Martial arts style v style rant

[Hanzou]

Of course there's no best style. Traditional styles work as do sports. The reason traditional arts aren't used in the ring is because most people who train them simply don't want to compete.

Except traditional styles have been used in the ring, and there's been plenty of traditionalists who have competed. By and large those traditionalists got splattered on the canvas which caused other traditionalists to stay clear and claim loudly from the sidelines that their style is "too deadly" for the ring.

I think it's time we simply be honest with ourselves and admit that some styles are more geared towards actually fighting, and other styles are simply cultural pursuits.

 

[mograph]

I don't know if this is just a western thing, but there's too much "distance learning" out there:

• If I buy a book, I will learn it.
• If I watch a video, I will learn it.
• Which style should I pick? Once I pick a style, I'm set.
• What are some psychological hacks to learn this?
• Practicing drills is boring. What are the shortcuts?

I had a friend who said that anything could be learned from a book. So she bought a book and read it. What was the topic? Golf.
You can guess how it went when her husband took her out on the links.
"Golf is a stupid game! Stupid!"

I think we all need to remember that the best practitioners of any art practice at a professional, all-day level: athletes, musicians, craftspersons. Why should martial arts be different? We need to practice all of it, hands-on, as often as we can, right?

 

[Ironbear24]

dude, you're saying the same thing I'm saying. I'm just being more specific.

And if you think Anderson Silva would be as effective if he didn't compete, or that. 10 year old could ever knock anyone out with one punch, you're delusional.

I disagreed with you not about Silva. Competition does make people better because that motivated them to train harder. I don't agree that a ten year old couldnt knock someone out with one hit. You ever been kicked in the balls before? It doesn't take much to knock someone out or at least put them down for a considerable amount of time.

 

[Ironbear24]

Except traditional styles have been used in the ring, and there's been plenty of traditionalists who have competed. By and large those traditionalists got splattered on the canvas which caused other traditionalists to stay clear and claim loudly from the sidelines that their style is "too deadly" for the ring.

I think it's time we simply be honest with ourselves and admit that some styles are more geared towards actually fighting, and other styles are simply cultural pursuits.

Kenpo karate. Shoalin kung fu. Tae Kwon do all have their place in the competitive and mma competitive scene. The difference is the "purists" are the ones who get splattered because the purists tend to train in a bubble.

 

[Hanzou]

Kenpo karate. Shoalin kung fu. Tae Kwon do all have their place in the competitive and mma competitive scene. The difference is the "purists" are the ones who get splattered because the purists tend to train in a bubble.

Only in the most broken down of fashion (i.e. a fighter having studied Shaolin Kung Fu but now his style is completely overridden by standard MMA). For example, I know some people like to say that Chuck Liddell is proof that Kenpo Karate is effective in MMA, seemingly forgetting that Liddell also studied Boxing and Kickboxing, and those striking systems are far more apparent than Kenpo.

There are quite a few successful MMA purists. They almost all tend to be Bjj fighters though.

 

[Steve]

I disagreed with you not about Silva. Competition does make people better because that motivated them to train harder. I don't agree that a ten year old couldnt knock someone out with one hit. You ever been kicked in the balls before? It doesn't take much to knock someone out or at least put them down for a considerable amount of time.

Yes, I've been kicked in the balls. Couple of things. First, that's not ever going to knock someone out. Wrong body part. Second, a 10 year old is never going to take out a healthy, unimpaired adult with a kick to the balls unless the adult is fully cooperating.

In the real,world, no 10 "year old will successfully knock out or incapacitate a healthy, unimpaired adult.

 

[Balrog]

And who is teaching people how to not fight? This argument here is pointless because no "martial arts" place is going to teach you literally nothing.

Wellll.....it kinda depends on your concept of teaching people how to not fight. That's what I do. Mind you, they still learn the basics of punching and kicking, etc., but I also teach situational awareness and avoidance as major components of self-defense.

We train for the 1%. By that, I mean that 99% of the time, our awareness and confidence will handle the situation. When the bad guy profiles for a victim, he sees us and sees the confident body language and the constant scanning of the environment around us, and he passes us over in favor of someone that he thinks he can attack and get away with it. Quite in keeping with Sun Tzu, actually, where he says

Therefore, to achieve a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest excellence; to subjugate the enemy's army without doing battle is the highest of excellence.

The 1% is the bad guy that just pops up out of the weeds. He didn't profile, he just decided to jump on the next person he sees, or he's messed up on booze or drugs to where he's not thinking straight, etc. Now we have to actually use the skills we have learned.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'm pretty sure I didn't say sparring, point sparring or otherwise.

Straw man aside, I would say that everything is a spectrum. It's not off/on. Some training is better than others, just as some competition will be closer to real world violence than others. But doing something will always build skill more reliably than pretending.

And I wouldn't say competition is a magic pill. It's a very important piece of the puzzle that those who don't compete never get. competition gives you something that impossible to replicate for most people. And it's much easier to adapt actual, well developed skills to a new context than to rely upon poorly developed, untested skills to any context.

Okay, stated that way I can mostly agree with you. I was disagreeing with what I read in that statement I quoted, which you've clarified here. Just so I'm being clear, there are point sparring competitions, so when you said any competition, I included those in my reading - clearly not what you meant.

I still hold that for many people - definitely not all - most of what is gained in open competition can be gained from sparring to win in the dojo, assuming all there are actually trying. Of course, if there are few in the dojo at your own level, you get the least benefit from that sparring, which is one of the benefits of competition.

I was talking this through with my wife (also a martial artist, though less intensely involved in it than I am) last night, trying to figure out how to explain part of my point about competition. It's mostly this: I'm not personally willing to bring my strongest technique to competition if there's a reasonable chance of hurting someone (like knocking them out). So I wouldn't get the same benefit from competition as someone who is willing to bring that. And since I'm not willing to bring that to competition, I'd be at a severe disadvantage in competitions where someone with equal skill is willing to bring that. Friendly competition around safe submissions - like most BJJ competition - would suit me as long as it stays friendly. MMA, boxing, and full-contact kickboxing simply wouldn't, and I wouldn't learn much in that environment. Those friendly competitions don't bring any real stress to me - they don't feel any different to me than working out in the dojo, so the only real benefit I gain there is being surprised by working with folks I've never worked with before, and I can get that in other ways, too.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

When you swim, you tend to get better at it. Makes sense to me. Some people want to believe that fighting is the one physical activity in all human existence that can be learned to an expert level without any actual experience.

But "swimming" isn't the same thing in every context, either, just like "fighting". If I want to get good at blocking and punching in a dynamic situation against an aggressive opponent, I need to practice blocking in a dynamic situation against an aggressive opponent. A competition isn't the only way to do that. Plenty of people become highly competent swimmers without ever competing.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Except traditional styles have been used in the ring, and there's been plenty of traditionalists who have competed. By and large those traditionalists got splattered on the canvas which caused other traditionalists to stay clear and claim loudly from the sidelines that their style is "too deadly" for the ring.

I think it's time we simply be honest with ourselves and admit that some styles are more geared towards actually fighting, and other styles are simply cultural pursuits.

We have to also admit that fighting in a ring/octagon, while a good analogy, is not the same as fighting off an attacker. Just because something isn't fully effective against a well-trained, fit, muscular MMA fighter doesn't mean it's not effective for dealing with an attacker on the street.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I disagreed with you not about Silva. Competition does make people better because that motivated them to train harder. I don't agree that a ten year old couldnt knock someone out with one hit. You ever been kicked in the balls before? It doesn't take much to knock someone out or at least put them down for a considerable amount of time.

Actually, having played soccer my entire youth, I took many nutshots. Not all of them put me down - that requires a certain level of force. It also requires they actually be able to kick you there, and that's reasonably hard to do with someone who's paying attention.

 

[Steve]

But "swimming" isn't the same thing in every context, either, just like "fighting". If I want to get good at blocking and punching in a dynamic situation against an aggressive opponent, I need to practice blocking in a dynamic situation against an aggressive opponent. A competition isn't the only way to do that. Plenty of people become highly competent swimmers without ever competing.

A person who can swim in a pool will find it much easier to swim in a lake than someone who has only practiced swimming by waving his arms conviningly.
What's the one thing every competent swimmer has in common? They all swim.

 

[Steve]

Just to add a little bit more with an actual keyboard, competition isn't the only way to gain experience. Actual experience is the only way to gain experience.

So, when we talk about fighting skills, the experience being gained in competition is in punching, kicking and otherwise executing technique in a fully non-compliant, unrehearsed encounter where there is immediate, physical and mental feedback for incompetence.

If you want to learn to play golf, you have to actually play golf. If you want to learn to fly a plane, at some point you will need to actually fly a plane. But with "self defense" there is a shocking degree of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, everyone agrees that how one trains matters, but on the other, these same people will deride competitive arts because they are unrealistic. It's mind-blowing.

The equivalent to the swimming analogy in fighting is competition vs non-competitive arts. If you've actually punched, kicked and otherwise executed technique in fully non-compliant, unrehearsed encounters, you will be better equipped to execute those techniques in a different context than someone who has waved his arms around in a convincing manner.

I have been told by "experts" here on this forum that the other stuff... the non-fighting stuff is actually pretty easy to teach, which is why they spend so much time on the "fighting" part of self defense in their training. That fighting part is the part I believe benefits the most from competition.

 

[Ironbear24]

Only in the most broken down of fashion (i.e. a fighter having studied Shaolin Kung Fu but now his style is completely overridden by standard MMA). For example, I know some people like to say that Chuck Liddell is proof that Kenpo Karate is effective in MMA, seemingly forgetting that Liddell also studied Boxing and Kickboxing, and those striking systems are far more apparent than Kenpo.

There are quite a few successful MMA purists. They almost all tend to be Bjj fighters though.

I'm not forgetting. I brought him up for a reason which is to say purists don't succeed. He is not only a high Dan in Kenpo but also a good wrestler. Kenpo karate taken into a sport pretty much turns into kick boxing by the way so nothing got overridden. MMA purists? That statement literally doesn't make sense because the statement in itself means to mix arts, and purists bjj doesn't go very far. This isn't 1992 anymore.

 

[BigMotor]

My short answer is, the better fighter wins, the one who knows what he is doing, wins. And that is regardless of what style or school he is trained in.

Wing Chun is no doubt an excellent method of fighting; and so is boxing, if the fighter is skilled at it.
And, that is my answer, the skilled fighter and the one with the most heart, will win.

Note: How many excellent fighters have been taken out, by some creep ambushing them?
I suspect that there have been a few. A good fighter remains ready to go, and I think that some people forget that.

The man that made the video, seems like someone who could fight his way out of a bad situation.

 

[Hanzou]

I'm not forgetting. I brought him up for a reason which is to say purists don't succeed. He is not only a high Dan in Kenpo but also a good wrestler. Kenpo karate taken into a sport pretty much turns into kick boxing by the way so nothing got overridden. MMA purists? That statement literally doesn't make sense because the statement in itself means to mix arts, and purists bjj doesn't go very far. This isn't 1992 anymore.

Yeah, but when you think Chuck Liddell you don't think Kenpo, you think brawler. He isn't exactly fighting like Jeff Speakman in the perfect weapon. He's fighting like a boxer who can stuff takedowns. There's very little traditional about the way he fights.

As for "purists" obviously anyone fighting in MMA if going to have to learn a variety of things in order to be successful. However, fighters like Kron Gracie, Mckenzie Dern, Angela Lee, and a few others are doing pretty much nothing but Bjj in their fights and they're doing quite well in MMA.

 

[Ironbear24]

Jeff Speakman in the perfect weapon

Well because that was a movie... It was choreographed and faked for entertainment value.

He's fighting like a boxer who can stuff takedowns. There's very little traditional about the way he fights.

Because boxers throw elbows and kicks? Those fighters you also mentioned do not train in a bubble either. They may be using prominently bjj but they were trained how to deal with strikes and grappling.

 

[drop bear]

But "swimming" isn't the same thing in every context, either, just like "fighting". If I want to get good at blocking and punching in a dynamic situation against an aggressive opponent, I need to practice blocking in a dynamic situation against an aggressive opponent. A competition isn't the only way to do that. Plenty of people become highly competent swimmers without ever competing.

The "in a bubble" is a good way to be mindful of your trainings shortcomings.

Competition by definition takes you out of that bubble. We discussed fake BJJ blackbelts and one of their quality control mesures to prevent this is a real BJJ black belt may turn up on your doorstep. (And so you are out of that bubble again)

Swimming can take you out of that bubble without ever having to compete because you have defined results. distance or time. If i had to outswim a threat all i have to do is go faster or longer. so my boat capsizes it is 8k to shore. I set for more than an 8k swim.

Or you can figure out pretty easily who is a good swimmer and who is a bad one.

Self defence does not necessarily ever have to leave the bubble. It does not have that set of objectives. Even if I do spar. All i may have to do is beat the other guys in the room. Which in a bubble is not a good test.

So that outside influence. (not necessarily competition but including it) is also a vital component.

This is why self defence objectives are so vague and unworkable generally.

 

[Hanzou]

Well because that was a movie... It was choreographed and faked for entertainment value.

Really? Speakman still fights like that. At least, when he (or his students) is/are doing choreographed drills;

Because boxers throw elbows and kicks?

Elbows? Why yes.

Those fighters you also mentioned do not train in a bubble either. They may be using prominently bjj but they were trained how to deal with strikes and grappling.

Bjj teaches you how to deal with strikes and grappling.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

In reality, when you make one move, your opponent will respond with 1 move, you then react to his respond.