Is the "Old Way" gone?

[MJS]

I would just like to get everyones thought on this. How many still teach and train the "Old Way"? I mean the bloody, something might get broken, old way.
When I was a kid, I worked out! If I got a bloody nose or got busted up, I had to deal with it. All my parents would say is "practice more."
Now I hear, "They're hitting hard, or I can't do this it's hard," from the adults.
From the parents I hear, "Johnny had a bad day today, could you go easy on him, or I think that other boy is hitting Johnny too hard."
I left MA for a while but eventually found my way back. I may not have liked having to do all that stuff as a kid, but I did it.(Fear of my dad and uncle mostly)
Most parents want to hear how good their child is doing, not that he's not progressing cause he can't get anything right cause he doesn't practice at home and it's all your fault.
I would like to get your opinions on this, cause it's sure not the way I remember as a kid.

Thanks, Joe

You and FC made some good points. The outdoor, garage type settings are not only where I've had some damn good training sessions, but the people that usually partake in those types of workouts don't mind getting banged up a bit and accept it as part of the training. I'm sure there're some schools still out there that have hard contact, but have still toned down from the way it used to be before the lawsuit happy folks wanted to join up. Kajukenbo would probably be a good example of that.

When I taught on a more regular basis, I was shocked at the number of people who said the same things you mentioned above. Yes, we all train for various reasons, but I'm there for SD, not to join in a knitting class. Nothing used to tick me off more, than when it would come time for techniques, and my partner would throw a punch and stop 5in away from me, or instead of choking me, give me a shoulder massage. HIT ME AND PUT YOUR DAMN HANDS AROUND MY NECK AND SQUEEZE!!!!! Stopping and giving me a massage isn't going to help me or any other serious student when the poop is really hitting the fan.

The school I train at still has the contact although its gradually introduced. Seeing that the BB exam is usually one of the most physical, by the time the student reaches the upper ranks, everyone is pretty much using the contact they should be.

Like I said before, when you really need to use your material, if you're not used to something coming at you fast and hard, you're going to be in for a very rude awakening. Better to learn and make the mistakes in the dojo, than when your life depends on it.

 

[Drac]

Lots of great points and memories....The greatest thing about old school was RESPECT. When Sensei spoke all eyes and attention was on him...No one questioned him...

 

[Drac]

Again, I'm not just talking about just about kids classes. But where does it start. After they're adults and have gotten their butts kicked thru their teenage years, and now as adults are too afraid to train that way?
I can only draw on my own personal experience as a kid and how we trained. This is the only reason I brought this post up.
And I'm really not off my rocker

A lot of the LEO's I know avoid any " karotty" classes because of all the stories of folks being beaten up... I hear that some of the early LEO instructors were brutal..

 

[just2kicku]

I appreciate all the posts. But, I think I should clarify something. The more I thought about it the more it sounded like I was taking someone who just signed up and putting them thru the ringer. Not the case. I'm talking 10 to 13 or 14yo orn belt and above.
I understand you can't take a total newbie w/out basics and say have at it. I'm also kinda thinking that maybe it has to do with the area your in and bottom line is I think kids in the 70's were just tougher than todays kids and adults.
Sometimes by the time it gets from my brain to the keyboard, what I'm actually trying to say has been diluted or can be misunderstood.
I kinda of figured I was hanging my jewels out there on this one! Lol

 

[Xue Sheng]

Old school training is not going out like the dinosaurs, it is still alive and well. This type of training has just moved out of the commercial martial arts schools into the MMA type of schools. Mix Martial Arts is the new up and coming thing, the "old ways" of training and fighting seems to have a very large draw.
Maybe it isn't the "old ways" that is dying off but instead it is the "old ways" instructors who left all of the modern martial arts b.s. behind and joined forces with the MMA guys.
Martial Arts is about "fighting" and not about "looking good".
Just my opinon, no personal shots intended.
:whip:

First I don't nor have I ever trained at a commercial martial arts schools. OK once I tried Villari and lasted all of 2 weeks before I couldn't take it anymore but that is it.

Although I agree MMA is hard training I do not agree that the instructors of other MA styles that trained hard are going to MMA.

I know of several CMA sifus that are not looking to MMA that are also able to teach all you need to know that do not even try any longer. The students are the issue in my opinion. They don't want to learn anything that is hard or that will hurt and if one tries to teach them the real stuff they quit. And I have seen this in other styles not just CMA, I had a rather depressing discussion awhile back with a Hapkido instructor that was of the same thought as well as a few other styles too. My Taiji Sifu has given up trying to teach applications or fighting to new students they simply do not want it. My last Xingyiquan Sifu has tried 3 times now to get a Xingyiquan class started but Xingyi is not pretty and it hurts when you train it for real and he can't get enough students to keep the class going. He tried, in vain, to have an applications class for his taiji (CMC) class and he lost students so he stopped and amazingly his student base grew. My first Sifu actually taught applications and did train us hard right up until he discovered that he would have considerably more students if he taught crap and did no applications. And his school grew exponentially after that and is still growing only now he is global (just not in China where he is from). My Wing Chun Sifu teaches real live hard core Wing Chun and if it weren’t for his other business which supports his school he would have closed his doors years ago. He never has more than 8 students and that will not support the rent. And he has some classes were maybe only 1 or 2 people show up. But then Wing Chun training hurts and Wing Chun is not as pretty as other styles. But my first Sifu just down the road has literally thousands of students world wide and he is teaching garbage, but it is pretty, doesn’t hurt and you get to be a master real quick and he will even give you a certificate that tells you that you are…for a price.

And I fully agree that Martial Arts is about "fighting" and not about "looking good" but sadly the majority of students out there today feel that Martial Arts is about "looking good” and not about "fighting".

And, sadly, give it time MMA will go the same way. There will be a small core group. like other MA styles that train hard and real but the rest just want to be able to impress others with the "I Train _____". They couldn't fight thier way out of a wet paper bag but they train the style of the minute.

 

[redantstyle]

I'm also kinda thinking that maybe it has to do with the area your in and bottom line is I think kids in the 70's were just tougher than todays kids and adults.

I know of several CMA sifus that are not looking to MMA that are also able to teach all you need to know that do not even try any longer

Sifu has tried 3 times now to get a Xingyiquan class started but Xingyi is not pretty and it hurts when you train it for real and he can't get enough students to keep the class going.

But my first Sifu just down the road has literally thousands of students world wide and he is teaching garbage, but it is pretty, doesn’t hurt and you get to be a master real quick and he will even give you a certificate that tells you that you are…for a price.

...

 

[tshadowchaser]

With a few people I still practice the old way but with most I do not. After all these years training my body has gotten older and I do not heal as well as I once did.
That combined with the fact that most students today would leave on the first day and a good number would try to sue me has made me less likely to train the old way until I know that student very well.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Bloody something might get broken = litigation costs that can not only put a school out of business, but ruin the owner personally for years to come. Throw minors into the mix and the odds of such legal problems rise dramatically.

I'd say that the best way to handle that type of training in a commercial setting is to offer it as a separate adult only class with release forms and such to protect the school. And most definitely have IN PRINT a detailed description of the class so that the students can't say that they didn't know.

Daniel

 

[Aiki Lee]

Martial arts should teach a person to protect themselves from harm, so realistic attacks must be practiced, but there needs to be control. A few cuts and bruises are expected, but dislocations, breaks, and excessive bleeding should not take place under the direction of a good instructor.

Pain is fine, but injury is counterproductive to what we want to learn. If you get injured you can't train until you are healed, think of all the wasted time.

People should train realistically but not go overboard with it.

 

[redantstyle]

best remark i ever heard on this subject (combat training).

" Yes, I will hurt you. But, I wont injure you. "

 

[Ironcrane]

Martial arts should teach a person to protect themselves from harm, so realistic attacks must be practiced, but there needs to be control. A few cuts and bruises are expected, but dislocations, breaks, and excessive bleeding should not take place under the direction of a good instructor.

Pain is fine, but injury is counterproductive to what we want to learn. If you get injured you can't train until you are healed, think of all the wasted time.

People should train realistically but not go overboard with it.

I was just going to say this. But you beat me to it.
The "old way" doesn't always mean the "better way"

 

[just2kicku]

I think i 'm not coming across right. Let's take for example a student 12yo and 2nite we're doing a technique. One attacks one defends, thet're both blue belts. I expect the one attacking to punch to the face, hard, the one defending I expect to defend, hard. I want to hear the sound of the cup when the front ball kick is delivered. If the dfender stands there when attacked and gets punched in the face cause he didn' do anything, then too bad. That's the kind of knock down drag out trainning I want from them.
It's not a matter "trainning them to be bullies" nor should it be absurd. I went back home to Hawaii a couple years ago and went and watched a Kajukenbo class, they had a kid with blood all over his face and his parents were there holding an ice pack on it making him watch the rest of the class. Was the other kid trying to hurt him, no, but it happened.
I think part of the problem in this age of no spanking or discipline at home, timeouts, and disrepect to parents and elders is that kids are lazy and parents don't push their kids. So parents get bent at you when they feel you've worked them out to hard.
Funny thing is, I don't teach for money, I don't get paid anything. It's my instructors school that I help at.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Just2, the problem isn't with what is done at home. The problem is that in a class with hard contact sans gear, it needs to be adult oriented.

Yes, training accidents happen, but you really shouldn't have hard kicks delivered to the crotch with the idea that if the kid gets a training injury that it is his or her fault for not blocking. That sort of thing may be alright for an advanced adult class, but you cannot get away with it in a kids class in the US as a general rule.

Like it or not, once those kids are inside of your establishment, they're your responsibility. And the parents have an expectation that aside from being worn out from a good work out and maybe some bumps or bruises, that their kid will be in the same condition when they leave class as he or she was when mom and dad brought them to class.

That is why you have kids classes in the first place. It is also why elementary and middle school age kids shouldn't be awarded black belts: you get a black belt, you'd better be able to take hard training, but that is a subject for another discussion.

Daniel

 

[just2kicku]

I guess the times have changed and I have to change with it........ FOR NOW! I do appreciate all the post and feed back. Maybe it's time to change things up. I'm guessing trainning like that takes heart, and thats something I don't believe can be taught, You have it or you don't.


Hey Stevebjj, I'm not that bad of a guy.
I still think most mainlanders are kinda soft though. Haha

Mahalo nui loa, Joe:asian:

 

[Steve]

I guess the times have changed and I have to change with it........ FOR NOW! I do appreciate all the post and feed back. Maybe it's time to change things up. I'm guessing trainning like that takes heart, and thats something I don't believe can be taught, You have it or you don't.


Hey Stevebjj, I'm not that bad of a guy.
I still think most mainlanders are kinda soft though. Haha

Mahalo nui loa, Joe:asian:

It's all good. I don't think you're a bad guy. I just disagree with you... and might not let you train my kids.

 

[Ninebird8]

The way I trained in two of my three schools would not be permitted today. My Shaolin master put us through a living hell, with different methods to toughen us, make us good, and be humble yet fearless. We could barely walk to the car sometimes, and after 5-7 am morning practices sometimes, I had to force myself to go to work. When I trained in New York, sometimes my Ying Jow master would turn off the heat during the winter and force us to train to stay warm, or make us run our forms over and over again, then spar the same. Today, depending upon whether tai chi or kung fu, and what the student's purpose is, I might give elements of both old and new. For instance, I have two 15 year old students, very different, one very advanced the other a beginner. I train them both very hard, do not hurt them, but both of them exhausted at the end of practice. The advanced one I am teaching a very hard form and also how to really fight, and right now he is intimidated a little, but he also wants to go to the Naval Academy so his mind is geared toward mental toughness. Unlike our day, I do not have to lay a hand on them to actually train them this way. To some here, I also agree that kid and adult training should be different, and NO child should receive a full black belt ranking before age 18, may get a junior one but then retest at 18 to test the mental and physical ability.

 

[bluekey88]

Ol schoool..new school...why does it matter? In the end, training needs to be appropriate to the age, capabilities and desired outcomes of the student. I love to bang...but I also have to work. I work a job where I'm counseling teens hwo to deal with anger appropriately...hard to explain broken noses and black eyes in that situation. So, only some of my training is "hardocre" as that is what is necessary. Also, from an SD standpoint...I haven't been in a "fight" or put myself in a volatile situation in decades...what exactly am I training for? What's the cost? What are the benefits?

In the end, I feel my training is hard enough for me and it meets my needs. I'm not the baddest guy on the block...but then again, I've got nothing to prove. If I want it, it's out there...certainly not dying or going the way of the dinosaurs though.-

On th eother hand, Kids should really NOT be trained in such an adult manner. Too many risks. They lack the cognitive ability to distinguish necessary roughness for horseplay. They aren't littel adults. Training kids that hardcore, as has been saud by Steve, is really negligent. You want kids to be able to defend themselves? Then teac them awareness, verbal conflict resolution skills, drop the stranger danger stuff and give them permission to seek out help when ANY adult tries anythign thaty makes them uncomfortable...let the authorities sort it out...

I don't care how hardcore a chil;d trains...against a committed adult attacker, that child is at a severe disadvantage.

Peace,
Erik

 

[Aiki Lee]

I think i 'm not coming across right. Let's take for example a student 12yo and 2nite we're doing a technique. One attacks one defends, thet're both blue belts. I expect the one attacking to punch to the face, hard, the one defending I expect to defend, hard. I want to hear the sound of the cup when the front ball kick is delivered. If the dfender stands there when attacked and gets punched in the face cause he didn' do anything, then too bad. That's the kind of knock down drag out trainning I want from them.
It's not a matter "trainning them to be bullies" nor should it be absurd. I went back home to Hawaii a couple years ago and went and watched a Kajukenbo class, they had a kid with blood all over his face and his parents were there holding an ice pack on it making him watch the rest of the class. Was the other kid trying to hurt him, no, but it happened.
I think part of the problem in this age of no spanking or discipline at home, timeouts, and disrepect to parents and elders is that kids are lazy and parents don't push their kids. So parents get bent at you when they feel you've worked them out to hard.
Funny thing is, I don't teach for money, I don't get paid anything. It's my instructors school that I help at.

I agree that people shouldn't "wuss out" of training just because the training in rough, but it can't go over board. Training partners should actually try to hit each other in whatever they would be aiming for. If the defender doesn't move he or she should get hit. But not hard. No one should be concussed in the dojo. I believe that accuracy is very important when training to understand proper distance and timing during combat.

Remeber that kid you said got the bloody face and his parent had him watch the rest of the class. That's just my point; he had to watch. If there was better control he could participate and learn more than he could just by watching.

Plus if a person learns to do a tecnique while causing pain, but not injury it makes it much easier to control an actual attack. No one wants to accidentally use too much force and kill a man who could have just been detained.

Strike accurate with training partners, strike accurate and hard on the mitts or bags.

 

[zDom]

... sometimes my Ying Jow master would turn off the heat during the winter and force us to train to stay warm ...

We (in Cape Girardeau/Sikeston MSK hapkido classes) do this on the coldest day of the year — heat off, door open.

We never run an air conditioner, but on the hottest day of the year we have an extra-extra hard workout.

There are benefits to experiencing these: you can't count on 70 degrees and a cool breeze to be there on the day you are forced to defend yourself.. in fact, you can probably count on it being a day you don't feel well as predators look for weakness.

 

[searcher]

Some good points being made here. It truly does notmatter if you train old or new, both have their place. As long as the students are not being injured during the training, then go for it.

In the end we are all supposed to be preparing each other for whatever the future holds. If all we are doing is injuring our students, then we have failed as instructors.