Traditional Martial Arts - What's It Good For?

Bill Mattocks

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Most people, I think, would agree that martial arts training as it is known today, promotes the teaching of skills in self-defense (fighting) and sports, among other things. Many would also agree that martial arts training can be useful for such things as helping to instill self-discipline, positive self-image, and general good physical health, especially in children and young adults.

However, although not everyone teaches or chooses to partake in other aspects of martial arts training, such training does exist. Primarily, this comes in the form of what we generically know as 'TMA' or 'traditional martial arts'.

This is because many modern forms of martial arts have taken what they see as the most important aspects of traditional training and just taught that.

For example, styles that teach mostly for tournaments and sport. Styles that teach mainly for self-defense.

Many of the sport styles have focused on primarily the way the arts look when practiced. Kata or forms, both empty-handed and with weapons, and a form of sport-oriented sparring that is designed to be flashy, fast, and athletic, but also safe for the combatants. You won't find these schools working to understand the meaning or application of particular moves in a kata, for example. Such things are of no particular use to them as long as the movements are done with precision, power, speed, balance, and presentation. Sparring, particularly point-sparring, is done in the manner of counting coup; a combatant darts in and touches to score; this ignores most reality-based self-defense principles, but that is not the point of the competition.

Many of the styles that simply focus on self-defense also ignore most basics (kihon) and kata or forms, in order to focus on the reality of actual self-defense or combat. They use the movements of arts like karate, judo, and others, but modified for presumed maximum effectiveness in real self-defense situations. They would not focus on learning 12 ways to do a single thing, but one or two ways, and practice only those things. They pressure-test their training with a variety of methods, including sparring, sometimes full-contact, sometimes full-power, sometimes (infrequently) both, and some even go so far as to test on 'the street' using a variety of methods.

Those schools that teach so-called traditional martial arts teach different things as well, and to differing levels. They may teach a form of sport or self-defense or both, and then they may add to the training a set of standards to be met by students, such as learning and repeating kihon and kata, both empty-handed and with various weapons. Some schools go significantly beyond this, some do not.

Having said all of this - and I'm sure many will take exception with what I've said even so far - I now turn to the point of my post, which is to attempt to answer the question about what TMA is actually good for.

It's not strictly sport - some compete in tournaments, some win, but let's face it, the guys who concentrate on only tournament martial arts tend to do well in exactly that.

It's not strictly self-defense - although a competent TMA karateka, for example, should be able to defend his or her self against say a knife attack, it's definitely not the same as the self-defense expert who practices disarming an assailant with a knife tens of thousands of times.

So what is it good for, then? Why not study sport martial arts if one wishes to compete, or reality-based modern martial arts if one wishes to learn to fight or to defend oneself?

The answer, I believe, is because there is something more to be found in TMA than just fighting or sport. More than just physical fitness. More than just flexibility and good balance and mental well-being. More than just camaraderie and pleasurable social activity.

Now, not everyone *wants* those things. That's fine. TMA is probably not for them, and there is nothing wrong with that. I doubt hockey players think speed skaters are idiots; they both skate on ice, but do so for different reasons, and both are OK, right?

Not everyone *believes* that those 'additional things' exist. That's fine too. Again, TMA is probably not for them either. But whether one believes or whether one does not, nobody can deny that some people believe that there is more to TMA than good health, self-defense, and sport. And as you have the right to not believe it, they have the right to believe it.

Someone recently described basically everything martial-arts oriented that wasn't actual reality-based self-defense, as 'woo-woo'. In other words, magical or nonsensical stuff.

Such things do exist in martial arts, clearly. We have people who believe in what many consider outlandish impossibilities, and I will include the oft-derided 'no touch knockout' or 'chi power knockout' in that. But everything exists along a continuum, it is not black-and-white. Belief that there is something deeper in TMA than simply kihon, kata, sparring, and so on, is not necessarily belief that there is such a thing as knocking someone out without touching them. We do not live in such a cookie-cutter world, where if you do not believe in X, you must therefore believe in Y. That is a logical fallacy.

These are some of things that I believe TMA is good for. My beliefs are my own opinion; many other people whom I respect have different opinions, either by a little or a lot. And I wasn't taught to have these opinions, by the way. My instructor did not say "We don't do self-defense here, we learn the Way of the Woo (tm) instead."

Instead, over the years as I trained, I changed how I felt about what I was doing, about why I was doing it, about what I hoped to gain from it.

It includes very simple things; for example, no matter how lousy a day I had at work, I lose all trace of it from my mind when I step onto the mat at my dojo. The cares of the day simply fall away; and believe me, I'm under a lot of stress where I work, stress that follows me home and keeps me up nights.

It includes investigating things that one might think make no sense, like evaluating the power of a punch while exhaling versus inhaling. Subtle differences in how a foot is placed or how the body is angled. Tiny things that have a big effect, such as stealing a tiny bit of an opponent's balance prior to striking them, and so on. Are these things necessary for self-defense? Maybe. Probably not. In a chaotic street fight, at my level of experience, I doubt I'd be thinking about any of that; if I had to hit, I'd hit; if I had to block, I'd block. On the other hand, as time goes by, I might have trained myself enough to avoid falling down on a slippery surface, or to steal an attacker's balance prior to striking. I hope that perhaps one day, my voyage of discovery will give me the neural connections necessary to do such things without thinking about them.

It includes such things as evaluation of how the core principles and techniques I train in apply to other aspects of life. I can sit in a meeting at work and consider that the time to speak (strike) is when the opportunity presents itself, or that a person's unbalance is the same as a weight - in conversation as well as in self-defense.

It includes such things as calming myself for a struggle ahead, looking to the opponent's core to gain insight into future actions, shifting to not be where the attack goes, directing the nature of the flow of a series of movements so that the end is where, when, and what I want to have happen. Taking a hit to give one. Attacking weaknesses after identifying what they are.

It includes accepting that my training puts me on a path, rather than directing me to a goal. I don't know where I am going; I do know that I won't get there. I am content with that. The goal is no goal. Nothing matters but the path.

So I spend time standing in one place, investigating the motion of a few toes or the angle of a foot or the bend in my knees, and checking mentally to see how that affects the stability of my stance, my balance, how it informs my breathing. I practice moving from stance to stance in different ways to see how I can move without giving up as much balance along the way, to shorten the period of time I'm open to attack without being based, to disguise my movements as well as my intentions, to build speed and power.

Is that last bit the Way of the Woo (tm)? I'm sure some see it that way. How can one choose a path and not have a goal? What's the point? I don't know. Ever been on a Sunday drive on a bike or motorcycle or in a car, with no particular place to go, just enjoying the weather and the scenery and the people you are with or meet along the way? Breathing the air and feeling the sun and the breeze, just being rather than doing? It's kind of like that. If you are the sort of person who sees no value in doing something that has no obvious return value, then you probably don't get that. And that's fine; you don't have to, it's not for you. Don't deny it to me, and don't deny that it has value to me. Leave me to my woo, if that is what you think it is.

Am I deluded? Am I wasting my time? Well, what if I am? Is it not my time to waste, am I not free to delude myself?

TMA to me holds much that I will need to spend the rest of my life investigating. It may or may not have a practical real-world relationship with self-defense; probably nothing at all to do with sport-related martial arts. It does have to do with my development as a person. As I leave middle-age behind and start the long trek to the finish line; slower paced, but still hopefully making progress, I find that there is no place where one can say "Well, I learned all I need to know, now I can just vegetate until I die." No, I continue to find ways in which I can improve, and many of those involve my study of karate. I won't get any faster, probably won't get any stronger. I doubt I'll ever be as good a fighter as some younger people who have studied MT or BJJ or whatever for a year or so. If that was the point, I've failed, but I was doomed to fail anyway, so what would be the point? The rewards I get for continuing my study are mostly internal. And some feel that's just not OK. What a shame.
 

Danny T

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I hope you are able to continue your journey and enjoy it all.

I was asked this morning by a 20 something "why do you love the martial arts so much?". "I don't know, I simply do."
"How can you love something and not know why?"
"I don't know, I just do...I love my family unconditionally. Do I need a reason to love them? I don't think so. I simply love them. Same with martial art, I simple have a tremendous passion for it. And that is good enough."
 
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Bill Mattocks

Bill Mattocks

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I hope you are able to continue your journey and enjoy it all.

I was asked this morning by a 20 something "why do you love the martial arts so much?". "I don't know, I simply do."
"How can you love something and not know why?"
"I don't know, I just do...I love my family unconditionally. Do I need a reason to love them? I don't think so. I simply love them. Same with martial art, I simple have a tremendous passion for it. And that is good enough."

I have been asked by young students when they will be 'done' training. I think it amazes some of them to consider the possibility that the road simply goes on forever.
 

Danny T

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I have been asked by young students when they will be 'done' training. I think it amazes some of them to consider the possibility that the road simply goes on forever.
Yep...It happen but I really don't see the martial arts not being a part of my life in some fashion. Even if an invalid the mental aspect of learning and bettering will continue to drive me.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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"How can you love something and not know why?"
"I don't know, I just do...
The way that I look at this is, when I am

- young, I want to "develop" something that I don't have.
- old, I want to "maintain" something that I have already developed.

The day that I stop my training, the day that I may lose it forever. IMO, this is a good enough reason for me to train MA until my last day on earth.
 

punisher73

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I have been asked by young students when they will be 'done' training. I think it amazes some of them to consider the possibility that the road simply goes on forever.

The paradigm shift of a new student to "get a black belt" into realizing that it is only the start of the journey.
 

punisher73

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I have been asked by young students when they will be 'done' training. I think it amazes some of them to consider the possibility that the road simply goes on forever.

The paradigm shift of a new student to "get a black belt" into realizing that it is only the start of the journey.
 

drop bear

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My issue is with this idea that TMA is how you say it is though.

this is etheopian stick fighting and about as traditional as you can get.

And these guys brawl.
 

hoshin1600

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Most people, I think, would agree that martial arts training as it is known today, promotes the teaching of skills in self-defense (fighting) and sports, among other things. Many would also agree that martial arts training can be useful for such things as helping to instill self-discipline, positive self-image, and general good physical health, especially in children and young adults.

However, although not everyone teaches or chooses to partake in other aspects of martial arts training, such training does exist. Primarily, this comes in the form of what we generically know as 'TMA' or 'traditional martial arts'.

This is because many modern forms of martial arts have taken what they see as the most important aspects of traditional training and just taught that.

For example, styles that teach mostly for tournaments and sport. Styles that teach mainly for self-defense.

Many of the sport styles have focused on primarily the way the arts look when practiced. Kata or forms, both empty-handed and with weapons, and a form of sport-oriented sparring that is designed to be flashy, fast, and athletic, but also safe for the combatants. You won't find these schools working to understand the meaning or application of particular moves in a kata, for example. Such things are of no particular use to them as long as the movements are done with precision, power, speed, balance, and presentation. Sparring, particularly point-sparring, is done in the manner of counting coup; a combatant darts in and touches to score; this ignores most reality-based self-defense principles, but that is not the point of the competition.

Many of the styles that simply focus on self-defense also ignore most basics (kihon) and kata or forms, in order to focus on the reality of actual self-defense or combat. They use the movements of arts like karate, judo, and others, but modified for presumed maximum effectiveness in real self-defense situations. They would not focus on learning 12 ways to do a single thing, but one or two ways, and practice only those things. They pressure-test their training with a variety of methods, including sparring, sometimes full-contact, sometimes full-power, sometimes (infrequently) both, and some even go so far as to test on 'the street' using a variety of methods.

Those schools that teach so-called traditional martial arts teach different things as well, and to differing levels. They may teach a form of sport or self-defense or both, and then they may add to the training a set of standards to be met by students, such as learning and repeating kihon and kata, both empty-handed and with various weapons. Some schools go significantly beyond this, some do not.

Having said all of this - and I'm sure many will take exception with what I've said even so far - I now turn to the point of my post, which is to attempt to answer the question about what TMA is actually good for.

It's not strictly sport - some compete in tournaments, some win, but let's face it, the guys who concentrate on only tournament martial arts tend to do well in exactly that.

It's not strictly self-defense - although a competent TMA karateka, for example, should be able to defend his or her self against say a knife attack, it's definitely not the same as the self-defense expert who practices disarming an assailant with a knife tens of thousands of times.

So what is it good for, then? Why not study sport martial arts if one wishes to compete, or reality-based modern martial arts if one wishes to learn to fight or to defend oneself?

The answer, I believe, is because there is something more to be found in TMA than just fighting or sport. More than just physical fitness. More than just flexibility and good balance and mental well-being. More than just camaraderie and pleasurable social activity.

Now, not everyone *wants* those things. That's fine. TMA is probably not for them, and there is nothing wrong with that. I doubt hockey players think speed skaters are idiots; they both skate on ice, but do so for different reasons, and both are OK, right?

Not everyone *believes* that those 'additional things' exist. That's fine too. Again, TMA is probably not for them either. But whether one believes or whether one does not, nobody can deny that some people believe that there is more to TMA than good health, self-defense, and sport. And as you have the right to not believe it, they have the right to believe it.

Someone recently described basically everything martial-arts oriented that wasn't actual reality-based self-defense, as 'woo-woo'. In other words, magical or nonsensical stuff.

Such things do exist in martial arts, clearly. We have people who believe in what many consider outlandish impossibilities, and I will include the oft-derided 'no touch knockout' or 'chi power knockout' in that. But everything exists along a continuum, it is not black-and-white. Belief that there is something deeper in TMA than simply kihon, kata, sparring, and so on, is not necessarily belief that there is such a thing as knocking someone out without touching them. We do not live in such a cookie-cutter world, where if you do not believe in X, you must therefore believe in Y. That is a logical fallacy.

These are some of things that I believe TMA is good for. My beliefs are my own opinion; many other people whom I respect have different opinions, either by a little or a lot. And I wasn't taught to have these opinions, by the way. My instructor did not say "We don't do self-defense here, we learn the Way of the Woo (tm) instead."

Instead, over the years as I trained, I changed how I felt about what I was doing, about why I was doing it, about what I hoped to gain from it.

It includes very simple things; for example, no matter how lousy a day I had at work, I lose all trace of it from my mind when I step onto the mat at my dojo. The cares of the day simply fall away; and believe me, I'm under a lot of stress where I work, stress that follows me home and keeps me up nights.

It includes investigating things that one might think make no sense, like evaluating the power of a punch while exhaling versus inhaling. Subtle differences in how a foot is placed or how the body is angled. Tiny things that have a big effect, such as stealing a tiny bit of an opponent's balance prior to striking them, and so on. Are these things necessary for self-defense? Maybe. Probably not. In a chaotic street fight, at my level of experience, I doubt I'd be thinking about any of that; if I had to hit, I'd hit; if I had to block, I'd block. On the other hand, as time goes by, I might have trained myself enough to avoid falling down on a slippery surface, or to steal an attacker's balance prior to striking. I hope that perhaps one day, my voyage of discovery will give me the neural connections necessary to do such things without thinking about them.

It includes such things as evaluation of how the core principles and techniques I train in apply to other aspects of life. I can sit in a meeting at work and consider that the time to speak (strike) is when the opportunity presents itself, or that a person's unbalance is the same as a weight - in conversation as well as in self-defense.

It includes such things as calming myself for a struggle ahead, looking to the opponent's core to gain insight into future actions, shifting to not be where the attack goes, directing the nature of the flow of a series of movements so that the end is where, when, and what I want to have happen. Taking a hit to give one. Attacking weaknesses after identifying what they are.

It includes accepting that my training puts me on a path, rather than directing me to a goal. I don't know where I am going; I do know that I won't get there. I am content with that. The goal is no goal. Nothing matters but the path.

So I spend time standing in one place, investigating the motion of a few toes or the angle of a foot or the bend in my knees, and checking mentally to see how that affects the stability of my stance, my balance, how it informs my breathing. I practice moving from stance to stance in different ways to see how I can move without giving up as much balance along the way, to shorten the period of time I'm open to attack without being based, to disguise my movements as well as my intentions, to build speed and power.

Is that last bit the Way of the Woo (tm)? I'm sure some see it that way. How can one choose a path and not have a goal? What's the point? I don't know. Ever been on a Sunday drive on a bike or motorcycle or in a car, with no particular place to go, just enjoying the weather and the scenery and the people you are with or meet along the way? Breathing the air and feeling the sun and the breeze, just being rather than doing? It's kind of like that. If you are the sort of person who sees no value in doing something that has no obvious return value, then you probably don't get that. And that's fine; you don't have to, it's not for you. Don't deny it to me, and don't deny that it has value to me. Leave me to my woo, if that is what you think it is.

Am I deluded? Am I wasting my time? Well, what if I am? Is it not my time to waste, am I not free to delude myself?

TMA to me holds much that I will need to spend the rest of my life investigating. It may or may not have a practical real-world relationship with self-defense; probably nothing at all to do with sport-related martial arts. It does have to do with my development as a person. As I leave middle-age behind and start the long trek to the finish line; slower paced, but still hopefully making progress, I find that there is no place where one can say "Well, I learned all I need to know, now I can just vegetate until I die." No, I continue to find ways in which I can improve, and many of those involve my study of karate. I won't get any faster, probably won't get any stronger. I doubt I'll ever be as good a fighter as some younger people who have studied MT or BJJ or whatever for a year or so. If that was the point, I've failed, but I was doomed to fail anyway, so what would be the point? The rewards I get for continuing my study are mostly internal. And some feel that's just not OK. What a shame.

Good post Bill.
the ultimate finish line is death. TMA's are not a goal line in and of itself, rather it is the guard rails on the side of the road. the practice of martial arts guide you to be a better human being. the scenery along the path changes as we grow as a person and grow in age. the youthful havent been on the road long enough to see these changes in the view. their reality seems to them as a constant.
for those only interested in the ability to beat up the world, to be the best, i ask, when you get there and you can beat up everyone , what then? what would you do if you could beat up the world? time stands against you anyway. you cant stay there on top of the mountain. age will bring you down. if you have no other purpose for your training then was it all just a waste of time?
 
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Bill Mattocks

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Good post Bill.
the ultimate finish line is death. TMA's are not a goal line in and of itself, rather it is the guard rails on the side of the road. the practice of martial arts guide you to be a better human being. the scenery along the path changes as we grow as a person and grow in age. the youthful havent been on the road long enough to see these changes in the view. their reality seems to them as a constant.
for those only interested in the ability to beat up the world, to be the best, i ask, when you get there and you can beat up everyone , what then? what would you do if you could beat up the world? time stands against you anyway. you cant stay there on top of the mountain. age will bring you down. if you have no other purpose for your training then was it all just a waste of time?

Addressing other threads recently, I also believe that those who want to train martial arts simply to learn to fight (or for self-defense, or for sport) are fine as well. There's nothing wrong with wanting something different from martial arts training than what I want. It's literally all good. All I object to are people who insist that if it's not about actual fighting prowess, it's useless. Useless to them, sure. Useless to me, not so much.
 

oftheherd1

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Addressing other threads recently, I also believe that those who want to train martial arts simply to learn to fight (or for self-defense, or for sport) are fine as well. There's nothing wrong with wanting something different from martial arts training than what I want. It's literally all good. All I object to are people who insist that if it's not about actual fighting prowess, it's useless. Useless to them, sure. Useless to me, not so much.

I am inclined to think all legitimate and well taught and learned MA have application for fighting prowess. Not all students do, regardless of what they learn, or don't.
 

jobo

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I am inclined to think all legitimate and well taught and learned MA have application for fighting prowess. Not all students do, regardless of what they learn, or don't.
if put that forward before and been told I'm wrong,

my view is, that if you couldn't turn the individual in to a good,soccer player or,a good tennis player etc, then you can't turn them into a good fighter either. You can of course make people less useless, but that's not the,same,as making them good
 

oftheherd1

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if put that forward before and been told I'm wrong,

my view is, that if you couldn't turn the individual in to a good,soccer player or,a good tennis player etc, then you can't turn them into a good fighter either. You can of course make people less useless, but that's not the,same,as making them good

That may well be true, but I'm not so sure, and anyway, I don't think it is a good analogy. Someone who learns to fight well may have absolutely no interest in soccer, and therefore be untrainable in soccer.
 

hoshin1600

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I am inclined to think all legitimate and well taught and learned MA have application for fighting prowess. Not all students do, regardless of what they learn, or don't.
i can agree with the sentiment but its not a truth when you look at the larger picture.
i think you are looking at certain arts you are familiar with and noticing that some schools and people can fight and some cant. thus the conclusion to be reached is "all legitimate and well taught and learned MA have application for fighting prowess". but on a larger scale Kyudo archery is a martial art and has no path to fighting prowess. the same as many sword arts. some arts exist today as merely an art and the people who practice them have no interest in such things as fighting. so the logical conclusion there is that at one time they might have had some connection to fighting in one way or other but that they have lost that essence and now represent something different. according to a National Health Interview survey there are 2.5 million Tai Chi practitioners and an additional 500,000 Qi Gong practitioners in the US and an estimated 48 million in China. most of them have no interest in fighting.
you cannot teach something you never learnt yourself.
so how could they teach an art of fighting? those skills have long been lost.
 

hoshin1600

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until we come to a point in history where we have separate words for styles who's purpose is to teach fighting and word for arts that have different purposes then we have to live with the fact that some martial arts are for fighting, some are not and some are multi use.
 

oftheherd1

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i can agree with the sentiment but its not a truth when you look at the larger picture.
i think you are looking at certain arts you are familiar with and noticing that some schools and people can fight and some cant. thus the conclusion to be reached is "all legitimate and well taught and learned MA have application for fighting prowess". but on a larger scale Kyudo archery is a martial art and has no path to fighting prowess. the same as many sword arts. some arts exist today as merely an art and the people who practice them have no interest in such things as fighting. so the logical conclusion there is that at one time they might have had some connection to fighting in one way or other but that they have lost that essence and now represent something different. according to a National Health Interview survey there are 2.5 million Tai Chi practitioners and an additional 500,000 Qi Gong practitioners in the US and an estimated 48 million in China. most of them have no interest in fighting.
you cannot teach something you never learnt yourself.
so how could they teach an art of fighting? those skills have long been lost.

Would it perhaps be correct then to say those you describe are no longer MA, even if they descended from MA?
 

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That may well be true, but I'm not so sure, and anyway, I don't think it is a good analogy. Someone who learns to fight well may have absolutely no interest in soccer, and therefore be untrainable in soccer.
or basket ball or hopscotch or yoyo champion, it matters not , fighting is an athletic actively, requiring in various amounts , strengh endurance, balance co ordination and motor skills, just like any other athletic activity ,

if you are poor at sport in general as you are lacking in some or all of those then you will be poor at fighting, you can get some way just by being strong or fast, u till you run into some who is both strong and fast, then you have problems
 

hoshin1600

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Would it perhaps be correct then to say those you describe are no longer MA, even if they descended from MA?
yes , see my second post. but at the moment we dont make that kind of distinction. i wish we did.
 

Tony Dismukes

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It includes very simple things; for example, no matter how lousy a day I had at work, I lose all trace of it from my mind when I step onto the mat at my dojo. The cares of the day simply fall away; and believe me, I'm under a lot of stress where I work, stress that follows me home and keeps me up nights.

It includes investigating things that one might think make no sense, like evaluating the power of a punch while exhaling versus inhaling. Subtle differences in how a foot is placed or how the body is angled. Tiny things that have a big effect, such as stealing a tiny bit of an opponent's balance prior to striking them, and so on. Are these things necessary for self-defense? Maybe. Probably not. In a chaotic street fight, at my level of experience, I doubt I'd be thinking about any of that; if I had to hit, I'd hit; if I had to block, I'd block. On the other hand, as time goes by, I might have trained myself enough to avoid falling down on a slippery surface, or to steal an attacker's balance prior to striking. I hope that perhaps one day, my voyage of discovery will give me the neural connections necessary to do such things without thinking about them.

It includes such things as evaluation of how the core principles and techniques I train in apply to other aspects of life. I can sit in a meeting at work and consider that the time to speak (strike) is when the opportunity presents itself, or that a person's unbalance is the same as a weight - in conversation as well as in self-defense.

It includes such things as calming myself for a struggle ahead, looking to the opponent's core to gain insight into future actions, shifting to not be where the attack goes, directing the nature of the flow of a series of movements so that the end is where, when, and what I want to have happen. Taking a hit to give one. Attacking weaknesses after identifying what they are.

It includes accepting that my training puts me on a path, rather than directing me to a goal. I don't know where I am going; I do know that I won't get there. I am content with that. The goal is no goal. Nothing matters but the path.

So I spend time standing in one place, investigating the motion of a few toes or the angle of a foot or the bend in my knees, and checking mentally to see how that affects the stability of my stance, my balance, how it informs my breathing. I practice moving from stance to stance in different ways to see how I can move without giving up as much balance along the way, to shorten the period of time I'm open to attack without being based, to disguise my movements as well as my intentions, to build speed and power.

I like this description of how you approach your training.

My only question is - what distinguishes this as TMA as opposed to something else? Everything you here wrote applies 100% to my own training. Does this mean that my own personal blend of BJJ/Muay Thai/MMA/Kali/Capoeira/Wing Tsun/etc is a traditional martial art?
 
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Bill Mattocks

Bill Mattocks

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I like this description of how you approach your training.

My only question is - what distinguishes this as TMA as opposed to something else? Everything you here wrote applies 100% to my own training. Does this mean that my own personal blend of BJJ/Muay Thai/MMA/Kali/Capoeira/Wing Tsun/etc is a traditional martial art?

I honestly could not say, as I have not spent much time with any other martial art. I suppose I presumed (perhaps erroneously) that since Japanese arts such as flower arranging, tea-making, and calligraphy offer a 'deeper interpretation' or a 'way' (do), it was unique to Japanese (or Okinawan) martial arts.
 

drop bear

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Good post Bill.
the ultimate finish line is death. TMA's are not a goal line in and of itself, rather it is the guard rails on the side of the road. the practice of martial arts guide you to be a better human being. the scenery along the path changes as we grow as a person and grow in age. the youthful havent been on the road long enough to see these changes in the view. their reality seems to them as a constant.
for those only interested in the ability to beat up the world, to be the best, i ask, when you get there and you can beat up everyone , what then? what would you do if you could beat up the world? time stands against you anyway. you cant stay there on top of the mountain. age will bring you down. if you have no other purpose for your training then was it all just a waste of time?

If a martial art says it does beating up and doesn't. Why should I believe it does anything it claims?

Part of martial arts for me is about removing self deception.
 

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