Was our body meant for combat?

[OneKickWonder]

Just take a look at Bruce Lee ! he wasn't born with that ability but he build his body for combat through training in martial arts ,like Tyson did in Boxing ,Olympic wrestlers did in wrestling ,and all the karate and kungfu masters did and we as martial arts practitioners try to do .

Ever seen a little karateka punch a much bigger and stronger karateka and knock him out ?

he wasn't born with it ,he just trained hard to learn how to turn his hand into a weapon of combat .

Indeed.

But may I put out this observation as food for thought.

Karate, and indeed probably any martial art, is just natural movement and ability.

When we are born, straight away we start learning to move. First all we can do is clumsily wiggle our arms and legs. As time passes we will find our own ways to move across the floor. Some babies crawl. Some shuffle on their behinds. Some roll. Most will find lots of variations and combinations thereof. More time passes and we walk and run and jump and climb and play.

Then something tragic happens.

Our parents, moulded by society, teach us to be careful, to sit still while 'learning', to behave ourselves. Our natural development in strength and agility and coordination almost grinds to a halt. We start to become weak and uncoordinated and inflexible.

Those of us that later turn to martial arts are not learning something new. We are simply, perhaps unwittingly, trying to restart that natural development that modern society encouraged us to suspend.

Imagine what the modern human would be like, if our natural movement development was never suspended. If we were never told to be careful, get down from there, sit still, behave.

Probably many of us would fail to make adulthood. But those that didn't meet a terrible accident would have vastly greater strength and agility than your average modern day martial artist, because such a person wouldn't be training to catch up, they'd be living that strength and agility and movement.

[DWx]

Years ago, I had a Muay Thai teacher correct a knee I was delivering. The way he had me do it felt unnatural. He said it should. He said if something feels natural (to a noob), you're probably doing it wrong. He said that what we do is not natural.

This got my wheels turning. Like I'm sure many of you are, I'm into body conditioning. Knuckles, fingertips, etc. We go out of our way to transform our bodies into tools for a task that I have to think we were never meant for.

I look at other species and several of them have built in tools that are intended to inflict damage. We seem to take tools that were NOT and fit them to that role.

This actually causes a weird perspective on sport fighting. We compete to see who is better at doing something they were not designed for?!?!

Thoughts?

Bit late to the party but anyway..

The fact that he told you that it should feel unnatural is bizarre to me. In TKD I've always been taught everything should feel natural.

Humans live in the environment they have made and modified for their comfort. Even if many now live in modern urban zones, comparing to wild animals is fair. The difference between any animal and a human is that animals can fight and defend themselves effectively by instinct. Most animals already possess natural weapons.

Humans are the only ones who have had to devise and make weapons to survive. Humans must also train and condition themselves to use artificial weapons and natural ones. Hands are adapted to fine motor tasks and grasping objects. A hand injury can be crippling or result in severe limitations. Making it an effective striking weapon requires much knowledge and training. Feet and legs are primarily for getting around. A foot or leg injury can also result in severe consequences from loss of mobility. Again, people have thought of safer ways to use these body parts as weapons.

The main point is that human bodies lack natural weapons, but make up for it by using intelligence to think about ways to train to become effective at fighting and defending themselves. It is the same process which allowed people to do everything from harnessing fire to inventing high-tech devices. Humans need to learn and think about how to effectively defend themselves without weapons.

This is pretty much my thoughts. You know there used to be lions in Europe? According to some findings these were 25% bigger than those we find today in Africa, about the size of a small car. And yet humans hunted these animals or at the very least defended themselves against them. The ability to use tools and our intelligence is part of our combat ability. If we didn't have this we'd have died out a long time ago.

[singularity6]

This is pretty much my thoughts. You know there used to be lions in Europe? According to some findings these were 25% bigger than those we find today in Africa, about the size of a small car. And yet humans hunted these animals or at the very least defended themselves against them. The ability to use tools and our intelligence is part of our combat ability. If we didn't have this we'd have died out a long time ago.

We've achieved dominance despite our physical stature. We've used our intelligence and ability to create tools (weapons) to make up for our lack of natural weapons.

[Spartacus Maximus]

Another difference between animals relying entirely on instinct and us, is that humans have the intellectual power to know and understand themselves on a deeper and higher level. A tiger doesn’t think or train to be good at fighting other tigers. Instinct drives it to use its strength, claws and fangs.

This is what has allowed people to figure out and devise ways to compensate for natural weaknesses by finding effective ways to use our bodies to fight or defend against other people. Training,strategy and practise is what makes it possible to defend against a larger aggressive enemy. In the case of our tiger, his instinct will tell him to retreat otherwise he will inevitably lose to a larger fiercer tiger.

[sensei8]

Is our body meant for combat? Not really - we have a lot of exposed weak spots; we'd have no chance cage-fighting the tiger.

We have the strength of an animal, because we an animal, however, we tend to get in our own way, and we muddle the whole thing up faster than not.

Toughness we already have, but it's tempered by many internal, doubt, and external dependents, that which we're facing at that very moment, and oftentimes than not, I believe that we're made perfectly for running away from whatever in the hopes we can fight another day, if it becomes an absolute.

Why is it that we MAists would rather avoid a fight/combat than engage in a fight/combat??

[OneKickWonder]

Another difference between animals relying entirely on instinct and us, is that humans have the intellectual power to know and understand themselves on a deeper and higher level. A tiger doesn’t think or train to be good at fighting other tigers. Instinct drives it to use its strength, claws and fangs.

.

Animals use their intelligence too.

Years ago we had a dog. For some reason the horrible dog of our neighbourhood used to bully our dog. Our dog would always come off worst in these altercations. Fortunately she never came to real harm. The horrid dog would for some reason cease it's random attack as soon as it was clear it had won. I think it was purely a dominance thing.

But here's the thing. These random attacks always took the same format. Always the bully dog started with the same trajectory of attack, and always aimed for the same spot on my dog's throat.

Then one day, we encountered horrid dog again while out for a walk. Once again it attacked from the same angle, going low and aiming for my dog's throat. Except this time it would be different. This time my dog waited till the last second, dropped to her belly, and grabbed horrid dog my the throat. For the first time, she had dominance over bully dog. She gave it a bit of a shaking down, before pinning it. Horrid dog was terrified, and after a long pause of my dog standing over it, pinning it down with jaws around throat, we convinced our dog to let it go. It legged it, and never attacked our dog again.

This is one story. One story alone doesn't really count as proof of anything. But I think it was pretty clear that it was pure instinctive strength against strength.

[Trailer_Ape]

Another difference between animals relying entirely on instinct and us, is that humans have the intellectual power to know and understand themselves on a deeper and higher level. A tiger doesn’t think or train to be good at fighting other tigers. Instinct drives it to use its strength, claws and fangs.

.

Animals use their intelligence too.

Years ago we had a dog. For some reason the horrible dog of our neighbourhood used to bully our dog. Our dog would always come off worst in these altercations. Fortunately she never came to real harm. The horrid dog would for some reason cease it's random attack as soon as it was clear it had won. I think it was purely a dominance thing.

But here's the thing. These random attacks always took the same format. Always the bully dog started with the same trajectory of attack, and always aimed for the same spot on my dog's throat.

Then one day, we encountered horrid dog again while out for a walk. Once again it attacked from the same angle, going low and aiming for my dog's throat. Except this time it would be different. This time my dog waited till the last second, dropped to her belly, and grabbed horrid dog my the throat. For the first time, she had dominance over bully dog. She gave it a bit of a shaking down, before pinning it. Horrid dog was terrified, and after a long pause of my dog standing over it, pinning it down with jaws around throat, we convinced our dog to let it go. It legged it, and never attacked our dog again.

This is one story. One story alone doesn't really count as proof of anything. But I think it was pretty clear that it was pure instinctive strength against strength.

Here ya go -

I had a friend that raised fighting birds. I didn't realize the differences between dogs and birds. For example - a champion fighting dog is studded out whereas a champion bird is not. The reason is they want to horde that bloodline. Contrary to popular belief, dog fights normally end in submission not death. Cock fights, on the other hand, almost always end in death. So they don't want to put their champion bird up against a bird from the same super effective bloodline.

I do not support animal bloodsports, so knew very little about this. He asked if I wanted to see the difference between a $200 and $800 bird. The larger one being the cheaper of the two. He put "boxing gloves" (shields their talons) on both and turned them loose. The cheaper (bigger) bird came in really aggressive, attacking str8 on with both feet. The high dollar bird swooped down (chest almost brushing the ground, wings pointing behind it) and went under the legs of the other. It then immediately threw a back kick (never turned around, both birds still back to back) and struck the cheaper bird in the back of the head. He separated em right there and explained - had they been wearing weapons, he would have just killed the other ones.

So yea, I have seen animals exhibit impressive technique.

[singularity6]

Here ya go -

I had a friend that raised fighting birds. I didn't realize the differences between dogs and birds. For example - a champion fighting dog is studded out whereas a champion bird is not. The reason is they want to horde that bloodline. Contrary to popular belief, dog fights normally end in submission not death. Cock fights, on the other hand, almost always end in death. So they don't want to put their champion bird up against a bird from the same super effective bloodline.

I do not support animal bloodsports, so knew very little about this. He asked if I wanted to see the difference between a $200 and $800 bird. The larger one being the cheaper of the two. He put "boxing gloves" (shields their talons) on both and turned them loose. The cheaper (bigger) bird came in really aggressive, attacking str8 on with both feet. The high dollar bird swooped down (chest almost brushing the ground, wings pointing behind it) and went under the legs of the other. It then immediately threw a back kick (never turned around, both birds still back to back) and struck the cheaper bird in the back of the head. He separated em right there and explained - had they been wearing weapons, he would have just killed the other ones.

So yea, I have seen animals exhibit impressive technique.

Your friend is a sick individual.

[RW]

Here ya go -

I had a friend that raised fighting birds. I didn't realize the differences between dogs and birds. For example - a champion fighting dog is studded out whereas a champion bird is not. The reason is they want to horde that bloodline. Contrary to popular belief, dog fights normally end in submission not death. Cock fights, on the other hand, almost always end in death. So they don't want to put their champion bird up against a bird from the same super effective bloodline.

I do not support animal bloodsports, so knew very little about this. He asked if I wanted to see the difference between a $200 and $800 bird. The larger one being the cheaper of the two. He put "boxing gloves" (shields their talons) on both and turned them loose. The cheaper (bigger) bird came in really aggressive, attacking str8 on with both feet. The high dollar bird swooped down (chest almost brushing the ground, wings pointing behind it) and went under the legs of the other. It then immediately threw a back kick (never turned around, both birds still back to back) and struck the cheaper bird in the back of the head. He separated em right there and explained - had they been wearing weapons, he would have just killed the other ones.

So yea, I have seen animals exhibit impressive technique.

Your friend is a sick individual.

Yes. Plus I am pretty sure that stuff is illegal

[RW]

Another difference between animals relying entirely on instinct and us, is that humans have the intellectual power to know and understand themselves on a deeper and higher level. A tiger doesn’t think or train to be good at fighting other tigers. Instinct drives it to use its strength, claws and fangs.

.

Animals use their intelligence too.

Years ago we had a dog. For some reason the horrible dog of our neighbourhood used to bully our dog. Our dog would always come off worst in these altercations. Fortunately she never came to real harm. The horrid dog would for some reason cease it's random attack as soon as it was clear it had won. I think it was purely a dominance thing.

But here's the thing. These random attacks always took the same format. Always the bully dog started with the same trajectory of attack, and always aimed for the same spot on my dog's throat.

Then one day, we encountered horrid dog again while out for a walk. Once again it attacked from the same angle, going low and aiming for my dog's throat. Except this time it would be different. This time my dog waited till the last second, dropped to her belly, and grabbed horrid dog my the throat. For the first time, she had dominance over bully dog. She gave it a bit of a shaking down, before pinning it. Horrid dog was terrified, and after a long pause of my dog standing over it, pinning it down with jaws around throat, we convinced our dog to let it go. It legged it, and never attacked our dog again.

This is one story. One story alone doesn't really count as proof of anything. But I think it was pretty clear that it was pure instinctive strength against strength.

How would you try to break the fight when the horrid dog was attacking your dog?