Kirves

Ever seen gangs use baseball bats to beat someone up? Is baseball a martial art? You are both right and wrong. Yes they are effective. Yes they are overlooked. But they aren't overlooked in war. They weren't developed for war, but for sport. I think the poll is too limited, we should have other options like 'martial sport' (= sport from a war art) and 'fighting sport' (= sport not from a war) too.

LOL! I wouldn't ever wanna fight him after hearing stories about how he fought! 360: Good list on Japanese arts (except Lee, of course). Now if other people would list the most influential people in other arts, we'd get a good list combined.

Yea he trained with a makiwara when he was recuperating to get his revenge. The punches he uses are from Wing Chun, not Karate.

I must've missed a big part of boxing's history. I never knew it and it's rules were designed for warfare.

Define 'martial'. Isn't it supposed to mean something to do with 'war'? Does boxing fit that description?

You're quite right, major_motoko. We often hear about how some old time master karateka trained some kata 4 hours a day for years on. The common misconception is that people think it means he performed the kata as a solo dance for 4 hours! Of course that four hour session included bunkai/tichiki training too! But opinions are opinions. Everyone's got one. I'd hope people had informed ones but we don't live in a perfect world, do we. For me, karate is something I do rather than talk about it (though I like talking about it too). So I'd rather spend an hour training and studying a kata than arguing about it's usefulness with someone who feels it is useless. I tell someone once, some people even twice, how kata can be useful, but if they don't listen or agree, I don't care.

So, you think it is not because it is not an art. Some people would argue that, but I'll have another one for you: Is it martial? PS. Are you sure this poll belongs to the 'karate' forum? Maybe it would fit better in the general forum...

Marco Lala gives good comments on both the bag and the makiwara, as well as compares traditional karate punches with boxing punches, and explains when to use which and how to use them together, in his excellent instructional video "Karate-Boxing Connection".

Well, Dan Inosanto is the #1 student of Bruce Lee and the only person Lee ever certified in Jeet Kune Do. Nowadays Inosanto is one of the most respected instructors around, teaching Kali, Silat, JKD, Jun Fan, Muay Thai, and what have you. The reason you may not have heard of him is because he is also a humble and nice guy who doesn't toot his own horn. But ask anyone who's seen him in person, he is a master. Google for him on the net and look around... DeThouars is the headmaster of Pukulan Bukti Negara system of Silat. Very deadly guy. There are too many styles of Silat to make any such generalizations.

Makiwara's springyness is good for karate-type punch power training (you know, boxing punches don't train for the 'kime' shock effect).

Training with weights or isometrics strengthens the muscle but you also need to learn to connect the power from the muscles with the technique. You don't punch with any one musclegroup, you use the whole body as a unit. Strong muscles give you potential for stronger technique but you need to actually do it to make it happen. Okinawans changed lots of things in Te. Makiwara was a great invention for building a single power punch. A heavy bag on the other hand is great for training combinations and kicks.

One name came to my mind: Chokki Motobu

If the karateka has a heavy bag then makiwara is not THAT essential. It is essential that a karateka strike SOMETHING for real to generate punching power. You can train the technique and strengthen muscles but you have to do real power punching to make it all click. Makiwara is good for that. Heavy bag is good for that too.

Strayder, say that to Dan Inosanto or Paul DeThouars.

Actually it's more direct than that. It is "go in and counter while doing it" not the other way round. No it won't. They punch like that, because their whole punching technique is different. They don't generate power to their punches from the waist as in boxing or karate or other well known styles, but their power comes from the forward momentum of the whole body dashing forward and the punching arm is held at a specific angle in the middle line so that the body's momentum is correctly behind the punch. Using the two biggest knuckles would mean bending your wrist into an unnatural curve and it would break the technique. The differences are mostly in the training methods. The modern systems include drills that teach fighting against the common boxing type attacks and so on. Also, many of the modern systems include what is called "Anti-grappling", i.e. a method of defending against takedowns. People have mixed ideas about wether or not it actually works against a skilled grappler.

Wing Chun is based on the idea of intercepting the attack and turning the tables. A Wing Chun person will deflect the initial attack and then launch a chain of attacks of his own that will only stop when the opponent is down. Wing Chun doesn't teach any way to retreat, but you connect and go in and continue forward until you have stopped the attacker completely. Wing Chun is known for it's sticking hands methods. That means, that when attacked, you deflect the attack and then you keep contact with the enemy's hands. If he pulls the hands in to reload, your hands go in keeping in constant touch with his hands. And when you feel his hands are coming towards you again, you keep your hands sticky to his and deflect the attack. While doing this "sticking to him" you constantly seek for gaps in his defence so you can launch your barrage of strikes immediately when a target presents itself. A very aggressive style of self defence. There are several styles or branches of Wing Chun. The most widespread (so widespread, most people in the martial arts think it is the only Wing Chun branch) is that taught by the late Yip Man. Now his students have several organizations teaching the art in slightly different manner. Leung Ting calls his style Wing Tsun and they have modernized the training methods somewhat. One of previous students of Wing Tsun, Emin Boztepe, split from the organization and founded his own Ebmas which is taught is a slightly different manner also. Another student of Yip Man, William Cheung, teaches a non-modernized style with the trademarked name "Traditional Wing Chun". A good Wing Chun info site is: http://wingchunkuen.com/

I would say so!

Here's what Emin thinks of the incident, and about Leung Ting and Kernsprecht (Ting's number one student, the leader of European section of Ting's org): http://www.ebmas.net/interview.htm Some of the people who studied under Yip Man got into this situation. Sad. There were Bruce Lee, William Cheung, Leung Ting and they all were people of high technical caliber. Now Cheung says he's the one and only "true" WC GM, Ting says he was the last in-door student of Yip Man and got the torch, Cheung talks a lot about his affiliation with Bruce Lee, so he might get some leverage from that and so on. All in all, it's a mess.

Yes. And the reason for the fight we are discussing. The feud between Cheung and Ting started from Cheung not accepting that he wasn't the choice as he felt he had studied under Yip Man longer period of time (or something like that) and should have been given leadership. Yes, but now we are actually talking about a single branch: that of Yip Man. The styles of Ting and Cheung are now sub-branches of that single branch. Yip Man was the GM of this branch as given to him by his own GM. He apparently passed the torch of this branch to Ting. But the branch got fragmented into several small branches bickering with each other (sad politics). If we start talking about the actual differing branches of WC then we must see Ip Man's as a single branch and the other branches come outside of it. We can easily see it because the different branches have a very different curricula too! Ting and Cheung both teach basically the same curricula of the three unarmed forms, two weapons and wooden dummy form. True, Ting has made modernizations and that's one of the reason Cheung chose the name "Traditional" for his style as he teaches identically to Yip Man, without "modernizing". But if we look at other branches of WC they are entirely different. Some have dozens of forms, dozens of weapons. Some have no forms at all, but only technique categories and drills. And so on. Both Cheung and Ting are just two different organizations teaching the same branch of WC in their differing ways and methods. EDIT 1: For more info on different WC branches, there are lots and lots of excellent articles and pages at: http://www.wingchunkuen.com/ EDIT 2: And about Grandmastership... More confusion comes from the fact that Ting's Wing Tsun organization uses Grandmaster as one of the normal ranks, so now they have Grandmasters who are not GM as in "head of a style" but as in "master instructor" or something. Ting himself is now Great Grandmaster (GGM). Geesh...

Nope. If I remember correcly (I don't study WC so I am not that interested) he chose Leung Ting, his last "closed-door" student. But someone can correct me if I remember wrong.

Oh yes, I know. And Ashida Kim is the Grandmaster of Koga-ryu Ninjitsu, you can read that here: http://www.ashidakim.com/ Your link went straight to Cheung's own website, of course he will say such things in there. Go ask someone who trained under Yip Man, but hasn't joined Cheung's TWC organization and you get differing opinions. And by the way, it is not "traditional Wing Chun", it is "Traditional Wing Chun" - see the capitalization. TWC is a trademark of Cheung's organization. So in effect, he really is the Grandmaster of his own organization. But he was never elected to such a status in the Wing Chun family by his teacher, the previous Grandmaster of his branch (Yip Man). Usually it is the Grandmaster who decides who will succeed him as the next one. Yip Man chose another disciple to be the next GM and this p*ss*d Cheung off, so he founded his TWC organization and labelled himself Grandmaster.

Yes, that is a well known fact. You don't get so many "punch-drunk" veterans from kickboxing, thaiboxing, kyokushin and other such styles where kicks to the head are allowed. As a couple of kicks or knees to the head will often knock you out, you won't be getting pounded in the head for half an hour with cushioned blows. One knockout is no match for half hour constant beating as far as brain damage is concerned.

Whoa! Time-out! Grandmasters? The fight happened a long time ago and Emin was a young punk back then! He actually went there to defend his Grandmaster's honour! He went there to beat up a guy who talked trash about his Grandmaster. That's it. Another thing. I've seen the video several times. Actually I see quite a bit of Wing Chun in it. First of all, as is well known, the camera didn't start rolling until way into the fight. It missed most of the standup stuff. Then they fell to the ground, but if you look up close, you see Emin trapping Cheung's hands and raining elbows on him. That is Wing Chun. WC sparring looks pretty sloppy because of how it works. Your hands must keep contact with the opponents hands at all times after initial contact and you bend around his arms and rain slappy strikes all round. When not choreographed, it kinda looks like schoolyard kids slapping around sloppily. Especially to an eye that is used to people not sticking their hands together. Anyways, Emin has said it in several interviews that he regrets the incident. He feels he was tricked by his Grandmaster and superiors into getting his young hands dirty when his superiors didn't have the guts to handle the issue themselves or the sensibility to let it go.

Perhaps!

So I'll stick with my original question. How does one know WC works, if they've never seen it work in a real, live fight? Maybe some have. But until someone gives me some proof, I remain doubtful. I wasn't talking about changing your mind. I was talking about what is enough to convince most of the WC students to stay confident in their art. If you remain doubtful, that's not their problem.