Jkd instructor

[jayoliver00]

Not every CMA guy is a kata guy. You don’t have any idea what we can or can’t do. I kinda think you might be surprised.

I didn't say they were. I don't think I said this about all CMA guys at all.

By kata guys, I meant dudes who are scared to fight. Just "kata guys" sounds nicer but you made me clarify. I've seen some in Muay Thai; they don't show up on dedicated sparring days & when there's unannounced sparring, they find excuses to leave early. So hard sparring & competition fights are something that they're really scared of.

It's comes down to, FEAR. They're scared, but they won't admit it. They're just there for the kata/forms & hitting the pads/bag; learning real skills = nothing wrong with that. They usually quit after a while. Going to the higher levels of training, which includes getting your clock cleaned, was just not what they're looking for in a sport or even a hobby....so I'm not even talking about doing this Pro yet. All the BS gets exposed when you're trying to KO the other guy & he, you. That's why, it's a higher level than just doing kata/forms.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Not at all. There are Sanda fighters coming from CMA background; they also add in BJJ, Wrestling, etc. for MMA.

My comment was meant to prove why training as a Fighter, is the highest level of MA training.

Ok that makes more sense to me in that context. I’m too old for that now, I’m more interested in staying in good shape and not collecting any new injuries. I’m not above a full contact match with a partner that won’t intentionally give me an injury, but over 50 mma is not a thing I’m aware of. Might be good though, some older guys have a lot of skill to rely on in place of the vigor of youth.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I didn't say they were. I don't think I said this about all CMA guys at all.

By kata guys, I meant dudes who are scared to fight. Just "kata guys" sounds nicer but you made me clarify. I've seen some in Muay Thai; they don't show up on dedicated sparring days & when there's unannounced sparring, they find excuses to leave early. So hard sparring & competition fights are something that they're really scared of.

It's comes down to, FEAR. They're scared, but they won't admit it. They're just there for the kata/forms & hitting the pads/bag; learning real skills = nothing wrong with that. They usually quit after a while. Going to the higher levels of training, which includes getting your clock cleaned, was just not what they're looking for in a sport or even a hobby....so I'm not even talking about doing this Pro yet. All the BS gets exposed when you're trying to KO the other guy & he, you. That's why, it's a higher level than just doing kata/forms.

That’s much clearer. Thank you. Well I have had my clock cleaned more times than I can remember, it’s a good teacher to a point. Again, at my age I need to be concerned with the number of brain injuries I’ve had from concussions and such. My wife isn’t a fan of me coming home all scuffed up. She is trying to preserve me for some reason I can’t figure out. I’m lucky I guess.

 

[Flying Crane]

Why don't you want to?

It holds no interest for me. It’s on the same level as why I don’t like eggplant. Because I don’t. It isn’t appealing. I don’t know how to explain a personal preference like that. Some people like it. Some people don’t.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I didn't say they were. I don't think I said this about all CMA guys at all.

By kata guys, I meant dudes who are scared to fight. Just "kata guys" sounds nicer but you made me clarify. I've seen some in Muay Thai; they don't show up on dedicated sparring days & when there's unannounced sparring, they find excuses to leave early. So hard sparring & competition fights are something that they're really scared of.

It's comes down to, FEAR. They're scared, but they won't admit it. They're just there for the kata/forms & hitting the pads/bag; learning real skills = nothing wrong with that. They usually quit after a while. Going to the higher levels of training, which includes getting your clock cleaned, was just not what they're looking for in a sport or even a hobby....so I'm not even talking about doing this Pro yet. All the BS gets exposed when you're trying to KO the other guy & he, you. That's why, it's a higher level than just doing kata/forms.

Well, as I’m sure you know, that first fight can be very intimidating. Fear is a natural response at first to any unfamiliar activity, especially one where someone is trying to take your consciousness away from you. Even public speaking can be terrifying to some folks.

 

[Flying Crane]

Unfortunately, you're wrong, b/c also unfortunately, I do have experience with having to learn kata.

Sure, that isn’t surprising. I don’t believe you really understand it though, which isn’t a problem. I have said many times in the forums, that nobody needs to like kata/forms, nobody needs to do them. You do not need kata in order to be able to effectively fight. If you do not like kata, then Practice a method that does not use it. That is your choice and will get no argument from me. In fact, I support such a decision because I believe everyone should follow the path that makes the most sense and is the most meaningful for them.

But kata also works, when used appropriately.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

It holds no interest for me. It’s on the same level as why I don’t like eggplant. Because I don’t. It isn’t appealing. I don’t know how to explain a personal preference like that. Some people like it. Some people don’t.

I was into trying out anything to test my skills 20 years ago, I’m just past that now. It’s not as important at a certain point in life. I used to like to eat pizza too, but now I prefer a different type of cuisine.

 

[jayoliver00]

Ok that makes more sense to me in that context. I’m too old for that now, I’m more interested in staying in good shape and not collecting any new injuries. I’m not above a full contact match with a partner that won’t intentionally give me an injury, but over 50 mma is not a thing I’m aware of. Might be good though, some older guys have a lot of skill to rely on in place of the vigor of youth.

Me too. I have to move a lot; Muay Thai is often very static, just trading damage. That's why I like learning different things from Kung-Fu, b/c they like to run away a lot & take potshots Luckily, I still can put a beating on all of my students in their 20-30's, except 2 whom I have to play the running game against.

 

[jayoliver00]

Well, as I’m sure you know, that first fight can be very intimidating. Fear is a natural response at first to any unfamiliar activity, especially one where someone is trying to take your consciousness away from you. Even public speaking can be terrifying to some folks.

I remember when I was new at this MMA gym, there was a really big & strong guy who's a body builder. And he had tremendous cardio also. Everybody feared holding pads for him b/c it hurts, a lot. Sparring against him was worse, b/c he goes full power sooner or later, due to his FEAR. He's one of the guys who would never show up for "announced" sparring days & would find the excuse to leave when it's unannounced sparring. Sometimes, he'd get stuck & had to spar (due to too many excuses already). This was just apart of Muay Thai, to spar & later fight. This guy even KO'ed one of the Junior Instructors......he laid him out flat. The kid didn't remember the day when he woke up. He's just powerful, had skills & super athletic. Everything was there in the making of a decent to good fighter, but he was just scared. People like these, you can see the FEAR in their eyes when they're sparring.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I remember when I was new at this MMA gym, there was a really big & strong guy who's a body builder. And he had tremendous cardio also. Everybody feared holding pads for him b/c it hurts, a lot. Sparring against him was worse, b/c he goes full power sooner or later, due to his FEAR. He's one of the guys who would never show up for "announced" sparring days & would find the excuse to leave when it's unannounced sparring. Sometimes, he'd get stuck & had to spar (due to too many excuses already). This was just apart of Muay Thai, to spar & later fight. This guy even KO'ed one of the Junior Instructors......he laid him out flat. The kid didn't remember the day when he woke up. He's just powerful, had skills & super athletic. Everything was there in the making of a decent to good fighter, but he was just scared. People like these, you can see the FEAR in their eyes when they're sparring.

See, that’s a guy I want to avoid because he sounds like he is out of control. That’s dangerous because you don’t want students getting injured badly during training. It sounds like maybe some controlled 2 man excercises with the main teacher could have helped him get control of his situation. It doesn’t do anyone any good to let the big guy just pound on people. Unfortunately, some gyms just feed new guys to the black belts. If their only goal is to hurt other students, they need some help.

 

[jayoliver00]

Sure, that isn’t surprising. I don’t believe you really understand it though, which isn’t a problem. I have said many times in the forums, that nobody needs to like kata/forms, nobody needs to do them. You do not need kata in order to be able to effectively fight. If you do not like kata, then Practice a method that does not use it. That is your choice and will get no argument from me. In fact, I support such a decision because I believe everyone should follow the path that makes the most sense and is the most meaningful for them.

But kata also works, when used appropriately.

Kata in the traditional sense, is usually with much extra fluff....partially meant to stretch out the curriculum in order to sell belts/rankings, IMO. Some of it is also about differentiating family styles, lineages, or even just for looking pretty.

Shadowboxing, gets right to the point; training how you'd actually fight w/o the added fluff.

Sure kata works; it's basically shadowboxing with a lot of extra fluff that may get you KO'ed in a real fight if you used it all...that's why you don't see Machida nor Wonderboy nor Karate Kickboxers using even 50% of their kata in real fights. So why did they make people learn all of that Kata? Prob. b/c they want to keep paying students, paying....knowing that less than 5% would want to actually fight in the ring; thus the highest level of training. Otherwise, what would be the continuing goals if not, a ton of kata?

 

[jayoliver00]

See, that’s a guy I want to avoid because he sounds like he is out of control. That’s dangerous because you don’t want students getting injured badly during training. It sounds like maybe some controlled 2 man excercises with the main teacher could have helped him get control of his situation. It doesn’t do anyone any good to let the big guy just pound on people. Unfortunately, some gyms just feed new guys to the black belts. If their only goal is to hurt other students, they need some help.

He was intermediate level & was just scared to get hit in the face often; so he's not really out to hurt people. I sparred him a few times back then when I was newer than him; but I was respecting his power by keeping myself safe = running a lot. The Junior Instructor that got KO'ed was an example of great forms but low bang time on the clock. This big guy was just an example of what I was talking about, fear. He quit after my 1st 2 years there, then came back about 5 years later while I kept training...so he couldn't touch me; so he quit again after maybe 6 mo. He's a very nice guy & super athletic; just that he couldn't handle this higher level of training due to fear.

I have 1 guy right now that's 300+ pounds of strongman competitor power & athleticism & another at 260 lbs of muscles & also with high athleticism. I just know how to train them to not hurt the little guys, including myself.

 

[Flying Crane]

Kata in the traditional sense, is usually with much extra fluff....partially meant to stretch out the curriculum in order to sell belts/rankings, IMO. Some of it is also about differentiating family styles, lineages, or even just for looking pretty.

Shadowboxing, gets right to the point; training how you'd actually fight w/o the added fluff.

Sure kata works; it's basically shadowboxing with a lot of extra fluff that may get you KO'ed in a real fight if you used it all...that's why you don't see Machida nor Wonderboy nor Karate Kickboxers using even 50% of their kata in real fights. So why did they make people learn all of that Kata? Prob. b/c they want to keep paying students, paying....knowing that less than 5% would want to actually fight in the ring; thus the highest level of training. Otherwise, what would be the continuing goals if not, a ton of kata?

There is some truth in some instances in what you say here, but it is in no way true across the board. I have trained in systems in which I felt the kata were poorly designed or poorly understood or poorly integrated into the structure of the system as a whole, or all three at the same time. My personal opinion is that not all kata were created equal. Some are unsalvageable and were just bad ideas that ought to be discarded. Some were designed for performance and were never meant to be a tool for building combative skills. They were simply meant as a display of athleticism to impress an uneducated audience. This would include the modern XMA forms tournaments, as well as the Chinese Modern Wushu created in the 1950s by the Chinese communist government as a national cultural spectacle and competition format. Aesthetically beautiful stuff, demands a high level of athleticism and rigorous training, but only distantly connected to real combative methods. I have also trained in systems that had a huge curriculum that included countless kata, and it may be that it was built up so large as to keep people paying forever for classes. That goes against my grain as I feel martial training should build skills that you own and you should not be forever beholden to your teacher. At some point you need to stand on your own two feet. I don’t train those systems anymore. There is definitely a lot of junk out there, no arguments from me.

But that is far from all of kata. The kata built for the traditional fighting methods were never meant to be performance art. Nobody was meant to even see them because they are not meant be viewed as a “product”. They are a tool used (as one tool among many) in building skills. The only people who would actually see your kata are your teacher who taught them to you, your classmates who train with you, and your students to whom you teach them. They were never meant to be put on a stage and performed. They are a work in progress as there is no completion to them. They are simply to be practiced, continually as a way to hone one’s skills. To ask to see someone’s kata is like asking a builder to look at his box of tools before you buy a house from him. The tools are not the end, the house is. The kata is not the end, the skills are. A kata is like a hammer. You use it to keep building.

So I get what you are saying, but this is a common misunderstanding. The forms that I practice are not filled with fluff. They intelligently build the foundational skills that are important in the approach to fighting that is consistent with a particular system. Forms can look unusual to those who do not understand them. I understand this very specifically because the system that I train looks particularly unusual to most people. But I understand the reasons why we do what we do, and they make perfect sense to me. I don’t expect others to understand them if they have never been properly instructed in our methods. That is my experience.

When you announce that combative martial sports are the pinnacle of training, then you are taking your own values and assuming that everyone holds your values in common. That simply is not true. Ive never held much value in martial sport, never felt a need or compulsion to prove myself to anyone, and never held any interest in even watching it. I actually tried to watch some of the karate, TaeKwon do, and judo competitions in the summer Olympics. I was uninterested out of my mind, and not impressed by what I saw. But that is just me and is not meant to tell anyone else how they ought to feel about it. So as far as what Machida or Wonderboy are doing with their time, well I only just recognize their names. I know nothing else about them and honestly don’t care what they are doing. It has no bearing on what I do.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I'm not going to argue with your post as a whole, but this particular snippet is incorrect. MMA gloves allow strikers to punch harder without breaking their hands and don't do much to protect the person being punched from a concussion.

MMA Gloves leave the knuckles that I strike with exposed, which I like. This means that the bone will still have "cutting" damage as it lands on joints and muscles. The best way I can describe this is if you were to smash the bones of your forearm together. You will fill that bone and the harder you strike the deeper it "cuts." Now put on a Jacket and strike the cut again, now you can hit your forearm harder before you feel. When my knuckles are covered certain techniques that worked at 20% force now requires 50%-60% force. MMA gloves eliminate the effectiveness of downward jabs into the abdomen, as it prevents the knuckles from digging into the muscle. Those are the only two things I can think off the top of my head on how the gloves affect me.

 

[Dirty Dog]

MMA Gloves leave the knuckles that I strike with exposed, which I like. This means that the bone will still have "cutting" damage as it lands on joints and muscles. The best way I can describe this is if you were to smash the bones of your forearm together. You will fill that bone and the harder you strike the deeper it "cuts." Now put on a Jacket and strike the cut again, now you can hit your forearm harder before you feel. When my knuckles are covered certain techniques that worked at 20% force now requires 50%-60% force. MMA gloves eliminate the effectiveness of downward jabs into the abdomen, as it prevents the knuckles from digging into the muscle. Those are the only two things I can think off the top of my head on how the gloves affect me.

Small joint manipulations are extremely difficult or even impossible. And they have an impact of varying degree on most anything involving a grab.

 

[jayoliver00]

When you announce that combative martial sports are the pinnacle of training, then you are taking your own values and assuming that everyone holds your values in common. That simply is not true. Ive never held much value in martial sport, never felt a need or compulsion to prove myself to anyone, and never held any interest in even watching it. I actually tried to watch some of the karate, TaeKwon do, and judo competitions in the summer Olympics. I was uninterested out of my mind, and not impressed by what I saw. But that is just me and is not meant to tell anyone else how they ought to feel about it. So as far as what Machida or Wonderboy are doing with their time, well I only just recognize their names. I know nothing else about them and honestly don’t care what they are doing. It has no bearing on what I do.

You've been training as a martial artist for a long time but never had the desire to fight multiple times to prove your skills being true? Not even hard sparring?

I still stand by my point that people are usually scared to fight & spar hard on a regular basis, that's why very few do fight. While trained fighters can certainly do what the non-fighters do, if they really wanted to. This is why being a fighter is the highest level of MA training.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Small joint manipulations are extremely difficult or even impossible. And they have an impact of varying degree on most anything involving a grab.

I wouldn't try to do a small joint manipulation in a fight unless my hands were already in place from doing something else. I don't think I've ever tried to actively go after a small joint manipulation. My personal thoughts about those things is that they work best when they are used as a secondary option when that joint just happens to be there.

For example: I wouldn't actively seek to bite someone's finger off, but since it was on my mouth, I figured, why not. That's how I think of small joint locks. Over all I don't have the hand strength to fool around with certain locks.

 

[Flying Crane]

You've been training as a martial artist for a long time but never had the desire to fight multiple times to prove your skills being true?

Prove to whom? You? The neighbors? The world of Martialtalk? I don’t care what they may or may not think of my skills.

Not even hard sparring?

Did you get the impression that I have never done hard sparring?

I still stand by my point that people are usually scared to fight & spar hard on a regular basis, that's why very few do fight. While trained fighters can certainly do what the non-fighters do, if they really wanted to. This is why being a fighter is the highest level of MA training.

Well, at the end of the day we all have our reasons for doing what we do. If this works for you, then keep at it.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I still stand by my point that people are usually scared to fight & spar hard on a regular basis, that's why very few do fight. While trained fighters can certainly do what the non-fighters do

I'm not sure this is true. I think of a lot of scenarios where fighter can't do a lot of what the none fighters do. Could they do it, if they wanted to? Maybe. But if that top MMA fighter isn't doing it now in the present, then that answer would be no. "If they wanted to" makes a lot of assumptions. I could have been a professional fighter "If I wanted to." Could I? If I'm not so sure about that. Even people who want to be professional Athletes are never able to become one. Or people who want to be signers don't make it. "If they could" makes the assumption that someone already have the skills and ability. I'm not the best person in Jow Ga Kung Fu. Could I be if I wanted to? I definitely don't feel honest to say yes.

 

[Flying Crane]

I'm not sure this is true. I think of a lot of scenarios where fighter can't do a lot of what the none fighters do. Could they do it, if they wanted to? Maybe. But if that top MMA fighter isn't doing it now in the present, then that answer would be no. "If they wanted to" makes a lot of assumptions. I could have been a professional fighter "If I wanted to." Could I? If I'm not so sure about that. Even people who want to be professional Athletes are never able to become one. Or people who want to be signers don't make it. "If they could" makes the assumption that someone already have the skills and ability. I'm not the best person in Jow Ga Kung Fu. Could I be if I wanted to? I definitely don't feel honest to say yes.

Well, and it’s this whole false dichotomy of “trained fighter” vs. “non-fighter” as if those terms are meaningful or can even be adequately defined.

It really comes down to a desire to turn it into a zero-sum game. The premise is that “I like to do this kind of training and I believe it is the best, therefore nothing else works at all.” It is a position that, in my opinion, comes from a lack of education. You can see it in the characterization of those who compete in martial sports (“fighters”) compared with those who do not, particularly if they include kata in their training program (the “non-fighters”). This is neither an either/or scenario, nor a zero-sum situation. But people want to insist that it is.