Social Media Naysayers

[Hot Lunch]

So aside from added mass and being able to muscle techniques into working. What really are the benefits of great physical strength in fighting?

Remember the tell-all book by Jose Canseco about rampant steroid use in baseball? I never read it myself, but I remember all the hoopla when it when it was released.

So why would baseball players be interested in steroids? Likely the following:

1. Enables pitchers to throw harder and faster, increasing the likelihood of strikeout.
2. Enables batters to swing harder and faster, which has two benefits:
- Increases the likelihood of a homerun
- Allows batters to delay the swing and keep their eye on the ball longer
3. Gets the ball to the bases faster, increasing the number outs on the part of the runners, and
4. Reduces the likelihood of bases being successfully stolen.

If increased physical strength does this for baseball, then how can it not do anything for martial arts?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Okay. The only viable solution I see is... we get me and @isshinryuronin to learn and perform an XMA kata, and @Steve and @drop bear to learn and perform a traditional kata. We film them, then post and share! @JowGaWolf can be adjudicator.

How is this a solution I hear you ask? Well okay, it doesn't really solve anything, but heck it'd be so fetch seeing that!

Yes! I want to see this! I second your idea.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Every kung fu guy who has come though our school has not been able to finish our conditioning.

They just are not fit.

I believe you, but it’s sad. It’s why I focus on fitness, balance, coordination, and posture.You can take those things and use them regardless of style. Being fit will help everything else, not just fighting, but that too. I find that I am more able to explore other gyms and other martial arts experiences because I’m fit, I have good balance, posture and coordination. It lends itself to any activity, which IMO is more useful and valuable to me in my daily life. My teachers were of the opinion that if you gas at the workout, you aren’t able to effectively learn martial arts anyway.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Every kung fu guy who has come though our school has not been able to finish our conditioning.

They just are not fit.

Did any stay and become able?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Which is the point of compound movements. Which just make you strong.

Rather than isolated movements which make you strong in specific areas.

Which some gung fu excels at. It depends. You can’t lump all gung fu practices just like not all BJJ is equal.

 

[Badhabits]

Remember the tell-all book by Jose Canseco about rampant steroid use in baseball? I never read it myself, but I remember all the hoopla when it when it was released.

So why would baseball players be interested in steroids? Likely the following:

1. Enables pitchers to throw harder and faster, increasing the likelihood of strikeout.
2. Enables batters to swing harder and faster, which has two benefits:
- Increases the likelihood of a homerun
- Allows batters to delay the swing and keep their eye on the ball longer
3. Gets the ball to the bases faster, increasing the number outs on the part of the runners, and
4. Reduces the likelihood of bases being successfully stolen.

If increased physical strength does this for baseball, then how can it not do anything for martial arts?

Good point. Sounds like all those things have to do with being able to explosively accelerate your mass/skeleton into motion faster correct? Guess I was thinking more along the lines of hulk smash strength

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Every kung fu guy who has come though our school has not been able to finish our conditioning.

They just are not fit.

One of my students was in United States Marine Corps. When I asked him to do the "uphill single leg hopping with wooden fence pole", he said Kung Fu training is harder than his marine corps training.

Some Kung Fu training is hard.

 

[Cri70]

So aside from added mass and being able to muscle techniques into working. What really are the benefits of great physical strength in fighting?

In any unarmed combat situation, having proper skills means that you rely on biomechanics to maximize the result given your strength. You get much more out of each movement, so to say. The more you are skilled and the less is your opponent, the more this moves probabilities in your favor.

However "much more" may not mean "enough" - also considering that very rarely any application will be optimal: you aim for the optimal, but any confrontation is messy and chaotic.

So having great physical strength may allow an opponent to overcome your attempt even when it's properly executed, or you to overcome his. In other words, it moves the probabilities in the opposite direction. You can be as good as you want in throwing, but nobody can throw an elephant, or a truck.

It's also the reason for which, everything else being equal, the probabilities are always in favor of the people with the greater physical strength (usually the size) and stamina. Speed (and therefore power) and precision can compensate, but for the biggest person it's enough to hit you once...

 

[Stuarto]

I agree with you on this. This is why I say that I have never talk to anyone who does XMA who claimed to be a fighter. I have talked about good martial artists in terms of XMA. I have met many people who claim to be good in Kung Fu not because they were fighters but because they were good at the forms.

The reason you probably don't know if they consider themselves to be good fighters because that's not where there goal is. Being a good fighter doesn't help them achieve what they are doing. To be honest being a good fighter is irrelevant to XMA. I don't know anyone who trains it that has delusions about their fighting abilities. They have a better grasp than many Kung Fu folks out there who train forms and make claims that they can beat anyone even though they don't train fighting.

I would also not "put words in XMA's mouth" by saying that their acrobatics make fighting footwork easier. I have never hear anyone from XMA in person or in video make that claim or come close to it. If I was going to say anything like that, I would say that such comments are more fitting for Kung Fu than anything else. I like Kung Fu but I also know that not everyone trains Kung Fu for fighting.

Many of the people who do XMA usually have their eyes on something bigger than fighting. From what I understand, this is where many top XMA practitioners show up

This is where many Wushu performers end up

Not everyone has the goal to be fighters and it doesn't make the hard work that they put into it less demanding.

That girl is on fire