Are competitive Sport Martial Artists superior?

[Gerry Seymour]

If you’re talking about verbal skills to diffuse conflict, that is part of someone’s fighting ability as well. Imposing your will onto someone isn’t always physical, oftentimes it is mental. In Bjj it’s considered an aspect of “invisible Jiujitsu”, along the same lines of temperament, awareness, and confidence. Obviously other MAs call it something else entirely, but it is still an aspect of your ability to resolve conflict. It is training to make you a more calm and collective fighter/warrior/whatever.

Okay, this is another place where we seem to be running into defintion issues. When I speak of "fighting", I'm talking about what I think drop bear would refer to as physically imposing your will on someone. If you're including this in your definition, I agree with what you're saying here. I think we can all agree that verbal Judo (take that, Jitser!!) is useful for self-protection and a lot of other areas of life.

I'll also clarify that when I'm helping folks with their communication skills, it's not necessarily about diffusing conflict (though that sometimes comes up). It's more about general communication, like how to ask a good question. Why? Because I strongly suspect they'll get more life benefit from improving in that area than any ability to fight, as most folks will never actually need the physical fighting skills.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

The general tone sounds somewhat hostile, so I thought I would ask rather than assume.

Hanzou can be direct and emphatic. I don't recall ever seeing a hostile post, though. Even when we disagree vehemently and completely, Hanzou's pretty easy to talk to.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'll be honest in that I've been skimming this thread, and this part stuck out to me for some reason. Gpseymour has said a bunch of times that he doesn't think aikido is a good art for self-defense alone, or for fighting alone. What he's said is that people should start with other arts, and then add aikido once they're capable of self-defense/fighting as it then adds something extra, and that's what he believes its purpose is.

That might be why this stuck out to me actually-it's such a unique position for a teacher of any art to have, that their art only really works after you've learned another. Hopefully, I A) got his position correct, and B) explained it right.

You definitely have the position right. You've confused two arts (understandably - the naming is maddeningly confusing to most people). What I teach is a cousin-art to Aikido, with the foundation being the same (Daito-ryu), with heavy influence from Judo and Karate (allegedly Shotokan, but I suspect a healthy amount of Goju).

I think NGA can suffer the same way Aikido does, if trained too similarly. While we have strikes, but there are schools that only teach and test them statically (some without even a heavy bag, several without sparring). I tend the opposite direction - I see the striking approach as being necessary to the functioning of the art. My students learn to spar before they experience their first NGA "classical technique". That's part of the kind of foundation I feel Aikido lacks - a delivery system for the movement and principles they train.

 

[drop bear]

The guy demonstrating the fundamentals of ippon seoi nage in the first clip is Mike Swain, a Judo world champion and 5 time Olympian. I guarantee he has a great understanding of both the move and the concept.

The thing about Judo throws is that you have to learn the basic body mechanics first before you get into the complex, sometimes messy looking variations that come out against resisting opponents at the highest level of competition. In that first clip, Swain is just teaching those fundamental body mechanics. He definitely knows and has executed those crazy looking tournament variations. (I’m also willing to bet that against someone like you or me he could probably pull off the throw in a manner that looks like the textbook fundamental version. )

Yeah. That is why I went for a sneaky "does not show a great understanding" rather than does not have.

The comment was supposed to focus on the technique not the person.

And he is only showing half the story with that throw.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I have no particular opinion regarding the quality of NGA as an art. The video clips I’ve seen are on a par with the average modern hybrid jujutsu systems.

If that's all you've seen, ,you've missed some spectacularly bad stuff, Tony.

But, yes, most of what's out there has much the same feel as the other modern hybrid jujutsus. And it's prone to a lot of the same problems when not trained with resistance, and the same overstatement of its effectiveness against, for instance, knives.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yeah. That is why I went for a sneaky "does not show a great understanding" rather than does not have.

The comment was supposed to focus on the technique not the person.

And he is only showing half the story with that throw.

That's pretty common in JMA approach to teaching, as I've seen it. Just enough is shared to get the technique working in the initial drill and get the basic movement, then that foundation is built upon. (Though I see plenty of examples where apparently there was no further building.)

 

[drop bear]

That's pretty common in JMA approach to teaching, as I've seen it. Just enough is shared to get the technique working in the initial drill and get the basic movement, then that foundation is built upon. (Though I see plenty of examples where apparently there was no further building.)

Yeah. I drill a similar throw in a similar fashion to teach breakfalls. Because it is more controlled than the live versions.

So in a different context I see your point.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

You definitely have the position right. You've confused two arts (understandably - the naming is maddeningly confusing to most people). What I teach is a cousin-art to Aikido, with the foundation being the same (Daito-ryu), with heavy influence from Judo and Karate (allegedly Shotokan, but I suspect a healthy amount of Goju).

I think NGA can suffer the same way Aikido does, if trained too similarly. While we have strikes, but there are schools that only teach and test them statically (some without even a heavy bag, several without sparring). I tend the opposite direction - I see the striking approach as being necessary to the functioning of the art. My students learn to spar before they experience their first NGA "classical technique". That's part of the kind of foundation I feel Aikido lacks - a delivery system for the movement and principles they train.

Yeah, in my head I always equate your art with traditional Aikido because of the name. If I'm not actively thinking about it, I forget that it's a separate thing

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yeah, in my head I always equate your art with traditional Aikido because of the name. If I'm not actively thinking about it, I forget that it's a separate thing

At least one ranking NGA instructor has forgotten that, too.

 

[drop bear]

Except I wasn’t talking about techniques at all.

Critical thinking can apply to styles, systems, ideas or even people.

It is not reliant on it being just about techniques.

 

[isshinryuronin]

As I often say, things like pro Bjj and especially MMA keep the art "honest", and doesn't allow it to fall into looney territory. Unfortunately there are a host of other MAs who don't have those safety nets.

I agree. But sport competition is not the only way to "keep the art honest." There were karate experts way before it was even imagined as sport that I am sure would give any modern kick boxer or karate champ more then they could handle.

We do not train for sport at my dojo. We train to do damage to our opponent, not score points. We do kata to develop basic skills and principles, as well as those movements that are practical in a modern fight. (I will admit some kata moves are not practical nowadays, but there is more to them than most people realize.)

Most of our training involves grabs, arm breaks, knee breaks, elbows, other assorted strikes and a few kicks to low targets. KISS. We strike (and "block") in a way to inflict additional pain and damage. We work on maintaining control from the start to limit/eliminate counter attacks. Two man drills while padded up allows us to actually hit and get realism. And most important of all is the mental attitude that is developed that a street fight these days is definitely NOT SPORT.

A modern respected karate "Grand" Master has said, "True karate can never be sport." If one understands what this means, they will understand sport is not the only way to train for effective fighting. But minus the type of training I've outlined above, competitive sparring is better than no sparring.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Yeah. That is why I went for a sneaky "does not show a great understanding" rather than does not have.

The comment was supposed to focus on the technique not the person.

And he is only showing half the story with that throw.

Possibly less than half the story, but it's an important, necessary part of the story - the first few chapters of the book, if you will. If you try to throw students into the advanced tournament variations without that foundation, then they are going to be lost. Sort of like starting a novel in the middle with no idea of who the characters are or why they are in the situations they are.

Judo in general is like that. The basic versions of the throws which are taught pretty similarly in dojos around the globe are typically not the versions that you see commonly executed in high level competition. Rather they're the versions which mostly clearly and simply illustrate the fundamental body mechanics and concepts underlying the throw.

That's not to say the basic versions can't work. I got caught by a beautiful ippon seoi nage in sparring the other week. It was off of an unexpected setup, but the execution was pretty much the classic form shown by Mike Swain in that video. (Of course, I'm not an elite judo competitor, so the advanced variations weren't necessary to score on me.)

 

[Tony Dismukes]

If that's all you've seen, ,you've missed some spectacularly bad stuff, Tony.

But, yes, most of what's out there has much the same feel as the other modern hybrid jujutsus. And it's prone to a lot of the same problems when not trained with resistance, and the same overstatement of its effectiveness against, for instance, knives.

Well, I have seen some spectacularly bad stuff in many of the modern hybrid jujutsu systems. Also some pretty good stuff and some mediocre stuff. That's part of what usually gives me a clue as to how much pressure testing they do - the proportion of solid movement to crap.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Hanzou can be direct and emphatic. I don't recall ever seeing a hostile post, though. Even when we disagree vehemently and completely, Hanzou's pretty easy to talk to.

That’s why I asked. I’m not offended. I do like to get a feel for people. I don’t want to judge on text.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Critical thinking can apply to styles, systems, ideas or even people.

It is not reliant on it being just about techniques.

Patronizing won’t make you any points here.

 

[Cynik75]

Competition is like mirror: allows too see real fighting skills level and what should be improved. And what is very important the level of opponents grows up what forces constant improvement.
Non competitive MAs have not this kind of verification and even if sometimes the skills level is tested "on da streetz madafaka no rules" the test are very rare (if are at all) and the level of opponents is very low - there is no need to improve more than necessary to defeat average Joe.
It makes the sportmen are much much better in sport than "street real fighers" in real fighers. And because of huge overlap between full contact sports and "street fighting" full contact sportmen performs better in street encounters than "real life fighters".

 

[Hanzou]

I agree. But sport competition is not the only way to "keep the art honest." There were karate experts way before it was even imagined as sport that I am sure would give any modern kick boxer or karate champ more then they could handle.

The key word here is "were". It should also be noted that karate experts of old didn't shy away from exhibition or public fights, and even criticized other karate masters who shied away from fighting. Motobu Choki and his attitude towards Funakoshi being a prime example.

We do not train for sport at my dojo. We train to do damage to our opponent, not score points. We do kata to develop basic skills and principles, as well as those movements that are practical in a modern fight. (I will admit some kata moves are not practical nowadays, but there is more to them than most people realize.)

You may be surprised to hear that we do the exact same thing in BJJ (minus the kata), yet we still find time to train for competition as well. Interestingly, the guys who compete tend to end up with a higher degree technical skill than those who do not.

Most of our training involves grabs, arm breaks, knee breaks, elbows, other assorted strikes and a few kicks to low targets. KISS. We strike (and "block") in a way to inflict additional pain and damage. We work on maintaining control from the start to limit/eliminate counter attacks. Two man drills while padded up allows us to actually hit and get realism. And most important of all is the mental attitude that is developed that a street fight these days is definitely NOT SPORT.

Yeah, but is that Isshin-Ryu striking on Isshin-Ryu striking? Is that sparring or drilling? How much innovation and alteration is allowed in your drills/sparring? After a certain point, style on style drilling begins to dull the overall system, and it begins to fall behind.

One of the reasons I said that MMA keeps BJJ honest is because MMA constantly evolves, thus forcing BJJ to evolve with it since BJJ is the core submission grappling art of MMA. Within that, you have BJJ being constantly exposed to modern fighting systems like Boxing, Wrestling, Combat Sambo, street fighting, etc. In addition to that, non-MMA BJJ is very open to wrestlers which also bring a lot of innovation to BJJ itself, and that keeps the art "honest" and constantly evolving.

One example of this was the recent Catch vs BJJ bout that took place between the CACC "champion" Curran Jacobs and random 10th Planet BJJ blackbelt Quentin Rosenzweig;

Why is this important? Simple; BJJ exponents have incorporated elements of Catch into their game, and then evolved beyond that to elevate both the sport and the art to levels where catch simply cannot keep up. BJJ has the added benefit of far more practitioners and a far more open culture of innovation. Catch on the other hand is working from a handicap in that they're working with far less practitioners and are actively avoiding incorporating BJJ into their system because (above all else) they want to be a separate system from BJJ. So the results speak for itself. Considering that Jacobs was supposedly the top catch guy around and he got easily beaten by an unranked Jitz guy was quite an upset for the CACC community.

A modern respected karate "Grand" Master has said, "True karate can never be sport." If one understands what this means, they will understand sport is not the only way to train for effective fighting. But minus the type of training I've outlined above, competitive sparring is better than no sparring.

He's welcome to his opinion, but effective fighting is evolving constantly. If you're still doing one steps from the 19th century, you're well behind the 8-ball. Judo understood this, which is why Jigaro Kano in all of his genius incorporated modern sport wrestling and grappling into his modern Judo system, and then proceeded to replace classical Japanese martial arts with more modern systems. Why? Because Kano understood that the toughest fighters around were modern wrestlers and boxers and they were handily beating experts from classical MA systems.

Given that over a century later, a lanky Brazilian using a modified version of Kano's system forever changed the course of martial arts in a NHB event kind of speaks for itself.

 

[isshinryuronin]

same thing in BJJ (minus the kata), yet we still find time to train for competition as well. Interestingly, the guys who compete tend to end up with a higher degree technical skill than those who do not.

I would think that most of BJJ's serious students are in it for competition, so logical they would be the harder workers and become more skillful. Your statement's logic is skewed towards your preset conclusion.

Yeah, but is that Isshin-Ryu striking on Isshin-Ryu striking? Is that sparring or drilling?

There is no "style" involved in these drills. They are not forms. They are normal attacks: jabs, crosses, grabs, basic kicks... We work on flow and adjusting to changing dynamics during the attack. It's definitely not sparring since that implies "give and take." We stress the giving and avoid the taking. Three, four, five moves and it's over. That's the goal. Finish ASAP.

Jigaro Kano in all of his genius incorporated modern sport wrestling and grappling into his modern Judo system, and then proceeded to replace classical Japanese martial arts with more modern systems. Why?

You are looking at all things thru the filter of BJJ and have some built in bias in the formatting of your statements. Kano was a force, but not the patron saint of all martial arts as you paint him. There were many influences on Japanese MA during the early 1900's, historical and political.

Kano looked to sport wrestling as he was developing a competitive sport!! Kano was an educator and from the get-go his judo was designed to be taught in the schools. I have no idea what modern systems relaced what classical Japanese MA you are talking about, so your "Why?" (as many of your suppositions) is moot.

 

[Hanzou]

I would think that most of BJJ's serious students are in it for competition, so logical they would be the harder workers and become more skillful. Your statement's logic is skewed towards your preset conclusion.

Well they’re also training harder and more often. The point is that this creates an elite level of Bjj practitioners. Which creates situations like this;

Where a guy can run through an entire gym of practitioners.

There is no "style" involved in these drills. They are not forms. They are normal attacks: jabs, crosses, grabs, basic kicks... We work on flow and adjusting to changing dynamics during the attack. It's definitely not sparring since that implies "give and take." We stress the giving and avoid the taking. Three, four, five moves and it's over. That's the goal. Finish ASAP.

Okay, are you bringing in boxers or MMA guys to fight/spar with? If not, why not? What’s the philosophy behind that?

You are looking at all things thru the filter of BJJ and have some built in bias in the formatting of your statements. Kano was a force, but not the patron saint of all martial arts as you paint him. There were many influences on Japanese MA during the early 1900's, historical and political.

Well for starters I’ll never say that I don’t carry biases, I’m only human. I never said that Kano was the patron saint of ALL martial arts, however, he started a revolution in Asian martial arts that still influence the vast majority of MAs to this day. Even our uniforms and belt systems come from Judo. For example, Gichin Funakoshi the "father of modern Karate" adopted Kano's grading system for Shotokan, and that in turn influenced pretty much all forms of karate to adopt the system as well. So yeah, I wouldn't put him down as the patron saint, but it's safe to say that we owe a great deal of our modern systems of MA to Kano, especially if we practice a style of MA descended from Japan.

Kano looked to sport wrestling as he was developing a competitive sport!! Kano was an educator and from the get-go his judo was designed to be taught in the schools. I have no idea what modern systems relaced what classical Japanese MA you are talking about, so your "Why?" (as many of your suppositions) is moot.

I told you what modern system replaced classical Japanese MA; Judo. The "why" is simple, though rhetorical; Kano adopted those techniques and concepts from western sports because they were effective.

But back to the main point; Early in your original post, you stated that there WERE Karate experts from back in the day that could hand modern Kickboxers and sport fighters their rear-ends. What about now though? Are you saying that Isshin-Ryu karatekas haven't improved in the last century or so of the art's existence? In BJJ, the top guys are WAY better than the Gracies were, which shows that the art as a whole is improving with each successive generation. Why is that not the case in karate? Could it be that the lack of sparring, competition, open experimentation, and a strong adherence to tradition has stagnated the style?

 

[isshinryuronin]

, Gichin Funakoshi the "father of modern Karate" adopted Kano's grading system for Shotokan, and that in turn influenced pretty much all forms of karate to adopt the system as well.

Yes, but this has nothing to do with the art itself. It only changed how ranks were given and how the public school program was structured. Funakoshi, like Kano, was a teacher, and schools have grades and lesson plans. Okinawa was slow to adopt Kano's ranking (and gi as well), doing so only because of pressure from the "mainland" and for the sake of harmony in Japan's growing nationalistic climate.

I told you what modern system replaced classical Japanese MA; Judo.

Judo replaced Kyudo, kobudo, karate, jujutsu???? Well, yes, jujutsu to a degree, but only in the sport context.

But back to the main point; Early in your original post, you stated that there WERE Karate experts from back in the day that could hand modern Kickboxers and sport fighters their rear-ends. What about now though? Are you saying that Isshin-Ryu karatekas haven't improved in the last century or so of the art's existence? In BJJ, the top guys are WAY better than the Gracies were, which shows that the art as a whole is improving with each successive generation. Why is that not the case in karate?

Keep in mind that BJJ is an "infant" art, and still developing as you said. Karate has over 200 hundred years of development, so perhaps is a more "matured" art, having already undergone constant development for many successive generations.

Contrary to what you assert, karate has changed in the last hundred years or so. Most of today's styles evolved during the last century. My style's founder made several changes that met much resistance from the karate community, but I think were for the best. He was one of the first masters to utilize body armour to allow full contact sparring, and modified several techniques to make them faster and do more damage. So your last sentence in the above quote is not quite accurate. Again, you are assuming facts that bolster your position.

Since Ali, how much has boxing changed? Not much, although it changed a lot and more often 150-90 years ago when it was a less matured art. The different arts all have their own timeline of development and maturation. Kids change more than adults. It can be said that competition can hinder development by rules which only allow certain things, so the sport is confined by those rules. Sure, rules can be changed - but it is another viewpoint that can be considered. Multiple factors are involved so broad statements can have inaccuracies.

I'm not saying you're wrong in much of what you are posting. Just that you are a bit too focused onto your position and neglecting (or uninformed of) other aspects and facts of the big picture.