Doesnt all that training go out the window?

[DeLamar.J]

Its all about muscle memory Hicks. You have to train so much that your techniques come truely naturally. Thats why it takes so long to become a good martial artist, some have more of a nack and catch on fast, but not most.
You have to train your punch so you cannot throw it any other way than the perfect way, without thinking about it. Not the other way around.
When I am doing Wing Chun I get in trouble all the time because Im throwing punches like a karate guy, it seems like at times I could never be able break the habit.

 

[Paul Genge]

One of the difficulties that arises is that most styles start off in some sort of kamae or fighting stance. It therefore takes the artist to make the decission to stand in this stance prior to a fight starting or otherwise their trained drills are not going to be initiated as in their training sessions.

The reason why most martial artists get this wrong is that their pride stops them from getting into their ready position until it is too late. After all who wants to look a idiot striking some fancy kung fu pose in the middle of a busy pub? When you opponent decides better of starting a fight you are going to end up looking foolish.

The choice then appears to be to either study a martial art that works from a neutral position or one that is very subtle such as slightly blading the body and using the fence. Another choice for all the die had karate/kung fu people is to not give a damn about how they look and use the kamaes they so diligently train.

Paul Genge
http://www.russianmartialart.org.uk

 

[Corporal Hicks]

Its all about muscle memory Hicks. You have to train so much that your techniques come truely naturally. Thats why it takes so long to become a good martial artist, some have more of a nack and catch on fast, but not most.
You have to train your punch so you cannot throw it any other way than the perfect way, without thinking about it. Not the other way around.
When I am doing Wing Chun I get in trouble all the time because Im throwing punches like a karate guy, it seems like at times I could never be able break the habit.

Lol! Yeah I get that too with my Sifu in Wing Chun, he's always saying how my moves tend to be alot of Tae Kwon Do HUH! And TAI, then he says you've got to be more flowing with your moves!

I've heard praticing moves really really slowly like they do in Tai Chi is one of the best ways to get it into your muscle memory and have get it right, is this true?

Regards

 

[Mark Lynn]

One of the difficulties that arises is that most styles start off in some sort of kamae or fighting stance. It therefore takes the artist to make the decission to stand in this stance prior to a fight starting or otherwise their trained drills are not going to be initiated as in their training sessions.

The reason why most martial artists get this wrong is that their pride stops them from getting into their ready position until it is too late. After all who wants to look a idiot striking some fancy kung fu pose in the middle of a busy pub? When you opponent decides better of starting a fight you are going to end up looking foolish.

The choice then appears to be to either study a martial art that works from a neutral position or one that is very subtle such as slightly blading the body and using the fence. Another choice for all the die had karate/kung fu people is to not give a damn about how they look and use the kamaes they so diligently train.

Paul Genge
http://www.russianmartialart.org.uk

Paul

I don't really think that anyone seriously gets into a prescribed kamae/fighting stance when dealing with a SD situation. Because then it wouldn't be SD but rather a fight/duel. Normally fights start when someone gets surprised (sucker punched etc. etc.) and then it explodes from there. So in those kind of instances I don't believe someone would adopt the karate kid classic crane stance and wait for the guy to back down (from the fight) or to charge in.

Now once contact is made and there is seperation between the people then I can see someone adopting a more fighting stance posture (although I still can't picture someone adopting the crane posture ).

The fighting postures that I learned over the years all dealt more with duels between weapons (swords) (and sticks of various lengths) which is different than SD applications. So maybe I've taken your post wrong and if so I apologize.

Mark

 

[Danjo]

Muscle memory is very key to this. On needs to train in all of the ranges and with the most effective weapons in those ranges in order to have them be reflexive. For instance, if you're likely to be using a hammerfist strike up close when startled and you begin to flail away, then you should practice that hammer fist 1000 times per week. Then, when you reflexively start using it to bash your assailant, it will be perfect even though you have been caught off guard. Your body will automatically throw that thing the way you have practiced it. Grand Master John McSeeney advocated the constant training of a few simple and effective move that you would be able to reflexively use in a fight as have many others. If Wing Chun doesn't address this need, then you will need to supplement your training.

 

[Autocrat]

Think, think, think some more, then think it all over again.

If you cannot imagine a scenario occuring, picture the attacker/s doing various things, it happening whilst shopping, getting money from a bank, walking your friends home etc.... then you are boned!

You can train all you like, yet if you have not PROGRAMED you brain to get into VILOENT GEAR, then you will get beaten.

Practicing moves is good.... when the brain realises what is happening, you can stand a chance... problem is, by the time your brain has got there, your heads on the floor and chewing boot!

Don't loose control, don't practice heroics.... think what is likely to occur..... grab and punch, swung round and punched... pushed from behind into a post etc.... then think of short, sharp and fast responses to deal wit hthe initial phase... kick their shins, thrust a hand towards their face and make them flinch... all this buys a second of time to get your brain into gear.

Practice that... not punches, kicks, takedowns, throws etc.... practice the intital 3 seconds. 3 seconds is the standard time before you eat dust! You then have 10 seconds before the situation turns damn ugly, or dissapates into pushing matches. If unlucky and fighting more than one, or someone who is good, then it should last 30 seconds to 120 seconds!

Think the situations through. Think of resposnses. Practice those responses slowly, then increase the speed. Do this for 15 rep's per setup, atleast once a day, every day.

Then, when it all hits the fan, you will respond. you will hit their shins and hook the back of their head... you will grab the hand they push with and whip throw them!

TRUST ME ON THIS...... even my friends don't play around with me for this... they get hurt. It works.

You may not look like bruce lee or Jean Claude, but you will buy yourself time to either put them down, or run like hell! (IMO, the latter is wiset! LOL)

Best of luck with the training.

 

[Paul Genge]

Mark,

Your right when you say that using kamae as a starting point for fights in todays enviroment is only likely to be used in a match fight senario, where you have both agree to sort your problems out physcially. But learning to work only from kamae then leaves obvious defeciences in a lot of styles.

Your comment about most fights starting with a surprise sucker style attack are partially right. The vast majority of fights are not totally without warning, but the victim either does not see it coming through lack of experience or they do not react in time due to fear of getting it wrong and looking stupid. There is usually some sort of build up to a fight, during which the trained martial artist could use kamae to get ready. However they are likely to look a fool and get laughed out of the pub if they did this.

The difficulty then arises because they are not in their ready stance when the attack comes. If they rely on a technique based approach to defence (as most styles do) they cannot rely on their muscle memory to carryout the response that they trained in the gym. This is because they are not in the position that they usually drilled it from. The body and therefore mind are not set up for action.

This leaves us with a choice to either add extra material for working self defence techniques (often a popular approach), learn a style that works from a natural position or to find away of practicing that allows us to learn to respond to a physical threat, by moving away from it and into kamae. This will often mean that you do not work against the opponent on their first attack, but avoid it so that you are then in a position to deal with following attacks as you have trained for.

As far as learning to work from a natural position I would recommend either Systema or Shinden Fudo Ryu from the Bujinkan. Also some RBSD schools are good at this kind of thing. There are probably many other schools both old and modern that offer us some useful solutions to this kind of problem, but these are the ones I have the most knowledge on.

Paul Genge
http://www.russianmartialart.org.uk

 

[still learning]

Hello, Adrenline kicks in and our vision is tunnel. Our mind gets clouded.

True only in the movies you will see martials arts fight like an art, like it is taught. In real life fighting is no forms or blocks , just a free for all. Many black belts in a real street fight will fight like this (free for all style). Because in a real fight there is no rules and anything goes.

The more you look at real fighting and the more you compare it to your style it does not match. Martial art is an art of self-defense training against it self.
Real fighting is fast and furious,no rules,everything goes. Name me art that trains for this? With the "Woofing" too? Just my thoughts.....Still learning....Aloha

 

[Autocrat]

OK.... I'm not sure if anyone else has spotted this, but I'm kind of concerned about it.....
Starting position? Kamae?
What the hell.... once you get past the basics... most forms of karate etc. tecach you Ronagi Dachi... you know, short triangle or L stance, hands at your sides sort of thing. I spend most of my time in this position, or in the thinking man poise, one arm across chest, the other hand is on my chin...... these are normal, everyday positions..... I don't think I ever , not once, dropped into a kiba dachi, zenkutsu dachi etc........ OK, I might get into Neko, but I like that stance! LOL

I've done Shotkan, GoJu Ryu, Almagamated Kickboxing, short periods of Whitehand crane and now studying Jiu Jitsu... and all of them have the basic stances, then progress into normal stances!

I'm really worried about the fact that several people have stated they train from xxx stance etc. WHY? Just spend a couple of minutes a day switching from normal, everyday positions into a short, firm stance whilst moving arms into a guard position, or halfway through a technique or block sequence! That will kick bad habbits and program the brain to respond to such needs!

 

[Corporal Hicks]

Your fighting stance should be your everyday stance. Well according to Bruce Lee anyway, which is basically true. Though I dont stant around making a point of falling into a JKD stance or neither a wing chun stance cos I dont want to look and fight like a cat, unless I want them to think I'm a mental patient, which probably isnt far from the truth! lol

Regards

 

[DarrenJew]

Your fighting stance should be your everyday stance. Well according to Bruce Lee anyway, which is basically true. Though I dont stant around making a point of falling into a JKD stance or neither a wing chun stance cos I dont want to look and fight like a cat, unless I want them to think I'm a mental patient, which probably isnt far from the truth! lol

Regards

Agree

Outside the martial art’s studio, or working out in the privacy of your home. I think most of use would like to keep a low profile. In our “normal” daily lives... don’t really want to advertise you know something, you’ll loose the element of surprise should you really happen to need it. Flashing your fancy fighting stance and practicing some shadow boxing in the halls at work, you may even draw so much attention to yourself, the neighborhood tough guy may not think that you're the hot stuff you make yourself out to be. Keeping a low profile you avoid unnecessary conflict and gives you that edge you need when you need it.

 

[Ray]

In my instructor's class he would have us form a circle; one student would be in the middle of the circle and would have to defend against a random punch, kick and grab attack. One day, a policeman who was an orange belt (kenpo), was in the middle and his reaction to the first attack was to reach for his side-arm (which wasn't there, because he wasn't in uniform). It was funny to see and instructive.

Also, when my friend and I first began martial arts we worked in a factory. Our co-workers were fun people and would "attack" my friend from time to time. That all stopped when a guy jumped out from around a corner, right in front of my friend, and was knocked out with a punch to the chin.

Of course, there are those times when you're not thinking and do some stupid stuff. On night, I was attempting to arrest a shoplifter. He was already in his car and had started it. I leaned in through the window and reached for the key (to turn it off and take the key). He popped it into drive and started going. I was able to get out of his window and, man, was I angry. It was a stupid, stupid thing I did -- I could have been stabbed, shot or {who knows what else}. Although I wasn't specifically trained for that occurance I should have thought it through a little better.

 

[Autocrat]

..."I should have thought it through a little better."

Those could quite easily be the last words!
thinking is the first and last step to preparation! Yet they are not involved in acting!
Train, practice, think!
React!

It's that simple. just 10 minutes a day, and your friends and family won't come within 3 foot of you! (well, not after the second or third time you hit them! LOL)

So, how many people are higher grades that have been taught the Ronogi Dachi, (however it's spelt!) or standard stance ... in their style? Or do most of your styles require you to use the more obvious stances?

 

[Touch Of Death]

I seem to notice that when you may be taken by suprise in a street fight everything you have learnt seems to go out of the window and it turns into a mass brawl, for example, I've being doing Kung Fu (Wing Chun) for a while almost a year but I'm not sure if I was thrown into a situation where somebody just ran at me I would be able to successful react and defend myself in a Martial Art response, I'm sure I would just panic and refrain to a sucker punch, how could I stop this and keep my cool?

Regards

Nick

although this is blaspheme in some circles I would advise that you compose a list of what you want to control in a fight, and if not control become neutral too. You might start out with your attitude, just having your head up and looking alert can ward off some of those succer punches, pay attention to where you are and accept that you may be fighting for your life at any given moment so you might want to control your weight, fitness, drug and alcohol intake, ect. Once you have established possible opponents control the distance between you and position your self relative to your environment and your abilities. Control his position if posible and or position your self against strengths you percieve. Once you recognize your opponent is in a position unfavorable to you, manuever and cause him to readjust. {so far no blows have been exchanged} Once you acheive a position of strength you may choose a target within range and or start a maneuver that can get you to the chosen target before prior conditions degrade. A criticle stage is of course going to involve what weapon you choose to introduce to the target. If you were doing the busy work at the begining of this paragraph you should have already chosen a natural weapon or secured one already on your person. Choose angles that negate your opponents defenses and give your self an out every time (ie don't walk into punches, remember to give him something on the way out, don't bring a knife to a gunfight ect.)
Sean

 

[Autocrat]

Just re-read these posts again...... and can't help but ask.... has anyone found a way of recovering from the suprise attack, (apart from not being suprised!) ?

I've had a couple of situations when someone walks by, I've relaxed a bit, and they've stepped behind and hit me in the back of the kidneys etc. Kind of hoping I've missed a techniques or method of movement to get out of the danger zone quickly without opening myself up!

 

[Phoenix44]

I think you'd have to consider what aspects of your training "go out the window." What I notice most, as a woman, is the diminution of the "fear factor." I'm no longer afraid of the average group of high school punks hanging out on the corner. Alert, yes, afraid, no. That I attribute to training. So clearly "all" of my training doesn't go out the window in a threatening situation.

I understand that you guys might not consider a bunch of high school punks a "threatening" situation, but trust me, to the average 5'5" 125 lb woman, it IS threatening, and I would have felt threatened years ago.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Just re-read these posts again...... and can't help but ask.... has anyone found a way of recovering from the suprise attack, (apart from not being suprised!) ?

I've had a couple of situations when someone walks by, I've relaxed a bit, and they've stepped behind and hit me in the back of the kidneys etc. Kind of hoping I've missed a techniques or method of movement to get out of the danger zone quickly without opening myself up!

That is very nice dream, but if you get succer puched and were caught unaware, you get hit just like everyone else. Sure you can train to react quicker when you realize you are under attack but tricks such as stepping off the line of attack are things you do before you get smacked.
Sean

 

[Adept]

I understand that you guys might not consider a bunch of high school punks a "threatening" situation, but trust me, to the average 5'5" 125 lb woman, it IS threatening, and I would have felt threatened years ago.

High school punks are a very serious threat that everyone should take seriously. Alcohol and drugs combined with bored and egotisitcal young men is a dangerous combination at the best of times.

 

[AC_Pilot]

What adept said. These days the trouble makers tend to clear the sidewalk for me, but I can see a lady or weaker less aggressive person would rightly be very concerned.

The problem is that they don't fear you, sometimes that's the only thing that will back off creeps, genuine fear for their anatomy. I have seen this many times when walking our well-trained 150 lb male Rottweilers.. the creeps will almost pee their pants when that furry good guy gets a target lock.. The BGs definitely forget any bad intentions and show respect, fast.

 

[Autocrat]

Being male or female, trained or untrained... the fear doesn't go away, (well, I hope not, it's one of natures way of ensuring we survive - instinct!), it's just not so powerful as to control our thoughts or actions.
One of the reasons my father started me off with martial arts was to help lower my fears.... I have a temper, and the two things to set it off are panic and lots of pain..... so now it takes a damn lot of people and a serious situation before I go beserk, and as for the pain.... I'd probably have to suffer alot of breakage before going!

Thats what the trainings for! Get angry, make mistakes!