On Self "Training" In Martial Arts

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

But what are you basing this off of, that he said?

Part of it's from discussions with him from other posts/threads.

My overall position is: if you physically can't train elsewhere, learn the basics and do mostly physical conditioning, until you get to a point that you can train somewhere. Spend time sparring with people, and be aware that most likely you're not learning enough to compete with a competent martial artist/fighter. If you can get to a dojo/gym/club/dojang/etc., and are choosing not to, while wanting to improve as a martial artist, then you're doing yourself a disservice. Especially if you don't have enough experience/skill to maintain your current level by itself.

 

[Martial D]

You can't self train.

You can practice what you ALREADY know, and improve.

Next thread

 

[skribs]

But what are you basing this off of, that he said?

His history of posts here.

 

[dvcochran]

Please don't do this. If a blister pops on its own, feel free to remove the dead tissue. But don't pop it. The blister protects the underlying tissues.

Honestly, I don't do enough hard, manual labor any more to get many blisters. I get the occasional one or blood blisters from doing something stupid with a hammer or such.
I have popped them all my life. I would say I am just following what I was taught to do. I do not ever remember having a problem doing it, especially with blood blisters. Getting the pressure off feels much better to me. And as crazy as it sounds, I fully believe in Not popping a blood blister until the sun goes down. They do not hurt if you wait.
I do wait until the loose skin is getting hard(er).

 

[drop bear]

Part of it's from discussions with him from other posts/threads.

My overall position is: if you physically can't train elsewhere, learn the basics and do mostly physical conditioning, until you get to a point that you can train somewhere. Spend time sparring with people, and be aware that most likely you're not learning enough to compete with a competent martial artist/fighter. If you can get to a dojo/gym/club/dojang/etc., and are choosing not to, while wanting to improve as a martial artist, then you're doing yourself a disservice. Especially if you don't have enough experience/skill to maintain your current level by itself.

Yeah but it hinges on the wrong things. Martial arts work because they work. They don't work because they have good branding.

So you have a system. You train it, test it and then come to a conclusion as to whether it is garbage or not.

And you can gain all sorts of information from doing this.

And this should happen whether or not you gained this technique from an expert a pretend expert or invented it yourself.

So I recently did the rounds with Skribs over this with standing arm bars. Where he could not show the technique works. So that even though he may have learned a technique through the correct frame work. He hasn't put the technique through enough rigorous testing to say he can perform it or teach it effectively.

Now without that rigorous testing the framework doesn't matter.

Now for best results you should have both. But given a choice testing will create more honest results.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Yeah but it hinges on the wrong things. Martial arts work because they work. They don't work because they have good branding.

So you have a system. You train it, test it and then come to a conclusion as to whether it is garbage or not.

And you can gain all sorts of information from doing this.

And this should happen whether or not you gained this technique from an expert a pretend expert or invented it yourself.

So I recently did the rounds with Skribs over this with standing arm bars. Where he could not show the technique works. So that even though he may have learned a technique through the correct frame work. He hasn't put the technique through enough rigorous testing to say he can perform it or teach it effectively.

Now without that rigorous testing the framework doesn't matter.

Now for best results you should have both. But given a choice testing will create more honest results.

That’s true. But none of my post was about testing or evaluating the gym/dojo. Just self-training vs school-training.

 

[drop bear]

That’s true. But none of my post was about testing or evaluating the gym/dojo. Just self-training vs school-training.

Correct. But that is my point.

It is like saying what is the best martial arts. Those who wear white Gi's or those who wear blue?

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Correct. But that is my point.

It is like saying what is the best martial arts. Those who wear white Gi's or those who wear blue?

Again, not arguing, but that has nothing to do with what I'm saying. We agree on the idea that certain styles/schools are worse than others, and competition can verify that. But it's entirely unrelated to what I'm saying.

 

[drop bear]

Again, not arguing, but that has nothing to do with what I'm saying. We agree on the idea that certain styles/schools are worse than others, and competition can verify that. But it's entirely unrelated to what I'm saying.

Ok directly to what you are saying. Without external factors. Self taught and instructor taught makes no difference. Because the scope of self taught and instructor taught is so big they overlap.

Exept instructor taught is more expensive.

When we add external factors. That is when we create a difference.

 

[skribs]

Ok directly to what you are saying. Without external factors. Self taught and instructor taught makes no difference. Because the scope of self taught and instructor taught is so big they overlap.

Exept instructor taught is more expensive.

When we add external factors. That is when we create a difference.

I am absolutely shocked that this is coming from you. Considering how critical you are of any martial art that doesn't train the way you like, even if it's the same techniques, I'd have expected you to be for instruction more than anyone else in the thread.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Ok directly to what you are saying. Without external factors. Self taught and instructor taught makes no difference. Because the scope of self taught and instructor taught is so big they overlap.

Exept instructor taught is more expensive.

When we add external factors. That is when we create a difference.

Ok so this is related to what im saying. And i absolutely disagree. Bad instruction is worse than self taught. Self taught is worse than good instruction.

 

[skribs]

I came across this video, and thought of this thread:

It's part 5 of a series, I'll probably binge-watch it later. There seems to be more in the series after it as well. These are all people that thought they were great at martial arts, and instead didn't have the fighting ability. Most of it is newbies coming into a gym and thinking they know everything. The #7 one was a guy who was a "street fighter" with a "21-0 record". He went into a BJJ gym and challenged the instructor to a boxing match, and still got his butt handed to him.

I also think of the purple belts at my school. That's got to be one of the hardest classes for the kids. Our school separates the classes by belt level. When you start, you're in the white & yellow belt class. For a lot of the kids, the most advanced stuff they see before they get their purple belt is the yellow belt stuff, which honestly isn't much more than what the white belts do. The white belts have the basic punches, kicks, and blocks, and then yellow belts get a very simple form and a very simple set of one-steps (each one is just a block and a punch).

They leave for purple belt without realizing that they'll have to learn back kicks, how to do footwork with their kicks, spinning chops, and more complicated forms and one-steps. We've had several kids leave crying in the middle of purple belt class, because they get overwhelmed with everything they have to do. They felt like the king of the world; like they knew everything there was to know about Taekwondo. And suddenly they get into a class where they don't know anything on the curriculum. Usually a week or two and they get the hang of most of it. That which they're still struggling with, they at least are confident enough that they can learn it. But it's a huge shock when they realize there's a lot more to learn. And that's just at purple belt.

By green belt (the next time they switch classes), they're older, and they've been through this experience already. They usually handle this transition much better.

But this goes back to the points made to the OP. You don't know what you don't know, and if you're training by yourself, those things that you don't know you don't know are the things that will hamper your training.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

But a subjective example would be what plenty of TMA styles do and have you drop your hands to your belt after each punch, without correction (really early on) that would become a habit that can become a issue.

That's an inaccurate description of what's being taught/allowed in any case I've seen. I think this kind of misunderstanding of what's going on can lead you to think errors are more subjective (and system-based) than they are, in my experience.

While it's true a system will teach something is "wrong" that isn't actually (it's used successfully in another system), that's usually just a shorthand that gets corrected as the student advances. It's a method some instructors use to get students to stick to the base principles of the system until they learn enough to successfully vary from them.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Ok directly to what you are saying. Without external factors. Self taught and instructor taught makes no difference. Because the scope of self taught and instructor taught is so big they overlap.

Exept instructor taught is more expensive.

When we add external factors. That is when we create a difference.

The overlap is mostly exceptions, in my experience. Self-taught folks are asking a beginner (themselves) to teach them. That's clear enough.

 

[drop bear]

The overlap is mostly exceptions, in my experience. Self-taught folks are asking a beginner (themselves) to teach them. That's clear enough.

Not at all. There are plenty of very successful bouncers and street fighters who are self taught.

It is a very common way to learn to fight.

 

[_Simon_]

Correct. But that is my point.

It is like saying what is the best martial arts. Those who wear white Gi's or those who wear blue?

Oh, white for sure. No question.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Not at all. There are plenty of very successful bouncers and street fighters who are self taught.

It is a very common way to learn to fight.

How far can you go by yourself without a MA teacher? I don't think one can learn "hip throw" without a teacher.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Not at all. There are plenty of very successful bouncers and street fighters who are self taught.

It is a very common way to learn to fight.

I would argue those are mostly the exceptions I've referred to before. And they not remain isolated in their training - they are (by definition of both groups) around others who are using the skills, and are testing them against a non-closed group.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

That's an inaccurate description of what's being taught/allowed in any case I've seen. I think this kind of misunderstanding of what's going on can lead you to think errors are more subjective (and system-based) than they are, in my experience.

While it's true a system will teach something is "wrong" that isn't actually (it's used successfully in another system), that's usually just a shorthand that gets corrected as the student advances. It's a method some instructors use to get students to stick to the base principles of the system until they learn enough to successfully vary from them.

Under revision, it was indeed a poor example. As it would objectively be bad if you are teaching that as a fighting stance. As long as the gist of the point i was trying to make got through, its not a total loss. I would also state i so-so get the point of resetting to the hip to teach punching mechanics.



Just for the sake of argument and as a presumption, shouldnt formal school trainign be thrown out? As its essentially pointless to argue on that point as most people would do it if they could do it. And then we fall into the "what if its a bad school/mcdojo/fake system?" dilema. It would be much better to just discuss alternatives on a scale and also non tradtional learning methods. ie would contacting a isntructor and sending videos to them for review be superior to not?

 

[skribs]

Under revision, it was indeed a poor example. As it would objectively be bad if you are teaching that as a fighting stance. As long as the gist of the point i was trying to make got through, its not a total loss. I would also state i so-so get the point of resetting to the hip to teach punching mechanics.



Just for the sake of argument and as a presumption, shouldnt formal school trainign be thrown out? As its essentially pointless to argue on that point as most people would do it if they could do it. And then we fall into the "what if its a bad school/mcdojo/fake system?" dilema. It would be much better to just discuss alternatives on a scale and also non tradtional learning methods. ie would contacting a isntructor and sending videos to them for review be superior to not?

Will you take a class if it's not a traditional, formal class? Are you willing to go to a class and take lessons from a boxing coach or a BJJ coach? They don't teach in the same way that Taekwondo teaches. Those styles might fit you a lot better.

Forget about taking a traditional Asian style art, since you hate those so much. Take a western art that actually trains how you want to train. Take an art that's popular in MMA and UFC, since those arts are shown to be effective against many other arts, and the schools are tested by competing against one another.

You don't want to do forms/patterns/kata? You don't want to do chambered punches from the hip? You don't want to go to a school that might be low quality? Well you have a ton of options. Go to a school that teaches one of the following:

• Boxing
• Kickboxing
• Muay Thai
• Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
• Wrestling
• Judo
• MMA

There's 7 options. All of these options are popular martial arts that compete against each other. You should be able to see how the school does in competitions. You can post a link to the school's website on Reddit (either on r/martialarts or on the appropriate subreddit, i.e. r/bjj for BJJ) and ask "is this school legit?" If you go to one of those schools, you're going to learn the techniques the way they're taught for the full-contact sport, which will give you the training in the way you want it.

You don't like Taekwondo or traditional arts. That's fine. That's your prerogative. But to take that experience and turn your back on other options that do fit what you want is just silly. Why is it that you can't take any of the others? Why can't you do boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, BJJ, wrestling, Judo, or MMA?