Kirves

How serious are you about martial arts?

Well said, pmh1nic. The family issues, other hobbies, children, job demands, how much priority martial arts have in your life, what arts are available from reasonable distances for reasonable prices (yes, some of us just can't afford to train in five different schools in five different locations), all affect how much and what you train.

Yeah, it was UFC2 where Kyokushin fighter went up to finals (do I remember correctly?) and there he stood up for about ten minutes against Gracie, losing the fight on the ground.

You were right on target as long as the assumption that the practitioner is training to become an expert street fighter is kept in mind. What often makes me a bit mad is how some people call people stupid and ignorant and whatsmore, because these people choose to study just one karate style, or tae kwon do, or judo. Not everyone is training to become the baddest fighter on the block. Some people train just for fun, we chooce to call ourselves "hobbyists". Some people play chess for fun - hey they even partake in tournaments. Are they stupid because chess won't help you in a street fight? Of course not. Same applies to figure skaters. They do it for fun and compete in the appropriate tournaments. Now this may seem like it doesn't relate to your "essay" because you were talking about training martial arts for street combat. What I want to achieve with this post is to make sure this discussion stays focused on that. It is all too common for people in these arguments to start calling people names and so on because they don't agree to crosstrain the same set of famous NHB arts. Phew, that was my rant of the week.

I think you misunderstood my point. I didn't mean that one should become a cop so he could legally enjoy street fights. Not at all. My point was this (I try to be clearer here): There's all this arguing all over about wheter martial art X is good for self defence. Some people say "have you seen it work the ring" and argue "ring is the closest thing to the street, so if X works there then it may work on the streets", so "is any NHB fighter using art X?". My point is "why don't you, instead of going to the ring, go and see if people who work with criminals on the streets have used X succesfully. If some cops, bouncers, guards, whatever, have been using X to succesfully defend against the worst criminals in the worst neighborhoods and after all that they say that X worked for them, then some of us feel that it has been "street tested" even if we never saw it in the ring. " And my point is that the latter is a more realistic way to "test" the art, than the ring. Yes, very true. Here, where I live, the same applies to the common citizen too. If you are attacked here, you can't use too much force or you'll spend a long while in jail. And they are very strict about these things around here, these darn judges just haven't got a clue what's realistic. We have had some "high profile" cases like this: A rapist raped a woman. A man came to intervene. Along the fight, the man punched the rapist a couple of times. What happened in the court? The rapist didn't go to jail. There were several "migitating circumstances", for example: the rape took only a short time, and the rapist had a job (can you believe that? He had a job, so there was no use putting him to jail!). These were just two of the reasons why he only paid some fine. The man who came to help the woman went to jail: he used too much force! The rapist didn't punch or strike him, so he went overboard, according to the court. So the system here sucks on these matters. But still: if you want to defend yourself without going to jail, you have to know some martial arts that allow you to defend while doing minimal damage to the attacker.

Great progress! Keep it up.

There's an excellent video available from Marco Lala (his website: http://www.fightingsecrets.com/ ) called "Karate-Boxing Connection" which explains the differences and similarities between the two striking systems.

It is good to have some training in striking arts so you are better able to defend against strikes too. Try one of these: 1. Muay Thai or Kickboxing 2. Full contact karate style 3. Savate 4. Sanda They are all good striking arts and complements well with Judo skills.

Of course that is correct. My point was merely that there isn't one single "correct" answer for everyone to the question which one is more effective, or sensible/smart. Ideally, one should learn both. In my country, all men are required to do their military service for the country thus all men here have been adequately trained in the use of all kinds of firearms, pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, snipers, machine guns, bazookas, grenades and so on. And that is no sport shooting, but real combat training. So around here it is not about wether or not you can use the gun. It is just that owning and using one is illegal and do you want to risk carrying an illegal gun on you. So, it is a personal issue with no clear "this is the best way" answer. Another problem with guns is that it is hard to limit the damage you do with it, it is sort of an all-or-nothing weapon. If you work in a grocery store and your drunk neighbour tries to steal some beer, you probably won't start shooting at him in the store. Yet, with a little martial arts training, you can deal with the situation in a manner that is non-hostile and eventually calms the situation down completely. Guns have their place in a self defence repertoire, but so do martial arts. And neither is better, just better suited for different situations.

I guess something just went wrong when I posted it.

Make it tight.

So you actually think that a fight cannot be won by a method that wasn't intuitively thought? This is a big misconception. Yes, it helps if you can respond to any threat with a "spine response" but many fights in the world happen between people who have never trained anything before, yet one of them wins. Thus, winning doesn't require one to have intuitive response, it is an advantage but not a requirement. A good strategy, or a strike of luck, can make one win a fight.

If you can stop him from kicking range, then do it. If he get's to punching range, and you can stop him with a punch, then do it. If he gets closer than that and you can stop him with a throw, then throw him. If you have to wrestle with him on the ground then do it. You have to be able to handle yourself in all the ranges if real life self defence is your concern.

Exactly. There are ways to tye the belt that in some cultures are only used for the dead people. And in some cultures that is the normal way of tying the belt. If you use the wrong way, you may be insulting the school. Agreed, this is an extreme example, but just to show you you should really ask the people at your school instead of asking here.

Apparently my reply was sencored. Or is it that somehow the reply sending was unsuccesful?

You prove my point. My point was that ring is not the street. And even a street is not another street. One person on one street is different than another person on another street. Our needs and potentials differ, so do our needs. One art suits one person while another art suits another person. There is no one answer to "the ultimate self defence" need. Depends on where you are on this Earth. Remember, not everyone doing martial arts, being a cop, or discussing on this forum, lives in the U.S. And sometimes it takes time for backup to arrive. Just to make a point: one thing about cops has been in the news lately a lot here in Finland. That thing is the time it takes for at least one patrol to come to the scene of emergency. In Finland, people live far and between, and there's a very small number of cops per square kilometer. There have been lots of complaints that it may take an hour or more for the first patrol to arrive from the call. And it may take half an hour for the next patrol to arrive when it's apparent more backup is needed. A normal fight takes a few seconds, some minutes at best. You just can't rely on things like "the backup will come and help us, so no worries". In Finland, the worst crimes are done by local biker gangs and the Russian mafia. When they hit together, it is war. Add to that, the fact that in half of Finland it takes anywhere up to an hour for the first police patrol to arrive, you get some pretty bad situations. But you can't compare the streets of Finland to the streets of U.S. or the streets of Saigon. Every place is different, and the best survival skills differ according to where you are. Also the laws differ, in some places you can kill someone who attacks you, in another place you will be convicted of murder if you do so. So there is no one art or style or range that will help you. And that brings this rant back to the point: you need to check where you are and ask the people who use their skills right there daily. If you are afraid you're going to get mugged in N.Y., then ask the people who do it professionally in N.Y. if you need to defend your self in South Africa, ask the people who do it there professionally, and so on. The ring is not "the closest thing" to the street as you can't even define which street you are talking about. Phew. Rant over.

The more the merrier!

Yeah, welcome! Always nice to have people with good MA experience over here.

Welcome! This is a great forum, I'm sure you'll love it here.

Yea, that cartoon should be posted on the humor -section!

I don't live in the U.S. Where I come from, everyone has hard time getting guns. When the citizens don't have guns, the criminals can't get them either, because illegal guns are usually the ones stolen from the citizens during burglaries. In the U.S., I would think it is more difficult. If one state makes guns hard to get, the criminals can get a gun from the neighboring state where guns are everywhere, all you need is to steal it from someone if you can't buy it. If nearly every house has one, all you need to do is find a house whose owners are not home and break in and look for guns. So, my point is, not every country is like the U.S. so different kinds of solutions work for different people in different areas.

Yeah, try to mix arts that cover different areas.

BJJ is Jujutsu. It is just one of the styles. It focuses quite much on ground fighting, while most other JJ styles focus on stand-up grappling.

He broke many rules and taboos. He was one of the few who taught white people equally as asians. Many asians didn't like that and the people doing this were often seriously threatened and harassed. He also broke the boundaries of styles and arts. Up till then, different styles were almost at war with each other, it was very common to see in public events how kungfu guys demonstrated their stuff and openly bashed how karate is inferior because of this and that. Then you'd see the karate people do the same thing against kungfu. And so on. Lee came forth and said all arts have some things to offer and started mixing them. Many people, who were still in the old mind-set of studying loyally under one master and then learning ancient secret techniques that would make them invincible, just didn't like Lee's ideas. Lee also tried to get better movie roles than typically given to asians at the time. The full contact champs of the time (Norris, Lewis, Stone...) all trained with Lee and all agree that he was great. Lee's #1 student, Dan Inosanto, has studied dozens of arts and seen thousands of top martial artists during the last decades, and he says Lee was great. Some people say Lee wasn't that great, but always ask "how does he know", was he there too? Was he there fighting among Norris, Lewis, LeBell, Lee and Inosanto and does he then claim that these other people are lyars? Was he the best? I dun't know. I don't think anyone can say for sure. Would he beat the MMA top fighters of today? I doubt it. Why? Because today we just have so much more information. Lee researched lots of arts, but many of today's top arts just weren't available for him back then. Had he lived to see this day, he'd probably be great today, but nobody can say how great, would he have been the best, or just one of the top 1000 fighters, just can't tell.

Great, nice to have honest answers. I was afraid I'd get some hypocritical answers. I also drink with the intention of getting very drunk. I drink about once a month, on a free weekend. I rarely go to a bar anymore, but I like to get drunk once in a while with friends. And my favorite drink is vodka on the rocks. Yours? How about this: are you always able to behave when totally drunk, or do you ever regret being so drunk or behaving so badly when drunk?