XtremeTrainer

Does anybody know if Jake Mace is reliable as a good source for knowledge in the martial arts? He makes lots of youtube videos, particularly ones that focus on kung fu and various forms of kung fu. Anybody familiar with him? Anybody know if he's any good?

Well that's the point. While its most desirable to have regular good instruction from a good instructor it isn't always possible for everybody, depending on the person and their situation. If you're not fortunate enough to have a good regular instructor than you've got to be resourceful and use what you've got to the best of your ability.

Previously, in this other thread, I talked about Frederick Douglass and how he ended up becoming such a tremendous writer when what he learned about reading and writing he learned from very limited sources. He did not have a formal education and so he used what he had and did what he could to learn how to read and write. Sometimes he would give his food to white children and go hungry in exchange for them to teach him what they learned in school. Despite having such limited sources Frederick Douglass went on to become in my opinion one of the best writers in the history of writing. Anyway, in that same thread I also talked about the possibility of learning martial arts from very limited sources much like Frederick Douglass learned how to read and write from very limited sources. Now, its been said here that the best way to learn is not from limited sources but from regular good instruction from a good instructor and I agree but the thing is, what if a person only has access to very limited instruction? Much like the fictional character Daniel Larusso who, before Mr Miyagi took him under his wing, was limited to just learning from a book and some lessons he had at a YMCA. The story of Daniel Larusso is obviously pretend but in real life its possible for somebody who wants to learn martial arts to be very limited in their sources and to not have the benefit of good regular training under a good instructor.

I've done private lessons from time to time and it would be awesome to train one on one with a world renowned martial artist such as Dan Inosanto. The most famous martial artist I trained under was Joe Lewis although it was not one on one. Anyway, while I think private lessons are good I think overall the best way to learn martial arts is not with private lessons but with small classes. Small classes I think are best because, with the classes being small the instructor can give good attention to each and every student and a student also has peers to work with. With small classes you have training partners around your same skill level so that's why I think they're better than private lessons. So I think the best way to learn is in small classes followed by private lessons followed by large classes.

I know its been a long time since this has been posted and this thread has dried up but I want to point this out. If Im taking a rank test and in the system Im training in purple belt is higher than blue belt and in the test I perform only as well as blue belt than all I would want is the blue belt. I wouldn't want a purple belt if I don't perform well enough for a purple belt. Twice I've failed rank tests in the martial arts. Both times it was because I didn't perform well enough to pass. The instructor who failed me was doing his job. I failed not because of the instructor but because of me and because I needed more work on the stuff that I didn't perform well enough in to cause me to fail. If the instructor had passed me when I didn't do well enough that would be a lie and it would hurt me more than anybody else.

No a martial artist should not be considered a lethal weapon because martial arts is not like a gun. A gun is a lethal weapon because a gun is at a totally different level than a martial arts background no matter how big that background is. Since a gun is at a totally different level therefore martial arts should not be considered a lethal weapon.

So I've read through the entire thread just today and its been over four years since it was started. So anyway, what was the outcome?

There has been discussion here about how not all high dan ranks are political. Well this is my experience. In the first art that I got really seriously into, a style of Karate, there were ten Dan ranks so the highest rank in the art was 10th Dan. If you were ever promoted beyond 5th Dan, so for promotion to the Dan ranks of 6-10, you would not be promoted by an instructor but rather by your peers and promotion would not be based on your skill in the art the way it is for the lower Dan ranks and the Kyu ranks, promotion would be based on other factors such as your dedication to the art, how much you've contributed to the art, teaching ability, ect. So promotions beyond 5th Dan were political and by political Im talking about politics within the art. That's just how it is with my primary style, I can't speak for other styles or other martial arts. As for combining styles the way I see it every style has its strengths and weaknesses so that's why I like to train in multiple styles. I still stick with my primary style of Karate but since I've started I've also taken up Gracie Jiu Jitsu since I like to be well rounded and that means I like to have a good striking style and a good grappling style. I've also dabbled in other styles here and there and I've applied some of the concepts to my overall training, for instance the head clinching, elbows, knees, and low round kicks of Muai Thai and the mental aspects of Tai Chi as well as some stuff that I've learned from other styles of Karate. As for Bruce Lee being an anomaly, yes he was as he was such an exceptional individual but the fact of the matter is Bruce Lee wanted to learn everything and anything he could about martial arts and apply it to make it work best for him and I like to follow Bruce Lee's example. Royce Gracie once said in an interview that if Bruce Lee had lived longer he would've been a student at the Gracie academy as the Gracie style would've definitely been an art he would've wanted to learn and most if not all of his living peers have trained under the Gracies.

The techniques and goals of BJJ and wrestling are different. In wrestling you're trying to pin your opponent and in BJJ you're trying to submit your opponent. Some of the moves in BJJ are illegal in wrestling. For instance choking is illegal in wrestling but a very effective technique for winning in BJJ. So somebody with a BJJ background who goes into wrestling will find they can't use many of the techniques in BJJ because they're banned in wrestling. A wrestler would have no problem pinning a BJJ practitioner and likewise a BJJ practitioner would have no problem submitting a wrestler.

Well yes George Washington is one of the most important people in American history, often regarded as the father of the USA if it weren't for George Washington we probably would've never had the USA. But, while George Washington gave birth to the USA, Frederick Douglass played a major part in helping the USA grow up.

There has been some talk here about people holding multiple black belts in various styles and about people who might hold high degree black belts in a single style and so forth. I will say this, rank only goes so far in representing how much knowledge, skill, and ability a person has in a martial arts style. What a rank actually means depends much on where and how you get it. A black belt in one school might only be as good as a brown belt in another school because the school where he got the black belt has lower standards than the other school. That being said, when I learn a style I like to earn a first degree black belt but Im not concerned with rank advancement beyond that. Earning a first degree black belt to me is a rite of passage but I don't really care about earning 2nd degree, 3rd degree, ect. After earning first degree I will still train to keep getting better and better, as a matter of fact from my experience after you earn a black belt you start training even harder in the style, but particularly when it comes to the really high dan ranks, at that point it just becomes political. Anyway, concerning training in multiple styles, Bruce Lee trained in multiple styles. From what I understand Wing Chun was his first primary style but he went on to learn more and he ended up focusing on Jeet Kune Do as his main style, a style he invented himself which was partially based on Wing Chun but also involved lots of material from other styles. He learned high kicking from Chuck Norris and he also learned grappling later on and incorporated it all. He learned how to fight with nunchaku as well which is not a weapon used in his styles I believe. So Bruce Lee took multiple styles and combined them and used them all.

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.

I suppose anything is possible, but people like Frederick Douglass are an exception to the rule. Knowledge is passed down from others... many folks work hard to develop something (science, math, martial arts, etc) and then different folks work hard at figuring out how to deliver the content in an efficient way. (Why reinvent the wheel?) Trying to teach oneself martial arts with limited instruction would require one to have a solid understanding on body mechanics and a fair amount of physical ability. I agree that you're best off not trying to reinvent the wheel and that to learn the martial arts its best to learn it from full time instruction from a good instructor. However, if a person only has access to limited instruction that's the only way they can learn it. Frederick Douglass only had access to limited instruction when it came to learning to read and write, he could not go to school full time, so he used what he had. So Im talking about a situation where somebody only has limited access to training in the martial arts.

One of my biggest gripes about point sparring is how inaccurate it can be as to who scores or doesn't score a hit. Take fencing for instance, in fencing when you score a hit its electronically registered through their machine but with point sparring there is no such system. Determining who scored or didn't score a hit is entirely up to the judges, what they see and what they decide on. You might score a good clean hit and the judges didn't see it so it doesn't count as a point. Or, your opponent might not score a clean hit but because of the angle of view the judges might think its a clean hit and count it as a point for your opponent. You're never supposed to argue with the judges even if they're wrong and judges can be wrong. That is my main gripe about point sparring.

If I was the instructor teaching Karate/Eskrima and I had a student tell me they were leaving to train in BJJ I wouldn't take it personally, I would just figure that BJJ is more their thing and so that's what they should pursue. I would know that Karate and Eskrima aren't for everybody and if BJJ works better for a particular student than they should do that instead, just as BJJ isn't for everybody and there might be students who quit BJJ in favor of Karate and Escrima. That's just me though, I can't speak for your instructor as everybody reacts differently.