Is it really the only right way?

[Mallic]

So as I've continued my research into martial arts philosophy, I've generally noticed a pattern and sentiment in regards to conventional methods of combat.

Now those who are more experienced then I are free to correct me, but it seems the most widely accepted mentality(Assuming you've chosen to fight or have been left with no choice but to do so) is to put it in very simple terms, overwhelm your opponent with brute force and raw aggression with the intend to take their life.

The logic being you want to end the fight as quickly as possible and the quicker way to do that is to make sure they aren't breathing anymore, and if your attacker has a chance to fight back you did something wrong. Basically if you're familiar with star wars, you'd think the sith were right and juyo is the only lightsaber form worth learning.

But that always sounded off to me, while I understand the reasoning there are so many way this approach can go wrong a risk of over aggression being one of them leaving you vulnerable.

Since we brought up star wars, if I had to name a form I most gravitated towards it would be form 3 sores, biding your time, conserving your energy, waiting for the right moment and using your opponents aggression against them. That just makes more sense to me.But I imagine to many, they'd feel like I'm just needlessly dragging things out when I should just go for the throat and be done with it.

This kind of goes into a greater thesis I've been working on that basically states that your reason for fighting will dictate how you do so.

Those who just wanna win will gamify combat, those who fight to protect will be more steadfast, fighting to survive makes you more wild and feral-ish, etc

 

[Dirty Dog]

If you must fight, the goal should be to end the fight as quickly as possible with the least amount of risk to yourself and innocents. That does not mean you need to kill the other person. You might, but not necessarily.

What you really need is not the willingness to kill, but an awareness of what you are and are not willing to do in order to win. You need to have an honest conversation with yourself, and if you're one of those people who is not willing to kill, then you need to incorporate that knowledge into your training. There's no point in training techniques intended to kill. Either practice less lethal versions of the technique, or don't bother practicing it at all.

A good example is the arc hand to the throat. Aimed straight back, at the hyoid, it is a high-lethality strike. Aimed up and back, targeting the chin, it is useful for unbalancing an opponent. Practice the version(s) you're willing to use.

 

[Mallic]

If you must fight, the goal should be to end the fight as quickly as possible with the least amount of risk to yourself and innocents. That does not mean you need to kill the other person. You might, but not necessarily.

What you really need is not the willingness to kill, but an awareness of what you are and are not willing to do in order to win. You need to have an honest conversation with yourself, and if you're one of those people who is not willing to kill, then you need to incorporate that knowledge into your training. There's no point in training techniques intended to kill. Either practice less lethal versions of the technique, or don't bother practicing it at all.

A good example is the arc hand to the throat. Aimed straight back, at the hyoid, it is a high-lethality strike. Aimed up and back, targeting the chin, it is useful for unbalancing an opponent. Practice the version(s) you're willing to use.

That's pretty much my mentality, I like to sleep good at night and I don't think that can be done with someone's body on my conscious, specially if it could have been avoided.

 

[Badhabits]

What dirty dog wrote is great, he could've been reading my mind there.
I'll add that overwhelming your opponent is just a way of stating that you don't want to "give them a turn". If they get a turn you've failed somewhere, unless you allowed them a turn for a reason. They don't get a turn they don't get to hurt you. It doesn't necessarily include brute force or extreme aggression. Skill and or determination would be a better way to think of it. It definitely doesn't have to include lethal force. I think it takes more skill to control a person without hurting them than to just obliterate them. It says a lot about a person's skill level when they can control a person and prevent that person from hurting them without injury

 

[isshinryuronin]

Those who just wanna win will gamify combat, those who fight to protect will be more steadfast, fighting to survive makes you more wild and feral-ish, etc

I agree these are the two basic combat strategies: Ferocity/force v. tactics/skill, to put it simply. I wouldn't go as far as use the term "gamify" but in general I agree with your statement. And for me, it does depend on the circumstances and the nature of your attacker.

To put a finer point on it, there can be some of one strategy employed when relying on the other. When using ferocity, especially if the attacker is doing the same, there is no time to set up a tactical plan. Yet some of that can give you an edge, but it must be very basic and simple with a high percentage of success - no flashy stuff.

In less lethal situations one can rely more on tactics/skill as the main strategy but use it to set up the finishing moves with ferocity/force, overwhelming the opponent. Once you enter, it should be game over.

If you must fight, the goal should be to end the fight as quickly as possible with the least amount of risk to yourself and innocents. That does not mean you need to kill the other person.

I think this is true with either approach. It's unwise to draw a fight out any longer than necessary. But I would use the word "incapacitate" rather than "kill."

 

[Holmejr]

Combat: Kinetic and infinitely variable.
Learn to the point of being able to choose you level of violence.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

You're interesting. You've created threads wanting intellectual martial arts, complaining about guns, complaining about people running away, and complaining about people being too aggressive. You want this magical exact situation where people can be aggressive against you, and you have the sherlock holmes (from the movie) attitude that you analyze and deal damage to the exact spots necessary.

 

[Mallic]

You're interesting. You've created threads wanting intellectual martial arts, complaining about guns, complaining about people running away, and complaining about people being too aggressive. You want this magical exact situation where people can be aggressive against you, and you have the sherlock holmes (from the movie) attitude that you analyze and deal damage to the exact spots necessary.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't find the idea of just going full Unga bunga to be rather distasteful.

But don't take that as me complaining. Firearms are a powerful weapon to be sure, but treating them as the end all be all rendering all other approaches irrelevant is simply short sighted and lazy and many people fall into that trap.

I've already stated that if you can get away do so, no point in fighting a needless battle, however I do believe showing your back to someone who means you harm will only end with you getting a knife or bullet getting jammed in there unless you have Usain bolt levels of speed.

And I'd like to think there are other ways to approach combat then taking Conan's quote about what is best in life to heart.

Also the Sherlock Holmes movie is great and you are goated for mentioning it.

 

[drop bear]

Yeah. It's a weird one. In combat sports you don't do it because trying to rush in while someone is fresh is a high risk of getting knocked out.

The are just faster, they are going 5o punch you harder and you are not sure what they are going to do.

And it takes a certain physicality. You want to be fit. And you want to be able to take shots

Now self defence is different.

Because it's worse.

You could be fighting anyone at any weight class with no idea what you are going to deal with. And getting knocked out could have serious repercussions

And it's bare knuckle so the damage is worse. And you are more likley to get hit.

So I wouldn't rush. I would take a very conservative approach of finishing the fight when it is safe to do so and not rushing in to a strike you can't recover from.

 

[drop bear]

You're interesting. You've created threads wanting intellectual martial arts, complaining about guns, complaining about people running away, and complaining about people being too aggressive. You want this magical exact situation where people can be aggressive against you, and you have the sherlock holmes (from the movie) attitude that you analyze and deal damage to the exact spots necessary.

Wow.

You should have told him to do MMA.

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[Gyakuto]

I don’t really understand parts of your question because of it’s unfamiliar Star Wars references (is that the children’s film with the space hairdressers?…the gold robot and his bleepy peddle bin mate? The one with that goofy giant space bear?).

What are you asking/positing?

 

[Mallic]

I don’t really understand parts of your question because of it’s unfamiliar Star Wars references (is that the children’s film with the space hairdressers?…the gold robot and his bleepy peddle bin mate? The one with that goofy giant space bear?).

What are you asking/positing?

To sum it up, is the only "Right" way to fight, to overwhelm them with raw aggression and simply beat someone down before they even have a chance to react?

Or in other words is the only right way to fight...to make it so you can't even call it a fight?

 

[Fungus]

I get feeling there is a confusion in the discussion about anger (an emotional state) and agressive behaviour. You can be aggressive withouy beeing angry, and you can be aggressive while beeing angry.

Set aside how severe damage you want to delivered to your opponent, getting into an emotional anger state is I think always bad. This is when you loose control, overcomitt, get tunnel vision etc... and all you learn may be forgotten.

So pissing your opponent off for real, may be a way to get him out of balance, so I think that is never good.

 

[Mallic]

I get feeling there is a confusion in the discussion about anger (an emotional state) and agressive behaviour. You can be aggressive withouy beeing angry, and you can be aggressive while beeing angry.

Set aside how severe damage you want to delivered to your opponent, getting into an emotional anger state is I think always bad. This is when you loose control, overcomitt, get tunnel vision etc... and all you learn may be forgotten.

So pissing your opponent off for real, may be a way to get him out of balance, so I think that is never good.

Actually making the guy mad might not be a bad idea in certain scenarios.

Reminds me of this

 

[Gyakuto]

To sum it up, is the only "Right" way to fight, to overwhelm them with raw aggression and simply beat someone down before they even have a chance to react?

Ah…now I understand

For most of us, incapacitating an uncooperative, fully resisting, aggressive opponent without arms, is very difficult. Human physiology/anatomy has evolved to make us extremely robust. Also, compared with many other life forms, humans are devoid of natural weapons like claws and masses of sharp pointy teeth. Thus the strategy of overwhelming with raw aggression, as you put it, is one avenue, perhaps in the hope one’s assailant will fall and bash their own heads on a hard surface or you’ll catch them with an ‘unseen strike’ and win an advantage. Despite what the martial arts founder may suggest, a small, slender person will seldom defeat a huge, muscled aggressive person in unarmed combat.

The one advantage we may have is our intellect. Like ‘Moonwatcher’ (from 2001:A Space Odyssey since we’re using cinema for illustrative purposes!) we realise that picking up and swinging a large bone or a sturdy length of timber as a weapon that will lever more force into our feeble blows and help us to crack open the skulls of our enemies. We flaked bits of flint into rudimentary cutting tools to sever arteries we made metal blades/projectiles/particle beam weapons all to hasten the deaths of our enemies!

Or in other words is the only right way to fight...to make it so you can't even call it a fight?

When you say ‘fight’, are you meaning an almost ‘conversational’ exchange of techniques, going and froing as you might observe in a (kick) boxing match? If so, that’s a very artificial situation one only sees in heavily ruled combat sports. If I had the ability to vaporise my assailant with eye lasers before they throw a punch, then I would!

 

[Prince_Alarming]

I don’t really understand parts of your question because of it’s unfamiliar Star Wars references (is that the children’s film with the space hairdressers?…the gold robot and his bleepy peddle bin mate? The one with that goofy giant space bear?).

Not the one with the evil space nuns where a bunch of guys get so high they can literally fold spacetime itself?

 

[Mallic]

Ah…now I understand

For most of us, incapacitating an uncooperative, fully resisting, aggressive opponent without arms, is very difficult. Human physiology/anatomy has evolved to make us extremely robust. Also, compared with many other life forms, humans are devoid of natural weapons like claws and masses of sharp pointy teeth. Thus the strategy of overwhelming with raw aggression, as you put it, is one avenue, perhaps in the hope one’s assailant will fall and bash their own heads on a hard surface or you’ll catch them with an ‘unseen strike’ and win an advantage. Despite what the martial arts founder may suggest, a small, slender person will seldom defeat a huge, muscled aggressive person in unarmed combat.

The one advantage we may have is our intellect. Like ‘Moonwatcher’ (from 2001:A Space Odyssey since we’re using cinema for illustrative purposes!) we realise that picking up and swinging a large bone or a sturdy length of timber as a weapon that will lever more force into our feeble blows and help us to crack open the skulls of our enemies. We flaked bits of flint into rudimentary cutting tools to sever arteries we made metal blades/projectiles/particle beam weapons all to hasten the deaths of our enemies!

When you say ‘fight’, are you meaning an almost ‘conversational’ exchange of techniques, going and froing as you might observe in a (kick) boxing match? If so, that’s a very artificial situation one only sees in heavily ruled combat sports. If I had the ability to vaporise my assailant with eye lasers before they throw a punch, then I would!

Well from what Ive been told by some is that ideally a "real fight" will ideally look like this.

 

[Gyakuto]

I get feeling there is a confusion in the discussion about anger (an emotional state) and agressive behaviour. You can be aggressive withouy beeing angry, and you can be aggressive while beeing angry.

Anger is a result of hate and as Don Corleone said, “Never hate your enemies…it clouds your judgement.”

 

[Mallic]

Anger is a result of hate and as Don Corleone said, “Never hate your enemies…it clouds your judgement.”

I feel that's easier said then done, in fact I'd argue many who claim to hate fighting do so cause they know they would be fueled by bloodlust.

 

[Fungus]

One of our shihans said once that while a competition fight in our style lasts 3 minutes, a real fight, without rules, is often over in 30 seconds, unless those involved don't know what they are doing.