OK, so ThON's post offers some nice places to make the discussion here very specific. Here's what I mean:
It's hard to argue with this suggestion at a general level, but there's a knotty factual issue just below the surface of the question, namely, are there any genuinely new self-defense situations? My earlier post, and Steel_Tiger's, both asserted fairly explicitly our joint belief that the combat methods of the past are supremely applicable to the scenarios that arise in street violence in the present; that belief entails that nothing is that different in the details of the violence offered by 21st century assailants, as vs. 18th and 19th c. assailants. I think both of us were talking about 1-on-1, weapon-free attacks—obviously, as soon as you bring in weapons, you're changing the name and nature of the game. So keeping those assumptions, is there any reason to believe that the nature of the violence we're likely to be confronted with is any different from what people in 18th c. China or Okinawa were likely to have to face? For the record, my guess is no, but clearly that's something we can and maybe should be talking about, to do justice to the OP's query......
I agree in principle with your point however many of the self defense techniques were based on what they might have encountered in the earlier centuries. For instance seated defense in fuedal Japan and Okinawa would be different than today. Attacks might come from the people seated around you when you are bowing, or engaged in some form of ritual. We don't have the sme circumstances today. Clothing worn or shoes or foot ware are other things that would impact the techniques and strategies for those days in training self defense. For instance one instructor showed me the application of a hand change in a bo form that dealt with clearing your pointy (cone shaped) hat that the field workers wore.
OK, no argument here, but that's a different question, in a sense. It's useful to distinguish
what we're training from
how we're training. Victor Smith, one of our particularly knowledgeable members, makes the interesting claim
here that
Pre 1900 there was almost no karate, just a small group of private practitioners. There was no sport version of sparring. There was almost no violence on Okinawa that required karate-ka to defend their families. They were part of the Japanese empire, and karate developed by members of the elite classes for their own reasons. Almost the only thing we can say for sure is that the primary training tool was kata, and what practices were wrapped around kata study remain speculation.
If he's right— and I'm certainly in no position to dispute his comment!—we don't really know just how kata combat applications, what Iain Abernethy has dubbed `bunkai-jutsu', were trained. In this sense, while we may look to the past for the combat content of our training, we have to go by our modern understanding of how learning, particularly learning of physical skills takes place; how the adrenaline rush response works and how to control and channel it rather than being incapacitated by it, and so on—in other words, apply contemporary knowledge of the psychophysiology of combat situations, since (again on the assumption that VS is correct) we know little or nothing of how the bunkai of traditional kata were trained for effective
use..
I would venture to say that they learned the kata over and over and over and over again and then some more. Then they were taught how and where to hit. They worked hard and devoted their free time to hardening the minds and bodies and then they worked self defense application of the katas.
If we had the free time today to do this we could be the invincible masters like them.
But with all that said, I think it's important to note that this is in effect a different kind of question from the question of what we should be training. The discoveries of the past masters about the what are contained in the kata; if we think about these carefully and insightfully, as puzzles to be solved, then we're likely to wind up with effective fighting techs. But it's probably also the case that if we knew the how that they practiced, we'd also be in good shape; the problem is, we don't exactly know just what it was they were doing in their 1-on-1 combat training. So it's not so much a matter of replacing the training methodology of the past with the superior methodology of the present as it is a question of reinventing an effective training methodology for effective bunkai application, because we just do not know what training practices made the old master karatekas so formidable. I myself suspect that if we had a time machine and could go back and observe people like Matsumura, Azato, Itosu and Motobu, we'd find their training regimes as effective as you could ask for..
I have to wonder here. Could it be that they were great training regimes for their time, and not the great training regimes of all time? My point is that life was different back then, training was different and I think the people who practice the MA today are probably every bit of the masters that they were back then. It is experience and the rules that set these masters apart from everyone else.
Let me explain before I piss eveyone off. Years ago I saw an Kendo master who was in his late 70's-early 80's whipping up on some 4th-5th dans in their prime (early to mid 40's). Now off of the floor with out his gear this man barely moved, winded easily, etc. etc. I speculate that a younger man (anyone of the 4th-5th dans) could have taken him empty hand in a self defense situation, yet with a shinai (and probably with a sword) he was untouchable. What set him apart was his experience, how ever many hours and hours out on the floor training for years upon years, decades spent out on the floor going over his techniques.
So fast forward today while we don't have the same life style as the masters did in Okinawa, Japan and China in days gone by, there is much more research, more information, that we have that they didn't. Not only on the martial arts but also on nutrition, health and everything that is now being incorperated into our training. So I think that current practictions can and will be at the same level as the former masters.
Agreed, these guys fought a lot and seem to have almost never been beaten, so you'd figure that they knew. But notice now: you're saying that the `old' techs work (in the present, going by the verb form!) because the old karate, gung fu and other MA masters `survived' combat—in the past. This kind of argument, which I wholeheartedly accept, is therefore based on the assumption that what worked in the past will work in the present, and this idea in turn rests on the idea that civilian combat in the past cannot have been that different from what we have noe. I think that Terrry' OP really turns completely on this question: are our attackers and assailants now doing basically different things from what the thugs, bullies and sociopaths of two centuries ago were doing?
My answer is, `probably not', so to me, the past has very different benefits to confer than it would in the view of someone who believes that people these days initiate physical violence differently than they used to..
I agree somewhat on your point here and yet I have to disagree on the last bolded comment. In regards to the guys never having been beaten, Someone had to lose. So is it possible that many of their fights were against untrained people, and if so then I would wager that many martial artists today can hold their own against untrained individuals as well. I remember reading accounts of students of different instructors going down to the red light district in some of the cities in Okinawa and fighting. But I have to wonder how effective and fair is this, martial art students fighting drunks with the intentions of trying out their techniques. Now some masters fought wrestlers or boxers in matches but we also have that today, infact all of the way back to the 1900's there have been mixed matches between styles and such.
In regards to the attacks today as compared to old days. I agree that there is only so many ways to grab a person in this hold or that. But while in the old days somebody might attack you when drinking tea in a tea ceremony, or having sake, I think the strategies and methods of attack have changed over the years. Now you have pool cues, mugs and glasses, to watch out for. And while those could be termed weapons they are not the type of weapons we normally defend against in a dojo.
I believe the criminal mind continues to evolve and think up new ideas on how to hurt victims. I read of instances where in the UK (several years back) they use to wait for a traveler to enter a bathroom stall and sit down on the john, then one guy would dive under the stall door and grab the person's feet while another guy would pull the criminal out thereby pulling the guy off of the john with his pants down possibly cracking his head on the john and knocking him out so they could rob him. I'd like to see the kata defense against this type of attack
.
