It really is the system.

[JowGaWolf]

I’ve found that guys who come in with natural ability and God given physicality eventually get smoked by the tortoise who eventually catches them.

Most of them soon quit.

I agree with you. Just expanding..

Only happens after the tortoise has trained. Most people in general who have a natural ability will often get lazy with their training early on because they are able to dominate others. This leads them to the false assumption of "I don't need any training, I'm good enough." You see that type of attitude in every sport. But where it falls apart is when "the tortoise" trains and masters the lessons. Lessons are lessons regardless of skill level. The advanced lessons are more likely things that someone with a natural ability and dedicated training developed. So when the tortoise learns that lesson, they will often be better than the guy with natural ability and lazy training.

Natural ability will only go so far. But if a person has natural ability + dedicated training. Then "the tortoise" isn't going to catch up. Almost all top athletes showcase natural ability + a desire to grind out that training. Then there are those we often say "wasted talent" people who have the natural talent but not the willingness to put in the work.

 

[dvcochran]

BUT NATRALLY TALENTED PEOPLE WILL ALW3AYS BE BETTER AT EVERYTHING, given any equality at all in how dedicated they are to training, so its a totally spurious argument

Spurious; now there is a word you do not hear every day.

 

[dvcochran]

The point is there isn't equality in dedication or efficiency of training

Or equity in coaching/teaching. Nor should it be IMHO. A good teacher will see ability and push to bring it out. Not everyone wants that however.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

yes you did, you said a fantastic athlete and one SLIGHTLYless able, so yes you need to measure it or you dont know who is the more talented or in your words fantastic, do you ?

the whole scenario you outlined is totally dependent on it, let's start with how you measure " fantastic"

So, it is you just trying to make an argument with no point. Got it.

 

[Cynik75]

...Here we see someone doing Aikido and it doesn't look like the smooth demos we see. To me this would be more realistic training for Aikido application. Especially because it's not Style A vs Style A. How effective will it be, will all depend on the training, the person , and the system.

Ueshiba does not like..
This is not "use his force agains him". It is "use your force against him"..

 

[Dirty Dog]

Here we see someone doing Aikido and it doesn't look like the smooth demos we see. To me this would be more realistic training for Aikido application. Especially because it's not Style A vs Style A. How effective will it be, will all depend on the training, the person , and the system.

Couple comments...
I don't claim to be any judge of how well the akidoka is executing, but that other fellow is not a particularly good example of TKD. What he does seems to be classic WT style sport TKD. He doesn't know how to punch. His kicks are slow and badly telegraphed. He's totally predictable. And even if they were not wearing all the padding, his kicks look like point-sparring kicks, not knockout kicks
Beyond that, the gear they're wearing means that when he does land a strike, it doesn't really do much. The aikidoka can just soak up the impact. There is no similar reduction in the effectiveness of the aikidokas techniques.

 

[dvcochran]

Couple comments...
I don't claim to be any judge of how well the akidoka is executing, but that other fellow is not a particularly good example of TKD. What he does seems to be classic WT style sport TKD. He doesn't know how to punch. His kicks are slow and badly telegraphed. He's totally predictable. And even if they were not wearing all the padding, his kicks look like point-sparring kicks, not knockout kicks
Beyond that, the gear they're wearing means that when he does land a strike, it doesn't really do much. The aikidoka can just soak up the impact. There is no similar reduction in the effectiveness of the aikidokas techniques.

Fully agree. If I see the color of his belt correct the TKD guy is a blue belt, midway for gup ranking so he does not have a ton of experience. He had a bad habit if kicking air and was pretty tepid with the kicks he did land.
It was not an fair comparison to judge any style by. For all we know the Aikido guy may have been low experience as well and just been a more fight/spar oriented person.

 

[_Simon_]

I think the argument happens because that statement often tries to pin point "one thing" makes a system good or bad, effective or ineffective. The reality is that there are going to be tons of elements that help determine such things. It's not just 1 thing. We often hear, is it the system or the student? Answer: All of the above. Sometimes Both, Sometimes the student, Sometimes the system.

A system that was never made for fighting TKD Dancing. Will be bad for fighting, no matter how talented a person is.
A system that was made for fighting Boxing. Will be bad for fighting if the person trains poorly or incorrectly. Showing up once every 2 weeks won't produce quality results.

There are just so many examples that can go either way. My thought's about the martial arts Journey guy is that didn't understand his system in the context of fighting. Fighting is abrasive. It's not going to be smooth like Aikido and Tai Chi often show, and I think that's where the misunderstanding begins. People think it's supposed to be smooth, but I'm willing to bet, none of those martial arts formally state that.

Here we see someone doing Aikido and it doesn't look like the smooth demos we see. To me this would be more realistic training for Aikido application. Especially because it's not Style A vs Style A. How effective will it be, will all depend on the training, the person , and the system.

WOW.. that video was really really interesting! The TKD guy's kicks felt a bit held back... but the aikidoka's entering was just awesome! No hesitation as soon as there was an opening, the timing was beautiful...

 

[dvcochran]

WOW.. that video was really really interesting! The TKD guy's kicks felt a bit held back... but the aikidoka's entering was just awesome! No hesitation as soon as there was an opening, the timing was beautiful...

Yeah, looking at it again I can see where it may be a "propaganda" video for Aikido but who knows? Why did the TKD guy have on padding at all? Why did he continuously kick at the shoulders instead of the head. The few kicks that got in were heavily pulled. When I watch the TKD guy get off the floor he looks gassed from the start.
The Aikido guy was smooth and energy efficient from the start.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Ueshiba does not like..
This is not "use his force agains him". It is "use your force against him"..

Late in his career (don't know about earlier) Ueshiba appears to have been a bit of a purist about that. It's my opinion that aiki is a layer on top of technique. This fits with something said by Kondo of Daito-ryu. So, to me, "aikido" (the group of arts, not specifically Ueshiba's art) should incorporate both aiki and non-aiki use of technique. Without the non-aiki version, it's much more difficult to get the aiki opportunities against anyone with skill.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Couple comments...
I don't claim to be any judge of how well the akidoka is executing, but that other fellow is not a particularly good example of TKD. What he does seems to be classic WT style sport TKD. He doesn't know how to punch. His kicks are slow and badly telegraphed. He's totally predictable. And even if they were not wearing all the padding, his kicks look like point-sparring kicks, not knockout kicks
Beyond that, the gear they're wearing means that when he does land a strike, it doesn't really do much. The aikidoka can just soak up the impact. There is no similar reduction in the effectiveness of the aikidokas techniques.

Agreed. None of those kicks looked punishing, so I'd feel free to wade right in and jam them with my body (dangerous against someone kicking with force, if you miss the timing). The aikidoka did a decent job with the situation - might be capable of more, but really didn't need to be.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Fully agree. If I see the color of his belt correct the TKD guy is a blue belt, midway for gup ranking so he does not have a ton of experience. He had a bad habit if kicking air and was pretty tepid with the kicks he did land.
It was not an fair comparison to judge any style by. For all we know the Aikido guy may have been low experience as well and just been a more fight/spar oriented person.

In most branches of aikido, if they're wearing the hakama (divided skirt), they're a black belt. Though as we've discussed before, not sure what that means as far as experience. Probably more advanced than the TKD blue belt, in any case.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

In another thread, I try to explain the "run your opponent down" strategy. Here is a good example for that. The Aikido guy knows how to do it - if you kick me, I'll run you down.

The TKD guy had a head lock on the Aikido guy. But not only his head lock was not strong enough, he didn't even control the Aikido guy's leading arm. His uppercut while holding head lock had a chance to end the fight.

 

[jobo]

In another thread, I try to explain the "run your opponent down" strategy. Here is a good example for that. The Aikido guy knows how to do it.

The TKD guy had a head lock on the Aikido guy. But not only his head lock was not strong enough, he didn't even control the Aikido guy's leading arm. Also his uppercut with head lock on should be able to end the fight.

it's not strengh, he let go as he was falling, a reasonably natral reaction to try and break your fall

 

[JowGaWolf]

I don't claim to be any judge of how well the akidoka is executing, but that other fellow is not a particularly good example of TKD

The quality of TKD isn't going to matter if you are just figuring out how techniques work. As you get a better understanding how the application actually works then start going against better fighters. Even though the TKD isn't the best he provides the right amount of resistance. The Akido practitioner had to still work to get what he was able to get, which speaks to the difficulty and level of understanding that he has.

Kung fu is the same way and I have video of me teaching students how to use it and they display similar difficulties and the skill level that I used was sometimes zero and just allow them to attack my guard, and they still had trouble.

He doesn't know how to punch. His kicks are slow and badly telegraphed. He's totally predictable. And even if they were not wearing all the padding, his kicks look like point-sparring kicks, not knockout kicks

Yes, but if you are trying to figure things out, then you don't want Knockout Kick Power or Knock Out Punch Power. You can see in the video where the students kicks and punch would have connected had he actually been trying to kick the head. A lot of his strikes fell short of the target. In this aspect. I have had student's spar against me and for whatever reason they didn't want to make solid contact. i don't know if that's the same thing here. I don't know if he was instructed not to make solid contact or what. There were some front kicks that he pulled . I don't have enough info on that aspect. But I can say without a doubt, If I was learning how to apply Chin Na then I would want to start with a sparring partner at that level so I can figure stuff out.

Beyond that, the gear they're wearing means that when he does land a strike, it doesn't really do much. The aikidoka can just soak up the impact. There is no similar reduction in the effectiveness of the aikidokas techniques.

This goes back to learning how to apply things.
Some people may see the video as someone who knows what he's doing with Aikido. What i saw was someone trying to figure things out. I only say that because I've seen that same look with people I've trained before. That look as if they don't understand how to apply it in sparring. He didn't display the same amount of confidence that we often see with people who are comfortable with sparring and have their techniques down. If he has to hunt for successful technique like that against a more skilled TKD practitioner then he will lose. There's no room to "Figure Stuff Out" at a higher skill level. But with that said if he keeps training like that he'll get better with the application and will gain a better understanding.

 

[Martial D]

More Rokus stuff but he is creating a consensus where a bad system will hold back the development of the individual.

He keeps finding examples where people have improved by changing methods.

I have always felt this as self evident. In that eben if you train really hard in something that is not fundamentally designed to make you better. You will really struggle to get better.

And If the system doesn't work. Then naturally talented people will always be better at it because they are the only variable.

And that the system needs a self regulating method to determine if it is working. Which is basically resisted training. And cross training.

This is all plainly obvious to everyone that's not neck deep in the sunken cost falacy.

 

[dvcochran]

In another thread, I try to explain the "run your opponent down" strategy. Here is a good example for that. The Aikido guy knows how to do it - if you kick me, I'll run you down.

The TKD guy had a head lock on the Aikido guy. But not only his head lock was not strong enough, he didn't even control the Aikido guy's leading arm. His uppercut while holding head lock had a chance to end the fight.

The top video is a great example of the TKD guy kicking air. That was a free knockout shot had he kicked correctly.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

The top video is a great example of the TKD guy kicking air. That was a free knockout shot had he kicked correctly.

As long as you move in and squeeze the space, your opponent won't have the proper kicking distance that he needs. When your opponent kicks, he has only 1 leg standing, that's the best time to run him down.

 

[drop bear]

In another thread, I try to explain the "run your opponent down" strategy. Here is a good example for that. The Aikido guy knows how to do it - if you kick me, I'll run you down.

The TKD guy had a head lock on the Aikido guy. But not only his head lock was not strong enough, he didn't even control the Aikido guy's leading arm. His uppercut while holding head lock had a chance to end the fight.

More importantly if you loose a headlock while the other guy is wearing head gear. You are not really trying.

 

[dvcochran]

As long as you move in and squeeze the space, your opponent won't have the proper kicking distance that he needs. When your opponent kicks, he has only 1 leg standing, that's the best time to run him down.

Well, not if you are knocked down/out by the kick. That kid was in slow motion and inaccurate.