[quote]Sifu wrote:
Sento if you are a teacher and you want to teach a particular technique to a class of students you have to demonstrate it. That means breaking it down. Step by step. Or maybe you will do something at full speed so your students can see how something looks at full speed. This is how you teach people. That is how it is done.
Why don’t you know that? I thought you were supposed to have studied martial arts.
Those throws in that video looked effortless and he put his uke right at his feet so he could follow up.
Just having a freefight so sensei can prove how tough he is is not how you teach a class. Especially when you are a seventy or eighty year old man.
Sento I have so much more I could write but I’m not going to bother.
[/quote]
OOOOOKKKKKKK…
Yeah, I am well aware of the need to start at the beginning and really break down techniques. When did I say that that wasn’t a necessary step? And yes, I realize that that first video was a demonstration. My problem with such types of demonstrations is that there is absolutely no resistance (which is typical of many traditional martial arts demos). So, they’re not good demonstrations of an arts effectiveness.
Also, just breaking down a technique or demoing it on a non resisting opponent is only the first step in teaching a technique. From there you may need to break it down even further, you will need to slowly add resistance so the student knows how to react when they encounter resistance (which they will), you need to teach how to defend against it, you need to teach extensions/combinations in case the technique doesn’t work/the opponent defends against it, and finally you need to have the student try applying the technique in real time against a fully resisting opponent.
Most of the good demos that I’ve ever seen included not just techniques done on one student of theirs (who has practiced the routine with them probably hundreds of times). They also pull random people out of the audience, ask the uke to resist them, or try to defend against things at certain points in the demo. They stop and break down the techniques or answer questions if the audience/students ask. It’s not just a fancy ballet like a lot of demos that I see videos of.
I’m also not suggesting that simply because someone does a demo like the video automatically means that the techniques don’t work. What I meant was that simply because someone does a demo like that video doesn’t necessarily mean the techniques will work. In order to know if they really do work the techniques must be tested in real time against a resisting opponent.
The problem with a lot of traditional MA’s is that they don’t seem to ever actually test their techniques. Some do (Jiu-Jitsu, WC, Pankration, Pugilism, etc…) but many don’t. It’s really no surprise that the arts which dominate the MMA scene are arts that do test and prove that they work in real time against resisting opponents (boxing, kickboxing, judo, JJ, pankration, sambo, etc…). Honestly fighters have only one concern when it comes to competition and that’s winning. So, they use the arts/techniques which have proven themselves to be the most effective. If arts like Wah Lum really were superior, then you’d see Wah Lum start to show up and become prevalent in MMA. We haven’t seen that happen though, what should that tell us?
I’m also once again not suggesting that MMA is real combat. No type of training is real combat, no matter how realistic you want to make it. But, that doesn’t mean that things that work in MMA aren’t going to transfer extremely well to real combat. Sure, you need to learn cerebral, postural, and verbal self defense. Sure, you need to realize that weapons are a reality and you should learn how to both defend against them and learn how to utilize them. Sure you need to realize that in real combat there are no rules, no rounds and no ref, so anything goes. But boxing/kickboxing, wrestling, JJ, judo, etc… are still going to be very beneficial/effective skill sets for actual combat.
On the other hand, arts that use deadly or “street effective” methods, but never test or train those methods in real time against a fully resisting opponent aren’t going to be nearly as beneficial/effective for actual combat.
But, once again, Wukey isn’t talking about actual combat, he’s talking about studying MA for conditioning purposes, which you have still yet offer any superior options him training in boxing/kickboxing, wrestling, judo or jiu-jitsu (sport arts).
