A very intriging question

[morph4me]

Well I was ask today in a general decussion is what we teach as in western Martial arts really consider martial arts anymore. I stopped and ask what do you mean and he replyed well see all I have seen in the last twenty years in alot of school is fitness and tournaments. The tournaments want light contact and the fitness people really never want to learn proper techniques. The sport has grown so much that ever MMA has so many rules that they make sure that nobody even get hurt that much anymore. All I could do was agree with him, too many school believe no bruise everything light contact and by all means no blood ever. People do not like to be seen with the bruise we once was so proud to have from the niight before when sparring. Sop many people look at Martial Arts as a form of entertainment and not self defense like it once was. We have become after school program summer camps and tournament bound society, little Johnny needs to be made a winner so no more than 4 to a group so everyone takes home a trophy or medal.

What has really made this happen society, lawyers or just that Martial Arts has become a trophy for all and nothing more.

I believe that martial arts teach tools, so this question is like asking is a baseball bat a weapon, it depends how you use it. If I take a baseball bat and play baseball with it, then the answer is no, if I use it as a lateral cranial impact device then the answer is yes it's a weapon. If I go to tournaments and compete then martial arts is a sport, if I go to the gym and wail on a heavy bag with all my punches and kicks for a workout, then it's a way to get healthy, if I use the same techniques to defend myself, the it's a martial art. The tools are there, how you use them determines how you'd classify them.

 

[allenjp]

Pride allowed stomps and what we call football kicks to the head when opponent is on the floor as do some other promotions still. I think the American promotions have made more rules than we have.

Ahh, the good old days of Pride...I miss it!

Funny, we here in the states call that a "soccer" kick lol.

You're right. American promotions (read UFC) have made too many rules because it's the only way to get sanctioned so you can actually host the events here. Sad but true.

 

[BrandonLucas]

Something else to consider...

It seems that martial artists of the past understood that being competant in the art took time and patience. A blackbelt wasn't just earned in a set amount of time...it was earned at different rates for different students who were willing to bleed and sweat.

People today don't seem as willing and patient to bleed and sweat for any length of time. It seems more and more that people are wanting to see results now, no matter what the system...and they don't want to put in any extra effort to see the results now.

 

[Xue Sheng]

What has really made this happen society, lawyers or just that Martial Arts has become a trophy for all and nothing more.

Well let me think

My Taiji Sifu has virtually retired form teaching what he calls taiji since not one of his current students, all new, have the slightest interest in Martial Arts so they get what they want, forms.

My Sanda Sifu will not teach anyone he does not know because he does not want to train someone to go out and hurt people and he does not feel that most would not bother training like he wants them to so why waste his time.

My Wing Chun sifu trained hard and trained for real and a big class for him is 6 people, sometimes it was only one person.

None of the above advertise at all. The closest to advertising is my Wing Chun sifu has his school listed in the phone book

My first CMA Sifu taught forms and some apps and was a real stickler for form correctness and hard training until he realized most here don’t want that so now he teaches garbage and has an unbelievable number of students all over the planet. He figured this out by the way after he taught an old style Chen form similar to the way he was taught; it started with 60 people in 2 classes of 1.5 to 2 hours per class. By the time the form was done there were only 6 of us left. After that he began to teach crap and his school grew fast. And he has a website and advertises in a few magazines.

IMO, most today want to be able to say "I know this MA" Or "I know this many styles". they want to beleive themselves masters and dangerous in 3 easy lessons and if they get hurt training this they quit, yell, cry or sue.

And then these same people go off and open a school of thier own.

EDIT

After rereading this a couple of times I guess I blame a lot of this (not all) on the expectations and quality of the students in a western capitalist society that is big on political correctness and the notion that all are equal no matter what. Basically if one person passes the test all should pass the test since flunking them is considered bad for their character

 

[Ninebird8]

Xue, with respect, there is a contradiction in your capitalist statement: to wit, if it was a true capatilist society, there would not be the attempt to equalize all for political correctness. Rather, that is more in line with Das Kapital than Conspicuous Consumption, at least in my book. Sorry, that is my undergrad economics and masters finance coming through....LOL! But I agree, people here have no patience today, and learning crap, whether in martial arts or regular school, is considered acceptable today! What's worse, in my mind, is we are more worried about hurting feelings than teaching to prevent getting really hurt in the first place. As I have said, those of us over 40 remember when parents, teachers, and adults in general did not pamper us, or cared about our feelings until we were grown.

My Ying jow master is mostly retired and was generally disgusted by what he saw at the gathering in March. My tai chi/long fist/white crane teacher had closed the school, leaving about 10-12 of his seniors to gather together every Monday night to train together, and a few of us to teach, and my Shaolin master is not happy with how most turned out, so he is generally not teaching at this time. What we in our generation really need to do, in my opinion, is persuade our teachers to travel to our students, and show them the real deal and the training they put us through, for just one day, and see. I agree with Xue's comments about teachers becoming disgusted and just folding the tent. But, in fact, the same is occurring in our school system as well. How do we teach our high school students not to cheat (latest poll of over 15,000 sampling of high school students say they have cheated 78% of the time), when we see what happens in Enron, Adelphia, bailout, Goldman Sachs, etc. and do not enforce the banks telling us where OUR money is going!

 

[Steve]

Early on in a post it was stated that they do full contact so I ask was all this allowed. Please go back and read the entire post for the right info. The worst thing in the world of communication is someone not really undersanding what has been said by all parties. Steve here is a tidbit of what yu did not read: I've just posted up a couple of MMA montages in the MMA section which prove very much you can still get hurt in MMA and it's very much fighting not point sparring, I'd argue too that we don't have that many rules.
I know of a good many clubs here in the UK that fight, TMAs not just MMA. We do have the touch sparring lot but they are probably the minority at the moment.
There's plenty of full contact MT and kickboxing here too. People like Karl Tanswell, Dave Turton and Geoff Thompson keep it real, Gavin Mulholland still has 30 man kumites for gradings.
Plenty of bruising, missing teeth and bust noses here lol!

This is when I ask about if they allowed these other things. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Oh, for Pete's sake. I read the whole thing. You start off the entire thread lamenting the good old days when men were men and people got all nicked up in training. Tez says basically, "Hey, we train hard and I know of a lot of clubs locally that also train hard," and then you said what I quoted originally. Rereading Tez's post once again, I can't see where she's saying or implying that full contact means NHB. But that's immediately where you went. Which is why I asked whether, in the old days, hard training meant fighting without rules or consideration of possible injury.

Basically, you're arguing two sides. First, that there's not enough hard training and people are going for more of the point sparring, tippy tap, light to no contact stuff. On the other, you pick apart schools which do still train hard because they incorporate rules designed to keep people safe.

My questions are really just me trying to figure out what the heck you're point is. Are you saying we should all train harder? Without rules? With rules, but willing to risk death at class? Or that light training is good? Which is it? What's the point? How do you define "hard training?"

I'm not trying to be mean either. I'm just pushing back a little so that I can understand what you mean.

As an aside, I think it's important to distinguish between the sporting events and the training. Is the OP referring to training and how serious the schools are about contact, or is it about the rulesets unique to the various disciplines, such as Judo, BJJ, MMA, San Shou, etc. All sporting events have rules. The guys who train for Pride or for the UFC or for MT events all train hard with lots of contact. I'd wager they all train as hard as even the hardcore guys back in the day.

Once again, this isn't suggesting that others don't train hard.

 

[terryl965]

Ok SteveBJJ here goes another try, first I am not on both side of the fence here. If you remember in my first post I did not ask the question but it was ask to me a second party which means when I spoke it was for the original person. I was born 49 years ago so the old days was in the seventies, just when tournament was gettinf under way so when he referrred to the old days he is 87, that means he is about 38 older than me so I cannot comment on his old days and what they did but just take what he says. I know in the seventies we hit people in the back of the head maybe half speed but later found out it was not good for us to do that so it went mostly gone and very light contact. The question I thought was intriging enough to present here for decussion and that was all. I do not believe enough people was around in the 40-60 to really make a judgement on what he said, like my father he talked about how training was in the old Marine Corp compared to the marines of the 90's do I know what he means no not really just take his word for it. I cannot ask him either because he has passed away but one thing for sure we do not use live ammo anymore against our own troops like we did back then because it is not in our best interest to do that. So as you can see bringing a question to the voard for decussion has litle to do with what side of the fence I am on. For the record I believe training was harder back in the seventies compared to today and I also believe we have better equipment than we did back then as well. Just like football old timer will tell you it was harder back then and I for one agree you was allow to hit the quarterback and also spear peole when making tackles, can't do that today but times have changed and they are looking out for the players kinda of like MA I guess. Have a wonderful day and season.

Let me answer this question you gave My questions are really just me trying to figure out what the heck you're point is. Are you saying we should all train harder? Without rules? With rules, but willing to risk death at class? Or that light training is good? Which is it? What's the point? How do you define "hard training?" I believe each person trains for them and should do what is best for them. At my school we have oft classes and harder classes for those that want it but we never try and hurt or beat the crap outof each other. We train to make each other better. I hope that answers your question.

 

[seasoned]

I believe that martial arts teach tools, so this question is like asking is a baseball bat a weapon, it depends how you use it. If I take a baseball bat and play baseball with it, then the answer is no, if I use it as a lateral cranial impact device then the answer is yes it's a weapon. If I go to tournaments and compete then martial arts is a sport, if I go to the gym and wail on a heavy bag with all my punches and kicks for a workout, then it's a way to get healthy, if I use the same techniques to defend myself, the it's a martial art. The tools are there, how you use them determines how you'd classify them.

Your point is well taken. But if I may elaborate. There are only so many ways to attack , and only a certain number of targets on the human body. I personally don’t feel that you can use the same techniques for health/sport, and self defense. One persons self defense tool may be a hook punch to the head. Do I want to get hit by it “heck no”. Others may chose a combination of body punches, with various head strikes. Also very good, and as self defense, these can be devastating as tools. As mentioned in earlier posts, there is always the chance that someone may sue, or get sued, hence the on set, years back, of hand and body protection, and the avoidance of many open hand techniques. The original question posed by Terry was, “Well I was ask today in a general discussion is what we teach as in western Martial arts really consider martial arts anymore. I stopped and ask what do you mean and he replied well see all I have seen in the last twenty years in allot of school is fitness and tournaments“. Now for all intent and purposes, I would say that the face of self defense has changed dramatically along with our mentality pertaining to the day and age we are in. Because I personally am a product of the 60’s, my perception of self defense will differ greatly from a more modern practitioner. Because I am stuck in this old way of thinking, it limit’s the types of people to teach. My guest is to preserve the old, so, it is not as popular a subject, but I also don’t make a living off of it. I value this forum greatly because it allows the old, and the modern to intermingle, and share, and in doing so, this forum is a neutral ground for all aspects of Martial arts.

 

[hkfuie]

Well, I think this is a great discussion, or rather about three great discussions!

As to the OP, I don't have an opinion. I don't know. I do my best to teach the same things my instructor taught. Time will tell. I'm pretty easy on white belts, lower ranking belts, and that is all I have right now. My previous teaching was almost all kids, so, of course we did lighter contact...which is why I always use Jr. BB for kids.

Brandon said: "...Hollywood glammed it up and made it something fun to watch, not something effective to practice." Agreed. Also, tournaments reward flashy crap with bonus points for forty "AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" yells per form. Both those forces: Hollywood and tournamnets turned martial arts into a spectacle. Gags me, but what're you gonna do except put your nose to the grindstone and hope to have a few good students and find a few good people to train with. It sucks to be the less glamorous one. But very good for the ego, at least I think so!


Championmarius said: "Yet, there are those who keep the martial in the arts, and they are domonized by the sheeple for being too rough and violent. Yet, these sheep-dogs are the only ones truly capable or going tooth to claw with the wolves and tussling them out of the herd.

These martial artists are not glitzy or even very popular. Demonized and attacked by the media, and the sheeple, they go about their arts, quietly, waiting for the wolves."

It is true that a person must face the ugliest side of humanity in order to really be honest in their martial arts training. That is a painful thing to do. Then you have to accept the ugly things you may have to do to protect yourself and change your self-perception to include your capacity to do something horrible in order to protect yourself. That takes some honest introspection that many people don't want to face.

Martial arts are beautiful and gruesome at the same time. Facing that and reconciling both sides in the arts and in yourself is not easy.

No wonder people want just a fitness class, eh?