Why do Traditional Martial Arts suck?

[markusan]

I love practicing Kata. I find after going through a progression of maybe 10 or 12, paying strict attention to form and power, and visualising my opponents, I am very focussed, hugely pumped and often in an active meditative state of mind. I know it's impotant to have a goal, maybe for you it is to be effective on the street, but i think what's more important is training. Training is the way, the do, the tao, whether it be kata, kumite, stretching, strength speed.

[Gumbi]

Guess I'll go ahead and add my 2 cents....

 

First off, as someone said before, theres a difference between saying that TMAs are not usefull in a self defense situation and saying that TMA's suck- it depends what you want out of training. I want nothing more than knowing how to fight, so to me, TMA's suck.

 

First flaw- no emphasis on hand skills such as seen in boxing. Many TMA"s have a one strike one kill doctrine that, quite simply, does not work. The intricate blocks that are practiced in karate are not as effective as parries, bobs, weaves, and checks as taught in boxing and Muay Thai. One can hardly fight if he doesnt know how to use his hands (i.e. why TKD does so poorly).

 

Second flaw: no emphasis on the other 2 phases of combat. Fights occur in 3 phases- free movement phase in which there is no grappling (i.e. punching/kicking distance) - second phase is the clinch, such as seen when boxers grab each other or Thai fighters tie up to throw knees. Finally, there is the final phase, the grappling phase on the ground. Most TMA"s only emphasize the first free movement phase, and unfortunately even the most unskilled attacker can clinch fairly easily with the most skilled striker (excluding Muay Thai). Training from such a school becomes useless when in the 2nd or 3rd phases of a fight.

 

I didnt see either of these mentioned in the thread. The other problems I see are as TJS mentioned- no resisting opponents to practice against. Kata is also quite pointless for real life fighting as well- if you do it for other reasons, so be it.

[aefibird]

Yes, but I'd still rather not be hit by Mr Predictable. All that practice will have made him really good at whatever technique he practices.

[Draven Chen Zhen]

Training is the way, the do, the tao, whether it be kata, kumite, stretching, strength speed.

 

Training is always the way.

[shotokanwarrior]

I fear neither. One guy is predictable

 

You will not know your enemy, so how can you predict what technique will be used? I know that I cant tell the future.

[Drunken Monkey]

let me get this right.

 

you really are saying that 'traditional' martial arts does not teach you how to fight?

 

from what you have said here and from other threads, it is quite clear to me that your knowledge of other martial arts is based purely on what you have read and as a result you have offered not much more than generalities that cannot be applied to ALL traditional martial arts, if any at all.

 

but let's forget about that for a moment.

 

i wanna hear everyone's definition and examples of what is a traditional martial art and what is a modern martial art.

 

(cos for a start, i could've sworn that muay thai has thousands of years under it's belt, whilst karate is only a few hundred years old...)

[Mart]

Humm this is interesting, i think there is a confusion between traditional and modern MA.

 

Some styles of karate only date back to the 1920's i would classify anything in the last 100 years or so to be modern.

 

Modern vs Traditional doesnt make any sence

 

Traditional isnt the opposite of modern

 

a tradition can be only 10 years old.

 

MT is a traditional system

 

All MA are.

 

I think the quesition here is many questions. But i could summarize with a few breif ones which would make this a more logical conversation.

 

Is your art stationary. I.e. is it still evolving. is it adding new techniques? in this regard MT is seen as a modern system because it adds new stuff all the time. OR has it been the same since it was created.

 

Was your system evolved over time or was it created by one person?

 

do you spar full contact?

 

these are the real questions there may be more.

 

Quite frankly modern vs traditoinal makes no sence and neither do the arguments on this thread as its quite clear you guys cant distinguish what these two are because you are asking a question that means different things to different people.

[markusan]

here's an idea to toss around re trad versus modern. Maybe we think a martial art is a thousand years old, or maybe two, Perhaps that is not the real age of Martial arts, only the age of it being recorded. Homo sapiens have been round far longer than all that and by our survival rate we have been fighting pretty competently all that time. So much so that ma is now part of our evolution, it could even be a repressed genetic trait in all of us. repressed, that is, by civilisation and the need to co-habit peacefully. So maybe martial arts training aswell as learning new techniques, is unleashing that genetic programming in a controlled way. Left hand over right fist.

[HongKongFooey]

I think too many people are uniformed about the traditional martial arts to make an assumption about them. It has been my experience that the people who sound off the loudest about traditional arts, are the people who have NEVER practiced those arts. There information is second or third hand. The bash what they don't understand because their teachers or instructors do so. Their opinions are formed by events like the UFC and other events that enlist PROFESSIONAL fighters who compete for money and to entertain viewers.

 

Too many times in forums like this one there are pissing matches between posters over style effectiveness. Grapplers claim that strikers can't fight because they saw so and so lose to so and so on in the UFC, or their system is worthless because they don't address ground work as effectivly as BJJ schools. Strikers claim that grapplers can't touch them because they will kick them in the head when they shoot in. In all reality, who really gives a rat's *? Not all that trian in BJJ/MMA can take out a good striker. The same goes for strikers, not all strikers can floor a BJJer or MMAer. Besides, this kind of attitude can get you killed. I can't think of anything more pathetic than being shot or stabbed by some idiot in a bar, over a few words. Boo Hoo, people are mean. Deal with it.

 

I don't care what Royce Gracie or Cung Le, did to their opponets, the average MA will never obtain the skill of those guys. They are professionals, and their training is their means of support. They also possess natural talent and a fighting spirit that most people do not. Lets be realistic here, the average MA will not be able to perform at the level of the Gracies, regardless of what discipline of MA's they partake in. Could they defend against average Joe Blow, sure, but if they step up against a pro they will get creamed, and that includes the grapplers.

 

I guess what I am trying to say is this......practice what YOU enjoy, and become good at it. You don't have anything to prove to anyone but yourself. Self defense can be and is learned from TMA's and from more modern arts. It's time to put away the egos and grow up a bit. People practice MA's for many different reasons, and for me fighting isn't as important as I grow older.

 

Now stepping off soap box.

 

HKF

[White Warlock]

Well said HKF, i have nothing to add.