Xtreme Martial Arts

[Knifehand]

http://media.dsc.discovery.com/convergence/xma/video/video.html

Check this out... if you can find it on the Discovery Channel... watch it...the whole special is awesome.... espcially if you are a beginner...

 

[terryl965]

yea avery well put together doc. I have it recorded my son watches it every chance he gets.

 

[Tidy_Sammy]

Watching the clips on the site, thanks for the headsup.

 

[Autocrat]

I've watched several of those things.... big show about the other Month in England on tele about it..... wasn't overly impressed.... they concentrated more on the showmanship and performance side of martial arts...... those graphite bo's are great, and you can get amazing speeds up and flick them high! - You try hitting someting with one! As for the main guy....Mathew?.... I study martial arts... I do karate.... I'm good.... I don't like being hit... I loose it when I get hit.... WTF! Thats not martial arts.... thats Xtreme Moron Arts. How you can claim to study, practice, train or learn martial arts and not do contact? Whats with all tha padding etc ? Don't they have enough control to pull a strike... to make light contact whilst moving at high speed? Well trained my left foot.... their basics tended to be sloppy, yet they excelled... ieven appeared miraculous wit hthe higher end flash stuff that seldomly works in Combat!

PS.... No offence intended to any practioners of such performance arts.... I just view it that if I started going to gymnastic and majorette competitions and performed my karate, they would feel just how I do! Sorry if I offend, it's merely my opinion, and only worth what you give it... if you dislike what I've said, please ignore!

 

[Adept]

Whenever you get into the martial arts, you should be clear about your goals. You might want to get fit, to master a specific single art for the sake of it, learn how to defend yourself, or learn it to better do your job (LEO, etc). If you want to learn flashy, cool looking moves, the XMA is the way to go, no doubt about it.

But you should be clear in your understanding that it is in no way a RBSD geared 'art'. It is just flashy moves for their own sake. Which is no bad thing.

 

[Simon Curran]

I've watched several of those things.... big show about the other Month in England on tele about it..... wasn't overly impressed.... they concentrated more on the showmanship and performance side of martial arts...... those graphite bo's are great, and you can get amazing speeds up and flick them high! - You try hitting someting with one! As for the main guy....Mathew?.... I study martial arts... I do karate.... I'm good.... I don't like being hit... I loose it when I get hit.... WTF! Thats not martial arts.... thats Xtreme Moron Arts. How you can claim to study, practice, train or learn martial arts and not do contact? Whats with all tha padding etc ? Don't they have enough control to pull a strike... to make light contact whilst moving at high speed? Well trained my left foot.... their basics tended to be sloppy, yet they excelled... ieven appeared miraculous wit hthe higher end flash stuff that seldomly works in Combat!

PS.... No offence intended to any practioners of such performance arts.... I just view it that if I started going to gymnastic and majorette competitions and performed my karate, they would feel just how I do! Sorry if I offend, it's merely my opinion, and only worth what you give it... if you dislike what I've said, please ignore!

I am in total agreement with you, I saw the Discovery channel thing again a few weeks ago, and to be frank it p***es me off.
It just serves to further propogate the public disbelief in martial arts, I think even my grandma would be able to look at that and see none of it is even remotely usefull.
As Adept said, people begin training in martial arts for their own reasons, and if your reason is to be the next Van-Damme then that is fine by me, but don't go showing the world that is the kind of thing all martial arts are made of.

 

[The Kai]

XMA is basically floor gymnastics, in fact in tthe newest Century Catalog there is a XMA device called the devil sticks, don't let the name fool you-it is the balancimng sticks the chinese girls gymnastics team is so good at.

As far as the special goes watch when Mr. figure skater works with Fumio Demura-if you can't see/sense the difference XMA might be right for you
Todd

 

[Simon Curran]

XMA is basically floor gymnastics, in fact in tthe newest Century Catalog there is a XMA device called the devil sticks, don't let the name fool you-it is the balancimng sticks the chinese girls gymnastics team is so good at.

As far as the special goes watch when Mr. figure skater works with Fumio Demura-if you can't see/sense the difference XMA might be right for you
Todd

Mr figure skater...:rofl:

 

[AnimEdge]

that toyota comertal got old fast
that and would have been kooler if they didnt make it go all glowly CG

 

[AnimEdge]

Then i watched the rest of it, uh to flashy for me, reminded me more like dancing

 

[MichiganTKD]

Extreme Martial Arts: great for the 0.0001% of the population capable of doing it. Otherwise, not much use. Can't see anyone doing it later in life. Pretty uniforms and weapons though. I like the way everyone is focused on creating their own forms. A 25 year old guy who understands enough about martial arts to create his own form and make it more than just superficial gymnastics. Riiiggghhhttt!

Want to see the reaction someone gets when they watch this video, go to a real martial arts school, and say "I want to learn this!"

 

[Miles]

I saw this when it originally aired on TV. It was entertaining...that's what it is-strictly for entertainment. I have a great deal of respect for the amount of training these folks undergo to be able to perform what they are doing. But, it does remind me of a movie....Gymkata.

Miles

 

[The Kai]

Yea It reminded me of another movie

"Dumb and Dumber"

Exterme gymastics what will they think up next

 

[bignick]

On a slightly positive note, my judo instructor's sensei said something once about wishing he could get normal people to train their forms like that. The people that do this work really frickin hard to be able to accomplish it and spend hours every day practicing...though I'm not a big fan of the XMA movement, I'll give credit where credit is due and they do work hard.

 

[Eldritch Knight]

This whole thing seemed to me like a big joke. The Discovery Channel obviouly aired it as an educational show teaching people about martial arts, but in my opinion, failed miserably. I can just see hundreds of non-MAers sitting in front of their TVs and laughing their pants off at stuff "that would never work". The Discovery Channel took something fierce and beautiful and reduced it to wire-frame skeletons, coconut breaking, and flashy martial gymnastics.

As a kendoka, I was utterly shocked and appalled at the guy who was supposed to be the "katana master". He had this little speech on how much he respected the sword and tried to show that respect in his forms, and then proceeded to totally contradict himself in his actions. He did this showy routine with flips, twirls and throws; at one point he even threw his sword in the air, landed in a split, and caught it behind his back. That's not respect: that's a total misrepresentation of a proud tradition..

 

[rmcrobertson]

I agree.

But despite the fact that I despise this stuff as the perfect example of the commercialization of something wonderful, as well as the promotion of narcissism in the arts, I actually am all in favor of "Xtreme Martial Arts."

I figure, the more crappy martial "artists," that there are out there, the safer I am when I'm stupid enough to get into a fight.

Certainly, I don't want to have to take on anybody COMPETENT...give me a badly-trained, arrogant fool every time.

 

[Chronuss]

I figure, the more crappy martial "artists," that there are out there, the safer I am when I'm stupid enough to get into a fight.

I second that.

the only thing I remotely enjoyed in that show when it originally aired was the female with the rope dart demonstrating the form and when what's-his-face got his rib broken...but if somebody had been impaled, it definately would have been a better show. on another note, I just love it when people kiai and sound like their constipated.

 

[bignick]

I just love it when people kiai and sound like their constipated.

:mrtoilet:

 

[47MartialMan]

Extremely out there with extremities for me.

 

[Dronak]

But, it does remind me of a movie....Gymkata.

Gymkata was rather cheesy, but I actually loved it. Probably because it was the only movie I knew of at the time that focused on gymnastics and I was doing gymnastics back in high school at the time I saw it. I think my parents still have it recorded from TV on some VHS tape.

Well, the shows are on right now and I'm watching them. There was a link in the entertainment forum that pointed over here, so I thought I'd read it during commercials and add some comments. It seems like they do have a fair amount of flashy and showy moves in some of what they were doing. But I also saw at least some things in there that looked familiar from my training and/or seeing what my classmates have done. And one of the main guys apparently focuses on traditional forms which don't have that same flash as other forms. So I guess it depends on what you look at.

I like the weapon highlights they've been doing. It's kind of neat to see some specific info about them and demonstrations of their use. Some of it I've heard before, like about the spear that they just did, but it's still interesting.

Edit: They just commented that that Matt would need more flash in his weapons routines if was going to compete with the best. So you all do have a point about that.