ANY Fighting Style can work if you train it right.

[DaveB]

I can't really agree with the tone of your post here, Dave. I don't really know Martial D well enough yet, but Steve and DB are not so entirely irrational as you suggest. I've had productive discussions with both. They have strong biases - as you well point out, we all do - but there's some solid thought behind those biases. I actually appreciate them challenging my thoughts, though I wish some folks could let go of an idea when it becomes clear there's evidence on both sides of it. In the end, I think they contribute a lot here. I disagree with DB pretty frequently, and sometimes to the point I don't care to continue the frustration, but he brings an informed viewpoint. And Steve is pretty rational in his arguments - though entirely wrong, whenever he disagrees with me.

I completely agree with you. Their opinions I mostly find interesting and worth discussing even if I disagree.

What led me to this comment wasn't that they advocate for blaming styles for multiple competetive losses, it's the persecuted whining about the fact everyone doesn't agree or that their chosen line of reasoning is considered taboo...

They are offended by poor fighting mechanics and the defence of it (in their eyes) I'm offended by poor discussion and falsely clothing one's self in the blanket of the persecuted (in my eyes).

C'est la vie.

 

[Steve]

I was comiserating with him over the deep unfairness of it all. The poor little lamb just can't get us to listen to his actual factual evidence about why every non combat sports practitioner is useless.

The poor persecuted darling. It's all so unfair, how can he live with all these charlatans and fantasists.

My heart is literally bleeding all over the floor...



That's hilarious (all my sympathy went on poor little dropbear). The invocation of science in relation to your random YouTube assessments, tickles me.

When someone tries to explain what a scientific approach would look like you call them politically correct. What you do on these forums has nothing to do with science or evidence or data. It is purely your perception with all its biases and cognitive dissonance, exactly the same as those who oppose you. And there's nothing wrong with that. Facts preclude discussion.

The problem you and dropbear (and now it seems Steve) have is nothing to do with whether or not criticism of style is allowed. That's just that old persecution narrative b.s. that gets rolled out by those who feel unheard.

The trouble you have is that all you want to hear is that you are right and all those styles you say are useless, are indeed useless. The thing you actually don't want is discussion, because that is what you get here. Some agreement, some disagreement and some points you just haven't considered (whether rightly or wrongly).

The reason you don't want discussion is that like all personal narratives, you know in your bones it's correct... It's just that everyone else comes up with these excuses (valid arguments) not to listen to you (why you might be wrong in at least part of your view). And you just can't be bothered to keep patiently explaining why they are wrong (snarkily dismissing any arguments you can't answer).

You see, you're not unheard. Your just not always right.

Wait. What exactly am I being accused of here? I think you need to slow your roll a little.

Only thing I've tried to contribute to this thread is that the conclusion you are asserting is flawed. There are style that will not ever succeed as fighting styles (or defense styles) because they are entirely divorced from fighting and defense.

I provided an example. I could give you others. Simply put, there are some martial arts "styles" that would, if trained "right" cease to exist because they would be found completely impractical.

As for the rest, it sounds to me like you're whining and are lashing out a little, ironically, by accusing other people of whining and lashing out.

So, maybe chill out a little.

 

[Steve]

I can't really agree with the tone of your post here, Dave. I don't really know Martial D well enough yet, but Steve and DB are not so entirely irrational as you suggest. I've had productive discussions with both. They have strong biases - as you well point out, we all do - but there's some solid thought behind those biases. I actually appreciate them challenging my thoughts, though I wish some folks could let go of an idea when it becomes clear there's evidence on both sides of it. In the end, I think they contribute a lot here. I disagree with DB pretty frequently, and sometimes to the point I don't care to continue the frustration, but he brings an informed viewpoint. And Steve is pretty rational in his arguments - though entirely wrong, whenever he disagrees with me.

Come on, man. Bias? It's called an opinion.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Come on, man. Bias? It's called an opinion.

Yeah, well that's your bias.

 

[jobo]

Wait. What exactly am I being accused of here? I think you need to slow your roll a little.

Only thing I've tried to contribute to this thread is that the conclusion you are asserting is flawed. There are style that will not ever succeed as fighting styles (or defense styles) because they are entirely divorced from fighting and defense.

I provided an example. I could give you others. Simply put, there are some martial arts "styles" that would, if trained "right" cease to exist because they would be found completely impractical.

As for the rest, it sounds to me like you're whining and are lashing out a little, ironically, by accusing other people of whining and lashing out.

So, maybe chill out a little.

agreed, I've made the point to Dave,several times about the wing Chun boxing, it a) looks effective and b) looks nothing like wing Chun and Dave can't identify a single wing Chun characteristic in it. It's fair to say that in making wing Chun effective , wing Chun has ceased to exist in that,style

 

[DaveB]

Wait. What exactly am I being accused of here? I think you need to slow your roll a little.

Only thing I've tried to contribute to this thread is that the conclusion you are asserting is flawed. There are style that will not ever succeed as fighting styles (or defense styles) because they are entirely divorced from fighting and defense.

I provided an example. I could give you others. Simply put, there are some martial arts "styles" that would, if trained "right" cease to exist because they would be found completely impractical.

As for the rest, it sounds to me like you're whining and are lashing out a little, ironically, by accusing other people of whining and lashing out.

So, maybe chill out a little.

You are right, I shouldn't have lumped you in with Dropbear and Martial D. I misread your post. My apologies.

As to the Thread topic stuff, I did reply to your frog kungfu vid.

You could be right but your attempt at showing it was poor. A single out of context clip of what is possibly one form in a martial arts style is so far from evidence of ineffectiveness it's hard to think of a weaker argument.

We may not all know stats or the scientific method, but if you've seen one court room drama, or even an episode of law and order, you should be able to begin seeing why a funny clip doesn't condemn a whole fighting system.

You'd be better off finding a video of frog kungfu 2 person drills or 1-step defences. Better still get 3 or 4 vids so we can clearly see what is going on. Then instead of scoffing at it you can explain what doesn't work.

It's not some wide eyed love of kungfu mysticism that prompts my position. My arguments are sound and work for all the martial arts I've encountered. Fighting skill is independent of fighting style.

Fighting style can in theory be so inefficient as to be worthless, but realistically that is so unlikely because:
there are only so many ways a body can move,
purely cultural exposure to fighting methods will offer some guidance as to good form,
most fighting arts came from some kind of testing environment.

So by all means prove me wrong. Find me these crazy ridiculous martial arts that break my theory.

 

[DaveB]

agreed, I've made the point to Dave,several times about the wing Chun boxing, it a) looks effective and b) looks nothing like wing Chun and Dave can't identify a single wing Chun characteristic in it. It's fair to say that in making wing Chun effective , wing Chun has ceased to exist in that,style

I can identify plenty. You can't because you somehow think your ignorance of a thing makes other people wrong about it so you chose to stay ignorant to maintain the illusion of victory.

Note, 2 people have given up trying to communicate with you in this one thread.

 

[drop bear]

agreed, I've made the point to Dave,several times about the wing Chun boxing, it a) looks effective and b) looks nothing like wing Chun and Dave can't identify a single wing Chun characteristic in it. It's fair to say that in making wing Chun effective , wing Chun has ceased to exist in that,style

Sort of. There is a lot of overlap in concept between boxing and wing chun. Just boxing is such a variant style that when people pick out the differences. They can cherry pick.

So if it was wing chun vs a counter fighter like maywheather. Then very different. Vs Kostya Tzu. Not so much.

The issue is that wing chun decides what is and isnt wing chun based on a system I have never fathomed. Overhand rights are wing chun. BJJ is wing Chun. Rotational punching isn't. Honestly I think it is based on whim.

 

[jobo]

I can identify plenty. You can't because you somehow think your ignorance of a thing makes other people wrong about it so you chose to ssnstay ignorant to maintain the illusion of victory.

Note, 2 people have given up trying to communicate with you in this one thread.

no two people have given up trying to sell me tosh when they realised I'm not buying their nonsense. i specificaly
asked you to back up your claim that wing Chun boxing had any actual wing Chun in it and you refused to do so, in those circumstances its only fair to conclude you can't do so.

you've made this wild claim that any style can be,effective, extraordinary claim need extraordinary evidence and you can't even provide ordinary evidence, now your pretending you could be but you don't want to. I have a 7 yo that try's that trick

 

[drop bear]

No the counter was I laid out specific details as to what my assertion applied to and you had ignored that so you could post your yellow bamboo video.

As to frog kungfu, I simply don't know enough about it.
However if your following the thread you should know that the outward appearance of forms isn't necessarily linked to application. So yes we can all laugh at the crazy kungfu antics, but until we know what the application principles of the style are, which form elements are literal, which are symbolic and which are exercise we have no base with which to discuss the style.

An example might be that the height changes where he ends up on all 4s are symbolic of double leg takedowns; the jumping from couched symbolic of/training the legs for dumping throws where you pick up the opponent from beneathe their centre of gravity; the kicking from the the floor just exercise for throwing the whole body into short sharp kicks and the running punch bit a literal technique.

In application that might then look like a style that used a lot of height change, including jumping kicks and superman punches and flying knees, to hide tackles and takedowns and dumping throws, followed up with stamps. That defends primarily by just getting out of the way and uses a lot of shirt jumps to regain balance or to land strikes while dodging.

The success of such a style will be in the core skills, just like any other style. Can you move well and avoid being cut off. Can you entice the opponent to chase and judge distance to counter hit. Can you sell your high faints and get down fast enough for a takedown... etc.

The now I could be entirely wring about this style and it is just showy nonsense without guiding principles. It could he that there is a genuine less showy frog style that this is related to and study of that reveals pretty effective fighting methods and what we see here is the Chinese gov approved non martial wushu demo form (which would preclude it from this discussion). But without further information the fact that you can look at a video out of context and scoff at it doesn't do anything to the proposition at hand.

And frankly I'm disappointed. It's no wonder Britain keeps voting Tory and America voted trump if we think laughing at out of context footage somehow constitutes an argument. Do better.

Well yellow bamboo is a self defence style. And it doesn't work. And it obviously doesnt work. There is no hiding behind this idea that anyone has to have a 10 year knowledge of that particular style to find out if it doesn't work.

I mean it is pretty simple.

If yellow bamboo doesnt work but is not one of your styles you accept.

Then you did not mean any style will work. You ment certain styles will work.

And yes certain styles will work if you train them right. But certain styles are not any style. And then all you have to do is look to see if those styles do work. And why those styles work.

Which is also a pretty simple process. Because you see the style in use and it works or it doesn't.

Your concept is meta. I like meta. So there are principles that are common to styles that work. That is why they tent to look similar in aplication. If a style contains those meta concepts then trained right with the right individual it has the potentual to work.

Yellow bamboo or weird frog style it has none of those meta concepts. And surprise, suprise it doesn't work.

If you look at wing chun. It has some of those meta concepts. And kinda works.

When we look at chun in the ring. It has more of those mata concept and works better.

The reason Yellow bamboo does not count as a style is because you have allready applied meta concepts before you even considered its entry into your personal decision of what is and is not going to be a style. Sorry that still makes my point that some styles work. And they pretty much work because they share common traits.

All of this comes back to some styles work better than others.

This is also why I can't just make up a style and make it work.

And these arguments you can't adress. Other than complaining about them being somehow unfair. This is because you are working off belief and dogma. Not any sort of logic. You would like any style to work. Hey I would like any style to work. But there is no logic that leads me to that conclusion at this point.

They are not unfair just because your theory has holes I can drive a truck through.

 

[Steve]

Okay. If you're really going to hold me to an academic standard for this thread, you need to go first. Can you point me to where you define all of the terms you're using in your argument? You're going to have to rigorously define what you mean by martial arts, style, "works", effective, fight, training and pretty much every other subjective term you use in your ironclad, logical argument. If you could include in these definitions your objective criteria for evaluating "all martial arts styles" and also be very specific about what styles you have actually experienced, and to what degree.

I will be honest, I don't actually care overly much about it. But you're applying a standard to others that you have not lived up to yourself. Or maybe you have, but it's so spread out over the course of 27 posts that it's difficult to track. I'm just a simple caveman lawyer, so short sentences would be helpful.

Or, maybe you could stop being an *** and have a friendly conversation with some folks. I would prefer that.

Edit: I will add that the irony here is that you and I are pretty close on this. Where we seem to deviate is in the absolute nature of your argument. In general, as I said earlier in the thread, I agree that how a style is trained makes all the difference in whether it can be practical. however, there are some styles (as I said just a few posts ago) that would lose all essence if the training model were changed. In other words, how they are trained is integral to it being that style. @Flying Crane has gone into this in great detail over the years. Whether his style is effective or not is anyone's guess, but he has very strong opinions about the link between his training model and his style's identity.

 

[DaveB]

Ok, here we go again.

There are these things called titles. They anounce the piece of work you have done. Sometimes they are descriptive, sometimes they are eyecatching (metaphorically), sometimes a bit of both.

What they are not, is an argument.

So when I laid out my argument I knew some... person, would try to be clever and avoid the point being made with something stupid.

Like psychic powers.
Which don't exist.
So I set pretty reasonable criteria to keep the discussion on track, within the body of the argument I was making.

I have never called anything unfair. Any discussion has parameters. If you really think going outside those parameters means something then carry on.

 

[jobo]

Ok, here we go again.

There are these things called titles. They anounce the piece of work you have done. Sometimes they are descriptive, sometimes they are eyecatching (metaphorically), sometimes a bit of both.

What they are not, is an argument.

So when I laid out my argument I knew some... person, would try to be clever and avoid the point being made with something stupid.

Like psychic powers.
Which don't exist.
So I set pretty reasonable criteria to keep the discussion on track, within the body of the argument I was making.

I have never called anything unfair. Any discussion has parameters. If you really think going outside those parameters means something then carry on.

you won't even tells us what,WORKS means, though you have said that even if a,style consistently looses it can still count as working

 

[drop bear]

Ok, here we go again.

There are these things called titles. They anounce the piece of work you have done. Sometimes they are descriptive, sometimes they are eyecatching (metaphorically), sometimes a bit of both.

What they are not, is an argument.

So when I laid out my argument I knew some... person, would try to be clever and avoid the point being made with something stupid.

Like psychic powers.
Which don't exist.
So I set pretty reasonable criteria to keep the discussion on track, within the body of the argument I was making.

I have never called anything unfair. Any discussion has parameters. If you really think going outside those parameters means something then carry on.

Plenty of examples of yellow bamboo working. Just exists within the realm of training.

I mean multiple attackers and knife defence don't really exist either.

Or essentially end up the same way yellow bamboo does.

 

[drop bear]

I mean you want to see magical powers. Here you go.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I mean you want to see magical powers. Here you go.

If I ever face a gun, I hope the gunman is on tranquilizers like that.

 

[DaveB]

Okay. If you're really going to hold me to an academic standard for this thread, you need to go first. Can you point me to where you define all of the terms you're using in your argument? You're going to have to rigorously define what you mean by martial arts, style, "works", effective, fight, training and pretty much every other subjective term you use in your ironclad, logical argument. If you could include in these definitions your objective criteria for evaluating "all martial arts styles" and also be very specific about what styles you have actually experienced, and to what degree.

I will be honest, I don't actually care overly much about it. But you're applying a standard to others that you have not lived up to yourself. Or maybe you have, but it's so spread out over the course of 27 posts that it's difficult to track. I'm just a simple caveman lawyer, so short sentences would be helpful.

Or, maybe you could stop being an *** and have a friendly conversation with some folks. I would prefer that.

Edit: I will add that the irony here is that you and I are pretty close on this. Where we seem to deviate is in the absolute nature of your argument. In general, as I said earlier in the thread, I agree that how a style is trained makes all the difference in whether it can be practical. however, there are some styles (as I said just a few posts ago) that would lose all essence if the training model were changed. In other words, how they are trained is integral to it being that style. @Flying Crane has gone into this in great detail over the years. Whether his style is effective or not is anyone's guess, but he has very strong opinions about the link between his training model and his style's identity.

It's hardly an academic standard to ask to see what an art actually looks like in application before judging it.

No matter how sarcastic the comment, laughing at something won't ever be a solid argument.

And yes I have defined terms. Most of it is in the first post of the thread.

With regards to the styles that are defined by their training, if that's really the case and the styles are ineffective then yes they would disprove my position...

assuming I didn't define a martial art fighting style as one based on mechanical tactical and strategic principles, which I might have as that us how I define a fighting style. If I did then styles based on a training regime wouldn't count.

I will have to check the first post.

 

[drop bear]

It's hardly an academic standard to ask to see what an art actually looks like in application before judging it.

No matter how sarcastic the comment, laughing at something won't ever be a solid argument.

And yes I have defined terms. Most of it is in the first post of the thread.

With regards to the styles that are defined by their training, if that's really the case and the styles are ineffective then yes they would disprove my position...

assuming I didn't define a martial art fighting style as one based on mechanical tactical and strategic principles, which I might have as that us how I define a fighting style. If I did then styles based on a training regime wouldn't count.

I will have to check the first post.

Sometimes satire is more equiped to deal with incomplete logic than logic.

 

[DaveB]

This to me is self evident but many disagree, so what better topic for discussion.

So first to the terms:
Fighting style: method of conducting fights. For most this includes trying to "win" but not always.
The key point here is that a fighting style is NOT the traditionally associated training. There may be a few closed minded Grand Masters who ban anything but their own handed down by the gods syllabus, but such poor quality teachers aren't really representative of any martial arts community I have heard of.

Training, changes from club to club, not style to style. Most instructor go to seminars to get new training methods to add, so if the training is changing it can't be definitive.

Not to mention the fact that nobody ever confuses a football team doing ball control drills with a football match, so why would we confuse sparring drills with a fight?

A style "works" when the fighter is able to make valid credible steps towards his goal and has the potential to reach it within the confines of the style.

Fighting is dependent on an uncontrolled variable called "the other guy". Winning fights only proves that on that day you weren't facing somebody better than you or less lucky than you.
Still, if there's no possible way for a fighting style to counteract whatever caused the loss, then I will concede That said style does not work.

Training it "right": So my argument hinges 2 key ideas.
1. on the notion that a fighting style is nothing but abstract thoughts until you get a person to make use of it. Therefore success with a style is dependent on the talent and genetics of the person. The only way to influence these base stats, is by training the fighter.

2. The fact that the ability to avoid being hit whether by evasion or interruption, the ability to avoid being controlled through grappling or any other tactic and the ability to reach and apply your own methods on your opponent, are what wins fights.

The training in concept 1 is to develop the universally neccessary skills in concept 2, IN ADDITION TO the core methods of the style.

Fundamentally it comes down to, "What does it take to hit with x, apply y and make use of z?".

I'm a big fan of the Dark Souls video games. They are renowned for being hard and when people ask how to beat this or that the only answer to come back is "git gud" (GET GOOD!). Learn when to dodge, when to hit, when to run and when to charge.

IMO This same idea is the essence of fighting and it is universal; the thread that links all martial arts and the reason my argument works.

And yes, pendants, a style based on tickling people with a feather or any other expletive excrement methods are going to be the exceptions. But since arguing about things that don't exist is pointless can we accept that this idea is based on known accepted martial arts or combat sports that use striking and grappling as combat tools. (I suppose this is the definition of Any, for those that needed one).
I suppose I am also saying here that if a style has no methods that could possibly be applied to an opponent to gain victory then I would also concede that style does not work.

So what do you think? Agree? Disagree? Disagree with the terms? Let's hear it!

I did not initially define a fighting style in terms of combative principles so yes, those styles defined purely by training cannot have said training changed and so are exceptions to this idea.

Though I'm sure it would have come up at some point. C'est la vie.

It's interesting going over my first post as I was pretty precise. It's funny how many folk just straight ignored the argument being made.

 

[DaveB]

Sometimes satire is more equiped to deal with incomplete logic than logic.

And other times it's how a demagogue distracts people from his lack of a point.