Tournaments are not a bad thing either. If you're going in there with the idea that it's going to teach you how to fight on the street, then you're gonna leave disappointed. For one it gives you new competition, besides those in the gym. It also gives you a chance to fight higher levels of competition than you're use to facing. It also gives you a chance to fight at a higher intensity. In training, you're not trying to kill your partner. In a tournament, you come very close to just that. That part does mimic how you'll behave in a real fight.
And concerning the situations, I really believe the best one could hope to train for is in a fight with one or two people. When you start involving multiple opponents, and opponents that are armed, you're starting to delve into the fantasy components of martial arts. Even a trained martial artist couldn't take on anymore than 3 guys. He'd be overwhelmed. Movies make it seem a trained martial artist could take on 20 men, and that simply isn't the case. As for weapons training, unless you're within 3 feet of a gun, you are not going to disarm him. And knife training is probably the most fictional of all. No one walks away from a knife fight unharmed. One person walks away bleeding, another walks away bleeding a little less. Nobody wins.
As for my issues with the martial arts, my issues are quite numerous. I have problems with the traditionalist community giving silly labels to martial arts. They label arts as self-defense oriented, or sport oriented. They're useless terms that have no meaning. The context in which you train doesn't matter, what matters is HOW you train. Your body will react the exact same if you were training for an opponent in the ring or for a mugger. Your body doesn't discern the difference, it will react out of muscle memory. My other issue is the serious lack of sparring and training in aliveness (with a resisting opponent). Sparring and hitting pads are often labeled as sports apparatuses and many would favor kata's and board breaking over them. This is what truly sets people up for failure, and gives them a bloated and undeserved self-confidence. Those kind of attitudes get people killed on the street.
My biggest problem with MA is the Mcdojos. They have ruined the industry to the point where the saturation of Mcdojos drives out legitimate schools who cannot compete without lowering their standards. This artificial pedestal upon which we place those who hold a black belt, coupled with this idea that such bestows knowledge, wisdom, and capability is disgusting.
As to your comments, though... no, I didn't see all the BB got beaten up. No BB ever got beaten up that I'm aware of, only people holding them. Sorry for the snide remark, but, the idea that a BB got beaten up contributes to the expectation of knowledge, wisdom, and capability commonly assumed one who posses it has. I don't know the skills of any who won or lost, the criteria for determining win or loss, or the purpose of the fight. Each sport has its niche: taekwondo with it's high kicks, wrestling with it's grappling, boxing with it's punches, etc. What is the point of comparing them? What do the results mean? How is this information useful?
As to tournaments, has anyone ever professed their preparation for a street encounter? If so, they're sorely mistaken. I don't know if it unprepares you, but the two are very different concepts. Anyone who knows better ignores any comparison between the two.
As to played out situations... your detail suggests you are confused between sport and self-defense. They both use similar techniques. But sport competition was never meant for the street, even though a good competitor could do well with those skills. Self-defense stylists could compete and might do well also, but, their skills and mindset were never designed for the competition rings. So a boxer, for instance, trains for the only likely scenario they will ever engage in: another boxer of similar weight and experience, in a standard size ring, with a ref and a bell. That's it. It's a sport. Their millieu doesn't include bottles, knives, and guns; or multiple opponents; or indefinite length of time for an encounter. So they don't train for it: it's just not needed. They have a limited skill set that can be used on the street in much the same way a painter can use a screwdriver to open a can of paint. The tool might work, but it wasn't designed for it.
1) My biggest problem right now is finding time to get more training and advancing to higher levels of black belt when I have a full time job and am teaching part time, along with having a family and finding time to work out. The last job I had was right around the corner from the dojo. When I changed jobs and family demands changed, I had to drop the dojo. Should I be selfish and abandon my current students so I can be someone else's student? That feels wrong to me.
2) Style Wars.
A short time ago, in a country not far away....
In this period of martial arts,
MMA newbies, striking from a hidden
resentment, think that the early days of UFC
was their first victory against the evils of
Traditional Martial Arts.
During internet battles, traditionalists try to explain
The secret of all martial arts,
That there is no ultimate style,
But MMA newbies think that a single grappler is powerful enough
To destroy an entire planet.
Pursuing the almight dollar,
McDojos race about selling black belts,
Stealing the integrity of rankings.
Now there is no one can restore
Sanity to the martial arts.
1. People not adapting to the times - The early UFCs and so on did expose a lot of flaws with training methods that were prevalent in many schools. A lot of schools actually learned from this and adapted accordingly. But there are still some that claim self defense is well taught when they don't spar, teach poor technique, and little conditioning. It's a bit maddening. The black belts that lost in most cases trained poorly from the get go, so they weren't exposed to wild brawlers or different fighting ranges. This is much less prevalent these days thankfully.
2. Tournaments where the contact level isn't high or realistic are what need to go if self defense is the purpose (with one caveat in my later comments). All style tournaments are more common these days, and they are actually helpful. Even though an amateur MMA or similar ruleset isn't completely realistic, it is at least somewhat valid. There's also Vale Tudo tournaments, where they are sanctioned street fights basically. It's what you make of it. I'm more of a striker, but I know it will help in the future if I enter grappling tournaments so I become more well-rounded, and vice versa depending on person.
3. Well yes and no. Those scenarios you described are actually common in many styles. The only problem is they are usually heavily scripted, and they are not often incorporated into sparring. It helps to feel that pressure, though most situations involving self defense shouldn't involve prolonging a fight. It's great that a trained person could potentially defend themselves against multiple people. But should it not be a last resort?
My first one was a mix of my own pet peeve plus replying to what you said, but I'll go through some of mine.
Blurring purposes - Whether we like it or not, some martial arts and schools are truly for show, and should viewed as such. There are many reasons why people practice martial arts, and blurred lines are annoying as people implying their reasoning for practice is the only valid reason. Martial arts represent self-defense, spiritual growth/personal development through training, my favorite form of fitness, and more. My reasoning for practice is just as acceptable as yours is or anyone else. But some of these schools need to differentiate too.
Conflating style with training method - This is arguably my biggest pet peeve especially people got their knowledge of a style from forums or youtube videos. The notion that certain styles ALWAYS train a certain way is false. You can find full contact so-called traditional schools (e.g. Shodokan/Tomiki Aikido) as much as one can find point sparring modern combat sports schools. I've trained in many styles (such as Muay Thai, Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Boxing, Kickboxing, Hapkido, Kyukido, Krav Maga, Capoeira, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu). I've found my fair share of schools that have poor teaching methods on both ends.
"I went to this one school that trains a certain way. Therefore, all schools of that style train that way."
Correlation does not imply causation. C(u)m (really yahoo? Lol) hoc ergo propter hoc. It's a logical fallacy... *Rolls eyes*
Styles camps - Similar to above. No two people fight alike, so it's impossible to argue which style is best. We know what training methods are best based on purpose, but style has nothing to do with it.
Exorbitant fees/Shoddy business practices/invalid lineage emphasis/too many belts - Yep. Not a fan.
We know the proper way to train, so we can give people guidelines. But there's no one size fits all to martial arts, and there never will be.
Influx of mc-dojos and fraud teachers
Lil kiddie widdie black belts who can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
Adult black belts who fall into the same category.
A dojo "guaranteeing" a black belt within a certain amount of time.
Teachers charging ridiculous fees for testing.
Places that don't do full contact sparring or sparring in general.
Places that do not train realistically.
Watered down marital arts to make it "user friendly"
Belt colors don't bother me too much. What does is a person wearing a certain colored belt, who doesn't truly deserve that belt. Ex, we had one of our yellow belts outclass a 2nd Dan.
I've seen a 17 yr old 3rd Dan. Kid thought he was the s--t. Watch him fight and you couldn't stop laughing at how bad he was.
Point is a 1st Dan should truly mean something and should be earned. Now-adays, they are given out like candy.
And everything listed here:
http://mcdojo-faq.tripod.com
I think a person ought to be able to go and learn a martial art without worrying about "effectiveness" in street fighting, self-defense..whatever. Go and learn the style for what it is. Iado is a fine thing to learn that has zero application for any fights or whatever. I just do not have any thugs bothering me, I don't live in Detroit or wherever these thugs are. I haven't really had anyone bother me in, in any serious way for about twenty years. Therefore I need more motivation than fending off theoretical thugs to go to the dojo and learn.
What?, I get a thumbs down because I don't have douchebags attacking me? Isn't that the douchebags fault? The douchebags would rather bother some young girl than tangle with my 230 pounds, that's life. Don't confuse anxiety over schoolyard bullies with self defense. If you have to actually defend your life-a .45 is better than any martial art. That's reality.
I don't like the "tribal", "My style is better than your style" aspect of martial arts. There are only so many ways that you can punch, kick or grab a person. The moves are the same; the philosophies are just different. I also agree with you on the scenario based training. No one just materializes out of nowhere and throws a punch. There are factors that precipitate physical confrontation. There is also an aftermath to violence that needs to be addressed. The reality based fighting systems are already filling in that gap in training. The sport and spiritual based systems need to catch up with this.
Martial arts isn't what is use to be. Now days people sue, so you can't train in this country like in olden times.
Belts and trophies are for the weak minded.
When martial arts is driven by money it loses its purpose.
1. Yes all the black belts that were beat up by other black belts. Gee your a freaken genius it took a black belt to beat up a black belt. No one would ever have guessed it would take a black belt to beat a black belt.
Besides the Gracie's hand picked the fights and setup people with no grappling skills. Dumbazz.
2. I'll give you that one.
3. You are also wrong about. I just don't feel like wasting my time explaining it in detail.
hi... I know im gonna get lots of flack for this but o well I am entitled to my own personal opinion as well are you are so if u don't agree sorry guys....
1. belts colors.... seriously did u see all the "black" belts that got beaten up in the early ufc days by untrained street fighters?? there is too many definitions of what a black belt truly means. so many black belts never even fought in real life ( which I know u shouldn't do anyways)....
2. martial arts tournaments... bruce lee didn't mess around with this crap either.. its unrealistic.. there are rules a structure around these tournaments which is not properly preparing people for a real street encounter... if anything I believe is UNprepairs u...
3. there is a lack of played out situations... what I mean by this is when people are sparring they just practice there technique without actually preparing u for what could actually be happening in a real fight.. example, I used to take krav maga, and we actually wore masks and gave the other persona fake gun to simulate a situation where your getting robbed... we played out taking on multiple attackers not just one on one... ect...
Whats wrong with tournaments? They show us who the best fighter is.
You are mostly right ,, especially about the black belt dudes
