Realistic Training VS Choreographed Movements - From The Fox Bagua Blog

[Xue Sheng]

Realistic Training VS Choreographed Movements

First let me remind you that the generations before us were not idiots. They lived in a time of continual war against countless odds, which lead to the development of martial arts. Because they were in a warring period, there are many obvious factors that they didn't need to explain, that people today may not be aware of. All of the movements that were passed along basically represent a simple alphabet that we can learn in order to become more literate in a scenario of violence. So all of the movements from every style have proven to be effective or they would not exist today. Whether you are worried about knife counters, spear counters or gun disarms, these movements have all been successful at one point.

From The Fox Bagua Zhang Blog

 

[drop bear]

This movement exists so therefore is legitimate.

How do you know?

 

[Xue Sheng]

This movement exists so therefore is legitimate.

How do you know?

Did you read the entire article?

 

[drop bear]

Did you read the entire article?

Yeah had a few issues with bits of it and agreed with other bits. The car comment is a bit wrong in its extremes.

But I just thought I would explore this bit.

And I am not sure how that works as a logic thing. These moves have survived for a million gazillion years and so by definition work. Yet military weapons and battlefield tactics seem to be constantly changing. We know very little about the motivations of the people who invented these tactics and rarely explore them from the source. Normally they are handed down.

So how do we really know?

 

[donnaTKD]

i like what he said.

didn't really understand the logic of it all tbh - if you practice your moves often enough in the right environment then you just get used to doing them. i suppose only thing that you'd change in a fight is the order in which you do things cos you gotta react to what's coming it's not like it is in the ring so it's prolly gunna have to be more "brutal" to stop it early and prevent anyone else from having thoughts of joining in.

don't know maybe someone else wants to shed some extra light on this

 

[K-man]

I agree that the blog is a little confusing. Even the headline is confusing. What he is saying is that the manufactured 'real' situation proponents warn against 'choreographed martial art moves' then in the next breath says choreographed martial art moves are fine if trained correctly.

In reality one is not mutually exclusive of the other. Training the basic moves is essential. Learning how to make those moves work in a real situation takes time. But applying them in realistic training also makes sense.
:hmm:

 

[colemcm]

I was sort of on board with what he was saying, but he lost me at the end. If God's calling all of the shots and is the ultimate decider of when you're going to die, why even bother to train. . . Whatever. That's not really the issue.

I think every martial arts contain techniques that were all highly relevant at the time of its creation. The arts existed within a context and trained to deal with the threats that were common in that time. They're still effective within those situations, but times change and those situations may not ever present themselves.

Take Koryu jujitsu or Western wrestling arts like Ringen, for example. They generally contain an emphasis on grapples and take-downs. There's usually some atemi/striking to be found in them, but striking is not the primary purpose of the art. They're really designed around the idea that you would most likely be going up against an armored individual. With a shortage of soft targets, striking is not your go-to option.

Does that mean Koryu jujitsu techniques are ineffective? No. It's an effective art for battle against an armored opponent, if unarmed is your only option. However, within the context we live in, we're unlikely to end up in a situation where we're fighting someone in armor. Worst case scenario, your opponent might have something akin to riot gear. Most targets will be a lot squishier, so there's no reason not to emphasize methods that capitalize on that fact.

My point is that the author's right that the techniques of any art are effective in the right context. However, that context might not exist anymore as a probable threat. It doesn't mean that those techniques should be forgotten or eliminated from the art, they should be passed down as a traditional part of the art. (Who knows, maybe they'll become more relevant to later generations?) I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that everything in an art is equally relevant though.

 

[Xue Sheng]

About to type something I hesitate to type because I don't want the flames....but this paragraph

I could go on and give thousands of examples on this issue, but the truth is actually very simple. You only need effective practice and time. Effective practice means that you have a partner who is continually trying to hit you in a weak point. It doesn't have to be fast at first, but it does have to really try to touch you. The first step is preventing someone from actually contacting you. Then as the movement becomes better you can increase speed, aggressiveness etc. Yet you do not have to go as fast or as hard as you think you do in order to be effective if you have done the movements hundreds of times. If you become injured during practice, you will ultimately become even less effective. You don't always have to drive a car at full speed to know how to drive.

Understand I am mainly a Traditional MA guy but it is that paragraph where many RBSD and sports based MA have the advantage over many TMAs. Not all because some delve right into high speed apps and you end up with something that is still not what you are training and other train for point strikes and that is not reality in my book either but some build and do rather well with that. There are a lot of TMAs out there that train to miss. They tend not to train strikes, even slow ones to hit when working on SD. Listen to Dr. John Painter talk about that and prove it at a seminar a while back. My second Xingyi shifu is the only guy that ever insisted on putting on gloves and working on apps of the xingyi teachers I have had. Others trained apps but never live while sparing.

of course now that I have said that it is likely I will not get invited to the TMA Christmas party this year but I am not a big fan of parties anyway

 

[K-man]

About to type something I hesitate to type because I don't want the flames....but this paragraph



Understand I am mainly a Traditional MA guy but it is that paragraph where many RBSD and sports based MA have the advantage over many TMAs. Not all because some delve right into high speed apps and you end up with something that is still not what you are training and other train for point strikes and that is not reality in my book either but some build and do rather well with that. There are a lot of TMAs out there that train to miss. They tend not to train strikes, even slow ones to hit when working on SD. Listen to Dr. John Painter talk about that and prove it at a seminar a while back. My second Xingyi shifu is the only guy that ever insisted on putting on gloves and working on apps of the xingyi teachers I have had. Others trained apps but never live while sparing.

of course now that I have said that it is likely I will not get invited to the TMA Christmas party this year but I am not a big fan of parties anyway

I might fan the flames by saying that if an MA is not training to hit it is not a TMA.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I might fan the flames by saying that if an MA is not training to hit it is not a TMA.

and I could say training to hit and hitting are not always the same thing....kind of like in aikido if all you ever deal with is an uke who jumps a little to help you along or falls before the app is actually applied....reality is really going to mess you up.

Knew a person who was in the (Guangzhou) Chinese opera (Taught me an opera staff form which was pretty cool, but a lot of flash) and they had a college that moved to the USA and that person was going to open a "Kung Fu School" The person I knew asked then how could they do that because they were all trained to miss. Looked a lot like a strike but it was still a miss.

There are many Martial arts schools that train apps but watch then throw a punch to initiate that app.....they are missing either to the side or falling way short of the target.

 

[Misplaced Swordsman]

As far as traditional martial arts being rendered obsolete as time passes I would have to disagree. Koryu jujitsu and Ringen may be primarily gear towards taking on armored opponents but are you saying that getting thrown on your *** in any way is not going to hurt physically or emotionally if done enough times? I don't think that is the case otherwise MMA fighters would not bother with any form or jujitsu or wrestling. Unless some sort of gear or Martial Art was created to directly prove any other Martial Art ineffective I don't think any will be rendered obsolete even if only for some sense of accomplishment.

As far as flashy martial arts that are 'trained to miss', there are still forms behind the movements. I would think that as a part of theater of course you see the obvious intention to miss a target, however, is not not possible to do so even whilst practicing to hit? This may be a difference between realistic training vs. choreographed moves. The choreographed moves are just that. They are practiced until the body learns them and then are performed and disregarded. The realistic training is in the forms which are worked into the body until memorization is no longer necessary and they are purely reactive. They can recreate the form with whatever intent they like whether they want to hit or miss and make it look semi-real no?

 

[Buka]

I really liked the language analogy. I'm stealing that and expounding on it further. The chess analogy was pretty good, too. I'll even go along with the God thing and thank Him for the holy hook kick. (no disrespect whatsoever intended)

As for the TMA and non TMA, I don't care. I know plenty of both and they all seem to kick my ***. To me, it's a wash.

 

[colemcm]

As far as traditional martial arts being rendered obsolete as time passes I would have to disagree. Koryu jujitsu and Ringen may be primarily gear towards taking on armored opponents but are you saying that getting thrown on your *** in any way is not going to hurt physically or emotionally if done enough times? I don't think that is the case otherwise MMA fighters would not bother with any form or jujitsu or wrestling. Unless some sort of gear or Martial Art was created to directly prove any other Martial Art ineffective I don't think any will be rendered obsolete even if only for some sense of accomplishment.

As far as flashy martial arts that are 'trained to miss', there are still forms behind the movements. I would think that as a part of theater of course you see the obvious intention to miss a target, however, is not not possible to do so even whilst practicing to hit? This may be a difference between realistic training vs. choreographed moves. The choreographed moves are just that. They are practiced until the body learns them and then are performed and disregarded. The realistic training is in the forms which are worked into the body until memorization is no longer necessary and they are purely reactive. They can recreate the form with whatever intent they like whether they want to hit or miss and make it look semi-real no?

Not what I was saying at all. I was saying that if you're facing a guy in full plate, it's a bad idea to think that unarmed striking is the way to go, hence the emphasis on grappling in systems that emerged when people were wearing armor. Since we don't generally wear armor anymore, striking is a valid tactic and restricting ourselves to grappling is not the best option. I never meant to imply that TMAs are obsolete, only that certain tactics become more or less effective depending on the context they're found in.