Traditional training or Reality training??

Over the short period that I have been a member of MAP I have had many discussions (some very heated) with regard to what people term/call authentic Ninjutsu and what they don't. "Independants" was another recent thread which saw the argument between X-KAN's and traditional martial art's systems.
This thread is NOT about authintic ninjutsu/modern ninjutsu, X-Kan's or Independents but is aimed at reality training, personal protection, self defence, self protection etc and how the underlying principles of ANY martial art (irrespective of origin) find their way into training for a live situation by way of professional employment, military training, police enforcement or self protection for the general public.

1. Do the techniques have to go through a transition?

2. Have you/are you in the process of developing your own system and if so, why?

3. Do you currently train in a reality martial art?

4. Why choose a relaty martial art as opposed to a traditional martial art?


Kind regards

Roger.

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If you are asking regardless of art, then this thread should probably be moved. I'm not sure how the Independents thread was an argument between the Xkans and traditional martial arts systems though?

 

Your absolutely right. But don't know howto move it.

Any advice??

Regards

R

 

Extra Friendly

How would you like me to be extra friendly??? I am open to suggestions?

Please, could you help me out here?

regards

R

 

the two aren't mutually exclusive.

 

Mitch and Aiki? No they aren't....

 

I'd rather find out for myself as I am a strong believer in going straight to the source to experience these delights first hand! Ha, ha, ha!

Regards

R

 

ok, lets try this.......

How's that for starters????????


regards

R

 

Ok, here's the thing I don't understand.....

What on earth makes people think traditional martial arts are unrealistic and impractical for modern day self defence?? I mean, most of those styles came from civil wars and battlefields where your enemies were trained to kill, and would stop at nothing to kill you, and human life was as expendable as tiolet paper! Those martial arts systems kept people alive in those times, do you really think our modern streets are any worse than a civil war in ancient Japan or gangland warfare in China??

Traditional martial arts were developed out of violence and brutality. Those guys didn't muck around. So if your "traditional training" isn't realistic and practical, then there's really gotta be something wrong. Well....other than the fact that we don't walk around carrying swords nowadays.

 

Times have changed. It was not so uncommon 80 years ago that a martial artist was a farmer or day laborer of some type. They would have very strong hands and legs.

More recently, you get basically desk folks and people not nearly as strong for their size (although people in general are larger) compared to the old days.

So the baseline for the "average" martial artist is lower than that of 80 years ago.

 

Yes, definitely! And that's why at my buk sing school sometimes we just do strength and cardio training for the whole class. And for schools that don't do that, I think it's up to each individual to train in strength and fitness outside of class.

EIther way, that's not quite my point. I'm just talking about the perception of traditional martial art styles being viewed as ineffective for modern self defence.

 

How many people punched like a pro boxer back then? None
How many had such exposure to fighting arts they do now? Very Few
How many people were drunk as often as not when they fought? Equally few

Like it or not, times change and whilst the core principles of an art can stay, many specifics fly right out the window

In addition to this people now are physically bigger and societal attitudes to violence have changed so that giving someone a "dig" is almost a social norm.

 

I'm going to take the opposite tack to Hannibal. Yes, traditional martial arts are very effective, however, the way they are trained now is different to how they were trained 150 years ago.
The Meiji restoration in Japan, and the western incursions into China in the late Qing greatly diminished the martial role of martial arts, and the purpose of martial arts training became blurry. Indeed, you can see in both countries a trend in the early 20th century to promote martial arts as both a nationalistic passtime and for self improvement, rather than an essential combat skill.
As a consequence training became less and less focussed on functionalism and more and more about aesthetics and culture. The split that you see today was already evident in early republican China, with people working in security and training the army doing the real stuff, and public schools doing endless linework and forms. Much of what we think of as being traditional in martial arts really is only 100 years old. When people had to fight for their lives with this stuff, fighting was paramount, not aesthetics.

 

I like what Hannibal said, although it is sort of the opposite of the point I was saying..lol

I was trying to say that traditional martial arts aren't the same as back then. A lot of it has become more and more watered down during the years.

This has to do with the people training and the reasons for training.

Put it this way, 80 years ago, if you were in martial arts you probably were tough and if you weren't tough, you probably couldn't handle the training so you quit. So at some point near 100% of those that trained in martial arts seriously were tough.

Today, if you can't handle the training because you aren't tough enough, rather than quit, you find some place where you don't have to be as tough to train at.

I'm not saying that it is a bad thing that more people can train in martial arts... I'm saying that because of this, much has been watered down. Now if you want a place to train where everyone is tough, you basically got MMA, Muay Thai, or basically the arts that people recommend on this forum for learning how to fight.

 

Put it this way.

How can anything within its day of introduction/creation, be considered traditional, when at that point of time, it was to be effective, thus casting out previous methods, which could, themselves be considered traditional?

I though martial arts was a infinitive strive for perfection.

Simply, you want to be a better fighter-strive for it

If you want to be a better martial art sport competitor-strive for it

Traditional or not, ultimately you receive what you put in.

We all reap what we sow.

 

I'm not enough of an expert to say how differently "traditional" martial arts are practiced today from the way they were practiced historically, or even how traditional those arts called "traditional" today actually are.

But I think there are a few things that can be said about what are now colloquially known as "traditional" arts (that is, arts whose practitioners wear pajamas and colored belts):

• Nearly all of them place at least as much emphasis in training on the preservation of their traditions as realistic self-defense.
• Many of them have become competitive sports, introducing another priority besides self-defense into training.
• They are commonly practiced by people who will never need realistic self-defense skills.
• Many of them train with and against weapons that are no longer widely used.
• There is much more money to be made selling martial arts as fitness training than self-defense training.

None of these things necessarily prevent "traditional" arts from being used effectively in self-defense, but I think it's safe to say that all these things together probably mean that the martial artist who is serious about self-defense is going to have to look outside the dojo once in a while.

 

I think that the real effectivness is in the practitioner, rather than in the art itself, every martial art got pros and cons, and all the gaps you find in them is up to you to fill them, if you like kung fu, and want to improve ground fighting take some time to practice bjj, etc... mixing the arts is not new, ancient warriors did it all the time... samurai and ninja got like 18 arts or something according to what i've readed...

Also if you feel weak, you probably are, go and train harder in a gym so you can build up some strenth...

I see a little useless to blame traditional arts of being uneffective... because they are not... maybe just the training is not as hard as in a fighting art because is not the point of it... I dunno

 

I think that the real effectivness is in the practitioner, rather than in the art itself, every martial art got pros and cons, and all the gaps you find in them is up to you to fill them, if you like kung fu, and want to improve ground fighting take some time to practice bjj, etc... mixing the arts is not new, ancient warriors did it all the time... samurai and ninja got like 18 arts or something according to what i've readed...

Also if you feel weak, you probably are, go and train harder in a gym so you can build up some strenth...

I see a little useless to blame traditional arts of being uneffective... because they are not... maybe just the training is not as hard as in a fighting art because is not the point of it... I dunno