OneKickWonder

I was reading up just recently about a style called Bartitsu. It was created a couple of hundred years ago by an English gentleman that spent some time in Japan, learned some jujitsu, and decided to adapt it to more quintessential English gentleman style self defence using walking canes and umbrellas and such as improvised weapons. The art never made it big apparently. It was all but lost to time. But a few records remain, in newspaper articles and such. And modern day enthusiasts are trying to recreate the style by pulling together magazine articles, old photographs, anecdotal evidence etc. There are now practical enthusiasts that run demos of it, all dressed in victoriana style attire of course. The point I'm trying to make is, yes I think people can become self taught in martial arts, if they are determined enough, and willing to experiment. I thought Bartitsu was a fictional martial art used in the Sherlock Holmes stories. I didn't know it was based on any real martial art, than again, I never got much into Sherlock Holmes. Yes. It is real. http://www.bartitsu.org/ Given what the information age enables us to know about martial arts history, it is possible it was fictional, but is, as you say, now real. Even those that study it acknowledge that the record is sparse and fragmented. I expect surviving newspaper articles from the time would be as credible as claims about other martial arts styles featuring the ability to fly and shoot energy balls. Now of course such claims are ridiculed and rightly so, but an englishman learning jujitsu in Japan and then adapting it, even if it did start as fiction it is plausible.

I was reading up just recently about a style called Bartitsu. It was created a couple of hundred years ago by an English gentleman that spent some time in Japan, learned some jujitsu, and decided to adapt it to more quintessential English gentleman style self defence using walking canes and umbrellas and such as improvised weapons. The art never made it big apparently. It was all but lost to time. But a few records remain, in newspaper articles and such. And modern day enthusiasts are trying to recreate the style by pulling together magazine articles, old photographs, anecdotal evidence etc. There are now practical enthusiasts that run demos of it, all dressed in victoriana style attire of course. The point I'm trying to make is, yes I think people can become self taught in martial arts, if they are determined enough, and willing to experiment.

Sounds like a fair assessment to be honest. The one steps can be made to work, and in ours, we're encouraged to make them work at higher grades. But if we teach our tweaks to lower grades, we get to hear about 'the book'. Bong forms, I used to speculate that it's nothing to do with the stick, the stick serving no purpose other than to teach us to coordinate hands in wing chun style sticky hands, but more time passed and I concluded that that was just me trying to convince myself it had some value. And you're right about the senior dan stuff. I remember cringing when a senior Dan grade demonstrated a technique that I learned as a white belt in aikido. I'm not sure I want it. The only way I can justify it to myself, possibly, is if I were planning to ask another association to consider fast tracking me if I can demonstrate enough crossover between TSD and their style, but the truth is I'm quite happy to put a white belt around my waist. In the interests of honesty and respect I'd tell the new club my current grade and experience, but completely let them decide where I fit in their system. Inevitably that would initially be at white belt. It could be that after 6 months they decide I'm able enough to jump a few ranks. Equally it may be that they decide I'm not up to their standard, and let me work through at their normal pace. I'm easy either way. My personal sense of achievement comes from being able to do something I couldn't previously do. I've tied belts of many colours. I'm sure I can already tie a black one if I try. But unless I believe in it, it would be no different to tying my old white belt.

Or in the case of some of the kids in our kids class, substitute the bold for 'clam up and move slowly backwards because there's no incentive to do anything different'. This is why I'm starting to see the value of point sparring. If you already have the fire in your belly, then I think free sparring is better every time. But some of the kids don't have that fire in the belly yet. I sometimes worry about this, because I think all the technical ability in the world counts for exactly nothing if they can't use it under pressure. Kids like games. Kids don't like work. Free sparring with no concept of a winner is an opportunity only for the confident kids to gain more confidence and the quiet kids learn that they hate sparring. Point sparring is a game. Kids like games. Kids usually try to win if it's a game.

For a long time, I thought point sparring was erm, pardon the pun, pointless. My long held view used to be that a real fight doesn't stop the instant a judge raises a flag thingy. Free sparring made more sense. Still unlike a real fight, free sparring does at least emulate the bitter struggle to some extent, and the chaos. But now I find myself thinking a little different about point sparring. I'd love to hear opinions on this. Watching free sparring, especially the kids, there is sometimes the tendency to not try too hard to get one through. I'm not talking about full contact.just demonstrating the ability to land at good one if needed. Or to put it another way. I think some people lack the determination to win. And free sparring does nothing to encourage that determination because unless knockouts or submissions are allowed, there can be no winner. Point sparring on the other hand has a clear winner, and if it has one thing in common with a real fight, that can happen in a very short time if you make a mistake. What do others think?

In the UK at least, I can't think of any classical martial arts weapon that would ever be classed as a tool of self defence. If for example you slash someone with a katana then you're going to jail, even if you were outnumbered. Any court would conclude that to take such a thing with you means you had preempted a violent encountered and prepared for it with intent. Same goes for dagger and nunchakus etc. Staff, I think sometimes you might get away with it. If a fight broke out while you were playingpool/snooker/billiards for example and you already had the cue in hand when the fight came to you, you could argue that you panicked and lashed out. But it's a bit tenuous. So what can we do that is practical and improvised? I'm aware that some have devised techniques using an ordinary leather belt of the type that holds the trousers up. I'm not sure how practical that is. If I were attacked, I'm not sure my first instinct would be to increase the risk of my trousers sliding down and obstructing my movement. Some have devised techniques using a jacket or shirt. Some suggest using a mobile phone as a simple hard object, but I can see that being a good way to break your own fingers while infuriating the attacker. Some say to use your keys as a makeshift knuckle duster but that looks like a good way to injure your own hand while causing a slight annoyance to the attacker. So what can we do? I believe the hapkido guys specialise in improvisation. It's a style I'd like to practice but it's very rare in my area.

Be loyal to yourself first. If you are learning from a book, you can remain loyal if you wish. Just take the book with you and read it at home, in between classes at another school.

This is a tricky one for me. I started at 9, but ceased regular in class training at about 15, so you could say 6 years there. Add on 4 years since restarting class attendance something like 25 years after I stopped. So if we're going by regular class attendance, 10 years for me I guess. But in the 25 years I was out of regular classes, I kept practicing, albeit nowhere near as much as I should. And I attended occasional one off sessions with vastly more experienced martial artists. So I'd let others judge how many years I've been a martial artist. Some might say only 4. They might say my previous experience was just too long ago to count. I'd accept that. Another good question. What do I know for sure? Not a lot. Each day I think I've figured something out then another day I'll think I was either completely wrong or only partially right. At this moment in time, what do I Believe I know for sure? That there's an enormous amount of politics, misinformation, myth and outright lies in the martial arts scene. Far too much. That each style or association is better than all the others, and that hypocrisy is rife. But those that can see past all that will find a beautiful,simple truth that doesn't recognise style or hierarchy or ego or politics. That is the simple truth of human nature, physical, mental and spiritual. Oh there is one thing I know for sure. Sometimes the complete beginner teaches more than the master. The beginner by definition doesn't have the experience to react in the manner whatsoever pelted. Working with a complete beginner is a good way to find out if you really know the techniques and principles you're trying to show them.

I'm not a black belt yet. In previous clubs I've been in, that didn't matter. Prior to joining TSD I only ever graded once in another style, and that was a kung fu school where they didn't traditionally have grades, but had decided to experiment with it for the benefit of us western sorts. I trained for years in wado and never graded once. Yet in these other styles, I was treat as a martial artist with ability judged by seeing what I could do rather than the belt I wore. All that changed when I went to TSD. When I started in had no intention of ever grading. Yet now I am nearing black belt purely because, to my surprise, they actually withhold techniques from you until you reach certain grades. This concept was alien to me and I'm still not at ease with it. Especially when you see a senior Dan grade showing off a technique I learned at white belt in aikido. I'm at an age and experience level now where I'm starting to think about teaching. I realise people will then expect me to have a black belt, so I will continue to earn it somewhere, but wherever I go next, I really can't be pestered with being limited to the most basic techniques until I get to the higher grades in whatever I do next. Withholding techniques is a double edged sword of sorts. It makes sense and doesn’t. If someone is capable of performing and applying said techniques, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be taught them. The reason to withhold them is because the student isn’t ready for them. If there’s no foundation, the techniques are meaningless and useless. Case in point - Suparinpei is said to be Goju Ryu’s most advanced kata. If a teacher wanted to, they could teach it to a beginner student. But what would the outcome be? If they’re a good athlete, maybe a pretty looking kata? What’s the understanding going to be? Unsu is Shotokan’s most technically difficult kata. Same question. I totally get that, and agree 100% But what is alien to me is the concept of judging by belt colour alone. When I started, I was humble enough to start right at the beginning. I made a conscious decision to not try to match it to my previous experience in other styles. But as time moved on, I found that basic principles taught to beginners in other styles were sometimes appearing as 'advanced techniques' in seminars and such. And I started thinking, I know this technique and the principles behind it, and yet not only am I not allowed to know it yet, but also I will still be expected to say ooh and ah at all the right moments when someone else, with a higher grade, demonstrates it. A few times I've been selected to be the demo dummy. As I get twisted this way and that, I find myself thinking, yes I know I can get out if this, but perhaps that's because he's only going demo speed. Then other times I think, this only works if I don't know how to counter it, which I do. I once removed my arm from a lock, realised I'd undermined the instructor in front of the whole class, so quickly slide my arm back into his lock. None of this is disrespecting my teachers. They are really good. And really nice people. But I'm not convinced I'm going to learn much more there.

I'm not a black belt yet. In previous clubs I've been in, that didn't matter. Prior to joining TSD I only ever graded once in another style, and that was a kung fu school where they didn't traditionally have grades, but had decided to experiment with it for the benefit of us western sorts. I trained for years in wado and never graded once. Yet in these other styles, I was treat as a martial artist with ability judged by seeing what I could do rather than the belt I wore. All that changed when I went to TSD. When I started in had no intention of ever grading. Yet now I am nearing black belt purely because, to my surprise, they actually withhold techniques from you until you reach certain grades. This concept was alien to me and I'm still not at ease with it. Especially when you see a senior Dan grade showing off a technique I learned at white belt in aikido. I'm at an age and experience level now where I'm starting to think about teaching. I realise people will then expect me to have a black belt, so I will continue to earn it somewhere, but wherever I go next, I really can't be pestered with being limited to the most basic techniques until I get to the higher grades in whatever I do next.

Several people have left already. Most simply stop coming. Those that I've become friends with outside of class have taken my advice and done the courtesy of saying they've quit. As far as I know, nobody that has expressed an intention to leave has been asked why. I myself have expressed concerns in the past. I get polite but dismissive responses. This tells me that nothing will change. It's a shame because I really like everyone there personally. But I can't keep going if my head is full of doubts.

This used to seem obvious to me. To find a good club, you visit clubs and try a few classes and get to know the teacher(s). But now I'm not so sure. Having spent a number of years in my latest club, my progress has stalled. It has stalled for one simple reason. We are not given enough opportunity to practice the more subtle aspects. Worse than that, I've observed a number of things in recent times that have made me question my trust in the club. I like the teachers. I believe they are excellent martial artists and lovely people. I'm just not sure they know what i believe they need to know in order to teach us effectively and safely. So I'm thinking of changing clubs. But how do you know, early on, if a club is worth investing years in?

Yes I noticed that too. Comparing a roundhouse from muay thai, one of its most devastating kicks, with a front snap kick from karate, a kick more geared for speed than power, seems a bit silly.

There's a growing body of evidence that fasting, done right, has many health benefits. However done wrong it might just kill you. When the body thinks it's starving, lots of chemical changes happen. One such is the production of ketone I think it's called, and chemical that helps to convert fat back into glucose. However it's expensive on the body, and has done quite toxic byproducts. If your wee smells of nail varnish remover you've gone too far and seriously messed up your body chemistry, so be sure to never let it get that far. There's a more immediate concern. Fasting doesn't just mean lack of glucose, it's also lack of protein. Every knows proteins role in building muscle and repairing damaged tissue. But less well documented is its role in the actual digestive process itself. It is essential for bile production. Insufficient protein means insufficient bile production. Then you have many problems. Nothing protects the stomach from its own acid. Digestion can not complete. And acid can flow the wrong way, back up into the bile duct, thus digesting your own gall bladder. Incomplete digestion in the gut causes irritation and an imbalance of gut flora, further compounding matters to create some very unpleasant health issues. All this by the way even if you're nowhere near starving yourself. This can all happen even if you're still eating fairly regularly, if you are consistently not meeting your nutrient requirements. All this sounds scary I know. And this is perhaps the more extreme end of what can happen. But the point I'm trying to make, as others have already said, if you're going to trying fasting, make sure you get it right because the consequences of getting it wrong go far beyond a bit of a lack of energy.

The rules of sparing at my Dojo actually don't allow anyone below sankyu (third kyu) to open their hands during sparring for this very reason. My instructor doesn't want anyone jamming or breaking fingers. Even at sankyu I rarely open hands and if I do it's to parry a punch and then my hands close again. I don't think there really is any way to avoid finger injury if you keep your hands open on a regular basis. I also generally try to avoid blocking kicks with my arms, to begin with. I'd rather check a kick with my own leg, or step to the side to avoid it. Sometimes I will try to parry kicks but I tend to use my forearm for that. After getting plenty of black and blue marks trying to block kicks with my arm in my early days, I learned if it's a force on force block, the leg is going to win over the arm. This is one of the reasons why I actually prefer open hand for blocking. It's faster because it's more relaxed, but as importantly if not even more important, it makes it easier to flow around the attack. I'd never try to block a kick with force on force as you put it. But if you're relaxed, you can kind of half block, half push off from an incoming kick. Ie get your hands or arm there but with plenty of give in it, like a spring, so it doesn't break, and use that to feel the way things are going while you flow with the force and move in. All sounds good, and usually works great, but every now and then you catch your fingers or thumb.

I love watching capoeira. I'd love to be able to do it. But given the extraordinary strength and flexibility shown, sadly I think it's out of reach of most folks, unless they either start very young or are blessed already with naturally agility.

While acknowledging the sentiment and subtleties of your equation, and playing devil's advocate with tongue in cheek humour, there is a serious point here. I believe negative progress is in fact possible. And in some cases probably more likely than some might think. Consider this very real scenario. A person joins a new club after training for some time in other styles. This person, at the time of joining, is quite well practiced in low techniques like foot sweeps, high techniques like various head shots, take downs and some basic grappling. Now let's say their new style has a rule set that says all foot techniques should be practiced high, to develop strength and flexibility. Head shots are barred in sparring, as are grappling and take downs. Over time, with effort, the individual becomes better, within the confines of the rules, but their muscle memory for the now prohibited techniques starts to decay. Sure they can still do it in isolation, but their ability to do it against resistance declines. So if we're talking about progress in a particular system, yes I agree. But if we're taking more generally about progress as a martial artist, I suspect it is possible to unintentionally unlearn skills. Real world example. Years ago when I trained wado (absolutely no criticism of wado, it's an awesome style), I was a kid at the time. As a kid, full contact was banned. Even against pads. I remember thinking even back then that while I'm becoming faster and more accurate with my techniques, but I'm developing the habit of pulling back at the moment of contact rather than powering through. It did cross my mind that if ever I had to use it, if out if force of habit I pulled back on contact, that would make me a worse fighter than I was before I trained in anything.

Is this an example of the open mindedness, humility and respect that martial arts teach us?

JR 137, excellent post. And I agree almost entirely. But.... Why do so many systems require that students wait potentially years to figure these things out? We have a similar notion to what you described. Beginner's one step. One of which is so highly impractical if taken at face value. But it teaches principles. And more than that, it teaches how to do something, even if caught in an awkward vulnerable position. One time, working with an adult newbie, I could see the utter scepticism on his face when showing him this technique, which almost requires you to voluntarily give up a strong position to perform a weak counter attack from an even weaker position. Basically it involves turning your back on your attacker so you can elbow them backwards. Ridiculous of course. I could totally understand the newbie's sceptical expression. So instead of stopping my mock attack on the first punch, I threw the punch, moved in, and grabbed him in a head lock to spin him off balance backwards. Suddenly the principles in this silly technique worked. Now it is clear why you give up the string position to elbow backwards from a weak position. But here's the thing. Nobody taught me that application. I figured it out. And I was frowned upon for showing it to a newbie. Apparently what I showed was higher grade stuff not for beginners. Why? Because the curriculum in not ideal. Sure there is value in letting people figure out their own applications. But surely there is also value in sharing learned knowledge and passing it on to newer students. They are after all committing their own time, energy and money to learn martial arts. It's a bizarre concept that I don't think applies in many other contexts. If you were paying a driving instructor to teach you to drive, and he sat you in a stationery car and got you to press the brake pedal on and off for a year without explaining why, or how it fits into the grand scheme of driving, most people would get quite frustrated and stop giving him their time and money. Yet in martial arts, that's just the way it is. We trust that one day, it will all become clear and we'll figure out for ourselves how it all fits together.

I used to. More recently I've become less sure on this point. As for the curriculum, I've never been 100% happy with that, but because I had faith in those that devised the curriculum I assumed there was a good reason for everything. Now I find myself wondering about it all.

I once watched a programme on TV about a judo master. Possibly grandmaster I can't remember. He'd been promoted from I think 9th dan to 10th Dan by popular vote from a committee of senior Judoka. The old man couldn't even practice judo anymore when he was promoted. He couldn't spar with anybody, and he could not longer demonstrate anything beyond the most basic techniques. So why then did they promote him? Quite simply, he still had immense amounts to offer. Barely able to even walk, his mind was still sharp as a tack. He was able to teach subtleties that go far beyond the basic mechanics of the moves. Watching two senior students participating in randori, he was able to advise why a technique worked, why a technique failed, how are failed technique could have been performed or set up subtly different to make it work, how to breath, when to relax and when to tense up, and a million other things that I don't yet understand. In short, although he could not longer DO, he had everything to Teach that even most senior instructors could still learn from.

OK. To rephrase the question. How would you train to pull this kick off effectively, while lowering the risk? This is in much the same way as, for example, a head height roundhouse kick where we train to use it in combos where we distract low first. As for every technique in the curriculum being effective otherwise it wouldn't be in the curriculum. Sorry, but I disagree with that logic. A quick visit to YouTube shows just how much rubbish there is in some curriculums. But even leaving YouTube out of the equation, to assume that everything in the curriculum is effective is to assume that the person/committee that devised the curriculum has an interview depth understanding, and that all teachers that follow the curriculum have the knowledge to teach it effectively. When I trained in aikido for a while, there were many techniques that could be effective. Some were useless. In the case of the useless ones, I tactfully raised it with the chief instructor, a big powerful man with many years experience in several styles, and a veteran soldier. He said quite openly once, yeah I'd never trust that to work in a real situation, but it's in the curriculum for the artistic side.

Thinking back to my kung fu days, we were encourage to wear trainers. The front kick had several variants, none of which were ball of foot. To check a kick we used the inside edge if we couldn't get the flat of the foot there in time. If it was a strike it was heel. Thinking back also to my school days (a very long time ago) in physical education, when playing football (soccer to our American friends), we were taught to kick with the instep rather than the toes. I think everyone except the Japanese and their Korean plagiarists figured out that smashing the toes forcibly into anything was a bad idea.

I agree. I'm lucky in this respect. Both my immediate teachers and the wider association are good in this respect. It doesn't change the fact that sometimes it's easy to feel bad about having to do something different to the rest of the class. If anyone has anything to apologise for, it would be me. I get quote touchy at times about my limitations because it frustrates me because I can vividly remember when I didn't have such limitations. You have nothing to apologise for as far as I can see. But going back to stone cold logic, and the original question of this thread, I wasn't trying to completely dismiss the basic front snap kick. I like it. I maintain that it is high risk for low reward. What I was really looking for was tips on making it useful at lower risk, so things like how to be more aware of opportunity for your opponent to smash your toes. How to speed it up, how to better time it, how to 'feel' when it's right or wrong etc.

I sincerely hope you never find out what it feels like when blunt force trauma causes permanent damage to one or more of your toe joints. To give you some idea of the potential consequences of 'hurting your toes', expect to spend a lot more money on footwear. Expect to spend much more time searching for footwear that works for you. Don't be planning too much running. Develop an intimate knowledge of anti inflammatory drugs and ointments, buy yourself a walking stick, maybe 20 years before you're old enough to suit it. Learn alternates to very standard exercises and techniques, even the simple pushup requiring modification, and learn to not care too much if someone asks you why you modify your training. And learn to say without sounding embarrassed or hurt, sorry sir, I can't do that. All this for what? To satisfy some bizarre idea of 'traditional' training, ideas passed down from some long dead master and often misinterpreted and stagnated in time. Because we all know, if ever we get attacked and have to engage in hand to hand combat, it's most likely we'll tell our attacker to wait 15 minutes while we take our shoes off then do a quick warm up, maybe stretch off a bit, before kicking them and hoping they don't try to hard to prevent us from kicking them. Hurting your toes sounds trivial. Until you remember that ever single step you take places forces through your toes. Every time we walk on an uneven surface or raise one leg for a kick, our toes provide the feedback needed to stabilise the supporting foot. Your toes are really quite important.