Kung Fu Master Baiting

Training
61

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Oh man. What an invigorating argument, the likes of which has never been seen on this forum before!

Be still my heart…

There are many good TMA’s that work just fine. There are many modern martial arts that work just fine. How well they work is dependent TOTALLY on how they are taught, and by whom.

Why is this such a hard concept to understand?
[/quote]

Because it isn’t true. Some styles are inherently flawed. The triple twisting goose spinning sideways back kick just isn’t as good as a left hook.
[/quote]

I’d go along with that.

History lesson (because I’m one of the few that can do it). One of the systems I did was called MusÃ?? Jikiden Eishin-ryÃ?«. (Don’t get a chance to do it much any more though.) This is a genuine authentic sword system and yes it is pretty awesome. Course anything that involves live 2 1/2 foot long razor blades and armor is going to be awesome. If you were a samurai, you were required to be in training just in case the Emperor required you to fight.

Now once the Tokugawas took Japan over (early 1600’s) and slammed the door shut, most samurai became hereditary bureaucrats, but still had a training requirement. Many systems were started for these office workers, mostly some form of Iaido. A lot of those systems have flashy, funky movements and not much other than very elaborate drawing and resheathing of the sword. And yes, many of them can point to 300 year long histories too.

Having a system that gets a wide swath of rather lukewarm practitioners just dilutes it until it becomes pretty much too watered down for any purpose. This is an effect that is seen in any undertaking that requires skill, not just MMA, TMA or public school Science classes. The larger discussion is how quality can be maintained and how can it be transmitted.

Many older TMAs, as I said, are acutely aware of how hard it is to keep good quality techniques around and are more than happy to train someone who is a good teacher, but otherwise ineffective. Think about that. In a society with no education system to speak of, you have to also train the people to support your system’s longevity.

So you have lousy people who pay the bills (and want to train with you to get some of your cred), mediocre people who are staffing it, mediocre people who used to be good in it and have had their training lapse (e.g. due to age, injuries), people who understand how to coach it and finally you have people that can actually really do it to a high level.

MMA is gradually evolving in this direction because it is the best way to sustain such a system, short of some state-run national school system (think about the dismal level of public school teachers if you want to see how well that paradigm works for education.) Systems that have longevity had some niche, be it training the indolent nobility, keeping office workers active, security/body guarding or maybe even churning out people who can fight wars (which is distinctly different from civilian self defense).

If someone tells me “X” about TMAs generally I give them the benefit of a doubt, since there really are some fine old ones out there along with all the trash. They are often unwittingly preserving some very good stuff, because the systems are designed to keep it “just in case” and it must weather a generation or two of poor management from time to time.

And this doesn’t even get into the more recent Western rise of recreational combat sports (dating mostly post WW II) of which the Kung Fu schools, then later various types of Karate and now MMA are the result. Most of these don’t have a clear idea of their purpose aside from something or other in a ring and therefore have no clear cut way of vetting the ideas they run into.

They are willing to take from everywhere, but often treat older TMAs much the way a consumer treats a supermarket. It is therefore incumbent upon them to show the merit of what they do. I’m not just being a grumpy old dude. I realize that the downside of being a MA instructor is that your students might actually believe you and get beaten, shot or raped for listening to you… There are no standards in MA for instruction or merit.

– jj
[/quote]

I agree with much of what you wrote (try to leave the PWI comments out of this forum though, if we wanted to read that stuff we’d go to that forum). I had a chance to train with Shihan Dana Abbott a few years ago and he was basically saying the same thing that you did about there being two types of Samurai sword arts (he likened them to a “blue collar” version which was actually designed for combat and a “white collar” version which is more of the fancy cutting stuff that you see, he can do both very well btw).

You’re probably right that in many ways other MA have fallen into these categories and that in a lot of cases the students probably didn’t even realize which category they were in.

IMO the main thing that distinguishes effective MA skills (or systems) is that they are effective for the purpose they were designed for. If a MA promotes itself as being a self defense art, then it must be effective for self defense. Unfortunately, the only way that can really be tested is to actually use it in a self defense context.

There are plenty of people out there who have done this and who share their knowledge and experience of such encounters, but it’s neither realistic nor legally or morally justified to ask all of their students to go out and put themselves in harms way so that they can do the same.

Therefore, the closest approximation of a real situation (which still allows the students to survive/continue the training) must be used in most cases. This can involve using things like protective gear, training weapons, sometimes (but not always) training friendly environments, verbal/postural/emotional aspects of self defense, etc…

If a system actually tests it’s techniques under the most realistic conditions (which can be a HUGELY vast number of possible conditions) that it can legally and morally recreate, then they’re going to automatically start to weed out or modify the stuff that doesn’t work, and keep and refine the stuff that does work.

This is also where the personal aspect of martial arts comes into play. For instance, a 6’5" 250 lb man might find that he can make certain moves work that a 5’1" 120 lb female might not be able to (and vice versa). Neither is right or wrong from an objective standpoint, instead each is finding their own personal version/expression of their MA.

62

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Grimlorn wrote:
Where are you guys getting this idea that the skill level must have been high 150 years ago because they were training all day long? Any evidence? I can walk all day long, that’s not going to make me a better runner.

So a boxer whose been doing it since 8 years old can beat a guy doing kung fu that’s only going 2 to 3 days a week. That’s not a fair comparison. Why not get someone whose been doing kung fu since 8 then and match them up and see what happens? You guys romanticize these TMA too much. You think no one takes them more than a few hours a week?

Aragorn ask what those fighters think of Wing Chun, Aikido, and Kung fu? See if they have the same respect for them. Karate is already pretty respectable in the MMA community. A lot of fighters have taken karate when they were young and became great fighters in MMA. Just because they respect Karate doesn’t mean they respect all TMA. And who cares if they respect it or not. That doesn’t even make it legitimate. Competing legitimizes the art.[/quote]

Simply put, no, competing doesn’t legitimize it - they were not made for competition. They’re made for unarmed combat, which does not last for 20 minutes like you see in the movies or the ring.

It’s made to hit you once in the throat, punch you once in the stomach, and then stomp on your ribs once your down and move on.

Combatives - those of the Kelly McCann variety - either wouldn’t work, or aren’t legal, in the MMA ring. That doesn’t mean they’re not effective. In a life or death situation, a guy who is proficient in combatives and learned from McCann is going to be every bit as dangerous as a ring fighter, and probably more so because of the knowledge and training he’s received in regards to weapons, improvised and otherwise.

Wing Chun is certainly a respectable art. Aikido has its place, although I’m not a tremendous fan of soft styles, and Kung fu can be just as useful.

You can see in the video that the master generates a LOT of force with his strikes, even the light slaps. That’s years of training and mastery that is letting him do that - that’s not faked for the video, and it can definitely be used to great affect in a real fight. It’s especially good as a deterrent - as in, “this old man slapped my hand away and it feels like I got a deadarm… maybe I won’t rob this particular guy.”

TMA’s were not made for rings. They were made for the short, sharp encounters that occur in real life situations, and they rely just as heavily on principles as they do the particular moves. I’ve used things from TMA’s in real life, and the concepts do work.

[/quote]

Right, the thing with real life scenarios is that they rarely begin from standing 30 feet away from the other person, being told to “go” by a ref, in a well lit padded arena, wearing only your underwear and MMA gloves.

They usually occur from very close (since your attacker knows that the closer they get to start with the harder it will be for you to defend), often times without or with very little warning, may involve multiple assailants, both parties will likely be wearing more than just shorts or briefs (which may conceal weapons), often occur in less than ideally lit environments, have legal ramifications, and a whole host of other differences to a sport/competition fight.

That said, I’m a huge proponent of training combat sports as drills to develop attributes which absolutely can be beneficial for real life situations. Things like not freezing like a dear in headlights when hit or faced with a potentially violent opponent, being used to fighting through discomfort and adrenaline dumps, learning how to effectively use your body as an impact weapon (striking), learning effective targets on the human body and how to hit them accurately, also learning how to not get hit there yourself, learning how to escape from grabs and holds or to avoid being taken to the ground, learning how to get back up if you do find yourself on the ground, and finally learning how to fight on the ground if need be.

Combat sports are also generally very good for developing conditioning (strength, endurance, flexibility, speed, and balance/body control) which is going to increase your chances of defending yourself as well.

63

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Grimlorn wrote:
Where are you guys getting this idea that the skill level must have been high 150 years ago because they were training all day long? Any evidence? I can walk all day long, that’s not going to make me a better runner.

So a boxer whose been doing it since 8 years old can beat a guy doing kung fu that’s only going 2 to 3 days a week. That’s not a fair comparison. Why not get someone whose been doing kung fu since 8 then and match them up and see what happens? You guys romanticize these TMA too much. You think no one takes them more than a few hours a week?

Aragorn ask what those fighters think of Wing Chun, Aikido, and Kung fu? See if they have the same respect for them. Karate is already pretty respectable in the MMA community. A lot of fighters have taken karate when they were young and became great fighters in MMA. Just because they respect Karate doesn’t mean they respect all TMA. And who cares if they respect it or not. That doesn’t even make it legitimate. Competing legitimizes the art.[/quote]

Simply put, no, competing doesn’t legitimize it - they were not made for competition. They’re made for unarmed combat, which does not last for 20 minutes like you see in the movies or the ring.

It’s made to hit you once in the throat, punch you once in the stomach, and then stomp on your ribs once your down and move on.

Combatives - those of the Kelly McCann variety - either wouldn’t work, or aren’t legal, in the MMA ring. That doesn’t mean they’re not effective. In a life or death situation, a guy who is proficient in combatives and learned from McCann is going to be every bit as dangerous as a ring fighter, and probably more so because of the knowledge and training he’s received in regards to weapons, improvised and otherwise.

Wing Chun is certainly a respectable art. Aikido has its place, although I’m not a tremendous fan of soft styles, and Kung fu can be just as useful.

You can see in the video that the master generates a LOT of force with his strikes, even the light slaps. That’s years of training and mastery that is letting him do that - that’s not faked for the video, and it can definitely be used to great affect in a real fight. It’s especially good as a deterrent - as in, “this old man slapped my hand away and it feels like I got a deadarm… maybe I won’t rob this particular guy.”

TMA’s were not made for rings. They were made for the short, sharp encounters that occur in real life situations, and they rely just as heavily on principles as they do the particular moves. I’ve used things from TMA’s in real life, and the concepts do work.

[/quote]

Right, the thing with real life scenarios is that they rarely begin from standing 30 feet away from the other person, being told to “go” by a ref, in a well lit padded arena, wearing only your underwear and MMA gloves.

They usually occur from very close (since your attacker knows that the closer they get to start with the harder it will be for you to defend), often times without or with very little warning, may involve multiple assailants, both parties will likely be wearing more than just shorts or briefs (which may conceal weapons), often occur in less than ideally lit environments, have legal ramifications, and a whole host of other differences to a sport/competition fight.

That said, I’m a huge proponent of training combat sports as drills to develop attributes which absolutely can be beneficial for real life situations. Things like not freezing like a dear in headlights when hit or faced with a potentially violent opponent, being used to fighting through discomfort and adrenaline dumps, learning how to effectively use your body as an impact weapon (striking), learning effective targets on the human body and how to hit them accurately, also learning how to not get hit there yourself, learning how to escape from grabs and holds or to avoid being taken to the ground, learning how to get back up if you do find yourself on the ground, and finally learning how to fight on the ground if need be.

Combat sports are also generally very good for developing conditioning (strength, endurance, flexibility, speed, and balance/body control) which is going to increase your chances of defending yourself as well.[/quote]

Sento - I totally agree. I think you know this, as we’ve had this kind of conversation many times.

I have a lot of issues with the way TMA’s are taught, and I think that they could certainly use a heavy dose of reality mixed in. Sadly, too many teachers are caught up in teaching “their style” and staying so traditional that they don’t think to expand and modify, which is a shame because it’s what I believe the original teachers and creators of their respective arts would have encouraged.

Traditional arts that mix in more of the movement and angles of boxing, the physical conditioning of MMA, and the live drills (not necessarily sparring, but more like the kinds of drills that Parker uses in her krav maga classes) would make that art infinitely more useful.

Just as the moves designed to be used with weapons on guys on horseback could be stripped out today, a way of disarming someone with a box cutter or beer bottle in his hand could be added in, and these adaptations would likely rely on the same principles the original art was founded on, just tweaked to fit today’s world model.

This is why I like things like Kelly McCann’s combatives or krav maga (depending on how its taught) - because those are TODAY’s martial arts. Boxing and wrestling won’t teach you how to grab a guy’s collar and hit him with a chin jab, or that stomping on a downed opponents ankle is going to ensure that he can’t follow you. They won’t teach you how to draw a pistol under duress, or what the possible ways of disarming someone with an AK-47 are, or how to hide an open folding knife along the outside of your forearm.

However, because most martial arts are based on principles and not just techniques, they could be adapted to do so.

For douchefucks like Zeb who don’t understand, well, its because they haven’t done their research about guys who HAVE made these arts lethal while at the same maintaining what one might call “the integrity of the art.”

Guys like Wim (Tai chi chuan), Loren Christensen (former marine, cop, and current Goju-ryu practitioner), Kris Wilder (Gojy-ryu), Lawrence Kane (goju-ryu), Rory Miller (small circle jiu-jitsu practitioner and prison guard)… man, the list goes on and on and on.

These guys have adapted those very different arts to work for them in the most violent of situations, and they prove anonymous high school wrestling coaches like Zeb (who post online about violence they’ve never seen themselves) very wrong, every day.

64

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Oh man. What an invigorating argument, the likes of which has never been seen on this forum before!

Be still my heart…

There are many good TMA’s that work just fine. There are many modern martial arts that work just fine. How well they work is dependent TOTALLY on how they are taught, and by whom.

Why is this such a hard concept to understand?
[/quote]

Because it isn’t true. Some styles are inherently flawed. The triple twisting goose spinning sideways back kick just isn’t as good as a left hook.
[/quote]

I’d go along with that.

History lesson (because I’m one of the few that can do it). One of the systems I did was called MusÃ?? Jikiden Eishin-ryÃ?«. (Don’t get a chance to do it much any more though.) This is a genuine authentic sword system and yes it is pretty awesome. Course anything that involves live 2 1/2 foot long razor blades and armor is going to be awesome. If you were a samurai, you were required to be in training just in case the Emperor required you to fight.

Now once the Tokugawas took Japan over (early 1600’s) and slammed the door shut, most samurai became hereditary bureaucrats, but still had a training requirement. Many systems were started for these office workers, mostly some form of Iaido. A lot of those systems have flashy, funky movements and not much other than very elaborate drawing and resheathing of the sword. And yes, many of them can point to 300 year long histories too.

Having a system that gets a wide swath of rather lukewarm practitioners just dilutes it until it becomes pretty much too watered down for any purpose. This is an effect that is seen in any undertaking that requires skill, not just MMA, TMA or public school Science classes. The larger discussion is how quality can be maintained and how can it be transmitted.

Many older TMAs, as I said, are acutely aware of how hard it is to keep good quality techniques around and are more than happy to train someone who is a good teacher, but otherwise ineffective. Think about that. In a society with no education system to speak of, you have to also train the people to support your system’s longevity.

So you have lousy people who pay the bills (and want to train with you to get some of your cred), mediocre people who are staffing it, mediocre people who used to be good in it and have had their training lapse (e.g. due to age, injuries), people who understand how to coach it and finally you have people that can actually really do it to a high level.

MMA is gradually evolving in this direction because it is the best way to sustain such a system, short of some state-run national school system (think about the dismal level of public school teachers if you want to see how well that paradigm works for education.) Systems that have longevity had some niche, be it training the indolent nobility, keeping office workers active, security/body guarding or maybe even churning out people who can fight wars (which is distinctly different from civilian self defense).

If someone tells me “X” about TMAs generally I give them the benefit of a doubt, since there really are some fine old ones out there along with all the trash. They are often unwittingly preserving some very good stuff, because the systems are designed to keep it “just in case” and it must weather a generation or two of poor management from time to time.

And this doesn’t even get into the more recent Western rise of recreational combat sports (dating mostly post WW II) of which the Kung Fu schools, then later various types of Karate and now MMA are the result. Most of these don’t have a clear idea of their purpose aside from something or other in a ring and therefore have no clear cut way of vetting the ideas they run into.

They are willing to take from everywhere, but often treat older TMAs much the way a consumer treats a supermarket. It is therefore incumbent upon them to show the merit of what they do. I’m not just being a grumpy old dude. I realize that the downside of being a MA instructor is that your students might actually believe you and get beaten, shot or raped for listening to you… There are no standards in MA for instruction or merit.

– jj
[/quote]

Very reasonable post.

65

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

Zeb - You know my answer to you is going to be plainly to fuck yourself.[/quote]

Yes, I’ve known for quite a while that you are an inarticulate individual. It’s certainly not a secret over on the PWI threads. Every now and then you surprise me and write something coherent, but not usually. The above is what you do best.

What you call “trolling” is reading something that either you don’t understand (one reason why you cry troll so much), or do not agree with and are unable to articulate (see above) a decent rebuttal.

Irish you know full well that I never ask you a question. You are a minor player in the combat section and a joke over at PWI. Finally, all I’ve ever wanted from you was to not have to interact with you. It’s a waste of time, yet every time I post over here in you come with your negativity directed at me. Now do something that you’re probably not accustomed to, keep your word and from this day forward ignore my posts!

66

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

For douchefucks like Zeb who don’t understand, well, its because they haven’t done their research about guys who HAVE made these arts lethal while at the same maintaining what one might call “the integrity of the art.”[/quote]

Irish, does ignoring my posts and thus not confronting me come with talking about me to others? That seems sort of cowardly even for you.

As a side note your little blurb above misconstrues my original point, but that’s what you usually do best. At least now you can add the moniker of coward to idiot.

67

[quote]ZEB wrote:
You are a minor player in the combat section and a joke over at PWI.

[/quote]

LOL.

Only a minor player on an internet forum? A joke in a politics forum? How will I ever sleep at night!

When the interwebs attack…

68

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I have a lot of issues with the way TMA’s are taught, and I think that they could certainly use a heavy dose of reality mixed in. Sadly, too many teachers are caught up in teaching “their style” and staying so traditional that they don’t think to expand and modify, which is a shame because it’s what I believe the original teachers and creators of their respective arts would have encouraged.[/quote]

and that seems to be why combative arts still hold value to fighting and TMA is just for show. TMA has become more about living something from the past than really learning to defend yourself. It should be take what works drill it and throw out the rest.

The thing that kinda confuses me is masters of the past did this quite a bit. That is why there is 100’s of styles coming out of some countries. Each master put his spin on what he was taught. It seems like now that is frowned upon because you have to protect the history of the art.

This is something I like about the BJJ community. They dont seem to get as hung up on that stuff. They drill what works over and over and when someone does something different with it that works they all adopt it into their moves. With Kung Fu and Karate you get the typical well this is what they did and we will to even if it doesnt work is impractical.

69

[quote]punchedbear wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I have a lot of issues with the way TMA’s are taught, and I think that they could certainly use a heavy dose of reality mixed in. Sadly, too many teachers are caught up in teaching “their style” and staying so traditional that they don’t think to expand and modify, which is a shame because it’s what I believe the original teachers and creators of their respective arts would have encouraged.[/quote]

and that seems to be why combative arts still hold value to fighting and TMA is just for show. TMA has become more about living something from the past than really learning to defend yourself. It should be take what works drill it and throw out the rest.

The thing that kinda confuses me is masters of the past did this quite a bit. That is why there is 100’s of styles coming out of some countries. Each master put his spin on what he was taught. It seems like now that is frowned upon because you have to protect the history of the art.

This is something I like about the BJJ community. They dont seem to get as hung up on that stuff. They drill what works over and over and when someone does something different with it that works they all adopt it into their moves. With Kung Fu and Karate you get the typical well this is what they did and we will to even if it doesnt work is impractical.[/quote]

True, but this is what I’m saying - not EVERYONE is doing that.

There were a lot of guys in the 80s that were trained in TMA’s that found out that they didn’t work as advertised: guys like Marc Macyoung, Loren Christensen, Peyton Quinn, and others, that started moving towards doing more realistic things.

These guys and their teachings, from what I can tell, have begun to influence a sort of new generation of guys who adapting TMA’s to the real world - these younger guys, like Iain Abernethy, Kane, Demeree, are doing just that.

They all know each other, have seminars with each other, etc. and they’re really finally starting to gain traction as far as being looked at as a “different” thing from RBSD crowd and the TMA crowd that depends on wu-wu bullshit to trick eight year olds into thinking they’re black belts.

So that’s all I’m saying. Don’t judget all TMA’s by the Tiger Schulman’s commercials you see on TV or the video of this guy trying to protect his broken pride. There are guys out there that are doing this RIGHT.

They are hard to find, and there’s not a ton of them, but this change in the martial arts “world” is becoming apparent, at least to me.

70

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
You are a minor player in the combat section and a joke over at PWI.

[/quote]

LOL.

Only a minor player on an internet forum? A joke in a politics forum? How will I ever sleep at night!

When the interwebs attack… [/quote]

Now you promised to ignore me and here you are again asking for more. You’re not only stupid but now a liar as well.

Who would ever have thought?

71

One thing I also want to stress is that many of these systems ceased being “martial arts” two centuries ago. They could validly be called a system of unarmed fighting, but they cannot be called “martial” because the very word martial conotates war, and as soon as guns became prevalent, their battlefield usefulness passed onto the ages.

My main qualm with many of these arts is the way they approach weaponry. You can find schools everywhere that will simultaneously teach you how to use nunchucks, sai, the staff, swords, and the like, all under the guise that it’s helpful for “Self-defense.”

Of course, the last time I saw one of those lying on the street just waiting to be used when I got into a bar brawl was… well, probably about four centuries ago.

It really angers me that these guys call it self-defense even though they themselves don’t know how to slide a magazine into a gun or draw a folding knife quickly, and aren’t sure and don’t teach how to deal with them - even though they’re the most common weapons that one will run across in these boomtowns and mean streets.

They’ll never teach what kind of cover to hide behind if a shootout occurs, or what makes a perfect bottleneck for a crime to occur in, because they’re too focused on “preserving their art” and living in the 16th century.

That kind of thinking has just no place in a world where people may depend on what you’re teaching to save their lives.

It’s funny because if you walked up to anyone on the street and told them that you could lead the US Army in Afghanistan because you’d memorized an Army Manual from 1856, they’d laugh at you and tell you you were crazy.

But for a physical confrontation, that seems totally admissible and reasonable, even to the point where martial cults develop around teachers of arts that clearly are badly misunderstood and misapplied.

72

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
You are a minor player in the combat section and a joke over at PWI.

[/quote]

LOL.

Only a minor player on an internet forum? A joke in a politics forum? How will I ever sleep at night!

When the interwebs attack… [/quote]

Now you promised to ignore me and here you are again asking for more. You’re not only stupid but now a liar as well.

Who would ever have thought?

[/quote]

Christ, enough from you already.

73

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
One thing I also want to stress is that many of these systems ceased being “martial arts” two centuries ago. They could validly be called a system of unarmed fighting, but they cannot be called “martial” because the very word martial conotates war, and as soon as guns became prevalent, their battlefield usefulness passed onto the ages.

My main qualm with many of these arts is the way they approach weaponry. You can find schools everywhere that will simultaneously teach you how to use nunchucks, sai, the staff, swords, and the like, all under the guise that it’s helpful for “Self-defense.”

Of course, the last time I saw one of those lying on the street just waiting to be used when I got into a bar brawl was… well, probably about four centuries ago.

It really angers me that these guys call it self-defense even though they themselves don’t know how to slide a magazine into a gun or draw a folding knife quickly, and aren’t sure and don’t teach how to deal with them - even though they’re the most common weapons that one will run across in these boomtowns and mean streets.

They’ll never teach what kind of cover to hide behind if a shootout occurs, or what makes a perfect bottleneck for a crime to occur in, because they’re too focused on “preserving their art” and living in the 16th century.

That kind of thinking has just no place in a world where people may depend on what you’re teaching to save their lives.

It’s funny because if you walked up to anyone on the street and told them that you could lead the US Army in Afghanistan because you’d memorized an Army Manual from 1856, they’d laugh at you and tell you you were crazy.

But for a physical confrontation, that seems totally admissible and reasonable, even to the point where martial cults develop around teachers of arts that clearly are badly misunderstood and misapplied. [/quote]

That’s not a problem with the Arts as much as it is a problem with the people and America just exploiting it for Capitalism. They are not for self defense, they’re hobbies and tradition in cultures that create them as much as true capoeira is a dance. It’s people like Zeb who can not distinguish between the cultural and martial aspects of an Art, who try to sell it in its entirety as self defense.

74

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
You are a minor player in the combat section and a joke over at PWI.

[/quote]

LOL.

Only a minor player on an internet forum? A joke in a politics forum? How will I ever sleep at night!

When the interwebs attack… [/quote]

Now you promised to ignore me and here you are again asking for more. You’re not only stupid but now a liar as well.

Who would ever have thought?

[/quote]

Christ, enough from you already.[/quote]

I see I’m still not on ignore huh? Please keep your word just this one time idiot.

75

[quote]Airtruth wrote:

That’s not a problem with the Arts as much as it is a problem with the people and America just exploiting it for Capitalism. They are not for self defense, they’re hobbies and tradition in cultures that create them as much as true capoeira is a dance. It’s people like Zeb who can not distinguish between the cultural and martial aspects of an Art, who try to sell it in its entirety as self defense.[/quote]

Wrong, it’s people like YOU who can’t seem to drum up a reasonable answer to my original point. Hence, you use straw men to make yourself feel better. I presented a simple supposition and I backed it up with reasonable evidence. I said nothing of the cultural aspect of TMA. That does not enter into this particular equation. Yet, you drag it out as if it has merit in this discussion it does not.

76

[quote]Grimlorn wrote:

Fair enough. I knew it was a bad comparison after typing it. Listen if I practice techniques all day long and never spar. If I compete or fight how am I going to know how to handle distance, get use to reacting to opponents, learn how to move properly and use angles against an opponent, how to hit a moving target? For all we know they just practiced punching the air and kata all day long. No sparring or application. [/quote]

You must have missed the several times in each of my posts where I deliberately referenced hard sparring, high impact, “pressure cooking” experience. And the excerpts from WIM that I gave referencing the same thing.

I don’t give a flying fuck if somebody practices technique all day without sparring. That wasn’t what I was talking about. I was talking, very similar to WIM, directly on the TMA + live sparring and any other “realistic” pressure cooker drills that work on building a reality around applying techniques against fully resisting opponents.

I was not, never have been, and never will be comparing a system based on no sparring. The only exception to that is the obvious “how punches work” or biomechanical angle when discussing pros and cons of different styles of striking (think sambo punch vs. boxers, or other similar talks).

Further, I think you maybe have not read very much about the history of martial arts. If you read more you will discover fairly easily that the literature does give insight into how they trained long ago. Hell we have books that talk about weightlifting for fitness as early as 3000+ BC (supertraining mentions it). So to say “you can’t possibly know how they trained” as a blanket statement is inaccurate at best. We might not know everything without youtube, but it’s not like the reading literature is totally silent on the matter either.

As a final point if you go to Japan now and other areas in the “old world” you will find people who train in a traditional manner (meaning, passed down through the years the same way: ie–not modernized or commercialized), and it is also possible to extrapolate from that how people may have trained…because there is in some schools a living historical record in training. I am currently thinking of one Nat. Geo documentary I saw (I think) where they were covering old school karate in Japan. Training hours were averaging 15+ hours weekly, people getting punched in the stomach repeatedly to harden them up to punching, full contact sparring with no pads (no punches to the head allowed to reduce cuts though)…so, pretty much very similar to a competitive fighting gym in terms of hours per week and sparring.

Does it make them perfect emblems? No. Are there lots of schools who ditched real sparring and work? Yes. Are there shitty TMAs that are worse than others? Yes. Does it train angles, entering, dealing with pain, dealing with punishment, and mental toughness to getting punched? Yes. I would say it’s a pretty damn realistic and useful when you’re sparring without gloves and getting punched repeatedly. Even if the fighter has a “traditional” MA, if he’s gotten drilled and used to being punched and kicked you better watch the fuck out when you pick a fight with him–because he’s not going to flop on the ground like a pansy when you drill him in the stomach, just like a good boxer will smile when you try to land a haymaker on him. He’s seen it.

[quote]
And the Aikido master removed all his techniques because they were too deadly? According to whom? Did this guy kill a bunch of people with his bare hands? Did he kill anyone with it? This sounds like some McDojo crap. My art is too deadly so I won’t teach the deadly techniques.[/quote]

O Sensei, the founder of aikido. There are many, many books on him. You can call it crap if you want and that’s perfectly fine but his change in philosophy is documented in biographies. Further you are deliberately mischaracterizing the point he made–he didn’t say “too deadly super duper mega ultra death fist moves”. He said the teacher took the art itself in a more philosophical direction than what he had started it with. That is a personal choice and doesn’t sound like bullshit to me. Some people practice for mental purposes some for fighting, some for both. You found an art, you can do whatever you damn well please with your baby without answering to anybody. It’s YOUR art after all. Certain biographies will make more or less of the change in direction and more or less of the “it’s too deadly so he wanted to …” but the fact that he did change some things in the arts philosophy is pretty much undeniable. punchedbear had it about right I think–he went peaceful hippy on people and the aikido you see now I am not a fan of. I won’t say it is useless, but it is largely taught by people who don’t work at it seriously and also don’t understand fighting or violence beyond a textbook. I do believe it has some (not all by ANY stretch!) very valid concepts and moves however. Just not the practitioners to really do things under pressure. Softies.

I don’t buy the death punch shit either, and I’ve posted in years back about my stance on “chi”. That being said, chi kung itself is meditation. It’s not a martial art and you should know that if you are going to criticize it–meditation is meditation. Do you fight with yoga? Hell no. You stretch and meditate with it for better mental focus, mobility, spirituality, philosophy, release your inner chakras, whatever you want to call it. Chi Kung and meditation in Chinese arts works the same way. So don’t go making strawmen please–YES, it has been used as a marketing gimmick. And YES–it’s gotten sensationalized and commercialized by people looking to make money or reputation…but that’s pretty standard with most things in all areas of life wouldn’t you say? There’s the same thing going on in MMA circles and “realistic self defense” circles by people who have no business teaching or fighting because they’re shills.

BUT, and this is important, if you actually think about its context and purposes it becomes much more reasonable. If you’re a spiritual or mystical person you can use yoga or chi kung for spiritual purposes, or if you’re a practical person you can use yoga or chi kung for mobility, focus, flexibility, etc. They’re very similar in purpose, but nobody calls yoga “bullshit”. That’s because you are looking at the commercials, not the practical context. You can take or leave the spiritual and mystic side of it, just like yoga.

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[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]punchedbear wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I have a lot of issues with the way TMA’s are taught, and I think that they could certainly use a heavy dose of reality mixed in. Sadly, too many teachers are caught up in teaching “their style” and staying so traditional that they don’t think to expand and modify, which is a shame because it’s what I believe the original teachers and creators of their respective arts would have encouraged.[/quote]

and that seems to be why combative arts still hold value to fighting and TMA is just for show. TMA has become more about living something from the past than really learning to defend yourself. It should be take what works drill it and throw out the rest.

The thing that kinda confuses me is masters of the past did this quite a bit. That is why there is 100’s of styles coming out of some countries. Each master put his spin on what he was taught. It seems like now that is frowned upon because you have to protect the history of the art.

This is something I like about the BJJ community. They dont seem to get as hung up on that stuff. They drill what works over and over and when someone does something different with it that works they all adopt it into their moves. With Kung Fu and Karate you get the typical well this is what they did and we will to even if it doesnt work is impractical.[/quote]

True, but this is what I’m saying - not EVERYONE is doing that.

There were a lot of guys in the 80s that were trained in TMA’s that found out that they didn’t work as advertised: guys like Marc Macyoung, Loren Christensen, Peyton Quinn, and others, that started moving towards doing more realistic things.

These guys and their teachings, from what I can tell, have begun to influence a sort of new generation of guys who adapting TMA’s to the real world - these younger guys, like Iain Abernethy, Kane, Demeree, are doing just that.

They all know each other, have seminars with each other, etc. and they’re really finally starting to gain traction as far as being looked at as a “different” thing from RBSD crowd and the TMA crowd that depends on wu-wu bullshit to trick eight year olds into thinking they’re black belts.

So that’s all I’m saying. Don’t judget all TMA’s by the Tiger Schulman’s commercials you see on TV or the video of this guy trying to protect his broken pride. There are guys out there that are doing this RIGHT.

They are hard to find, and there’s not a ton of them, but this change in the martial arts “world” is becoming apparent, at least to me.
[/quote]

Irish, not that you need my “approval” or any nonsense, but you’ve won yourself a lot of points with me in this thread. I already know we disagree on a number of things related to TMA and combat, but you have a very reasonable position and I thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts.

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Also jj-dude, I like you a lot! Great answers and perspectives in this thread, given by somebody who obviously passes the “rational thinker” test. Thanks very much.

Also sentoguy, I already knew I thought you had great points and a good perspective. I always enjoy hearing your thoughts.

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I am late to this gang bang, but I will just add a bit.

FIRST: To Whelanj / the OP,

If you are still lurking thank you for posting the video. I enjoyed watching it. Thank your friend for making it.

Josann, PunchedBear, and JJ-Dude,

I enjoyed reading your posts immensely. I wish you three would post more. Thank you for taking the time to add to this thread.

JJ-Dude,

I am sorry for your loss. When the statistic is a friend things are much different.

RE: The instructor in the video getting dumped,

There is a history of someone requesting a demonstration and turning it into an out and out fight in traditional martial arts. I know that is not what happened in the video, but I understand the emotions going places after the throw.

I can also vouch that using a whizzer to kill an underhook / seatbelt is a lot more sporty when the other guy is trying to gouge and strike at your eyes / neck / urinary bladder / and testicles. Not impossible at all, but suddenly things get more interesting.

GENERAL POINTS

Someone mentioned how arts where practiced 150 years ago. Let us keep in mind that 150 years ago puts us in 1862. Foam rubber padding and plastic mouth guards did not exist. Neither did penicillin. Western Boxing was still being conducted glove free and under the London Prize Ring rules. I don’t have a confirmed date on when heavy bag / striking bag use became common, but Michael Donovan claimed to have invented his “striking ball” 16 years previous in a paper published in 1893. Let us let that sink in.

I would hope that methods invented to teach striking after heavy bags and various mitts and pads became common are improvements on things that pre-date them.

KUNG FU

Kung Fu / Gung Fu really refers to the proven ability to learn, master, and perform a difficult task. It has sort of become a catch all term for Chinese Martial Arts. The issue here is China is big, and there are a lot of them. Everything for styles of wrestling to styles of fighting with a wooden bench are under this umbrella. An equivalent Western umbrella would include everything from thumb wrestling to Biathlon.

RE: The TMA vs. MMA vs. Sports argument

As usual I am lining up in the good company of FightinIrish, LondonBoxer, and SentoGuy. I do this so often I may well be the most redundant poster on this forum. Hell, I agree with Irish so often here I may need to start a bourbon vs Irish Whiskey thread just to sow dissent.

MY FUTILE ATTEMPT TO ADD SOMETHING OF VALUE

I cannot help but notice we are largely making the western arts of boxing / wrestling / MMA / kickboxing synonymous with rules of competition. Essentially the style is being defined as the competitive test. With the Eastern styles we are using lineage. Shotokan implies learning something from individuals who learned from specific individuals. Boxing implies training towards boxing.

I mention this, because when we are trying to assess better vs worse we need some manner of assessment. Basically, what IS this skill supposed to get us and does it do it? There is certainly value in learning any difficult physical task, probably closer to actual kung fu here, and finding enjoyment from doing so is in and of itself valuable. So I would submit that learning even completely anachronistic arts like how to fight with a broadsword is great fun and valuable, but may not be rated highly in this thread.

Here we seem to be focusing on person to person fighting, probably sans weapons. This is still a pretty wide open definition, too wide to make meaningful evaluations in my opinion. Instead of going art vs. art I would like to focus on the problems we are trying to solve.

1.) Multi-Party Consent Violence / Fighting with a ref and rules:

This means specific, clearly defined rules governing what can and cannot be done, conditions of success/victory, conditions of failure/defeat, and most importantly ENFORCEMENT of those rules by somewhat neutral parties.

Sport styles tend to solve these problems very well. Because more information about what you will face is known you can tailor your training to be optimal. In fact, this is pretty easy to find solution to this problem. If you want to do well boxing, train boxing and so on.

Training tends to be very specific and very effective. I would also like to note that many different parties can stop this kind of violence. The ref, judges, doctors, either combatant, coaches, etc. can all say enough. If I wet myself on the ring apron and run back to the locker room, my pride is done for, but my anatomy remains intact.

2.) Two-Party Consent Violence.

This is the classic dual / challenge match / monkey dance. Both combatants generally have to agree to fight in order for there to be a fight. Onlookers and third parties are likely to be partisans. Rules and win/lose is much less clearly defined, though almost certainly there. These are unwritten rules matches. An example might be agreeing to fight me in the street because I called your pet wombat a fat slut and said your mother’s cage smells bad (that seems off…reverse that).

This is most certainly not self-defense. It is something else. The stakes may be life or death, or merely pride. A lot of TMA were supposedly proven in this type of environment, challenges against proponents of other styles. Rules may still be driving what is best in this situation. Because there is at least some sense of rules, sport styles, TMA, pure aggression and size, etc. may all do well here. It depends on what is explicitly and implicitly governing the win or lose conditions. It may be worth noting that pure BJJ has shown to do very well in precisely this environment.

  1. Single Party Consent Violence

This is the boogie man for many who talk about REALITY. Reality is not really the distinction though, because the other two types of violence occur in reality as well. The issue here is only one party needs to want violence to happen. If it is not you, then you are now in the defense of criminal assault mode. If it is you, you are the assailant.

Because only one party needs to consent the rules are fluid, and very likely different for both sides. Intellectual honesty means that this is not truly no rules, just that the rules you are following are going to be self-imposed, self-enforced, and the other guy may be using a different book.

Preparing for this is definitely a Wicked Problem. I mean that in the engineering sense of a problem that is difficult or nearly impossible to solve due to incomplete information, false information, or evolving conditions and goals. If we assume that we will be the defender in this situation, then we should have no delusions that we are truly well prepared. Over enough iterations the likelihood of surviving an ambush drops to zero, and since we are the ambushed it is merely a matter of doing our best and hoping for the same.

Reality Based Martial Arts, Sport Styles, or TMA may all fail or serve well in these conditions. I truly feel strategy is the key here.

I have written before about the continuity of Strategy, Tactics, and Technique. Most of what has been discussed / argued about is technique. It is the specific how. The issue I have is that better or worse is going to depend on the problem we are trying to solve.

Regards,

Robert A

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lmao at this thread.
A lot of masters, got baited by a lot of masturbators so who is the master and who is the baiter and who is the masturbator?

Sheesh, who gives a flying fuck about that poofta wasting his money on a trip to China to put a throw on an old man and act like He-man and who gives a flying fuck about Chinese playground park lineage grandmasters.