Joe Rogan smack talking TMA's like kung fu

[ShotoNoob]

typo

 

[elder999]

Thanks for the correction. I'm not a judo history buff and I was under the impression that the curriculum was still going through substantial revisions at the time.

Yeah, it was revised up until WWII, and immediately afterward, but the basics stayed about the same: the gokyo no waza , the kata and groundfighting were all pretty well codified in 1895, and really weren't revised (refined might be a better word) much until about 1925....

 

[ShotoNoob]

JOW GA: Thanks for getting back.
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I didn't respond earlier because I understand what you are saying it just doesn't apply to how we spar at my school. If people are sparring for the purpose of point sparring then your statement is true.

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That's an important distinction. Critically important.... Yet it is not the 'point system' that is the issue / problem per se. There is a more comprehensive answer to the question of kumite, free sparring.

The sparring videos that you see are of us learning how to use the techniques and trying to figure out what techniques are best for which situation. We don't do competitive sparring in my school. If we want to use a specific technique to break an arm, then the attacker who wants to use the arm breaking technique will try to apply the technique right up to the point where the next move will be to break it. We hit heavy bags and pads to condition our joints, ligaments, skin, and tendons for the impact that a full force hit will create. I just wanted to be clear that our purpose for sparring isn't for winning, it's for self-defense and understanding our style and techniques better so that we can actually apply them in a real fight.

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Maybe a deeper interpretation is that winning is always the goal; so the sparring is cooperative training in the sense you are helping each other figure out & learn how to win. All traditional karate curriculum's -- as a general rule -- have such free sparring as a required part of the curriculum for the very reasons you so articulate.
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Also the conditioning drills you speak of are often ignored or downplayed in the modern practice of traditional karate. Kudos to you on that score.
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Some of the things you have seen in my sparring video are the exact same things I would try to pull off in a real fight, the only difference is that my intent and intensity. It's no different from throwing a punch. In sparring a jab isn't thrown with the purpose of trying to defeat your sparring partner. But that same jab that is practice in sparring now becomes dangerous in a real fight. My school values technique and control, because without those 2 things our fighting would be garbage.

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Essentially agreed. Yet the global question remains: How to best approach technique & more importantly CONTROL? The "THIS IS KARATE DO SHOTOKAN video I put up, the question (by me) is how to you emulate the skills presented in that demo video?
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At the end of that video, did you notice what the originator & participants performed? in a word, KATA.

I'm confident in my training and conditioning where I'm not intimidated by other styles. But I'm realistic enough to know that I can always learn by sparring against other styles and smart enough to know that I can't beat everyone. My school trains in soft and hard techniques so not to give away my training methods, we follow the general rule for dealing with heavy strikers so for me the power of someone's punch isn't as much as a factor for someone who wants to take the full force of a punch solid with the goal of who can take the most punishment.

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Well if we are talking the potential of styles, then I as a traditional karate stylist am intimidated (practically speaking) by the kung fu styleS. They are, IMO, superior to far superior. Kinda a side-note.
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The fighting philosophy in your final sentence is precisely what my understanding of what traditional karate in principle holds. The often heard say, Shotokan emphasis of the one-strike kill, or 1-strike stop, is often taken too literally. It is a working objection that has a set of training maxiums & techniques. Those training maxims & techniques are as subset of traditional karate principles. The 1-strike kill is a legitimate tactic. No where in traditional karate does it say this is the only tactic, nor a tactic to the exclusion of other tactical principles or objectives[SEE FOOTNOTE].
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The video I put up is a fine example of what I am saying. Any number of the blows in that demo (a single one) could have the potential to kill or maim, or otherwise disable the opponent. Yet we DO NOT see not the Machida single reverse speed punch. We see vigorous, continuous engagement of both active offense & defense.
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By the way this is just a clarification on my school, training, and conditioning and not a disagreement to your statement.

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Thanks. I like to use the 5-Animal style of kung fu metaphorically to better elucidate my view on traditional karate, TMA. A traditional karate like Shotokan (similar but not what i practice), relies first on heavy, muscular physical power. Later (much later) Shotokan moves to more relaxed physical power which is more speed oriented. But the heavy physical strength developed is still largely behind that speed. The 5 Animal Style has 5 Animals (ha, ha, don't laugh too hard).:
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1. Tiger (strength)
2. Leopard (speed & agility)
3. Crane (dexterity)
4. Snake (fluidity)
5. Dragon (mystical combination of 1-4)
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My vague understanding is that the last 3 are internally (ki) driven styles; the first 2 externally driven (physique) styles. Of course external & internal are always present. The traditional karate's are to me, largely based off Tiger. Secondly, traditional karate becomes faster & more agile, hence Leopard-like.
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So Shotokan,certainly as commonly practiced, is very strength oriented, physical power cen-tric. That can be a weakness, as you indicate. Tiger style has it's strengths & weaknesses. The TMA GUIDING principle to remember, however, is that even a physical power oriented style of TMA such as Shotokan is NOT power against power.... as so often criticized.
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The accurate way to cast Shotokan or any traditional karate (most all emphasize physical, muscular power) is that Shotokan karate is tactical power against strength (or power). Tactically intelligent power against whatever the opponent brings or resorts to.
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The kung fu's seek to achieve the same tactical intelligence, but on a higher level. The caveat (for argument's sake) is that true traditional karate is 10x more difficult than say boxing, and that bona-fide kung fu is 10-100x times more difficult than either.
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Jow Ga, good luck with that....
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Footnote: Traditional karate kihon focuses on single technique & simple combo's. Traditional karate kumite & self defense exercises, the curriculum, teach include simple technique, then very soon expand into multiple technique & tactics. Kata teaches continuous technique executed in a series of tactical sub parts. As per the kung fu 2-man form you posted... maybe later comment....

 

[ShotoNoob]

As I said, IMHO, Rogan is a great sport karate competitor & successful instructor. TMA,? no.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Also the conditioning drills you speak of are often ignored or downplayed in the modern practice of traditional karate. Kudos to you on that score.

Without the conditioning the techniques are weak and useless. It's no different than a sport as far as conditioning. Athletes have to train hard, workout hard, and do the exercises that will give them the physical strength and skill to be good at their sport. Too many TMA schools skip this and many of the students don't have the physical strength or body conditioning that is actually required to make the technique work. But I guess that's just the way the world is these days. People want it easy without a challenge, they don't want to feel the pain that comes with training, they don't want to face and fight their doubts about their abilities to do martial arts. So many people want a colored belt, or colored sash (because tradition kung fu systems don't have a color rank system.) to be their proof of skill level instead of the skills being the proof. People ask me all the time, "How do I know which students are a higher rank than another? " I always tell them, because it shows when they do the forms and when they spar.

Yes. In Kung Fu we have forms which serve the same purpose as Kata. Even on my lazy days, I have to push myself to at least do my forms at least once. Our forms like a living library of techniques that would other wise be really difficult to remember without it being put into a form. In our beginner form we have over 40 unique techniques each technique probably has at least 3 or 4 different ways to use it. There is no way in the world I could remember all of that without a form.

Well if we are talking the potential of styles, then I as a traditional karate stylist am intimated by the kung fu styleS. They are, IMO, superior to far superior. Kinda a side-note.

No one should be intimidated by Kung Fu styles because it isn't easy to use in application. Most of the people you meet that do kung fu aren't going to know how to actually apply a technique beyond basic kicks and punches. The ones that you have to watch out for are the ones that do the traditional conditioning and spar using the actual techniques. This goes for traditional karate as well. I'm not worry about the ones that don't spar or do the traditional conditioning that comes with Karate. It's the ones that are conditioned for karate both physically, mentally, with skilled applications that are the dangerous ones. Traditional Karate fighters are like tanks. Traditional Kung Fu fighters are "tricksters" so the most dangerous attacks are going to be hidden but only those who are good in applying the techniques are able to do this and it's not an easy thing to do. I'm just now understanding one of our beginner techniques because when I looked deeper there were some additional applications that our Sifu held back on us. The application he taught us was for countering, the ones I discovered on my own are for attacking.

My vague understanding is that the last 3 are internally (ki) driven styles; the first 2 externally driven (physique) styles. Of course external & internal are always present. The traditional karate's are to me, largely based off Tiger. Secondly, traditional karate becomes faster & more agile, hence Leopard.

The crane has a good mixture of both internal and external applications. In Tai Chi it is often used to redirect and hook but there are some external applications like attacks to the groin. This requires really good finger strength and conditioning and my fingers aren't strong enough to actually use the technique. The snake in my style "coils", wraps, redirects, grasps, blocks and strikes. You can always recognizes it because the hand is open with the fingers close together. Based on the beginner form it usually attacks as part of a counter. I don't know any dragon forms yet, but from what my Sifu told me, that takes a lot of hand and finger strength to be able to use that technique.

 

[Milo of Croton]

He's a commentator.

You pick what art you deem fit for yourself and make it work for you. The opinions of a UFC commentator matter because?

 

[renc]

You said that Rogan's trash talking harms the quality of their MA. Based on 10th Planet's current status (which is the BJJ style Rogan practices) that hasn't been the case. I don't know what examples you would prefer me to use instead of the one you're actually addressing.

Point taken. When you wrote "Well 10th Planet Bjj continues to be popular, and still churn out respected and quality black belts, so there goes that theory" I assumed you were correlating quality with popularity, not 'trash talking'.

I'm not talking about churning out black belts.
If you are trash talking...
Fewer people from other martial arts are going to want to train with you, because your attitude sucks.
They're also not going to want to share training facilities with you where you can run your classes. This isn't conjecture, it's happened.
When you're picking out the worst examples of other arts to mock instead of the best examples to at least be aware of, you're promoting ignorance.
If you're going to actually fight someone from an art and you've got a mental impression of 'fat, lazy, don't spar and do useless forms', the moment they start disrupting your game is the moment your confidence takes a 90% hit. Like it or not Hanzou, and you'll probably disagree, there's always someone from art X who can apply their art better than you and I. And there are people of no style, no art, who can fight better than you and I, which is partly why style vs style is so much nonsense.

When I hear Nicolas Gregoriades say in that interview with Rogan "If you look at some of those more ridiculous martial arts [...] without fail, every single 45 year old plus traditional martial artist is the one who's got a slouch and a beer belly and you can see he hasn't done a pushup for like fifteen years", I don't get warm fuzzy feelings that people like Nic and Rogan have the kind of mental sharpness and hunger for knowledge which is what martial humility means and it's what you should get from hard training in any empirical art/science, I get the impression of intellectually lazy self-satisfied **** which makes me want to puke. It's not just that these types of claims are wrong, they're trivially disprovable, i.e. stupid.

When you have people graduating to black under respectable instructors with those kind of attitudes, and when they're going on to hold respected teaching positions as well as being media personalities, I feel that ought Hanzou to be more of a concern for you than whether there are 'McDojos' in arts you don't practise.

On a personal note. There's this guy I know who is great fun to talk with, funny, sometimes outrageous but always considerate and humble, a genuinely decent guy. But I can't and won't talk with him about martial arts, which is a shame as we both love the arts. He's unable to without expressing contempt for what I do, doesn't matter what the topic is. And there's this youtube trash talking culture at his club. It needn't be this way and it really shouldn't be this way. He does BJJ. And I'm not saying most BJJ or MMA practicioners are this way, most are not, probably most clubs are not either, in the same way that McDojos are not representative of what I do. But people like Rogan and Gregoriades are loud, visible, and they're promoting this kind of culture, and if all you're going to do is run with them it's going to turn into a bigger problem than it already is...

 

[renc]

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Renc, whoever you are, I thought some of resident TA experts would have jumped in to support my post.

Thanks, this stuff is kinda hard to find on the intertubes. I hadn't thought through 2, mental discipline to coax the body into full ROM movements, so that's cool.

BTW: Rogan is promoting the UFC, so what he talks about is fair to say. I've just provided the specifics on why Rogan or any one else critical of the "Modern" or "Okinawan" karates or TMA in general (lets' include TKD, TSD) doesn't know what TMA is.

Yes.

BTW2: training under full contact & opponents physically, "realistically" trying to dominate you is tough. Building the traditional martial arts base is way tougher..... what I have described is way tougher.... This is why you see such poor quality TMA.... which then Rogan & the full contact / sports guy then say, "it's the TMA model that's no good...."

Yeah, it's not just that many don't want to go through with it, it also takes so damn long so you end up seeing on youtube and elsewhere a lot of people who are early in their development... not saying that it's wrong to post those videos, but they will be misinterpreted as you point out.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I thought this would be fitting to post here. It's a blog that my Sifu recently started. This is how he thinks True Kung Fu
From part of his blog:
"In my years of training, I’ve seen more than a few people who are blindly faithful to their system and teacher. They never step outside their school/teacher for answers. This is why so many fraudulent teachers flourish. They don’t need to answer questions, or prove techniques because the student blindly follows their teaching."

This is probably a response to the numerous below standard Kung Fu schools that he's seeing in his area in the U.K. This statement isn't just true for Kung Fu, it's true for all fighting systems.

 

[drop bear]

Most of these kind of arguments are a disagreement over whether training in martial arts means individuals learning how to make techniques effective for themselves vs whether styles 'are' effective. 'Techniques are effective' is already a generalization too far, 'styles are effective' one more so.

You are working off evidence though. So you can test the genereal claims.

So say 10th planet bjj. Goes out and wins a heap of competitions. Then they are that effective.

Scientific method.

 

[drop bear]

Well since that would be a crime I guess your right

We look for those guys. Because we court loss. Maybe other people have an ego thing about getting man handled by a guy you don't expect to be manhandled by.

I respect that and encourage it.

 

[ballen0351]

We look for those guys. Because we court loss. Maybe other people have an ego thing about getting man handled by a guy you don't expect to be manhandled by.

I respect that and encourage it.

I have No idea what you are trying to say

 

[ShotoNoob]

JowGa, thanks.

Without the conditioning the techniques are weak and useless. It's no different than a sport as far as conditioning. Athletes have to train hard, workout hard, and do the exercises that will give them the physical strength and skill to be good at their sport. Too many TMA schools skip this and many of the students don't have the physical strength or body conditioning that is actually required to make the technique work. But I guess that's just the way the world is these days. People want it easy without a challenge, they don't want to feel the pain that comes with training, they don't want to face and fight their doubts about their abilities to do martial arts. So many people want a colored belt, or colored sash (because tradition kung fu systems don't have a color rank system.) to be their proof of skill level instead of the skills being the proof. People ask me all the time, "How do I know which students are a higher rank than another? " I always tell them, because it shows when they do the forms and when they spar.

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Every TMA school I've ever attended, save 1, had a physical fitness component of the class. Physical conditioning is implicit in kihon training, if not explicit. How much time & effort is put into a TMA school's conditioning program is subjective, of course. How much time & effort the individual student puts in is also greatly determined by the student. So we have a convention of commercial TMA schools we may place $$$ above proper standards. And we may have a customer base for those schools who really don't want to meet proper standards. So it's the commercial realities; the TMA model itself is sound & well thought out. In my case, by the Okinawan Masters....
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So I think we are in agreement here....

Yes. In Kung Fu we have forms which serve the same purpose as Kata. Even on my lazy days, I have to push myself to at least do my forms at least once. Our forms like a living library of techniques that would other wise be really difficult to remember without it being put into a form. In our beginner form we have over 40 unique techniques each technique probably has at least 3 or 4 different ways to use it. There is no way in the world I could remember all of that without a form.

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The purpose of the traditional of forms, in my view, is that they are a complete TMA training system in and of themselves. One can become an expert TMArtist by practicing forms alone. The later Okinawan's & Gichin Funakoshi changed the TMA model for karate by creating three distinct parts of the karate curriculum: kihon (basics), kata (forms), kumite (fighting application). IMO I think this K>K>K model is the better model for most people.

No one should be intimidated by Kung Fu styles because it isn't easy to use in application. Most of the people you meet that do kung fu aren't going to know how to actually apply a technique beyond basic kicks and punches. The ones that you have to watch out for are the ones that do the traditional conditioning and spar using the actual techniques. This goes for traditional karate as well.

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Jow Ga, I beg to differ, with the proviso that we are talking about the potential for the style. Kung fu styles as a group are superior to what karate has to offer.
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In reality though, the karate styles are much more prevalent and successful in actual full contact competition. This, IMO, stems from my proviso that kung is far harder to master to a point of application. Karate, though difficult, is much easier. So you have the kung fu practitioner as you intimated who has put in the same effort as karate, and the kung fu guy hasn't even gotten started. Should we throw in sport karate, karate's physicality as I mentioned makes it more amenable to sport activity, so you have that much larger group succeeding.
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You see all these arguments about say Wing Cun not being in MMA. You have all these 'experts' coming up with all kinds of explanations & reasons EXCEPT, for the most part, pointing to the fact that bona-fide Wing Chun is very, very, very difficult to master. IMO, IMO, IMO. Since Wing chun is so hard to do correctly, you're not going to see it in MMA 'cause their is a minority who can actually do Wing Chun. The modern, traditional karates, by comparison, are easier to master to the point of application, or even step down and apply as sport fighting (much easier).

I'm not worry about the ones that don't spar or do the traditional conditioning that comes with Karate. It's the ones that are conditioned for karate both physically, mentally, with skilled applications that are the dangerous ones. Traditional Karate fighters are like tanks. Traditional Kung Fu fighters are "tricksters" so the most dangerous attacks are going to be hidden but only those who are good in applying the techniques are able to do this and it's not an easy thing to do. I'm just now understanding one of our beginner techniques because when I looked deeper there were some additional applications that our Sifu held back on us. The application he taught us was for countering, the ones I discovered on my own are for attacking.

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I love your analogy of karate = tanks, vs. kung fu = tricksters. Accurate in many ways. I believe I have a better analogy, IMO. Good karate = a destroyer. Good Kung fu = a guided missile cruiser. No contest. There is a history of holding back techniques / principles in karate too.
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ON SPARRING: I do very little free sparring. Yet my in-dojo competition record is currently 91% wins, 9% losses. That's across all the schools I've attended. I've also out-stuck every boxer, kickboxer stylist I've encountered. I have also shut done a good boxer with karate DEFENSE ONLY(technically speaking). Sparring is not the most important part of the traditional karate (TMA) curriculum/
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I have also defeated (in class) every karate instructor I've ever encountered. Of course, I haven't fought all the karate instructors in my local. The TMA practitioners who, as a general rule, can handle me are the forms experts. In my local, these happen to be the kung fu practitioners... When it comes to TMA, Kata is King.
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The crane has a good mixture of both internal and external applications. In Tai Chi it is often used to redirect and hook but there are some external applications like attacks to the groin. This requires really good finger strength and conditioning and my fingers aren't strong enough to actually use the technique. The snake in my style "coils", wraps, redirects, grasps, blocks and strikes. You can always recognizes it because the hand is open with the fingers close together. Based on the beginner form it usually attacks as part of a counter. I don't know any dragon forms yet, but from what my Sifu told me, that takes a lot of hand and finger strength to be able to use that technique.

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I mentioned Wing Chun earlier. Wing Chun to me is patterned heavily off of CRANE. Because the internal styles which rely on chi power, such as CRANE, true crane (not the so called crane applications in karate) is extremely difficult to master. No wonder we don't see successful Wing Chun in heavy full contact.
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Crane is so difficult, but we can still use the principles. And we see Crane principles effectively incorporated within traditional karate style. The internal style of crane originally developed in China, no way is that easy. You are talking monk-like training.... This is one reason some of the southern styles of kung combined Tiger & Crane. The crane there is kinda bastardized, relying equally or more on physical strength. I can produce some Tiger-Crane like power. Which is one big reason I could shut down that good boxer with karate defense only.... I also used crane-styles techniques in form in order to get my karate defense up & running when overwhelmed by that boxer....
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EDIT: Yes, Crane can be considered a mix of internal & external. The key is the internal is say 50% of the effectiveness. So doing physical Crane Kung fu tehcnique is half-a-crane, or really not a Kung fu crane @ all. Tiger is bona-fide tiger on physical force alone. Although this is an absolute since by definition, all TMA specifically develops chi and later uses internal power.
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Kung fu is better than karate. Karate is more practical to master than kung fu. That's my verdict.
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Good luck with those internal kung styles....

 

[Tez3]

Maybe other people have an ego thing about getting man handled by a guy you don't expect to be manhandled by.

If I get 'manhandled' by a guy I don't expect to be 'manhandled' by you better be sure the police are going to be involved asap.

 

[ShotoNoob]

Thanks, this stuff is kinda hard to find on the intertubes. I hadn't thought through 2, mental discipline to coax the body into full ROM movements, so that's cool.

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Traditional karate is defined as a mental discipline. The conscious, thinking mind is the fundamental driver of every action.

Yes.

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Rogan is the typical good karate school instructor. Except he's not really teaching karate. He's teaching sport karate....

Yeah, it's not just that many don't want to go through with it, it also takes so damn long so you end up seeing on youtube and elsewhere a lot of people who are early in their development... not saying that it's wrong to post those videos, but they will be misinterpreted as you point out.

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I mentioned when I first posted here and then again, again. The practical traditional karate base... the journey to black-belt, takes on average 5 years (of course total hours, not length of time). maybe some can do it in 3 years. A really good karate base .... I think most have to spend 5 years @ a minimum, likely 7. For me it was certainly 7-10 years before I gained full body power. Very little free sparring during that time.
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And this is the quote, "simpler," modern versions of traditional karate.... mind / body unity projecting full body power....
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Karate critics, good luck with that.....

 

[Tez3]

Traditional karate is defined as a mental discipline

or for empty hand civilian self defence.

 

[ballen0351]

If I get 'manhandled' by a guy I don't expect to be 'manhandled' by you better be sure the police are going to be involved asap.

Are you calling the police to clean up the mess after your done with him. I pitty the fool that tries to manhandle you

 

[Tez3]

Are you calling the police to clean up the mess after your done with him. I pitty the fool that tries to manhandle you

Well I didn't want to say that in public you know but yeah

 

[JowGaWolf]

Good luck with those internal kung styles....

Thanks.

 

[ShotoNoob]

There's throws and takedowns in Bjj as well;

just like Judo or Shuai Jiao you can end the fight with one of them. However, if you're not able to end the fight in that fashion, or you don't want to seriously injury your opponent, you can opt for the ground option. The ground option is also in place in the event that the person you're trying to throw is better than you are at throwing.

In the end, the intent is to not purposely go to the ground all the time. The intent is to be a well-rounded, and be capable of ending a confrontation on your terms.

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We've got some strong BJJ proponents here. This Gracie BBJ video is very well produced. They start in the opening seconds demonstrating throws effective against strikers.... What the Gracie;s (like rogan) don't portray is the weakness in their principles.... LATER....