Thought of the day

[Smitty]

BUT...in the case one does come across a "trained" fighter, the tables are now suddenly turned assuming the TMA student hasn't trained heavily at all in regards to endurance, or techniques to counter other fighting styles.

Define "trained".

If you're referring to streetfighting, a well trained TMAist should still be able to handle himself fairly well. Again; speaking though I have little experience.

If you're fighting a "trained" martial artist, you have to ask yourself... why are you fighting in the first place? The martial arts teach non-violence. You should be talking, not taking swings.

[KempoTiger]

Define "trained".

Is experienced with the fine art of beating another persons rear and/or face in.

If you're referring to streetfighting, a well trained TMAist should still be able to handle himself fairly well. Again; speaking though I have little experience.

You'd be amazed at how awesome an experienced street fighter can be. I'd take a guy that gets into a street fight outside of a bar twice a week over a guy with 15yrs of untested martial arts training any day.

If you're fighting a "trained" martial artist, you have to ask yourself... why are you fighting in the first place? The martial arts teach non-violence. You should be talking, not taking swings.

A common misconception. Martial arts in themselves do not in fact teach non-violence. Kung Fu systems and schools primarily do because of the nature of it's history, having buddhist monks incorporating such theories of non-violence and the seeking of enlightenment to the art. Most other karate schools regardless of their history in the US tend to also preach such a stance because it makes them more marketable to parents that don't want to send their children to take classes on "how to hurt people." I'm not saying that martial arts instructors don't mean it when they tell you that the best way to win a fight is to not fight at all or something cliche'd like that, but don't confuse Martial Arts true purpose with such invalid conventional wisdom. Martial Arts are arts that help one gain focus, strength, and above all fighting prowess....whether it be for self defense or for fighting a war, that is the supposed end goal of most martial arts systems.

Now back to the point at hand...I mean to say you come across someone "trained." This can mean they have extensive experience with a various martial art where the school actually enforced contact and real application, or perhaps a trained boxer. Or perhaps it could just be a guy who gets into ALOT of fights, and has just learned from experience.

Regardless of their level or form of training, when you come across someone like this, and they have intent to hurt you, you're going to be in alot of trouble if you're not trained and ready yourself to deal with such a person. 90% of the techniques my style even teaches are to be used against some dolt that's going to be attacking with a straight lunging punch. At the higher ranks we mix it up a bit, and teach different variations of lower rank techniques to make them work off of different kinds of attacks that may come from a more experienced fighter, but in the end we teach mostly self defense against the average shmoe.

When you don't get an easy situation where the guy falls for your technques right off the bat, you're going to need to be prepared to complete the task of "outdoing" another person who may be just as skilled as you are in the art of fighting.

[White Warlock]

If you're fighting a "trained" martial artist, you have to ask yourself... why are you fighting in the first place? The martial arts teach non-violence. You should be talking, not taking swings.

In a perfect world. Unfortunately, we're not in a perfect world, and as KT also indicates, not all martial art practitioners are instilled with the idea of 'non-violence' as a better means to living. Also, European systems (boxing, wrestling, savate, etc) do not instill such chivalric concepts as found in Japanese or 'some' Chinese systems.

Other than the part below, i agree with KempoTiger's assertions.

You'd be amazed at how awesome an experienced street fighter can be. I'd take a guy that gets into a street fight outside of a bar twice a week over a guy with 15yrs of untested martial arts training any day.

I wouldn't. I think it's important to bring forward, at this time, that almost all 'experienced' street fighters (as if such a thing truly existed. In actuality, their opportunists, not experienced) do have training, usually in boxing and/or wrestling. Also, many ex-footballers received cross-training in wrestling. So, in most cases we're not really talking about street fighters, as much as we are talking about unrestrained amateur boxers/wrestlers.

As to this 'untested,' i suppose i have a slight issue with all these 'addendums' to your suppositions. I mean, what exactly is 'untested,' and what makes you think there are that many serious 15 year veteran martial artists that haven't even 'tried' any of what they know? I mean, that's 5,500 days! I would say you would be hard-pressed to find any 15 year veteran martial artist, that's serious about his studies, who would not have spent at least a portion of those 5,500 days 'testing' the effectiveness of his/her techniques (then again, there are the posers).

I am of the impression you are referring to something altogether different, which is the 'urban legends' that surround most bars, where some guys brag about themselves, or their friends, having beat-up some black belt. I can say, from personal experience, there are plenty of fools who 'claim' to have belts as a means to 'scare away' prospective bullies. Unfortunately, when such a claim doesn't work, they get the tar beat out of them, and then these guys get fun little bragging rights. The thing here is, most of those claimants are false. There are very few 'legitimate' martial artists who would 'toss up' their black belt as a means to intimidate their opponent from entering conflict.

Urban legends rule this issue... it is false in most cases, either because the stories are totally contrived, the persons involved are truly not black belts, or the circumstances are not entirely as presented (sucker-punched, etc). Opportunists abound, and while i've found many 'legitimate' black belts that an ex-boxer or ex-wrestler could take out, i don't feel that a person without any formal training would have much of a chance... without sucker-punching them.

My thoughts.

[KempoTiger]

My reference to the term "tested" implies either having utilized the techniques and theories learned with substantial contact and resistance from a fellow practicioner (not just practicing bunkai on a friend who's going to fall/squirm/and move with your techniques regardless of if you're doing them correctly or not) or have been in more than a few real life fights where you get to see what it feels like to have your adrenaline running, and someone genuinely trying to hurt you.

As you can probably tell from my last post, I've been rather disillusioned with the concept of a "black belt" meaning anything more than a fancy piece of cloth that holds my gi togethor. There are far too many martial arts schools that allow students to climb all the way to black belt without ever asking them to do much of anything beyond twirl and dance with loud shouts and heavy breathing.

Many classes that incorporate "application", usually end up having a friend throw a punch with light to moderately hard committed power, and then they stand still while the practicioner proceeds to do a flurry of techniques on their opponent standing still.

Once you get into a real fight, it becomes quickly apparent that I'd say a good 80-90% of these complicated techniques won't get passed the first two steps before you either knock them down, or they take it and knock you down. And with a false sense of security these what I'll call "softer" students will end up being the ones that find out what the pavement tastes like.

Perhaps I'm wrong, because hey my own personal street fighting experience is quite limited as well. But from what I've seen, and what I've heard it all comes down to experience....without it, you're done.

Just my thoughts

Edited August 13, 2005 by KempoTiger

[White Warlock]

My reference to the term "tested" implies either having utilized the techniques and theories learned with substantial contact and resistance from a fellow practicioner (not just practicing bunkai on a friend who's going to fall/squirm/and move with your techniques regardless of if you're doing them correctly or not) or have been in more than a few real life fights where you get to see what it feels like to have your adrenaline running, and someone genuinely trying to hurt you.

Long sentence. hehe...

It seems we're on the issue here of semantics. What you refer to as "untested," i and many others refer to as "test-tube." We get the semantics down, and i think you'll find we agree.

As you can probably tell from my last post, I've been rather disillusioned with the concept of a "black belt" meaning anything more than a fancy piece of cloth that holds my gi togethor. There are far too many martial arts schools that allow students to climb all the way to black belt without ever asking them to do much of anything beyond twirl and dance with loud shouts and heavy breathing.

Hehe, go click on my intro hotlink. i think you'll find we're of similar thoughts.

Perhaps I'm wrong, because hey my own personal street fighting experience is quite limited as well. But from what I've seen, and what I've heard it all comes down to experience....without it, you're done.

Just my thoughts

In my opinion, you're not wrong... just jaded.

Seriously though, yes... experienced. Here we play with semantics again, but i call it conditioned. Anything can work at half-speed, most things can work at 3/4 speed, but hardly anything works at full speed. If you're not conditioned to know what works, and what doesn't, you're going to get hurt out there.

[Goju_boi]

man both of u are right on target with your posts,keep it up.

[KempoTiger]

Long sentence. hehe...

Yes..it's becomming drastically apparent that upon entering these forums my grammar goes completely down the tubes. Every day I look back on my posts and cringe at the typos and nearly nonsensical sentence structure I used Luckily though, you all seem to get the point I was trying to convey, heh.

and yes I read your intro...quite an interesting read

I suppose we do agree more than I thought...arguments based on nitpicking semantics can be fun though can't they?

[White Warlock]

arguments based on nitpicking semantics can be fun though can't they?

What do you mean by that?

[Muaythaiboxer]

well another reson that street thugs seem to win alot is because the tough thugs never seem to fight other tough thugs they always seem to pick on the guy who has had one to many and is small, or with a pretty lady. they then beat the guy up and get some braging rights. in an article i once read in an MA related magazine (i cant remember which one) it stated that there where only three kinds of people who get in street fights regularly.

#1- the brawler, a guy who is usually very strong and very tough (think linebacker) who fights over ego and go's looking for fights when under the influence of alcohol (may also fight to keep friends out of trouble)

#2- the fighter, a guy who usually has some MA related experience and who likes to fight. he usually doesnt go looking for a fight but doesnt try to avoide them either. if he feels like a guy is giveing him a hard time he will ask to step outside and adminester a brutal beating.

#3 - the target, a guy who is usually small and is a target for the brawlers because he looks like and easey win, but this guy is actually the most scary because although he cant fight he may use a weapon to leval the playing feild.

i dont really dont agree with this 100% but i thought is was interesting.

[Goju_boi]

well another reson that street thugs seem to win alot is because the tough thugs never seem to fight other tough thugs they always seem to pick on the guy who has had one to many and is small, or with a pretty lady. they then beat the guy up and get some braging rights. in an article i once read in an MA related magazine (i cant remember which one) it stated that there where only three kinds of people who get in street fights regularly.

#1- the brawler, a guy who is usually very strong and very tough (think linebacker) who fights over ego and go's looking for fights when under the influence of alcohol (may also fight to keep friends out of trouble)

#2- the fighter, a guy who usually has some MA related experience and who likes to fight. he usually doesnt go looking for a fight but doesnt try to avoide them either. if he feels like a guy is giveing him a hard time he will ask to step outside and adminester a brutal beating.

#3 - the target, a guy who is usually small and is a target for the brawlers because he looks like and easey win, but this guy is actually the most scary because although he cant fight he may use a weapon to leval the playing feild.

i dont really dont agree with this 100% but i thought is was interesting.

yeah,I read this in BlackBelt magazine not too long ago,good article.