Do you know martial art? What kind? What Level?

[Flame]

So you do pratice often with kids? I'm receiving my nidan in January.

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by Flame

So you do pratice often with kids? I'm receiving my nidan in January.

Everyone together. We are a small dojo so I am often motodachi, anyway. I am pretty certain I have received enough full power men uchi to cause at least some brain damage

But that is part of it. Payback for the pain I caused to my sempai while I was still getting the basic basics

 

[DeSica]

I have a couple of friends who swear by Karate, but the research I have done seems to suggest that more direct systems, like Krav Maga, are best for most situations. It's designed for real world situations, like a mugging or a knife assault.

Wing Chun kung fu was developed by a chinese woman for self defense, and it stresses contact and fluid form, not kata and stuff learned by rote. Bruce Lee started out in this style, and then developed Jeet Kune Do.

Most MA guys I know say anything with too much jumping is crap. I have heard criticism of Tae Kwon Do as having too much kicking and jumping, and being more of a show sport.

Arnis/Kali/Escrima is supposed to be good. It incorporates many weapons, and deals with negating opponents weapons (like using your jacket against a knife).

I am interested in aikido, but have heard it takes a very, very long time to become proficient. A friend of mine is an aspiring ultimate fighter, and he uses kick boxing, wrestling and elements of ju jitsu for his training. It's all very ugly to watch, but effective.

 

[johnapril]

Originally Posted by DeSica

Arnis/Kali/Escrima is supposed to be good. It incorporates many weapons, and deals with negating opponents weapons (like using your jacket against a knife).

One way or the other you're going to get a hole in your jacket.

 

[DeSica]

Originally Posted by johnapril

One way or the other you're going to get a hole in your jacket.

Well said. If done right, one of the ways will mean only your jacket will need patching up. Actually, the Filipino dude I saw used his jacket twisted between his two hands, and managed to trap a knife attackers thrust and then swiftly disarm him. Jackie Chan sort of stuff, but as with any effective martial art, it seemed to be a combination of adaptability and intelligence on the fighter's part, as well as reflex and training. My friend trained in that stuff for a while, but never got past the stick fighting. That fancy weapons stuff comes later, naturally. Anyway, I don't know what we're all going on about. Everybody knows Jedi training trumps all that other stuff. Never mind a lead pipe, ever try blocking a light sabre strike with your forearm? (just ask Luke Skywalker)

 

[The Deacon]

Bottom line is some systems are actually better than others but maybe more importantly if you get a good system and work it, you'll be in the top percentile of very effective fighters and that should be OK. I used to think Karate was inferior till I saw The Cat Yamaguchi, smooth as hell and deadly. That shut me up regarding denigrating styles.

 

[odoreater]

Studies have shown that nobody reads e-mails and message board posts that are longer than five lines. Anecdotal evidence supports the study.

 

[The Deacon]

Good point.

 

[Mr. Checks]

Originally Posted by odoreater

Studies have shown that nobody reads e-mails and message board posts that are longer than five lines. Anecdotal evidence supports the study.

I did a post like yours a couple weeks ago; turned out it was the one long post that made everyone weep, some guy recounting 25 years of being in love with his wife, blah, blah, blah...

But, yeah

 

[vanity]

It's not the long post so much as thel abscence of paragraphs. People can read long works, provided they're broken up. Trying to read one huge run-on like that is damn near impossible w/o using your finger to read.

 

[odoreater]

Originally Posted by vanity

It's not the long post so much as thel abscence of paragraphs. People can read long works, provided they're broken up. Trying to read one huge run-on like that is damn near impossible w/o using your finger to read.

True. Btw, I didn't mean for the guy to edit his whole post, I'm sure there was some interesting stuff in there, it's just that, as you said, it was damn near impossible to read.

 

[vanity]

Ya, he should've just hit enter a few times to break-up the thoughts. I'm sure it was fine, just needed spacing.

 

[The Deacon]

Warning: If long laborious, semi-vain, admittedly underinformed posts annoy you, please skip this one. Otherwise, read it and respond if you like. The dialogue can be helpful. I'm always open to receiving constructive feedback.

I've studied chinese martial arts for the past 18 years. A chinese art I sampled that no one's mentioned is shuai chiao which is mongolian wrestling and is combat focused. It includes neck breaking techniques and other cripplers.

The Grandmaster was Chang Tung Shen and he taught here in the US(Ohio) toward the end of his life and was still strong as a bull, crisp and proficient til the end, rep was that he was undefeated in 100's of challenge matches against all comers and styles in China. He was into studying Chinese arts from the renowned masters and distilling what he felt worked martially and discarding flowery form.

As a result he formed Hsing-Jin,the essence of Hsing i, and Tai Chi Jin, the essence of tai chi, and Bagua Jin etc. This is in a Black Belt magazine from the eighties.He was extremely brutal except in casual settings and would introduce himself at seminars by dinging your balls or plum flower fisting the acu point above your lip drawing a drop of blood, true. I studied various shaolin arts like long fist and white crane, Shaolin animals but didn't need to be proficient to outspar upper level students because of athleticism.

Later l learned numerous chinese weapons, chin na, lohan training exercises, qigongs, Bagua chang or 8 diagram palm and Hsing i and tai chi but for forms purposes from someone who was not invested in teaching martially due to liability fears. This got me interested enough to research more and finally track down masters who wanted to teach MARTIAL and who learned directly from then living Grandmasters in given styles.

I learned some cheng bagua which is a grappling, joint lock oriented bagua but have happily ended up studying Yin Fu Bagua with He Jinbao from Beijing. In the 1880's Yin Fu was the senior most student of the art's founder Dong Hai Chuan and together they formed a protection company to protect rich people during trips, they also were the men who trained the Emperor's palace guard. Bagua protected the Emperor.

Yin Fu Bagua is not pretty, it is not flowing and flowery, it breaks bones, mangles and cripples it's opponent in a similar fashion as kajukempo. We use elbows, fists, backfist(wrist) forearms, palms, backs, butts, knees, heads, ankles, heels, shins, the whole body is trained to be a weapon. It is very clearly evident in the forms and drills we do. Everything is combat related, not a flower or non fighting move to be found.

From my earlier martial experiences, I understand how earlier posters who've seen other Bagua schools and non martial tai chi and hsingi schools can lump us all in one soft bag but that is a narrow and short sighted/ underinformed? position.

Generally an art and students proficiency depends on the schools focus and the work put in by the students. I challenge anyone to sample NY's hardnosed, well trained, Bagua expert Novell Bell and say he can't fight or He Jinbao. Jinbao accepts challenge matches in Beijing at his home. And when a foreigner wants to sample China's best fighter, that fighter is pointed towards Jinbao's door.

Not much ink for him but when the rubber hits the road, all other Chinese Beijing fighters take a step back for this guy. Special forces guys love sparring against him when he's here because they can go all out and know that they can't hurt him and he'll only tweak and bounce them. So many of my fellow Yin Style Bagua brothers used to teach Kenpo and TKD and are pissed that they wasted so much time because YSB has an answer for all that stuff.

Some of us have mixed martial arts experience and we like that stuff too and do not denigrate it because it's also for real and has effective ground stuff. We go to see the matches and there is a school down the block from us. Conversly,the head of the school drops by often and sees the merits of our approach.

If your style works against what you'll likely face, it's fine. I've seen a(then 20+ age) wrestler face off against an accomplished (then 20+) tai chi player and short of dropping chest to mat the wrestler could not drop lower than or gain any advantage over the tai chi player who happened to have highly developed rooting ability, speed, balance, strength,technique and knowledge of other styles.

 

[Eason]

Muay Thai (4 years), brazillian jiujitsu (stopped training 2 years ago) and I did like 1 year of Taekwondo in highschool and went to korea before I realized it sucked in the US. If you want to learn how to fight, you need to find a school that trains effective, realistic techniques in an alive setting. You must spar. You must get hit. You will not like it, but there is no easy "magic" way. Start by reading this: http://www.straightblastgym.com/aliveness101.html Or, if you're the youtube type: in video form SBG is the gym I trained at.

 

[Eason]

Originally Posted by mizanation

gradstudent, you are making some of this up. this is a bad habit, especially for a gradstudent.

first of all, there is absolutely NO proof that "a subgroup of practioners became specialized at breaking fingers to get quick submissions".

finger breaking in pankration is mentioned 2 times in history. one of the times it is by Pausanias, who wrote about his travels to Greece, saying that "it is said that" Leontiskos of Messene won by twisting fingers. the other time finger-breaking is mentioned, it is on a 6th century B.C. inscription BANNING the breaking of fingers in pankration. please read this thorough history on pankration: http://historical-pankration.com/art...wrestling.html

so, we don't know for sure if finger-breaking was allowed or not, or if it was banned later, or whatever. we do know that large joint locks were allowed and used effectively. now, i want to talk about finger breaking.

have you ever tried to break the fingers of someone who doesn't want you to break their fingers? of course, it is VERY simple to break the digits of the hand. that is not the easy part, gradstudent. the hard part is holding someone down while imobilizing the arm so that they will allow you to break their fingers. it's very hard to do this standing up, almost impossible because your opponent can move around, hit, etc. this is why when aikido people try to do standing joint locks in real life, they fail miserably. if you grab someone's fingers while standing, they will punch you, move around, grab you, head butt, etc... just doesn't work. SO, you must do it on the ground. you have to know how to control the person on the ground, how to hold him down, how to control his arm and then break the fingers. you wouldn't know this if you just trained finger breaking on a cooperative opponent. this is why i stress the importance of training alive.

any idiot can break someone's finger. let's say that your imaginary clan of finger breakers existed. you say they specialized in finger breaking, how hard is it to specialize in breaking the smallest bones in the body? you also said that they were poor at other techniques. so, how did they get in a position to apply their deadly finger breaking techniques??? how did they defend against techniques applied by their opponent?

this is my main argument against the people (mostly "traditional chinese martial artists") who say, "i'll just break his fingers" or "i'll just gouge out his eyes." if you can't hold someone down and imobilize their arm, how are you going to break their fingers? if you can't hit an actively resisting opponent, how are you going to gouge out their eyes? please realize i am not saying that breaking a guys finger or pulling out their eyes is not effective. but, you have to have other skills to do this. also, finger breaking will not stop a fight. people break fingers and continue to fight all the time. however, breaking a large joint like a elbow, shoulder or knee, almost always stops the fight.

OK. now let me give you a better example.

in japan, during the feudal age, there were many styles of jujitsu. these styles were used by the samurai for combat without a sword. these techniques included striking, eye gouging, small joint manipulation (your deadly finger breaking), throws that would simultaneous break the opponents arm, on top of chokes, joint locks and ground control. brutal techniques (especially the fatal finger breaking), but very hard to train realistically.

a guy name jigoro kano had a great idea. he theorized that training the less dangerous techniques realistically would give better results than training the very dangerous techniques unrealistically. he was right. thus the birth of judo. judo practicioners wiped the floor with the old-school jujitsu guys (even with their arsenal of deadly techniques) because the jujitsu guys were not training realistically. the judo fighters trained the less dangerous moves over and over again in an alive setting. the lack of "deadly techniques" allowed them to develop the more important skills of body control, movement, leverage, etc... against an unwilling, uncooperative opponent. sounds familiar?

in brazil, fights occur (and have been for a long time) where biting, eye-gouging and finger manipulation is fair game. BJJ and luta livre fighters still win.

in catch wrestling, manipulating fingers and putting pressure on your opponent's eyes is called ripping. it sets up your other techniques. but to apply a rip, you have to have control of your opponent. again, a deadly finger break is not possible without having other skills.

in vale tudo japan, yuki nakai, a 150 pound submission figher, fought Gerard Gordeau, a 215 pound champion in kyokushin (bare knuckle) karate and savate (french kickboxing) who knew no grappling. although gordeau repeatedly gouged nakai's eye during the match, yuki nakai defeated gordeau by heel-hook. later, nakai beat craig pittman a 270 pound wrestler by armbar. he lost in the finals to rickson gracie. so, sometimes eye-gouging is not as deadly as it sounds. nakai did receive permanent damage though.

ok, finally...

so you do agree that mma is close to real combat. but you also say that because of other factors, like terrain conditions, etc., that it is not realistic.

ok, fine. so how do you train for these unexpected conditions? people have developed simulation training where you simulate these strange conditions. simulating fighting in bars, in uneven terrain, etc... what happens is that the people who have the strongest foundation in realistic combat arts do the best, regardless of the environment.

sorry for the long post...

I was though that this thread would be full of bullshit, but at least not all of it, by your post.