[Freestyle/Sporting MA] From Ring to Street!

I understand Tkd.

 

<On a side note, the only instance I know of, where a Martial Artist actually killed someone was in the UK. It wasn't on the mat, but 'on the street'. >
one same incident which comes in my mind is about one of my teacher's teacher who got 6 months house arrest when he knocked one guy in one kick. the guy was thrice the big to that teacher...n after hitting he went in to coma...not sure the timings of this incident...
he was 2 times world champion in around 1978 in TKD
-TkdWarrior-

 

Ah Tkdwarrior in ur last post u said the magic words exactly, I just was'nt sure how to put the words

|Cain|

 

Hmmmm...... listening..............this is all very interesting...learning a lot. The street...the competitions, what do they have in common, a lot and yet not a lot.

 

Hi Andy

Sorry to take so long to get back to you.

Rant mode engaged...

I don't think I was being very articulate. I'll try again. In my opinion the techniques of classical karate are often quite different from traditional or sport karate. Classical karate techniques are generally close to mid-range. These are well suited to real combat. The techniques of traditional and sport karate are much closer to each other and are generally mid to long-range. So most karate sparring is in the mid to long (usually very long) range. These techniques are not so well suited to real combat.

Maybe quality instruction should improve this ability, but I go by the maxim "how you train is how you react". So if you spend the majority of your time training in relatively safe dynamic sporting techniques that is how you will react in reality. If you train with both scenarios in mind then yes, at least you have a chance of pulling the appropriate technique out of the bag. But for me personally, I prefer to spend 100% of my training time on the sort of techniques I would use in self-defence. As for my students, they will never get over-excited and throw a head height kick because they don't learn to do it in the first place.

So many people say 'in sport I'll do this, but in self-defence I'd do this instead'. But from what I've seen if they spend the vast majority of their time practising the sport option, then they fail to pull out the self-defence option when they really need. I've done this myself, I was just lucky that I got away without serious injury.

I think I can agree with that. But this is my whole point really. If karate style sparring is used as one exercise amongst many then I think it has value. And I'm sure that there are quite a few people who use it in that way. But when a large part of your training is geared towards success in this activity, to the detriment of other training drills, then I think it becomes a foolhardy activity, possibly even worsening your self-defence abilities. From what I've seen in the karate world, the majority of clubs have this approach.

I think that every drill has strengths and weaknesses. The idea is to pick up the good points from any one drill without acquiring the bad habits it can induce if practiced too much. The strengths of one drill may help overcome the weaknesses of another. For example, hitting someone with body armour on can help to counteract the tendency to pull punches in sparring.

Rant overload error....meltdown imminent...

My own real bugbears about sparring include the following:

1. Unrealistic distance. In karate sparring you typically pull the punch on contact. Fine, but what usually seems to be encouraged is that you stop the punch at its maximum extension, with the arm completely or very nearly straight at the point the knuckles connect with the target. So even if you wanted to transmit the force of the blow to the other person you couldn't - you're too far away. My preferred way is to not take the punch to its maximum extension, but rather to have it bent at the moment of impact, as if you were actually going to hit the target. I don't really understand why this isn't the accepted method of practice in karate, its straightforward enough. Several times in the past I've sparred with people in a competitive environment with a referree and consistently failed to score with my punches because they were not focussed at the 'correct' distance. I was either too far away or too close. So head punches that I knew would have had a significant effect failed to score! Why? As far as I could tell because they didn't look pretty.

2. Striking then backing off. In karate sparring lets say you score with your reverse punch then you back off out of range. This is completely contrary to how I think you should act in a real combat situation. Basically you hit the aggressor and you keep hitting (or whatever) them until they go down and you can either control them or escape. Once I've made physical contact I want to keep that contact until the situation is over. This, I feel, is a much safer approach - human responses to tactile stimuli is faster and more appropriate than to visual stimuli, so if I can feel you I am in a better position to control you. I can cite at least one study which demonstrates this.

3. Point 2 works the other way round. When you do karate sparring you're used to an attacker who strikes and backs off, strikes and backs off. I've rarely seen a real aggressor do this. Typically they wade in, keep punching, and end up grabbing you if you haven't already grabbed them.


I can think of other bugbears but that's enough to satiate my need to rant for the moment.

Mike

 

Hey Mike, you rant like a little girl.

1/

How you train is how you react? Are we all mindless automatons to be trained in this way? Of course if all you do is Sort techniques with no reference to real fighting, the this is detrimental. I have merely been suggesting there are some good things to learn from tournaments of any kind. Incidentally, the type of competition I was using as my own personal point of reference is very different to the Karate sparring you have described.

2/

I know what you are getting at, though I wasn't really thinking about Karate.

3/

Yes yes yes.....hallelujah, praise Mr Hankie the Xmas poo.
Comprehension, modification & awareness!

4/

This has little to do with what I was trying to get from the thread, but I do reckon it's time we had a good thread of discussion re the different modes of sparring.

Andrew Green earlier stated that I was comparing Ice Hockey to Baseball. I don't feel that this is the case. If you did competitive wrestling in High School, it would enhance your groundfighting. If you competed in say Thai Boxing you would have the basis of some good leg and elbow skills (understatement or what). I haven't been saying go fight points, just trying to say there are some merits.

Sadly no one has really asked me what these are

 

Re: Hey Mike, you rant like a little girl.

Actually when it comes to violent confrontation I think we do tend towards being mindless automata. And I do think that cutting down the number of choices we make, makes it easier for us to make those choices. In my own experience I know for a fact that if I train to kick to the body but think "in reality I'd kick the legs/groin" then actually in reality I kick to the body. Maybe not everyone reacts like this but I know for a fact that I do. So whilst I do like to have choices in terms of the severity of my responses, I shy away from having responses for different environments, ie. competition or self-defence. It just makes things to confusing for me.

I have to agree with that, I never meant to suggest otherwise. But I think there may be other exercises that can teach some of the same things better, or some the same things without picking up some of the bad habits of tournament sparring.

Ah, I wondered if you'd spot the deliberate flaw in my argument. I will acknowledge that there are different forms of sparring and that some are more useful than others.

Agreed, any form of sparring will have something useful to teach.

Oh go on then, I can see you're dying to tell us.....

Personally I think the single most useful aspect of sparring is simply that its a spontaneous exchange of techniques. There are other exercises that will teach spontaneity but sparring is another useful one.

Mike

 

As Yoda said; at school we learn many subjects but we don't start trying to do English in a Maths class.

The mind can take in a lot of things, its wrong to assume we'll react without thought. I think the problem would be only learning English, then we'd probably try to do English in a Maths class!

After training in a sport way, does that mean we'll fight in a sport way, I don't think so. Unless thats the way you always train, without also doing some real combat training.

 

if u thinkin about CQC then i guess u shouldn't mind checking the abusive, brutal reality based "underground forums"
www.gutterfighting.org
is just a door ajar...
rest is urs to explore...
-TkdWarrior-

 

You can probably tell I have a real hang up about this. Problem is my early training was totally the sport way. Second problem is that I/we didn't realise this. Our instructors told us this was martial art, self-defence or whatever you want to call it. But it wasn't. It was a mixture of martial sport and self-development. My early instructors completely hoodwinked their students in this regard. But I don't believe it was deliberate. They were hoodwinked in the same way themselves. Next problem is that most Karate and Taekwondo training that I've seen is conducted in a similar fashion. I think the same criticism can be made, but to a lesser extent, of many Ju-jitsu schools, although admittedly I have less experience in this area. I realise there are people who don't fit this mould, but in the karate world they are definitely in the minority in my experience.

First fight I was involved in after taking up karate I was about 12 years old. I stepped back into a long stance and got punched on the nose as I did so. Next one, a year or two later the lad shook my hand after an argument, turned to walk away then turned round and punched me on the nose. First fight as a young adult I punched the other fella in the face with a 'perfectly' distanced gyaku-tsuki (reverse punch). I'd have got ippon (full point) in any competition. But sadly there was no referee to score the point and the lad just stood there looking confused, not able to understand why I had touched him rather than hitting him.

These are simple mistakes and easily enough corrected. So I have to wonder why, after 2 or 3 years of training, my teachers had failed so miserably to prepare me for even the mildest of violent confrontations.

So yes, I acknowledge that you can do sport and self-defence under one roof. But I suspect that you'll do better at each by doing it to the exclusion of the other.


Sorry, I just don't seem to be able to get off this damned soapbox for more than 5 minutes.

Mike

 

I'm seeing now why we perhaps have a slight difference of opinion/experience here Mike. I started training later in life than you, and was perhaps a little more questioning of what I was being taught. I am familiar with the type of Instruction you say received, and like you, I seek to better it, in my own development, and in others.

I have no desire to upset you, but I would say the example you gave, of being 12 years old and reacting like you had been trained, is not the fault so much of the system you were being taught, or the instructors, but rather your youth.

How many 12 year olds do you know who stick in at 'Reality' classes?

How many 12 year olds do you know who can really handle themselves?

I've used the maxim; 'How you train, is how you react.' myself, but I don't believe it has as much depth as you've given it here.

The truth is that there are a lot of people teaching MA who believe their own BS, yet feel qualified to fertilise the populace with it. If you are smart, you don't buy it, or if you are unlucky, someone knocks it out of you.

People seem to blame the systems so often, when it still all boils down to people at the end of the day.

We all make our own beds, it's up to us whether we lie in them, or die in them.

Regards

Andy

 

Hi Andy

No I'm not upset, but I might start my girly ranting again.

I guessed you might say something like that. And fair enough, at 12 I was not able to make a critical judgement of what I was being taught. But myself and my brother were the first children allowed to train in that club. We were taught in exactly the same way as the adults. So the adults got the same BS we did. I wouldn't have been able to hack a 'reality' class, as it was the training we did was too austere for me at that age anyway. But we could have been taught to defend ourselves against the types of attacks you see outside the dojo, rather than basic lunge punch and front kick. We could have been taught correct distancing rather than playing tig.

After that I did some Taekwondo as well, and got fed some of the same rot there too. So when I was 18 or 19 I still made critical errors in self-defence that were completely unnecessary and could have easily been avoided with the appropriate training. It was only working as a bouncer that fully opened my eyes to these things.

Through empirical experimentation I did find much of value in my training up to that point, but I also found much crap too. But I found what was crap by testing it out, most students don't (and probably shouldn't) have that opportunity. After all, it does have its risks.

And I agree, it is up to the individual to make the most of their martial art. I certainly don't mean to blame others for my own shortcomings. And I don't blame them, I've just moved on from that sort of training. But its also an instructor's duty to teach the skills that students need. I'm not interested in sport and I believe that self-development will come through hard training, regardless of whether your technique is aesthetically pleasing or not. So my focus is on self-defence, that's what I teach my students and that's what I tell them I'm teaching them.

What I suppose gets my goat is when instructors teach one thing and claim its something else, ie. sport dressed up as self-defence. Now I'm sure there are many instructors who occupy the middle ground, they partake in sport and they teach practical self-defence. But I think you have to be careful in this middle ground to make sure that you clearly differentiate between sport and self-defence and that your students know which is which.

Sadly (and the main reason I'm ranting) I still continue to meet people who have trained in something that was 99% martial sport who think they've been learning self-defence. This is really dangerous for them, I feel, because they'll only find out when the sh*t actually hits the fan.

No offence intended by the way, I know I'm a bit of an extremist on this issue. And I have every respect for martial sports, its just not my thing. And I have respect for people who can succesfully manage to train in both aspects of martial arts, its not something I can do. I also accept that there are plenty of people who are into sport who do manage to keep one eye on reality. But I do think that in the world of modern striking arts such people are in the minority.

Mike

P.S. Being serious, I won't get upset if we disagree. I don't agree 100% with anyone.

 

Hope you don't mind Mike, but I summarised that a little to what I mostly agree with.

Something I'd point out though is that there are a lot of people out there teaching'Self-Defence' being derogatory about the Sporting Arts, who have yet to throw a punch in anger. I'd go so far as to say possibly 99% (the statistic you used referring to Sports Arts), of the 'reality' based arts are teaching a mish mash of things that never become integrated for the guy/gal wanting to learn to fight, or at least better their odds.

I don't feel the majority of youngsters compete in a state of delusion. They're simply having fun, with a little bit of risk slung in to sweeten the mix. Most, like yourself will realise the limitations of the practice, and end up training something more effective for reality, but these people may have some good things to take with them into that form of training. I know I did.

 

From wat I understand ppl take competetions and sparring as two different things, so I will try to put my words according to that -

Competing in tourneys is not simply about trophies, but I feel that some major phsychological advances are there if u go to competetions, here's wat I think

Sparring

You spar with ppl u know and are familiar with, you know who he is and possibly you are familiar with his technique, so you feel comfortable sparring with him.

Competetions

Here the feeling is totally different, you don't know what your opponent is like, you don't even know enough to know his phsycholoogical aspents, on the other hand being called in the ring causes fear which can be elinimated only by experince, you even sometimes lack confidence completely. It's an entirely different world, you get to know the different type of fighters.....some looneys some phsychopaths as my teacher used to say, the phsychological aspects in competetions, are almost similar to a real fight.........this is just wat I think.

|Cain|

 

Well I do have a tendency to go on a bit.

Maybe so. Anyway, I wouldn't personally dream of being derogatory of sporting arts. And actually I think some of them do teach things that are missing in a lot of self-defence training, like stiocism for example. Who can fail to respect boxers for being willing to expose themselves to repeated blows to the head. Its not for me, but its got to be respected and it sure does give them an edge in self-defence - they're no strangers to being hit.

Yes I'm sure they will have learnt something of value to take with into more realistic training. But I'm sceptical about how many realise the limitations of what they're doing. I've come across plenty who are completely oblivious. So we've evidently had different experiences in this respect. Which is what makes the debate interesting I suppose.

Mike

 

I can only really speak from my own experience Mike, as you have done.
I was fortunate enough to realise the limitations of what I was doing early on, just unwilling to throw away some things I still find to be of value today.
I have to say that that's not down to me entirely. While my Instructor would have been the first to leg it in a confrontation, he had a great eye for detail, and was able to teach his students how to learn and question for themselves.

It was a shock to me to find later, that many of the strategies we employed on the mat were contained in the 'Tao of Jeet Kune Do'. Only better in some ways!

I refer to the use of Broken Rhythm, fencing footwork, attacking by feinting or drawing to name but a few.

 

Just can't help being curious on who voted 'ultimate street warriors'........

BTW, I probably mentioned this before Andy, that's a really nice sign u hv got there

|Cain|

 

Thanks Cain, it took ages to think up!

As to who voted 'Ultimate Street Warriors', wasn't me, it was meant to be a joke option.

 

I voted "Ultimate Street Warriors" because at the time it was at 0 and I wanted to go against the crowd and be the first one to vote for it

Honestly though...I support MMA 100% and for me thats the best path to take.

 

Oh ok guess that clears it up

|Cain|