Martial art A vs. Martial Art B... here we go again...and again... and again...

[Blade96]

i agree with Xue sheng. why have these my dad can beat up your dad type threads? MA a vs MA b. What? There are so many different MA's and everyone is different, maybe one person likes katas and another one dont. so the MA with no kata will suit them better. Honestly its such a personal thing and MA's is in the eyes of the beholder, everyone will find something very beautiful in their own MA, in their own way.

I likes Shotokan, while Slipper finds her beauty in Aikido. I dont find either one is 'the best' just different.

as long as it can get the job done and it works on you in all ways physically, emotionally, spiritually, and it enhances you and your life, and you find it beautiful, then who cares about 'best'.

 

[Sukerkin]

But ... but ... but ... it's quite clear that MY art istiz the most betterest coz we iz usin the swords, innit? :lol:.

 

[Tez3]

But ... but ... but ... it's quite clear that MY art istiz the most betterest coz we iz usin the swords, innit? :lol:.

There is something about swords that seems to fascinate people, not just the Japanese type. Our military still carry them on ceremonial occasions, they are awarded to the best cadets as a mark of achievement and swords are the stuff of fantasy fiction, with them being seen magical or powerful often seen a rallying symbols. The story of Excalibur is still told along with stories of other magical blades. There's definitaly something about swords! I actually think swords are beautiful.

On another thread which is definitely style v style I've just been told that no one from a Japanese or Korean style is a striker, the styles are just belt factories. This makes me sad, the sweeping generalisation, the disdain for others styles. What's the point?

 

[Xue Sheng]

That's not a sword... now THIS is a sword

 

[Steve]

But ... but ... but ... it's quite clear that MY art istiz the most betterest coz we iz usin the swords, innit? :lol:.

Please promise us that you'll never try to do that again.

 

[Sukerkin]

That's not a sword... now THIS is a sword

{Scornful sniff} Fake! {Turns head away in disdain}.

What's all that standing-on-one-leg about as well? Clearly an inferior art to mine ...

...

... because we do eminently sensible things like sitting on one heel until your foot goes to sleep so you can't get back up again!

:lol:

 

[Xue Sheng]

{Scornful sniff} Fake! {Turns head away in disdain}.

What's all that standing-on-one-leg about as well? Clearly an inferior art to mine ...

...

... because we do eminently sensible things like sitting on one heel until your foot goes to sleep so you can't get back up again!

:lol:

PFHHT one heel going to sleep.. that's nothing

http://www.zhangtaiji.com/images/products/weapons/guandao_6.jpg

 

[Steve]

I will say this, though, it's possible to be too inclusive. It's in our desire to avoid being judgemental that junk thrives.

It's also okay to have opinions. We just need to recognize them as such. For example, in the other thread, Xeal has made a blanket statement that he couldn't possibly hope to defend. But that doesn't mean that his entire point is off. There are many guys in MMA with terrible stand up. Matt Hamill makes me cringe, his boxing is so bad. While I wouldn't agree that MMA standup is inferior to, say, pro boxing, it's true that there's a pretty decent representative sampling of poor striking to showcase, and Xeal is entitled to his opinion.

Someone asked what I think is broken. Just for the sake of discussion, I'd say that TKD is broken. I honestly don't know what sort of self defense roots it has, or how effective it could be if taught correctly. But I have seen and heard enough from both outside and inside the TKD community to feel pretty comfortable in saying that the bulk of TKD is poorly taught and that schools allege to teach things that they do not. Again, just to be clear, my measure is simply this. If you take 100, 1000 or some other representative sample who have trained for a fixed amount of time (1 year, 3 years, 5 years or whatever), how successful will they be at whatever the school purports to teach? In other words, every TKD school I've seen alleges to teach self defense. After 2 years of diligent training, will the student be able to do so? I'd say most won't.

 

[Omar B]

That's not a sword... now THIS is a sword

Let us pause for a min. I would like to hear about that sword ... and maybe a little about the jaunty stance of his.

 

[Tez3]

Let us pause for a min. I would like to hear about that sword ... and maybe a little about the jaunty stance of his.

You know he could be very small and not the sword large?

 

[Omar B]

Your right, such a jaunty stance could never come from a regular sized dude ... unless he was dancing a jig of some sort. Still, now I'm obsessed with that seemingly gigantic sword.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Actually it is a rather large sword. Some styles of Bagua use it and the posture he is in is either a transitional posture frozen in time by the camera, I doubt that by the way. Or he struck a pose for the camera, which is more likely

The first time I ever saw this behemoth of a sword was about 15 years ago in Manhattan Chinatown and my first thought was "Damn that’s big"

 

[Omar B]

And now I know

 

[ralphmcpherson]

I will say this, though, it's possible to be too inclusive. It's in our desire to avoid being judgemental that junk thrives.

It's also okay to have opinions. We just need to recognize them as such. For example, in the other thread, Xeal has made a blanket statement that he couldn't possibly hope to defend. But that doesn't mean that his entire point is off. There are many guys in MMA with terrible stand up. Matt Hamill makes me cringe, his boxing is so bad. While I wouldn't agree that MMA standup is inferior to, say, pro boxing, it's true that there's a pretty decent representative sampling of poor striking to showcase, and Xeal is entitled to his opinion.

Someone asked what I think is broken. Just for the sake of discussion, I'd say that TKD is broken. I honestly don't know what sort of self defense roots it has, or how effective it could be if taught correctly. But I have seen and heard enough from both outside and inside the TKD community to feel pretty comfortable in saying that the bulk of TKD is poorly taught and that schools allege to teach things that they do not. Again, just to be clear, my measure is simply this. If you take 100, 1000 or some other representative sample who have trained for a fixed amount of time (1 year, 3 years, 5 years or whatever), how successful will they be at whatever the school purports to teach? In other words, every TKD school I've seen alleges to teach self defense. After 2 years of diligent training, will the student be able to do so? I'd say most won't.

I believe that is a huge generalisation based only on tkd clubs you know of. Have you visited any tkd clubs in australia, europe, new zealand, korea etc or are you basing that opinion on some mcdojos you know of (there are actually martial arts clubs outside of the usa you know). Also, 2 years of diligent training in any reputable art and you wont even be half way to a black belt (at my club you would be a blue belt). I think its these huge sweeping generalisations that the martial arts can do without. I have 5 tkd clubs within a short distance of my house and none are belt factories and all teach tkd in its purest form. You should also check some european tkd. Actually, I really think you should get out more. As bruce lee said, comparing martial arts is for over zelous beginners. As others have said, the whole "my art is better than yours" is really getting tiring and it usually starts with a generalisation such as yours.

 

[Steve]

I believe that is a huge generalisation based only on tkd clubs you know of. Have you visited any tkd clubs in australia, europe, new zealand, korea etc or are you basing that opinion on some mcdojos you know of (there are actually martial arts clubs outside of the usa you know). Also, 2 years of diligent training in any reputable art and you wont even be half way to a black belt (at my club you would be a blue belt). I think its these huge sweeping generalisations that the martial arts can do without. I have 5 tkd clubs within a short distance of my house and none are belt factories and all teach tkd in its purest form. You should also check some european tkd. Actually, I really think you should get out more. As bruce lee said, comparing martial arts is for over zelous beginners. As others have said, the whole "my art is better than yours" is really getting tiring and it usually starts with a generalisation such as yours.

It's not based on my own observations at all. It's based on the observations of everyone I've ever known who trains or has trained in TKD. Have you spent any time in the TKD section of this very forum? The conversations do nothing but support my position.

You talk about my huge, sweeping generalizations, but then make your own huge, sweeping generalizations. My point is that being too inclusive, too forgiving or PC or whatever you want to call it actually encourages and enables these belt factories to exist. Not calling a spade a spade contributes to the problem.

And TKD isn't the only style where people who train in that style are the first to admit that there are serious quality issues. So, rather than telling me that I need to get out more and implying that I'm an over zealous beginner, why don't you take a step back and try to take an objective look at what I've actually said without jumping to conclusions.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

It's not based on my own observations at all. It's based on the observations of everyone I've ever known who trains or has trained in TKD. Have you spent any time in the TKD section of this very forum? The conversations do nothing but support my position.

You talk about my huge, sweeping generalizations, but then make your own huge, sweeping generalizations. My point is that being too inclusive, too forgiving or PC or whatever you want to call it actually encourages and enables these belt factories to exist. Not calling a spade a spade contributes to the problem.

And TKD isn't the only style where people who train in that style are the first to admit that there are serious quality issues. So, rather than telling me that I need to get out more and implying that I'm an over zealous beginner, why don't you take a step back and try to take an objective look at what I've actually said without jumping to conclusions.

Going by your definition, is there any martial art that doesnt have quality issues? I sure cant think of one. Within a short stroll of where I live there are belt factories in karate, kung fu, bjj and hapkido just to name a few and practitioners of all those arts complain of the same issues. I just cant see why you single out tkd. As far as the tkd section of this forum goes, I think you will find that almost everyone is very happy with the tkd club they train at and the level of instruction provided.

 

[Steve]

Going by your definition, is there any martial art that doesnt have quality issues? I sure cant think of one. Within a short stroll of where I live there are belt factories in karate, kung fu, bjj and hapkido just to name a few and practitioners of all those arts complain of the same issues. I just cant see why you single out tkd. As far as the tkd section of this forum goes, I think you will find that almost everyone is very happy with the tkd club they train at and the level of instruction provided.

As I said before, when the quality issues become the rule, the system is broken. Based on what people within the TKD community say, belt factories are the norm and no longer the exception. Come on, man. We're going in circles here. But I'm not just talking about TKD. I'm using TKD as one example. This could apply to any style.

And once again, so you keep things in context, this is also in reference to the remark that "it's the artists, not the art." If the system is broken, then it doesn't matter how good the student is. If your style teaches poor technique using poor instructional methods, and it takes an exceptional student to pull it off, it is the art, not the artist that is at fault.

Conversely, if you take 1000 average students and teach them proven technique using solid instructional theory, it's the art, not the artist that is succeeding.

 

[Xue Sheng]

As I said before, when the quality issues become the rule, the system is broken. Based on what people within the TKD community say, belt factories are the norm and no longer the exception. Come on, man. We're going in circles here. But I'm not just talking about TKD. I'm using TKD as one example. This could apply to any style.

And once again, so you keep things in context, this is also in reference to the remark that "it's the artists, not the art." If the system is broken, then it doesn't matter how good the student is. If your style teaches poor technique using poor instructional methods, and it takes an exceptional student to pull it off, it is the art, not the artist that is at fault.

Conversely, if you take 1000 average students and teach them proven technique using solid instructional theory, it's the art, not the artist that is succeeding.

Not really wanting to type much today, as a rule I generally try to avoid PCs all weekend but for some reason I am here

It is still that artist and not the art. The art is broken, but it was not always that way. When I took TKD it was pre-Olympic and we trained high and low kicks, close in fighting, joint locks, etc. That all change. If the art was trained like it was meant to be it would still work. It has been messes up by a whole lot of artists training it wrong.

However if one trains TKD and decides it is not working they can still find real teachers out there, it is just hard to do. If the artist chooses to stay with the flawed teaching then again it is the artist.

There are a lot of schools out there with the TKD label but, IMO, they are not real TKD

 

[Steve]

Not really wanting to type much today, as a rule I generally try to avoid PCs all weekend but for some reason I am here

It is still that artist and not the art. The art is broken, but it was not always that way. When I took TKD it was pre-Olympic and we trained high and low kicks, close in fighting, joint locks, etc. That all change. If the art was trained like it was meant to be it would still work. It has been messes up by a whole lot of artists training it wrong.

However if one trains TKD and decides it is not working they can still find real teachers out there, it is just hard to do. If the artist chooses to stay with the flawed teaching then again it is the artist.

There are a lot of schools out there with the TKD label but, IMO, they are not real TKD

If you take a group of 6 year olds and teach them that 2 +1 = 4, is it the student or the teacher who is at fault? If everyone in your school district does it, is it the student or the school district at fault? If the majority of the schools in the world do it, at what point does the entire education system become accountable?

Conversely, every school district I'm aware of world wide teaches that 2+2=4, and there isn't anyone over 6 who believes otherwise. Again, with such an overwhelming success rate, the students can hardly take credit.

Because so many styles have internalized teaching methods as well as techniques, it's hardly surprising that entire styles, such as TKD, are having difficulty. And once again, I"m only using TKD as an example because there is such a large body of information here on this board, along with TKD guys. TwinFist, Terry and other TKD instructors are very vocal about their problems with the current state of TKD.

In the JKD vs MMA thread, Tez mentioned a guy who has a black belt in TKD. Your post leads me to wonder how long it's been since he trained in TKD, and how useful that's been to him since.

 

[Tez3]

If you take a group of 6 year olds and teach them that 2 +1 = 4, is it the student or the teacher who is at fault? If everyone in your school district does it, is it the student or the school district at fault? If the majority of the schools in the world do it, at what point does the entire education system become accountable?

Conversely, every school district I'm aware of world wide teaches that 2+2=4, and there isn't anyone over 6 who believes otherwise. Again, with such an overwhelming success rate, the students can hardly take credit.

Because so many styles have internalized teaching methods as well as techniques, it's hardly surprising that entire styles, such as TKD, are having difficulty. And once again, I"m only using TKD as an example because there is such a large body of information here on this board, along with TKD guys. TwinFist, Terry and other TKD instructors are very vocal about their problems with the current state of TKD.

In the JKD vs MMA thread, Tez mentioned a guy who has a black belt in TKD. Your post leads me to wonder how long it's been since he trained in TKD, and how useful that's been to him since.

The guy is barely 20, has trained in 'proper' TKD, the stuff you KO people with, I know, I trained at same place, got the belt just a couple of years ago. He uses it to great effect in the cage. As a lot of people know I really don't like the Olympic TKD, the reason I don't like it is that I find it a travesty of what TKD actually is. I know people will disagree with what I've said but there remains the fact that TKD taught properly is a damn good thing. Perhaps though TKD here like MMA isn't in the same place as TKD in the States. We are smaller, less wealthy and have fewer people involved in martial arts altogether. I'm not saying we are better just that we have less money invested in martial arts so have small classes and schools.