Here's a question: How would you balance safety/defense with effectiveness/offense in training and fighting? We can see that in nearly every situation that the people trained to do dangerous jobs are given training that is designed to maximize their safety, but also allow them to be effective. Whether it's firemen, policemen, soldiers, Bouncers/doormen, concert security, rescue workers etc., one still has to get out there and do the job which will naturally entail a certain amount of risk to one's life and limbs. How about the martial arts? How much should one be trained to defend oneself and how much should one be trained to have that fighting spirit? Clearly the safest thing a fireman could do is to not go into a burning building, but then no one would ever get rescued either. What if a fighting technique was effective for offense and finishing a fight quickly, but left one more open to getting hit oneself? There's an old saying that tells us that "The best defense is a good offense." and at times this is true. So what think you all? What balance should be struck between these two martial art goals?
I am reminded of how poorly ex army guys used to do when playing paintball. On first thought, they are guys trained to see bullets flying and to shoot while being shot at. They should win almost all the time, right? No. We always lost. Our training taught us that it doesn't do you any good to maybe take out one opponent if you are definitely going to be taken out doing it. The young kids playing didn't have that philsophy and thus took bigger risks. Likewise, taking the bigger risks may win you some points in a fight. However, I don't think they are worth the risk.
When I was in the RAF, we stupidly invited the Royal Navy to a paintball match. They sent their lodger unit called "Royal Marines" over to play us. It was a deeply humiliating experience. And not for the Navy! G
Great post DAnjo. I can only remember a saying that a sword is only metal until it meets the fire. Having been one of those nutty people that was trained for personal safety and hoped I could maximize the effectiveness. I never once relied on what I was "taught" by the police academy. In fact, I learned more from 8 years working in corrections and their training then from the academy. I also look at my TKD training as something very fun, healthy, great for my flexibility, etc. But as for effective for self defense? Maybe some of the counters, foot work, releases/counters, and the like but certainly not a double spinning front snap kick! Sure if the guy was completely frozen and would not move it would look great on the street. I personally would stick to roundhouses, front snap, and side kicks. Just MO.
I know what you mean. I've always stayed away from Paintball, but I have heard first hand stories. One applicable story was when a group of Army Rangers took out the entire opposing team without one casualty. The Rangers put their best shot on point. He shot maybe 90% of the kills. The rest covered him as they moved and lit up the targets.
It isn't so much if a fighting technique leaves you more open or not, it is more about how safely can the technique be trained. The reason I say this is because old school boxing used to have more power hitters, but because they left themselves more open they tended to get hit back more when power hitting. This meant more injuries and chance of brain damage... which all led to shorter careers in boxing. Meanwhile, the technicians did not throw as many power hits, but had much better defense, they could have longer careers. Power hitting still has it's place, but you can't train it as much in competition or against live targets that are hitting you back. In martial arts, I have been made aware of many old school techniques that aren't part of the teachings anymore, except much later on. The reason is that these techniques were not safe to train with. As a side note, some of these techniques sucked IMHO so it is a good thing they aren't trained as much anymore, but most of them could be considered really good stuff. I blame part of this on the introduction of wide spread martial arts to Americans. Whereas it was rare to have extremely large people in martial arts, after WWII, it was much more common to see larger Americans training. Some of them would become quite enthusiastic in their training, to put it bluntly, they really liked to bang on each other. Take this six foot five American who like to hit hard and give them a technique that really hurt people and pair him up with a five and a half foot Asian with the same or less experience, and bang you got broken bones. If you really like to bang on each other, it just didn't work to be having beginners and intermediates punching to the throat, breaking necks, poking eyes out and throwing people on their heads full speed and power. Safer training methods or more limited rule sets and/or safer techniques needed to be trained. So the premise is to give people a foundation in the safer stuff that they can do full speed and intensity in a manner that they can avoid serious injury. Fine tune that into the more unsafe techniques as they gain skill and control. The unsafe stuff needs to be trained with more control, less repetitions, and with other safety concerns such as eye protection, body armor/pads, slower speeds, or more limited rule sets. The safer stuff can be trained with less rules if the training partner knows how to protect him/herself.
It seems to me that in order to make an omlette, some eggs need to be broken. I completely agree that getting hit isn't good, but you might have to take the chance of getting hit until you develop the ability NOT to get hit. Prof. Chow was famous for not having to block punches due to his ability to slip and dodge them while inflicting damage to his opponents. But, I somehow doubt that he started off being able to do that. I'll bet he got tagged a few times while developing this ability of being agressive and avoiding damage to himself. It seems that it's like the difference of learning to swim in the shallow end of the pool versus being thrown into the deep end after being taught the basic moves.; Ultimately Prf. Chow got to where he could take out multiple attackers. I doubt he would have been able to do that if he had been taught a very defensive type of fighting instead.
People engaged in dangerous occupations need to train to survive the situations they will face. Airborne soldiers jump out of airplanes. Submariners take their ships down to dangerous depths. Naval pilots land on carriers at night. Most martial artists, however, do not have hazardous occupations, and are unlikely to need to use their skills to defend themselves. I agree that to know how to fight, you need to fight; however, if your training gives you more injuries than you'd ever get on "the street," it seems to me that you're moving the wrong way from self-protection. If I really thought I'd need to defend myself, I'd carry my pistol, as we get to do in the States.
Good question here, I've been train in the early 90's by an old master and you better watched your back while you train because he and the other teachers were throwing punchs and kicks at you when you didnt wait for it or walk on your stomach while doing leg raise and things like that, after this I've train in a more modern school with another kind of training, after the purple it was more realistic as you go up in ranks, I think it's necessary to find a balance but at higher levels let's say green and up you are suppose to know how to not get hurt and train with effectiveness but the risks are always there after all this is martial arts not macramé classes!
hmmm... I like the reasoning except for the last sentence. I don't believe it is as important what is taught as what is learned. Through experience one usually learns that the best offense is a good defense. If offense is taken as the ability to upload as much damage into the enemy as possible, then conversely, defense could be to prevent taking as much damage as possible. There is nothing in there that indicates what is the proper way to conduct offense and what is the proper way to conduct defense. On the contrary, from a defensive stand point at times it may become clear that the best way to take the least amount of damage is to take out the opponent as soon as possible. Defense includes a full spectrum from attacking and defending together to evading and disengagement. What I'm getting at is that offense is a subset of defense, not the other way around. It may be in your best defensive interest to attack instinctively and strongly to any opening or weakness the enemy has. It may be in a different situation it is best to keep your distance until help arrives. With defense your attacks are going to be using angles, covers, and broken timing, because that makes you a harder to hit target while you use your offensive abilities. Most of the "defensive arts" stress more to attack the enemy when the enemy shows an opening or weakness. So in a sense defense is used to setup better offense. This is in my opinion and experiences, it may be different for different people.
There was a US Navy chap in my class when I went through Test Pilots School. I've never met anybody before or since with such an aversion to night flying! If anybody's not read it, Ian Fleming's novel "Casino Royale", which was the first James Bond Novel has a section in the first chapter that describes this mentality beautifully: G
WTF. I was introduced to MA through Shotokan Full-contact karate and Tangsoo Do semi-contact. I have been beat, tapped, and never touched!
If we're talking about keeping your guard up while moving in, I tend to agree with you. I've seen too many people get to the point, however, where they are really good at blocking and moving out of target range, but are crap at offense and thus unable to finish a fight. This is mainly because of their natural fear of getting hit while trying to learn and develop the skill required to evade while attacking. One should not charge in recklessly, but one should not be so defensive that they never develop that killer instinct either. In a street fight, the attacker/s will not give up because you can block and back up out of range. They'll stop when they realize that instead of a kitten, they've cornered a tiger. Where I am training now has a good policy in terms of sparring. They do both punch/kick stuff and grappling mixed together. They encourage multiple punches and kicks while keeping the guard up etc. with a focus on reality and reflexes rather than showy point stuff that's ineffective. In other words, how a low punch sets up an opponent for a high one etc. It's a lot different from the Shotokan I took where it was much more linear and one-shot oriented, i.e., fake- punch-stop-fake-kick-stop etc. etc. It's taking me a while to break the old Shotokan habits (which I carried over to the USSD since they taught nothing valuable in terms of sparring and I was able to OWN everyone when I walked in the doors over there). Safety is taken into account, but you are encouraged to get in there and mix it up in order to develop your reflexes and the flow needed to win, even if it means taking a few shots in the process. If we were only encouraged to cover up and block and keep out of range, it would keep us very safe, but ultimately not make us into very good fighters. I think that is why boxers and MMA guys are highly regarded these days. It's not because they have a superior art (I think Kenpo/kempo and Kajukenbo are superior in terms of the number of tools at one's disposal), but rather it's how they train. If someone is not afraid to get in there and mix it up, they are going to have a distinct advantage over someone with more highly trained tools, but who has never trained in a realistic manner.
There are more than a few kajukenbo schools that are also MMA schools, I know of at least three for which I have met the head instructors. It seems you can still train in a martial art and train MMA for the cage or just for the experience. It really isn't MMA or karate or kenpo or FMA or kung fu, in these days it can be traditional martial arts plus MMA if the instructors are qualified to do so. In regards to defensive type of fighting, I think I know what you mean now. I can see someone learning how to evade and keep distance and neglecting to learn how to see openings/weaknesses and having the killer instinct to attack on those weaknesses. This is both mental and physical. Those without killer instinct will hesitate and miss opportunities to finish off an open enemy (mental condition) and their physical actions will reflect this with pulled punches and weaker attacks, lacking power, commitment and conviction. What I did not understand is at what point did this happen. It has happened to many, including at points myself. However, this is NOT defensive type fighting, this is LACK OF EXPERIENCE. Going back to the most basic of teaching methods... student is told to punch the instructor, student does so and instructor counters and the student ends up on the ground, maybe stunned. Student must learn how to protect himself while attacking. Each day the student is told to punch the instructor, each day the student is knocked on his butt. Afterwards the lessons for the day are taught. When student punches the instructor and is not knocked on his butt, then student moves on to a different attack, such as a kick. Student kicks instructor and ends up dumped on his butt. Repeat each day... When the student is the defender, they are taught techniques but they use their own experience of when they attacked and got knocked on their butt and apply that experience into creating better technique. This creates better defense. So a defensive art is only as good as how well they learn to attack. Thus my point that you learn to attack well to improve defense because the better the attacks, the better your defense has to be.
