The Need to Be Recognized as Superior

[Steve]

The entire point of the change from Jujutsu to Judo, according to the creator himself was to


And I agree entirely with this. The thing is, in my experience, how something is trained is tied to the purpose of the art as it is designed. So if an art was designed to operate as a sport and with a "rule set" the training tends to reflect this. As an example most judo training I have experienced uses a lot of techniques that rely on grabbing the judogi and that can be impractical in terms of real world effectiveness. Why is this? Because the training has a strong focus on the sporting aspect the rules of which include that uniform. This isn't to say that there aren't teachers who teach "outside the box" but again I believe these instructors are the exception that proves the rule.

Everyone has some kind of internal mechanism by which they make decisions. Things are prioritized based upon some kind of inherently subjective metric, whether consciously or not. We do it all the time.

So, as I said to geezer, when something is traditional, that suggests to me that the person is choosing tradition over other things. IT doesn't mean that those other things are unimportant... just that they are less important.

When I read your post above, it sounds a lot like intent is more important to you than results. What you intend to gain when you train is more important than what you are actually gaining. And that's fine. This isn't a value judgment. But to be clear, it's less about whether judo is a sport or not than it is about your internal metric for evaluating training, emphasizing intent over any thing else.

 

[Steve]

Just to add, the idea of the change wasn't (as I understand it) to make the training less capable of crippling or maiming. Rather, it was to create a way to amp up the intensity of training without unnecessarily crippling or maiming your training partners. This is a subtle, but IMO meaningful shift in the perceived intent.

 

[Juany118]

Everyone has some kind of internal mechanism by which they make decisions. Things are prioritized based upon some kind of inherently subjective metric, whether consciously or not. We do it all the time.

So, as I said to geezer, when something is traditional, that suggests to me that the person is choosing tradition over other things. IT doesn't mean that those other things are unimportant... just that they are less important.

When I read your post above, it sounds a lot like intent is more important to you than results. What you intend to gain when you train is more important than what you are actually gaining. And that's fine. This isn't a value judgment. But to be clear, it's less about whether judo is a sport or not than it is about your internal metric for evaluating training, emphasizing intent over any thing else.

No results are vitally important to me personally I am simply saying that in my experience the intent of an art very often influences how the art is taught. I don't agree with this, only making an observation. This issue is why it took me a little over a year to find my current school. In the end, in my area, I found only two schools that taught in a manner that I believed took into account real world effectiveness in the training regime. One was a Krav Maga school the other the WC/Kali school I ended up joining.

The others either focused on the sporting aspect too much, did weed through the "this is flashy but not street practical" stuff or didn't address the fact that in the vast majority of self defense situations you are not going to be dealing with someone who uses the same style you do. The last 2 aren't limited to MA with a sport focus/aspect btw. As an example with the last point just training WC against WC means (at least to the Lineages in my area) that you are likely to have issues with people who use "round" attacks as an example.

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[Gerry Seymour]

Traditional to me means that how you train and what you train is more important to you than whether yiur training works or makes practical sense.

For most of us, I think "traditional" simply means we tend to use methods and rituals that have been in the art for some period of time. I've always considered NGA a "traditional" art (though some would call it too young for that), because we choose some training methods in part because they are how the art has traditionally been taught. It's a pretty subjective definition, and fairly vague. I'm not sure how useful it is in actual discussion, because it'd be easy to end up with conflicting uses of it. Vagueness aside, I've always examined NGA and looked for what did and didn't work, adjusting to improve what I do. I still use traditional methods for much of the training, because I haven't found an alternative that I prefer signficantly.

 

[guy b]

So if an art was designed to operate as a sport and with a "rule set" the training tends to reflect this. As an example most judo training I have experienced uses a lot of techniques that rely on grabbing the judogi and that can be impractical in terms of real world effectiveness. Why is this? Because the training has a strong focus on the sporting aspect the rules of which include that uniform. This isn't to say that there aren't teachers who teach "outside the box" but again I believe these instructors are the exception that proves the rule.

People wear clothes. If you train in clothes then not only do you learn clothed specific methods (e.g. grips, grip breaks, grip fighting), which can be used to easily control inexperienced opposition, but you also need to make the non clothed specific methods (e.g leg shoots, arm drags) work wearing clothes, which tends to be much more difficult. Methods of grappling trained not wearing clothes tend to fall down when clothes are worn, even against inexperienced opposition. Grabbing cloth is a severely underestimated form of grappling defence.

 

[Juany118]

People wear clothes. If you train in clothes then not only do you learn clothed specific methods (e.g. grips, grip breaks, grip fighting), which can be used to easily control inexperienced opposition, but you also need to make the non clothed specific methods (e.g leg shoots, arm drags) work wearing clothes, which tends to be much more difficult. Methods of grappling trained not wearing clothes tend to fall down when clothes are worn, even against inexperienced opposition. Grabbing cloth is a severely underestimated form of grappling defence.

The thing is this. Grabbing the jacket of a judogi is A LOT different than say a typical shirt or a jacket (especially if zippered/buttoned). I have ripped the shirts off people more than once at work, I have never seen a judogi literally rip when grabbed. So it's not the fact clothing is or isn't worn that is the issue it's the specific nature of the clothes in question. Because of this issue more than a few BJJ schools in my area have actually started having their "uniform" simply be a school t-shirt to better reflect real world dynamics.

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[Gerry Seymour]

The thing is this. Grabbing the jacket of a judogi is A LOT different than say a typical shirt or a jacket (especially if zippered/buttoned). I have ripped the shirts off people more than once at work, I have never seen a judogi literally rip when grabbed. So it's not the fact clothing is worn that is the issue it's the specific nature of the clothes in question. As for "inexperienced" look at any of the Olympic medal matches. They are far from inexperienced and the "goto" techniques used typically involve grabbing the judogi. Because of this issue more than a few BJJ schools in my area have actually started having their "uniform" simply be a school t-shirt.

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There's a distinct difference in many techniques between a version that uses clothing as part of the leverage and a version that doesn't. In most cases, it's a fairly easy adaptation if you've trained for it. My personal preference is to train with sturdy clothing most of the time, but not use it most of the time (except in counters, where it's a great liability to work with). Then, every now and then, we do some "street clothes" training, where we get to experiment with how those change both technique and counters, whether directly (as a point of leverage) or indirectly (how it affects movement).

 

[Transk53]

I've found that it is sometimes inbuilt as well, but in many other instances it isn't. I've found that when some people change from what they were, into what they are becoming - their very core beliefs, especially in themselves, changes drastically. Takes a whole lot of work, though. But that very work - is part of what changes them.

Yeah, don't disagree, especially with the military I guess. Don't know though, maybe there is some sliding scale when it comes being balls against the wall. Many will still shirk conflict, if core beliefs include regressive natured action. I do believe that fighting is not just a drilled mind set, with training in whatever context, moreover a instinctive thing that simply just autos the brain into aggressive behaviours, in the extreme without situational remorse. Don't think that can be trained, just personal morals dictate whether a piece of meat is standing in front you!

 

[guy b]

Grabbing the jacket of a judogi is A LOT different than say a typical shirt or a jacket (especially if zippered/buttoned). I have ripped the shirts off people more than once at work, I have never seen a judogi literally rip when grabbed. So it's not the fact clothing is or isn't worn that is the issue it's the specific nature of the clothes in question. Because of this issue more than a few BJJ schools in my area have actually started having their "uniform" simply be a school t-shirt to better reflect real world dynamics.

Actually it is actually pretty easy to use different types clothing if you know the basic ideas. Very difficult to adapt from naked to clothed, totally different ballgame. Learning an unclothed grappling method is therefore very impractical in terms of applicability to actual fighting since people mostly wear clothes.

Difficult to believe that the Chinese would miss this fact when most of the traditional grappling methods of the world use some kind of clothing, from belts to jacket to jacket and pants.

Are you sure you aren't talking about some kind of "self defence" type of add on to your wing chun, i.e. historical anti grappling, rather than a real grappling (i.e. wrestling) method?

 

[guy b]

My personal preference is to train with sturdy clothing most of the time, but not use it most of the time (except in counters, where it's a great liability to work with).

Why would you not want to learn to use clothing in an offensive way? Do you live in a place where most people go around in beachware most of the time?

 

[Juany118]

Actually it is actually pretty easy to use different types clothing if you know the basic ideas. Very difficult to adapt from naked to clothed, totally different ballgame. Learning an unclothed grappling method is therefore very impractical in terms of applicability to actual fighting since people mostly wear clothes; much more of a sports based abstraction.

Difficult to believe that the Chinese would miss this fact: most of the traditional grappling methods of the world use some kind of clothing, from belts to jacket to jacket and pants.

Are you sure you aren't talking about some kind of "self defence" type of add on to your wing chun, i.e. historical anti grappling, rather than a real grappling (i.e. wrestling) method?

First my WC has true/extensive chin na and take downs. They arent as extensive as a dedicated grappling arts and revolve largely around limb and head/neck control.

Also I am not saying that using clothing isn't effective, it certainly can be. The problem is that training exclusively with overbuilt martial arts uniforms like judogi doesnt prepare you for the different things that can happen with typical street clothes, such as literally ripping the shirt off a fully resisting subject.

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[Transk53]

Why would you not want to learn to use clothing in an offensive way? Do you live in a place where most people go around in beachware most of the time?

For once I have to agree with clothing bit.

 

[Steve]

For most of us, I think "traditional" simply means we tend to use methods and rituals that have been in the art for some period of time. I've always considered NGA a "traditional" art (though some would call it too young for that), because we choose some training methods in part because they are how the art has traditionally been taught. It's a pretty subjective definition, and fairly vague. I'm not sure how useful it is in actual discussion, because it'd be easy to end up with conflicting uses of it. Vagueness aside, I've always examined NGA and looked for what did and didn't work, adjusting to improve what I do. I still use traditional methods for much of the training, because I haven't found an alternative that I prefer signficantly.

For what it's worth, I'm not overly concerned with how people define the term "TMA" on an intellectual level. There have been several threads on the subject, and while interesting, you're right. It's very subjective.

What is more consistent is how people apply the term. Similar to my comment about what people intend to gain from their training vs what people actually gain from their training, there could very well be a disconnect between how someone defines Traditional Martial Arts and how someone actually demonstrates the term. Words vs actions.

I can't think of an exception here in all the years I've been reading posts where my criteria for defining the term doesn't hold up. It's less about how the term TMA is defined than it is about how we all view our training and where we often run into conflict. I don't value the tradition as highly as I do other things, and so certain arts that reflect this are more compatible.

I want to be clear that this is all on a spectrum. It's not intended to be totally binary, where if you like this attribute, you will like this style. It's about how we value (and how strongly we value) different aspects of martial arts. Some common things that people value are tradition, efficacy, ease to learn, accessibility for various physical or mental impairments, cost, wow factor/flashiness, health and fitness, or availability. I'm sure there are more, but these are off the top of my head.

So, the point is that if you're in a self identified "traditional" art, that will be at the top of the hierarchy, and if there is conflict between tradition and another attribute, the default will be to stick with tradition. Any deviation from this will be the exception to that rule.

 

[Steve]

First my WC has true/extensive chin na and take downs. They arent as extensive as a dedicated grappling arts and revolve largely around limb and head/neck control.

Also I am not saying that using clothing isn't effective, it certainly can be. The problem is that training exclusively with overbuilt martial arts uniforms like judogi doesnt prepare you for the different things that can happen with typical street clothes, such as literally ripping the shirt off a fully resisting subject.

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Why would you train exclusively with a judogi if self defense is your goal? Conversely, why would you train exclusively without the clothing? How does that prepare you any better or the different things that can happen with typical street clothes?

And when does a person who is training for self defense need to know how to do anything with a "fully resisting subject?" Isn't that more a cop thing than a self defense thing?

 

[Juany118]

Why would you train exclusively with a judogi if self defense is your goal? Conversely, why would you train exclusively without the clothing? How does that prepare you any better or the different things that can happen with typical street clothes?

And when does a person who is training for self defense need to know how to do anything with a "fully resisting subject?" Isn't that more a cop thing than a self defense thing?

That is my entire point, most Judo schools you go to A. Say they teach self defense and B. Train almost exclusively in "uniformed."

As far as a fully resisting subject if you are in a fight that other person, whether you are a cop or not will be fully resisting, whether it be trying to avoid your punch, getting grabbed/taken down etc. The only difference between cop and non-cop is that, for the cop, 95% of the time the violence you are dealing with once you go hands on is given violence intended to escape, if you are defending yourself the violence is intended to permit the subject to remain and continue to attack.

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[Gerry Seymour]

For what it's worth, I'm not overly concerned with how people define the term "TMA" on an intellectual level. There have been several threads on the subject, and while interesting, you're right. It's very subjective.

What is more consistent is how people apply the term. Similar to my comment about what people intend to gain from their training vs what people actually gain from their training, there could very well be a disconnect between how someone defines Traditional Martial Arts and how someone actually demonstrates the term. Words vs actions.

I can't think of an exception here in all the years I've been reading posts where my criteria for defining the term doesn't hold up. It's less about how the term TMA is defined than it is about how we all view our training and where we often run into conflict. I don't value the tradition as highly as I do other things, and so certain arts that reflect this are more compatible.

I want to be clear that this is all on a spectrum. It's not intended to be totally binary, where if you like this attribute, you will like this style. It's about how we value (and how strongly we value) different aspects of martial arts. Some common things that people value are tradition, efficacy, ease to learn, accessibility for various physical or mental impairments, cost, wow factor/flashiness, health and fitness, or availability. I'm sure there are more, but these are off the top of my head.

So, the point is that if you're in a self identified "traditional" art, that will be at the top of the hierarchy, and if there is conflict between tradition and another attribute, the default will be to stick with tradition. Any deviation from this will be the exception to that rule.

As is often the case, I think we differ in a way that may only matter intellectually. How the individual defines "traditional" will affect what "tradition" is is that they value. So, if we combine the essence of my definition with the essence of your observation, they are actually pretty compatible. If someone defines the "tradition" as being the lineage and the way the techniques are done, they're likely to hold that as having higher value than other aspects. For me, "traditional" tends to be more a cultural thing, in that "traditional" martial arts (by my definition) tend to observe some of the cultural rituals from the arts origin, and enjoy some of the ritual found in traditional training techniques, where those techniques are considered effective. So, for me, I have actually wrought some changes on how I deliver the art, added to (and in some senses removed from) what I was taught. However, I've held onto some practices that have alternatives, but the alternatives don't seem to have significant additional value for me, so all else being roughly equal I prefer to keep the tradition, but when there's something I don't think is effective (like the traditional first-aid training, for instance), I replace it (with modern first-aid certification).

I think that's in line with your observation, given how I personally define "traditional". I'm not sure how much anyone (you included) would/should care - just an intellectual rambling.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Why would you train exclusively with a judogi if self defense is your goal? Conversely, why would you train exclusively without the clothing? How does that prepare you any better or the different things that can happen with typical street clothes?

And when does a person who is training for self defense need to know how to do anything with a "fully resisting subject?" Isn't that more a cop thing than a self defense thing?

I'll warrant that a cop sees more "fully resisting" subjects (since they have to detain them and the subject knows it), than someone doing SD. But if I'm going for a lock, I wouldn't expect the person NOT to resist unless I manage to slip perfectly into the gaps.

 

[geezer]

I think you're misunderstanding. Traditional doesn't necessarily indicate that efficacy is unimportant. Only that, if there is a conflict between how to train and whether it is effective, efficacy will lose.

OK ...got it. In that case, I guess I'm not all that "traditional".

 

[geezer]

Guy when I was a kid ages ago, we used to go to wrestling practice wearing gym shorts, T-shirts and tennis shoes. Soon I got knee pads and wrestling shoes (special order back then), but we still wore shorts and T-shirts except for matches. And living in Arizona, that's pretty close to what most people wear, casually at least, day to day.

I'm not sure where this idea that you can only wrestle naked comes from. Maybe they wrestle differently where you live?

 

[wckf92]

Holy topic drift Batman!