The Art or The Person

[MJS]

Reading thorugh some threads recently, I began thinking of a few things. Many times, people begin training because of the success or stories they've heard about the art or other people in the art. I'll use BJJ for an example. Back in '93, once the UFC made its debut, everyone ran out to begin training in this art that seemed to dominate the ring. Now, is it a given that anyone that trains in BJJ is going to always be the victor in every outcome? I'm not talking about preset matches, where everyone is paired up with an equal, but in the real world, where things are not equal. What determines that outcome? This of course is not limited to BJJ, but any art. If someone trains in TKD, is it a given that because they train in that art, they're going to be successfull?

This thread is not intended to be a my art vs. your art. Its not intended to turn into a flame war. I'm looking for some good, friendly debate. :)

Mike

[exile]

Reading thorugh some threads recently, I began thinking of a few things. Many times, people begin training because of the success or stories they've heard about the art or other people in the art. I'll use BJJ for an example. Back in '93, once the UFC made its debut, everyone ran out to begin training in this art that seemed to dominate the ring. Now, is it a given that anyone that trains in BJJ is going to always be the victor in every outcome? I'm not talking about preset matches, where everyone is paired up with an equal, but in the real world, where things are not equal. What determines that outcome? This of course is not limited to BJJ, but any art. If someone trains in TKD, is it a given that because they train in that art, they're going to be successfull?

This thread is not intended to be a my art vs. your art. Its not intended to turn into a flame war. I'm looking for some good, friendly debate. :)

Mike

Here's an extreme analogy: we know that a Porsche Turbo is a more powerful car than an Acura sedan (right off, a different situation from the MA scene, but stay with me). Take two people off the street, plunk them in the drivers' seat of each car, and set them off around a track to finish a set of laps . Who will win? The guy in the Porsche, obviously, right? Wrong, because if the guy in the Porsche doesn't know how to drive a super-high-performance car, one moreover with the wicked oversteer that Porsches are notorious for, there's a good chance that the Porche will never make it even once around the track; certainly if the Acura is driven by a very skilled racing driver and the Porsche by someone who's never driven anything but Subaru Outbacks before, there's no way I'd want to bet good money on the Porsche.

Now adjust that situation for the following: there's no sound way to establish the same kind of comparison between two MAs that we have for the relative performances of the Porsche and the Acura. All MAs correspond to Formula 1 cars (from different racing car manufacturers) in principle. Now take the same two guys and put them in two Formula 1s chosen at random. Who's going to win?

Now take two people off the street, about whom we know nothing, and put them in the Formula 1s. Surely it's evident that the winner will be the person who has (i) the best training at driving a 700 hp. automobile on a tight track and (ii) the better reflexes, ability to think coolly, and ability to plan a line? On the day, for two pro drivers, it comes down to fractions of a second. Same with skis: Which are better, Rossignol or Vokl slalom skis? The winners in a given race may be separated by hundreds of a second in any given race, corresponding to a few inches over a long bumpy track, and they may well trade places in the next race, or blow out completely. Would anyone want to argue that a give ski is simply a better ski, under the circumstances?

In the case of the MAs, there's one added factor: we have no way to subject the system to objective engineering tests the way we can with cars or skis. So it seems like a supremely vain endeavor to try to assess the contributions of the different systems the way we might, in principle, be able to do with the cars or skis if we had some assurance that the racers were absolutely identical in all technical abilities. Since we can't, it seems particularly futile to look for diffferences in the systems, when there is so much reason that the difference in practitioners will be the overwhelming factor, just as with cars, or skis, or...

[Laurentkd]

Here's an extreme analogy: we know that a Porsche Turbo is a more powerful car than an Acura sedan (right off, a different situation from the MA scene, but stay with me). Take two people off the street, plunk them in the drivers' seat of each car, and set them off around a track to finish a set of laps . Who will win? The guy in the Porsche, obviously, right? Wrong, because if the guy in the Porsche doesn't know how to drive a super-high-performance car, one moreover with the wicked oversteer that Porsches are notorious for, there's a good chance that the Porche will never make it even once around the track; certainly if the Acura is driven by a very skilled racing driver and the Porsche by someone who's never driven anything but Subaru Outbacks before, there's no way I'd want to bet good money on the Porsche.

Now adjust that situation for the following: there's no sound way to establish the same kind of comparison between two MAs that we have for the relative performances of the Porsche and the Acura. All MAs correspond to Formula 1 cars (from different racing car manufacturers) in principle. Now take the same two guys and put them in two Formula 1s chosen at random. Who's going to win?

Now take two people off the street, about whom we know nothing, and put them in the Formula 1s. Surely it's evident that the winner will be the person who has (i) the best training at driving a 700 hp. automobile on a tight track and (ii) the better reflexes, ability to think coolly, and ability to plan a line? On the day, for two pro drivers, it comes down to fractions of a second. Same with skis: Which are better, Rossignol or Vokl slalom skis? The winners in a given race may be separated by hundreds of a second in any given race, corresponding to a few inches over a long bumpy track, and they may well trade places in the next race, or blow out completely. Would anyone want to argue that a give ski is simply a better ski, under the circumstances?

In the case of the MAs, there's one added factor: we have no way to subject the system to objective engineering tests the way we can with cars or skis. So it seems like a supremely vain endeavor to try to assess the contributions of the different systems the way we might, in principle, be able to do with the cars or skis if we had some assurance that the racers were absolutely identical in all technical abilities. Since we can't, it seems particularly futile to look for diffferences in the systems, when there is so much reason that the difference in practitioners will be the overwhelming factor, just as with cars, or skis, or...

wow!! How can anyone follow THAT. I think you are right on, great analogy sir! (and I thought that before I realized it was your post! ;) )

[Shaderon]

It's almost impossible to follow that!

I think a major contributor would be how fast each person can think and how fast their reactions are. Also frame of mind would count for a lot, for instance, in a competition setting, person A might not want to hurt the other, while Person B might not care if they hurt the first as long as they get the points. Put the same two people on the street and you might get a different outcome altogether, Person A, may have a stronger animal instinct than Person B and be more vicious, or one of them might have distractions, e.g. loved ones nearby, which could improve or hinder their reactions.

I personally think that the quality of training that each person gets is a huge part of it, after all, if I fought a 4th Dan black belt, I was savage and they were half hearted, I might hurt them in some way but I probably wouldn't win, but put two people of roughly equal technical ability together and to me it becomes a battle of willpower and the mind in general.

[gixxershane]

Here's an extreme analogy: we know that a Porsche Turbo is a more powerful car than an Acura sedan (right off, a different situation from the MA scene, but stay with me). Take two people off the street, plunk them in the drivers' seat of each car, and set them off around a track to finish a set of laps . Who will win? The guy in the Porsche, obviously, right? Wrong, because if the guy in the Porsche doesn't know how to drive a super-high-performance car, one moreover with the wicked oversteer that Porsches are notorious for, there's a good chance that the Porche will never make it even once around the track; certainly if the Acura is driven by a very skilled racing driver and the Porsche by someone who's never driven anything but Subaru Outbacks before, there's no way I'd want to bet good money on the Porsche.

Now adjust that situation for the following: there's no sound way to establish the same kind of comparison between two MAs that we have for the relative performances of the Porsche and the Acura. All MAs correspond to Formula 1 cars (from different racing car manufacturers) in principle. Now take the same two guys and put them in two Formula 1s chosen at random. Who's going to win?

Now take two people off the street, about whom we know nothing, and put them in the Formula 1s. Surely it's evident that the winner will be the person who has (i) the best training at driving a 700 hp. automobile on a tight track and (ii) the better reflexes, ability to think coolly, and ability to plan a line? On the day, for two pro drivers, it comes down to fractions of a second. Same with skis: Which are better, Rossignol or Vokl slalom skis? The winners in a given race may be separated by hundreds of a second in any given race, corresponding to a few inches over a long bumpy track, and they may well trade places in the next race, or blow out completely. Would anyone want to argue that a give ski is simply a better ski, under the circumstances?

In the case of the MAs, there's one added factor: we have no way to subject the system to objective engineering tests the way we can with cars or skis. So it seems like a supremely vain endeavor to try to assess the contributions of the different systems the way we might, in principle, be able to do with the cars or skis if we had some assurance that the racers were absolutely identical in all technical abilities. Since we can't, it seems particularly futile to look for diffferences in the systems, when there is so much reason that the difference in practitioners will be the overwhelming factor, just as with cars, or skis, or...


some one likes racing... :D

i think it boils down to who trains harder, against people that are better than them selfs.. the person with more experience i would have to say has the edge ..

a martial artist with 6+ years training vs some one with no training i would give the edgeto the martial artist in this situation..

Martial artist vs martial artist, i think there are too many varyiables to even consider an out come of style vs style.. in this instance i would have to say that the person better conditioned and prepared for the given situation would prevail..

[matt.m]

Ok,

If you take two white belts with two months experience only one a striker the other a grappler then you will see that it will be whomever draws on past life experiences.

I think that a BJJ fellow would be creamed in olympic style sparring and vice versa.

It all comes down to who can adapt to a situation, just a thought. I don't believe there is a better or worse art, the practitioner and the art are just products.

[Brad Dunne]

There's an old saying.........."It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog".

[Andrew Green]

Training methods are the important piece, not style.

Not too long into the UFC's beginnings wrestlers showed up and started to dominate. Then the kickboxers learnt some wrestling and guard work and where able to put up a fight.

As of late, most of the Champions have not been BJJ fighters, but everyone one of them trains in similar ways, and every one of them does ground fighinting and submissions, even if they don't use submissions in there fights.

If your training doesn't match your goals, you are not going to get the results you want. If your goals are related to no/limited rules fights with trained fighters in a semi-controlled environment, and what youa re doing is not along the same lines of what MMA competitors are doing you're likely going to get beat if you try to test your skills. If your goal is to get to the Olympics, Training in BJJ is not going to get you there. Boxing, wrestling, fencing or Judo would be better choices.

[bushidomartialarts]

emphatically and without exception, the people. style is largely irrelevant compared to the dedication of the student and the skill of the teacher.

[CoryKS]

( (effectiveness of style + personal skill + fortunate circumstances beyond your control ) - (effectiveness of opponent's style + opponent's skill + unfortunate circumstances beyond your control ) ) = chance of success

Or something like that.

[tshadowchaser]

Not much I can say that has not been said already. It is the person and hiss willingness to adapt to the situation and his motivation/determination to win that should provide the outcome

[Shotgun Buddha]

Before we can state which is of more importance, the Art or the Person, we have to actually examine what those involve. We also have to factor in a third factor - The Instructor.

First off the Person:

This refers to the individuals natural traits and abilities prior to any training.
This includes

Level of natural aggression
Ruthlessness/or lack thereof
Capacity for learning
Basic survival instincts
What Am I Fighting for?1. Natural Aggression
Pretty straightforward. How aggressive are you? How willing to attack? To be honest I think thats traits such as aggression and viciousness tend to be fairly over-rated, as they tend to often be lacking in focus.

2. Ruthlessness/or lack thereof
How willing are you to do what needs to be done? This is essentially what aggression should evolve into. The abilty to attack in a focused powerful manner, wasting neither time nor energy. Likewise the ability to endure whatever pain or damage is neccessary to achieve your goal.

3.Capacity for Learning
How fast will you learn from teacher, or from fights, or from situations that occur? How long will it take for you pick to up and store the relevant info from what happens?

4. Basic Survival Instincts
Do you know whats in your best interests? When its best to talk things down, when its best to bluff, when to fight, and when to run like hell?

5. What Am I Fighting For?
Do you know why you're in this fight? Whats at stake when you get in a fight, and more importantly, do you UNDERSTAND whats at stake?
More often than not, people do not understand whats at stake until too late. Just the way of things.


Second the Art

This refers to physical and metal abilites enhanced or created though training.
This means that not only it create specific abilties of its own, it can also affect or focus the traits from the individual
Abilities created include

Skill/or lack thereof
Fitness and Conditioning
Discipline
Adaptabilty1 Skill/or lack thereof
This refers to the particular delivery system that the training creates. To clarify delivery system: The abilty to position yourself where you can do the most damage, to time your strikes right, to actually DELIVER the techniques you've trained in. This isn't knowing which piece in chess could take the king, its knowing how to put that piece in the right place first.

2. Fitness and Conditioning
Your bodies ability to perform the jobs you give it and the tasks you ask of it. Strength, speed, flexibilty, endurance. All the skill in the world is useless if you're too busy wheezing to use it.

3. Discipline
This is closely linked to ruthlessness, and is often what evolves aggression into ruthlessness. Your ability to tekk your body what to do, whether it likes it or not.

4. Adaptability
How capable are you of moving outside your frame of reference, or your comfort zone? How well can apply your training outside of a training situation?

Third, The Instructor

This is the glue that sticks the Art and the Person together. Its their job to take the traits a person has naturally, and mix them with the traits from training, to ensure that it makes the most of the materials at hand.
The Instructor affects every attribute of the Art and The Person, ensuring whether each one is made the most of or wasted, if the neccessary traits are enhanced via training, or if they're simply ignored.

So its clearly damn obvious that the importance lies not on the Art, The Person, or The Instructor, but on the mix of all three together.
Basic logic alone should prove that, after all, one factor alone doesn't decide a situation, its the combination of all factors.

[Kacey]

First off, let me say, exile, that that was a great analogy, and I would happily rep you for it if the system would let me... but I can't right now, so I will settle for public recognition!


emphatically and without exception, the people. style is largely irrelevant compared to the dedication of the student and the skill of the teacher.

I agree. When I started TKD, I knew nothing about any MA except what I'd seen in a few movies. I was lucky enough to find a good instructor, without which I'd have been unlikely to continue... and then I'd have no training. No matter how "complete" the style, it only works if you use it - which requires training - which, in turn, requires a dedicated student and a competent instructor, as bushidomartialarts beat me to saying.

The problem with style vs. style debates, IMHO, and as has been said by others, is that there are too many subjective and/or unquantifiable variables involved to get an objective response. Aside from the style question - what constitutes "winning"? Having your hand raised in a ring? Being able to walk out of the ring in one piece? Or surviving in a street encounter? This adds another variable.

[kidswarrior]

Now take two people off the street, about whom we know nothing, and put them in the Formula 1s. Surely it's evident that the winner will be the person who has (i) the best training at driving a 700 hp. automobile on a tight track and (ii) the better reflexes, ability to think coolly, and ability to plan a line? On the day, for two pro drivers, it comes down to fractions of a second.

In the case of the MAs, there's one added factor: we have no way to subject the system to objective engineering tests the way we can with cars or skis.

Another nailed-it-on-the-head post, exile. Been trying to give you rep points for several days, but system won't let me for now. But be assured, this post is ubercool!! :ubercool:

BTW, before I read your entry, I was going to say something simplistic like, Systems don't fight, people fight. Oh, well....:uhyeah:

[still learning]

Hello, We are like to follow the success if others, Cane made Kung-fu popular,the people like Chuch Noris, Benny the jet...made Karate or Martial arts more popular. Bruce Lees art change the thinking of many martial artist. BJJ has brought out grappling arts.

Today it is Mix martial arts. ....tommorrow who knows what will become popular.

It is human nature to copy or want to be the best or be a part of the best of most things in life. (like Tiger woods) everyone wants to be like him, (if you like golfing).

It is in our human nature and instincts to be with strongest and the best.
Survival of the species.

As for the best martial arts.....each one has it own uniquesness to them...if you work at making it the best for you? ...than this is all you may need. ON the streets? What you learn works! ....then it works! ...

IN the ring of martial art fighting...there is always a winner and a loser...NOT because of there style or art. Because one was a little bit smarter and maybe a little bit stronger, and knows how to fight there fight. ..........Aloha

[flashlock]

I think I know where this thread developed from--and I'd like the chance to touch on it again, with less of a X vs X mindset--i.e., instead of trying to prove something, just to be open and explore the issue, which I think is valid and, if not answerable, we can make some educated guesses about!

I think the race car analogy is a little misleading in its simplicity. A more apt car analogy would be if the two racing cars were identical, and we were debating not the car, but the STYLE of driving.

Because we're talking about how humans fight optimally. We have 2 legs, 2 arms, and a head stuck on a torso, and they move around a lot. That's what we have to work with.

Ever see cats fight? It's a lot of violent batting, the smaller one usually crouches low and, if attacked, hugs its attacker and kicks at the "opponent's" belly with it claws to disembowl it. That's the ultimate system for a cat because over millions of years of evolution, that's what allowed most cats to survive.

The martial art you are practicing now is vastly different than it was 300 years ago. The training is different. The attacks are different. The Japanese, for example (according to Steven K. Hayes) did not know about the western fist (due to the guantlets they wore with their samurai armor) until only very recently. I bet your art has incorporated much more grappling after the UFC.

I think one major problem is that MA is so broad. We have Tai Chi on one side, and Navy SEAL training on the other. One system is great one on one (supposedly), but is terrible if you add other variables (weapons, multiple opponents, etc.

Look at how the UFC, even with its artificial rules, has EVOLVED. It used to be strikers vs grapplers. Now you can't be in the UFC unless you are proficient at... BOTH. It was like the two "systems" melded... they both evolved.

If you're looking for absolutes, you won't find them, but what you can find are trends, anectodal evidence, and educated guesses.

The first thing I looked at was the great WWII Alies, specifically the book _Get Tough_, which was the WWII H2H combat manual. I went to that book because that "system" has the most documented kills of any system. It was designed to beat the Japanese in H2H combat, to COUNTER their training with a simple, brutal anidote--and it worked! If anyone has the figures, please let me know--I've only heard it was the most documented kills. Check the book out, regardless! It's a riot!

Secondly, I really looked into Bruce Lee who basically invented Mixed MA (don't belive me? Read His Tao, and other writings--he was 30 years ahead of his time!). He was open to everything that... WORKED. He was an iconoclast who held no certificates. Throw out your most sacred ideas and techniques if you couldn't get them to work in practice. Do not "stick" to anything... it's a cliche but... "Be like water!"

The Japanese did not adapt. They "stuck" to their old ways and paid the price vs the inexperienced (but inventive) allies (I'm just refering to H2H combat). Did you guys see that UFC match when Hoyce Grace got pounded into submission by Hughes? Or when Hughes, the grappler, couldn't penetrate St. Pierre's strikes?

They both lost because they couldn't adapt... because they were STUCK to their system.

I believe the best system is... NO SYSTEM. You could have your hands tied behind your back vs someone twice your size, and you can win--if you go into that cat mode and let your killer instinct out (because we're human, we have to train for years to do this, alas--sometimes adrenalin helps--people with no training defeat people who are armed with knifes all the time (see Hock Hockheim's website!).

NO SYSTEM, being like water, means you do the simplist thing to achieve your aim, regardless of the conditions, you flow. So, you need to know all ranges: striking, grappling, multiple opponents, knives, guns, etc. You have to know restraints without hurting people, and you have to know how to kill someone in seconds.

Because we are modern people, we cannot dedicate 10 hours a day, 7 days a week to training unless that is our profession (soldier, or trainer of soldiers). Learn and master simple moves.

BJJ has been mentioned--it is very irksome because it is so good and so simple--and what's even more annoying, the UFC rules DO benefit grapplers, giving it even more of an advantage! It is good in large part, because it is simple with basic goals (the major positions you are constantly going for from mount to guard--there's not that many moves). Still, it takes years to master (the rules of chess are relatively simple, yet leads to complexity beyond human comprehension).

After a lot of thought--full of holes and ignorance, though it is--that is my conclusion. As writer's say, "Murder your darlings," meaning the little things in your writing that are cute and you like, but don't help the overall work. Murder your system! Attack it. Examine every technique with a critical eye. Could you REALLY trap that jab? Are you really fast enough to do that hammerfist vs a resisting attacker?

My first instinct is to not belive anything any "master" says. They all say different things, and they can't all be right. Think for yourself, test things out. You have to find the 10- 15 techniques that work for you, that are probable, and practice them over and over. Don't conform to a system.

So the winner is no system vs systems (strikers AND grapplers).

Sorry for such a long post, hope someone gets something out of it. (Yes, this contradicts my previous post--I listened to you guys and... adapted!)

Thanks.

[MJS]

Before we can state which is of more importance, the Art or the Person, we have to actually examine what those involve. We also have to factor in a third factor - The Instructor.

First off the Person:

This refers to the individuals natural traits and abilities prior to any training.
This includes

Level of natural aggression
Ruthlessness/or lack thereof
Capacity for learning
Basic survival instincts
What Am I Fighting for?1. Natural Aggression
Pretty straightforward. How aggressive are you? How willing to attack? To be honest I think thats traits such as aggression and viciousness tend to be fairly over-rated, as they tend to often be lacking in focus.

2. Ruthlessness/or lack thereof
How willing are you to do what needs to be done? This is essentially what aggression should evolve into. The abilty to attack in a focused powerful manner, wasting neither time nor energy. Likewise the ability to endure whatever pain or damage is neccessary to achieve your goal.

3.Capacity for Learning
How fast will you learn from teacher, or from fights, or from situations that occur? How long will it take for you pick to up and store the relevant info from what happens?

4. Basic Survival Instincts
Do you know whats in your best interests? When its best to talk things down, when its best to bluff, when to fight, and when to run like hell?

5. What Am I Fighting For?
Do you know why you're in this fight? Whats at stake when you get in a fight, and more importantly, do you UNDERSTAND whats at stake?
More often than not, people do not understand whats at stake until too late. Just the way of things.


Second the Art

This refers to physical and metal abilites enhanced or created though training.
This means that not only it create specific abilties of its own, it can also affect or focus the traits from the individual
Abilities created include

Skill/or lack thereof
Fitness and Conditioning
Discipline
Adaptabilty1 Skill/or lack thereof
This refers to the particular delivery system that the training creates. To clarify delivery system: The abilty to position yourself where you can do the most damage, to time your strikes right, to actually DELIVER the techniques you've trained in. This isn't knowing which piece in chess could take the king, its knowing how to put that piece in the right place first.

2. Fitness and Conditioning
Your bodies ability to perform the jobs you give it and the tasks you ask of it. Strength, speed, flexibilty, endurance. All the skill in the world is useless if you're too busy wheezing to use it.

3. Discipline
This is closely linked to ruthlessness, and is often what evolves aggression into ruthlessness. Your ability to tekk your body what to do, whether it likes it or not.

4. Adaptability
How capable are you of moving outside your frame of reference, or your comfort zone? How well can apply your training outside of a training situation?

Third, The Instructor

This is the glue that sticks the Art and the Person together. Its their job to take the traits a person has naturally, and mix them with the traits from training, to ensure that it makes the most of the materials at hand.
The Instructor affects every attribute of the Art and The Person, ensuring whether each one is made the most of or wasted, if the neccessary traits are enhanced via training, or if they're simply ignored.

So its clearly damn obvious that the importance lies not on the Art, The Person, or The Instructor, but on the mix of all three together.
Basic logic alone should prove that, after all, one factor alone doesn't decide a situation, its the combination of all factors.

Great post and this certainly brings up alot of good points.

[MJS]

I think I know where this thread developed from--and I'd like the chance to touch on it again, with less of a X vs X mindset--i.e., instead of trying to prove something, just to be open and explore the issue, which I think is valid and, if not answerable, we can make some educated guesses about!

I figured rather than sidetrack that other thread anymore than it already was, I'd start a new thread. So far we have a good thread going. :)


I think the race car analogy is a little misleading in its simplicity. A more apt car analogy would be if the two racing cars were identical, and we were debating not the car, but the STYLE of driving.

Identical for ring purposes, that I can see, but identical in real life...just doesnt happen like that. The race car analogy was set up, as far as I can tell, to talk about the drivers, not the cars per se. Depending on how one can drive the car would determine the outcome.



Sorry for such a long post, hope someone gets something out of it. (Yes, this contradicts my previous post--I listened to you guys and... adapted!)

Thanks.

:)

[exile]

The race car analogy was set up, as far as I can tell, to talk about the drivers, not the cars per se. Depending on how one can drive the car would determine the outcome.
:)

Mike, that's exactly what I'd intended when I constructed that analogy. What I was trying to get at was that even in a situation in which there are demonstrable engineering differences between vehicles that seem to give an overwhelming advantage to one of the vehicles, the role of the operator of that vehicle is so central to the performance of the vehicle under full-bore racing conditions that the skills of the operator can completely `upend' the inherent performance advantages of the more powerful, racing-dedicated vehicle. The next part of my argument is that in the real world, unlike the automotive racing scenario, we do not have that kind of evidence of `design advantage' for one or another MA under the specific combat conditions envisaged by the creators of the various MAs. The point is that, if even in the Porsche Turbo vs. Acura sedan scenario, a wide difference in technical racing skills can lead to an upset by the Acura, how much more is this sort of `driver-dependency' of the outcome going to hold when the built-in performance specs of the two vehicles are that much closer (the two Formala 1 cars part of the analogy).

Now you can bring in the `style of driving' aspect of the analogy as flashlock did, but so far as I can see, it only makes sense to talk about style of driving as a factor if you assume that (i) the cars themselves are comparable, and (ii) the drivers themselves are for all practical purposes equally good. What flashlock seems to be saying is that under these circumstances, one `style of driving' will defeat another `style of driving' consistently in all racing conditions. But what could possibly count as evidence for this position, at least in the domain of MAs? Just what kind of sample is available of people of demonstrably equal competence using a sufficiently varied set of pairs of martial arts under the conditions that each member of each pair was developed to be effective in? What I'm saying is, there will be so much difficulty in demonstrating the parity of skill between the combatants required to attribute any difference in results to properties of the `arts themselves' that you simply do not have, and in practice cannot get, the data necessary to back up any particular claims about relative effectiveness. Since even a small difference in skill will, in the case of, say, roughly equally powerful race cars, very likely translate a decisive victory for the more skilled driver (apart from luck issues), you really can't conclude anything about the relative quality of the cars unless there's very, very little difference in skill between the drivers. Now, translating that back to the MA domain, how are you going to demonstrate that equality of skill? How do you set up a baseline? What experimental protocols are you going to use?

My point is that, until you have a guarantee of sufficiently comparable skill levels on the part of MAists, you cannot plausibly identify differences in outcomes as a result of the `style of driving' (i.e., the particular MA). I would venture to guess that no one has ever come close to devising a way to test the relative skill level of two MA fighters who are to test their arts against each other under streetfight conditions, with `skill' defined relative to those conditions. And I am dead certain that no one has ever actually carried out such a test for a statistically significant number of fighters. If this is true, how can anyone possibly claim to have any evidence whatever that bears on the superiority of one or another `style of driving', given that, as I noted, only when the skill level between the contestants is sufficiently small can different outcomes be confidently attributed to the difference in the driving style?

This is why I think that differences in skill level will drown out differences in style effectiveness (even if the latter kind of difference actually existed in the abstract, which I see no reason to grant in advance) to such an extent that you are much better off trying to improve skill level of the practitioner than worry about the (experimentally unmeasured and maybe unmeasurable) effectiveness level of the art.

[flashlock]

Let's look at this another way, my friends. Please be honest: make a list of the top 3 styles you would most dread facing in a life and death situation. No need to explain why a certain style is on your list, no need to belittle any other style... I'm wondering what we'll all put down, and what we'll all leave off because it's not "scary".

Here's mine:

1. BJJ
2. JKD Concepts
3. Muy Thai Boxing

(You see where this is going...?)

[kidswarrior]

Let's look at this another way, my friends. Please be honest: make a list of the top 3 styles you would most dread facing in a life and death situation. No need to explain why a certain style is on your list, no need to belittle any other style... I'm wondering what we'll all put down, and what we'll all leave off because it's not "scary".

Here's mine:

1. BJJ
2. JKD Concepts
3. Muy Thai Boxing

(You see where this is going...?)

OK, I'll bite.

1. Kung Fu San Soo
2. CQC ala Carl Cestari
3. Hapkido

Now are you going to tell me what it means? How much therapy do I need?

[exile]

Let's look at this another way, my friends. Please be honest: make a list of the top 3 styles you would most dread facing in a life and death situation. No need to explain why a certain style is on your list, no need to belittle any other style... I'm wondering what we'll all put down, and what we'll all leave off because it's not "scary".

Here's mine:

1. BJJ
2. JKD Concepts
3. Muy Thai Boxing

(You see where this is going...?)

Top style MA I'd rather not face?

South Korean Army Taekwondo as practiced by the ROK Marines at the battle of Tra Binh Dong during the Vietnam war, who, outnumbered and low on ammo, wound up killing just under 250 North Vietnamese regular infantry in H2H battle in the course of a 24 hour battle starting on Valentine's Day 1967. Many of the NVietnamese corpses had broken necks or shattered windpipes and multiple fractures as a result of hand and leg strikes by the Marine defenders. After the battle, every member of the 11th Marine Battalion was promoted a full rank by the order of President Park. A description of the battle from the U.S. Marine Marine Corps Gazette is reprinted in Stuart Anslow's Chang Hon Taekwon-do Hae Sul: Real applications to the ITF patterns.

As Simon O'Neil discusses in detail in his Combat-TKD newsletter, the TKD taught to the ROK Marines, commandos and behind-the-lines elite special forces units like the Black Tigers (Korean War) and White Tigers (Vietnam War) was not designed for takedowns, incapacitation or submissions; it was designed to enable a soldier without a weapon to disarm and kill an enemy soldier, possibly armed with a bayonet, in the shortest possible time, using neck breaks, throat strikes and inflicting traumatic head injuries. The effectiveness of this form of TKD can be measured by the fact that in 1966 a directive from the Viet Cong field command orders VC units to avoid engaging with Korean infantry units specifically because of the effectiveness of their TKD-based close quarters fighting skills (again, for details and docmentation, you can consult Anslow's book).

I personally would be very interested in seeing BJJ practitioners of any level of skill engage those ROK Marines in their prime, or the Black Tiger Spec Ops teams from the Korean war, in H2H: no rules, and to the death. I know who my money would be on.

[Robert Lee]

Style or art Does not win the fight. The person best able to use what they do that time that day does. BJJ came along at a forgotten time. Why forgoten. stand up kick bozing had gained the lime light and ground training was not being as looked into. Now you just a short time spent with clench and ground BJJ is not the main threat to beat now days. Better game is rounded training. 2 people same training 1 will out do the other, why 1 is better able to perform with what they know. Plus we have to remember you have to have a certion amount of heart to keep the fight up you have, loose that desire you have lost the battle. Skill times heart.

[flashlock]

Style or art Does not win the fight. The person best able to use what they do that time that day does. BJJ came along at a forgotten time. Why forgoten. stand up kick bozing had gained the lime light and ground training was not being as looked into. Now you just a short time spent with clench and ground BJJ is not the main threat to beat now days. Better game is rounded training. 2 people same training 1 will out do the other, why 1 is better able to perform with what they know. Plus we have to remember you have to have a certion amount of heart to keep the fight up you have, loose that desire you have lost the battle. Skill times heart.

Nicely put, thank you.

[bydand]

Let's look at this another way, my friends. Please be honest: make a list of the top 3 styles you would most dread facing in a life and death situation. No need to explain why a certain style is on your list, no need to belittle any other style... I'm wondering what we'll all put down, and what we'll all leave off because it's not "scary".

Here's mine:

1. BJJ
2. JKD Concepts
3. Muy Thai Boxing

(You see where this is going...?)

Fair enough question I suppose.
My list would be:

1) East Detroit Gang style with a blade.
2) Bronx Pub brawling
3) African Poacher style.

No I am not making fun of your list at all.

I think as Martial Artists we get trapped into thinking that unless somebody has spent time in a formal training hall or Dojo they are "untrained as a fighter". Nothing could be further from the truth, they are all trained in their environment. All of the above can be, and should be, considered a real fighting style, and I wouldn't want to cross paths with any of them actually. Now of course there are different levels to everything, and I am sure there are African Poachers I could out shoot and get them first from a couple of hundred yards, and some brawlers in the Bronx I could knock heads with and not sweat it too much, and even a few gang members I could come out ahead on (notice I didn't say win against. Usually there are no un-cut "winners" in a knife fight.)

Which brings us back to the whole, not the art, but the fighter discussion. I would rather face a so-so BJJ guy than a good Pub brawler. BJJ doesn't win the fight, the practioner wins the fight.

[kidswarrior]

Fair enough question I suppose.
My list would be:

1) East Detroit Gang style with a blade.
2) Bronx Pub brawling
3) African Poacher style.

No I am not making fun of your list at all.

I think as Martial Artists we get trapped into thinking that unless somebody has spent time in a formal training hall or Dojo they are "untrained as a fighter". Nothing could be further from the truth, they are all trained in their environment.

Well put, bydand. I'll admit I fell into the formal (asian style) training hall line of thinking. :whip1: Three of the four guys I've actually ever been afraid of, never even strapped on a white belt--nor would they.

[flashlock]

Well put, bydand. I'll admit I fell into the formal (asian style) training hall line of thinking. :whip1: Three of the four guys I've actually ever been afraid of, never even strapped on a white belt--nor would they.

All well and good, but that wasn't the question-- which 3 MA styles would you least like to face (if you add Detroit gang banger, than you can also add great white shark--let's keep it to the question, thanks!)

[Shaderon]

That's a question I can't answer, I don't know enough about each style and it's pro's and con's. It's the guys with the murderous intent in thier eyes that I'd least like to face.

[bydand]

All well and good, but that wasn't the question-- which 3 MA styles would you least like to face (if you add Detroit gang banger, than you can also add great white shark--let's keep it to the question, thanks!)

There are no ARTS that I am afraid of. An art is a set of skills and techniques put together to form a whole, nothing more, nothing less. Of that there is zero, zip, nada, none that I am afraid of. Practioners vary widely and you cannot compare art to art to narrow it down to the "best" Which is kind of what you are looking for. The answers will be as numerous as the people giving them.

And for the record, your question was which 3 styles, not "which 3 Martial Arts" I named 3 different styles of fighting, valid answer to the question you asked. Never seen a Great White finning its way down the street, but I know I could beat its nasty butt in the environment I would be seeing it in, (Sit back, crack a Pepsi, and wait would be my technique) because I am not about to get in the water with one. :)

The original question Mike asked though was...
What determines that outcome? This of course is not limited to BJJ, but any art. If someone trains in TKD, is it a given that because they train in that art, they're going to be successfull?

And the basic answer is the Person, not the art from my perspective.

[MJS]

Bydand and Exile summed it up with their last posts. As for what arts I don't want to face...as I've said, IMHO, its not the art, but what the person doing the art can do. The old game where person A says a word and wants Person B to say the first thing that comes to their mind. BJJ..Royce Gracie. Now, in the logic that is being presented, we're to assume that we should fear BJJ because of Royce Gracie. I view it as the person, because chances are, not everyone is going to be like Gracie, as he's his own person. Just because someone trains in BJJ, does not mean that they're going to be as good as him. I believe I stated this here as well as in the Ninjutsu thread. There are way too many factors to take into consideration, I just don't see how we can pick an art, and say yes, I fear that.

Mike

[Brian R. VanCise]

I think a better idea is to never form absolutes in your mind or allow yourself to be driven by a thought of well this person studies x,y,z and that they must be a tough person. (you have immediately given them an advantage) I try to treat every individual with an equal amount of respect for their ability to generate violence. (from kid's to adults) In doing so I hope to not be surprised by anyone. Yet once again their is no absolute as you can be surprised by anyone at almost any time. So have a healthy respect for everyone and treat everyone as you would like to be treated. In the end all it will come down to is acting in the moment to protect yourself and your loved ones. Train as much as possible and focus on the details of your training to improve. That is all that you can ask of yourself and hopefully that training and those details will be there if you ever need them. http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/images/icons/icon14.gif

[kidswarrior]

All well and good, but that wasn't the question-- which 3 MA styles would you least like to face (if you add Detroit gang banger, than you can also add great white shark--let's keep it to the question, thanks!)

As Bydand said, you changed the question from the first time asked to this post. And, you implicitly changed the rules:


no need to explain why a certain style is on your list, no need to belittle any other style...

Yet that's exactly what you do. Kind of takes the fun out of playing if you first say, sky's the limit, then come back with, your answer doesn't fit the criteria. Can't have it both ways.

Now all that said, and having tried to contribute something to the thread in the spirit of good fun, I'll go back to the aphorism I always rely on in these 'which style is best' musings: styles don't fight, people do.

[Shotgun Buddha]

As Bydand said, you changed the question from the first time asked to this post. And, you implicitly changed the rules:



Yet that's exactly what you do. Kind of takes the fun out of playing if you first say, sky's the limit, then come back with, your answer doesn't fit the criteria. Can't have it both ways.

Now all that said, and having tried to contribute something to the thread in the spirit of good fun, I'll go back to the aphorism I always rely on in these 'which style is best' musings: styles don't fight, people do.

However one could add the point that people fight using their styles. I find it best to equate styles as being like weapons, you don't argue which weapon is better, you argue which is better for a specific situation.
A knife might work best in a cramped alleyway, but its not much use against a sniper, and near useless if you want to disable someone without hurting them.

I think the problem is most people want their style to be the Swiss Army Knife of martial arts, and want it to apply to every situation, AND make your laundry smell like lavender too.
But thats not going to happen. You can't focus on one aspect in depth without neglecting another, so you can either be great at one part of fighting and crap at the others, or you can be solid but not spectacular in alot of them. But best at everything just isn't going to happen.
And if you wan't that scent of lavender, you're going to have to work for it.

[kidswarrior]

However one could add the point that people fight using their styles. I find it best to equate styles as being like weapons, you don't argue which weapon is better, you argue which is better for a specific situation.
.... But best at everything just isn't going to happen.

Yes, I agree one could further qualify the whole argument, which is why I didn't make such a claim.

Just answered a 'What if' question for fun (stupid me). Guess I extrapolated the question and understood it as, Which art would you least like to face in the hands of a skilled, determined practitioner? Goes back to the racing analogy of exile. It's partly the car, partly the driver. But if I could choose any car to begin with.... (which is how I understood the latest question of 'which style'....).

I think Mike did us a service in trying to pull this back on topic by dismissing the style-vs-style comparison as too simplistic for any sweeping generalizations (just too many variables):


MJS: As for what arts I don't want to face...as I've said, IMHO, its not the art, but what the person doing the art can do.

My 'list of three' assumed the practitioner was a competent, determined, experienced fighter.

And with this, I'm out.

[zDom]

Secondly, I really looked into Bruce Lee who basically invented Mixed MA (don't belive me? Read His Tao, and other writings--he was 30 years ahead of his time!). He was open to everything that... WORKED. He was an iconoclast who held no certificates. Throw out your most sacred ideas and techniques if you couldn't get them to work in practice. Do not "stick" to anything... it's a cliche but... "Be like water!"


OK, now wait just a cotton pickin' moment :)

The TAO of Jeet Kune Do was published in 1973, after he died.

Bruce wasn't even BORN until November 27, 1940, and didn't start training until he was introduced to Yip Man in early 1954.

(Modern) hapkido began to be practiced in 1949. Not long after, the Water Principle ("Ryu") was established as one of the three principles of hapkido.



NO SYSTEM, being like water, means you do the simplist thing to achieve your aim, regardless of the conditions, you flow. So, you need to know all ranges: striking, grappling, multiple opponents, knives, guns, etc. You have to know restraints without hurting people, and you have to know how to kill someone in seconds.

Hmm lets see,

striking? Check.
grappling? Check.
multiple opponents? Check.
knifes, guns, etc.? Check

restraining holds without hurting people? Check.
kill someone in seconds? Check.

Sounds like you are describing hapkido to a "T" to ME. :)

So WHO "invented" mixed MA? ;) Not saying hapkido: the idea actually has come up in many different cultures over the centuries, but one thing IS for certain: HKD had already covered this ground in Korea before Bruce "invented it" in San Francisco :)

As for the car analogy, it is a good one. Change the race conditions, and you change which car is "best" (in addition to the driver factor).

You don't want to take a Formula One car out on a dirt track ;)

I've said this before, and I'll say it here again: BJJ is a great art for Brazil where mano y mano fights are the norm.

It also works great in a cage match or any other situation where groundwork is a good option.

For Southeast Missouri where you usually have at least two and as many as five or six rednecks jumping on you at once? I don't think I'll be "rolling," thanks, or taking my time waiting for an armbar or rear naked choke opportunity.

So find out what is best for YOU where YOU are at. There is no universal "best."

If BJJ is best for you where you are at — great! It doesn't HAVE to be the "best art in the world ever" to be the best for YOU where YOU are :)

So stop trying to convince us and yourself and just get in there and train ;)

Even if you COULD convince me that BJJ is my best option for this area, I don't HAVE a BJJ instructor around here – so it's a moot point~!

And even if hakido IS the best art for you (not saying it IS), could be the only instructor you could find sucks, and you would be better off with BJJ, or Muay Thai, or TKD or...

Anyway, top art I wouldn't want to face?

1) JUDO
2) YUDO
3) Ninja (poison darts in the back of the neck SUCK!! :D)

[flashlock]

As Bydand said, you changed the question from the first time asked to this post. And, you implicitly changed the rules:



Yet that's exactly what you do. Kind of takes the fun out of playing if you first say, sky's the limit, then come back with, your answer doesn't fit the criteria. Can't have it both ways.

Now all that said, and having tried to contribute something to the thread in the spirit of good fun, I'll go back to the aphorism I always rely on in these 'which style is best' musings: styles don't fight, people do.

Well, the question is relating to styles, not criminal types--but people didn't want to play along so I posted this as a seperate thread. Yes, sytles don't fight, people do--and when they fight (sometimes) their style determines if they live or not.

[flashlock]

OK, now wait just a cotton pickin' moment :)

The TAO of Jeet Kune Do was published in 1973, after he died.

Bruce wasn't even BORN until November 27, 1940, and didn't start training until he was introduced to Yip Man in early 1954.

(Modern) hapkido began to be practiced in 1949. Not long after, the Water Principle ("Ryu") was established as one of the three principles of hapkido.



Hmm lets see,

striking? Check.
grappling? Check.
multiple opponents? Check.
knifes, guns, etc.? Check

restraining holds without hurting people? Check.
kill someone in seconds? Check.

Sounds like you are describing hapkido to a "T" to ME. :)

So WHO "invented" mixed MA? ;) Not saying hapkido: the idea actually has come up in many different cultures over the centuries, but one thing IS for certain: HKD had already covered this ground in Korea before Bruce "invented it" in San Francisco :)

As for the car analogy, it is a good one. Change the race conditions, and you change which car is "best" (in addition to the driver factor).

You don't want to take a Formula One car out on a dirt track ;)

I've said this before, and I'll say it here again: BJJ is a great art for Brazil where mano y mano fights are the norm.

It also works great in a cage match or any other situation where groundwork is a good option.

For Southeast Missouri where you usually have at least two and as many as five or six rednecks jumping on you at once? I don't think I'll be "rolling," thanks, or taking my time waiting for an armbar or rear naked choke opportunity.

So find out what is best for YOU where YOU are at. There is no universal "best."

If BJJ is best for you where you are at — great! It doesn't HAVE to be the "best art in the world ever" to be the best for YOU where YOU are :)

So stop trying to convince us and yourself and just get in there and train ;)

Even if you COULD convince me that BJJ is my best option for this area, I don't HAVE a BJJ instructor around here – so it's a moot point~!

And even if hakido IS the best art for you (not saying it IS), could be the only instructor you could find sucks, and you would be better off with BJJ, or Muay Thai, or TKD or...

Anyway, top art I wouldn't want to face?

1) JUDO
2) YUDO
3) Ninja (poison darts in the back of the neck SUCK!! :D)

You're more afraid to face Judo than BJJ? You can't be serious (watch BJJ vs Judo on youtube). Hey, it's your choice, I just don't see it...

You think Hapkido is as mixed and iconoclastic as JKD? Bruce Lee mixed and integrated arts from western boxing, revolutionized aspects of wing chung, and incorporated grappling from western and eastern boxing systems.

As for multiple opponents, I've seen "Billy Jack"--that crowd kicked his butt! :) (Joke)

Seriously, I am not here to promote BJJ; why would I? I've taken 3 bloody classes. But it's what I plan to focus on in the upcoming months.

Everyone can try this experiment: while your opponent is throwing his/her kicks and punches, just crash through with your guard up into a clinch, and wrestle them. I found the opponent could not prevent it. To me, that means it's very difficult to prevent someone crashing into grappling range. Ergo, if they are grappling specialists, won't they have an advantage (they spend 95% grappling, and you spend less than 75% grappling)?

[Carol]

Moderator Note


Attention All Users:

Please note the topic of the thread is "The Art or The Person" .

Please return to the original topic of exploring the importance of a particular art vs. a particular practitioner.


Thank you!

- Carol Kaur -
- MT Moderator -

[bydand]

Everyone can try this experiment: while your opponent is throwing his/her kicks and punches, just crash through with your guard up into a clinch, and wrestle them. I found the opponent could not prevent it. To me, that means it's very difficult to prevent someone crashing into grappling range. Ergo, if they are grappling specialists, won't they have an advantage (they spend 95% grappling, and you spend less than 75% grappling)?

Good luck with that!

Try that with the guys I train with and you'll be spitting chicklets (Teeth in other words.) Had a few try it, funny how they never show back up after getting their bells rung, time after time and NOT taking anybody brown belt and above into a grappling situation.

Which is a prime example of practitioners over art form. It very well may work against other of the same art and the same rank, but here; you lose 99.9% of the time.

[flashlock]

I posted in the Ninjutsu vs BJJ thread (didn't start it); and I've posted on this thread (didn't start it). And I've posted on what style you would fear the most (guilty). Somone asked if I'm here just to pick people's posts apart and start flame wars, and others said that I have an agenda.

If I pick your post apart, it's because I respect you enough to read it and examine it carefully.

As for agenda, I do have one: I'm interested in people disagreeing with me so I can learn something.

Even in my post about "most feared opponent", I wanted just to keep it light, but people are still being defensive.

I post on these threads because for a year, all I did was research tyring to find the best style in terms of street fighting. I guess it's more pc to say, "Best style for me."

I've read many MA books recently, and went to classes from muy thai, aikido, western boxing, BJJ, to-shin do, and JKD. I have 6 years in TKD, and in the past have studied Tai Chi, Praying Mantis Kung Fu, ninjutsu, and free style wrestling.

From my research and experience, I have found BJJ would give a practitoner a good edge over most other arts, in mine and many other's (much greater than me) opinions.

What have I learned? Ninjutsu really emphasizes weapons, and that kind of training can influence a H2H combat situation. I also didn't realize Hopkido was so broad--looks like some good stuff. This combat TKD someone mentioned is intriguing--never heard of such a thing.

Also, I am new here. When I debated (especially in the ninja vs bjj thread)--I wasn't into sharing, or listening, just trying to prove my case. I think that was a mistake, and not much was accomplished except for making people angry. I decided yesterday that I'm not going to do that--I want to share what I've learned, and hear what others have to say.

From what I've learned, this forum isn't about proving you're right, or even debating--it's more like friends disagreeing at a party or something: you have to be very civil (regardless of how wrong the other guy is! :) )

Sorry for the tangent, but let's look at this question openly, freshly, without being defensive, without trying to be right.

Last time for me: 1. It's hard to prevent grappling. 2. Grappling specialists have a slight advantage over people who spend less time grappling. 3. Individual grapplers might have a slight edge over generalists due to their style.

I think these means style is not totally neutral, it has an influence on the individual.

Thanks.

[MJS]

Well, speaking as a member, not a mod. because I'm involved in this thread, it seems lately like we have had quite a few threads with off topic posts and mod warnings. I hate to see threads get locked, especially when we have good discussion, so I think its best to stop all the side chatter and get back to talking about this:



Reading thorugh some threads recently, I began thinking of a few things. Many times, people begin training because of the success or stories they've heard about the art or other people in the art. I'll use BJJ for an example. Back in '93, once the UFC made its debut, everyone ran out to begin training in this art that seemed to dominate the ring. Now, is it a given that anyone that trains in BJJ is going to always be the victor in every outcome? I'm not talking about preset matches, where everyone is paired up with an equal, but in the real world, where things are not equal. What determines that outcome? This of course is not limited to BJJ, but any art. If someone trains in TKD, is it a given that because they train in that art, they're going to be successfull?

This thread is not intended to be a my art vs. your art. Its not intended to turn into a flame war. I'm looking for some good, friendly debate. :)

[exile]

Well, speaking as a member, not a mod. because I'm involved in this thread, it seems lately like we have had quite a few threads with off topic posts and mod warnings. I hate to see threads get locked, especially when we have good discussion, so I think its best to stop all the side chatter...

Absolutely, Mike. I think some of the reason why people get into the art vs. art red herring is precisely because it can't be resolved in any rigorous way, so it provides endless fodder for taking strong positions that in a sense can't ever be subject to cold evaluation and (very likely) rejection. In other words, a kind of work avoidance tactic.

But on the assumption that it really is the practitioner, not the art, what are we supposed to do? Obviously, we're supposed to train harder, but what does that mean, really? Spend more hours at it? Or does it mean, instead, that we're responsible for constructing a version of the art which is customized to our particular physical abilities and talents, and our individual world-views? That's a challenge which I think is much harder than endless debate about Muay Thai vs. Wing Chun or, ... or.... but it's much more relevant to real performance, real outcomes? So we have a bunch of people on MT who do Taekwondo. Quite a few of them enjoy WTF style competitive TKD; that's TKD for them, and they're right: for them, that is TKD. So they have to construct a version of TKD which supports that take on the art and which rewards a certain kind of training. My own view is, TKD is a very hard-style variant of karate and is intended to maximize damage to an assailant regardless of his size. If that's what I think, then I need to develop a model of combat-oriented TKD based on my understanding of the techs concealed within the hyungs, and on my own ability do deliver force to high-value, vulnerable targets. And that model has to take my own body type (fairly tall, lean, narrow shoulders, quite long legs, muscular as a result of dedicated weight training, etc.) and abilities and weaknesses into account. I have to work out a training protocol which lets me overcome my weaknesses (e.g., balance skills) and bring my strengths (e.g., fast reflexes) to bear to tailor TKD to my own very specific requirements. Someone else's TKD may well—and should—be rather different, reflecting their physical, psychological and philosophical differences from me.

What I'm saying is just this: if it really is the artist, not the art, that determines success in some domain of combat, then the art doesn't provide you with either guarantees of success or alibis if you fail. If the individual performer is responsible for his or her success in the art, then one of the first things that has to be happen is giving up a one-size-fits-all version of the particular art. The art supplies principles, strategy and tactics, but these must all be applied by individual practitioners, each with a particular body type and certain physical and emotional characteristics, and that means you have to in a sense reinvent the art, as a matter of execution, for yourself. This isn't easy, because it means you have to think out your training in a much more reflective and active way than most of us like to do in acquiring our knowledge. But it seems to me an inevitable outcome, if we take the practitioner, not the art, to be the primary factor in combat success or failure, however you define these...

[kidswarrior]

Sounds like you are describing hapkido to a "T" to ME. :)

So WHO "invented" mixed MA? ;) Not saying hapkido: the idea actually has come up in many different cultures over the centuries, but one thing IS for certain: HKD had already covered this ground in Korea before Bruce "invented it" in San Francisco :)

As for the car analogy, it is a good one. Change the race conditions, and you change which car is "best" (in addition to the driver factor).

You don't want to take a Formula One car out on a dirt track ;)

I've said this before, and I'll say it here again: BJJ is a great art for Brazil where mano y mano fights are the norm.

It also works great in a cage match or any other situation where groundwork is a good option.

For Southeast Missouri where you usually have at least two and as many as five or six rednecks jumping on you at once? I don't think I'll be "rolling," thanks, or taking my time waiting for an armbar or rear naked choke opportunity.

Insert, Banger for redneck, and L.A. sprawl for SE Missouri, and...'Check'


So find out what is best for YOU where YOU are at. There is no universal "best."

If BJJ is best for you where you are at — great! It doesn't HAVE to be the "best art in the world ever" to be the best for YOU where YOU are :)

So stop trying to convince us and yourself and just get in there and train ;)

Even if you COULD convince me that BJJ is my best option for this area, I don't HAVE a BJJ instructor around here – so it's a moot point~!

And even if hakido IS the best art for you (not saying it IS), could be the only instructor you could find sucks, and you would be better off with BJJ, or Muay Thai, or TKD or...

This post really floats my boat. :ultracool

[flashlock]

Absolutely, Mike. I think some of the reason why people get into the art vs. art red herring is precisely because it can't be resolved in any rigorous way, so it provides endless fodder for taking strong positions that in a sense can't ever be subject to cold evaluation and (very likely) rejection. In other words, a kind of work avoidance tactic.

I thought the question on this thread was concerning if some arts are just flat better than others, so isn't this thread what you're calling a red herring? I'm confused. Regarding "cold evaluation", WWII H2H combat system vs traditional system has been documented, and I've mentioned the recent material--someone else mentioned combat TKD, mentioning casualties from H2H combat. Also, there are thousands of police reports documenting street fights and knife fights, and what happened. They are mostly untrained people, but you can see how the fight went. A police officer has told me they usually end up on the ground.

What's strange (maybe not overly convincing) is you can find case after case of video footage of BJJ defeating every other style, usually in a crushing manner. The striker throws a few kicks, the BJJ guy absorbs them and clinches, down they go, and the striker is submitted within 45 seconds--every time. I have looked (perhaps not hard enough) but I can't seem to find ANY MA crushing BJJ like that. I think people absorb that concept and it does influence the choice on what style they choose (rightly or wrongly).

Everyone is adding grappling and ground game, or claiming that they had it all the while--but BJJ isn't adding any of their techniques, at least not that I have seen. Why is that?

When I first asked myself these questions, I was trying to dismiss BJJ--I just didn't believe the hype. Obviously, I've been swayed!

Let the neg rep points rain down upon my grateful head!

[exile]

I thought the question on this thread was concerning if some arts are just flat better than others, so isn't this thread what you're calling a red herring? I'm confused.

Flashlock, read the OP carefully. E.g.:


If someone trains in TKD, is it a given that because they train in that art, they're going to be successfull?

This thread is not intended to be a my art vs. your art.

The original question is, literally, does training in a particular art guarantee that you will be successful against any other practitioner of any other art? I'm saying that the fairly obvious answer is no. And based on the network of arguments I and others have posted, I'm taking the position that there is no way in principle that arts can be evaluated in a way which abstracts from the performance of individuals—a position based in part on the fact that not one person on MT, or anywhere else, so far as I can tell, has presented a method for doing so, let alone actually carrying out the experimental work necessary to draw any conclusions.


IRegarding "cold evaluation", WWII H2H combat system vs traditional system has been documented, and I've mentioned the recent material--someone else mentioned combat TKD, mentioning casualties from H2H combat. Also, there are thousands of police reports documenting street fights and knife fights, and what happened. They are mostly untrained people, but you can see how the fight went. A police officer has told me they usually end up on the ground.

And if you ask Drac, or any number of other LEOs who post regularly on this forum, they'll tell you that there's no particular way in which a fight necessarily goes, that statistics like `90% of fights end up on the ground' are anecdotal improvisations at best. The battle of Tra Binh Dong is documented from a variety of firsthand participant-observors, but all it shows is that a particular group of individuals, trained in a particular art, were lethally effective against a group of assailants. It does not tell you that their art was superior to any other art. Why would any one think that? What distinguished the Korean War Black Tiger commandos and the ROK Marines in the Vietnam war was that they trained specifically for the purpose of killing their antagonists under a variety of battlefield conditions, including the possession of weapons by those antagonists. It was their training, not simply the technical content of the art itself, which enabled them to fatally damage so many of their enemies under very unpleasant CQ combat conditions. From early days, the Korean military emphasized training for this kind of outcome. The form that military TKD took reflects this emphasis. But do you really think that a trainee who spent four years earning a first dan in this particular form of TKD, but was not subject to realistic, dangerous training of the kind the ROK military was, would have performed remotely as well at Tra Binh Dong?


IWhat's strange (maybe not overly convincing) is you can find case after case of video footage of BJJ defeating every other style, usually in a crushing manner. The striker throws a few kicks, the BJJ guy absorbs them and clinches, down they go, and the striker is submitted within 45 seconds--every time. I have looked (perhaps not hard enough) but I can't seem to find ANY MA crushing BJJ like that. I think people absorb that concept and it does influence the choice on what style they choose (rightly or wrongly).

Look, I agree with you on this—except that I don't really find it strange. Take Mas Oyama, who used to stun bulls with fist strikes as a demonstration of the power he could generate. BJJ or not, I would very much not want to have gotten into a fight with someone who could do that. But would Oyama ever have gotten into MMA competition? Very unlikely: in his own domain, he ruled completely, as an icon of Japanese karate in its most unapologetically brutal form. He would have had no interest in the MMA world, he had nothing to prove to anyone. And the best TMAists of the present are in the same situation. I look at someone like Geoff Thompson or Iain Anderson—they aren't interested in the particular kind of sport competittion that MMA involves. A lot of TMAists aren't!!!

As I said in my earlier post, the crucial test would be, some reasonably successful MMAist of, say, the BJJ persuasion up against one of the bloodier-handed veteran of Tra Binh Dong, or one of the surviving silent killers of the Black Tiger assassination missions that made the North Koreans sufficently worried about ROK MAists to murder several of the original Kwan founders during the Korean War. No rules, and to the death—essentially the conditions you specified in your post, in fact. But in all such cases, the point is that the people I'm talking about were as effective as they were because they were trained in a particular way. They practiced for that kind of fighting, night and day; they were the best of the best because of that training. The art itself had to be able to support that kind of killing effectiveness, technically speaking, but unless you trained the way the ROK trained its spec ops and commando units, you would not get anything like the same performance. What is documented, flashlock, is not the effectiveness of any particular art, but the effectiveness of particular practitioners of that art. Tra Binh Dong is about the 11th ROK Marines. Had they been the same MAists, but trained to use their techs in a fashion comparable to current WTF sparring matches, how likely do you think it would be that the battle at TBD would have gone the way it did?



IEveryone is adding grappling and ground game, or claiming that they had it all the while--but BJJ isn't adding any of their techniques, at least not that I have seen. Why is that?

All I can say is, everything I've read on MT from people who are very au courant with this kind of sport competition suggests that striking techs are playing an increasingly important role in MMA competition, and that many victors in recent tournament competition have won by applications of striking-based attacks of a kind quite different from what BJJ practitioners were winning with in the early years of MMA compeition circuits. If I'm wrong abou this, plenty of others will chime in, for sure! I have to say, I'm not really interested in sport competition...


IWhen I first asked myself these questions, I was trying to dismiss BJJ--I just didn't believe the hype. Obviously, I've been swayed!

Let the neg rep points rain down upon my grateful head!

People on MT don't generally neg rep anyone simply because of a particular position they take or opinion they defend, so far as I can tell. But there are certain ways of presenting and defending your opinion, and there are other ways. If you're having a problem with neg rep, it maybe suggests that there's a problem with how you're talking to the other discussants, more than what you're actually saying. If it doesn't bother you, fine; but in the end, you're probably going to get more people to at least hear you out if you monitor your presentation a bit more carefully than those red dots suggest you've been doing. Just my suggestion; you're free to ignore it, but I really do think you'd have a better chance of getting a fair hearing for your ideas if you tried to avoid doing whatever you've been doing so far in presenting them....

[MJS]

Just to add on a bit more to what Exile just said. As I said in my OP, which I will break down again, for further understanding.

Reading thorugh some threads recently, I began thinking of a few things. Many times, people begin training because of the success or stories they've heard about the art or other people in the art.A) I'll use BJJ for an example. Back in '93, once the UFC made its debut, everyone ran out to begin training in this art that seemed to dominate the ring.B) Now, is it a given that anyone that trains in BJJ is going to always be the victor in every outcome? C)I'm not talking about preset matches, where everyone is paired up with an equal, but in the real world, where things are not equal. What determines that outcome? This of course is not limited to BJJ, but any art. If someone trains in TKD, is it a given that because they train in that art, they're going to be successfull?

D)This thread is not intended to be a my art vs. your art. Its not intended to turn into a flame war. I'm looking for some good, friendly debate. :)

A) I'm using that as a reference point, not necessarily as the focal point.

B) I believe I said this somewhere else, but I'll say it again. When someone hears BJJ, they automatically attribute that to the Gracies. We are not the Gracies. Just because I grapple, does not mean that I can move like Rickson, Royce or Rorion. The same for boxing. I can punch, but I certainly can't punch like Tyson.

C) This discussion, especially some recent posts, have gone the way of the ring. In a MMA match, things are preset. In the real world, we are not going to know who are opponent will be.

D) This should be self explainatory.

[matt.m]

You're more afraid to face Judo than BJJ? You can't be serious (watch BJJ vs Judo on youtube). Hey, it's your choice, I just don't see it...

You think Hapkido is as mixed and iconoclastic as JKD? Bruce Lee mixed and integrated arts from western boxing, revolutionized aspects of wing chung, and incorporated grappling from western and eastern boxing systems.

As for multiple opponents, I've seen "Billy Jack"--that crowd kicked his butt! :) (Joke)

Seriously, I am not here to promote BJJ; why would I? I've taken 3 bloody classes. But it's what I plan to focus on in the upcoming months.

Everyone can try this experiment: while your opponent is throwing his/her kicks and punches, just crash through with your guard up into a clinch, and wrestle them. I found the opponent could not prevent it. To me, that means it's very difficult to prevent someone crashing into grappling range. Ergo, if they are grappling specialists, won't they have an advantage (they spend 95% grappling, and you spend less than 75% grappling)?

zDom is a smart cookie man. I agree, look at my earlier post. I won the PanAm games in Judo. True kodokan judo is more powerful and aggressive than BJJ, sorry. I am not trying to steer the "Hate train" or anything. In essence though, BJJ is nothing more than Brazillian Judo.

The fellow who trained helio was the Japanese Judo champion trained by Kano himself.

Uh, MSK HKD has it all, look at the cirriculum requirements, not to mention for average BB is approx. 7 yrs to obtain. Here is the link:
http://www.mskhapkido.com/id14.html

I have found that my judo background aguments my hapkido. Tae kwon do does the same for me as well. These two other arts help me to understand and make "My" hapkido better. The last thing on the planet I am going to want to do is go to the ground.

I talked with Rodrigo "The Vice" Vaghi a while back. My pal studies from him......Rodrigo is the highest ranking dan from Rickson on the planet. This guy has more BJJ and Judo trophies and wins....to include PanAm games and the Arnold. His words to me were, "Matt, BJJ is a sport and not practical for the gravel and pavement. Judo as you and I both know is an art that is 'dumbed down' for competition."

By the way, I do believe that those who train in BJJ are physical fitness studs and should be congratulated. It is a very hard TMA to do well. I respect all people who train hard and consistently. In the martial spirit I do believe that all practitioners should get and deserve the A+ for effort they deserve. I find that all too often people put blinders on to what others are doing, that is no good in my opinion.

Watching Tom Laughlin / Bong Soo Han take the beatin was something else.http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/images/icons/icon10.gif

[flashlock]

Hi,

My plan had been to jump into BJJ in about 3 months after I lost about 15 lbs.

To be honest, this forum has gotten me so curious/ riled up, I joined the BJJ club in downtown Melbourne (Oz) yesterday.

I asked the teacher some of the questions I've been asking in this form, and brought up some of your points. He has 15 years experience in Karate, but his passion is BJJ (he has several years experience as a bouncer). He is a multiple BJJ Australian and NZ champion. He told me he is biased, so you have to take what he says with a grain.

1. "BJJ doesn't work vs multiple opponents." - He said that nothing really works against two fighters who are WORKING TOGETHER in a strategic manner. Your best option, regardless of style, is to kick the first one in the groin, and then take the other out or run.

2. "BJJ works because of all the rules in a sports ring--outside of that, it's not nearly as effective." - He said BJJ started without any rules, the rules came later because people were getting very injured in BJJ / MA street wars (no rules whatsoever).

3. "In a real fight, the BJJ will get his eyes gouged, scratched, and his arms bitten." He said (after laughing) that if the pinnacle of your art is an eye gouge or bite, you are in trouble. Try to gouge someone's eyes out in a fight--you'll probably break your fingers when you miss against a resisting opponent.

4. "Our art has grappling!" He said they have to have grappling, or they would have to shut down--and the grappling he's seen is TERRIBLE in his opinion.

5. He asked where all the Kung Fu guys and TKD guys and Ninja masters are challenging the Gracies and everyone else, and defeating them... all of them. It doesn't happen becuase, and forgive me, he thinks their arts are crap because they don't work. This from someone who did karate for 15 years. They work if someone just stands there and gets hit, but he said they usually don't pracitce vs people moving into the strike into the grappling range.

6. BJJ people fight at full speed, full strength, every class. No, "Oh, this death touch is so powerful, we can't use it." He said that that was a cop out--prove it or shut up.

7. Most of the people he said that were criticising BJJ have never even taken a class. Basically, they don't know what the hell they're talking about and should take 3 months of BJJ or shut up. It's usually a one way stream: people leaving their art to join BJJ, almost never the other way around.

Anyway, those were his opinions... just food for thought.

(PS: I have never been so tired after a single martial arts class in my life! Amazing, I recommend everyone at least try a few classes, great stuff! I got my butt kicked--.... and loving it!)

[zDom]

I have addressed your instructor's comments in another thread, flashlock, so this thread can stay on topic.

[flashlock]

I have addressed your instructor's comments in another thread, flintlock, so this thread can stay on topic.

Flintlock! LOL.

What about Zdumb? Just kidding like you!

I'm on topic: style can trump the individual because not all styles are =. (In some expert's opinions based on... see above).

I'm out, good luck!

[bydand]

You know, I get tired of the childish "My art is great, your art sucks" then the usage of personal opinions as facts.

Flashlock, you like what you do, GREAT! On the other hand, I could care less what you or your instructor think personally of other arts you don't, or haven't trained in. Also I'll assure you, opinions of people I don't know and opinions which I have seen to be not 100% correct will not get me to change what I do.

The original guestion was Art or Person? Touting the greatness of BJJ and how the style will overcome is your feelings on the issue and question. Relax and step back from the argument for a few. Just because I happen to disagree with that, and many others do as well, doesn't mean I think you need to change your point of view to mirror mine; just as you shouldn't expect your views to cause me or anybody else to change ours. Personally I feel the Person is the biggest factor directing the outcome of a conflict, not an art or style.

[kidswarrior]

You know, I get tired of the childish "My art is great, your art sucks"....

Relax and step back from the argument for a few.

Great advice, bydand. :ultracool


Just because I happen to disagree with that, and many others do as well, doesn't mean I think you need to change your point of view to mirror mine; just as you shouldn't expect your views to cause me or anybody else to change ours.

The Friendly Forum at work! I like it. It's what brought me here in the first place, and makes me want to keep coming back. :)


Personally I feel the Person is the biggest factor directing the outcome of a conflict, not an art or style.

And following the friendly netiquette reminders, answering the topic question. Finishing a dead-on post with a flourish. :supcool:

[Sukerkin]

I was unable to 'rep' bydand as he deserves there but was able to 'buff' kidswarrior a little for his good supporting post :tup:.

Right, to brass tacks.

I blushingly admit to having jumped in at the end here, so feel free to give me a slap or two to encourage me to read threads before opening the keyboard.

However, given the initial question posed in the thread, I'm surprised that the discourse has reached four pages (which should really encourage me to go and see what's been said I suppose :o).

When personal hand-to-hand combat is concerned, all other things being equal, it is always the intrinsic ability to fight in a person rather than the techniques learned that matter.

There is a rule-of-thumb that applies across all human endeavours, which is that five percent of people that learn something will be much better at it than everyone else, regardless of training or equipment (within reason on the latter).

The most often quoted example for this is fighter pilots. You can train all you like and have the fanciest plane but if you're not one of the 'Aces' and you meet one in combat then the outcome is almost assured (barring dumb luck).

Quoting from personal experience I can attest to this as I have both being resoundly beaten in sparring by someone I was technically better than and have also, one scared night in a dark alley, survived three to one odds in the one time I've ever had to use for real what I was taught.

In the former case, I came up against the natural ability of an 'Ace'. In the latter, my training counted against a trio of non-ace thugs.

[flashlock]

You know, I get tired of the childish "My art is great, your art sucks" then the usage of personal opinions as facts.

Flashlock, you like what you do, GREAT! On the other hand, I could care less what you or your instructor think personally of other arts you don't, or haven't trained in. Also I'll assure you, opinions of people I don't know and opinions which I have seen to be not 100% correct will not get me to change what I do.

The original guestion was Art or Person? Touting the greatness of BJJ and how the style will overcome is your feelings on the issue and question. Relax and step back from the argument for a few. Just because I happen to disagree with that, and many others do as well, doesn't mean I think you need to change your point of view to mirror mine; just as you shouldn't expect your views to cause me or anybody else to change ours. Personally I feel the Person is the biggest factor directing the outcome of a conflict, not an art or style.

Hi, Bydand! For someone who couldn't care less about my opinion, you comment on my posts and took the time to give me neg rep points with a suggestion I quit the forum. Just put me on ignore if what I say is so annoying.

Yes, the original question was basically, "Is it the style or the person"? Yes, it is the person, but the style and the training within that style are major factors in my opinion. I think it's silly to say it's ABSOLUTELY NO FACTOR.

You don't know me--you see some immature ignoramous who's excited about BJJ, thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread, and would destroy everything that gets in its way. I bet there have been a lot of immature jerks who say that about their Hopkido, "combat" TKD, BJJ, and even your art.

That's not where I'm coming from though. You have to admit, BJJ has influenced most of the MA through these UFC matches. Why? Because people who used it crushed everyone who wasn't familiar with it. It's a fact, not an opinion. That tells me style and training (and of course the individual) play factors in winning. People mention fads and things, but that's just stuff on movies--you can't take away what the Gracies did for the martial arts--the contribution is enormous. Why? Because with their style a really little guy could beat a much bigger guy--the stuff works better than many traditional arts--I believe ALL of them.

I love the point Crane made about the training. If BJJ, because they are not striking, can really fight, REALLY fight 3 X a week for an hour, while strikers can't, that is a big advantage right there.

Maybe the striking arts need to armour up and just go full contact every class for a full hour--full powered strikes--might have to take turns wearing the motorcycle helmets a la' Vunak--but that might be one equalizer right there.

Any way, take care, buddy.

[exile]

Flashlock now:


You don't know me--you see some immature ignoramous who's excited about BJJ, thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread, and would destroy everything that gets in its way...That's not where I'm coming from though....the original question was basically, "Is it the style or the person"? Yes, it is the person,

Flashlock then (post #50)


I'm on topic: style can trump the individual because not all styles are =

If you think you've been misunderstood, flashlock, maybe you might also consider how seemingly contradictory statements like these two, quoted direct from your very own posts, could give rise to that impression... possible, you think? :wink1:

[bydand]

Flashlock let me set the record straight here. Yes I did ding you, but not for any post you made in this thread, it was for a juvinile post you made in the "Your most feared opponent" thread when you were making some snide remark about somebody elses answer. I did NOT suggest you quit the forum, I suggested that if you wanted to make posts like that to go elsewhere to do so. I would never tell somebody to quit MT, I think it is a great forum and there is a lot to learn here for everybody, myself included. I was suggesting you make the rude childlike posts somewhere else.

As for my stand on this issue please direct me to where I ever said a style or art had
ABSOLUTELY NO FACTOR. I said I felt the person was the biggest deciding factor, and I will stand by that statement. Did I say BJJ has not had an impact? NOPE! It has had an impact in the way some people train. It just hasn't had an impact in my training regime because we covered a ton of ground work and grappling already at the training hall I go to. I'm also glad you have found the art that suits you, and you love; now quit trying to shove it down everybody elses necks please.

Apologies for taking the thread off topic, but felt as long as he decided to bring up the ding I gave him, I wanted to clear the air under the circumstances I gave it to him.

[flashlock]

Flashlock now:



Flashlock then (post #50)



If you think you've been misunderstood, flashlock, maybe you might also consider how seemingly contradictory statements like these two, quoted direct from your very own posts, could give rise to that impression... possible, you think? :wink1:

I didn't write what you quoted. You cut and pasted my sentences, leaving out things; it's pathetic. Also, in a forum, I would expect contradiction and ideas to change from honest posters--unless you're too inflexible.

[flashlock]

Flashlock let me set the record straight here. Yes I did ding you, but not for any post you made in this thread, it was for a juvinile post you made in the "Your most feared opponent" thread when you were making some snide remark about somebody elses answer. I did NOT suggest you quit the forum, I suggested that if you wanted to make posts like that to go elsewhere to do so. I would never tell somebody to quit MT, I think it is a great forum and there is a lot to learn here for everybody, myself included. I was suggesting you make the rude childlike posts somewhere else.

As for my stand on this issue please direct me to where I ever said a style or art had I said I felt the person was the biggest deciding factor, and I will stand by that statement. Did I say BJJ has not had an impact? NOPE! It has had an impact in the way some people train. It just hasn't had an impact in my training regime because we covered a ton of ground work and grappling already at the training hall I go to. I'm also glad you have found the art that suits you, and you love; now quit trying to shove it down everybody elses necks please.

Apologies for taking the thread off topic, but felt as long as he decided to bring up the ding I gave him, I wanted to clear the air under the circumstances I gave it to him.

Hi, Bydand, et al:

You make some solid points, sorry we've been, perhaps, simplifying one anothers views, making charactetures. Let's move on, why not?

Anyway, back to the topic, I was just wondering what you thought of putting on the pads and going full-on as a striker. I'm talking major protection to the head and neck, etc. If we can say that one advantage of the grappler is they can do their techniques at full power (at least till the opponnet taps out out passes out), then maybe that's something the striker can do. The only downside is being encumbered, I suppose. How do strikers get around that? Also, what % of time do you spend going full contact with your striking, as grapplers spend most of their time doing that.

Thanks!

[exile]

I didn't write what you quoted. You cut and pasted my sentences, leaving out things; it's pathetic. Also, in a forum, I would expect contradiction and ideas to change from honest posters--unless you're too inflexible.

You did write these things, Brad. I copied them right out of your posts without changing anything I quoted in, cutting out only parenthetical material offered in support of the position I quoted—the fact is, you made an assertion outside the parentheses, and in the context of the thread, it was very clear that you were asserting what I quoted from you. That's not pathetic, that's picking up the clear intent of what you wrote. As for contradiction and ideas changing... they're not the same thing. Have you indeed changed your mind about it being the art, not the person, which you clearly stated in the first post I quoted (throwing in the attribution in parenthesis as apparent further support for a view you yourself held)? Then make that clear; otherwise, as I suggested, you create the impression that you are trying to have it both of two mutually incompatible ways.

If you write something which very strongly suggests a position that you then flatly contradict in a later post, don't be surprised if people get a certain negative impression of your posting behavior. Whether you like it or not, you might—as I suggested—consider the possibility that that's what's led to some of the feedback you've gotten. There's no point in getting pissed off at me; I'm just the messenger.

[zDom]

Flintlock! LOL.

What about Zdumb? Just kidding like you!



Actually "Flintlock" as a mistake that I corrected with edit, not a joke :)

Sorry 'bout that!

[flashlock]

Actually "Flintlock" as a mistake that I corrected with edit, not a joke :)

Sorry 'bout that!

Oh, I thought it was clever! Haha!

[Cryozombie]

This is all nothing but opinion so take it with a grain of salt...

I think style has some merit depending on what you are trying to learn.

It seems Obvious that a JSA school will produce a better swordsman than a BJJ school. On the flipside of that coin, BJJ is gonna make a better grappler than that JSA school, so you cannot discount a system when talking about who's "better". Just depends what you want to be better AT... overall. Do I think a skilled, commited swordsman WITH a sword would probaly beat a grappler in a fight? Yeah... but do I think they could do the same empty handed? Highly unlikley.

That said...

I really think its the individual. Lets stick to the BJJ example that has been prevalant thru this thread... I'm gonna make up some numbers for my "fictional" schools of each style.

If a BJJ school does 90% grappling, and 10% "stand up fighting" and a "American Karate & Kickboxing" school teached 90% stand up fighting and 10% grappling... who is gonna win on the ground? A student of the BJJ school, or the karate school? The BJJ guy right?

BUT

What if that BJJ guy goes to, maybe 1 class a week, for say 3 months, and the Karate Guy goes to 6 classes a week, for 3 months? Even with the smaller percentages of groundfighting at the karate school, the BJJ guy may in fact have less actual training and mat time... and the fact its a BJJ school, is not going to magically make him a winner. He may have more tools in his toolbox, but not knowing how to swing the hammer or cut with the saw won't save him from the guy with 1 screwdriver in his toolbox who knows exactly how that screwdriver works. The same is true if the situation was reversed, and the BJJ guy went 6 days a week, and the karate guy went 1... if it came to a stand up fight, the BJJ guy probably has more experience... He now knows how that Hammer and saw work, and how they can be used against that screwdriver the guy has in his toolbox.

So... I feel that while elements of both come into play, at the end of the day when one man goes home, and the other to the morgue, it comes down to the person you face.

[LawDog]

In the street, beside the opponents themselves, there are many other variables that can the alter the outcome of a confrontation. On a slippery surface a standup fighter will have the disadvantage. Inside of a lounge in a tight area a Judo/Jujitsu type fighter could have the edge. In area's where there could be debris on the ground, like broken glass etc., a gound fighter may not want to go to the ground.
Because of these outside variables I believe the fighter that has the best chance in the street is the one who is able to adapt so that he can fight in any environment.

[flashlock]

In the street, beside the opponents themselves, there are many other variables that can the alter the outcome of a confrontation. On a slippery surface a standup fighter will have the disadvantage. Inside of a lounge in a tight area a Judo/Jujitsu type fighter could have the edge. In area's where there could be debris on the ground, like broken glass etc., a gound fighter may not want to go to the ground.
Because of these outside variables I believe the fighter that has the best chance in the street is the one who is able to adapt so that he can fight in any environment.

What if you eliminated the "outside variables"? For example, have a TKD fighter go against a Taijutsu fighter of the same age, sex, height, weight, and years of training? Then the only real factor would be the style. Randomness could be eliminated by having 25 such fights, then looking at the results. If the score is 50/50 (or within 5% points of that), then that proves style was not a factor; TKD and Bujinkan Taijutsu are, despite their vast differences, basically equal.

If you did that with all the major styles, all would have to have similiar results; then we could scientifically say that style is only a minor factor, all things being equal. A 20 year old, 5' 9", 175 pound male Muy Thai figher with 5 years of experience has a 50% chance of beating a 20 year old, 5' 9", 175 lb male fighter w/ 5 yrs of experience from ANY other art--BJJ, Aikdio, Tai Chi, Hopkido--doesn't matter, one happy rainbow!

You could have them fight on various terrains and in various weather conditions (even wheel out that big revolving disk with the spikes from the Flash Gordon movie).

Would all those styles be equal? With such vastly different techniques and training methods?

Can we all agree that the answer is... probably not (or even, for the less mushy, "Hell no!")?

So, between equally trained, equally built individuals, the only real factor IS style--your life could hinge on what style you picked... hope it's a good one!

[LawDog]

flashlock,
From what you have described an overal performance evaluation of the styles could be established. This evaluation would have to be done over a period of time to get the proper feel of a style.
Styles are not equal, they can be broken down into,
A) A martial art system that is either or both defensive / offensive,
B) A sports type martial arts system,(excessive rules),
C) A made up I don't know what I'm doing type of system.

For the street the winner would be A. :ultracool

[FearlessFreep]

What if you eliminated the "outside variables"? For example, have a TKD fighter go against a Taijutsu fighter of the same age, sex, height, weight, and years of training?

That does not eliminate the 'outside variabes'

By "The Art Or The Person", what is usually meant by 'the person' is the character, will, and intensity of the individual. You and I train for 10 years each, but one of us trains harder, has more strength of will, has more intensity and more devotion in that training. You train 2 times a week and think it's good enough; I train 5 times a week and wish I could do more. Other than te simple time invovled there is the attitde we take into the training. Some people have more natural skill and some people must push past the tendancies in their body so not everyone gets the same results out of the same amount of time. "The Person" is the character of the individual, not their height, weight or years of training.

Also, very, very few people who take fighting seriously restrict themselves to one art. They may not train multiple arts. but you can bet they are paying attention, and adapting the application of their arts to either incorporate useful stuff, or at the very least to use their own arts to counter another art. My first art was Taekwondo but we incorporated joint manipulation from Hapkido and hip throws from Judo, etc..etc... One could argue that those techniques were always a part of Taekwondo and had gotten buried under the emphasis on kicks, or one could argue that encounters with other arts in the ring simply made people awareof the need to incorporate other techniques within the natural philosophy of Taekwondo. Either way, no Taekwondo practitioner I know who takes fighting and self defense seriously is looking at the world through a purely Taekwondo set of eyes. No BJJ stylist is unaware of what a Taekwondo of Muy Thai is going to attempt to do. The strength of Taekwondo is to keep the opponent outside at a distance. The strength of BJJ is to get in close, make contact, eliminate and create space, feel the opponent. A BJJ stylist is never going to get a TKD stylist unless he can get past that outer distance, so they work a lot on doing that. If youare a pure BJJ stylist who doesn't use striking...basically training for BJJ sport techniques, then that's not an issue for you, but no BJJ stylist who trains for a serious fight (self defense or any non-pure-BJJ sport competition) is going to be unaware of how other disciplines are going to attempt to fight.

And that is why BJJ did so well for awhile in MMA competitions. BJJ could be developed to counter attacks from other arts because the other arts were out there and obvious, but not many people were aware of BJJ so not many people knew how to counter it, yet. As the success of BJJ style techniques in sport competition grew, people started learning what it was about, and how to counter it. Credit BJJ for making people aware of that component of fighting, but if you've been watching UFC recently, you're not seeing many matches won with submissions and even those submissions were set up using non-grappling techniques incorprated with the grappling techniques. (That itself is just a natural part of the ebb and flow of competition as people react to what's winning today) A pure-BJJ stylist cannot win in MMA any more than a pure Taekwondo stylist or a pure Boxer or whataver. It's not about BJJ as an art; BJJ is just a set of tools that are very effective in certain circumstances, not so effective in others, and useless in still others. Which is the same for most arts.

There are purists who study and advance the art, and we need those for the techniques in the arts to improve. Then there are artists who love the art and practice the art for the joy of the art, and there are a lot of dojos and dojangs with a lot of people doing that and enjoying it. And there are fighters who take what is learned by the various purists and apply what they can in the wider but shallower context of effective fighting. We need them all.

[meta_aesthete]

There are purists who study and advance the art, and we need those for the techniques in the arts to improve. Then there are artists who love the art and practice the art for the joy of the art, and there are a lot of dojos and dojangs with a lot of people doing that and enjoying it. And there are fighters who take what is learned by the various purists and apply what they can in the wider but shallower context of effective fighting. We need them all.

Andrew Green made a great post a few days ago along these lines. Frankly I think it's a little delusional to think that any H2H fighting system is going to be a reliable self-defense system.

Whatever you think of Marc "Animal" MacYoung, he makes a lot of good points in this article (http://http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/martialarts.html). I don't know if it's been brought up before, but here's the gist:


Martial arts are not self-defense (http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/self-defensetraining.htm).
Personal safety is a jambalaya issue of its very own. What's more, self-defense (the act of physically defending yourself) is only one small contributing factor to the larger subject of personal safety (http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/pyramid.html). Personal safety is a complex situation involving many factors of which, physical self-defense is no more than a spice to add the final touches. By that I not only mean knowing the goals and standards of self-defense, but also any weapons and tools; and knowing their legal application for that purpose. In light of this, your "fighting skills" are even less important. I am on record for saying: Flat out, when it comes to personal safety, safety of your family, self-defense and crime prevention your "fighting prowess" is less than 5% of the equation. If you choose to ignore the other 95% of the issues involved you're setting yourself up to get your brains blown into a fine pink mist if and when you find yourself in a live-fire situation. The reason that is a valid statement is that in personal safety: Physically engaging in violence is the last level of a larger strategy. A strategy that not only is designed to -- and most often does -- prevent the situation from escalating to violence, but if it still does go violent gives you a set of articulatable facts and standards that explain and justify your behavior to the authorities.

The conceptual error that the "Martial Arts IS Self-Defense" crowd make is that they make engaging in physical confrontation the foundation of their self-defense strategy. The reason they get to "What if you can't run?" so fast is that they no reliable strategy FOR personal safety other than the idea of hitting someone. It may be wrapped up and justified in countless different ways, but isn't one of the critieria for a violent person: Someone who can't figure out how to get their own way except through violence? If you can't figure out how to keep yourself and your family "safe" except by getting involved in a punch out with a group of street toughs, then you have a flawed definition of personal safety. And odds are, your definition of self-defense is off base too.

It really made me think about the reasons for doing martial arts, and which to study. When you're facing a pistol (and aren't in highly improbable disarm range) then no matter what MA you study, you're pretty much as useless any historian (TMA) or athelete (MMA). And if someone really wants to hurt you, they're not going to challenge you to a duel.

So why are we doing what we're doing? It's a highly personal and subjective answer in this light. My personal approach? After getting a few more months in the Bujinkan, I'd love to roll with some BJJers. I think the two arts, practiced correctly, would make for an interesting and compatible system of close-quarters defense. But I'm not under the illusion that it's necessarily going to apply, and that it can't all be rendered useless in an instant by a 17 year old thug with a stolen gun. So, in my opinion, you have to look for reasons outside of pure self-defense when choosing a martial art. For pure self-defense, you'd be better off training with pistols and knives (and getting the appropriate licenses to carry/knowing use of force laws in your location) than with fists and kicks.

Off topic, yeah, but I read that article recently and it's been on my mind.

[exile]

MetaAes—there are two different statements: (i) a close-quarters fighting systems is ALL you need to master to assure yourself of personal protection under all circumstances, and (ii) a close-quarters fighting systems is a crucial COMPONENT of the skills you need to master to assure yourself of personal protection under all circumstances. I don't know anyone who believes (i); it's a straw man whom no one is going to defend. But there are plenty of MAists, based on their professional use of their H2H combat skills as LEOs and soldiers, and others who have found themselves forced against their will into violent situations in which they had to defend themselves, who can attest to the truth of (ii).

[meta_aesthete]

Hi exile,

I'm not arguing about the utility, and it's as much of a strawman to think that I don't agree with (ii). If it came across that way, I'm sorry if it wasn't clear.

But, in my view, the vast majority of people in society are pretty ignorant to the fighting arts. And the vast majority of them die of heart disease, not violent assault. They probably get into a few scraps and maybe get mugged, but generally they ensure their safety through other realms than being able to fight H2H effectively.

So my feeling is that if your primary concern is for the safety of your person, your family, and your property, then there are more efficient places that you could spend your time and money (home security, firearms training/licenses to carry, safeguards from identity theft, set up a community watch, research crime stats in your area and designate places to avoid, etc.) than in a martial arts dojo or gym.

And again, my opinion, is that -- aware of it or not -- most people are not primarily motivated to join martial-arts for pure self-defense purposes. Some people want to challenge their bodies and minds, some are battling insecurities, some people are looking to compete, some people want ego gratification, some people just think it's cool. And if your H2H skills improve significantly at the same time, it's a huge plus.

I think that LEOs and military personnel are an exception in this case, because their line of work (LEOs especially) demands that they engage in H2H situations on a regular basis. Accounting or construction work doesn't make the same demands. And my sense is that cases of ordinary people being forced into H2H situations that couldn't have been avoided through other means are more anecdotally than statistically significant.

This is just the conclusion I've come to in my relatively short 23 years on this planet. I'm certainly not a closed book on the topic, but that's how I see it so far.

[exile]

Hi exile,

I'm not arguing about the utility, and it's as much of a strawman to think that I don't agree with (ii). If it came across that way, I'm sorry if it wasn't clear.

But, in my view, the vast majority of people in society are pretty ignorant to the fighting arts. And the vast majority of them die of heart disease, not violent assault. They probably get into a few scraps and maybe get mugged, but generally they ensure their safety through other realms than being able to fight H2H effectively.

So my feeling is that if your primary concern is for the safety of your person, your family, and your property, then there are more efficient places that you could spend your time and money (home security, firearms training/licenses to carry, safeguards from identity theft, set up a community watch, research crime stats in your area and designate places to avoid, etc.) than in a martial arts dojo or gym.

And again, my opinion, is that -- aware of it or not -- most people are not primarily motivated to join martial-arts for pure self-defense purposes. Some people want to challenge their bodies and minds, some are battling insecurities, some people are looking to compete, some people want ego gratification, some people just think it's cool. And if your H2H skills improve significantly at the same time, it's a huge plus.

I think that LEOs and military personnel are an exception in this case, because their line of work (LEOs especially) demands that they engage in H2H situations on a regular basis. Accounting or construction work doesn't make the same demands. And my sense is that cases of ordinary people being forced into H2H situations that couldn't have been avoided through other means are more anecdotally than statistically significant.

This is just the conclusion I've come to in my relatively short 23 years on this planet. I'm certainly not a closed book on the topic, but that's how I see it so far.

I certainly wouldn't quarrel with any of what you've said here. But I do think that there's another dimension to the argument. Let's assume that most people don't actually need H2H skills to get through life unharmed. That once might not have been true—middle class people in modern Western society have a far-flung network of social institutions that keep us at arm's length from everyday violence in a way that the majority of people in human history, the ones who created these fighting systems, never enjoyed. But that's the point: the technical content of these arts themselves is aimed at combat effectiveness, because that was what the people who devised these systems needed. They are systems of structured violence. If you take up one of these arts (particularly those based on the `one strike to end the fight' strategy), for whatever reason, your skill level—your technical mastery—inevitably corresponds to your ability to deliver that violence to deter or incapacitate an attacker. So to the extent that you want to improve as an exponent of that art, you are trying to improve your ability to damage an attacker to the point where he can no longer pose a threat to you.

It's like chess: you might enjoy it as a form of intellectual stimulation, testing and extending your ability to visualize different possibilities in an abstract play of powers corresponding to the moves of different pieces. But the way you mark your progress in the game is by beating opponents, and not just beating them, but in setting up situations on the chessboard where at a certain point their defeat is forced, no matter what they do. Whatever other benefits come from chess, if you want to progress in it, to reach greater levels of proficiency, you do so by beating opponents in a way which gradually reduces and finally eliminates any chance of escape on their part. If you want to progress in the MAs, you do so by increasing your ability to apply force to a violent attacker in ways that remove him from the fight, no matter what he does.

So it seems to me inherent in someone's desire to improve as a MAist that they are—whether they're conscous of it or not—committed to the application of what I'm calling the structured violence inherent in all MAs to a real attacker effectively enough to neutralize the threat that attacker poses. In other words, in saying you want to improve technically as a MAist, you're pretty much buying into the idea that you're getting better at hurting an assailant badly enough that he cannot hurt you. I suspect that a lot of people who do MAs seriously, and aspire to improve as MAists, think of their improvement in these terms...

[Jenna]

Let's look at this another way, my friends. Please be honest: make a list of the top 3 styles you would most dread facing in a life and death situation. No need to explain why a certain style is on your list, no need to belittle any other style... I'm wondering what we'll all put down, and what we'll all leave off because it's not "scary".

Here's mine:

1. BJJ
2. JKD Concepts
3. Muy Thai Boxing

(You see where this is going...?)
Hello sir :)
Personally the style fills me with dread much less than the competence of the practitioner. In the for-real attack, I would maintain that the style is almost utterly irrelevant. Is it not of greater importance to heed and watch for the opponents intentions both in terms of what he conveys about his mindset and about his physical movements? I mean rather than taking note of whether he favours one style of punch over another?

In reality [and yes I have thank you very much] there is little to no time to consider one style over another and any rational or even subjective dread that we might otherwise feel for the various styles dissolves into adrenaline.. imho..

To me, an attempted takedown by a BJJ expert is no different from an attempted takedown by a boozed up letch at closing time on a Saturday night.. either way I do not want to be within their range at the time the attempt is made! I think for me the person without any art at all can be as deadly as one proficient in one or several.. So in reply to MJS original question I would say the person every time..

I hope this makes sense and does not sound argumentative :)

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

[KenpoTex]

I'm not one of those that believe that all systems are equal. I definately feel that there are some that are superior to others and are more applicable to self-defense.

However, I believe that the determining factor is the person. Specifically, how they train, their mindset, and their level of experience with regard to applying their material in a spontaneous, adreneline-fueled situation.

While skimming through this thread, I saw a question about picking styles whose practicioners you would least want to fight in a real SD encounter. I'd honestly say that I would be most worried when dealing with the average product of our "mean streets" or our prison system. These guys typically have some basic boxing skills and a few dirty tricks and that's pretty much it. The difference is that while they may only know 4 or 5 punches (and the basic combos that can be created from these), they have used them for real. Many of these people have probably been in more fights than everyone involved in this discussion combined. Furthermore, and this is big, their mindset/attitude is such that they have no qualms about using violence at the drop of a hat...agression counts for a lot. In short, I would be much more worried dealing with these types of people than with most "martial-artists."

just my $0.02...

[flashlock]

I'm not one of those that believe that all systems are equal. I definately feel that there are some that are superior to others and are more applicable to self-defense.

However, I believe that the determining factor is the person. Specifically, how they train, their mindset, and their level of experience with regard to applying their material in a spontaneous, adreneline-fueled situation.

While skimming through this thread, I saw a question about picking styles whose practicioners you would least want to fight in a real SD encounter. I'd honestly say that I would be most worried when dealing with the average product of our "mean streets" or our prison system. These guys typically have some basic boxing skills and a few dirty tricks and that's pretty much it. The difference is that while they may only know 4 or 5 punches (and the basic combos that can be created from these), they have used them for real. Many of these people have probably been in more fights than everyone involved in this discussion combined. Furthermore, and this is big, their mindset/attitude is such that they have no qualms about using violence at the drop of a hat...agression counts for a lot. In short, I would be much more worried dealing with these types of people than with most "martial-artists."

just my $0.02...

Well said (the point has been brought up before, but you made it quite vivid, at least in my mind).

Training as "live" as possible, though not fully adequate, is a step closer to how the "bad guys" live every day. Interesting... thanks.

[exile]

I'm not one of those that believe that all systems are equal. I definately feel that there are some that are superior to others and are more applicable to self-defense.

However, I believe that the determining factor is the person. Specifically, how they train, their mindset, and their level of experience with regard to applying their material in a spontaneous, adreneline-fueled situation.

While skimming through this thread, I saw a question about picking styles whose practicioners you would least want to fight in a real SD encounter. I'd honestly say that I would be most worried when dealing with the average product of our "mean streets" or our prison system. These guys typically have some basic boxing skills and a few dirty tricks and that's pretty much it. The difference is that while they may only know 4 or 5 punches (and the basic combos that can be created from these), they have used them for real. Many of these people have probably been in more fights than everyone involved in this discussion combined. Furthermore, and this is big, their mindset/attitude is such that they have no qualms about using violence at the drop of a hat...agression counts for a lot. In short, I would be much more worried dealing with these types of people than with most "martial-artists."

just my $0.02...

I agree with you, Matt. And so do others; e.g., check out Shaderon's post #28 in this thread, the relevant quotable quote being


It's the guys with the murderous intent in thier eyes that I'd least like to face.

Does anyone remember a book that came out quite a few years ago titled Wiseguys? It was a kind of ethnographic study of organized crime's `foot soldiers', the muscle and shooters who keep the business humming. There's a passage in the book that struck me very forcibly when I first read it: the author talks about what it is that sets wiseguys apart from other people. He notes that they aren't necessarily tougher, or stronger, or more skilled at combat than other people by any means. What distinguishes them, he concludes, is that they have an abnormal capacity for violence. They have no inhibitions about using violence to get what they want, no consciences to speak of, no reservations. To them, the most brutal attack on another person you can imagine has the same emotional impact that switching a light switch on or off has for the rest of us. Those are the guys you have to worry about nasty encounters with...

[flashlock]

Hello sir :)
Personally the style fills me with dread much less than the competence of the practitioner. In the for-real attack, I would maintain that the style is almost utterly irrelevant. Is it not of greater importance to heed and watch for the opponents intentions both in terms of what he conveys about his mindset and about his physical movements? I mean rather than taking note of whether he favours one style of punch over another?

In reality [and yes I have thank you very much] there is little to no time to consider one style over another and any rational or even subjective dread that we might otherwise feel for the various styles dissolves into adrenaline.. imho..

To me, an attempted takedown by a BJJ expert is no different from an attempted takedown by a boozed up letch at closing time on a Saturday night.. either way I do not want to be within their range at the time the attempt is made! I think for me the person without any art at all can be as deadly as one proficient in one or several.. So in reply to MJS original question I would say the person every time..

I hope this makes sense and does not sound argumentative :)

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

Thanks, Jenna:

I agree with everything you say. But if you HAD to answer the question, which style of MA would you least like to face, which style would you pick?

Ta,

[Kacey]

Thanks, Jenna:

I agree with everything you say. But if you HAD to answer the question, which style of MA would you least like to face, which style would you pick?

Ta,
If you agree with her, why is it important that she answer the question? For myself, I find that her answer is complete as it is: she, like many others, myself included, is much more concerned about the competence of the individual than the art the individual practices. It takes very few techniques, if they are properly practiced and performed, to do serious damage to another person. Many of these techniques are common to many styles - it is the competence and intensity with which they are performed that determines the danger of the opponent - not the art the opponent studies.

[flashlock]

If you agree with her, why is it important that she answer the question? For myself, I find that her answer is complete as it is: she, like many others, myself included, is much more concerned about the competence of the individual than the art the individual practices. It takes very few techniques, if they are properly practiced and performed, to do serious damage to another person. Many of these techniques are common to many styles - it is the competence and intensity with which they are performed that determines the danger of the opponent - not the art the opponent studies.

Because I wanted to see if there was a consensus on what art people most feared to face--IF you HAD to pick and MA... alas...

If most people were afraid of XYZ, then we could ask questions of why--what made XYZ more intimidating.

Does that help? If no one wants to answer the question, it won't go anywhere.

[FearlessFreep]

f no one wants to answer the question, it won't go anywhere.

Most think it a non-sensical or non-reasonable question. I have yet to see a style that would make me fear someone simply because they practiced that style. It's the agressiveness or sociopathy of a person that scares me.

[flashlock]

f no one wants to answer the question, it won't go anywhere.

Most think it a non-sensical or non-reasonable question. I have yet to see a style that would make me fear someone simply because they practiced that style. It's the agressivenessor sociopathy of a person that scares me.

I'm not sure if it's non-reasonable or just unreasonable; it's just a question. If you were in a UFC match, which style would you least like to face? Does that make it easier to answer?

You might be more afraid of a psychotic criminal than any martial artist, or more afraid of black widow spiders--but the question for the nth time is what style would you least like to face?

I feel like I'm asking "would you choose a red car or a blue car", and getting the answer: I like yellow motorcycles.

Anyway, sorry my question is just so unanswerable--perhaps I can sell it to a zen monestary for use as a koan.

[bydand]

Because I wanted to see if there was a consensus on what art people most feared to face--IF you HAD to pick and MA... alas...

If most people were afraid of XYZ, then we could ask questions of why--what made XYZ more intimidating.

Does that help? If no one wants to answer the question, it won't go anywhere.

It would appear that the general consensus is that it is the person and not a particular art or style.


You might be more afraid of a psychotic criminal than any martial artist, or more afraid of black widow spiders--but the question for the nth time is what style would you least like to face?


Actually the original question of this thread is "the art or the person" NOT "what style" quit trying to take the thread off topic with your personal obsession with BJJ. If you want the question of what style, start another thread.



I feel like I'm asking "would you choose a red car or a blue car", and getting the answer: I like yellow motorcycles.

The question, using your analogy was "would you choose a red car or a blue car?" and when somebody answers "blue car" you keep asking "why not the red car, what is wrong with the red car, the red car is better, jeeze don't you see the advantage of the red car, WHYYYYYY are you not picking the red car?"

[FearlessFreep]

I feel like I'm asking "would you choose a red car or a blue car", and getting the answer: I like yellow motorcycles.

You are asking the question of whether one likes worms with strawberry sauce or chocolate sauce and the answer is "I don't like to eat worms" and you keep insisting "yeah, but which would you prefer?" It's a question that cannot really be answered because it is orthogonal to how most people in MA think about a potential opponent, whether on the street or in the ring.

There are some arts that lend themselves to certain kinds of fighting or certain kinds of sport, but even within a given art there is as many ways of training as there are reasons for the people to be in the art. Not all arts are created equal, but no art is to be trifled with on the face of it.

I'm going to fear a person far more if he's a nasty SOB with an attitude and a chip on his shoulder far more than I will just because I knew he practices BJJ or Taekwondo or Muy Thai or Karate or anything like that. As a matter of fact, I would *love* to know that he practices just BJJ or just Taekwondo because then I know what he's thinking better and I better know how to counter it.

[flashlock]

It would appear that the general consensus is that it is the person and not a particular art or style.



Actually the original question of this thread is "the art or the person" NOT "what style" quit trying to take the thread off topic with your personal obsession with BJJ. If you want the question of what style, start another thread.

There is no general consensus because most people have avoided the question. It doesn't matter if the individual is a more important factor--my question refers to the other factor: style/art. BJJ was not mentioned--as for obessesions, it's strange being yours...

[flashlock]

I feel like I'm asking "would you choose a red car or a blue car", and getting the answer: I like yellow motorcycles.

You are asking the question of whether one likes worms with strawberry sauce or chocolate sauce and the answer is "I don't like to eat worms" and you keep insistain "yeah, but which would you prefer" It's a question that cannot really be answered because it is orthogonal to how most people in MA think about a potential opponent, whether on the street or in the ring.

There are some arts that lend themselves to certain kinds of fighting or certain kinds of sport, but even within a given art there is as many ways of training as there are reasons for the people to be in the art. Not all arts are created equal, but no art is to be trifled with on the face of it.

I'm going to fear a person far more if he's a nasty SOB with an attitude and a chip on his shoulder far more than I will just because I knew he practices BJJ or Taekwondo or Muy Thai or Karate or anything like that. As a matter of fact, I would *love* to know that he practices just BJJ or just Taekwondo because then I know what he's thinking better and I better know how to counter it.

You guys win. I give up (I am sorry I couldn't communicate this question more articulately).

[Cryozombie]

IF you HAD to pick and MA... alas...

Ok, here ya go

1) Yagu Shinkage ryu.
2) Any JNF school.
3) Apache Knife fighting system.

See a pattern? Anything where my opponent has a big nasty blade. I'll take my chances against a BJJ guy, or a BBT guy, or a TKD guy, if I had reasonable belief that they were empty handed... but those schools above SPECIFICALLY teach one thing... Sharp, Pointy, Cutty things. No thanks.

[bydand]

I'm going to fear a person far more if he's a nasty SOB with an attitude and a chip on his shoulder far more than I will just because I knew he practices BJJ or Taekwondo or Muy Thai or Karate or anything like that. As a matter of fact, I would *love* to know that he practices just BJJ or just Taekwondo because then I know what he's thinking better and I better know how to counter it.


Emphasis is mine because it is exactly what I was thinking as well. Though straight Kickers, Strikers, or Grapplers tend to give away their personal fighting style with the way they move in general, it would be great to know for sure.

[FearlessFreep]

I am sorry I couldn't communicate this question more articulately

No, you articulated very well a question which was orthogonal to the original topic but also not one that most people thought warrented a direct answer.

[Jenna]

You guys win. I give up (I am sorry I couldn't communicate this question more articulately).
Hey Brad :) sorry I am new to this discussion.. I agree with FF above insofar as I do not think articulation gives you any difficulties :) you seem more than articulate and but I think maybe it appears that you are asking a leading question or series of leading questions in a kind of goal-oriented way (maybe you are a salesperson??) but I am just trying to point out that it might appear that you are less interested in engaging the other folk who have replied in discussion as you are in achieving your goal answer..

I hope you are not offended at my saying this.. All I meant in my earlier reply is that in a fight situation there is little time for evaluation of styles - especially as there is no feasible way that ANY art can protect its practitioner against every other art the practitioner may encounter - the best we can do is prepare ourselves within OUR OWN art.. I mean in what way might you see benefit to you me or anyone to have a sliding scale or top three list of which arts we most fear? If you explain how that would facilitate better training or give us a better chance in the mess of random factors in a real confrontation then that will be a help to us all.. we are all here to learn something I think.. well I am anyways :)

Brad I know you are asking a plain and simple question and but to me it seems as if you are taking Mikes original question to the dark eldritch ethereal and forbidden realms ;) of art A vs art B :) Again I hope this does not come over as all stroppy or anything :)

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

[flashlock]

Hey Brad :) sorry I am new to this discussion.. I agree with FF above insofar as I do not think articulation gives you any difficulties :) you seem more than articulate and but I think maybe it appears that you are asking a leading question or series of leading questions in a kind of goal-oriented way (maybe you are a salesperson??) but I am just trying to point out that it might appear that you are less interested in engaging the other folk who have replied in discussion as you are in achieving your goal answer..

I hope you are not offended at my saying this.. All I meant in my earlier reply is that in a fight situation there is little time for evaluation of styles - especially as there is no feasible way that ANY art can protect its practitioner against every other art the practitioner may encounter - the best we can do is prepare ourselves within OUR OWN art.. I mean in what way might you see benefit to you me or anyone to have a sliding scale or top three list of which arts we most fear? If you explain how that would facilitate better training or give us a better chance in the mess of random factors in a real confrontation then that will be a help to us all.. we are all here to learn something I think.. well I am anyways :)

Brad I know you are asking a plain and simple question and but to me it seems as if you are taking Mikes original question to the dark eldritch ethereal and forbidden realms ;) of art A vs art B :) Again I hope this does not come over as all stroppy or anything :)

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

You are very wise, Jenna--and honest! Thank you. The question really does seem leading, doesn't it? It was and it wasn't. I honestly thought people would pick military-oriented styles (some did). My alterior motive was, of course, to bolster my own positions (use your imagination)--but I'm not completely Machiavellian--I sincerely was curious what people feared the most. People who had their own alterior motives played word games around my word games--good for them. I did put it out on the line though, and told people what I feared most and why. I would say my question isn't off topic, but it is on the fringe, and you have to take a big walk to get back to the main idea--so I started a new thread focusing just on this question--but again, no one wanted to play. Then people stated addressing the question here again, so here we are!

You don't have to post your fear here. I can only speak for myself. I hate being held down, restrained--I hate crowds and small spaces, drives me nuts. So, my choice is obvious. No, if someone lunges at me, I don't think, "Thank Christ, he's a TKD guy," no, I just react (or should).

I'm fascinated by fighting theories, and the evolution of the simple problem: "What is the best way for a smaller man to defeat a bigger man"? There are so many styles, people dedicate their whole lives to them--how important are they really? Honestly, for my dollar, the question has recently been solved, and it's very simple: You should fear the most adaptive fighter, i.e., a fighter who is comfortable in ALL RANGES of fighting: striking, clinch, grappling.

Finally, yes, I'm in sales--human sales! (A damn headhunter).

Ta,

[bydand]

Flashlock, have something to say, say it in a thread (shoot, start a new thread extolling the evils of Bydand for all I care), no need to send insulting PM's. :)

[MJS]

What if you eliminated the "outside variables"? For example, have a TKD fighter go against a Taijutsu fighter of the same age, sex, height, weight, and years of training? Then the only real factor would be the style. Randomness could be eliminated by having 25 such fights, then looking at the results. If the score is 50/50 (or within 5% points of that), then that proves style was not a factor; TKD and Bujinkan Taijutsu are, despite their vast differences, basically equal.

If you did that with all the major styles, all would have to have similiar results; then we could scientifically say that style is only a minor factor, all things being equal. A 20 year old, 5' 9", 175 pound male Muy Thai figher with 5 years of experience has a 50% chance of beating a 20 year old, 5' 9", 175 lb male fighter w/ 5 yrs of experience from ANY other art--BJJ, Aikdio, Tai Chi, Hopkido--doesn't matter, one happy rainbow!

You could have them fight on various terrains and in various weather conditions (even wheel out that big revolving disk with the spikes from the Flash Gordon movie).

Would all those styles be equal? With such vastly different techniques and training methods?

Can we all agree that the answer is... probably not (or even, for the less mushy, "Hell no!")?

So, between equally trained, equally built individuals, the only real factor IS style--your life could hinge on what style you picked... hope it's a good one!

With all due respect, once again, you're attempting to steer the thread to a different direction. Here is what I said in my OP.


I'm not talking about preset matches, where everyone is paired up with an equal, but in the real world, where things are not equal. What determines that outcome?

[MJS]

Thanks, Jenna:

I agree with everything you say. But if you HAD to answer the question, which style of MA would you least like to face, which style would you pick?

Ta,

Didn't you start another thread on this subject? As a member of this thread, I respectfully ask that you stop attempting to steer the thread away from the OP.

[MJS]

Seeing that flashlock can't seem to stay on topic, I'm posting this (http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46593) thread that he started to discuss what style you would not want to face.

Mike

[Carol]

SECOND MODERATOR WARNING


Attention All Users:

This is the second warning to stay on topic.

The topic of the thread is "The Art or The Person" .

Please return to the original topic of exploring the importance of a particular art vs. a particular practitioner, otherwise this thread may be locked.


Thank you!

- Carol Kaur -
- MT Moderator -

[Shotgun Buddha]

I agree with you, Matt. And so do others; e.g., check out Shaderon's post #28 in this thread, the relevant quotable quote being



Does anyone remember a book that came out quite a few years ago titled Wiseguys? It was a kind of ethnographic study of organized crime's `foot soldiers', the muscle and shooters who keep the business humming. There's a passage in the book that struck me very forcibly when I first read it: the author talks about what it is that sets wiseguys apart from other people. He notes that they aren't necessarily tougher, or stronger, or more skilled at combat than other people by any means. What distinguishes them, he concludes, is that they have an abnormal capacity for violence. They have no inhibitions about using violence to get what they want, no consciences to speak of, no reservations. To them, the most brutal attack on another person you can imagine has the same emotional impact that switching a light switch on or off has for the rest of us. Those are the guys you have to worry about nasty encounters with...

Sociopaths basically.
The reason that these people are dangerous is not that related to any particular method of fighting or tool of their trade, but rather their complete lack of empathy for the target.

Personally, i figure the biggest threat isn't the murderer or the sociopath. Those are very dangerous, but they are also in their own way professionals, if you are too much hassle, they won't bother with you in the first place.
The desperate amateur is the one you have to look out for. Someone like a junkie, who's head is a screwed up mix of desperation and fear, is going to be like a rat backed into a corner. And when he pops he's going to do it insanely viciously.
So someone like that, with a glass bottle or even a rock, seeing me and thinking that Im all thats standing between him and his next fix, THAT is something I don't want to face.

[exile]

Sociopaths basically.
The reason that these people are dangerous is not that related to any particular method of fighting or tool of their trade, but rather their complete lack of empathy for the target.

Yup, exactly.


Personally, i figure the biggest threat isn't the murderer or the sociopath. Those are very dangerous, but they are also in their own way professionals, if you are too much hassle, they won't bother with you in the first place.
The desperate amateur is the one you have to look out for. Someone like a junkie, who's head is a screwed up mix of desperation and fear, is going to be like a rat backed into a corner. And when he pops he's going to do it insanely viciously.
So someone like that, with a glass bottle or even a rock, seeing me and thinking that Im all thats standing between him and his next fix, THAT is something I don't want to face.

The thing that the two have in common is that there is absolutely nothing in the moral sphere that can possibly dissuade them from hurting you. Because their actions have no ethical inhibitions or strings attached, they have no inner restraints that might keep them from total commitment to the most violent possible behavior.

The reason this is germane to the OP is that what makes these people particularly scary has nothing to do with their knowledge base in combat techniques, and everything to do with the fact that you have to think of them almost as belonging to another species, and a completely predatory one at that. There's no common ethical language. No MAist, whatever their style, who shares at least some major ethical ground rules with you is going to be half as dangerous as even an untrained attacker who belongs to this other `species', because while they will be completely uninhibited in their violence, you almost certainly will not be, even knowing your survival is at rist. It's roughly like fighting with one hand tied behind your back...

[Shotgun Buddha]

Yup, exactly.



The thing that the two have in common is that there is absolutely nothing in the moral sphere that can possibly dissuade them from hurting you. Because their actions have no ethical inhibitions or strings attached, they have no inner restraints that might keep them from total commitment to the most violent possible behavior.

The reason this is germane to the OP is that what makes these people particularly scary has nothing to do with their knowledge base in combat techniques, and everything to do with the fact that you have to think of them almost as belonging to another species, and a completely predatory one at that. There's no common ethical language. No MAist, whatever their style, who shares at least some major ethical ground rules with you is going to be half as dangerous as even an untrained attacker who belongs to this other `species', because while they will be completely uninhibited in their violence, you almost certainly will not be, even knowing your survival is at rist. It's roughly like fighting with one hand tied behind your back...

You could possibly counter-act this by using factors like operant conditioning in your training, as a sort of way of bypassing your own moral restrictions towards violence/killing.
However there's two flaws with that

1. H2H is the single most difficult area to create that type of mental distance/insulation from the situation.
Hence why troops who've had to experience "wet work" often have a higher rate os psychiatric casualties.

2. Who in the hell would want to do that to themselves?

[KenpoTex]

1. H2H is the single most difficult area to create that type of mental distance/insulation from the situation.
Hence why troops who've had to experience "wet work" often have a higher rate os psychiatric casualties.

Stats for this? I'm curious.

[Shotgun Buddha]

Stats for this? I'm curious.

You're gonna have to gimme a bit of time on that one, been a while since I looked at it.

Edit- Doing some rooting but having trouble find the data again. Check out a book called on On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. It covers the subject in a fair bit of detail.

[exile]

Stats for this? I'm curious.

I think ShotgunBuddha is thinking of David Grossman's landmark book, On Killing, which includes a lot of data on the failure of infantrymen in combat situations to reliably fire their weapons with intent to kill, going back to WWII and looking at both Korea and Vietnam, as I recall. Grossman was an Army colonel who was responsible for psychological programming routines to desenstitize soldiers in very close quarters combat situations to the use of deadly force against individual enemy personnel. He supplies numbers to show that without such special desensitization, a majority of draftees will fail to kill enemy soldiers at close quarters enough times to compromise their own saftety and that of their units. It's available at Amazon and a lot of other places.

[Shotgun Buddha]

I think ShotgunBuddha is thinking of David Grossman's landmark book, On Killing, which includes a lot of data on the failure of infantrymen in combat situations to reliably fire their weapons with intent to kill, going back to WWII and looking at both Korea and Vietnam, as I recall. Grossman was an Army colonel who was responsible for psychological programming routines to desenstitize soldiers in very close quarters combat situations to the use of deadly force against individual enemy personnel. He supplies numbers to show that without such special desensitization, a majority of draftees will fail to kill enemy soldiers at close quarters enough times to compromise their own saftety and that of their units. It's available at Amazon and a lot of other places.

Woo! Go Team!
That was one of the sources I was using alright. Im trying to pick up On Combat as well, which I think he wrote with Loren W Christensen. Meant to be another great book.

[exile]

Woo! Go Team!
That was one of the sources I was using alright. Im trying to pick up On Combat as well, which I think he wrote with Loren W Christensen. Meant to be another great book.

Yes, you're right, SB, it is great—achieves deep insight based on Grossman's sort of `clinical' background in preparing soldiers for the bizarre psychology of military combat and on Christensen's experience as a LEO over many years. It's one of the classic studies of conflict at the personal (rather than geopolitical) level. Makes you realize how absolutely horrific armed, or deadly unarmed, conflict really is, and how hard it is to visualize if you haven't already been in it.

[frank raud]

[quote=flashlock;735335].


Secondly, I really looked into Bruce Lee who basically invented Mixed MA (don't belive me? Read His Tao, and other writings--he was 30 years ahead of his time!). He was open to everything that... WORKED. He was an iconoclast who held no certificates. Throw out your most sacred ideas and techniques if you couldn't get them to work in practice. Do not "stick" to anything... it's a cliche but... "Be like water!
/quote]
Please read MA history prior to Bruce Lee before making statements like this. It is embarassing. Before stating Bruce Lee invented MMA, you suggest people read Get Tough!, Fairbairn's book from the 1940's where he combines judo, jiu jitsu and Chinese boxing to form the basis of CQC. Too cryptic? Not good enough because it is not sport oriented? Try reading about Edward Barton-Wright, who is credited as being an English pioneer in martial arts, whose school of Bartitsu combined the judo/jiu jitsu of his partners Yukio Tani and Uyenishi, the French stick work of Pierre Vigny, wrestling from champion Cherpillod, along with savate and boxing. He held mixed martial arts competition in England in and around 1903, over 60 years before Bruce Lee invented mixed martial arts.

[kidswarrior]

[quote=flashlock;735335].


Secondly, I really looked into Bruce Lee who basically invented Mixed MA (don't belive me? Read His Tao, and other writings--he was 30 years ahead of his time!). He was open to everything that... WORKED. He was an iconoclast who held no certificates. Throw out your most sacred ideas and techniques if you couldn't get them to work in practice. Do not "stick" to anything... it's a cliche but... "Be like water!
/quote]
Please read MA history prior to Bruce Lee before making statements like this. It is embarassing. Before stating Bruce Lee invented MMA, you suggest people read Get Tough!, Fairbairn's book from the 1940's where he combines judo, jiu jitsu and Chinese boxing to form the basis of CQC. Too cryptic? Not good enough because it is not sport oriented? Try reading about Edward Barton-Wright, who is credited as being an English pioneer in martial arts, whose school of Bartitsu combined the judo/jiu jitsu of his partners Yukio Tani and Uyenishi, the French stick work of Pierre Vigny, wrestling from champion Cherpillod, along with savate and boxing. He held mixed martial arts competition in England in and around 1903, over 60 years before Bruce Lee invented mixed martial arts.

Thanks for the tip on Barton-Wright. Fairbairn I'm familiar with, and Get Tough! is a classic I refer to over and over. But Barton-Wright is new to me; am looking forward to learning more.

BTW, I've found few things are really 'invented'; they are just the remaking or relocating of ideas in a new way/new area so that they appear in a fresh light, and abracadabra, a 'new' art (or learning system, or __________ ) is born. It was this way with 'my' art, a synthesis of Shaolin Kempo, Kung Fu San Soo, and the 'asphalt arena' (none of which I 'invented') :D.

Have I gotten us really OT, here? Let me try to take us back: Arts evolve with the person--individual gifts, circumstances, location, safety needs and concerns, so that in fact even exisiting, settled arts looks different for each of their practitioners. How then can we even separate the two--the art is only effective in the hands of the right person, and each person has to find the art(s) that become his own practice (his own art, if you will, or at least his own interpretation of the art). So, an effective fighter begins by learning what's already known/taught about one or more systems, then begins to pick and choose favorite material from it/them, in order to become effective at self-defense/fighting. I believe a close look at the pioneers--Fairbairn, and now I see Barton-Wright--will show they drew from multiple arts and put that knowledge into practice in the locale and time in which they found themselves. We can only hope to to the same.