Sports relation to Self Defence.

Daniel Sullivan

Grandmaster
MT Mentor
Joined
May 27, 2008
Messages
6,472
Reaction score
271
Location
Olney, Maryland
My apologies if my response seems a bit off; I have been away for a week and a half and am revisiting.

Thats kinda open-ended, no? :) Some will probably think there are situations we can't prepare for, as I believe was mentioned somewhere in this thread. Interestingly enough, and I know some like him, some hate, him, but anyways, Jim Wagner talks alot about things such as terrorism, in his BB magazine articles. Some people may not think its interesting when he talks about hand grenades, but some may.

Could you clarify then? :)
More or less, I was getting at the idea that people think that they can reasonably prepare for any self defense scenario, even a worse case scenario. But the idea is, in my opinion, false.

Frequently in the sport vs. art discussions, the idea that sport will not prepare you for what you will face on the deadly street and that 'art' will is, to some extent, a false dichotomy. Because really, neither will. Not to the extent that people think that one or the other will.

People tend to get very wrapped up in being prepared for or to make use of techniques that are illegal in a sport setting, when in reality, there is every chance, depending upon where they are what settings they are in, that they may end up in a situation that neither sport nor art could prepare them for.

It is not that people think that MA makes them a superman. More that people seem to focus almost entirely on either an unarmed attacker or an attacker with a hand held weapon.

Those schools that do teach weapon defenses often teach defenses that have little to no basis in reality, thus rendering the sport/art debate moot.

Daniel
 

Latest Discussions

Top