dbrillha

If you consider what I mean by a "fight" to be essentially an unarmed combat duel, then your points are very valid. If you consider what is meant by "fight" to be a self defense situation, I think your points are somewhat less valid. In a self defense situation, where your real goal is to get out of the "fight" as quick as you can, groundfighting is not really the way to go. Very often running, or striking once or twice then running is the absolute best defense. Doesn't ground work sort of rule that out?

Like a lot of people, I saw practitioners of striking arts such as Karate, Kung-Fu, etc. doing really badly in the early UFCs (the first 4 or 5) - and thought that these arts might not have a lot of utility in an actual fight. After all, the practitioners of these arts didn't exactly come off looking that great in these contests. However, here is my theory on this these days. I feel that the UFC and similar contests are somewhat artificial enviroments that favor certain techniques and approaches over others. There is a fair amount of cross over between what works in the UFC and what works in situations that you would find yourself in actual fights. There's also a fair amount that wouldn't cross over. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that almost anyone who did well in UFCs would do really well at defending themselves. I don't think there is any doubt. They'd win the majority of fights they got in just from their build, conditioning, and size. Their martial skills would be a great help, and I'm sure that they wouldn't fight like they do in the ring. These days UFC fighters do way more striking, and it seems like for some fighters the focus they have on grappling is mostly "anti-grappling" so they can play their striking game without being easy prey for the grapplers (as most strikers were in the early UFCs). In fact, I think that a lot of the things that are very successful in the ring, are very risky in "real life". Groundfighting as a major strategy to win a fight might be one of those things. Yes, I know a lot of fights end up on the ground, and having some ability there would be useful - but having ground fighting as the main goal as a fight ending strategy seems pretty risky. It's pretty obvious that in a UFC type event that a groundfighter/grappler will be able to beat a PURE striker almost all of the time. However, I think it might be entirely possible that "In real life" striking might be a superior strategy to the exclusing of groundfighting entirely. Of course, there is no set situation in a fight, all are different. My point is that groundfighting is overempasised in the UFCs vs. the amount of utility that it would have "in real life". While grounfighting might work really well against a striker in a UFC type contest, striking might be better suited to "real life" than groundfighting - hence the subject line of this post. Anyways - just an idea that popped into my head. Any thoughts?

Well, I've never done TKD so I can't speak to that. But I have done Shotokan and Tang Soo Do, and to me they are very similar in many ways. I'd say 95% of what you learned in one would carry over to the other. I think some of the forms are the same/very similar.

Sounds like you and I are in agreement on this then.

I just think it's a bit of an overstatement when I hear someone (in person, not on this forum) saying something like "my style is totally different from style X. See we do this kick with the edge of the foot, and they use the heel. On this kick they use the ball of the foot, and we use the top of the foot. See how high their stance is? And our stance is about 3" shorter than theirs. Also, we include a lot of standing grappling, and chinese infuence that they don't. It's obvious our style is totally, and completely 100% different" Sure their are differences between these styles, and every teacher teaches things a little differently. But If you switched from one of these styles to the other, probably 90% of your knowledge would transfer. Imagine a TKD'er learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. How much of what he knows is going to transfer over? I'd say 15% if he's lucky, but probably more like 5%.

Yea you've got the idea! About that different. I mean no offense, but from you later description of what sort of techniques you practice in Okinawan Kenpo it sounds like it is subtly different from any Okinawan Karate style, which is pretty similar to Japanese Karate in my mind. From what I have heard of American Kempo, although it is certainly different - it doesn't sound that different. I mean compared to the styles listed above - maybe they are as different as Savate and Western boxing, but I'm thinking the other two comparisons are MILES different. If I'm way off, please correct me, but aren't they both sort of "Karate" styles with some grappling elements included? I'm generalizing of course, but TKD and Brazillian Jujitsu are very, very different. If these two Kempo styles as so different, can you explain more? I'm sure they share a lot of techniques - front, side, round, back kicks, etc. isn't that so? They both mainly train striking, and practice standing most of the time, right?

Let me tell you a bit about my first experiances at a martial arts school, and it may give you some insight into your situation. I had taken some parks and recs Karate classes, but the first actual school I studied at was a Kung Fu school. I was there for about a year, and earned the rank of "blue sash". The instructor and other students at this school would always talk trash about the Karate school down the street. How their techniques were bad, how they did stupid things, etc. To hear them talk, they were the lowest of the low. Well, due to personal family reasons, I left this school. A few years later, in college I started taking martial arts from a professor there. Guess who he was? the instructor from the much maligned school down the street. Turns out he was quite a good instructor with lots of skill, great teaching ability, and a really good attitude. He opened my eyes to lots of things I had never thought about with the martial arts. The instructor at my current school has heard of him, so apparently he is still at it. I would have been much better off spending that year with him at his school down the street from the "Kung Fu" school. Later on I heard from some of the other students at the "Kung Fu" school. They had discovered that the instructor there was a fake. The style he was claiming to teach didn't exist. He made it up. I talked to some people from other schools who had sparred with him - they said he was at a karate brown belt level at best. From what I have learned in the 16 or 17 years since I was at the "Kung Fu" school, I know that a lot of the techniques I learned there were entirely valid, but I'm not so sure all of them were actually "Kung Fu". I DID learn a lot there, so it wasn't without any value - but it certainly wasn't what the instructor said it was. This school when to some karate tournaments and did pretty good in sparring and forms, so obviously we learned something there. A school can be a bit dodgy and still do something for you. The thing is there may be a better school nearby that is the REAL deal, as in my case. Life is too short to waste your training time on somethign that might be 50% valid and 50% smoke and mirrors. Use your own judgement about your school, but if I were you - I'd spend and hour or two watching classes in every school within a 30 minute drive of where you are at. Then you might have some comparison.

Cool, thanks. Always good to know exact figures. I had heard it was 98.333%, but I guess those are the old numbers.

Sure, I guess I can see why you would think that from what you are saying. Just keep in mind a round kick coming from the ground isn't always a bad thing.. There is a lot of information to be had at http://groups.google.com/group/rec.martial-arts

I'd really doubt an instructor who said TKD doesn't chamber it's kicks. It's not like chambering kicks is unique to Oom Yung Doe - many styles do this. I'd like to point out one exception - the Muay Thai round kick isn't chambered. It's a great kick. It works fantastic at what it does. Just because it isn't chambered, doesn't make it bad - it just makes it different. There are probably some other non-chambered kicks in other styles that are perfectly good, as well. There are SO MANY arts out there, that I bet you could find one that has all the things you like about Oom Yung Doe. It's pretty obvious that there is good reason to suspect Oom Yung Doe, and be doubtful of it as an art. Make up your own mind of course, but it's obvious you already have doubts about it, otherwise why would you post with the question?

Old Joke I've heard - "What's the difference between Tang Soo Do and Tae Kwon Do?" Answer - 5 letters. Actually, it's not a very good joke, because there are some differences. Short Answer - To my non-expert eyes, TSD is much, much more similar to traditional karate. Lots more focus on punches and hand techniques. Less focus on kicking. I've went whole TSD classes where not a single kick was thrown. Long Answer - I'm not going to go there (I'll leave that to someone more qualified to compare the two - and there is some politics involved), but TSD is supposed to included elements of Ancient Korean arts that GM Kee observed as a youngster, and Kung Fu that he studied in China. I don't believe TKD is supposed to include those Chinese elements. I'd really, really like someone to post a detailed analysis of the Kung Fu elements in TSD. I'm not qualified to pull them out of the style and analyse them, but it would be very interesting.

That's what you said. Personal development and "tradition" are not focused on ahead of self-defense, at least not in old school Okinawan karate. Maybe in modern karate, especially Japanese karate (some). The "tradition" you speak of...what do you mean by that? If you mean "kata", then I would argue that is still the study of self-defense. If you mean "meditation" and all that...that's not very traditional, at least not to karate. Well, I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. By "tradition" I mean training with methods such as kata, 1/2/3 step sparring, point sparring, standing grappling, non-resisting opponents, etc. I understand you don't feel that way, and I mean no offense. I think I can understand where the original poster is coming from, and I think that studing the same (or similar) katas from the perspective of another Karate style isn't really going to fix what ails him. Only he can answer that of course.

TJS - I agree with what you said. But if the original poster can't find BJJ, I'd say Judo is the next best choice. Hapkido and Japanese Ju-jitsu would probably be less of what you are looking for, but if there is no BJJ or Judo...

Shorin Ryuu wrote: Just my opinion based on what I've seen of karate in general and other arts, I meant no offense. But surely you'd have to admit an art like Krav Maga has more of a self defense focus than any Karate style. I'm not saying Karate teachs no self defense, just that it spends a fair amount of time on things that aren't self defense.

Seems like pretty often. Isn't "the battle of Baltimore" Oct 16th? Might be worth checking out.