Questioning the efficacy of Kata

[DaveB]

Is escaping a reasonable tactic? Yes.

Is that something you would routinely practice when doing drills. Probably not as it would get really distracting. And even if you did when you actually do engage the guy you would still want to do it in a competitive nature.

There is a school of thought that says this is exactly what you should be training if your martial arts school has a self-defense focus.

An appeal to authority really should be a last resort as it is too easily used by people who do not have an actual answer they can draw from experience.

You raised the issue of the approach of self defense karateka. I countered your assumption. Then you ridiculed the reference to experienced instructors, so I showed that they were real people with verifiable history. No appeals to anything. If you want to stick to the thread topic then do so.

My Sigh is that this "I train for the deadly streets and so have the final say on all things violence" is something that gets thrown at me constantly. Methods used by these unnamed bouncers and soldiers so therefore work even if they either don't work or don't make sense.

Hence they are no longer unnamed and it seems you support at least one method they teach. I don't know everything about violence, I am just disagreeing with you on one issue.

Geoff Thompson does a drill called animal day.
...

So back to the idea about competitive drills. That would be an example of what I am trying to put forwards.

Not to that level for this discussion though.

And in that regard we're on the same page. I was arguing against the mentality of competition, not the training methods. I believe that one can train like that dispassionately, without needing to win and all.the counter productive attitudes associated with that.

OK. You assume that there is a difference and there is not. The mentality that would make you win a trophy will also give you a better chance in a self defence. But saying trophy sound like it should be different.

And while we are discussing patronising............

Have you looked into sports psychology?

Five Components of Mental Preparation Sports Psychology Today

That's a.fair point to disagree on, but.there have been many arguments explaining problems with your view that you're not answering which makes it hard to agree with your position.

That is because my unfounded assumption is counter to yours. It is a method of discussion I see when people never have to back up what they say. I think I will coin the term "sensei speak."

This is where you get to a point that because nobody ever pulls you up on your inconsistencies you assume you are constantly dropping pearls of wisdom every time you open your mouth.

Watch almost any Steven segal interview.

On a Web forum all any of us have is what we write. The same is as true for you as me or anyone. If you see an assumption that is unjustified please do be specific and say what is wrong with ithe, but general accusations are unhelpful. I welcome the challenge of disagreement, so long as it's constructive.

 

[RTKDCMB]

Soccer can be very interesting the problem is the attitude of players these days.

The problem is that they can basically kick a ball back and forth for 90 minutes and not score.

 

[Tez3]

The problem is that they can basically kick a ball back and forth for 90 minutes and not score.

They still get paid enormous sums of money though so I guess they aren't bothered. The women's world cup was on recently, totally different game, not much money at stake and all the teams played their hearts out, no rolling on the floor pretending to be hurt etc. A professional attitude.... perhaps that's another word to go with robust, training professionally lol as in properly, not slapdash or playing pat-a-cake!

 

[drop bear]

There is a school of thought that says this is exactly what you should be training if your martial arts school has a self-defense focus.

If you were to practice escaping in a drill you would still need some to try and stop you.

So it would still be competitive and someone would win and someone would loose.

If I am doing a drill and someone punches me. I run out the door and never come back. Technically I have achieved self defence but it is not all that helpful in a class environment.

 

[drop bear]

nd in that regard we're on the same page. I was arguing against the mentality of competition, not the training methods. I believe that one can train like that dispassionately, without needing to win and all.the counter productive attitudes associated with that.

So say you turn up to animal day. What sort of mindset would you be trying to create?

My coach suggests "fight with bad intentions" which is his way of preparing for competition.

I actually wrote fight to win on my arm before each sparring session to remind myself that there is no hole to crawl into when you work with in a cage. You either dominate the situation or get outrageously beat up trying to dominate the situation.

A friend of mine in his last fight go hurt bad in the first round discussing the fight afterwards he said that at the time. "I was going to die before I quit"

All elements of a competitive mind set With all the counter productive attitudes associated with it.

Now what do you think Geoff Thompson's stance is on SD mindset?

 

[Tez3]

If you were to practice escaping in a drill you would still need some to try and stop you.

So it would still be competitive and someone would win and someone would loose.

If I am doing a drill and someone punches me. I run out the door and never come back. Technically I have achieved self defence but it is not all that helpful in a class environment.

I have a good friend who lived in Australia for some time, she married an Australian and has two children, she's divorced and back in the UK, the thing she said the only thing that annoyed her about Australians was the fact they are so very competitive, they see everything as a competition so I guess you are no different. It's all a 'competition' with you, you only see it as 'winners and losers' and heaven forfend that you should be a loser. You cannot see it as both participants being winners in that they learn and grow, yes you need someone to 'stop' you but that isn't being competitive, that's being a bloody good training partner. There is no losing, there is only learning when you are training. Ego says it's a competition because the ego cannot stand what it sees as 'losing'. This is why the much used cliché 'empty your cup' actually has value, lose the competitive part, it's not you v your training partner, it's you and your training partner working together to get the best possible training for both of you. It is perfectly possible to train hard, to go full contact and not see it as a competition.

 

[drop bear]

They still get paid enormous sums of money though so I guess they aren't bothered. The women's world cup was on recently, totally different game, not much money at stake and all the teams played their hearts out, no rolling on the floor pretending to be hurt etc. A professional attitude.... perhaps that's another word to go with robust, training professionally lol as in properly, not slapdash or playing pat-a-cake!

Professionalism is a good term to use when discussing martial arts.

 

[Tez3]

So say you turn up to animal day. What sort of mindset would you be trying to create?

My coach suggests "fight with bad intentions" which is his way of preparing for competition.

I actually wrote fight to win on my arm before each sparring session to remind myself that there is no hole to crawl into when you work with in a cage. You either dominate the situation or get outrageously beat up trying to dominate the situation.

A friend of mine in his last fight go hurt bad in the first round discussing the fight afterwards he said that at the time. "I was going to die before I quit"

All elements of a competitive mind set With all the counter productive attitudes associated with it.

Now what do you think Geoff Thompson's stance is on SD mindset?

I don' think you understand Geoff's approach to SD at all. Have you read any of his stuff or been on any of his seminars?

 

[drop bear]

I have a good friend who lived in Australia for some time, she married an Australian and has two children, she's divorced and back in the UK, the thing she said the only thing that annoyed her about Australians was the fact they are so very competitive, they see everything as a competition so I guess you are no different. It's all a 'competition' with you, you only see it as 'winners and losers' and heaven forfend that you should be a loser. You cannot see it as both participants being winners in that they learn and grow, yes you need someone to 'stop' you but that isn't being competitive, that's being a bloody good training partner. There is no losing, there is only learning when you are training. Ego says it's a competition because the ego cannot stand what it sees as 'losing'. This is why the much used cliché 'empty your cup' actually has value, lose the competitive part, it's not you v your training partner, it's you and your training partner working together to get the best possible training for both of you. It is perfectly possible to train hard, to go full contact and not see it as a competition.

You can't cheat yourself out of loosing though. I think avoiding loss is a training mistake.

We also accept as a culture when we are fairly beaten.
Except in cricket of course.

 

[drop bear]

I don' think you understand Geoff's approach to SD at all. Have you read any of his stuff or been on any of his seminars?

No seen a few videos and interviews and that is about it. He makes a distinction between martial arts training and street fighting where I don't think there is one. I think that is where his fear of conflict comes from is fear of loss.

So where his stance may appear different. I don't believe it is so much.

 

[Tez3]

You can't cheat yourself out of loosing though. I think avoiding loss is a training mistake.

We also accept as a culture when we are fairly beaten.
Except in cricket of course.

You don't understand do you? Your training partner can stop you, break your nose even but that isn't a 'loss', that's learning because next time you won't make the same mistakes. that's why you train. This win or lose thing is pure ego talking.

Geoff Thompson doesn't talk about winning or losing, he has no time for that attitude in SD. Read all the article though.
http://www.geoffthompsoninspired.com/does-self-defence-work/


"One of the many things I have learned in my forty years of martial arts training, from working with masters and from following the deity of my own experience hard won is that self defence and martial arts are not the same thing. Sport MA and self defence are not the same thing either. And recreational training – twice a week at the local sports hall – certainly does not constitute a serious investment in real self protection.
When people talk martial art they think that they are automatically talking self defence but they are not. And when they talk self defence they believe that it is synonymous with martial art. Again, it is not. The two are very different, and they should be separated and taught as such.
There is nothing wrong with sport martial art, I love it, I am a big fan. And recreational training is better than no training at all. But if people are ever to survive a violent encounter on the pavement arena, it is imperative that they learn to distinguish between the two.
If you train twice a week in martial arts and think you are a serious player in self defence you’ll be in for a big shock when it kicks off outside the chippy on a Friday night. If your penchant is for sport martial arts (and all that it entails) and you think it automatically translates to the street you too will be in big trouble when the pub-warrior breaks your rules and twats you while your un-zipped at the communal troth, or turns up for round two at your work or your home with a hammer and a bad intent.
I must stipulate that I am not having a go at traditional arts, at sport or at the recreational player. I have a deep love for MA and for its practitioners but mine is the reality game so I have to honour the truth above all else. And my truth is not based on theory of folk law or how well I can make it happen in the dojo, it is based on vast experience in all things real. I have hurt many people to acquire this information over a long period of time. I am not proud of that. But I do hope that the reader might learn from my knowledge, so that they do not become a victim of violent crime, or the next digit on a home office statistic about unsolicited assault. Because it is not bad technique or even bad teaching that gets people killed in street encounters, it is denial.
People are in denial. With their art, with their ability and with reality its self.
You may well ask, what is the truth?
The truth is that real self defence in its concentrate is not and should not be about a physical response, as I will explain further into the article. When I teach self defence I may flirt around martial technique, and encourage people to invest in a core system, but the bulk of my teaching is in the art of avoidance. And if an encounter does by necessity become physical I teach and I preach the pre-emptive strike (attacking first). It is the only thing that works consistently. All the other stuff that you see, that you are taught or that you imagine might work ‘out there’ probably will not."

 

[Tez3]

I think that is where his fear of conflict comes from is fear of loss.

Sorry? You are joking right? that man does not have a fear of conflict, trust me. You are kidding yourself if you think he is afraid of fighting or hurting people because he certainly has hurt a lot of people in his time. He is old school bouncer from a very tough area of the UK and had a rep as a very violent man long before he became known for his SD. I think you need to do a bit more research about him.

 

[Tez3]

http://www.theshotokanway.com/geoffthompsoninterview1.html

 

[Tez3]

Marc McYoung on pride, ego and self defence. http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/pride.html

 

[DaveB]

No seen a few videos and interviews and that is about it. He makes a distinction between martial arts training and street fighting where I don't think there is one. I think that is where his fear of conflict comes from is fear of loss.

So where his stance may appear different. I don't believe it is so much.

What was that about sensei speak?

You're clearly not speaking from experience of Thompson and apparently you've never had a serious fight, so on what are you basing this nonsensical idea?

 

[Tez3]

From Geoff Thompson interview I gave the link to in post 73. Incidentally he does go on to praise kata. Note too that the men he cites as heroes really are the 'hard men' of karate. The atmosphere he trained in wasn't a 'competitive' one but one where one trained hard. He talks about the 'desensitisation of fear' as well.

"(ER) You did all of your Dan gradings with Enoeda Sensei, and trained with many of the KUGB greats. Would you be kind enough to share some memories and stories that you have of your training with these karateka?


(GT) Well, now we are talking. Man, I trained with some wonderful people. I can still remember the awe of Kawasoe as he (seemingly) glided through the dojo in his crisp white gi, and how karateka would travel from across the country to grade under him. I was probably about 12 years old (I still have my original licence) and training at the Longford Shotokan Club under the auspices of Mick and Rick Jackson. These two men were amazing athletes, and certainly pioneered karate in the Midlands. I actually used to walk a six mile round trip (chips on the way home) to train in what was probably the toughest karate club I have ever trained in. It was full of very large men and one or two equally scary women. To my youthful (fearful) eyes it felt a bit like walking onto the set of Monsters Inc. I loved the club, but it did terrify me. The training was relentless, the standards very high and if you didn’t block, something got broke; that was a given. It terrified me at the time. But retrospect has shown me that the grounding was perfect. I can remember that long walk as though it was yesterday, and how every step tempted me to stop and go back home. How, when I did arrive, I would peep through the high dojo doors before every session to see who was in attendance. And there were always several people who scared the breakfast out of me. Of course I realise now how important fear is in training, and that if there is no fear, if there is not difficulty and if there is not doubt and uncertainty you are sure to be at the wrong club. Those early ‘inferno sessions’ in Shotokan absolutely and unequivocally made me; they gave me a foundation that, later standing on violent Coventry nightclub doors, literally saved my life.


Mr Kawasoe was the epitome of power, but I always remember him as a very gentle and shy man. Of course when he moved it was like someone had thrown a live match into a box of fireworks. He was very dynamic. A very explosive Martial Artist. All of my early kyu grades were taken under Mr. Kawasoe. Then later, my first and second dans were taken under Enoeda Sensei. My best memories from that period are of Mick and Rick Jackson, they were so talented. I mean everyone looked up to Rick, he was just such an incredible man, but I was particularly taken by Mick, who was an amazing kicker. All I wanted to do back then was kick and Mick was (for me) the best technical kicker I have seen. I used to watch him warm up before sessions, lifting his knee almost to his head height then very slowly pushing out the most perfect kekomi. I dreamed of being able to do that. Then later of course I trained under, and was very influenced by, legends like Terry O’Neill, who became a hero of mine. He was actually responsible for publishing my first ever piece of writing, an article I penned for Fighting Arts International called Confrontation, Desensitisation (about gaining desensitisation to fear by confronting it). He actually rang me up to congratulate me on the piece and gave me great inspiration. I was just a club second dan in those days, whilst Terry et al were in the very highest echelons of Martial Arts, so I was really delighted and flattered that he rang. His phone call and subsequent support of my writing and training was what enabled me to add some heady ascent to my writing and my Martial game. And many, many years later when I was promoting my book Watch My Back I actually got a telephone call from Dennis Martin (another hero of mine) saying “Terry said, do you fancy a brew when you’re next in Liverpool?” "

 

[Tez3]

Geoff Thompson on the 'animal day' drills. It's testing not competition.
"(ER) You refer to “a character X-Ray” and you also mention this phrase in the Animal Day Sessions. What do you mean by this? How important is character in dealing with a violent encounter?


(GT) Character is everything in a real situation, because without it you will never be able control the often overwhelming amounts of fear that swamps your system. Training is all about developing character, like tempering a blade in a hot forge. A character X-ray is placing yourself (or your art or both) under extreme pressure to see how hardy your character really is. You might think it is titan, but until you bang the pressure on you will never really know (a sure sign of an undeveloped or weak character is someone that claims they would never lose their bottle in a real fight. It generally means that they have not felt real pressure yet). I have met many, many seasoned people who have fallen to pieces under pressure because they did not take their character into the forge. So to me, character x-ray means stepping into an animal day (or any high pressure situation) to allow you (and everyone else) to see what is inside. What weaknesses are lurking? How will you react if someone takes you to the floor? How will you cope if someone postures and swears? What if they threaten to burn your house down? The part of you that is going to have to handle a real situation is not the part of you that is sitting here reading this interview now. That is fact. The part of you that is reading these words is your conscious self, it is front of shop, the part that runs the show during homeostasis, when the body is working in the parasympathetic nervous system and doing normal things. In a fight situation the body goes out of homeostasis and into sympathetic nervous system, what we know as fight or flight. The front-of-shop self that you know and love is relegated to a back seat and another part of you, the primal self, will rush forward and take over. You’ll be on autopilot and you will go into any one of three phases; fight, flight or freeze. In this mad age of crazy neurological stressors, anyone of those three responses could be the wrong response for the situation that you are facing, a response that could get you killed because you froze when you should have attacked or attacked when you should have ran, or ran when you should have stayed and fought. Or any wrong combination of the three. In days of old when man hunted for food and dragged ladies around by the hair in the courting ritual, fight, flight or freeze was simple enough and it more often than not saved your life. These days the sound of a car backfiring is enough to trigger your adrenals. The response is out date and often dangerous. So it needs retraining, or re-educating. What I learned to do was trigger the adrenals with simulation training in order to get acquainted with the primal self and monitor its response to stressful situations and - where necessary - take back manual control and re-train it. The self that is reading this article does not concern me because he/she is not going to be there when **** and fan meet, it is the primal self that I am interested in, because that is the fellow (or girl) that needs the training. You don’t want to leave it until you face a real situation to find out, because by then it might be too late. Now is the time to do it, while you still can."

 

[Tez3]

http://www.theshotokanway.com/geoffthompsoninterview2.html

 

[Tez3]

"(ER) Do you think that tradition has a place in the modern dojo? Bowing, kneeling to open and close a class, Japanese terminology?


(GT) I’d say that we would be pretty lost without it. I love the etiquette, it is a big part of the discipline, but I do believe it should have congruence, it is not good kneeling and bowing and showing respect in the dojo if you do not carry it over into the outside world. I’ve lost count of the amount of Martial Artists I see who do the traditional thing in the dojo, but outside they have no morals, no ethics, no respect and for themselves or for others. It has got to mean something or why bother.


(ER) For those karate-ka who want to retain the traditional element of their karate study, how would you suggest they introduce a more-reality based approach?


(GT) Set a day a week or month for those that seriously want to develop, to place themselves and their art under pressure. Free spar and allow every range, so if a player throws a sloppy kick and it gets caught the fight will go to the floor. Put gloves on and make the fight knockout or submission. Once a month invite a coach from a different art (judo, boxing, wrestling, Thai etc) to come and train your senior guys and girls. Encourage your dan grades to leave the trunk of the tree to explore the branches. I would tell senior players to get a dan grade in judo, or to qualify as a boxing coach. My senior players were qualified and expert in Greco, freestyle wrestling, Sombo, Thai boxing, western boxing, Ju-Jitsu. Every week I would have someone visiting to teach a private course for them and me. You can’t be a jealous husband about your students; you need to encourage growth by inspiring exploration. And if your club does not allow you to do this, or actively encourages you against it you have to ask yourself, is this a Martial Art or is this a cult?



And listen, regarding this advice, don’t take my word for any of it. Try the ideas out for yourself. Place your art under great scrutiny, place massive pressure on it. It’s like taking a vessel out to sea, you must make sure that it is sea worthy first, that it is water tight. Don’t take my word, or your trainers word or the word of your master in Japan, the bottom line is you need to know for yourself, because if you are in a real situation and it doesn’t work, you might die, a family member might die. In Milton’s Paradise Lost he uses the word sapience, meaning in context to taste. It is not enough to be told, or to read or to watch, you must know, and the only way to know is to taste.



In the dojo an error might mean a split lip. In the street it could mean a toe tag and a slot at the local cemetery. And the great thing about pressure training is that it will develop a sinewy mentality that will enhance every aspect of your life. What I love about his kind of illuminatingly honest training is that once you have undergone it, once you have negotiated your way through that forging process you will neither want to get involved in a real fight in the street or need to get involved in a real fight in the street. Once you master the physical you will spill over into a much deeper level of knowing. As Don Draeger said, you will be so good at your art that if you stand in a room full of people those people will be better protected just because you are there. "

And this is how many of us train, not competitively but testingly.

 

[EddieCyrax]

Marc McYoung on pride, ego and self defence. http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/pride.html

I have read his books.....lots of food for thought....