So, now that you know it all, will you be changing your username?
Karate, Kung Fu, and MMA dont mix
- Thread starter masherdong
- Start date
Yep, get my teeth knocked out too! Had the black eyes, bloody noses been knocked out a couple of times sparring (karate style), damn it's no way for a middle aged lady to train!
But it's G R E A T !!!!
qi-tah
Brown Belt
Um, respectfully, no it's not. On one level it's a linking of many varied movements (Some of which look to the untutored eye to be repeditive), on another it's a living reference source for the style's applications, on yet another it's an exercise in endurence, conditioning and flexibility (Try the Liu He long form at full pace if you don't believe that a form can tire you out!) and on yet another it's a exercise to allow you to "feel" your way into the characteristic mechanics, flow and changes of pace used within the style. It's a physically transmitted tradition as opposed to a written, visual or oral one, and it is very useful as a tool to teach complex concepts in an elegant way.
Well, i don't know where you've been training, but in our class we punch each other in our sparring sessions on a regular basis. We do aim for control, but hey, **** happens. I ended up being stabbed in the arm with a pen (we were doing knife defence with ballpoints) once. I've still got some of the red dye underneath my skin...
But really, it should be no surprise that we don't train in class "like the good old days" etc. We live in different times, often we aren't professional fighters, and our road to martial arts is taken for a variety of different reasons. A formal class has to cater to it's students to some degree... for instance, there are quite a number of students in my ba gua class who only do it for health reasons - the style is known to be very good for spinal health - so it makes no sense for us to train 100% sparring all night. Some ppl hate the sparring, some ppl love it and hate the qi-gong. But it's just a class! The real test of yr development comes in how often and intensely you train in between classes. You can certainly tell who does and who doesn't take responsibility for their own training, regardless of why they are there.
As for MMA vs TMA, it's such a non-starter of an argument. My first teacher studied Zi ran men with a Liu he flavour and also practiced Ba gua and Taiji, as well as both western and Muay thai boxing. Then he taught his class a very direct style of Ba gua and Zi ran men with a Muay thai flavour. Mixed? You bet. Traditional? Yes, that too. If it works, it works.
Odin
2nd Black Belt
some could say that shadow boxing is a type of kata.
CuongNhuka
Senior Master
I was the one who said that the argument could be made that Shadow Boxing is a kind of Kata. I also said that one could make the same argument about drills.
I'm not sure things have changed that much over the years as far as training is concerned. It's only ever been professional fighters of any ilk that have been able to train full time. Today as in years gone by it's only the pro boxers that have been in the gym everyday training for hours! These days the big name pro MMA fighters can also train all day everyday but the rest have to still train when they can fitting it around their work and family as it has always been! Karate students at the turn of the century in Japan still had to make a living and their time in the dojo was limited!
Many martial artists train hard but these days I believe they also train clever. Fitness, diet and physiological information is far more advanced that it used to be so many are training smarter then just slogging it out in punch bags and each other. I believe that martial artists strike as hard as they ever did and continue to do so in their respective clubs.
qi-tah is right, an MMA v TMA argument is pointless..... as we simply refuse to bite!
Many martial artists train hard but these days I believe they also train clever. Fitness, diet and physiological information is far more advanced that it used to be so many are training smarter then just slogging it out in punch bags and each other. I believe that martial artists strike as hard as they ever did and continue to do so in their respective clubs.
qi-tah is right, an MMA v TMA argument is pointless..... as we simply refuse to bite!
CuongNhuka
Senior Master
What I find intresting about this is many people choose to ignore that they can use physcology in fights (real or sport). Miyamoto Mushashi would show up late, or early, or use wooden swords, and all kinds of stuff to mess with his opponents mind. It got to the point were he could have been trying to use a sandal for a sword, and he probably would have still won.
And this stuff is stilled used. Grand master Quinh (current head of style) used to use psychology to win fights. He would make comments like: "I don't know why I need a mouth guard, it's not like I ever get hit in the face"; "Man, you guys came a long way to take last place"; (personnal Fav) "I hope you guys are wearing a cup".
The anceint style of "Fighting Without Fighting" still holds.
NOTE: Miyamoto Mushashi/Bruce Lee refernce intended.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
He is probably a closeted homosexual and is filled with self-loathing because of it. Seems like the people who are most hostile to these kinds of issues are that way because they see it in themselves and they are struggling with it.
tsd
Yellow Belt
Masher Dong......
I am sure you put this up because my teeage boys are away at camp and I miss them so....oh wait, my teenage boys would never speak this way....they have too much respect for others, even if they did not believe the refuse coming from someone"s keyboard.!!
Thanks for the belly laugh!!!
I am sure you put this up because my teeage boys are away at camp and I miss them so....oh wait, my teenage boys would never speak this way....they have too much respect for others, even if they did not believe the refuse coming from someone"s keyboard.!!
Thanks for the belly laugh!!!
Again addressing the kata side-issue—which is actually related closely to the main issue—I would suggest, Still_Learning, that following up on Sukerkin's pointed suggestion about checking out some discussion which have already taken place about the combat role of kata, you take a careful look at the threads here and here, for starters. Then we can talk about your claims that kata have nothing to do with actual combat—in spite of the fact that they were created by some of the toughest fighters of their time specifically in order to record optimal fighting techniques, and that some of the toughest fighters of our time have gone to great lengths to explain exactly how to `read' kata to see what those fighting applications are. I have to say, S_L, everytime I hear this kind of opinion expressed, it turns out that the holder of the opinion is almost totally unfamiliar with the enormous amount of, um, `experimental research' that people like Iain Abernethy, Geoff Thompson, Peter Consterdine and other `hard men' of the British Combat Association, and the colleagues elsewhere in the world, have done on the bunkai and oyo for karate kata in live training that is as close as you can get to actual streetfighting without sending people to hospital on a regular basis. It's like hearing someone express the opinion that atoms are indivisible... um, well, if you look, you might find that the past century of nuclear and elementary particle physics suggest something quite different... and it's all there in textbooks, eh? But if you don't take the trouble to learn what others have discovered, you'll just go on perpetuating what you think you know. Who was it who said that the Hapsburg dynasty learned nothing and forgot nothing? There are a lot of people like that, S_L, and it's not a good way to be...
Um... there's nothing about kata that tells you to pull your punches, or elbow strikes, or knifehand strikes or low kicks or any of the other techs that are in them. What kata will show you how to do is trap and control an attacker with the retraction hand, force their head lower by driving bodyweight into the pin, and then deliver a knifehand or a hammer fist into their larynx as hard as you like. If you choose to `pull' the blow in kata practice, or in training, that's your business. If you and your full-contact training partner, with whom you train the hard-combat applications that kata teach, choose not to wear appropriate padding and so on, then one of you will wind up damaging the other severely fairly quickly; so one alternative is to pull your punches. The other is to wear padding protection and not to pull them. The kata are sublimely indifferent to which of the two you choose.
The connection between this issue and the OP is the discouraging observation that it's not just the constant, massively underinformed dismissal of kata as a strict record of successful combat techniques which exhibits this `Hapsburg syndrome'; there's so much of it in general in the MAs, and the blog rant reported in the OP is a perfect example of this. It's like, no new information comes in and no connections are made between what information is there. Look at the difference between this guy, on the one hand, and Geoff Thompson, a sixth dan karateka whose 9 years as a club doorman in Coventry and as a karate and boxing trainer have given him almost legendary status in the British combat world:
In the western boxing ring, with boxing rules, the pugilist is, no doubt, the ultimate combatant; in the arena of Olympic Wrestling—with wrestling rules—the grappler is potentate, and in the Thai boxing ring—with Thai rules of course—the Thai figher comes away with the accolade... I do not look for, nor am I interested in, who is the `best' fighter. What I do look for and I definitely am interested in is what can I learn from the boxer/wrestler/Thai boxer/Wing Chun man, etc.
(The Three Second Fighter, 1997/2005, Chichester: Summersdale Publishers Ltd.: p. 9). Here is a guy who has nothing to prove to anyone, who's the gold standard in the real world of regular street violence—violence he despises and has no use for—who is telling us to keep our minds open and learn from everyone we can. What you find in the MAs, is so often the contrary: refusal to even consider what technical contributions this or that art could make to a practitioner's self-defense skill set. I'm not talking about uncritical acceptance of every stylistic eccentricity or risky tactical application that you find; but open-minded assessment of the practical use you can make of what long-established MAs have to offer... why is it so rare?? The doctrinaire tone of the blog posts reported in the OP, this sort of `don't bother me with facts, I've made up my mind' kind of attitude, just make one shake one's head. Again, if people aren't going to take the trouble to learn what others have discovered about their own arts... well, like those who dismiss kata out of ignorance of how to `decode' it, or reluctance to train it realistically, they're hurting no one but themselves, I suppose...
kidswarrior
Senior Master
Well, there's chronological age, and there's emotional development. The first marches on regardless, the second can get stunted quite easily (see it every day in my day job). In 'Road House', they were called 40-year-old adolescents. :lol:
kidswarrior
Senior Master
Yes exile, exactly, and a good summary of the dscussions in those earlier threads alluded to.
It is an important part of the maturing process to learn how to learn. By this I do not necessarily mean simple academic progress but the ability to step back and reassess what you think you know.
In terms of the study of martial arts, I've found this forum in particular to be very helpful as it has assisted me in examining some of my worst prejudices about such subjects as ninjutsu, TKD and MMA and unloading (at least some of) the negative baggage I was carrying around about these arts.
My opinions were very poor on those arts, largely because in thirty years of martial arts I'd met only bad examples of practitioners in them. The torrents of 'data' on the Net played its part too as all the "MMA is the roxxorz an evryfing else sux" ilk of posting did not encourage deeper knowledge.
A few weeks here tho', with the likes of Brian, Shaderon and Tez (to pick out some style specifc representatives) and I found that I had some humble-pie eating to do with regard to some things I've spouted on about 'authoratively' over the years.
So, as Exile said so well above, we owe it to ourselves to always be looking to further our understanding - even if that means discarding some of our most cherished misconceptions (wannabe ninja's, can't fight high-kickers, can't be bothered to learn in-depth muscle-bound brawlers et al
).
In terms of the study of martial arts, I've found this forum in particular to be very helpful as it has assisted me in examining some of my worst prejudices about such subjects as ninjutsu, TKD and MMA and unloading (at least some of) the negative baggage I was carrying around about these arts.
My opinions were very poor on those arts, largely because in thirty years of martial arts I'd met only bad examples of practitioners in them. The torrents of 'data' on the Net played its part too as all the "MMA is the roxxorz an evryfing else sux" ilk of posting did not encourage deeper knowledge.
A few weeks here tho', with the likes of Brian, Shaderon and Tez (to pick out some style specifc representatives) and I found that I had some humble-pie eating to do with regard to some things I've spouted on about 'authoratively' over the years.
So, as Exile said so well above, we owe it to ourselves to always be looking to further our understanding - even if that means discarding some of our most cherished misconceptions (wannabe ninja's, can't fight high-kickers, can't be bothered to learn in-depth muscle-bound brawlers et al
).
Well, KW, those threads, one of which you get much credit for starting, provided some of the best discussion I've seen on the issue of kata, or forms in general, and their relation to combat and the total skill sets of TMAs generally, in the time I've been following MT threads. And it's very frustrating to see how much good information and 360Āŗ perspective is ignored when people in effect decide to start from scratch. The usual result of that sort of closed-off attitude is the reinvention of square wheels...
:roflmao:
CuongNhuka
Senior Master
I love these quotes.
Also, Cory's post explain why I hate most MMA fighters. Most, not all. Most (not all, I cann't empasise that enough) have the same narrow minded "I am god, I have trained in every style, and they all suck expcet MMA, and I am ignoreing the facts, especailly that MMA is a concept, not a style... Now get off my lawn"
OP
OP
masherdong
2nd Black Belt
:roflmao:
http://cagewarriors.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13501
This is a thread from an MMA forum, I think you'll find that MMA fighters over here are sarky but not arrogant and many recommend TMAs. I can provide translations if anyone needs them lol!
