SPLIT: Training/Methods of Striking

[Bigshadow]

Don, I don't disagree with what you said. I guess I am thinking in a much broader sense rather than the specifics of the best way to punch or kick. Even 'best' can be relative.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Let's not forget that boxers punch to the face while wearing gloves...
If this can happen to a pro, it can happen to everyone.

 

[Bigshadow]

Let's not forget that boxers punch to the face while wearing gloves...
If this can happen to a pro, it can happen to everyone.

HAHAHA... I never argued that! Even though I have my opinions, I certainly don't think it means invincibility!

 

[Don Roley]

I guess I am thinking in a much broader sense rather than the specifics of the best way to punch or kick.

What I said is applicable in the broadest sense. Again, reality such as gravity does not change, but the way we deal with reality is infinate in its possibilities and thus you really can't talk about "universal principles."

An art that was created by folks that fought with guys who had armor and used long, sharpened pieces of steel is going to be different from one made by farmers trying to defend themselves and playing alpha male games.

Do you think that the reality of armor and swords is one of the reasons why we are not a 'striking' art and we don't like to trade blows with the other guy? We lack the drills that Systema has to take blows. Considering that our arts were developed in an age and time where people were more likely to attack you with a blade than a fist, it is not hard to understand why there is that gap. And can you imagine trying to box a guy in metal armor? Today you are seeing more and more sophisticated armor being used even on the street and in prison they are learning systems of concealing a knife until it goes in you. So what we do really is not out dated IMO, but you can see why it differs from other arts based on the enviroment it came from.

In the case of ninjutsu, the ninjas were not there to take on an entire castle. If they were discovered, the only hope they had of survival was to get away as soon as possible. They could not stick around and turn the other guy into mulch. If they tarried with anything like that, the rest of the garrison would be down on them. So you look at the Tonsogata of Togakure ryu ninjutsu and you don't see things like Gozendori like you find in Takagi Yoshin ryu or even the finishing move you find at the end of most Gyokko ryu kata. And everything changes based on that reality. The kamae is different from the Gyokko ryu and Koto ryu not because of a whim, but because of the differnet needs of the art.

Reality like gravity does not change. But the purpose and strategies of one group can send an art into a totally different path of evolution than something else created by another.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Still, I'm fairly sure the nine ryuha continued to develop even with the advent of suhada bujutsu as opposed to katchu bujutsu. These are excerts from Serge Mol's book "Classical Fighting Arts of Japan":

"The heifuku kumiuchi or suhada kumiuchi styles of grappling were not designed for fighting on the battlefield, and they are mostly, but not entirely, a product of the Edo period. Heifuku kumiuchi can be interpreted as grappling in ordinary clothing. The grappling would be performed while wearing the ordinary street clothing of that time; for a samurai, this was a kimono and a hakama..." "The fact that normal clothing was worn allowed a wider use of atemijutsu, attacking te kyusho (vital points)."

"As mentioned earlier, most systems included some kind of atemi in their curricula, but generally speaking atemi was of secondary importance, especially when fighting in armour. Even in many heifuku kumiuchi systems, atemi was used mainly to create a shock effect before applying a throw or a lock. However, this does not mean that there were no schools that considered atemi to be of primary importance.
It is often said that some (but certainly not all) of those schools that do place a greater emphasis on atemi were exposed to the influence of Chinese fighting systems. Some schools which claim that their origins may have been Chinese systems are the Koto ryu and the Gyokko ryu. However, these did not use the term 'kenpo' to refer to their system. The term kenpo, 'fist way' or 'fist method', is just the Japanese reading of the Chinese chuang fa."

 

[Don Roley]

Still, I'm fairly sure the nine ryuha continued to develop even with the advent of suhada bujutsu as opposed to katchu bujutsu.

Yes. But the way they looked at things were shaped by their past experiences as an art that was used with and/or against armor. The amount of Kyusho availible to them were wider, but the fundemental ways of striking and such were already well established. Heck, we still don't throw out the basic style of punching and such in favor of a boxing type even now.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Heck, we still don't throw out the basic style of punching and such in favor of a boxing type even now.

No, hopefully not, if we know what we're doing.

 

[Bigshadow]

Don,

You make some excellent points! I can see what your talking about.

 

[Bigshadow]

Heck, we still don't throw out the basic style of punching and such in favor of a boxing type even now.

Ironic, last night at training we were training against boxer type jabs followed by something else (punch to midsection or wherever was open). It was good training!

Edit: Just wanted to make clear that the uke was doing the boxer jabs.

 

[Cryozombie]

BigShadow, Thats 90% of what striking types we train against in my dojo... I dont train to fight other Buj guys. I train to fight Joe Streetguy.

 

[Bigshadow]

BigShadow, Thats 90% of what striking types we train against in my dojo... I dont train to fight other Buj guys. I train to fight Joe Streetguy.

That is great! Yes, we mix it up alot, too. Most people are not going to punch like us (good or bad). We also do alot of weapons work, too.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Most people are not going to punch like trained boxers either.

 

[Cryozombie]

Most people are not going to punch like trained boxers either.

Yeah?

Should we start a poll, "What are you more likley to see in a real fight" with the choices being Bujinkan Style Punching or Hooks Jabs and Feints?

Nah... the answer would be way to obvious without even posting the poll, but thanks for playing.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Hooks and haymakers are one thing, bobbing, weaving, ducking, jabbing and other boxer mannerisms are not the primary tactics of people with no previous martial arts experience (or people WITH martial arts experience and training while inebriated). Not in self-defense situations. A fight, in which you choose to stay behind and give your best shot whilst having the possibility to withdraw, however, that's another thing.
Anyway, you don't see the 300-pound strippers in the Jerry Springer Show jab and throw feints at their cheating boyfriends to find an opening in their guard before proceeding to stomp them into the ground.

From my experience, the most common punch apart from the haymaker is more of a downward movement similar to a hammerfist, only you hit with your first set of knuckles as in a regular punch, rather than the bottom of your fist. There used to be an actual fight caught on video available for download on bullshido, where a meager white guy swung at a larger black guy, resulting in the smaller guy being taken to the ground and pummeled with that exact type of strike.

 

[Bigshadow]

From my experience, the most common punch apart from the haymaker is more of a downward movement similar to a hammerfist, only you hit with your first set of knuckles as in a regular punch, rather than the bottom of your fist.

I will have to look around for that one. I have been collecting different videos of fights caught on tape. Most of what I have seen has been unorganized wailing. However, there are a couple of fight videos I have where they stand out in my mind. One was a guy who was getting attacked by several other guys. He actually did quite well, considering it didn't appear he had any martial arts skill. His tactics were pretty good. Needless to say, he came out on top of that one. I think there were 3 or 4 attackers. The other one I remember was more of a ego fight, but a guy who appeared to train in Kung Fu, knocked out the attacker with what appeared to be more of an accidental back fist as the pushing and shoving started.

Anyway, I do like to watch them from the stand point of seeing how people behave in those situations, but at the same time, it is a little distressing to see such dysfunction.


EDIT: I think we should start a new thread...

 

[Cryozombie]

Fine. How/Where do you want this split?

 

[Bigshadow]

Fine. How/Where do you want this split?

I am not sure. It seems now we have drifted from the original question of the thread. Now we are into details about what types of punches / attacks we as uke use in our training.

I guess I was more noting that we had drifted off topic. Although, I like discussing different training methods, drills, and scenarios.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

I'm not sure this could be called a "real fight", but it sure has quite a bit of entertainment value. :lool:

http://koti.mbnet.fi/~clan-a12/ballhets_barnen!!!.mpg

 

[Fallen Ninja]

Most people are not going to punch like trained boxers either.

I will agree with that. Once I was training with a Boxer to explain differences between what he does and what I do. He began to bob and weeve and it changed the usual kukan. The cool thing was that it opened a whole bunch of different kukan to play with!:ultracool
Everyone, a Martial Artist or not will move differently. So when you train I think understanding the bigger picture is more important than studying the way someone punches. There are guys that leave and say... "I studied sword tonight"... of course the response is, "thats too bad, because I taught kukan/nagare/kata".:jedi1:

 

[Don Roley]

Yeah?

Should we start a poll, "What are you more likley to see in a real fight" with the choices being Bujinkan Style Punching or Hooks Jabs and Feints?

I think that answer would be a left foot forward, right hand punch. That covers it pretty well. Some people would call this a boxer style punch, even though 99 percent of North America would use it even if they never studied boxing.

But the type of punch you can see most often on security cameras recording real fights and the like more accurately seems to be what is called the "Nighty Night Bunny Rabbit." The name was coined by a friend of mine, Marc MacYoung. It is usually a sucker punch, and sucker punches start most of the fights you see caught on film. They are all or nothing, fully commited punches that you could probably see comong a mile off if they don't distract you, but if they connect they will knock you into next week. Yeah, they are thrown with the right hand with the left leg forward, but most boxers would wince at the way people commit themselves into it and how sloppy they are.

I have a friend that worked for years on the border patrol. He had numerous cases of violence on his hands. He swears that in all the time and all the cases where things came to blows he never saw a jab. Peytonn Quinn also says that as a bouncer in a rough bar he saw a heck of lot of NNBR punches and saw jabs almost never. But he said that he sees a lot of jabs in sparring and almost no blows like the ones he saw take out most people at his work.

It has been my experience that if you know what to look for before blows start and have done even just a little training against a NNBR sucker punch, that it is not hard to deal with them in real life. The big thing seems to be not getting fooled and thinking that the other guy is going to let you know he is going to start violence. Quinn has a great saying. "The fight does not start with the first blow, rather it is decided by the first blow." There are folks out there that can look you straight in the eye while figuring out how best to surprise you. If they do, they will gamble everything in one blow. If you get out of the way of that first blow, it is rather easy to make Bujinkan things work since they put so much faith in that first blow settling things. But of course, there are some really nasty and skilled people out there that don't fit this description, but thankfully such wolves in human clothing are rare.