Traditionalism verses Reality-Based Fighting

[Shorinryu Sensei]

I hate to disagree with you Snakeeel and cathal, but in my experience there are a lot of dojo's out there that must be living in some fantasy world where their opponents stand like fence posts and will apparently allow them to do their techniques on them without making any effort to defend themselves. IMPO, I consider Olympic TKD in that catagory.

 

Most, but not all, of these that I've seen are systems where the instructor has a little bit of this training, and a little bit of that training...declared himself a black belt and opens a dojo. I have two of these dojo's locally here. One calls his system Oki-Ryu and the other...well, he claims he teaches TKD, Ninjitsu, Kungfu, Kenpo and God knows what else, and you can get not one, but TWO black belts in two different systems in 13 months. No kidding! I think (hope) he packed up a little while ago and slunk back to a smaller town about 50 miles south of here late last year though. I'll have to snoop around one of these days and check on that.

[Chaz]

Still seems like a foggy question to answer to me... Although, I'd like to think that the MA are always improving through it's succesors, but theres really no way to tell unless you go back in time.

[Gumbi]

I believe what he was talking about is the Reality Based Self Defense systems seen nowadays such as Krav Maga, SPEAR, SAFTA and all that other stuff.

 

I wouldnt consider Krav anything "new"- it simply incorporates simple movements from numerous different styles in hopes of teaching someone to fight quickly. I see the problem with Krav isnt the philosophy, but with the practitioners who are largely part of that "street fighting" crowd and have an incorrect view of fighting.

 

Most of the reality based systems out there are garbage. I think many of them came about during the time of the UFC when death touches and dangerous moves were disproven. Unable to make a living anymore teaching this, they stopped being martial artists and became "street fighters." The problem with most of these systems is:

 

1: they teach the obvious- i.e. "kick a guy in the groin when he tries to rape you" as if every woman who's ever been raped hasnt tried that.

 

2: Neglect groundfighting- groundfighting takes quite a bit of dedication to excell in. Rather than learn/teach it, they dismiss it and tell you "you dont want to be on the ground in a street fight" as if to suggest you always get to choose how your fights unfold.

 

3: Experience/ credentials usually cant be proven. Most people who teach such systems claim to have been in a thousand street fights, fought every inmate in prison, or single handedly defeat an international team of terrorists Chuck Norris style. Such claims are often very difficult to disprove/prove so the only legitimacy is in that person's word as a fighter- take Frank Dux for example- how many people had to believe his story before they made it into a movie?

 

Now, there are people who will give seminars and such for basic techniques that are effective (say, law enforcement). The unfortunate reality though is that I'd say the majority of the people in this field arent teaching things that are particularly good.

[Snakeeel]

Shorinryu Sensei:

 

Again, it depends on how one defines reality based. Sport fighting, show, combat fighting, war, self defense. Any art designed for those specific purposes are "real" for someone. They may not be real as far as defending ones life but that, in and of itself, does not make it any less of an art. Plus, neither the Dojo...nor the instructor make an art...although they can sometimes break it!

 

I'll agree that some arts have no specific correlation to self defense and I'll agree that many are poorly taught but until we get his definition of "reality based" we're just guessing at what he means.

[ovine king]

reality based is about how you train and your intention.

 

yes, the traditional way IS about reality in as much as they did atually fight as training.

 

to contrast, the modern reality based training focuses more on actually confrontation situations, using stress and pressure tests as their focus.

 

in both, you end up with techniques that you know do work as you have made them work during your fight/pressure/stress test.

 

problem with a lot of modern training in traditional arts is that they don't have the same type/intention in their training.

[Shorinryu Sensei]

Shorinryu Sensei:

 

Again, it depends on how one defines reality based. Sport fighting, show, combat fighting, war, self defense. Any art designed for those specific purposes are "real" for someone. They may not be real as far as defending ones life but that, in and of itself, does not make it any less of an art. Plus, neither the Dojo...nor the instructor make an art...although they can sometimes break it!

 

I'll agree that some arts have no specific correlation to self defense and I'll agree that many are poorly taught but until we get his definition of "reality based" we're just guessing at what he means.

 

Well, I would assume (yeah, I know what asume means) that most people think "reality based" means a system or technique that works in a real combat situation...meaning real life, not just looking pretty or working in tournaments. That's the context that I think of it anyway.

[Snakeeel]

In that case we're probably going back to the historical roots of martial arts which in the beginning were designed for combat. I'm a traditionalist doing a traditional art that was developed for combat.

 

I'm not sure that watered down versions of our various arts or combinations of these arts render the originals obsolete. On the contrary, I think that the cycle will turn and folks will return to the "Old School" arts and find that they are way more complete thanthey are thought to be today. In a time of instant gratification and students "finding the faults" in a system after a few months of training what else can we expect but the so called McDojo?

 

As a society we are lokking for the newest, the greatest, the fastest...sad commentary.

[ovine king]

personal gripe....

 

i don't like it when people use words that are emotive or can romanticise/glorify what martial arts are ultimately about.

 

why use 'combat' when really you mean 'fighting'?

[cathal]

Hmm, I think I'm getting tangled up in some jargon that I had not previously seen before. When I say reality I mean that all martial arts tend to train for the real fight situation. Whether or not their techniques are effective or not is a different matter altogether.

[Snakeeel]

Sorry you have that pet peeve.