elbows_and_knees

What is ram mauy? ever see the dance that is done before a thai match? that's the ram muay. They were once very specialized - they would dictate things about a style's history, or a teacher's background. If you are learing 4 or 5 different CMA's you will only be skimming the surface of each one. I think the problems would arise from a matter of quality vs. quantity. The poetic naming would be just one of many confusing dilemmas. I'm not talking about training many different styles. I'm talking about styles having different techniques with the same name, or the same technique, but a different name. If someone lived in atlanta and trained shuai chiao with david lin, then moved to ohio and trained with chiccoine, you would learn the same stuff you learned in atlanta, but the names for the techniques would be different.

I have the exact opposite experience. TMA are close minded and tend to only want to hear about TMA, IME. Here are some of the many experiences I've had in real life (not on the net) with TMA: - at my old cma school, there was a guy who was infatuated with cma, but was blind to all else. He once said "boxers have no real skill - they just stand there and slug eachother" - I was once showing a student at the above school some grappling techniques, as he had a grappling tourney coming up, and the same dude from above comes up and says "in a real fight, you just kick em in the nuts or hit em in the throat" - A guy once told me that he couldn't teach me shuai chiao because it ws highly advanced and secretive. He later told he he'd teach me for $80 an hour. He didn't know I had already beeen training it FOR FREE under some guys who trained directly under one of chang tung sheng's students. - when we relocated to the school we are in now, we went to a nearby pizza joint for lunch. The cashier said "are you guys from the new MA school?" we told him yes and invited him to come train with us sometime. He said "Nah, I don't need it. I train a traditional style and will not ever get taken to the ground." I've had several similar experiences, but this is enough to illustrate my point.

I'm not sick of it at all. venues like UFC and things like san shou are the best things to happen to MA in a long time, because they provide a means of really testing yourself, as opposed to entering point tourneys or just assuming that your skill is sufficient.

you don't "fight" from any stance - stances are transitional.

give up? you realize these are joint locks, right? strangulations? you snap their limb or choke them unconscious, if the situation warrants. I choke people out at work on a regular basis. It definitely works. If the situation doesn't warrant it and you don't have time to just restrain them till authorities come, establish a dominant position and strike them. why would you doubt them, but not doubt TMA? the style actually has a lot to do wth it in most cases, because said style will dictate the training methods used. kung fu has been ineffective because the training methods used in some kung fu styles have proven ineffective. you have to train for the venue you are fighting in.

I disagree with your disagreement I guess it depends what type of CMA school you come from. The names are specific to a corresponding movement, anything else just wouldn't make sense. For example 'Black tiger steals the heart' is a left handed tiger claw palm strike. It will always be that particular move in our lineage. Any good art will always strive to improve upon the lessons left by earlier generations but it doesn't mean you re-invent the system. Especially if it's not broke to begin with. In CMA their are styles & lineages within styles. Does Muay Thai have a similar breakdown? I've always been highly skeptical of "too deadly" claims. If it were that easy to kill someone barehanded the news would be flooded with stories; a soccer mom who killed a 250lb mugger or an elementary school fight with both kids slowly dying from dim mak strikes.These days, muay thai just has itself. Now, in the old days, there were several muay - muay chaiya, muay lon lon, muay lopburi, etc. These were either regional styles or "eras" of muay. for example, muay kaad cheurk is the era in which they began wrapping the hands with hemp. You could sometimes tell who taught a person by the ram muay that they performed. black tiger steals the heart is what it is in your system. What about others that may use that term? Shuai chiao is a perfect example. you can go to three lineages of SC and each will give you a different name for the exact same technique. With such ambiguity, it can be hard to keep things in order.

When I was in college, a few of us started a martial arts club. the college was into the idea and funded it. One day, a guy stopped by in fatigues - he was a marine. He was bragging about how he could do this and that and how great of a fighter he was. He asked if anyone wanted to fight him and the guys nominated me. I took him down, and while were were grappling, he scratched and bit me. Didn't hurt, but it was annoying. I warned him not to do it any more. The next time he did it, I arm barred him. He tapped out, then got up and walked to the mirror. He started blowing kisses to himself, pulled out his brush, brushed his hair and left. We never saw him again.

Do you think that a fight between the two would have solved anything, at that point? probably. His students would likely have thought twice before hurrying to our kwoon.

I disagree with that. The basic boxing stance - chin down, hands up. The throat is very well protected. pressure points are too small to worry about effectively, especially if you have gloves on. However, repeated punches to the arms will make them heavy eventually, exposing their head. The boxer's head is very mobile - strikes to the eyes are hard as well.

that's not true at all... I know this is old, but if you still post here, where did you hear this? too broad of an assumption. how do you know he doesn't cross train? many stand up TMA are hopelessly lost on the ground too, hence the need to crosstrain. Not only that, but you have to get close enough to throw him - He very well may KO you before you get that close.

that is a good post. I actually concur with everything you said here. IMO, however, excessive conditioning isn't a necessity. In my CMA days, I did iron body and iron palm, but find that for hitting a person, a heavy bag is really all you need. As for karate being a killing, art, as you said, the other arts were too. muay thai's predecessors were used by the military and had been for ages. Our usual point here is one of adaptation. saying a style is a killing art isn't really a good excuse for why it hasn't performed well in competition. It's not because of the particular style either. It's a training issue.

cool, another bouncer. I do that as well. the percentage of striking the areas mentioned - throat, groin and eyes have nothing to do with gloves - it has everything to do with what the opponent is doing. a moving, resisting opponent does not want you to hit him. those are little areas, and in the case of the throat especially, they are guarded well. THAT is what makes them hard areas to hit. As for the groin, you are a bouncer. I'm sure you know full well that groin strikes can't really be counted on. I've been kicked full force there and not felt it at all until the altercation ended. I've seen others get kicked there with no effect either. Like anything, on sometimes it works, many times it does not. being nitpicky, by definition, training a lot of styles does not make you a mixed martial artist. that is more of a jkd model of how to make your training complete. MMA refers to striking and grappling. period. are you saying you've written a whole library of books, or that you simply own a library of them?

you shouldn't always spar with the same partner, unless you have a fight coming up and a sparring with a person who fights like your opponent will. Other than that, spar everyone in the class.

I agree and disagree with you there. No, not all schools hide behing the curtain, which is a good thing. However, they do all hide to some extent. This is where interpretation of forms comes in. Take the movement "shoot the bow" I've seen different interpretations of it from different styles, some more practical than others. But with such poetic names and numerous application possibilities, you don't really know what the creator intended anymore. muay thai has descriptive names. For example, "crocodile lashes it's tail" is a spinning hook kick. but IME, it's usually taught as a spinning hook kick, not as the more poetic name. EXACTLY!! that is why the "too deadly" argument can't hold water.

I think you'd be surprised. in the original vale tudo matches, there really were virtually no rules. The early UFC were similar. even if UFC fined you, the fight would continue, you wouldn't get DQed. one of my sigung's used to. we're not saying kung fu can't be used effectively. not referring to the people you are referring to, but a lot of people think they are proficient. They think so until they find out otherwise. The sad thing is that due to lack of things like competitions or heck, challenges, many don't realize that.

sure. And shrouding everything in mysticism and secrecy only helps to propogate that even more. I can't arm bar someone and fully break their arm, either. It's about adaptation. on the street, you can't just snap a drunk's windpipe because he grabs you. You have to adapt. I wasn't referring to competition. There are masters who have never had a street fight or a challenge. Master is a title that is bestowed upon them - and not necessarily because of fighting expertise. Challenges to happen today, but are a rarity.

years ago, I was at the same kung fu school mentioned above. A school opened next door, teaching an eclectic mixed style that combined shotokan, ninjutsu and tkd. No problem. One day, we had a prospective student show up. He trained for the evening, but didn't come back. Another guy came a few days later and did the same thing. it happened a third time, only this time, one of our senior students recognized the guy. "Hey, I know him... we went to high school together - and he trains next door." It turns out that these guys were sending people to our school and pose as prospective students, train with us for a night, then go next door teach what they learned from us! after we figured it out, they stopped, but it started again a few months later. Our sifu challenged their teacher to a fight, but he declined. After declining, he told people that he fought our sifu and beat him.

that reminds me. years ago, a guy was at a local tournament, demoing forms and trying to get students. The forms LOOKED good. sifu figured it was some sort of wushu. Upon talking to the guy, he said that he trained in "african wu" wtf? wu is a chinese name - african wu is obviously a made up name. After the tournament, we did some research on the guy. It turned out that he was a dance major in college and combined wushu looking moves with what he wsa able to teach himself of basics - he had no formal training at all.

this is gonna sound made up, but we actually had someone come in and tell us he was a ninja. He talked about how he trained, and how he was exceptionally good at climbing trees. He didn't participate in class, just showed up to run his mouth... He was wearing tabis when he came in.

Yeah, this, IMO is an issue. In our classes - bjj, judo, muay thai and capoeira - you will spend 30 min - 1hr sparring each session. this is great conditioning also. every round, switch partners, so you get to spar everyone in class. the general format for classes is warmup - skill training - sparring.

do it early in the morning or later at night when there is nobody around.

Not only that literacy was rare, but because there was so much out there. There was at one time over 700 styles of jujutsu. There are hundreds of kung fu styles also. Many of these styles have since become extinct and we will never know about them. However, some have been kept alive through passing on forms. In old china, it wasn't uncommon for a style to have very few forms. Look at taiji, xingyi, baji... Over time, people cross trained, and they added forms from other styles into their own system, and in some cases, they added them to preserve a dying art.

That is absolutely right. That is the purpose of drilling. Now, let's think about a similar scenario. Instead of drilling a kata solo and going over bunkai solo, consider the person who drills the techniques repeatedly with a partner, getting live feedback, then works those same techniques in contact sparring. Who will be more apt - the guy doing partner drills, or the guy focusing on kata?

Physically, A. having more techniques at your disposal is irrelevant. See my post above about what happens during the adrenaline dump - you forget everything that is not ingrained. In other words, back to basics in most cases. The guy who knows 8 strikes and 2 kicks is just as well off as the guy who know 15 strikes and 11 kicks. That also has nothing to do with being more or less frightened. That is purely an EXPERIENCE thing and has nothing to do with how many techniques you know. If you REALLY think having nothing more than basics is a problem, I urge you to fight a boxer or thai boxer. Have you ever heard of K.I.S.S.? It stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. There is wisdom in those words. B. He probably wouldn't even use the advanced moves. Mentally, A. Training does not make one accustomed to those situations. BEING IN those situations is what makes you accustomed to them. I can tell you all day how to drive, but what happens the first time you get on the road? I can go over football plays with you all day, but what happens the first time you put on pads and get in a game? B. Rank has nothing to do with physical shape or confidence. A lower rank guy who was on his school's swim team would likely be in better shape than 90% of the people at your dojo. Confidence is an individual thing.

no doubt. there are several. chang tung sheng, wong fei hung, chan tai san, su lu tang, mas oyama... But in general, you will find more that won't than those that will. exactly. So you see where we are coming from regarding unproven claims. I think there is a wrong answer. san da, muay thai, mma, full contact kickboxing,bjj, judo etc. are all great. If you are "testing yourself" by entering point sparring competitions or by sparring in class, you may be fooling yourself.