A man of real combat

[AnonymousOne]

"A man of real combat, a man of true fighting ability"

 

How often I have heard these comments over the years.

 

I am amased that just because some people dont go and bust peoples heads or enter contests people assume they cant fight.

 

In my experience I have found the ones to be quite humble and amicable people tend to be the most competant.

 

I have also noticed that some dismiss a particular arts capabilities because of their own incompetance. You hear them say I did such and such an art and it was no good so I switched to ____ instead.

 

Baloney! The problem is YOU not the art. If you failed at one art you likely will take the same bad attitude to the next one.

 

I see this here on this forum again and again. There is no perfect art and there is imperfect students. The art does make you, you make the art.

 

Its the same thing in life. Imagine going to law school and failing and then blaming the law school. Duh, others passed why not you?

 

Same old scenario:

 

Adam talking to God "Errrrrr Eve made me do it"

 

I think people would go much further in life and be honest with themselves and admit they fail at things because they dont put enough effort in.

 

"Kata doesnt work" - have you totally and absolutely mastered Kata as set out by your school to make such a comment

 

"This technique doesnt work, its weak" - Duh have you totally developed your body to its full potential using that technique to make such a comment?

 

There are so many arm chair martial artists today that wont get down to the hard work of paying the price to succeed.

 

Those that do the hard work, I am proud of you!!!

 

My son met this young man about six months ago through his job. They arranged to meet at my home before going out. We had some coffee and got talking about MA. He was surprised my son never mentioned we had some knowledge of it.

 

He is training in a Combined MA school and has 1st degree black belt.I didnt say much to him at the time but I asked him why he was in an art that combined several arts. He stated he did Karate once but found the techniques "Were no good for real fighting"

 

As they were leaving I thanked him for his insight and invited him back with his MA suit so he could explain more to me. Now this is a young man of 22 who is very proud of his achievements so to speak. He was very pleased to be putting on a demonstration of his art for us and I was intrigued.

 

About 2 weeks or so later he came. We went into my gym/dojo at home and he was surprised at all the equipment. He said "Wow, do you guys train?" I said "Well alittle"

 

I didnt wear my Gi just Gym clothes. So I asked him to demonstrate to me the techniques he felt were ineffective. He first started with the reverse punch (Gyaku Zuki). I said ok lets test it. Theres a makiwara, hit it as hard as you can and lets see if it works. He hit it and pulled his hand back and said "ouch, thats hard".

 

So I asked my son to perform the same technique. The makiwara pounded back at the speed and force my son can do and this young man ws really surprised. He said "Jared, you never told me you trained".

 

So I then hit it with a fair amount of force then asked him if we could then try it on his body. He said "No way". I asked why not seeing the technique was allegedly ineffective.

 

Then he proposed the idea that in sparring it was not effective. So I asked him to show me. Well in a short space of time we learnt his technique was no better that a 5th Kyu.

 

Then we got onto Kata and my son and I demonstrated some Bunkai to him and his attitude started to change.

 

Then we invited him back to train with us the next day for 2 hours. The poor guy was totally exhausted.

 

We had a long talk afterwards and I explained my involvement and his enthusiasm for the art changed and my son tells me the young man (Barry) now has a makiwara at home, goes running and works weights.

 

Evidently he wont come and train with us because it was too hard for him.

 

I have seen this time and again. So many people want a short cut and wont pay the price, so they blame the art.

 

_________________

 

Soft teachers make soft students

 

[ This Message was edited by: AnonymousOne on 2002-03-04 20:54 ]

[spinninggumby]

IMHO, despite the fact that MOST techniques have the capability or potential to be effective in combat, you cannot deny the fact that there are some which are definitely less practical. For example, which would you prefer, spending 10 years to develop a proficient flying spinning pinky-poke, or spending about a week developing a devastating straight blast fist to the temple or strike to the neck. If combat and self-defense is your priority, I highly recommend the latter. The art of pinky fighting, you could say, is not totally useless for combat. I mean, after 30 years of intense training you could immobilize any attacker right? But take an intensive 4 week special forces training class and you will find that you can achieve self-defense proficiency in much much much less time, obviously.

 

Self-defense and combat are personally not my priority, but I do feel that if in fact techniques that are excellent for combat is what you are looking for, there are many arts that you should shun for good reason. Not because no one could ever become good at them. But perhaps b/c the techniques require too much effort/time to learn, and the ideologies/theories/tenets are not so easily grasped. Why do you think there are so many testimonials of how effective Muay Thai is on the street? I strongly believe that it is b/c it is simple and easy to grasp for the vast majority of the public. The training, although intensive and physically strenuous, is straightforward. However, that is not to say that there could not be a Wing Chun or Taekwondo practitioner who could surpass an elite Muay Thai practitioner in self defense. The simple fact is that the practitioners of other arts may have to invest more time. Is it wrong to choose Muay Thai simply b/c it is more simple and takes less time to get to a proficient level? Not realllly. In fact obviously you are one who is familiar with special forces units. Simple is better. No one wants to spend forty years learning, refining and sharpening a devastating technique that will work eventually, but only after you have watched your grandchildren give birth and you are laying your dentures out to dry. ESPECIALLY if your main focus is self-defense and not spiritual growth. Spending 40 years in toil towards a cause such as this just might build character. However, after you achieve that character, you will die the next day b/c u will be like 105 years old, but anyways let's move on

 

As for myself, what I choose to train towards has nothing to do with how hard or difficult the practice will be, but whether not the result is worth my time, sweat, blood, and constant questioning of my intentions. One thing I would like to emphasize is how I disagree with how people tend to think that practical=hard training and impractical=wussy training. Try practicing a wushu butterfly twist into lotus kick into splits. That is some hard sh*t. But very impractical. Training to develop this is harder and more sweat-inducing than any type of training you will undergo in order to develop the most practical of kicks (or at least one of them), the sharp and painful kick to the groin. It's all about the result for me. If the result appeals to me, I will go for it no matter what the cost. I have no intention of spending 2 hours a day trembling with frustration in a horse stance just so I can, um, show others that I can squat for such a long time. Ok i am exaggerating, but I'm just saying that hard training is not a problem, as long as I want what it will give me.

 

 

_________________

 

"Being able to move in and out of styles, movements, and rhythms with ease is the highest skill." - Donnie Yen

 

"If you have to resort to violence, you've already lost" - Rising Sun

 

"The finest steel emerges from the hottest furnace" - a smart guy

 

[ This Message was edited by: spinninggumby on 2002-03-04 23:27 ]

 

[ This Message was edited by: spinninggumby on 2002-03-04 23:28 ]

[AnonymousOne]

Well I certainly agree with practicality and I am not one for promoting 360 degree spinning head kicks for self defense. In fact in our school which is a derivitive of the old Shotokan (pre 1957) such things as high kicks and jump kicks are not promoted until very high grades. They are simply impractical.

 

I believe our school is very practical and realistic in what it teaches. I am aware that many schools/arts teach 'showy' techniques and students suffer because they are not grounded in good, solid, practical and effective basics.

 

Unfortunately I have met many people that are very flexible and can do wonderful head level round or side kicks but they cant fight to save themselves. This is the disappointing part of MAs.

 

 

[Bon]

I pretty much agree with that AnonymousOne..

 

You would expect a black belt to seriously hurt someone who has had no martial art training no matter what style, wouldn't you ?

 

I've seen this black belt with a massive ego, far from humble which in my opinion a black belt or any good martial artist should be. He started a fight with this guy, and he got a few shots in, but I don't think any of them really connected.. He also hit this guy without any warning and if that was me, I would have placed a kick right through him or good hard solid punch to his head.

 

 

[spinninggumby]

It's only a problem if someone feels or is ignorant enough to think that doing or focusing on high kicks alone is an excellent and practical all-around way to learn how to fight(i.e. neglecting more practical maneuvers). Otherwise it is an excellent supplement to one's training in order to boost strength, flexibility, confidence, etc. IMHO. Btw I don't feel that high kicks are 'fancy'. All they take is flexibility and not any or much more practice than low kicks as long as you have the range of motion in your joints and muscles that have the necessary elasticity (and perhaps a few changes or alterations in body mechanics but nothing drastic). And according to Tom Kurz of Stretching Scientifically, flexibility, if trained correctly and wisely, is one of the easiest and quickest assets to develop in one's athletic or physical training.

 

Nevertheless, point well taken, AO, I would expect nothing less from a hard-core traditionalist who does not believe in flowery tactics :smile:

[AnonymousOne]

Nevertheless, point well taken, AO, I would expect nothing less from a hard-core traditionalist who does not believe in flowery tactics :smile:

 

I will take that as a compliment

 

 

[Angus]

As a sensei at KarateForums.com i have had to try and find a more polite way of stringing the two words *YOU* and *IDIOT* together... I haven't found it yet, but believe me, i am trying, honestly.

 

Explain to me, why can you simply not learn a technique (as practiced in Bunkai) with a partner without having to dance around the room hitting fresh air?

 

Oh, i'm sorry, i'm a young upstart who obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. Even though i have been martial fighter since the age of six (that makes 13 years this thursday - when incidently i turn 19) and have had hundreds of "real fights" and came out on top in most of them (when i wasn't drunk and outnumbered).

 

You can carry on with this rubbishy 'nobody knows the true meaning of kata' bollocks all u want, but the truth is that it is not as effective as sparring, padwork, drills, and partner multisteps.

 

This poor bloke that AO was talking about obviously went to a poor school and was put in his place you AO and his son, but the guy was right in some respects.

 

The Koken or whatever they are strikes with the back of the wrist are USELESS, cat stance is USELESS, deep lunging stances are USELESS, Kata is a good way to practice techniques in fresh air but when it comes to real life contact execution it is USELESS... It's the same with standing in heikodachi and practicing punches like the three level punches and the three level fixed blocking drills. Not once in my life have i used a low groin block or one of those fancy middle kake blocks. I either evade or cautiously deflect.

 

You wouldn't use a piece of paper to stop a bullet from penetraing u would u? No, you'd use a kevlar vest or something - so why stand around using useless stuff to practice with?

 

But, as a contradiction to myself i do Freestyle Karate and study directly under the founder of the style. We do the Goju Ryu kata and all of that stuff. I'm guessing that's only due to the tradition though. In Shihan's 'invitation only' classes we take our gi-tops off and just wear shirts and gi pants. We practice real-life fighting and not once have we done kata in his class... only in the beginner classes that we take.

 

Anyway, i'm sick of typing. So i will say one last thing, that is - we will have to agree to disagree...

 

Angus

 

 

[AnonymousOne]

19?

 

Lets see how you feel in 25 years

 

 

[Joecooke007]

Wow there are five longies in this thread all very interesting.

 

 

[ChangWuJi]

To emphasize one over the other is incomplete. All aspects of the training must be done equally . Forms work, conditioning, sparring, etc. one without the other is always lacking in something.

 

Imagine how good you really could be if you had a bigger technical foundation. It's too bad that your forms don't do much for you. If you are trying to use your forms verbatim, so to speak, then you are mistaking in how to use your system. It isn't good enough just to know your forms. They must reach a level of true understanding to the point that you can see the "negative space" in the form and use it on the instinctual level. Your teacher can use his form beacause he can see the other person in the form. To me there is nothing pretty about kung fu forms. It makes me cringe when I see the extent of the damage that is being inflicted.

 

As far as the "pretty" people in your school; they will always be inferior fighters because the emphasis in their forms, mentally., isn't about fighting. So when they do their forms the strike emphasis is not there. Which also means that they will not get the conditioning the form has to offer due to a lack of power.

 

One of CLF's most powerful moves is the plum blossom fist. I've used the capture and swing that comes before that shot effectively a thousand times in fighting, but I would never even have known how to do it if I didn't train the form hard.

 

The only reason I defend forms so is because I have seen the power they have to transform a persons body. If you do your forms hard,like a fight, then they will help you and give you speed and power. Remember the pretty people, where are their minds........

 

 

 

[ This Message was edited by: ChangWuJi on 2002-03-05 16:20 ]