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Post by MMX on Aug 14, 2012 15:51:34 GMT -5
Caught this interesting video.
He makes some very good points.
Is every Martial Art only good for what it was made for? I think it depends on the teacher and the students.
Are some much more suited for certain things. Without a doubt.
I agree with most of what he says, but I also think more like Gary. I don't train for fair. I train to stay alive. So if I have to break your kneecap I will.(of course I don't mean sport competitions..)
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Post by meguro on Aug 14, 2012 22:32:34 GMT -5
I like his point about many self-defense instructors not having had any self-defense experience themselves, particularly the kind where a gun is pointed at you. The most experienced self-defense instructors in this area are probably coming out of the military and what they teach usually requires a firearm.
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Aug 15, 2012 1:24:21 GMT -5
I teach KD as a sport now, although I am convinced there is cross-over to confrontation if the person trains properly. Good impact and thinking correctly under pressure has a lot going for it when push comes to smack in the mouth, certainly more than the 'if he does this, you can do THIS' garbage I've seen trotted out in some quarters. For my own personal training, I like to keep my tools sharp. Hopefully I won't need to use them. Good self-defence is rather a funny thing to define. It makes better sense to avoid or walk away from a situation if at all possible. But that can leave us with the uncomfortable feeling that we should have stuck up for ourselves or used a more physical response. I have no smart answer to that one. If we have no 'walk away' option, I have always found simple direct blows to the jawline to be most effective. Every style has them if you clear the decks and remove alll the flim flam. I never bought into this 'you only get what you train for' idea. In fact, in the stupid days of my youth brawling in pubs or working on doors, I'd never heard that 'sport won't work in the street' so I just got on with it. Seemed to work just fine so confidence in yourself and your skills goes a hell of a long way. We shouldn't hamstring ourselves by over analysing. Gary
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Post by Ros on Aug 15, 2012 2:22:31 GMT -5
I never bought into this 'you only get what you train for' idea. I can kind of see the logic of this, though. Well, I can certainly see that if you never use your 'training' under any kind of pressure, it might be difficult to use that training when faced with a high adrenaline situation. Conversely, I can see that if you often use things like targeted aggression when training, or forcing out 'one more technique' when you're completely exhausted, then it might be easier to use something when necessary.
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Aug 15, 2012 3:25:15 GMT -5
Not sure if anyone caught that Panorama program about Sports drinks, supplements and shoes, but I wonder if the same principle applies here. Before the soft drink manufacturers could milk the gullible public out of billions, they had to 'invent' a problem. So they put the word 'dehydration' on everyone's lips and persuaded people they needed to buy expensive drinks to take before, during and after exercise. Meanwhile the supplements industry pumps out protein powder by the ton and sports shoes sell for £100's of pounds. The scientists found no evidence we need any of them until we reach the very thin air inhabited by elite athletes, certainly not the blokes jogging on treadmills at your local sports centre grimly holding on to their shorts. So I wonder if this 'you only get what you train for' and 'sport won't work in the street' were simply clever marketing ploys. Rather like 'every fight ends on the ground'. If you've got something new to sell (RBSD and BJJ) you must first persuade people that what they are doing won't cut it. Food for thought. My early mentors - like Brian Fitkin - could handle the rough stuff just fine. They didn't need the chest thumping and bad attitude that we see these days in some training establishments, often a sure sign of a LACK of confidence. Each to their own. Gary
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Post by Ros on Aug 15, 2012 5:03:00 GMT -5
Food for thought. My early mentors - like Brian Fitkin - could handle the rough stuff just fine. Did it help that they did hard training (I assume!), do you think? Or maybe they were attracted to hard training because they could find the right attitude under pressure? I don't think you necessarily have to train x to be able to do y, but I do think that easy, comfortable, non-pressure training (you know the kind I mean ) might not be as beneficial for self-defense as, oh, I don't know...training with Lee, for example! Just kidding, I don't think I'm putting this very well am I? Does anyone get what I'm jibber-jabbering about? ;D
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Aug 15, 2012 7:30:09 GMT -5
I understand perfectly. We need to be uncomfortable, not all the time but certainly some of it. Some people have got 'It'. Some people can find 'It' through hard training and sadly some will never have 'It'. It's the last group the soft clubs target as they know they'll never work hard enough to outgrow what they teach. The nay-sayers will always give anecdotal evidence about 'my mate' who 'did karate' and got beaten to a pulp 'in the street', but my answer to that is "He wasn't training properly" Gary
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curlbroscience
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Testing the waters. Thanks for the forum MMX!
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Post by curlbroscience on Aug 15, 2012 9:22:32 GMT -5
I listened to Iain's Martial Map recently and it shed some interesting light on what some martial arts instructors perceive to be self defense training and what he believed to be self defense training.
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Aug 15, 2012 9:45:56 GMT -5
I think the term is too broad. Self defence covers everything from scanning surroundings to evasive action to talking down to using artifice to soft skills to - eventually if all else fails - smashing them in the face and running for your life. Too many people, I grant you, think fancy skills in the dojo are a get-out-of-jail-free card. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the dojo we have time and space and the certain knowledge that fights will be stopped if things get nasty. All notably absent outside. But the ability to keep your temper and not go over the top, the ability to apply impact on target, the ability to focus under pressure, these are all things that we CAN improve. In my opinion that's worth the effort. Gary
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Post by powerof0ne on Aug 19, 2012 3:00:00 GMT -5
I honestly have an issue with going too far, once I turn my switch on, it's very hard to turn off. However, I don't encourage my students to have this I do teach them no nonsense and simple to do techniques. Hit first, do lots of damage, and stay alive. Obviously, I teach an "aggressive" way to defend yourself, but practical. I also very often tell my students to not seek out confrontation, but if they must, they must. None of my students, that I'm aware of, have ever been arrested for confrontation, and all of them are still alive. Osu!
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Sept 9, 2012 4:47:29 GMT -5
Apparently if we train in a 'militaristic' way that will make us all compliant if bossed around by an assailant.
I'd love to see the evidence to support that.
IMO 'Militaristic' training helps us to drill the hard skills that need to be precise under pressure. Of course, that has to be balanced by other skills that we apply in changing circumstances, using our own initiative.
There will always be some students - in any training environment - that react to orders but can't think for themselves, but I doubt it applies to us all.
Gary
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Post by meguro on Sept 9, 2012 7:51:12 GMT -5
Apparently if we train in a 'militaristic' way that will make us all compliant if bossed around by an assailant. I'd love to see the evidence to support that. Almost lost my coffee on the keyboard with that one, Gary. Imagine all the wars that could have been avoided if only we used stern language on the enemy.
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Sept 13, 2012 5:01:35 GMT -5
As I follow up I have to admit I got the wrong end of the stick. I have a low attention span for long posts so I scanned through something and misunderstood.
I think 'militaristic' training has value (that's why the military do it) in the initial stages - do it this way and repeat until you reach unconscious competence - but the eventual goal is to go beyond that so the individual assumes responsibility for their own efforts.
Abuse by instructors and brainwashing (think Cobra Kai) is different and to my mind is not 'militaristic', it's just stupid.
Gary
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Sept 21, 2012 8:02:10 GMT -5
I'm quite often asked if what we do would "Work outside the kebab shop"
The selling point of many systems seems to be the notion that if you're out at 3:00am, drunk, then decide to eat a kebab on the way home, the skills taught would help you to handle any disputes over your change.
But I look at things from the other direction. If you're training hard, possibly with a tournament or belt test as your goal, why would you be DAFT enough to sabotage that by getting p***ed, eating crap and fighting in the rain?
Gary
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curlbroscience
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Testing the waters. Thanks for the forum MMX!
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Post by curlbroscience on Sept 21, 2012 10:40:02 GMT -5
Avoidance as the best form of self defense. If something becomes the center of your life (not that karate needs to be the center) but it changes your POV regarding everything around you.
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