theswarm Posted May 22, 2003 Posted May 22, 2003 Neil, punching thin air etc is practicing basics - if your basics are poor, chances are your kata will be poor. Going to your point of full contact and point sparring - Those are just sports related, I consider sports aspects a bit of fun but are not the things I take as seriously as my other training. It's funny when people talk about how styles that don't do 'full contact' would never stand up in the real world. In 'full contact' they're not allowed to strike the head - so what most full contact styles just do is guard the torso - what happens in the real world then? well you can take punches to your torso but when someone smacks you in the face - there's a surprise. no contact - same problem. just add the torso in. Dirty tactics are deceptive tactics - they work well against people not trained for the unexpected. Dirty tactics are like Capoueira or Drunken Kung Fu (no i'm not saying those are dirty fighting arts - i think they're awesome) they have surprise moves, but once you've trained against those sort of unexpected strikes those dirty tactics usually end up more dangerous to the user. Take an eye gouge for instance - the motion is not much different from that of a punch - except your striking with your hand open and a very vulnerable part of your hand (IE NOT the base of the palm) if something were to clip that vulnerable part of your hand you've just screwed your hand up and given your opponent an advantage. I'd rather just punch someone on the nose and make their tearducts well up. dirty tactics are effective but i think they're waaay overrated. My favourite dirty tactic is biting versus ground fighters. It's like having a 5th limb.
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