Martial Arts: Your interest?

Speak for yourself, Whyte Horse! I practice my Tai Chi full speed and while sparring I'll often integrate Tai Chi.

TheDude wrote: Speak for yourself, Whyte Horse! I practice my Tai Chi full speed and while sparring I'll often integrate Tai Chi.

Well you obviously haven't been sent off balance yet then... keep it up and you will see

i respect everyone who practices any art or system, simply for the fact that as MAists i belive we should be respectful to one another on principle and as human beings i think we should always want to see one another become the best that we can be

so i offer respect to all styles and to all practioners by default

what i would say about "real fight experience" is that REAL FIGHT experience is dangerous to get

people get their teeth kicked out when they lose REAL FIGHTS - sometimes they get teeth kicked out even when they WIN real fights

in my experience, the assumption SHOULD be that if you have to get into a real fight, you will be outmatched - i can say that i have probably lost as many fights as i have won IRL, simply because, as a general rule, if i can win i do not HAVE to fight

it is the situations where its obvious that youre going to lose that you have the least amount of choice in, or influence over

real fighting and what most people call "sparring" are not the same thing at all

a lot of the sparring that ive seen and done is good natured, and often amounts to a point contest between friends
within dojos or schools its also usually limited to the system - i.e. no judo throws in a tkd school and no thai low kicks to clinch in an aikido class

in other words, its not a real fight and it doesnt really simulate what you would experience in a real fight with a real person who doesnt know anything about the style you train in

so imo, this kind of sparring is good for practicing the motions of techninques, good for learning to read certain kinds of movements from other people and good for recognizing and getting openings in certain situations - its good for a lot of things, really; sparring of all kinds is a mandatory part of training, its all useful
but it is not all "real fight experience"

imo, the best way to get the kind of experience that translates into real fighting ability against genuinely dangerous people, is to spend some time in amateur boxing and in a sport grappling system like judo or brazilian jiu jitsu

and train to sprint and swim very quickly using your whole body for long stretches

whether its in the ring or "on the street" , until youve been in ten, fifteen, maybe twenty fights, against people really trying to knock your block off, or spent AT LEAST 50 - 100 hours against people who are good at submission grappling in a way that if they get the better of you then you wont be able to prevent them from breaking your arm or choking you unconscious ect, then you havent had enough "real fight experience" to really appreciate what a real fight is about

that being said, if you train using the methods that people who fight professionally use to prepare themselves to fight, even if you dont compete yourself, then that kind of training will make you more likely to win or survive a real fight

if youre training to do things at full speed and full power, accurately and without losing balance and with the understanding that you have to string one thing after another, then youre at least preparing yourself to be able to do SOMETHING against someone who is really coming after you

its important to understand that really hitting and really getting hit wear you out quick

responding to someone who is sincerely traing to break your head will wear you out quick. and this is something that sparring doesnt usually address - sparring partners dont really want to hurt each other in most cases

so im not saying that sparring is no good, again, sparring is super important and it does help to develop and improve skills

but imo there is no substitute for training the way fighters train if you want to be effective in a real fight

ive heard people say things like "real fights are usually over quick - like 30 seconds to a minute and "real fights usually go to the ground"

imo its a bad idea to make any kind of definite assumptions about what happens in real fights beyond the assumption that youre against something that can beat you and that things are not going to go the way that you usually imagine -that things are going to happen in ways youve never considered

real fights might be over in one punch or they might go on for twenty minutes

theres no way to know in advance what will be happen in a fight

amateur boxing in the U.S. is a three round match with each round being three minutes long

even if you dont want to actually compete, imo this is a good context to train for, the idea being that you have to train to do twice the amount that the match will require

OB1Shinobi wrote: whether its in the ring or "on the street" , until youve been in ten, fifteen, maybe twenty fights, against people really trying to knock your block off, or spent AT LEAST 50 - 100 hours against people who are good at submission grappling in a way that if they get the better of you then you wont be able to prevent them from breaking your arm or choking you unconscious ect, then you havent had enough "real fight experience" to really appreciate what a real fight is about

I wanted to add that once you've gotten to this point you can train pretty much any style because youll understand it from the perspective of personal experience in genuine fights

I suddenly got this urge to try and create essentially a fight club business where people could come in and beat each other up (after signing a bunch of forms, of course). Enough fights and you start to get used to it. lolol. Maybe not the smartest option, but could be effective. Of course, that's what MMA gyms and stuff can do.

@Conner
i say go for it

the "Dog Brothers" did it with stick fighting back i think in the early 90's or late 80s and theyre known world wide now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvmLQ_Jjqmk

That's so awesome! A very healthy thing, if you ask me.

I'm a MCMAP Tan Belt... So, essentially, I know how to throw a rear hand straight punch, do some very simple throws, and break somebody's wrist if they telegraph grabbing my collar like a zombie from the old version of Dawn of the Dead.

On a better note, I intend to start studying Wing Chun after I move back to the states. After learning basic Wing Chun I'm probably going to dabble in Jeet Kune Do. I like both of their fighting philosophies, and think that my personality would fit in with those disciplines best.

i think i will post this in the Jedi Warrior thread too but it belongs here first imo

like the title says, its a girl, and she is destroying boys, in the park, with jiu jitsu.

i want to point out that while it can be said that the boys are "just playing around", they really are NOT "just playing around";
they want to win and they cant
and its because she has some fundamental ground submission skills, and they dont.
and she is "just playing around" too, which is why none of the boys were killed or injured

basically this is a short and awesome demonstration of the value of submission grappling, a la brazilian jiu jitsu, which is imo the maybe single most important system for women to learn at least the basics of, as it specializes in defense on the ground against someone bigger and stronger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJnyPLuHSIU

During a conversation with my daughter about starting college soon self defense came up. I told her that when she turned 21 it was in her best interest to get her concealed weapons permit, but that she needed some martial skills to go with it. Over the years we have talked about MMA and she was very interested in kung-fu but the temple is over 2 hours away now. She talked to some co-workers and I looked around for a good boxing gym, and what I found was Krav Maga. I know it by reputation only, but apparently one of the best studio's in the state is right down the road. I definitely think I need to look into it a bit more.