Extreme martial arts: Your thoughts?

[Jimi]

It's kinda like the days in tournaments before the Capitol Classics in the DC area, and most tourneys were by and for Karate, MDK,TSD,TKD stylists. When a competitor from say Tai Yim Kung Fu or Shaolin Wu Shu would enter to compete, the judges were Karate, TSD, etc and did not know or understand the forms movements, therefore many Chinese stylists were judged down. These days I can see some Traditional BBs opinion as similar to mine, that if we judged a weapons division and saw no tradition weapons skills shown, just Gymnastics, we would judge that down. Now adays I find it offensive to think in a weapons division that an XMA BB would judge down a proper traditional weapons form because they do not understand the sequence and it was boring because of the absence of doing flips and flipping the weapon. It seems now that the goal of competition is not to show knowledge and history of ancient weapons & emptyhand skills as taught by instructors of such traditional lineage, but to achieve many titles in world karate/weapons grandchampion with whatever showmanship/athleticism/gymnastics needed to gain the oppurtunity to be noticed for a movie contract like Shark Boy, Spy Kids , Little Ninjas etc... A clear division in competition would clear a lot up about possible misconceptions about what tradition arts & XMA have to offer. If Fumio Demura or other Tradition Weapons Arts Instructors were to tell us that what XMA does is correct and worthy of the titles WEAPON GRANDCHAMPION then I would shut up about it, but to hear people assert that XMA are using the weapons correctly and it's ALL just show and MARTAIL has nothing to do with a MARTIAL ARTS WORLD TITLE makes me feel uneasy. Other people have their right to their own opinion, and I have the right to mine, and I can express that I don't think it's right. I don't think someones opinion for the sake of debate would say " Oh, leave them alone, stop picking on the poor misunderstood XMArs." has merit. LOL. Different divisions and titles for showing different skills can solve this, but I wonder if XMArs would want to achieve the title of EXTREME SHOWMANSHIP GRANDCHAMPION as supposed to the title of WORLD KARATE WEAPONS/MARTAIL ARTS GRANDCHAMPION?

 

[stabpunch]

I'm with you - to a degree. According to Chuck Norris (a backer of this style of exhibition and competition) it keeps young people occupied on productive endeavors and off the streets and off of drugs. I agree with Chuck - provided these kids don't end up thinking they are studying "self-defence".

I agree with Johnathan. If i may ad to your point, the problem i see with fancy arts as you mentioned, is when people have a false sense of security. A great cliche for the less practical styles used in combat would be:

"don't get your aspirations confused with your abilities".

Martial arts are a great place to learn discipline, honour, and numerous other qualities. It can give people a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, this is most beneficial to the human condition.

 

[Brother John]

I will say THIS for those XMA folks:

IF they NEEDED to fight, I bet they could put up a good struggle. Agile, strong, fast, limber...etc.
Not bad for tilting the odds in your favor.

Fighting skills?? If they're wise (or at least, if it's interested them to try to learn some) then the've picked up Some skills AS they also did their XMA.
who knows

I do like watching them.
usually...


Your Brother
John

 

[Giorgio]

true, they have some skills... but this is how most people I know who defend tkd or judo argue. They are developing the skills required to fight, but then again, so does most physical activity. But you don't see football players going around kicking people with their super-strong legs (well... it might be a different story if you're thinking of hooligans)

I'm quite surprised at how everyone thinks that the 'general public' is aware that martial arts like judo, tkd, and even XMA are more stylised, sport-forms, and aren't effective for real self-defence in a real situation. Most of the practitioners of these martial arts I know (admittedly, I can count them on two hands) think very much that they are the **** and I know that if some drunk bastard started picking a fight with them they would escalate it instead of opting for the wiser choice: defusing the situation or running away.

That's ultimately why I'm much more worried about tkd judo or karate classes than I am about XMA. XMA is something which is much more clearly flashy and acrobatic. Hell, most of the tricks they were doing were done on springy jump mats. more established martial arts like the aforementioned are sometimes (often, in my experience) marketed in such terms as 'REAL self-defence! Never be afraid of muggers again!' This is what pisses me off, because I am sure that this means some poor fool chooses to 'stand up' to a mugger with a knife or even a gun instead of running the hell away or just giving him his money.

And deaths like that are a lot more frequent (and a lot more under-reported) than people getting killed trying to imitate the Rock, or 'dueling' with katanas.

 

[Kenpojujitsu3]

true, they have some skills... but this is how most people I know who defend tkd or judo argue. They are developing the skills required to fight, but then again, so does most physical activity. But you don't see football players going around kicking people with their super-strong legs (well... it might be a different story if you're thinking of hooligans)

I'm quite surprised at how everyone thinks that the 'general public' is aware that martial arts like judo, tkd, and even XMA are more stylised, sport-forms, and aren't effective for real self-defence in a real situation. Most of the practitioners of these martial arts I know (admittedly, I can count them on two hands) think very much that they are the **** and I know that if some drunk bastard started picking a fight with them they would escalate it instead of opting for the wiser choice: defusing the situation or running away.

That's ultimately why I'm much more worried about tkd judo or karate classes than I am about XMA. XMA is something which is much more clearly flashy and acrobatic. Hell, most of the tricks they were doing were done on springy jump mats. more established martial arts like the aforementioned are sometimes (often, in my experience) marketed in such terms as 'REAL self-defence! Never be afraid of muggers again!' This is what pisses me off, because I am sure that this means some poor fool chooses to 'stand up' to a mugger with a knife or even a gun instead of running the hell away or just giving him his money.

And deaths like that are a lot more frequent (and a lot more under-reported) than people getting killed trying to imitate the Rock, or 'dueling' with katanas.

Judo, Karate and TKD not effective?

1) the TKD I'll concede despite having a 3rd Black in it. The TKD I learned looked nothing like the Olympic version I see everywhere. It's so different to the point where I sometimes wonder if I learned TKD at all.

2) Judo not effective? Karate not effective. I don't know where you've trained to get that idea but my experiences have been different to say the least. I've worked in security and bouncing and the karate and Ju Jitsu (Judo with more 'unsafe' techniques) has worked wonders.

3) The bolded part above I am in full agreement with, the marketing aspect of some of this stuff will get people killed.