Fantasy Martial Arts

[anerlich]

In the second article, he sounds like he just finished watching his first Matt Thornton video or recently started BJJ. People have been saying all of what he said for twenty years.

 

[KPM]

His arrogance isn't improved, though he makes some better points. He demonstrates his arrogance, though, when he discusses BJJ as being so very different from the "old school Japanese jujitsu" - ignoring the fact that the jujitsu it derived from (Judo was often called jujitsu at the time) has similar training methods.

---He didn't ignore that fact at all. He pointed out that Japanese Ju Jitsu went to Brazil and when taught outside of the typical "traditional" JMA context it began to change. They added much more "aliveness" to the training and got away from a lot of the "traditional" protocol.... and their version of JJ evolved. Now they do MANY things that are not found in Japanese JJ or Judo and continue to develop more in response to the demands of the fighting environment they find themselves in. I didn't think that observation was arrogant at all, and I believe most BJJ guys would agree with him.


The concept of "aliveness" is a good differentiator. It's not everything (a lot of drills depend on limiting this factor, in every art I'm personally aware of), but it's an important factor in training.

---Yeah. And of course Rackemann is not the first one to come up with this! Bruce Lee talked about it, and it has been something Matt Thornton has really emphasized for at least 15 years now.


The problem isn't a cooperative partner (we all use those to varying extents) - it's the lack of ever moving to a resisting one.

---True. And I don't think he would disagree.

 

[KPM]

In the second article, he sounds like he just finished watching his first Matt Thornton video or recently started BJJ. People have been saying all of what he said for twenty years.

I agree! He is just pointing it out to his Wing Chun colleagues, who sometimes seem to forget about the topic.

 

[jobo]

If you didn't like Rackemann's last article, you'll probably hate his follow on article. But I think its pretty good!

Why doesn't Wing Chun work? - Rackemann Wing Chun

but he has,changed his position considerably from one article to the next. The first was,,,, that your art is useless, a fantasy that is beyond hope. The,second is any art is good, if its trained with,aliveness. It's difficult to argue with the,second, some element of sparing is required to make the bridge between practise and a real fight.I don't think any one denies that? So is he now admitting he was wrong in the first article? Seems so

but he is still overly critical of forms, kata. They are extremely useful as developing movement patterns, that they don't resemble a fight is besides the point, they are not supposed to

 

[JowGaWolf]

If you didn't like Rackemann's last article, you'll probably hate his follow on article. But I think its pretty good!

Why doesn't Wing Chun work? - Rackemann Wing Chun

I stopped about half way through. I have a strong opinion about what makes someone effective in a martial art system and much of it can be boiled down into one general statement. We fight the way we train.

It's not enough to have resistance. Point sparring has resistance. Resistance must be viewed in context. Techniques must be applied in context. The way I drive my car on sunny days is not the same way I drive my car on rainy days. Martial arts are the same way. WC vs WC approach will not work when the "weather forecast" is WC vs BJJ.

From what I've seen by teaching most people just fail to try to use the techniques that they drill during sparring and as a result do not get the practice they need to successfully apply the technique in competitive sparring.

 

[jobo]

I stopped about half way through. I have a strong opinion about what makes someone effective in a martial art system and much of it can be boiled down into one general statement. We fight the way we train.

It's not enough to have resistance. Point sparring has resistance. Resistance must be viewed in context. Techniques must be applied in context. The way I drive my car on sunny days is not the same way I drive my car on rainy days. Martial arts are the same way. WC vs WC approach will not work when the "weather forecast" is WC vs BJJ.

From what I've seen by teaching most people just fail to try to use the techniques that they drill during sparring and as a result do not get the practice they need to successfully apply the technique in competitive sparring.

but the big issue, is that to declare something useless for,self defence, which is what he did in the first article, is to ignore the fact that there is no standard attacker and all art will work against some people and no art will work against others

 

[Flying Crane]

If you didn't like Rackemann's last article, you'll probably hate his follow on article. But I think its pretty good!

Why doesn't Wing Chun work? - Rackemann Wing Chun

Alright, I sacrificed five minutes of my life to read this fellow's ramblings and mumblings.

He is entitled to his opinion, and he is not satisfied with the training he did in wing chun. There is really a very simple answer to that conundrum: he should do something else instead. Problem solved. And that goes for anyone else who wants to go on and on about how Wing chun [state your favorite style to hate] sucks.

Seriously, he says he has trained in wing chun for ten years, and it does make me wonder a couple of things. Why does he think this puts him in a position to pass such wide judgement, as it is not such a long time, and why did it take him ten years to figure out he doesn't like something?

My take is this: wing chun is a poor choice for him, he should do something else. Perhaps any traditional method would be a poor choice for him, as he does not trust the underlying approach that these methods can take. He wants something different, and it sounds to me like a competition-focused MMA type gym would be a good choice for him. Good luck to him in his new endeavor.

He may have had a poor teacher, and/or he may have been a poor student. Those are issues of an altogether different sort. If the latter, he isn't going to have much success in an MMA gym either, and perhaps he should take up knitting instead.

 

[drop bear]

His arrogance isn't improved, though he makes some better points. He demonstrates his arrogance, though, when he discusses BJJ as being so very different from the "old school Japanese jujitsu" - ignoring the fact that the jujitsu it derived from (Judo was often called jujitsu at the time) has similar training methods.

The concept of "aliveness" is a good differentiator. It's not everything (a lot of drills depend on limiting this factor, in every art I'm personally aware of), but it's an important factor in training. I don't know a good substitute for having at least some of this in your training. His point about resistance sounds like some I've heard before, which tend to focus on someone teaching a technique/response (which will pretty much never have resistance - you need to be able to show people the technique in question, rather than whatever is appropriate for the resistance given). The problem isn't a cooperative partner (we all use those to varying extents) - it's the lack of ever moving to a resisting one.

The instructor has to have knowledge of a resisting partner. So when he says "a person will probably do this." He has a vague clue what a person will probably do.

 

[drop bear]

Agreed. And if the results aren't directly connected to the expectations, there is a flaw in the system. but it's not specific to the heirarchy. The heirarchy is one example. If the system expects black belts to be able to juggle five knives, but doesn't train them to be able to juggle at all, the system is flawed. Not the fault of the students.

A martial art is not really progressed by its founders or instructors. It is progressed by its practitioners.

The heirachy can limit this progress

 

[Gerry Seymour]

The instructor has to have knowledge of a resisting partner. So when he says "a person will probably do this." He has a vague clue what a person will probably do.

Agreed. I've seen people teach responses to lapel grabs (from a self-defense perspective), acting like the person would hold them in place at half-arm length. That seems among the least likely scenarios with someone providing intent and/or resistance (more likely they're pushing or pulling, and probably punching).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

A martial art is not really progressed by its founders or instructors. It is progressed by its practitioners.

The heirachy can limit this progress

I agree with the top sentence (insofar as "practitioners" includes instructors). I'm unclear on the last one. Where do you see a hierarchy limiting the progression? Are you talking about the tendency to control curriculum and approach from "higher up" in the hierarchy?

 

[Steve]

Alright, I sacrificed five minutes of my life to read this fellow's ramblings and mumblings.

He is entitled to his opinion, and he is not satisfied with the training he did in wing chun. There is really a very simple answer to that conundrum: he should do something else instead. Problem solved. And that goes for anyone else who wants to go on and on about how Wing chun [state your favorite style to hate] sucks.

Seriously, he says he has trained in wing chun for ten years, and it does make me wonder a couple of things. Why does he think this puts him in a position to pass such wide judgement, as it is not such a long time, and why did it take him ten years to figure out he doesn't like something?

My take is this: wing chun is a poor choice for him, he should do something else. Perhaps any traditional method would be a poor choice for him, as he does not trust the underlying approach that these methods can take. He wants something different, and it sounds to me like a competition-focused MMA type gym would be a good choice for him. Good luck to him in his new endeavor.

He may have had a poor teacher, and/or he may have been a poor student. Those are issues of an altogether different sort. If the latter, he isn't going to have much success in an MMA gym either, and perhaps he should take up knitting instead.

There is a conundrum here. If someone criticizes a style he or she has never trained, the criticism is dismissed because he or she couldn't know. That's been your position and it's a common one.

But now, a guy who says he's trained in a style for a decade criticizes a style and is dismissed because... why again? He just should train something else?

That's pretty silly to me.

 

[Steve]

A martial art is not really progressed by its founders or instructors. It is progressed by its practitioners.

The heirachy can limit this progress

I'm speaking more to a training structure. I'm a firm believer to teaching to the test, and having the test be the gateway to application. That's for all things, not just martial arts. So if the students are having trouble doing what you expect, you should look at the system. Probably a disconnect between the outcome you expect, what you're teaching and what you're testing.

 

[drop bear]

I agree with the top sentence (insofar as "practitioners" includes instructors). I'm unclear on the last one. Where do you see a hierarchy limiting the progression? Are you talking about the tendency to control curriculum and approach from "higher up" in the hierarchy?

Story time.

We had some gun BJJ black belts rock up to our no gi class. During drilling out purple belt was coaching them.

Then he found out they were gun black belts and apologised. The response was. "No that is good everyone has something to teach"

This is what fundamentally drives BJJs progression forwards faster than a style that has to wait for advancements to be filtered down from the beurocracy.

This is because more people are actively advancing the progression of the style. It is a basic numbers game.

 

[KPM]

but he has,changed his position considerably from one article to the next. The first was,,,, that your art is useless, a fantasy that is beyond hope. The,second is any art is good, if its trained with,aliveness.

---Not really. In the first article he gave a list of what he considers elements of a "Fantasy Art." In the second article he described what he thinks is a major element in an "effective art." So the conclusion would seem to be that a "Fantasy art" can be made more realistic and "effective" by incorporating the element of "aliveness" in training. I don't see anything contradictory or as being a "change in position."


but he is still overly critical of forms, kata. They are extremely useful as developing movement patterns, that they don't resemble a fight is besides the point, they are not supposed to

----Yes. I agree with you here! I do think he downplays the role of forms too much. Though he did admit that he teaches the Wing Chun element as short drills. I haven't seen what these drills look like, but in theory he is simply doing the same thing that Pin Sun Wing Chun does. Pin Sun does not use the longer forms like other Wing Chun. Pin Sun teaches "short sets" or "san sik", and then teaches two man application for each one, practices each one on the dummy, and puts each one into both Chi Sau and San Sau. So it sounds like Rackemann may also be doing a "San Sik-based" version of Wing Chun Boxing. He just doesn't think of this short sets the same way as the longer forms. But I don't think there is really that much of a difference.

 

[KPM]

I stopped about half way through. I have a strong opinion about what makes someone effective in a martial art system and much of it can be boiled down into one general statement. We fight the way we train.

It's not enough to have resistance. Point sparring has resistance. Resistance must be viewed in context. Techniques must be applied in context. The way I drive my car on sunny days is not the same way I drive my car on rainy days. Martial arts are the same way. WC vs WC approach will not work when the "weather forecast" is WC vs BJJ.

From what I've seen by teaching most people just fail to try to use the techniques that they drill during sparring and as a result do not get the practice they need to successfully apply the technique in competitive sparring.

I don't think Rackemann would disagree with you. And I fail to see why you didn't bother to read the whole article.

 

[KPM]

There is a conundrum here. If someone criticizes a style he or she has never trained, the criticism is dismissed because he or she couldn't know. That's been your position and it's a common one.

But now, a guy who says he's trained in a style for a decade criticizes a style and is dismissed because... why again? He just should train something else?

That's pretty silly to me.

Absolutely! The ramblings of people who want to dismiss the observations of someone with extensive background in an art under a well-known and well-respected Sifu starts to sound like a case of maybe the points being made striking a little to close to home for comfort.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I don't think Rackemann would disagree with you. And I fail to see why you didn't bother to read the whole article.

I didn't read the rest of the article because I knew the second half would consist of wording that attempts to support the first half that I didn't agree with. There have already been comments against the article that I would say myself. For example: The article must have mentioned something about forms and their usefulness being minimum. I don't think of my forms as minimum usefulness. To me my forms are core. When I train techniques, I pull the technique from the form. I think about how I perform that part of the form. Every now and then I'll do a technique from the form out of the blue while free sparring. This happens because I did the technique a lot of times in the form. My forms also provide cardio workout, muscle building, muscle endurance, transition timing between techniques, trains "muscle memory" and focus. By the way others responded, I doubt that much or any of that is in the article.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I don't think Rackemann would disagree with you. And I fail to see why you didn't bother to read the whole article.

By the way just because some one wouldn't disagree with me doesn't mean that what they are saying is correct or accurate. Articles about "fantasy martial" tend to be generalizations taken from one perspective. Rarely do they include research where they seek to find if someone trains in a way that proves their assumption wrong. For example the MMA vs TaI Chi fight is the source of "Does Tai Chi really work." and no one goes beyond that to see if people can actually fight using Tai Chi. From that they will make assumptions about forms and other aspects about Traditional Martial arts.

 

[KPM]

I didn't read the rest of the article because I knew the second half would consist of wording that attempts to support the first half that I didn't agree with. There have already been comments against the article that I would say myself. For example: The article must have mentioned something about forms and their usefulness being minimum. I don't think of my forms as minimum usefulness. To me my forms are core. When I train techniques, I pull the technique from the form. I think about how I perform that part of the form. Every now and then I'll do a technique from the form out of the blue while free sparring. This happens because I did the technique a lot of times in the form. My forms also provide cardio workout, muscle building, muscle endurance, transition timing between techniques, trains "muscle memory" and focus. By the way others responded, I doubt that much or any of that is in the article.

I'll repeat what I said above:

Though he did admit that he teaches the Wing Chun element as short drills. I haven't seen what these drills look like, but in theory he is simply doing the same thing that Pin Sun Wing Chun does. Pin Sun does not use the longer forms like other Wing Chun. Pin Sun teaches "short sets" or "san sik", and then teaches two man application for each one, practices each one on the dummy, and puts each one into both Chi Sau and San Sau. So it sounds like Rackemann may also be doing a "San Sik-based" version of Wing Chun Boxing. He just doesn't think of these short sets the same way as the longer forms. But I don't think there is really that much of a difference.

So I'm not sure he would actually disagree with what you wrote.