Not so great ! (?)

[cfr]

Hi all!

A little debate to chime in on. Are the old, old schoolers, the ones that are the "names" in the martial art universe and pantheon truly great, or did they happen to be good Martial artists at a time when the arts were still full of mystery, and benefitted from the "new, wow" factor? This discussion arose because of a thought that today's artists do the same "stuff", but are bigger, faster, etc...... And, now that the veil has been lifted, we realize that they are not so "great", instead reduced, in our culture, to something that kids do (soccer mom status), or the but of a joke.

Being a newbie to MA's, I have no idea what it used to be like. Seems like everything gets watered down over time. I'd have to guess MA's changed for a few reasons:

1; To attract more people to a dojo. After all, not everyone wants to get smacked around.
2; To avoid being sued.
3; New training methods. I'd have to venture a guess that for every guy that is proud of all the shots he has taken and all the abuse he has put his body through, there is another guy with bad joints/ arthritis/ jaw hurts to chew steak/ hurts to get up in the morning/ etc. telling younger guys he wishes he never saw the inside of a dojo because of all the physical problems he now has from it.

As far as who was really great and who was really just a myth, who knows? I'll bet theres a mix of each.

 

[JasonASmith]

your life - and the lives of your wife and children - might very well depend upon your skill. The training was geared towards life and death conflict and was very, very rugged.[/quote]

What I don't get is how that's changed...One of the main reasons I returned to Karate after such a long absence, was to have another technique in my repertoire to keep my family alive and as safe as I can...If I die, or am seriously injured in a confrontation that I could have solved by using Karate(in all it's forms) to protect my wife and children, then, in my mind, I didn't do one of the two main things that a husband and father is SUPPOSED to do....So, given that consideration(and many others) I returned to Karate, and I am willing to go to great lengths to be the best damned Karate-ka I can be, and I will gladly accept the pain that I get if I learn from it...And if nothing else, my children will be able to say when they get old...."Boy, are we old!"

 

[Shotgun Buddha]

I find it odd that people keep saying things were tougher and people were fighting more for their lives in the old days, whereas by all counts the levels of violent crime have risen substantially over the last few years in comparison.
I think it might have to do with human tendency to romanticise the past. People had to learn to scrap back then, people have to learn to scrap now. Stating ones better than the other is pointless without a method of comparison.

Funnily enough though I spent most of last night watching dvd's of Pride Fc, and saw some spectacular fights. Then afterwards I popped on Enter the Dragon, and despite the fact that Ive always loved the movie, ended up thinking "Wow. These fights look really crap."
This is not disparaging Bruce Lee in anyway, who I do admire. Its just everything I've actually seen martial arts wise from the old days looked....pants. Im not saying that they were pants in real life. Just that martial arts and fighting as reflected in those movies, and others like them, are pretty damn sucky. Still love watching them though.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

First of all back in the day there was some really tough training going on. There were also some other people training where it was not so tough. One thing is for sure that athletisism and technical ability have advanced beyond what was in the past. That does not mean that some people did not have incredible technical ability in the past but that they had less opportunity to explore what was out there. As to the athleticism of todays martial artists, well clearly they are more athletic than the people of fifty, forty, thirty even twenty years ago. (and if you go back farther they would be even more athleticly gifted) This is because of the opportunity to have better nutritition and an understanding of athletic attributes and how to improve them.

Now having said that there was some tough hombres back in the day. Training was tough and the people were tough and generally if you were not tough then you did not stick around. (except for some places)

Go back to feudal Japan or insert country here and the people around there generally had a strong mindset that is certainly missing in some martial practititioners now a days.

It is always hard to compare eras! No matter what we always romanticise the past. That is just my .02!

 

[Makalakumu]

One thing to keep in mind is that back in the "olden days" fewer people were practicing martial arts. This leaves a very small margin of people who would rise to the top and these people may not have been the absolute physical pinnacle in natural ability.

Whereas nowdays, there are alot more people practicing MA and this increases the pool that the top margin can draw from. Thus, naturally, they look absolutely amazing.

Would Fedor or Silva crush someone like Itosu, Motobu, or even Bushi Matsumura? Most likely. Is this because the current fighters are so much "greater" then the people of old? No. Latter men were trained to the top of their ability...just as the former are.

 

[Hand Sword]

Exactly what started the original debate! It was said, in basic terms, "I do what they did, I train just as hard, I'm bigger, stringer, faster, etc.. I would trash so and so.., They only get their billing because it was new, and they were all there was.."

They were good artists, no doubt, and still are (those that are left), but, is how their viewed due to just being in the right spot, at the right time?

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Personally I am going to honor anyone who trained back in the day and did it the right way with the right attitude and developed the foundation for the future generations of martial artists.

 

[Makalakumu]

Personally I am going to honor anyone who trained back in the day and did it the right way with the right attitude and developed the foundation for the future generations of martial artists.

So will I. However, just as in any physical activity, as the pool of practicioners gets larger, the level of excellence rises. This is no different then the Olympics.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

So will I. However, just as in any physical activity, as the pool of practicioners gets larger, the level of excellence rises. This is no different then the Olympics.

Absolutely. There is no doubt that we have advanced both in athleticism and in technical pursuit in the martial arts even just in the past fifteen years let alone the last fifty or sixty.

 

[Hand Sword]

Absolutely!

Never in question, or was meant to be. They earned it and deserve it! Couldn't the newer models, with a lot of time and traing in be so too? This viewing of them as invincible, super humans, undefeatable, is what was being argued, at the time. Some compared attributes and made claims, others thought, that's just ridiculous thinking. That led to the debate of why is it ridiculous?

 

[cfr]

They were good artists, no doubt, and still are (those that are left), but, is how their viewed due to just being in the right spot, at the right time?

How many people that had to fight for their lives are still around. Thinking about it, is this post in regards to people 20 - 30 years ago, or people hundreds of years ago. From reading all the responses, I think differeent people are talking about different time periods. I really don't think the people training 20 - 30 years ago were fighting for their lives.

 

[Hand Sword]

Well, not to go off on to that topic, A few of the debaters, at the time, have, and on more than one occasion. Personally, any fight can end with a death, it goes on constantly.

That aside, as for the time factor, I guess, say... '70's and back, you know all of the "names" in the martial art world, that were the pioneers.

 

[Touch Of Death]

They were truly very highly skilled. Many of today's practitioners appear to "do the same stuff" but it's only the outer shell.

His name was Remo... LOL.

 

[TraditionalTKD]

There were some legitimate old schoolers who were every bit as good as they seemed to be:
Won Kuk Lee, Ueshiba, Tae Hi Nam, Oyama etc.

I think many others seem to be good because Black Belt and Tae Kwon Do Times and other magazines say they are good to sell mags. Being in a magazine doesn't make you good, because there are many awesome Instructors who have never been publicity hounds and don't desire to be.