Enigma of Comparing Styles

[Johnlogic121]

Sometimes comparing two styles of martial arts is easy. You can stage a series of tournament combats between people of skill in each style, with rules suitable for safety according to the types of manuevers involved, and see what style scores an advantage as shown through a percentage of "wins" in the sparring contests. The technical precision of the testing can be elaborated greatly by adjustments for the age of the competitors, matching their levels of physical fitness, giving them multiple tries to face the other style, and other things. People have been running contests like these down through the centuries. In China, the Shaolin had some tests that were so rigorous that they would have two fifteen year old boys meet once and then train in separate monastaries for thirty-five years in distinct animal forms, usually training for seven years each in five long forms that build upon each other in terms of how they cultivate organ development. At age fifty, the students would be masters, and would fight a battle that could be to the death. From the outcomes of tests like these, the Shaolin made decisions about the strength of the various animal forms. Strangely, however, the results as reported to me by my Kung Fu sifu were not as simple as a basic linear progression, or else everybody in the modern Kung Fu world would be training in whatever style proved best in ancient times. Instead, what they found was that Dragon can beat Tiger, and Tiger can beat Leopard, but Leopard can beat Dragon. In other words, there are complex nonlinear relationships between what styles are stronger and what styles are weaker. If the opponent uses a certain style, you can generally choose to fight the style that opposes it the best, if you know that style well enough to use it. However, the opponent can then trick you by shifting to another style entirely. This is how Chinese martial arts are compared to a chess game. At the moment when blows are really being landed, you want to be using a form that is stronger against the form that your opponent is using at that instant. Otherwise, when people are separated by a distance, they are shifting postures and judging the opponent's reactions to guide their fighting strategy. It is a completely different mental game than standard American freestyle kickboxing. In the UFC, people generally get skilled at everything and shift what they use to gain the maximum advantage that they can have against their opponent. Sometimes counter punching is the preferred strategy and sometimes a UFC fighter will go for a ground submission, for example, and may even change his strategy during a fight if an opportunity becomes availible. Some Chinese learn a dozen styles or more so that they have an arsenal of variations that they can use and they study the advantages and disadvantages of each. If the ancients could have discovered a single supreme style, then everybody would be using it today. Hence, style comparisons can sometimes be a bit risky, since comparing two styles may show one style as favorable when it might not be so favorable if you compared those two styles against a set of a hundred styles. Testing a hundred styles against each other would be 9900 combats that would have to be repeated about a hundred times each by a large number of combatants, so it would be a massive undertaking indeed. What do other people think about the success of style comparisons, if nonlinear relationships exist between certain styles? -JL

[tallgeese]

Nothing at all seems easy about that .

Compariting styles is tough and really of limited value in my opinion. And it's my opinion only.

It's much more accurate to talk about comparing fighters than styles. And probibly more accurate than that to talk about comparing training methodology than anything else.

That being said, I do think that some movements are more useful in a combat sense than others. However, the difficulty in determining the difference between a less than effective movement and less than effective fighter is considerable.

I feel that the major difference in combative, jutsu type arts is not the usefulness of the applications, but the amount of time needed to become proficient based on the method of preparing mentally and physically for conflict.

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

No tallgeese, that is not just your opinion. It is mine as well

I think the comparisions of styles using words and hypothesis is almost worthless. It's like saying now...which sport is more of a workout...a soccer game or a basketball game. well you can't really be accurate because you could have a really energetic healthy basketball team but a really slow, lethargic soccer team. i think general comparisons are O.K. but you really can't have a full on argument based on your words and thoughts, it just doesn't work like that.

[bushido_man96]

It's much more accurate to talk about comparing fighters than styles. And probibly more accurate than that to talk about comparing training methodology than anything else.

That being said, I do think that some movements are more useful in a combat sense than others. However, the difficulty in determining the difference between a less than effective movement and less than effective fighter is considerable.

I agree with your points here. The system isn't going to make as much difference as the experience and skill of the fighter is. I think we can all agree that being able to fight in each of the combat ranges is beneficial to all fighters, and not just a select few.

I would put more clout into knowledge of ranges as opposed to knowledge of systems.

[DWx]

I totally agree that it is near impossible to compare the styles and better to compare the fighters. So much is attributed to the individual fighter.

IMO I think training all aspects of fighting is good but you have to avoid becoming "a jack of all trades and a master of none". Personally I would rather be very skilled at striking in one system and know enough grappling to get by than knowing both grappling and striking to an intermediate level. But that's just my own opinion.

[bushido_man96]

IMO I think training all aspects of fighting is good but you have to avoid becoming "a jack of all trades and a master of none". Personally I would rather be very skilled at striking in one system and know enough grappling to get by than knowing both grappling and striking to an intermediate level. But that's just my own opinion.

I have addressed this opinion before, but I will do it again. Being a "jack of all trades" doesn't necessarily mean that you can't be a master. It depends on what your goals as a Martial Artist are. Do you want to be a master at kicking? Then focusing entirely on TKD may be your choice. However, if you want to be able to fight effectively from all ranges, then training in MMA or RBSD may be the way to go. It isn't fair to say that one's goals in the Martial Arts dictate the ability to achieve mastery. It just depends on what you want to master.

[DWx]

IMO I think training all aspects of fighting is good but you have to avoid becoming "a jack of all trades and a master of none". Personally I would rather be very skilled at striking in one system and know enough grappling to get by than knowing both grappling and striking to an intermediate level. But that's just my own opinion.

I have addressed this opinion before, but I will do it again. Being a "jack of all trades" doesn't necessarily mean that you can't be a master. It depends on what your goals as a Martial Artist are. Do you want to be a master at kicking? Then focusing entirely on TKD may be your choice. However, if you want to be able to fight effectively from all ranges, then training in MMA or RBSD may be the way to go. It isn't fair to say that one's goals in the Martial Arts dictate the ability to achieve mastery. It just depends on what you want to master.

This is just my own opinion. But surely if you wanted train in different ranges, say grappling, kicking and striking, then dividing yourself amoung them might not be most effective. You could end up with a mediocre level in all three. You are rounded yes, but you don't have a specific strength and if your opponent is a tad more efficient in any of those diciplines he would most likely beat you. If on the other hand you were fairly skilled at kicking and you had a basic level of grappling and striking then maybe you could push the fight towards your strength, kicking. Of course being great at all disciplines would be the best senario but can everyone manage that? Especially seeing as the vast amount of the MA community aren't professional fighters and have neither the time nor resources for that. For me, being a jack of all trades of MA would be like going out and learning phrases from 20 different languages, you'd be able to say the bare minimum but to hold a conversation? Of course I'm not an MMA fighter but this is just my own opinion.

It isn't fair to say that one's goals in the Martial Arts dictate the ability to achieve mastery. It just depends on what you want to master.

No its not fair to say that, there are plenty of examples where people are a master fighter but not necessarily a master of one style. I was just using the phrase to illustrate my point.

[bushido_man96]

This is just my own opinion. But surely if you wanted train in different ranges, say grappling, kicking and striking, then dividing yourself amoung them might not be most effective. You could end up with a mediocre level in all three. You are rounded yes, but you don't have a specific strength and if your opponent is a tad more efficient in any of those diciplines he would most likely beat you.

Dividing your time to get good at these positions is the only way to do it. However, it would be most advisable to be able to do drills that start from one position and transition you to another, where you can apply the various techniques and strategies.

What it comes down to is a fighters skill, in the end. If you get beat, it was because the fighter was better, or better that day, anyhow. The early UFCs showed that you can be a master striker, but you can be taken down and submitted by a mediocre grappler, just because you aren't familiar with that range of combat.

[tallgeese]

Yes, you will have to split up your training time, it's the only way. However, I do think that bushido man is correct, the best case is to be good in all those ranges. This is going to take some time, yes. However, it's worth it.

Let's not forget, the question isn't really if you've mastered and art, but how well you can apply what you've learned agaist an attacker. To this end, it's not needed or even advisable to defet an adversary at his own game. It's much easier to defeat the grappler with good takedown defense and effective striking than to out wrestle him. It's also much better to shoot a takedown on a striker or at the very least move to a stankding tie-up with him rather than to punch or kick with him.

This is the kind of thing that is diffuclt to do if you haven't spent the time dividing you're training. This is a reality we all have to deal with, by thetime you train stand up, ground fighing, in-fighting, weapons, and all the other little things that go into the complete fighter, it constitutes quite a bit of time and commitment. There is just no good way around it.

As to having one core discipline then branching off to study others, I really don't see a problem with that. Just be aware that until you make that branch off, you are limited in your response options. I also think that an inital well-rounded approach is good as well. Time spent on each aspect of the process early on can speed up the learning curve in all ranges greatly.

If you're lucky, you can find a school that encorporates a great deal of varitly in it's daily training regimine.

[Adonis]

However mastering a style isn't neccarily needed in any case. As there many parts to a style that is sport or style specific.

Mainly a few techniques is needed. Take boxing for example how many strikes are used? Not many at all. Yet they worked them and developed the timing, distance and other attributes to feul those limited techniques. To be effective you don't need to be a master at an art.

The arugment of jack of all trades and not good at any one can be true if the person tries to master every aspect of the art instead of focusing on few effective techniques