jobo
Grandmaster
do you want to swap street experiences, mine,stated when I was four and I'm 58 now, could take a while,
Anecdotal vs. empirical
- Thread starter Monkey Turned Wolf
- Start date
You're making some strange assumptions about the states. There are dangers everywhere in the world. I've never had someone get attacked with an axe within 1,000 yards of any house I've ever lived in.
It's not really a pissing match.
jobo
Grandmaster
if I punch some one and they fall over, that more than an educated guess that the punch caused the falling over, if I poke them in the eye and they run round screaming my eye, my eye, its safe to say the poke in. The eye did that,
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Where as flying kicks come up a bit on the street. I did a thread about the difference between perception and reality. Gave examples and everything. But because it did not conform with belief. The evidence got met with resistance.
flying kicks for the streets.
Pretty funny thread.
Again, you don't know what the outcome was without that. You know the punch caused the falling over, but you don't know it caused the non-mugging.
jobo
Grandmaster
I'm guessing you live in the,suburbs , I'm an inner,city sort of lad, can't sleep unless I can hear,sirens
jobo
Grandmaster
if the guy is on the floor, the non mugging occurs a) because he is on the floor and b) because I have now kicked him several times, that's cause and effect
Actually, that's a pretty good example, DB. I didn't read the whole thread - just your OP and the first few replies. We could argue a few different points off the evidence. What we can't argue is that a flying kick is never useful for SD (as I said earlier, anecdotal evidence is good for disproving absolutes). Someone could argue that flying kicks are universally useful for SD (probably an overstatement of the evidence). Someone else could argue that flying kicks are quite useful when chosen for the appropriate situation by someone with adequate competence (a more likely reason they worked in those situations, and actually balances with people arguing they aren't a good choice).
Still the same problem. You don't know what would have happened without the training. You might have been able to fight him off, anyway.
You're looking for the effect of the punch, rather than looking for the cause of the non-mugging. That's backwards.
jobo
Grandmaster
I got a real telling off when I was there, as i went off wandering round Hollywood on my own,
Way out past the suburbs. If you know the term "redneck", that describes most of the people who've lived near me. Far more axes, guns, knives per capita than in US cities.
I've wandered a few places that city dwellers wouldn't approve of. Some they were right about. There are some scary places in the US. Not so different from some of the scary places in Europe, except there are almost certainly more guns.
jobo
Grandmaster
i might, but I have training and I used it to good effect, that proves the training has value, its impossible to know what would have happened with out it
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Yeah. You need to nut out why they work. And then nut out how likley it is that the situation will present itself that will make that technique work. For flying kicks it is almost purely street. So it is hard to recreate in the gym.
In training you are probably not going to get many situations where you may be running. Gyms are to small.
But if running is part of your self defence. Running attacks probably should exist as well.
So we have this kind of sort of mix between hypothetical. Ancecdotal and empirical. Not to mention overcoming dogma and peoples preconceptions.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Why do you think the kick worked?
Juany118
Senior Master
To the OP, the issue with finding more than general empirical evidence, such as the psychological dynamics of the offender and victim, the pre-attack cues, general tactics of a street robbery etc. is because there are simply way to many variables to consider in terms of the attack itself. Environment, training, health, age, even the clothing worn by attacker and defender matter. Now would it be possible to comb through a butt ton of police reports of a specific "typical" city and look at all of that but there are two problems with that. First, it would cost money and the chances of getting a grant to pay for skilled researchers to study "the efficacy of martial arts based self defense training in street attacks" is slim to none. Second I don't know of any officer who actually asked a person who was a victim "do you have self-defense, martial arts training" so it likely wouldn't be in a report unless the victim volunteered the information.
jobo
Grandmaster
That last part is the point Steve was making earlier.
I don't see much empirical in that process. It's logical, and using anecdotal evidence to support it. Where running exists, flying kicks become more likely to be useful. Similar to my comments about overextension (which also happens when people are trying to catch you, incidentally) and aiki.
