[OT] Yet another martial arts help thread.....so, please help!!

[Viktyr Gehrig]

An important consideration for self-defense martial arts is how well they teach you to deal with untrained opponents. It's a major weakness of many schools-- they teach you to fight someone else using their style, or someone who uses another trained style. Very few schools I've seen teach you how to handle a drunk, angry mook who tries to bull you over and bang your head on the floor.

This is, in my mind, actually a rather large plus in favor of boxing, especially older styles. There are several punches that mainly serve to keep an opponent back, and they teach you how to turn those punches into an opportunity for a more effective attack.

The older, slightly silly-looking boxing stance is actually good, because it keeps your opponent at a distance-- a necessity when there wasn't necessarily a referree to break clinches and keep an unscrupulous fighter from biting your ears off. *cough cough*

 

[Lannon]

Why is it...

that people studying martial arts almost always have some kind of real life fighting story. They havnt been in just one street fight, nope, they have been in several. And they mauled their opponents soundly. I just dont get it. Im 23 and I have been in *one* fight.... when I was fourteen. Folks perhaps you should try to welcome yourselves into the modern world or find ways to avoid physical violence instead of partaking in it.

Darius even meantioned some arts training their members to handle muggers with guns. Seems that these schools run the risk of increasing the liklihood that their members die from bullet wounds.

I am just constantly amazed by the hordes of time people waste on honing their bodies to do physical violence to other people. Get a real hobby.

Aaron

 

[PatMefford]

that people studying martial arts almost always have some kind of real life fighting story. They havnt been in just one street fight, nope, they have been in several. And they mauled their opponents soundly.

It's all over the place, to be honest.

I don't care how tough you think you are, but when 4 adult men have a firm intention on hurting you, there isn't much you can do but run.

 

[PatMefford]

I am just constantly amazed by the hordes of time people waste on honing their bodies to do physical violence to other people. Get a real hobby.

Like pretending to be someone you are not with dice?

 

[Darius101]

hehehe interesting very interesting.....
Kail I will have to check this contest out in Chicago when is the next one?

I am going to china town to talk to a friend today about getting back into training formally.

Lannon don't lesson something's worth just because you do not do it or practice it. If four men are around you and you are alone you either give up and take what happens or fight to survive and take what happens. Just because there are 4 men trying to do you harm does not mean they can all hit you at the same time. There is a gang/pak mentality there where one of them is the leader. If you take out the leader quickly then most of the time the rest will give up. I guess it depends how deperate they are actually. I do not advocate fighting but I do know how to do it when the time comes. I wrote those illustrations earlier to make a point sorry you missed it.
The art of war says that the rabbit can out run the fox because the fox is chasing the rabbit for his dinner and the rabbit runs for his life and very survival. How true it is.....
Remember this Marial Arts are not all about fighting (some seem that way on the surface) there is soooo much more encompassed with in an art and that is one reason it is an art. It is also a reason that not everyone does it.
Regards,
Darius

 

[mythago]

Good one, Pat.

My Wing Chun teacher said grappling will not happen in a real fight.

Depends on the kind of fight. What I have been taught is, if you're a woman, generally a male attacker's first goal is to knock you to the ground--and of course this can involve grappling. I'd be interest to hear how this comports with y'all's experience.

 

[Darius101]

Depends on the kind of fight. What I have been taught is, if you're a woman, generally a male attacker's first goal is to knock you to the ground--and of course this can involve grappling. I'd be interest to hear how this comports with y'all's experience.

Correct it very well depends on the kind of fight. It has been my experience that many women fight much more viciously than men in the same situation. It goes back to the fox rabbit thing from the art of war.
Yes many male attackers will try first to grab and then throw a woman to the ground. This is why most if not all 'quick' self-defense courses tend to teach grappling techniques in self defense. I have noticed that this trend changed to more fighting (punch, kick) combinations so that the attacker cannot get close enough to grab a lady. Hence the use of the 'suit' in these classes. Men also try to overpower an opponent when overpowering is not what will always win a fight and I would say rarely win a fight against a properly trained fighter be it male or female. Kick to the groin will stop most men...not all of them but most of them. And it has been my experience that it doesn't take allot of power to harm this area. Same with ears...smacking a male/female in the ear with an open hand can do some very interesting damage from effecting their balence to breaking their ear drum. This will give you enough time to run away...if that is what you need to do.

Gappling is not just ground fighting it is throwing, kansetswaza or arm breaking, holds, throws, choking techniques...there are more but do I really need to list them all?
Anyway ...all are good to learn. As far as the judo statement above in another post. I loved Judo when I took that. However Most judo practitioners do not do sparring with punching and kicking at all. They do however work on timing to get a throw, sweep down right. If you learned puching and kicking in judo class I would ask if you were more geared to Juijitsu as opposed to judo. I have not heard of any Judo classes that did punching and kicking now that I think about it. But then my teacher was an Olympic Judo Coach for 12yrs in Japan maybe I missed that aspect of judo as he didn't teach it?

Kail I start back to class tomorrow at Noon to 4pm 5 days a week again.
Regards,
Darius

 

[takyris]

Re: Why is it...

Folks perhaps you should try to welcome yourselves into the modern world or find ways to avoid physical violence instead of partaking in it.

So you didn't read the part where I said that taking Kenpo made me realize how fundamentally chaotic any fight is going to be, as well as the damage that I could do, and caused me to walk away from or avoid most fights? There've been situations where I knew that if I hadn't taken Kenpo, I'd have been scared or angry enough to get into a fight. My training got me to walk away, because I don't have my ego wrapped around beating people up.

Darius even meantioned some arts training their members to handle muggers with guns. Seems that these schools run the risk of increasing the liklihood that their members die from bullet wounds.

Again, you don't really know what you're talking about.

My school teaches us how to defend against guns, knives, and clubs. The first lesson is "Run". We're taught to give up our wallets without hesitation -- and, in fact, to throw them to the ground and then run like hell when they look away.

Our teacher basically said, "Your wallet isn't worth your life. If you think that you can give them your wallet and they'll leave you alone, give them your wallet. But if you think that they're going to kill you no matter what -- if they try to get you to come into an alley or get into a car and you have the gut feeling that they're going to kill you -- then fight." A variation of the same thing was used to talk to women in the adult class about dealing with would-be rapists. Survive first, fight if you have an opportunity.

So perhaps you'd like to actually study an art that teaches this kind of stuff before you decide that it's just teaching us to kick the guns out of people's hands and stuff.

Darius, Kail:

My school has some good pressure point stuff already, although it's not taught as such. We do a lot of key strikes (um, striking with the knuckle of the middle finger) and spear-hands and things like that. Looking through an acupuncture book, it was fun to see how much we already had just by having good techniques. It's also really neat to be at a level where I can really understand what a technique was teaching me. There are techniques that I thought were dangerous or impractical, but now that I can see what they do with body positioning, checking, and pressure points, I love 'em. That's fun.

Read the Dillman, liked it. Planning on going back to it.

As for the meditation and such -- I occasionally feel as though my hands are suddenly heavier and warmer, but I don't get any kind of "waking up from having my hands asleep" feeling, if that's what you mean. I've felt a cool energy flow a few times when meditating right before a workout, and I think I know what you're talking about there. In any event, I plan to see how the Reiki goes and try to incorporate it -- I can already get rid of the average headache for a friend using the stuff I picked up on my own, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the attunement process does.

-Tacky

 

[Decado]

Lannon,

I see nothing wrong with people studying the MA to learn how to realistically defend themselves in a street fight. If that is a persons goal there is nothing wrong with that. I do think that fights should be avoided at all costs but there are times when they cannot be and one should be prepared. There are also those of us, myself included, due to our occupations that cannot run from from fights and are in fact required to engage and end them quickly when they do occur.

I would not count on grappling or ground fighting not happening in a fight. There are so many variables involved in a fight that I would feel better knowing that I could handle myself on the ground if the fight went there. A good wing chun man should be hard to take to the ground due to the fact that they are always occupying centerline but one never knows. If you study wing chun I recommend getting with a grappler and have him try to take you down.

I cannot recommend learning the ground game enough. If you are primarily a striker, the first time you are on the mat is a real eye opener. I do not think jui-jitsu is the be all and end all of MA but is definately something that you should be familar with.

Decado

 

[PatMefford]

Just because there are 4 men trying to do you harm does not mean they can all hit you at the same time.

You are right. It's just like Steven Segal movies, you'll square off with all 4 opponents, one will signal he is about to engage you by giving his intentions away with an over dramatic facial expression or animal like scream. Whilst you deal with said opponent, his comrades will dance around you in a threatening fashion, waiting for you to dispose of the first attacker.