an element of self defence embedded in this First Aid course. Our instructor is also an ambulance paramedic, and he often mentioned how to treat a patient without leaving ourselves vulnerable to attack. We've all heard stories about how ambos are increasingly being assaulted by patients, so apparently they factor this into their basic training now. It's sad that our society has come to this.

[GoktimusPrime]

Chivalric Code vs Bushido; at least, how it should be in theory. In reality many knights and samurai either followed a very loose interpretation of their respective codes of conduct, or just completely ignored it. But it is interesting to see how two very similar codes evolved on opposite sides of the world.

[GoktimusPrime]

Anyone manage to make it out to the Medieval Fayre in Blacktown this weekend? I'm stuck at home writing reports, but it would've been a really neat opportunity to see some European martial arts demonstrations. And most likely far more authentic than the majority of Asian martial arts taught/demonstrated today, because I know that medieval/Renaissance recreationalists usually have exemplary high standards when it comes to accurate authenticity. I wish more practitioners of non-European martial arts had such exacting standards.

[5FDP]

Anyone manage to make it out to the Medieval Fayre in Blacktown this weekend?

I know of several people who were planning on going however the air quality* these last few days have kept people inside.






*For those that don't know, there's been a lot of hazard reduction burning around the Hawkesbury / Blue Mountain area over the last couple of weeks resulting in a thick haze over Northwest Sydney. I haven't used Ventolin since my late teens

[GoktimusPrime]

Last night was still pretty smokey around my neighbourhood. And yeah, also asthmatic here.

[Bartrim]

A few people here at the academy have martial arts experience. Some have limited training but there is one girl who has an extensive background in Hapkido. So here and I got together and decided to take anyone interested to the PCYC once a week for training. Mel (the girl) and I had a bit of a discussion about what we would be practicing and came to a general agreement on techniques. As far as I'm concerned with martial arts, I'll learn what I can from whoever I can and use whatever I think works for me. Mel showed me a couple of things and I thought they were cool and I could use them. I told her that in our Muay Thai class we also use Japanese Jiu Jitsu techniques and showed her a few things. Her response was "That's all wrong."

I seriously hate people who think their martial art is superior to everyone elses and anything anyone else teaches or studys is wrong.

[GoktimusPrime]

Perhaps offer to have a friendly spar with her and let her put her money where her mouth is.

Also, Hapkido is descendant from Juujutsu. Hapkido is the Korean variant of Aikido. In fact, Hapkido and Aikido are even written in the same Chinese characters (合気道; "Way of the unifying spirit"); 'Hapkido' is literally the Korean reading of 'Aikido'. And Aikido came from Juujutsu. In fact, Hapkido's founder Choi Yong-Sool (or Takeda Soukaku as he's known in Japanese) was trained in Daito-ryuu Aiki-Juujutsu; he later developed Hapkido from this style). So, if Juujutsu is "wrong," then what does that say about Hapkido, considering that the core foundation of Hapkido comes from Juujutsu?

And Hapkido wasn't developed as an improvement over Juujutsu in combat. While Juujutsu's history can be traced back to the 15th Century, Hapkido is very much a modern martial art, founded after WWII (1948). It was developed because post-War Korea experienced a massive backlash against Japanese culture. In order for Koreans who practised and taught Japanese martial arts to remain commercially viable, they needed to rebrand their arts. Aikido practitioners like Choi Yong-Sool rebranded his art as Hapkido (but didn't even bother changing the name), and Karate practitioners like Choi Hong-Hi rebranded his art as Taekwondo. Neither Hapkido nor Taekwondo are remotely traditional Korean martial arts, they are Koreanised Japanese martial arts. Anyone interested in a more traditional Korean martial art might like to consider looking into Taekkyeon or Kwonbop etc.

At the end of the day, the best martial art is the art that works for you. And at least as far as pre 20th Century styles are concerned, I don't think there's anyone one style that is superior to any others, because martial arts usage in the pre-modern age was like natural selection -- it was survival of the fittest. There would've been some martial arts that didn't work, and the people who practised those arts were most likely slaughtered and didn't survive to teach their art onto the next generation.

[GoktimusPrime]

My small visual tribute to one of the greatest fighters of our age. A man who demonstrated a superior understanding of the fighting principles of Yin and Yang (i.e. how to be hard and soft at the same time) better than a lot of martial art practitioners that I've encountered. RIP.

[GoktimusPrime]

As most of you know, a couple of years ago I attempted to learn Karate, initially at a school that is reputed for being a "McDojo," and in my personal experience with the school (or at least the branches that I trained at) - they were absolutely McDojos. (-_-) Anyway, I've remained friends with one of the more senior students that I trained with because we have common interests outside of martial arts -- and he recently got his black belt, Shodan. This surprised me because I thought that he was already a black belt, but he explained that the previous black belt that he got 2 years ago was a "Shodanho" or "provisional" black belt. So since then, he's fought through injuries, sweat, tears etc. and has won tournaments and graded to Shodan.

...so he's now a Beginner 2 years plus however number of years spent before the pre-black belt black belt before achieving black belt?! I'd never even heard of a Shodanho (初段補) before. The word literally means "provisional beginner's level." So... it's not bad enough that they make you spend years (and thus thousands of dollars in lessons, gradings etc.) to achieve black belt level, but you have to go through a not-quite black belt black belt level?!?

I cannot see a sliver of merit or logic in doing this other than to milk more money out of students. The entire pre-black belt content was developed in Japan in the early 20th Century as a means of simplifying (i.e. watering down) Karate to make it easier to teach to school children, because the Japanese Ministry of Education wanted to introduce Karate as part of their school physical education/sports curriculum. And this is commonly done in children's PE, sports and other games where rules are simplified to make it easier for kids -- that's fine. But I've never understood why people continue to teach the pre-black belt levels to adolescents and adults, for which the curriculum was never initially intended for. Imagine teaching teens or adults a simplified form of cricket or AFL etc. So this person has spent years -- likely tens of thousands of dollars (because he also goes interstate and overseas to compete and train) on his Karate training, only to now finally achieve Beginner's Level -- a level which, traditionally, is when a Karateka would begin his Karate training (hence the name!). He's spent years and loads of money to reach the level where I was when I first started my martial arts training from zero. This is why I prefer training in traditional schools.

Imagine if a school teacher taught like this... nobody would stand for it.

[GoktimusPrime]

Thoughts on the "no touch" martial scam artist George Dillman by TheMartialSkeptic
I love this guy's concluding statement:
"...if you require your attacker believes in you in order to fight effectively, perhaps you're doing it wrong. I've seen my fair share of real world street related violence and I can assure you that not one of the many people that I've kicked the sh** out of had to believe in my punches in order to be hurt by them."

And the same principle can really apply to any martial arts or self defence technique that relies on a certain level of compliance from your attacker. Dillman's is an extreme example, but I see other kinds of unrealistic assumptions of compliance in most martial arts schools that I've witnessed, such as...

• The attacker can't be better (stronger, faster, better trained) than you. This is perpetuated in schools where students can only train with people of the same or similar proficiency level as themselves. So for junior students it's like seeing the blind leading the blind.

• The attacker won't use any unfair, unsporting or unlawful techniques. I find that this mindset is especially prevalent among people who train for competitive fighting (where rules that ensure a clean and fair fight exist). As a result many of these fighters are utterly ill prepared for real fights where none of these rules exist.

• The fight will never happen in unfavourable conditions.

What upsets me is seeing some of my own friends (such as the Karate black belt mentioned in my previous post) training in these worthless methodologies that are likely to place them in greater danger if they are ever attacked. And no amount of reasoning that I try to do with them seems to work because they're just so blinded by their own training which they see as being utterly flawless (much like Dillman's students, even when they are exposed by skeptics). But it's disturbing to think that the majority of martial arts schools out there are just so bad... they're irresponsibly taking people's money and giving them false hope that they're learning techniques that can defend themselves, when in reality they are doing the opposite. Which leads me to...

A Super Simple Way To Teach Self Defence To Your Children

This technique works for both children who have martial arts experience or those who have none. And it requires zero martial arts experience from the parent or anyone else in the family. This technique will probably work better in teaching your child(ren) more effective self defence rather than wasting thousands of dollars sending them to an ineffectual martial arts school. Here's how it works...

Equipment
* A chair
* A pair of long & soft objects (e.g. feather dusters, foam swords etc.)

How it works
Sit on the chair with the child standing in front of you. Use the long soft objects to tap them. These simulate incoming attacks. The child is to avoid being tapped; s/he can do this by any means necessary such as dodging, parrying, block etc. Don't tell the child how to avoid the "attacks," just let them figure it out themselves - this should be done as a fun game. Tell the child that the aim of the game is to avoid being tapped. If you have more than one child, then have the siblings stand in front of each other and take turns being attacker and defender.


Adjusting difficulty level
This exercise can be made easier or harder by adjusting things like:
* The range of attack angles. As the attacker imagine that your objects are swords. Think of all the different ways that a swashbuckling swordsman like Robin Hood would swing his blade and go wild with your imagination.
* The speed and tempo of the attacks. Speed up, slow down and everything in between.
* For more advanced learners you may consider applying forms of initial sensory deprivation, such as telling the child to shut his/her eyes tight and then snap them open. While their eyes are closed, place one or both objects only a few centimetres away from different parts of their body. As soon as you see their eyes snap open, tap the child with the object(s). This will help build your child's skills in reflexively reacting to an attack, especially a surprise attack.

And this technique should work for adults too!

My wife was recently talking to me about having our daughter learn a martial art, but the problem is that:
1/ I have yet to find a good martial arts school in my area (may not exist )
2/ Our daughter has zero interest in learning a martial art, and forcing her to learn it isn't going to be effective.
I've had a few test runs with this technique where I've just tried to "tip" her with my hands. But hands are relatively easier to see coming, and also there's greater risk of injury (to either her or myself! ) whenever there's direct interpersonal contact. I'm seriously thinking about buying a pair of foam swords for this activity. From my daughter's POV it's just a fun game -- she doesn't even realise or see that she's learning self defence. And studies show that students learn best when they're doing something that they find fun and that they don't realise is actually teaching them something! In education we call it the Zone of Proximal Development where student engagement is maximised. The vast majority of martial arts schools that I've seen utterly suck at tapping students' ZPD. Save your money and try this at home. And if you believe that your child is one of the lucky few to be training at a good martial arts school, then you can still use this technique to help refine or hone your child's existing training. Because this game is not at all style-specific... the objects only provide stimulus for the child by representing random attacks; the child will either figure our ways to counter these attacks (much like playing a video game) and/or figure out how to apply the knowledge that they've learnt from the expensive lessons that you've been paying.