Why do Westerners train in exotic unrealistic weapons and ignore practical ones like baseball bats?

[skribs]

Fine. But does IDPA prepare you for a home invasion?

Better than just plinking at a static target from a static position.

 

[drop bear]

I did set the criteria to be "the common criminal". The ring is irrelivent. I wouldnt step foot in it, unless i needed money and got paid irrelivent if i won a match or not.

We can look at the progress of that Rokus guy from years of Aikido training to one fight camp.

Regardless of your intention to learn martial arts having ring experience isn't irrelevant.

There are a lot of factors that win fights that are not really technique based. And understanding how those factors play out is really important.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

I agree, but I think in this particular case he has a point, to which the response has been essentially “it cannot be done without good instruction first”.

I think that response is inaccurate.

And i have also all ready put several times if you go and seek accurate and good training it can make a diffrence. But most people wont (opponents), especially for weapons or have any good ones for weapons for it to make much of a diffrence. And if you spar with somone, and have a manual on the basics you could probbably pick them up for most weapons to be acceptable if you fight or be compartive with a low level person at a legitimate place.

And lastly I will say that this holds true for firearms as well. I grew up around guns, did a modest amount of hunting, have shot a variety of long guns and a smaller variety of handguns.

To my knowledge there are some people in the firearms commmunity that have the view that say hunting, doesnt translate to you using a firearm well/you cant learn much/anything by doing it. So this argument is present in plenty of places. And type of target matters as each diffrent type focus's on soemthing. Practical shooting generally translates especially with some org's/comeptions to realstic shooting. So that gets less flak.

Actually, bro, it does matter.

It's kind of like saying all food is the same regardless of what restaurant or home you eat it in.

If you are hungry, it doesnt matter much. The status of if you can cook or not, is just if you can process food so it doesnt cause poisoning, not if it tastes good. It becomes a you eat or you die situation.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

We can look at the progress of that Rokus guy from years of Aikido training to one fight camp.

Regardless of your intention to learn martial arts having ring experience isn't irrelevant.

There are a lot of factors that win fights that are not really technique based. And understanding how those factors play out is really important.

i dont dispute fully. But the intended reply was, there are alternatives to it. And the issue i have is, how many people who you would run into would have such expereince, and the people who go to competions generally have varying amounts of preparation beforehand. going from the people who have spent every day for the last month preparing to somone doing something 2 days before. And i did state beforehand what i belive is a alternative to competions should be done. (sparring) I dont dispute they are good at exposing yourself to new opponents and training methods etc.

And these dont really exist that much for weapons with realstic rulesets. (im aware example is unarmed to a unarmed point, i was just making the point they are less common for weapons) and weapon competions have more concessions made for safety usually. You can pick fault with many ruleset's, dont get me wrong.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

thers a lot there so lets just pick a representave point,

the intuativness of weasons

so hitting a fast moving base ball with a bat is a simple intuitive thing. yet most people picking up a bat for the first time will not hit it cleanly or more like at all. maybe a glancing blow one in ten

if the same person picks up a bat for the similar intuitive action of hitting someone with it. if that person is taking evasive action. why do you think there success rate will be considerably higher ?

I will bite for the representative point.


There is some inutunivity to weapons.


I never stated it was simple, i stated the motion of moving the bat in a swing is simple and comes to most people. And especially as many countries do a bat sport or if yours does baseball, it will at least be in some sort of memory how ever vivid for most people.

But, i did state to SPAR. and going back about the heavy bag, thats not the only target you can use for weapons training like its not for unarmed. There are like in unarmed, targets you can make react more. And even if you only had access and couldnt make your own, you could use the more reactive unarmed equipment. Plus for the 7th time, SPARRING.

this entire situation is, you have done some home training with said weapon or a compartive object to said weapon.

 

[jobo]

I will bite for the representative point.


There is some inutunivity to weapons.


I never stated it was simple, i stated the motion of moving the bat in a swing is simple and comes to most people. And especially as many countries do a bat sport or if yours does baseball, it will at least be in some sort of memory how ever vivid for most people.

But, i did state to SPAR. and going back about the heavy bag, thats not the only target you can use for weapons training like its not for unarmed. There are like in unarmed, targets you can make react more. And even if you only had access and couldnt make your own, you could use the more reactive unarmed equipment. Plus for the 7th time, SPARRING.

this entire situation is, you have done some home training with said weapon or a compartive object to said weapon.

you can't spar with a baseball bat.

if your doing some half heart swinging in the vicinity of another person, then you'll never hit someone agile as the bat is moving to slowly. and the body mechanics are all wrong. if people have to learn through coaching or practice to swing a bat and hit a target its not intuitive, its a learned movement and coordination

you can't spar anything in slow motion or rather you can but it doesn't help your full speed performance at all

when was the last time you saw a soccer player kicking a ball in slow motion

 

[Deleted member 39746]

you can't spar with a baseball bat.

if your doing some half heart swinging in the vicinity of another person, then you'll never hit someone agile as the bat is moving to slowly. and the body mechanics are all wrong. if people have to learn through coaching or practice to swing a bat and hit a target its not intuitive, its a learned movement and coordination

you can't spar anything in slow motion or rather you can but it doesn't help your full speed performance at all

when was the last time you saw a soccer player kicking a ball in slow motion

I will dispute, but as no real training version exists a staff the length of one seems a acceptable substitite. I belive using it how i detailed several pages ago with restriaint would be safer and easier to spar with. Also if you use sufficent PPE it makes it safer and easier.

Two points exist here: you can hone intutive skill via self study. and you can also teach yourself some skills effectively via self study.


You dont go 100% in sparring*, even in unarmed or its fighting. You pull hits etc. when was the last time you saw two people with sharp sabres and no armour go at it? there are issues related to that as well if no intent to kill or maim exists as they wont aim for the head nor torso and only clip the arms at less lethal angles etc.

you can find on youtube (i belive) a video of HEMA practice where they do that, and i saw a reviewer make the point of, they arent learning to fight with them or else they would start killing and maiming each other a lot more. Rather than just cutting arms. Basically, they wont be aiming to kill each other nor inflict significant harm so wont aim for the obvious targets and make you not defend them. You dont need to be a rocket scentist nor some form of expert to see that as a problem.

Like if you knock somone down in boxing, you arent going to run over and jump on their head a dozen times. (unless you want to kill them or severaly hurt them, but thats besides the point) if you both agreed to boxing sparring, and if somone falls down, you are going to stop, or you are no longer sparring, nor doing boxing sparring.


*Slight correction/eleboration. You are going to go as fast as you can do safely, that varies per person. Still no one should, or would give it their all in sparring and still call it sparring.

Addendum: I belive, somone can correct me if i wrong, the bastion in some Filipino styles has training which adapts it into some form of baseball bat substitite. Sometimes they do two hands on the stick for some strikes, and the length can be the same length as a bat. thats what i meant when i wrote that.

 

[jobo]

I will dispute, but as no real training version exists a staff the length of one seems a acceptable substitite. I belive using it how i detailed several pages ago with restriaint would be safer and easier to spar with. Also if you use sufficent PPE it makes it safer and easier.

Two points exist here: you can hone intutive skill via self study. and you can also teach yourself some skills effectively via self study.


You dont go 100% in sparring*, even in unarmed or its fighting. You pull hits etc. when was the last time you saw two people with sharp sabres and no armour go at it? there are issues related to that as well if no intent to kill or maim exists as they wont aim for the head nor torso and only clip the arms at less lethal angles etc.

you can find on youtube (i belive) a video of HEMA practice where they do that, and i saw a reviewer make the point of, they arent learning to fight with them or else they would start killing and maiming each other a lot more. Rather than just cutting arms. Basically, they wont be aiming to kill each other nor inflict significant harm so wont aim for the obvious targets and make you not defend them. You dont need to be a rocket scentist nor some form of expert to see that as a problem.

Like if you knock somone down in boxing, you arent going to run over and jump on their head a dozen times. (unless you want to kill them or severaly hurt them, but thats besides the point) if you both agreed to boxing sparring, and if somone falls down, you are going to stop, or you are no longer sparring, nor doing boxing sparring.


*Slight correction/eleboration. You are going to go as fast as you can do safely, that varies per person. Still no one should, or would give it their all in sparring and still call it sparring.

Addendum: I belive, somone can correct me if i wrong, the bastion in some Filipino styles has training which adapts it into some form of baseball bat substitite. Sometimes they do two hands on the stick for some strikes, and the length can be the same length as a bat. thats what i meant when i wrote that.

baseball bats are designed to be very effective at one thing, in one orientation, any other use is then fighting the design.

have you ever been hit with a BBB, they hurt, no amount of protective equipment short of a fat suit is going to make them suitable for high impact sparing, even a crash helmet will leave you confused on the floor if someone wacks you.

if you replace them with a staff that has much different weight and weight distribution then the body mechanics changes considerably, you are now learning to fight with a short staff, which is a good idea as its a much better weapon, it wont help you with your intended goal of being proficient with a BBB, possibly slightly less inept

the definition of intuitive is that done by instinct, as soon as your being coached its clear that the designed movements were not there instinctively

sparing is practice , you need to practice giving it your all, or at some point you need to give it you all and wont be able to

 

[skribs]

Two points exist here: you can hone intutive skill via self study. and you can also teach yourself some skills effectively via self study.

As has been said many times, no you can't. I've shared my experience as a student and a teacher. I've linked videos of other highly respected martial arts instructors saying the same thing. Several people in this thread alone have said the same thing. When training on your own, you have no frame of reference for your own faults and failings that a coach could correct. You have no guidance from senior students that could mentor you. You may spar with your friends, but without guidance and feedback on your sparring, you're mostly just playing around.

You think you can do it on your own, but it doesn't work like that. You simply don't know what you don't know. You think you're doing great, but that's because you're not taking a class to get your technique critiqued, and you're not sparring against competent opponents in order to test your skills. Since you're not getting critiqued, and you are comparable to the people you spar against in your private training (I'm guessing based on context), you've allowed yourself to believe that your technique is fine.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

baseball bats are designed to be very effective at one thing, in one orientation, any other use is then fighting the design.

have you ever been hit with a BBB, they hurt, no amount of protective equipment short of a fat suit is going to make them suitable for high impact sparing, even a crash helmet will leave you confused on the floor if someone wacks you.

if you replace them with a staff that has much different weight and weight distribution then the body mechanics changes considerably, you are now learning to fight with a short staff, which is a good idea as its a much better weapon, it wont help you with your intended goal of being proficient with a BBB, possibly slightly less inept

the definition of intuitive is that done by instinct, as soon as your being coached its clear that the designed movements were not there instinctively

sparing is practice , you need to practice giving it your all, or at some point you need to give it you all and wont be able to

The specfic context for the bat, is making a improvised weapon work. And as a quick google for injuries/attacks with bats will show, several people have gone to hospital with injuries related to assualt with one. and other improvised weapons fall under this. Many weapons work better than others, no dispute, nor have i ever disputed this.


My statement was a acceptable replacement. To which a stick the length of it, should be a suitable replacement for sparring, if you then do practice with the ordinary bat on targets. (i have stated this several times, do i need to write it again that i dont think the bat is the ubermensh of weapons?) Also, suffcient amount of armour WITH suffcient restraint would mitagate a lot of the potional for injury. So you could use a bat sometimes for sparring, but mainly use a staff/stick and use the bat mainly on targets/ in"drills".

As i have wrote before (unless i vastly mis wrote to my intended point) If you take a baseball bat and use isntictive movement to train, you could use it effectively to fight AND you could pick up some aspects of fighting with certain weapons quicker and easier than others. Two seperate points i belive i have made, that are being converged into one. If its my doing they are converged into one, its my doing, but i am correcting it now.

The point of training is (in this context): To practice and build up, atributes, techniques/concepts, tactics and concepts for fighting in the real world. while mitgating as much as possible the risks and dnagers involved. I dont dispute armed training is harder to do (especially sparring), but unarmed has its own issues and caviates etc. They are done as close as you can get to reality.

Unless you share the view that military porgramms are inferior because they dont shoot live ammo at people, i dont see your point here. It just looks like you are expecting me to mitigate the problems training has, when it plauges all training. Everything has pros and cons. I cannot change the cons of something, without changing what i do.

 

[ShortBridge]

Since YouTube is the ultimate source of truth, here's a clip from an excellent documentary on this very subject.

 

[Prostar]

I'm sure no one would have any problem with me walking around the Baltimore Inner Harbor with a baseball bat. Any zombies I find there would be especially freaked out.

I trained with a few weapons but I live in a world of stuff. If I find myself in a position of needing more than empty hands I pay attention to the stuff that is around me.

 

[drop bear]

baseball bats are designed to be very effective at one thing, in one orientation, any other use is then fighting the design.

have you ever been hit with a BBB, they hurt, no amount of protective equipment short of a fat suit is going to make them suitable for high impact sparing, even a crash helmet will leave you confused on the floor if someone wacks you.

if you replace them with a staff that has much different weight and weight distribution then the body mechanics changes considerably, you are now learning to fight with a short staff, which is a good idea as its a much better weapon, it wont help you with your intended goal of being proficient with a BBB, possibly slightly less inept

the definition of intuitive is that done by instinct, as soon as your being coached its clear that the designed movements were not there instinctively

sparing is practice , you need to practice giving it your all, or at some point you need to give it you all and wont be able to

By the way foam baseball bats are probably the easiest training tool to get.

Just go in to a toy store

 

[Tez3]

I pay attention to the stuff that is around me.

Bas Rutten's philosophy.

 

[jobo]

The specfic context for the bat, is making a improvised weapon work. And as a quick google for injuries/attacks with bats will show, several people have gone to hospital with injuries related to assualt with one. and other improvised weapons fall under this. Many weapons work better than others, no dispute, nor have i ever disputed this.


My statement was a acceptable replacement. To which a stick the length of it, should be a suitable replacement for sparring, if you then do practice with the ordinary bat on targets. (i have stated this several times, do i need to write it again that i dont think the bat is the ubermensh of weapons?) Also, suffcient amount of armour WITH suffcient restraint would mitagate a lot of the potional for injury. So you could use a bat sometimes for sparring, but mainly use a staff/stick and use the bat mainly on targets/ in"drills".

As i have wrote before (unless i vastly mis wrote to my intended point) If you take a baseball bat and use isntictive movement to train, you could use it effectively to fight AND you could pick up some aspects of fighting with certain weapons quicker and easier than others. Two seperate points i belive i have made, that are being converged into one. If its my doing they are converged into one, its my doing, but i am correcting it now.

The point of training is (in this context): To practice and build up, atributes, techniques/concepts, tactics and concepts for fighting in the real world. while mitgating as much as possible the risks and dnagers involved. I dont dispute armed training is harder to do (especially sparring), but unarmed has its own issues and caviates etc. They are done as close as you can get to reality.

Unless you share the view that military porgramms are inferior because they dont shoot live ammo at people, i dont see your point here. It just looks like you are expecting me to mitigate the problems training has, when it plauges all training. Everything has pros and cons. I cannot change the cons of something, without changing what i do.

well yes, if you want to be '' effective'' change what you do. your training in a very small bubble, sooner or later your bubble will burst and you will see how inferior the '' training you do, do is !

to be honest its the same problem a lot of training that is never proved has, except you've taken it to a whole new level of self delusion because your hitting nothing but thin air (or maybe a punch bag ? even a compliant partner give a level of realism that is escaping you at the moment)

it doesn't matter if its a bat or your fist, if you cant hit your target the technique is useless, people dont usually stand there and let you hit them, particularly if you waving a base ball bat about, as ive explained several times, you get one swing with a BBB against anything like a competent opponent.n then your completely out of position and he ( or she) will take you out

so if you cant hit a moving target first go, you've lost, and speaking personally if someone had the temerity to try and hit me with a bat i would make them pay dearly when i got hold of them

 

[jobo]

By the way foam baseball bats are probably the easiest training tool to get.

Just go in to a toy store

i dont think they are any easier to get than toy swords, and about as useful

 

[JowGaWolf]

It leads me to ask why so many Westerners tend to search out specifically to train in weapons that are impossible to find in daily life and are often illegel or even impractical to carry around.

I'm late to the game on this one. I can only say this from my perspective

Martial artists in general enjoy the art of fighting. Which means they have a passion for it beyond the everyday self-defense needs. Preservation of accurate history is one of the highest things you can in your life, be it your family history or in our case combat history. Stuff like this plays an important role in building and maintaining cultures and cultural lessons. It means we don't have to always start over to learn lessons that were already taught. Many of us have passion for fighting systems beyond the fight.

Don't get into the habit of throwing things away simply because "it's no longer used" or because "its not used."

Traditional Medicine
Classic car
Old Comic books
Old money. (Kept in good condition, which is like keeping martial arts techniques accurate in good condition).

There are many things that are old, that a more valuable and than some of the things that are new and used everyday.. New things are important too, but much of it doesn't carry the same weight as things of history.

Me learning how to fight with swords, staffs, double daggers isn't because I think I'm going to be using them in self-defense during my everyday travels. I also don't see it as outdated. It's great for mental and physical development, it helps to bring a better understanding of things in general outside of the world of fighting. And it's stuff that actually works and technically would could still use it today.

Old does not always mean outdated and useless.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

By the way foam baseball bats are probably the easiest training tool to get.

Just go in to a toy store

you know whats funny, i had a thought that they did toy bats in the back of my head while writing all of that. and how i swear i have seen some videos of some people use them, or at least where they hold their home made foam stick makes it look like a bat.


They are damn easy to get though, both their toy and normal counter parts.

 

[Flying Crane]

Old does not always mean outdated and useless.

Can I get a hallelujah.

 

[RTKDCMB]

A word of advice: If you are going to fight zombies then don't use a flamethrower, because, not only will the zombies still be after you, they will also be on fire. Your situation would not have improved.