Training half of martial arts bugs me.

[drop bear]

you seem to think that people are delusional enough to think that attending every Tuesday at the Church hall for an hour is going to turn them from feeble to killer, it wont and thats not what people genera;lly believe, will it make them better at defending themselves yes most probably, does that mean they win a fight who knows, depends who they are fighting

And again yes people are delusional enough to think that sub standard training will equip them for a self defense fight.

And police training is the best example of this because the expectation is that after a few weeks of training they will go out and provoke these fights.

After basic training you will go out and arrest hardened criminals.

 

[drop bear]

your daft idea about going up against pro fighter breaks down if your taking about pensioners and people with infirmities and people who are doing it as the step aerobic class was fully booked, in fact just about any one who isnt as fit as a pro fighter is getting an *** kicking and bizarrely there are no where near enough pro fighters to go round and what does the pro fighter get out of sparring jim from accounts with the bad back, when he is pre paring for a pro fight

And no it doesn't break down there. Because that gives you a realistic gauge of your ability so that you are not delusional.

We are back to needing a reliable method of seppartating fact from fiction. Which is the point I am trying to make.

 

[jobo]

Which is self defense as a weasel word.

This argument gets used a lot but then people jump of the self defense is a meaningless term bus and try then try to justify it without context.

but you've not dealt with any of the points ive made, lets take them one at a time

how do you evaluate if self defence training is effective with out knowing the attributes of a yet unknown attacker, their motives, their mo and if they are armed or not

 

[drop bear]

but you've not dealt with any of the points ive made, lets take them one at a time

how do you evaluate if self defence training is effective with out knowing the attributes of a yet unknown attacker, their motives, their mo and if they are armed or not

You don't which makes self defense a meaningless term.

 

[jobo]

You don't which makes self defense a meaningless term.

View attachment 22849

so we now agree that that very long post about having to have a method of validation was its self fantasy

 

[dvcochran]

A short course is industry standard for security, military and police to prepare people for real world combat. Life and death stuff.

So we don't all agree that a few hours is not enough to produce long term so on so on. Because we have an entire industry that sells an idea that these short courses sufficiently prepare people for self defense fighting.

Now I don't agree that this is long enough or comprehensive enough. But then i don't earn money from selling short courses. So who am I to say.

Hmm, it sounds like you and Gerry just said much the same thing.
A short course has value for professionals who already have experience.
How/why it is misrepresentative and bad for MA’s to tell laypeople up front that the training in a short course is limited is beyond me.

 

[drop bear]

so we now agree that that very long post about having to have a method of validation was its self fantasy

No. You could make self defense meaningful. You choose not to.

A self defense school could make verifiable claims.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

So we've reached the, "you're using exotic definitions" stage of the thread? The term is vague. It matters a little bit how you define it. What matters most, in the context of this thread, is how the lay public commonly defines it.

But it's also interesting to me that you create these reasonable scales, and always tack on the way you train at the end as a reasonable minimum. Why even do that?

So, that's a stage now? I was just clarifying that you're including something in the category "self-defense' that I don't. From talking to people, there seems to be a pretty wide range of definitions folks use, and most folks don't seem to have a hard boundary on the term. Because it's a concept, rather than a specific action or skill. I was hoping this wouldn't derail the conversation - I was actually trying to keep us on track by pointing out that I'm not really talking about stuff beyond the physical skill.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

But it's also interesting to me that you create these reasonable scales, and always tack on the way you train at the end as a reasonable minimum. Why even do that?

Sorry, hit reply before I replied to this part. If I were training well beyond that point, I'd still consider it a reasonable minimum. I was just sharing my position on that in response to your post. You know, like how discussions work.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Also, I would never presume to teach "self defense" because that would, in my opinion, be dishonest.

And once again, you make it clear you think anyone who teaches with a self-defense orientation is a fraud. We get it.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Now is this from a personal investment point of view? or an instructor with accountability for your training point of view?

Because how do you determine what is an acceptable level of ability should a person engage in this activity you are training them to engage in?

They have to decide what they want to achieve. Their goals are their own, not mine.

I have some standards at each rank, to help them compare their progress to those around them. But that's a limited measure. If they want a wider measure, they need to test it with folks outside the school.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Which is self defense as a weasel word.

This argument gets used a lot but then people jump of the self defense is a meaningless term bus and try then try to justify it without context.

The problem with your argument is that you are pushing the term as if it's a driving force that changes everything about training. Some places it may be. Most places I've seen, it was just an orientation for discussions and setting up situational drills.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

And again yes people are delusional enough to think that sub standard training will equip them for a self defense fight.

And police training is the best example of this because the expectation is that after a few weeks of training they will go out and provoke these fights.

After basic training you will go out and arrest hardened criminals.

And they often do arrest those folks, oddly enough.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

but you've not dealt with any of the points ive made, lets take them one at a time

how do you evaluate if self defence training is effective with out knowing the attributes of a yet unknown attacker, their motives, their mo and if they are armed or not

You work on basic fighting skills, and evaluate whether those skills work in sparring situations, for starters.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

No. You could make self defense meaningful. You choose not to.

A self defense school could make verifiable claims.

I'm not sure what a verifiable claim about self-defense would even be, since that's a situation/concept, rather than a skill.

 

[Steve]

And once again, you make it clear you think anyone who teaches with a self-defense orientation is a fraud. We get it.

Not a fraud. That's against the rules.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Not a fraud. That's against the rules.

Okay, so just liars. Not sure how that's different, but I'll roll with it.

 

[drop bear]

And they often do arrest those folks, oddly enough.

Yeah. Which I think breaks the link between police being able to police and training being validated by police being able to police.

 

[drop bear]

I'm not sure what a verifiable claim about self-defense would even be, since that's a situation/concept, rather than a skill.

You test what you can do.

There are a few ways to determine if something works by determining similar things that work.

I was going to do a whole fridge metaphor.

 

[drop bear]

The problem with your argument is that you are pushing the term as if it's a driving force that changes everything about training. Some places it may be. Most places I've seen, it was just an orientation for discussions and setting up situational drills.

Yeah it is. It is a niche section of martial arts instruction. And I think it is mostly a fabricated niche.

So if say an instructor can't win a MMA fight that doesn't matter because they train self defense. And that is this specialist field.

Which is then conveniently vague.

And that difference surfaces all the time and not just in orientation.