Traditional styles vs Full contact: An observation

[hansenator]

It's been my experience that traditional styles often aren't trained very well. There can be whole classes without any partner drills. Kata are barely understood and bunkai rarely trained. No impact training to speak of (how do you reach brown belt and not be able to punch a bag without hurting yourself?). Practical application and how techniques are actually used can be sorely lacking. Not enough repetition to actually learn something. I could go on...

It's true that traditional arts are bigger and take longer to learn but it shouldn't take that long to gain some basic self defense skills. After a few months you should be able to generate some power, have some reactions and movement skills, have improved your fitness a bit.

Sorry if that turned into a rant but that's what I've seen.

[cheesefrysamurai]

It's been my experience that traditional styles often aren't trained very well. There can be whole classes without any partner drills. Kata are barely understood and bunkai rarely trained. No impact training to speak of (how do you reach brown belt and not be able to punch a bag without hurting yourself?). Practical application and how techniques are actually used can be sorely lacking. Not enough repetition to actually learn something. I could go on...

It's true that traditional arts are bigger and take longer to learn but it shouldn't take that long to gain some basic self defense skills. After a few months you should be able to generate some power, have some reactions and movement skills, have improved your fitness a bit.

Sorry if that turned into a rant but that's what I've seen.

I think what you mean is that some Dojos aren't training properly. You find that everywhere. there's great karate and crap karate, great bjj and crap bjj. Not all traditional schools are equal as all MMA schools are.

My dojo we do lots of conditioning, and are taught truly what every movement in the kata is there for.

At this point I venture to say there are more crap non traditional schools then traditional because the trend in profit is in non traditional.

[bushido_man96]

It's been my experience that traditional styles often aren't trained very well. There can be whole classes without any partner drills. Kata are barely understood and bunkai rarely trained. No impact training to speak of (how do you reach brown belt and not be able to punch a bag without hurting yourself?). Practical application and how techniques are actually used can be sorely lacking. Not enough repetition to actually learn something. I could go on...

It's true that traditional arts are bigger and take longer to learn but it shouldn't take that long to gain some basic self defense skills. After a few months you should be able to generate some power, have some reactions and movement skills, have improved your fitness a bit.

Sorry if that turned into a rant but that's what I've seen.

I wouldn't say that they aren't trained well, but they definitely aren't always trained in the most efficient manner. I do agree, however, that it shouldn't take that long to gain self-defense skills, and the training mode is a very big factor in determining how quickly those skills come along.