Treebranch

Just wondering what styles of MA don't move off line to block strikes, I often found this to be odd. Can someone please explain.

FromtheGroundUp is right about the open hand being structurally stronger than with the fist. In Aikido they teach this principal. Extend your arm in front of you with an open hand and have a friend try to bend your arm, forcing your hand towards you. Then try it again making a fist. The open hand arm is a lot harder to bend. I don't know why, but it's true.

I think Bruce Lee was great and all, but there are alot of MA that he hadn't looked at yet. Some teach many ryu within itself, and gives you room to develop they you want to. I think he had a good philosphy about MA, but it may not suit everyone. You have to choose what feels right to you as an individual.

YoungGrasshopper be careful with that temper, a more experience fighter will use it against you. When your angry you might over commit to a attack and someone with experience can set you up for a world of hurt. Don't get angry, get even.

So if Bruce Lee thought there is really no difference in styles, than the techniques are more important than the style. There are more aspects to MA than kicks and punches.

Drop your weight and roll your shoulders forward making your back wider. Keep your back straight if possible. With your left leg, step behind his right leg, and drop your hips again. The person will arch back and you will have his balance. He will either let go of you or you can easily throw him over your left leg. Try it slow with a friend, it's very easy. If the person is a giant hit them with the back of your head, thrust your hips back into his pelvic area. Then look between your legs at the ground you should see his left or right foot, reach down and grab his ankle and pull it up between your legs. He should be on the ground at this point. If you want to be viscious about it fall on his knee when you've pulled him off balance, breaking the knee.

Yeah, I hope more people read this. Thanks

Read this article it's long, but really interesting. It relates to this topic. https://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/traditionalMA.htm

I train at Bujinkan North Hollywood, if you want to check it out send me a personal message and we'll talk.

One thing we do Wu Tang Clan is we have a philosphy that is train how live. Once in a while we train with street clothes. I usually prefer and choose clothing that is loose fitting. Even if I am wearing a suit it isn't a perfect fit, it's loose enough that I can move around, it's a sort of critera for my clothes to not effect my movement too much. But your right, some situations can get really sticky. If your being attacked, you must do what it takes. If you can avoid it, by all means avoid it. Also it's sad that some people are more afraid of certain minorities, than of their own kind. This can be an advantage for that certain minortiy in a confrontation. I've had a lot of people back down from me, after they were shooting their mouth off. So in some ways it's gotten me out of alot of potential fights, but it also kinda sucks.

You seem like you know what your talking about, I think you'd do fine.

The key is not to try fit the techniques you learn into a streetfight, just react naturally. Attack, attack, attack. You will do fine as long as you are vicious, a whirl wind of attacks.

Use them if you know how, and don't if you don't. Are they effective? Yes, if you know how to use them.

Of course everyone should use good judgement, but if I am truley being attacked I have to assume the attacker's intent is to kill me. So I will do whatever it takes to stop him from doing that. It doesn't mean killing the attacker, but if it came to that I would just have to live with it.

I think women can use that to their advantage, to bait a sloppy attack. When someone sees that scared look in his mind he's already won. I think if this is a deep rooted instinct it can have advantages.

Andrew Green said: O.K. I beleive you, so basically we agree. It's not what you train, it's how you train that's important. Read this article everyone, it's very long but very enlightening. It is very relevant to this topic. https://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/traditionalMA.htm

Again, I agree with you. It's how you train, not what you train that makes you a fighter.

Karate Women that's a very aggressive way of thinking. So what do you do if you get hit first? Say the hit didn't knock you out or even rattle you, I hope you know how to regain yourself in this type of situation. There are ways to bait your attacker, to open him up. Yes not attacking first is always riskier, but there are times when you will be attacked first. I can't stress good grappling skills enough, or using things near you, your keys, a pen, a pocket knife if you need it. Fight dirty when it's a street fight, quick and dirty. I'll worry about the law when I survive the fight. Getting back to the post, self defense is protecting yourself against a threat, whether you hit first or not. Distancing yourself is very important.

That's really cool and interesting, I only wish Bruce Lee would have lived longer to look at other styles, to see what he thought.

That's great I'm not denying it can also be effective on the street. But what about weapons training and street tactics? I never heard of MMA training for that, or multiple attackers. There are very good techniques of positioning yourself for multiple attackers. I think it comes down why you study Martial Arts that's important. We all have our own temperment and taste. In reality there is no Best Martial Art, just best for the individual. I never put down MMA's and I never said it's not effective. I just don't think people should put TMA's down, just because it doesn't suit their taste.

O.K. TJS your right, but both points can be argued until we are blue in the face. Is new better than old? Sometimes Yes. Is old better than new? Sometimes Yes. This can be debated into a circle forever. I just think people are more influenced by what's new and don't bother to look at the benefits of Tradition. Some Traditions are worth keeping, because alot of what new is based more on comercialism than on principle. I work in Graphic Design and Adverstising now, and our job is to manipulate the consumers into buying our products and services. Is our product better, than out competitors, not really. But we hope by advertising and appealing to our target audience, they will think so. UFC and NHB fights have had a great advertising campaign behind it, to promote MMA. MMA is what works in those type of fights with their set of rules. Are these people in these fights great fighters? Yes, of course they are. Personally I don't plan on fighting those guys, and I have no desire to be a competitive fighter. I just don't like it when people point to the success of these fighters and assume just because they study the same MA's that they will have the same success. I don't care what people think of Budo Taijutsu, because most people don't really now what it is. They are too scared to like it, or to study it for the fear of being ridiculed. The stigmas that were created by the Ninja boom in the 80"s is still with us and it was the result of bad movies. They portrayed Ninja as men in black get-ups sneaking around doing back flips and getting their butts kicks. The image of Ninjutsu is so not what we are about. It's sad to me that people can't see past the exterior of things and investigate for themselves. As for picking up a logic book to win an argument that can't possibly be won, I'll leave that exhausting task to someone else. Also how can someone so logical and philosphical think there is only one way of doing things? Things without structure crumble to the ground.

No offense but what a dumb article, do you have to always be right? O.K. your right. Breath in, now exhale. All is good in the world.

Wow! Andrew Green there's no pleasing you is there. It wasn't a demo he was just showing us the differences. I've Kickboxed, I now how to Box, I'm not easily influenced, I'm a huge skeptic. I know what boxing punches can do, I'm a huge boxing fan, I love boxing. I had never seen or experience anything like that before. Read my profile I've studied various styles, I'm not a little kid impressed by tricks. Do you even know how to defend against a jab? You can keep a boxer at bay with kicks and when he throws his commited attack you take advantage of it and take him down. I'm sure you've seen this happen enough times in UFC. Besides not all punches are intended to knock you out. Some are to the body and some are to effect the opponent's structure, to take his balance. If you can take someones balance he's yours. If you don't know that, keep training. Peace brother.

Yes I have, I hope we've come to an understanding.

Well I'm glad we are finally getting somewhere with this debate, that's what I've been trying to explain this whole time. I don't think those training methods are really anything new. Some TMA's train hard, some train soft and some have a balance of the two. We train hard and soft, just like you. When you say MMA it typically means Muy Thai, and BJJ, we don't study that. I think people are using the term Traditional in a negative way, like Traditional=Dogmatic. Traditional meaning the techniques taught are traditional, not the training methods. Budo Taijutsu is very open to innovations in training methods. Some of the techniques, especially the weapons techniques I'll probably never use, but there fun as hell. I hope I wasn't too much of an a hole to you, I'm pretty passionate about MA's so I apologize if I was. When you first see these techniques they seem really weird, but when you have them done to you it's eye opening. The amount of power you can generate with these techniques is really surprising. My teacher has studied almost every popular MA you can think of, he's very knowlegable. I was skeptical about it myself until I went to a class. He had me hold a bag and he punched it like a boxer, I could feel it through the pad, it was hard. He did a karate punch, really powerful strike. Last he did a Taijutsu punch and I was thrown back and fell to the ground. I had never experienced anything like that, so I started training. It's a really brutal and effective MA, I hope one day you will try it out. With your experience you should pick up on the concepts pretty quickly.