I suppose people who do XMA or Modern Wushu would fall into this category. It is meant as a performance art.
But they are doing very different forms from traditional Kata or Chinese forms.
yep. it's still Martial Arts some of the techniques are applicable while other techniques are for performance only. They just don't train it to be applicable in a fight because that's not their focus. Could it be applicable? yeah I'm pretty sure. Cut out the performance stuff get a sparring partner and do like everyone else does. Work the practical techniques. In the system.
In choosing a system for self defence people should probably choose one that makes them better at fighting.
And they do. People who really want to learn to fight usually learn and become good at it. The reason they become good at it is because they know the key things that they need to do such as sparring. If a school doesn't have sparring then they aren't interested. If the system isn't practical then they leave and go somewhere else.
Then you have some people who just want to have a good kick or a good punch, the basics. They don't care about all of the extra stuff. We have seen this in Alan. But he's not the only one like that.
Then you have people who like the idea of being able to fight back but don't want to put in the work to actually be able to do it. They don't want to spar, they don't want to get hit.
These are the 3 common groups that I saw when I taught martial arts.
In choosing a system for self defence people should probably choose a system with a better strike rate than one guy can make it work.
People choose the defense system that they think will work best with their personality, desires, and physical capabilities. It's always been that way.
As for "better strike rate than one guy can make it work." It depends. For example, this sounds like me and my skill set of doing Jow Ga. Then I remember teaching a Jow Ga sparring class where the students learned how to use some of the same techniques that I use. Those that learned were those where those who followed my instructions. Those that didn't learn were those who had doubts and thought of the lessons as "I think it should work like this." instead of "I'm going to try as the instructor suggested."
Anyone who followed my instruction was able to learn how to fight using Jow Ga. I had two teens who were able to spar using some of the techniques I use. Some of the adults learned from me once they were able to clear their minds and doubts. I teach my brother concepts from Jow Ga and he uses them in Muay Thai. Last time I spoke with him he was telling me that he was still having a high success rate with what I taught him. It took him 2 days to learn it.
You would probably not have the same success because of the general doubt that you have about TMA systems and the techniques that are used. You would probably constantly try to edit a technique "To make it work" instead of using it within context of what I was teaching you. From that perspective there's a lot of easy things that you think to be something only a few people can do.
If I thought I was the only one who fight using Jow Ga then I wouldn't bother teaching a sparring class designed to give people a chance to use the Jow Ga technique that they train. Just something to think about,
