My Mucky-Muck Vs. Your Mucky-Muck

[FearlessFreep]

But that doesn't mean there aren't inherent advantages in training one way over the other.

That brings up two interesting thoughts and I think you hit something very important about training approach

a) since boxing has a limited number of techniques with no forms and only one basic fighting style if you will, they can focus all there training into that one approach, which means that they are very good at it. A Taekwondo Black Belt is going to have a broad range of skills so that, huor for hour in training, a comparitvely experienced boxer is going to be much better at just that one thing. What that really means I don't know. If you are being measured by only that litmus test than it's probably pretty good. In a different context where you are being measured differently, then the strength and stamina and toughness aquired in training just that one aspect will serve you well...but well enough?

b) There's probably more money inboxing than any other fighting competition, and I'm guessing it can be done professionally at many levels of skill. As far as I know, here is no equivalent moeny to be made in Taekwondo for example. This gives boxers both and incentive and an opportunity to train very hard for simply that fighting style, which are not really available to other arts, at least in this country. If you could make a decent career, even at lower levels, as a professional Taekwondo fighter? do you think you would see more Taekwondoist training in the same manner as boxers? and what would the result be?

 

[Josh]

I'll take the Challenge right here right now.



I think REAL Ninjitsu covers every aspect of combat.

 

[terryl965]

shesulsa I myself commend you on this post, it has done more than I would have expected and the answer are some great ones.
A job well doneartyon:

Terry

 

[Adept]

If you could make a decent career, even at lower levels, as a professional Taekwondo fighter? do you think you would see more Taekwondoist training in the same manner as boxers? and what would the result be?

I imagine you would see more TKD fighters training that much harder.

However, (and we're getting a little off-topic here) TKD would need a little bit of an overhaul in terms of it's competitions before it picked up some of the more beneficial traits from boxing, or other full contact sports.

I'm not really referring to the volume of techniques a fighter focuses on either. More the method and intensity of training, nor am I saying it's unique to any particular style. But one is more likely to encounter that high level and volume of full contact sparring, conditioning and motivation in a boxing gym, than a karate dojo.

I summarise it by saying boxers win fights, while TKD fighters win points, but it is more complex than that. A TKD fighter who trains for self defense and makes sure he has a well rounded tool box is a very dangerous person. One who trains specifically for olympic style tournaments is no where near as well rounded, or as dangerous, for lack of a better word.

I know we've had this debate before, but I feel the scoring system is largely to blame. The ten point must system, I feel, encourages more aggressive and more "realistic" fighting. Point sparring adds an un-needed extra level of artificial abstraction, and people train to score points, not dominate the round and dominate their opponent.

 

[Zorba]

i dont beleive you can say that any martial art is particularly better than the other.

each art has evolved to what it is now for a specific reason. Karate concentrates on inclose hand techniques because of the lack of space over there. TKD has the airial moves because they were invaded by horse mounted soldiers. Capoera looks like a dance because the slaves were not allowed to practice fighting.

Currently i do shotokan and TKD to give myself a well rounded striking art, but i would also like to take up some grappling/throws (maybe something like hapkido) ground grappling like BJJ and some weapons, ie Kali.

do what is best for you.

having said that tho, you can definitely say some schools are better than another.

 

[CuongNhuka]

I hate having to do this. 4th time man. All righty then

• “Judging the difference and power of one style over another is completely useless.”

Miyamoto Musashi

• “In any form of freestyle/fight, it is the person in the fight who determines the winner. Styles of martial arts are meant to teach you how you can, and should move and react in a fight.”

Myself

• These are the principles of the fighter who wishes to be at all successful in a fight. They come in the form of 6 philosophies. 5 are taught in Coung Nhu, 1 is my own.
  • 3 “O”’s principle

i. Open heart
ii. Open mind
iii. Open arms

• • 5 “R”’s for self defense

i. Right time
ii. Right place
iii. Right techniques
iv. Right perspective
v. Run

• • 5 “W”’s for self defense

i. Wrong time
ii. Wrong place
iii. Wrong people
iv. Wrong attitude
v. Wrong technique

• • 5 “A”’s for self defense

i. Awareness
ii. Alertness
iii. Avoidance
iv. Anticipation
v. Action

• • 5 first’s for friendship

i. Communicate
ii. Smile
iii. Care
iv. Share
v. Forgive

• • The 10 things to devolop for self defense (mine)

i. Skill in striking with the hands and legs
ii. Skill in grappling
iii. A strong stance and guard
iv. Skill in moving evasively
v. Skill in defending yourself from weapons commonly used in violent crime
vi. Skill in wielding the above weapons, and yawara
vii. Skill in running quickly, and talking your way out of a bad place
viii. Skill in defending yourself from multiple opponents
ix. Knowing when to do what in a self defense situation
x. Free style that hones your above skills
The O’s and first’s are meant to prevent the need to defend yourself. Simply if you have many friends, fewer people will want to fight you. The five A’s help to prevent being put in a self defense, by being alert who is likely to start trouble, and where you can go to avoid it. Notice I used the 2nd and 3rd A. the R’s are about how to survive, the W’s are about how to not survive.
Lastly my own. If you are in a self-defense situation, and cann’t strike with your hands and legs, well you’re screwed. Same with grappling, it’s an introduction to weapon defense. If you don’t have a good stance and guard that complements you personal style, once again your screwed. If you can’t move evasively, well do I really need to say it? If you can’t defend from weapons you likely to see, well lets all say it together. o.k. So you have the knife out of there hands, now what? Stand there and look pretty? No, you cut his guts out if he makes a move you don’t like.
Most of the time if you are in a self-defense situation the best plan is to either run or talk your way out of it. If you have never trained talking yourself to safety, how safe are you? And what if you can’t run quickly, then what? A lot of the time in self-defense you might have to deal with more then one bad guy/girl. So if you can’t defend yourself from more then one opponent, well you probably get the picture. You practice different forms of freestyle to train and further ingrain what you have learned. That is why sparring and like forms were created.
And if you don’t know when it is appropriate to do what, you could be legally screwed. You should know when to run, when to talk, when to hold, when to strike, when to hurt, when to maim, when to use a weapon, and (most grimly) when to kill.
Of course this is not always true. A pro boxer could kick the living crapp out of anyone who trains these points. Why? Because boxers train almost constantly, so they can really blast guys. My 10 points are meant for the person that wants to be able to defend them self, but not have to train all day. Part of fighting in the ring and in a self-defense situation is about how well, and how frequently you train what you know.

Sweet Brighit Bless Your Blade,

John (who hopes there will never have to be 5th time to put this)

 

[shesulsa]

I'm not sure how that really answers the question, but ... okay.

 

[bluemtn]

I'm not going to say what art, because I think they all have something to offer. Also I believe it's mostly the artist, not the art that'll make it or break it.

 

[FearlessFreep]

One overlooked part of the original question I believe was to break down arts into categories and talk about which was the best at a specifc category.

Like Judo vs BJJ for grappling. Is either inherently better at grappling because of the techniques? Or do the techniques flow from different philosphies to accomplish the same goal? Is that philosphy flawed in some way? Or is the philosophy of one better than the other?

If I may offer an analogy from a different field: computer science. Any computer language can be used to program just about any programming task (I'm generalizing, you geeks, so don't bug me) However, some languages have a given philosophy that better suites some types of tasks, and thus are *better* suited at certain taks then others. Moreover, not all language designers are created equal. Hate to say it but some have been smarter or more clever or more intuitivive than others, so as a result, not all languages are really created equal. A skilled programmer who is an expert in a given language can write just about anything, but in some domains, if he chooses that language, it will be simply his experience and training allowing him to accomplish the task because the language was an inferior tool for accomplishing *that* given task. And even if the given language was sufficient for solving the problem, here might have been one that was easier to use. So just about any programming task can be accomplished with any given programming language, given enough skill, hard work, and practice, but that doesn't make all programming languages equally suited for all tasks, or just plain equal at all.

if that analogy is appropriate than I wonder what it means to MA

Or rather, I wonder in the statment of "it's not the art, it's the artist", I wonder how many times it's the artist *in spite of* the art.

Or in a mixed/combined art situation, where you choose a given art because it handles a given situation, I wonder if there would be another art that might better handle that situation.

And the flip side to that last point is that maybe it's more sensible not to train 47 arts for 47 situations, but to delve into the art to find out how it can be used well for the 47 situations. Right now I'm taking BJJ to compliment my TKD, but that is because my current TD instructor does not teach using TKD against certain kinds of threats (that I have seen yet from him anyway). However my previous instructor used TKD based techniques to form defenses against many different kinds of non-TKD attacks, so I didn't consider training two seperate arts. Two different approaches to the same problem.

 

[rutherford]

A good, fast grappler can probably kick butt on many a kenpo practitioner, but what happens if there's multiple attackers? Grappling at that point is at a disadvantage.

I'm agreeing with you, and selecting only the text I want to comment on as my quote.

But, I see this from a completely different angle. If the grappler really knows how to bridge and layer his opponents, adding more people actually makes many concepts easier to pull off.

It's always going to come down to the individual. Personal strength comes from within.

I'd throw down some smack talk, but just can't get in the mood.

 

[Adept]

If I may offer an analogy from a different field: computer science. Any computer language can be used to program just about any programming task (I'm generalizing, you geeks, so don't bug me) However, some languages have a given philosophy that better suites some types of tasks, and thus are *better* suited at certain taks then others. Moreover, not all language designers are created equal. Hate to say it but some have been smarter or more clever or more intuitivive than others, so as a result, not all languages are really created equal. A skilled programmer who is an expert in a given language can write just about anything, but in some domains, if he chooses that language, it will be simply his experience and training allowing him to accomplish the task because the language was an inferior tool for accomplishing *that* given task. And even if the given language was sufficient for solving the problem, here might have been one that was easier to use. So just about any programming task can be accomplished with any given programming language, given enough skill, hard work, and practice, but that doesn't make all programming languages equally suited for all tasks, or just plain equal at all.

if that analogy is appropriate than I wonder what it means to MA

Or rather, I wonder in the statment of "it's not the art, it's the artist", I wonder how many times it's the artist *in spite of* the art.

Excellent analogy! Thats the point, or issue I was trying to address earlier.

 

[jdinca]

I'm agreeing with you, and selecting only the text I want to comment on as my quote.

But, I see this from a completely different angle. If the grappler really knows how to bridge and layer his opponents, adding more people actually makes many concepts easier to pull off.

It's always going to come down to the individual. Personal strength comes from within.

I'd throw down some smack talk, but just can't get in the mood.

I kept my comment simple, just because my grappling knowledge is so minimal. Thanks for the enlightenment!

 

[CuongNhuka]

Like Judo vs BJJ for grappling. Is either inherently better at grappling because of the techniques? Or do the techniques flow from different philosphies to accomplish the same goal? Is that philosphy flawed in some way? Or is the philosophy of one better than the other?

And the flip side to that last point is that maybe it's more sensible not to train 47 arts for 47 situations, but to delve into the art to find out how it can be used well for the 47 situations. Right now I'm taking BJJ to compliment my TKD, but that is because my current TD instructor does not teach using TKD against certain kinds of threats (that I have seen yet from him anyway). However my previous instructor used TKD based techniques to form defenses against many different kinds of non-TKD attacks, so I didn't consider training two seperate arts. Two different approaches to the same problem.

That's kinda the point of my good long, over done statement.
A. Going through and saying "ohh, my Judo makes me a better grappler then you with your Brazialian Jui Jitsu". Doing stuff like that is pointless. It serves absolutly no purpose, other then stroking your ego.

2. All martial arts train every thing. In some way, so going to a school of Judo so you can learn to grapple to add to your striking skills from Taekwondo is not nessicary. So you're learning it anyways. But if it's to give you a place to start in finding out how Taekwondo teaches grappling. Every style teaches how to fight from every place, it's just a matter of how and whether or not it is direct.

If you think about it and really look, in some way every style teaches all the differnit ways of defending yourself. And every style has it's own strengths and weaknesses in every position.

Sweet Brighit Bless your Blade,

John

 

[Zorba]

That's kinda the point of my good long, over done statement.
A. Going through and saying "ohh, my Judo makes me a better grappler then you with your Brazialian Jui Jitsu". Doing stuff like that is pointless. It serves absolutly no purpose, other then stroking your ego.

2. All martial arts train every thing. In some way, so going to a school of Judo so you can learn to grapple to add to your striking skills from Taekwondo is not nessicary. So you're learning it anyways. But if it's to give you a place to start in finding out how Taekwondo teaches grappling. Every style teaches how to fight from every place, it's just a matter of how and whether or not it is direct.

If you think about it and really look, in some way every style teaches all the differnit ways of defending yourself. And every style has it's own strengths and weaknesses in every position.

Sweet Brighit Bless your Blade,

John

i cant say that in all my years of TKD training i havent done any ground work, hardly any takedowns (there have been a few) and only a couple of locks. also i have never done any weaponry trainging. and this is 15 years over 3 schools.

so i can honestly say if i want to be a well rounded fighter, i would need to take multiple arts.

 

[FearlessFreep]

That in itself is probably a function of training. By contraast in a little less then a year and a half I learned to execute several takedowns, learned some takedown defense, had not done any ground fighting yet but it was on the curriculum for further training, a few joint locks and usage of pressure points and joints and a couple of armbars and some basic weaponry defenese (my kids ahead of me were learning throws). However, that was the focus of the school; not tournaments or competition but TKD as a full self-defense art (although to this day I don't know where Taekwondo ends and Hapkido or Judo begin)

 

[Sarah]

You wouldnt generally be learning ground work in TKD unless your instructor is going more for a mixed martial arts type of thing...so I really dont understand what is ment by saying that all MA teach all forms of fighting??

 

[MJS]

2. All martial arts train every thing. In some way, so going to a school of Judo so you can learn to grapple to add to your striking skills from Taekwondo is not nessicary. So you're learning it anyways. But if it's to give you a place to start in finding out how Taekwondo teaches grappling. Every style teaches how to fight from every place, it's just a matter of how and whether or not it is direct.

If you think about it and really look, in some way every style teaches all the differnit ways of defending yourself. And every style has it's own strengths and weaknesses in every position.

Sweet Brighit Bless your Blade,

John

I have to disagree with this. There are arts, as its been already mentioned, that do not include certain aspects, such as grappling. There are some that, yes, to a certain extent, teach certain defenses. For example, many arts teach defense against a takedown or tackle. However, if one really wants to have a good understanding of the defense, it would be a good idea to understand the nature of the attack as well.

Mike

 

[FearlessFreep]

Correct, a straight traditional TKD school will not teach you how to grapple. A good, self-defense oriented TKD school will teach you how to use TKD to defend against clinches, takedowns, and how to use TKD techniques when on the ground (I wish MichiganTKD still posted here, he used to relate pretty well how ihs instructor would do that; use TKD techs from a ground position against ground fighters, and pretty effectively)

Similalry, my current BJJ instructor teaches how to use BJJ against strikes, even though BJJ itself is not a striking art.

As I mentioned, each art's technique flows from a philosophy and an attempt to maximize the use of the philosophy. For TKD, it's the hard linear motion (the kicking is really a result of that philosophy in the though that you can generate more powerful strikes from the larger muscle groups in the legs, etc..). For BJJ it seems (in my very, limited training so far) it's the desire to get in very close, to eliminate the opponents range of motion by controlling their body movement with your positioning, and to position to use your strong muscle groups in opposition to the opponents weak muscle groups.

What this means is that TKD does not have ground grappling, and BJJ does not have striking. It doesn't fit in with their core strength; their goals and motivations and philosophies and techniques in how to defeat an enemy

As a result, a TKD response to an attempt to shoot, or to clinch, or to takedown, is going to be different than a BJJ response because the philosophy is different. In reverese, a BJJ response to a punch or a kick is different than a TKD response.

(And I apologize for keeping using TKD and BJJ as my examples but they are the only things I've looked at formally enough to form even thie beginnings of ideas about...and they happen to be almost diametrically opposite in approach)

The question is...is it enough?

 

[MJS]

FF, you bring up some good points! I agree, and I've found the same thing with Kenpo. While I would not say that it is a 'grappling art' in the sense of BJJ, Judo or Sambo, but as we both said, each art has its defenses against a grappling type attack. I've found that by having some BJJ knowledge, I've been able, with some modifications, been able to pull off some Kenpo techniques while rolling. Does this mean that we need to go out and x-train? No, but it will be easier to understand the defense and make it work better by x-referencing.

Mike

 

[Zepp]

My mucky-muck can beat all of your mucky-mucks! I call it Zepp's Ryu-Do-Juitsu.

Phase 1: If you try to start something with me, I move to distract you, while my friend behind you whacks you upside the head with a blunt heavy object. If an opponent somehow avoids this attack, the two of us continue to distract them while our other friend comes up from behind them, and whacks them upside the head with a blunt heavy object.

Phase 2: Regardless of the success of phase 1, the opponent is then sued for their entire annual income (or more) with the help of however many of my lawyer cousins are required.

Phase 3: Regardless of the success of phases 1 or 2, years later, when the offender least suspects it, and is out walking alone somewhere, out of nowhere they will suddenly be whacked upside the head with a blunt heavy object.

This awesomely invincible martial style is not for everyone however. Phase 1 requires that you have the social skills to keep loyal friends around you. Phase 2 generally requires that are born into a large Jewish family so that you have a sizeable supply of attorneys to turn to. (So most of you are SOL there.) And I only teach phase 3 to those that send me $500 in cash (covers the cost of your black belt and diploma).

Oh, and a good tequila sunrise is better than any mojito.