Why do Westerners train in exotic unrealistic weapons and ignore practical ones like baseball bats?

[isshinryuronin]

The art of Kanabojutsu (wh.ich uses far heavier than your typical MLB League Baseball Bat) disproves your whole claim.

Never heard of Kanabojutsu, so I looked it up: According to Wikipedia, the Kanabo was used vs. armored Samurai and war horses (most likely in pitched massed warfare with limited maneuverability.) It further call this weapon "cumbersome...requiring great skill to recover from a miss with the heavy club, which could leave a wielder open to a counter-attack." It also states the obvious - great strength was needed to use it at all. So not an option for many martial artists. This entirely supports all my comments re: the use of a bat or other weighty weapons and supports my "whole claim."

 

[Flying Crane]

I thought that we had reached a low point when we were looking to YouTube as "reality". Now, zombie movies are our basis for what happens in the real-world?

My personal favorite is Sean of the Dead, so I guess I'll buy my class a couple of pints and lead some cricket bat drills tonight.

And then go hang out at the Winchester.

 

[drop bear]

And complicated looks cool. We all like to look cool sometimes.

That. But I also feel there is an expectation as it represents showing depth of training that may not be the best indication of that.

 

[drop bear]

the immediate answer is that have lost touch with the purpose of ma, which is hurting people and have got lost in cultural appropriation, and a no longer existant culture at that.

and its their time/money, i laugh at people who practice fighting with muskets, but if they enjoy it ???, come the zombie apocalypse and they and the archers may be laughing at me

but most of these weapons are, in the right hands extremely effective, just as baseball bats are not much use if you cant use them properly, start swinging wildly with them and someone of the required coordination will take them off you and they are much to long a weapon for close quarter combat, and require two hands if someones swinging a bat at you get as close to them as you can, they cant hit you and both or least one of their hands are tied up

the issue is really availability, you may find it difficult to gain admittance to a nightclub carrying a katana, but you'll have much the same issue with a baseball bat, just as wandering the streets with either may attract the attention of local law enforcement

with our culture weapons need to be both discrete and effective and that rules out most things you cant fit in your pocket or at least cover with a jacket

i saw a confrontation a couple of weeks ago between two cyclists who on a very wide road were contesting who should give way, one pulled a claw hammer out of his bag, the other an axe, they circled each other for a short while and both decided to leave, they are both extremely effective close quarter weapons, that beat the hell out of a baseball bat and both ancient in design

There is an urban combatives myth that says that sort of thing doesn't happen.

That knife fights are not duels.

 

[drop bear]

When the zombie apocalypse arrives and it’s time to hit the road with my trusty band of survivors and make our way through the burning remnants of civilization, the hardest choice I will have will be in deciding WHICH Spears, swords, staffs, kukhuri, butterfly swords, tomahawks, daggers, sheath knives, folding knives, shuriken, nunchaku, sai, bow-and-arrows, and sticks, to bring with me. My collection is vast, and I am but one. I cannot carry more than several of these myself, before I become too bogged down to use any of it. I could load up the car with them all, and share them with worthy companions who may join me along the way. My closest friends know that they need to make their way to my place for arming, when the tragedy of the zombies begins. I will have something for everyone. Or I could have the luxury of choosing which favorite weapon to select as the zombie mob closes in around my vehicle, cycling through my collection, giving each weapon its turn.

I wouldn’t select a lowly baseball bat or crowbar unless I had no other choice. Wending my way through the burning ashes of civilization with a baseball bat or a crowbar??? How utterly pedestrian.

I have settled on a axe or tomahawk.

And my reasoning was weight. So if I am going to carry a great big heavy weapon around I would also like it to be practical for things like making fire and shelter. Because I assume there is quite a bit of non zombie killing down time that goes on.

 

[jobo]

This would be the equivalent of throwing haymakers. It's a power swing, but highly telegraphed and not that fast of a strike. (Pun unintended).



There are 4 types of zombies:
Slow / Dumb
Slow / Smart
Fast / Dumb
Fast / Smart

Slow/Smart zombies can be seen in movies like I Am Legend, Fast/Dumb zombies in 28 Days Later.



You are right about cops watching people regardless of what weapon they carry. My friend and I were walking from our high school to our college, and my friend found a stick. Another friend was driving by, so we talked to him a bit, and then he drove off. A cop saw the whole thing, came up to us and started accusing us of brandishing a weapon and stopping traffic. It wasn't even a baseball bat, just a big stick we found on the side of the road.



Crowbar seems like it would have use. Plus, Gordon Freeman proved it's great against zombies. At least the kind that you turn into from an alien head-crab.

i am legend had fast smart zombies, as far as im aw3are that the only example of such, , 28 days did indeed have very fast zombies, even faster than i am legend, , which made a olot more sence in the original cut, which the test audience didn't like apparently

George A. Romero zombies are very slow and fall over a lot. as are most of the copies,

the zombies in the walking dead have varying speeds dependent on the plot and if the character is supposed to escape or not, they were however notably mutch faster in the first series, which has nothing it seems to do with degeneration as fresh zombies in the later series are also much slower, apart from when they are not

 

[Gerry Seymour]

non zombie killing down time

My absolute favorite phrase you've ever posted, db.

 

[skribs]

i am legend had fast smart zombies, as far as im aw3are that the only example of such, , 28 days did indeed have very fast zombies, even faster than i am legend, , which made a olot more sence in the original cut, which the test audience didn't like apparently

George A. Romero zombies are very slow and fall over a lot. as are most of the copies,

the zombies in the walking dead have varying speeds dependent on the plot and if the character is supposed to escape or not, they were however notably mutch faster in the first series, which has nothing it seems to do with degeneration as fresh zombies in the later series are also much slower, apart from when they are not

Zombies in Supernatural and I believe some of them from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are smart and fast. Part of it may depend on classification, though.

 

[jobo]

Zombies in Supernatural and I believe some of them from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are smart and fast. Part of it may depend on classification, though.

i think '' supernatural zombies'' need there own classification apart from plague zombies, as they are magic they can do anything and you need magic to defeat them, so you baseball bat isn't of much use, you need a wand

 

[ShortBridge]

Maybe 2020 will be about us exploring and debating how each style would fare against various cryptozoological characters:

BJJ vs Cupacabra in a real fight?

Which Karate style vs the Loch Ness Monster?

 

[skribs]

i think '' supernatural zombies'' need there own classification apart from plague zombies, as they are magic they can do anything and you need magic to defeat them, so you baseball bat isn't of much use, you need a wand

I meant zombies from the show Supernatural.

Many iterations of magic zombies follow the same rules as plague zombies.

 

[skribs]

Maybe 2020 will be about us exploring and debating how each style would fare against various cryptozoological characters:

BJJ vs Cupacabra in a real fight?

Which Karate style vs the Loch Ness Monster?

I've actually thought about this when watching movies. How well would a spin hook kick work on a velociraptor, for example.

 

[jobo]

I meant zombies from the show Supernatural.

Many iterations of magic zombies follow the same rules as plague zombies.

arnt zombies in a show called SUPERNATURAL supernatural ?

 

[skribs]

arnt zombies in a show called SUPERNATURAL supernatural ?

Different undead have different rules. Some of them need to be killed via ritual (i.e. salt and burn the bones to kill a ghost), some need to be killed with a specific weapon or method (i.e. cut off the head).

 

[jobo]

Different undead have different rules. Some of them need to be killed via ritual (i.e. salt and burn the bones to kill a ghost), some need to be killed with a specific weapon or method (i.e. cut off the head).

people cant just go around making up there own rules, it would just be chaos, zombies are killed by destroying the brain, thats it, if they require magic then they are supernatural zombies, and as there is no such thing as the supernatural cant exist,

we have to keep some semblance of logic in this or next thing you have zombies on roller skates wearing crash helmets

 

[skribs]

people cant just go around making up there own rules, it would just be chaos, zombies are killed by destroying the brain, thats it, if they require magic then they are supernatural zombies, and as there is no such thing as the supernatural cant exist,

we have to keep some semblance of logic in this or next thing you have zombies on roller skates wearing crash helmets

It's fiction. The author creates the fictional world and the rules that apply. As long as the rules remain consistent in the fictional universe, it works.

One of my favorite book series, Monster Hunter International, has a scene with zombie bears with thick metal helmets. So yeah, what you're saying is crazy has already happened.

 

[Martial D]

I'm watching High School of the Dead and I just watched Train to Busan. In both zombie apocalypse work, the more preferred weapon by the heroes is the baseball bat and most bystanders are using broomsticks, wrenches, crowbars, and one handed heavy clubs and sticks and other boring weapons. The few people who choose to use fancy martial arts stuff like Sai and Kama either get eaten quickly or are shown to be at an extremely high level of skill that a regular Joe can't expect to attain in years or even decades.

It leads me to ask why so many Westerners tend to search out specifically to train in weapons that are impossible to find in daily life and are often illegel or even impractical to carry around. Most commonly is wooden Japanese sword styles, nunchuks, Tonfas, and too many weapons I cannot name that are simply to bizarre to describe or to obscure even in Asia. Rather than learning the use of weapons that you can easily find an improvised tool to translate into impromptu such as flailing weapons (easily created with so many home tools, even simply putting a lockpad in a sock) and shield arts (you can simply pick up a metal trash can lid). Or even common weapons such as a bat.

I bring this up because in East Asia, the most common weapon to use is not a Tai Chi sword or Katar and these other fancy stuff but simply the baseball bat. Used in the most amount of non-passionate (angry housewife who caught you cheating) and non-criminal killings (esp in self defense) and the most common tool local gangs and thugs use for violence. That nowadays not only do most TKD and Karate RBSD-specific classes in Korea and Japan not only emphasize defense against bats but bats is actually far more common to teach for use as a weapon than any other traditional martial arts tool excepting for the nunchuks, bo staff, one handed clubs and stick, and knife arts. For the average non-committed weekend warrior, more time is spent on teaching bats than even those other practical weapons. In addition with how baseball has been dominating those countries in modern times, old heavy bat martial arts such as Kanabo styles have been in revival in dojos and school instructions. As baseball rises in popularity in China, there too is a revival of obscure and mostly forgotten styles using long heavy clubs.

But in the West there is s much emphasize on the fancy of bizarre weapons. Even stuff barely used back at home in Asia (such as some weird local Filipino fighting using a bullship). Excepting nunchuks (which can easily transitioned into improvised stuff like tying two sticks together and lockpad in socks), bo staff (broom sticks), and one handed clubs and sticks (obviously easiest to transition to as almost everything from tire irons to mallets can be used), all the practical self defense weapons style that can easily transition to civilian lifestyle are so damn ignored.

Why is this? In Asia as I mentioned the bat gets far more emphasized esp in civilian self defense and criminal activities than kendo styles and even advanced martial artists (esp since many top athletes also practise martial arts and are baseball fans in their spare time) prefer two handed bats even over staffs, knives, and other practical small arms. In China most commoners with some kung fu training tend to use kitchen knives esp heavy meat cutting blades for self defense over those strange swords More common than even stick and staff arts in Korea is the preferred use of fist based weapons like brass knuckles and training in forms of boxing that emphasize defenses against bats, etc under the use of brass knuckles and other older similar fist weapons in Korean history.

Why isn't the baseball bat a popular weapon to train in the West? I can barely find any school teaching about bats and those that do focus far more on defending against bats than using it. Same with other lots of practical tools. We don't have styles teaching how to use a crowbar to hook enemy weapons as common in the West. While the crowbar is quite popular among Chinese gangs and the Chinese police use a variation of it because of its ability to hook away and disarm weapons! Hooking weapons have seen a revival in Chinese kung fu lately. Yet this practical weapon type is ignored in the West's school just like baseball bats are.

What makes impractical weapons so popular in demand by Western students while day-to-day life tools like hitting with a hunting rifle, disarming with crowbars, and esp baseball bats not in demand for lessons?

Once you figure out that movies aren't real life, and that you should have at least some sort of basic understanding of a thing before making lots of assumptions,all of this wild confusion may begin to subside for you.

Good luck.

 

[jobo]

It's fiction. The author creates the fictional world and the rules that apply. As long as the rules remain consistent in the fictional universe, it works.

One of my favorite book series, Monster Hunter International, has a scene with zombie bears with thick metal helmets. So yeah, what you're saying is crazy has already happened.

science fiction good
fantasy fiction bad
zombie bears with crash helmets very very bad,

 

[Tez3]

A baseball bat is actually quite exotic in many parts of the world.

One of my favorite book series, Monster Hunter International, has a scene with zombie bears with thick metal helmets.

Have you read 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman (the BBC has just made a cracking series of the first part with more to come, not the film though, it was tame and missed too much out) it has huge armoured fighting polar bears in it. Fearsome enough reading about them absolutely terrifying on screen.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Maybe 2020 will be about us exploring and debating how each style would fare against various cryptozoological characters:

BJJ vs Cupacabra in a real fight?

Which Karate style vs the Loch Ness Monster?

Aikido would be fantastic against Frankenstein's monster - slow, arms out, stumbling with his weight forward, and quite tall.