What makes a Martial Arts System Practical for Physical Self-Defense?

I'm not cross. So, you got attacked. The point isn't how you irritated someone so much that they attacked you. That's not surprising at all. It's whether you would be justified in killing that guy. Would learning techniques that culminate in stomping the head, crushing the trachea, etc, be helpful to you at all? I don't think so. In fact, I think some training on communication and interpersonal skills would be much more helpful to you, if you were receptive, so that you have the skills needed to avoid being attacked... or at least not being surprised when you are.

 

It can be as simple as a personal challenge.

 

You can't anticipate everything. Being reasonably prepared for what may happen is good sense. Having an earthquake kit in Seattle is a good idea, because we get them. Not often, but they do occur. Being prepared for tornadoes in North Texas is a good idea. I was in my Grandma's house in Henrietta, TX when several tornadoes took out half of Wichita Falls... it happens, and it makes sense to be prepared. But in Seattle, I don't worry about Tornadoes. I could spend money and time and energy being prepared for those tornadoes, but there's really no point in doing so.

That's what I'm getting at. Many self defense programs seem to undervalue context and place undue emphasis on techniques that actually detract from skills that are actually helpful.

 

That doesn't sound random to me, or common.

 

If some stranger wants to test your punching power, ask you to punch him as hard as you can in front of public, what will you do?

What will you do when you have accepted a personal challenge? If you take easy on your opponent, next day there will be many other challengers. If you give your opponent a hard time, people may leave you along after that.

So when you throw that punch, do you want to hurt your opponent, or not?

Your bad reputation may be the only way that you can live peacefully through your old age.

 

well you managed to turn that into a personal attack ×well played that man

the techniques that are usful are the ones you need to win, so all of them dependent on circumstances, or how much they have,annoyed you so far, possibily of witness or cctv

personally i really wouldnt stamp on someones head unless the,situation is,dire indeed, crushing the wind pipe however is fair game and unlikely to kill them unless you keep going after they have past out, and they tend to give in before they pass out anyway, so it saves damage,all round, its a kindness really

 

Not if you have a national champion title on you. Some people just want to gain reputation over night. Instead of going through tournament competition to earn his reputation in the right way, he may prefer the easy way, to challenge the national champion instead.

The issue is even the national champion may get sick and get old one day. In those personal challenges, to be kind to your opponent is to be cruel to yourself. To stop those non-stop challenges, your bad reputation may be your last line defense.

A: Dear sir! I want to challenge Mike Tyson tomorrow. If I can land a lucky punch on him, I will be famous next day.
B: Last person who challenged him had stayed in hospital for 3 months. I would reconsider it if I were you.

 

of course its relivent its a close to full body exercise that can wrrck you in 5 mins and thus give exception fitness beifits, thst you said couldnt be obtained in such a short time

have your tried it yet,

i suspect not, as that may result in you having to admit your wrong

 

I'm going to see if this works for me in Martial Talk. lol

 

This may not work.

A: What do you think about my side kick in this video?
B: Bad, bad, very bad.
A: How many years of MA training have you had?
B: I have 3 months of MA training. I suck at MA.
A: What make you think that you are qualify to say my side kick is bad?

If people think you suck at MA, nobody will pay attention on your post.

 

its a bit late for that, they have seen you with your " spear" they already know how good you are

 

All it takes is for me to teach myself TKD, show a video of me but not my face and a new profile picture.

 

well it has your nose, so they may work it out

 

Hey there Gerry, I know you've said this to both Jobo and me at this point, but I'm not sure where you're coming from. I agree that what I do would be hard to teach in a group setting and so is of little use in a typical commercial martial arts class format but it sounds like Jobo's methods would be more accessible to a setting with minimal equipment and larger groups. Regardless, the original post asked...

... and it sounds to me like you read this as, "What is a practical way to teach self defense in a commercial martial arts school?". If that were the question then strength training the way I do may not be relevant as a part of in class training, but that doesn't mean it might not be relevant to the original question.

If I were to answer this question, which I realize I haven't, I would say:

A martial arts system is practical for self defense if it teaches a small set of high value techniques (Kung Fu Wang would say door guarding techniques) that are suitable for addressing the threats that the student reasonably expects to encounter (a 19 year old female college student has different worries than a 50 year old male celebrity for instance). It should have drills of whatever sort are necessary to ingrain these techniques such that they are embedded in muscle memory and can be applied effectively against a fully resisting attacker of the appropriate threat profile.

If we're limiting ourselves to just answering the original question and not expanding upon it at all that's the extent of my answer. Other people have pointed out (correctly in my opinion) that this isn't the whole picture. If the student isn't fit enough to apply the techniques to the expected threat then they need to do some fitness training. Whether that is the responsibility of the system or not is another question.

If you feel that fitness has to be part of the in class curriculum of the system itself then I think that the kinds of fitness training Jobo is suggesting are a good candidate for that purpose. If you feel that fitness training must simply be a part of the student's training, but that it doesn't need to take part during group training, then the sort of training that I'm advocating is immanently practical for providing the necessary fitness component.

Am I missing something?

Cheers!

Michael

 

You say "no, I'm not going to punch you", and walk away.

You could also say, "come to the gym/dojo with me for class tomorrow, and I'll show you".

But there's no reason to punch a stranger in the street, just because they asked you to punch them. Engaging them is just stupid.