Horse stance obsolete?

Discussion in 'MMA' started by Anonymouse, Aug 30, 2004.

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  1. AAAhmed46

    AAAhmed46 Valued Member

    Thats true with ever style, even Muay Thai...maybe(not in my experience)

    Yeah, i think so to yuki. But then again, Bruce lee formed JKD for that reason. He said he wanted to get rid of useless techniques and use the usefull ones. But i have found JKD fighters with useless moves. Maybe those moves were useful to bruce lee, but useless to them.

    Man this could go on for a long long time, and my heads hurting..............


    And if you dont have a bag? Or cant get one? Cant hang it in your home?
    In those remote african tribes for example. THey have thier own tribal martial arts, and living in such a place and such a way they must be tough guys(I have never been to any remote places in africa, just somalia)
    They have no punching bags, but are pretty damn tough, because they have old traditional training methods.

    Or what about those old indian martial arts? They had no punching bag. So what? Now all thier punches were weak because they have no bag?

    Or the muay thai kick boxers of thailand in the 1800's?
    Put them up against the thai boxers of today, and what will happen?

    I will admit using a punching bag is far better then using horse stance alone. But whats wrong with combining them? Expecially if it helped ancient martial artists develop thier punches in absence of the punching bag.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2004
  2. cybermonk

    cybermonk New Member

    Since im not big in multiple postings I will reply to both yuki's and panakration's thread here. As for your point yuki, you know as well as I do that MMA has evolved greatly since no gloves fights used to take place and the valetudo guys used to do a lot of conditioning which has now taken a back seat to things. I agree with you about the falshy techniques, thats why I chose a system that barely has any.

    "This is going around in circles now. You'll find that most modern mixed martial artists are open to techniques no matter what art or how traditional. As long as the technique actually works well against a resisting opponent who's intent on kicking your face in... It's not about style vs style, too hell with tradition and styles..."

    When was the last time we saw a modern mix martial artist doing qigong or training for golden bell/iron body type things? These things have proven benefits, but yet it has never made it into a mma arena.

    Pankration-"True, but there is nothing stopping mixed martial artists from training in illegal techniques, too. At my old gym (which recently closed down) we trained in elbows a little bit, and talked about other things for the street that weren't legal in MMA competitions (or any competition for that matter)."

    You will find that most pro mma fighters only train the techniques used in the ring, which does wonders in the ring but leaves them lacking in other aspects.

    "Who would you rather have attack you on the street, someone who trained in martial arts for self defense and didn't do much competing or a world-class professional fighter?"

    If i got to choose between tito ortiz and a grandmaster of a style like snake or something along those lines I would pick tito and his clone to attack me any day.

    Besides those things which I pointed out, most of what you guys are saying makes a lot of sense to me.
     
  3. notquitedead

    notquitedead used to be Pankration90

    Thais used to use the soft bark of a specific type of tree sort of as a heavy bag. Now they use heavy bags.

    You don't need to. Hitting a heavy bag full force with the correct mechanics of a boxing punch is good practice. Hitting a heavy bag while in a horse stance is a waste of time. I'm not going to explain it to you any more.

    When is the last time they needed to do those things? Strong abs, pectoral muscles, etc will help you take a hit. Doing full contact sparring will help you take a hit. I have yet to see proof that qi gong has any dramatic effect on your ability to take a hit. Why don't all these masters who use qi gong etc step into the ring and fight full contact? If they're so great at taking hits they should come out fine. ;) Also, most 'qi gong' demonstrations I have seen required the person to stay still and signal when they were ready to be hit. This seems useless because your attacker will attack when they want to, not when you tell them to.

    LOL yeah I bet that 80 year old grandmaster who has never had a full contact match or street fight in his life will be a lesser threat than Tito.

    If you can show me proof of how qi gong helps you take hits in a full contact fight more than modern training methods, I will believe you.
     
  4. cybermonk

    cybermonk New Member

    There are a few things not quite right about the statement, for one qigong is a set of breathing excersises and patterns, if you were to demonstrate qigong you would be looking very silly adopting strange positions and making laughable sounds. On another note, lets say what you say is true and they need to prepare in order to take hits. Can you really sit there and tell me with a straight face that you can say "alright mate, im ready, hit me with everything you got" and while im at it you tell me what you think about politics?

    You assume a grandmaster has to be 80 years old, grandmasters could be 40 or 50. You also assume he has never seen a fight or never sparred full contact, you would be surprised to how much tougher these guy's training is than you think and what he has experienced.

    Thats one thing I cant do, you have to see it for yourself, I have given you the benefit of the doubt, you can do the same for me.

    Your point about them stepping in the ring and showing their skills is a very valid one so I thought I would give a somewhat lengthy explanation on it since there seems to be many factors. First lets put things into perspective, there are millions of kung fu practitioners out there, yet for whatever reason you barely see any in mma type events. Now, the number of people who have golden bell/iron body type training is extremely lower than those who practice any kung fu disipline. Thus it would make sense that you are likely to never see them in the ring unless something big comes up like giving a $1 million dollar prize to whoever can effectively demonstrate the feat like they did for the phoney "empty force." Secondly, there is the CMA bias against competing for whatever reason. And over all, there is the fact that if you do have these kind of ability and transcend over the previously mentioned obstacles you cant just show up in the UFC and show it to the world, you would have to fight in many small ring fights, which quite frankly are a turndown unless you really love the sport. Ever seen the kickboxing state fights? Those rings look so depressing that I wonder how those guys could go on. However, if you want proof, it is out there. Go to your local kwoons and ask around, chances are that if you inquisitive enough youll find what you are looking for. If we were having this conversation 10 years ago I would say you have no hope of finding such person but I believe now many kung fu organizations have gone beyond their secretive roots and honestly think you have a good chance.

    Above all I think this argument is comming to a close, its been nice debating with you and if you ever find a person who can corroborate or disprove what I have mentioned here let me know.
     
  5. notquitedead

    notquitedead used to be Pankration90

    No, but if millions of people can fight on the streets and in the ring (full contact BTW) and not get hurt that bad, then the supposed benefits of qi gong is necessary. Simply exercising (to strengthen your abs and other muscles in your torso etc) will help you take hits better. Now can I ask that same question to all these 'grandmasters'? I doubt it.

    You see I don't really like giving people the benefit of the doubt on things like this. That's like accepting something as scientific proof without using scientific inquiry to see if it's true.

    Really? You should tell millions of CMA practitioners that they don't like competing. ;)

    I've already trained in wing chun/animal kung fu and we practiced qi gong (although I wasn't introduced into much of it yet). My instructor's qi gong instructor is supposedly well known (I've found references to him on a few sites on the internet) qi gong 'master'. The stuff I saw didn't seem necessary. Most of the people I've seen who practiced qi gong can't take a hit as well as someone who actually does full contact sparring and just gets used to it.
     
  6. cybermonk

    cybermonk New Member

    There are various problems with this point, one of them being that in the ring people dont fight to damage each other's joints, tissue and skin, they fight for a KO or a submission. If the goal of the competitions was to break each other's arms I gurantee you will see a lot more broken arms, dont you think so aswell? Its all about intent, the intent of mma athletes is not to kill or maim each other and thats why it doesnt happen. Heck they have had barenuckle UFCs before and no one was ever killed, yet it is quite possible for two humans to kill each other with their hands if they intend to do so.

    Fair enough, im not here to prove its true or not, I simply mentioned a part of training that has been neglected both by modern science and MMA athletes.

    I dont think theres that many, to be honest except for the lau gar guys I havent seen many others and internal arts are seldom seen at all.

    A couple of things I would like to debate further here: What about those who do full contact sparring and qi gong?
    On another note what is required for a tourn bout is not the same that is required for a life and death situation. WTF TKD guys dont find it necessary to put their hands up during sport bouts but I would say that keeping your guard up is extremely necessary. On the same note, making your body resistant to damage and your mind resistant to pain may not be necessary for controlled environments where your opponent is not looking to damage your anatomy but if you are going to be in a life and death situation it might just stack the odds on your side.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2004
  7. Slindsay

    Slindsay All violence is necessary

    Hate to interrupt you 2 when your obviously having a lot of fun here but just to add something out of my experience....

    A while back me and a friend who does boxing had a sparring match cos he had got a new set of gloves so now had 2 sets.

    To give you backgrounds he had done boxing for around 6 years, competed 24 times only losing 4 fights and winning 6 by knockout.

    I had done TKD for about a year and a half, compteted 3 times under Olympic rules sparring and never put on boxing gloves before that day.

    I won the fight by breaking one of his ribs whilst wearing those gloves, during the fight I could practically hear in my head the instructions: Twist your hips and drop them, rotate the hand just before the strike, exhale, keep your eyes on the target, strike through it. And heres the funny thing, we where only drilled on punching from horse stance for the most part, I found that what I had been taught then, the principles of punching as they where, stuck in my head and gave me good technique for the boxing match.

    We have also done some boxing drills as well but to me the time we spent in horse stance punching was what gave me those basics so solidly ingrained in my head with boxing drills re-inforcing how to use them in sparring.

    Anyway thats my experience with it, cant speak for anyone else though.
     
  8. notquitedead

    notquitedead used to be Pankration90

    Excuse me cybermonk, but I was under the impression that joints and bones weren't internal organs. How are breathing exercises going to strengthen your joints? Wouldn't the better option be to simply exercise and stabilize the joint?

    There are lots of CMA-only tournaments here in the US (many of them international competitions). China also has its own competitions and sanshou. Then there are open martial art tournaments that CM-artists compete in frequently. Your style doesn't determine whether you are competitive or not.

    We seem to be thinking of different competitions. I'm not talking about point sparring, light contact sparring, or no contact sparring. I'm talking about full contact (mixed martial arts/vale tudo, full contact kickboxing ala K-1, full contact boxing, etc) where you are trying to knock the other guy out not just score points with pretty techniques. Do you honestly think that a pro mixed martial artist can't take a hit and doens't train to endure pain? Do you honestly think the amount of damage one takes in Pride FC from a TRAINED FIGHTER is less than that of some thug on the street? Have you ever been hit by one of these grappling gloves? They're like rocks. There is hardly any padding. They mainly just keep your hand from breaking.

    Your point about WTF TKD'ers keeping their hands down isn't relevent. WTF TKD has ridiculous rules which prohibit punching to do the head (which is probably the main target in a street fight). That's why they keep their hands down. Now look at pro boxers and kickboxers, they keep them up because they fight under less restrictive rules. Look at wrestlers, they often keep their head low and neck extended. In a submission grappling enviroment they would be asking to be caught in a guillotine. Restrictive rules encourage bad habits. MMA competitions seem to be trying to avoid that. :)

    Slindsay,

    Even people who don't train can break ribs. I seriously doubt that had much to do with punching in a horse stance.

    Even if it did, there is more to a boxing punch than extending your arm. You can't practice those movements in a horse stance. Now if you were a boxer thinking back on that experience, would you rather have the basics of extending your arm ingrained into you or the basics of a correct punch?
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2004
  9. Slindsay

    Slindsay All violence is necessary

    I dont think they can do it to a decent boxer to much though, he thought the punches where pretty damn hard and to be honest I think he is in a good position to judge.
     
  10. Yukimushu

    Yukimushu MMA addict

    This seems to have turned into one hell of a style vs style thread lol :)
     
  11. cybermonk

    cybermonk New Member

    Mainly I was referring to golden bell training which includes qigong and
    physical training. Physical training alone wont give you golden bell, you need qigong, thus my point. Also the training I am referring to includes training the nervous system, muscles, joints and even preasure points to take pain.

    Trust me, those are not the majority and there is a well known cultural tradition of not competing in CMA. And China's competition? Come on man...when was the last time China had real kung fu?

    Im not saying that, what I am saying is that people in the ring dont intend to kill each other, thus you dont need to worry about training to survive a potentially lethal attack. I am sure a UFC guy can beat a thug on the street, heck I am sure I can beat any thug on the street myself, been there done that. The point is that I am not so sure I would be able to survive a confrontation with someone who trains for life and death situations and is very good at what he does. The ammount of damage one takes in UFC or pride is nothing, you dont see broken bones, you dont see blood gushing out, you dont see people dying. You want to talk about tough tournaments? There have been tournaments in the past where one master has killed another, I think thats a better account of realistic training. I use grappling gloves in my regular sparring, they are not harder than my fist that I can tell you.

    My point exactly, would the rules allow for more you would see more things become necessary. The point is completely relevant, as the rules change the necessity of combat changes. In a place where the rule is to kill or be killed the toughness of your body is far more important that it is in today's mma
    world, you cant argue with that.

    On a sidenote: Try not to become so defensive mate, just because I dont agree that mma is the toughest thing on earth doesnt mean I dont appreciate what is doing for martial arts in general.
     
  12. AAAhmed46

    AAAhmed46 Valued Member

    Alot of MMA can also kick the crap out of alot of trained fighters, so it goes both ways cyber monk, they learn alot of counter attacks as well. Also, I have a few friends in MMA, and when i was watching them spar. THey know moves such as breaking and the like.

    While im with you in the fact that Internal and TMA have something to offer, dont discount the fact that MMA competitors are just as strong and skilled as someone training to fight on the streets.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2004
  13. cybermonk

    cybermonk New Member

    I agree, I am not discounting their skill, what I am saying is that the great majority of the pro mma fighters concentrate just on ring tactics, the same way that the great majority of olympic TKD point sparrers concentrate on ring tactics. To be the best in the ring you have to train the best for the ring. And to point that things are not necessary simply because they are not necessary in the ring is somewhat ignorant.
     
  14. AAAhmed46

    AAAhmed46 Valued Member

    True....i guess.
     
  15. cybermonk

    cybermonk New Member

    It seems my arguement is somewhat lacking so in an attempt to put it in perspective I'll quote a man which I happen to disagree with in a lot of things but this one not being one of them.

     
  16. notquitedead

    notquitedead used to be Pankration90

    Do you even know anything about vale tudo, MMA, etc? True vale tudo matches have no rules. People have died in them. MMA is similar, althought with rules. If it didn't have rules, it would be banned by now or at least wouldn't have spread. If you knew anything about MMA, you would know people get cut and get broken bones all the time.

    How much more damage do you expect in a street fight? Chances are the thug attacking you won't hit as hard as Cro Cop or other pro fighters. If you can stand there and let Cro Cop kick you in the jaw, I think you can handle a punch from some guy on the street.

    I have never said MMA is completely realistic and never will. However, it is the most realistic form of competition that still provides a small degree of safety. The next step up would be pure vale tudo (by any name, just no-rules fighters where 'anything goes').

    I'm not being defensive. I just find it annoying that you think pro fighters don't focus on conditioning just because they don't meditate and do qi gong. Maybe if you actually trained in MMA or something you would be more qualified to judge it. The fact that you even think it is similar to WTF TKD competitions is enough evidence that you clearly know very little about it.

    If you want to think that 'iron bell' training (most of which is BS) is the be all, end all of training, go ahead. I'm not going to stop you. But is qi gong going to help you when you get sucker punched in the face and don't have time to 'focus your chi'? Does it make you bullet proof? Does it make you not bleed when someone stabs you? Most qi gong I have seen involved preparing yourself for the hit (unarmed) to a specific area. While it may be impressive to see, it is next to useless for a street fight.

    We may have to just agree to disagree.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2004
  17. AAAhmed46

    AAAhmed46 Valued Member

    Who knows, there maybe something to this training, I think it hasnt been explored, exploration and experimentation should weed out fact and fiction of such methods.
    I guess its where you learn it. In africa, the hsing i guys were pretty damn terrifying in thier punching power(MMA in africa were equally terrifying). The internal guys didnt talk about ki or anything, but hsing i seems to have similar philosophies.
     
  18. cybermonk

    cybermonk New Member

    People have died in vale tudo matches in the past 30 years? Any evidence of this? That would be interesting. People have died in tournaments hundreads of years ago like I already mentioned. I have watched plenty UFC events but have yet to see a broken bone and the most it goes is a little bit of blood here and there.

    "Do you even know anything about vale tudo, MMA, etc? True vale tudo matches have no rules. People have died in them. MMA is similar, althought with rules. If it didn't have rules, it would be banned by now or at least wouldn't have spread. If you knew anything about MMA, you would know people get cut and get broken bones all the time."

    Broken bones "ALL" the time? where have you been living in mate?

    "How much more damage do you expect in a street fight? Chances are the thug attacking you won't hit as hard as Cro Cop or other pro fighters. If you can stand there and let Cro Cop kick you in the jaw, I think you can handle a punch from some guy on the street."

    Good you mentioned Crop Cop, now have him train to kill, have him train to maim and he will be 10 times more dangerous than he is now with all the power he has. Again, your arguement of "the guy in the street comes up" most guys in the street I have fought cant do much, however most traditional systems were developed where people needed to fight to survive and as such your average "guy in the street" was much more dangerous than today's "guys on the street".

    "The next step up would be pure vale tudo (by any name, just no-rules fighters where 'anything goes')."

    You mean like events that took place when traditional systems where under development? No wait..."traditionalist" dont fight...

    "I'm not being defensive. I just find it annoying that you think pro fighters don't focus on conditioning just because they don't meditate and do qi gong. Maybe if you actually trained in MMA or something you would be more qualified to judge it. The fact that you even think it is similar to WTF TKD competitions is enough evidence that you clearly know very little about it."

    Apparently you have a hard time comprehending my posts. The comarison between WTF TKD and MMA was done in order to show that different rules call for different training priorities.

    "If you want to think that 'iron bell' training (most of which is BS) is the be all, end all of training, go ahead. I'm not going to stop you. But is qi gong going to help you when you get sucker punched in the face and don't have time to 'focus your chi'? Does it make you bullet proof? Does it make you not bleed when someone stabs you? Most qi gong I have seen involved preparing yourself for the hit (unarmed) to a specific area. While it may be impressive to see, it is next to useless for a street fight."

    Yes, most qi gong is BS, that is one thing I have to agree with you in. Most people who claim to be doing qigong, or focusing their chi or whatever else are just bsing the masses to make a buck. Which, of course, leads to a lot of people believing it doesnt work, its useless etc etc. On the other hand, since your experience in this field is somewhat limited I dont see how you could make a good judgement on the effectiveness of golden bell or any other iron body training. And again, at the end of the day I pointed out a training method ignored both by science and the MMA comunity whether to prove it or disprove it, it is still mainly in the shadows to these communities.

    "We may have to just agree to disagree."
    Agreed.
     
  19. notquitedead

    notquitedead used to be Pankration90

    I'd just like to clear a few things up...

    In one of the recent UFC's, Frank Mir broke Tim Sylvia's arm. Broken ribs are common in full contact combat sports.

    Here are some bloody MMA pics (never thought I would see the day that I promoted MMA for it's brutality...but I'll do almost anything to prove a point lol):
    [​IMG]
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    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    I was referring to cuts when I said 'all the time', and of course I was exaggerating. How often do people get cut in unarmed street fights or get broken bones other than broken ribs?

    Now you're just making assumptions about me. Why is it that if someone criticizes one particular aspect of a TMA then people start jumping all over him/her yelling 'Stop flaming us!'? I don't know if you saw the other thread, but in the thread about WC and sanshou competing in MMA I even said that challenge matches are a very 'traditional' thing to do. Look at most of the 'masters' that you hear about (of the caliber of Ueshiba), most of them took challenge matches. Kano, Ueshiba, Miyamoto Musashi, etc. all did. Now look at modern times, where many (if not most) people who do TMA do it as recreation and don't put any effort into their training. That's true of all things, but training in at least a semi-competitive format provides a reason to dedicate yourself to training. I know if I wasn't planning on competing in MMA I wouldn't even train. I would just sit here on the computer all day. :p

    I never said they did, but like I said WTF TKD competitions are far more unrealistic than MMA. Is MMA completely realistic? No. It's still a good way to practice in a realistic althought no completely real setting.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2004
  20. cybermonk

    cybermonk New Member

    Alright 1 person got his arm broken, although impressive it is certainly not the majority.
    Now, regarding your pictures, I have seen pro boxers who come out more damaged than that, maybe we should look at boxing for what really works?

    How often do they get cuts or busted lips/noses? In the fights I have been in I would say around 80% of the times. Broken bones? I dont really know, most of the times I didnt stay around long enough and the times I did I felt comfortable in the situation and I had no intention of breaking anything on them.

    I am making assumptions about you the same way you have made plenty of assumptions about me, if we could get past this it would be a more profitable debate. Now as for challenges, yes they took place and they still do take place. However, it isnt done for fun, it happens when someone gets out of line and some things just have to be done, but again laws have changed much and modern culture has something against violence which makes it practically imposible for challenges to take place in the middle of the marketplace.

    Then are the training methodologies and techniques that are flawed or are the people's effort and mindset that is flawed? Training in a semi-competitve format is great, as long as you dont limit the entire system as to what will only happen in a tournament. Its the equivalent of taking a European history class and just focusing on learning what will come out in the exam, you will have one of the best scores in class, but would your knowledge about European history be as broad as it should? I would think not.

    I agree, as a matter of fact I agree with using sport to practice, what I disagree with is practicing for the sport, they are very different things.
     
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