Which is the best martial art(s) for a jedi

Florian wrote:

It's true that kata are useful; I'm not knocking them. I'm mainly speaking about schools that do nothing BUT kata.

As for defending against a variety of attacks, it's true that you do need variety in your training, but that's not too hard to find nowadays. Very few serious martial artists train in only one style, especially since the rise of MMA has shown us what happens to the guy who puts himself in a box by only training in one aspect of fighting.

And one of the very few who doesn't would be Royce Gracie who dominated the first few years of UFC and who only trains in Brazilian JuJutsu.:laugh:

Sparring is only any good if it is full contact as the control needed in semi contact develops bad muscle memory that makes you pull your punches on instinct.

when doing full contact the proper equipment must be worn...it's hard to explain your little brother's missing tooth when you have a cut on your knuckles, or your friends broken ribs :laugh:

I agree on the full contact bit. If you train at light or medium contact, then get into a real fight, you will be destroyed.

As for equipment, I'm a fan of minimalism; after all, you have no equipment in a real fight. I particularly like the way Kyokushin Karate guys handle this; it really depends on the school, but most schools wear only a groin cup and mouth guard, and that's it. It's brutal, but it's also the reason Kyokushin is one of the most respected and feared karate styles on the planet.

the drawback with full contact is if you have a hardtime finding people willing to spar with you
as a white belt in shuri-te i had to spar with the blackbelts and after my first sparring match no one would spar with me again(all we wore were gloves, and those padded boots)

to get around this i had to shadow spar with 4inch by 4inch wooden posts (which eventually would break). on the plus side i got really good at hitting small target areas, on the negative side shadow sparring doesn't allow you to get hit which forced me to find a training method to get around that too...it's kinda painful and takes alot of effort to convince a friend to hit you with a shinai at random spots and intervals...the end result being i can be hit with a 2 inch wooden dowel (breaking it) without getting hurt. i was never a fan of board breaking in schools, since they break 1/2 inch pine boards going with the grain,but as a carpenter i had access to plenty of 2x4 lumber which i practice breaking on.
when i was teaching my nephews i was using a peice of 2x8 rough cut(which actually is 2inches by 8inches vs. 1 1/2 by 7 1/2 for a standard 2x8) marine grade pressure treated block (which is as hard as cement once it's been exposed to salt water and dried out) to demonstrate to them how to do a close range punch (1 inch, bruce lee style) after breaking the first one i had to do 2 more just to show them it really could be done...being marine grade my knuckles were a bit sore after the 3rd one...
wow that was some rambling there

Actually, if you'd be willing to detail your training methods a bit more, RyuJin, I would appreciate it. I am currently unable to spar at all due to the fact that all the schools around here are of the Kata Monkey variety, and never spar. I've been trying to get around this with shadowboxing, but that isn't much good. I'd like some input from you as someone who's been in a similar situation, if you don't mind. It would be a great help.

Im sure you could find a way to adapt your current knowledge - iaido training involves 'imaginary' opponents and worked well for the exponents for many many decades.

Just an idea

MTFBWY - A

i built alot of different apparatuses to simulate situations

one was a \"striking circle\" basically a 6 foot diameter space with 2inch x 2inch posts sticking out of the ground. the posts were about 2 feet apart around the circle and each post had 1 or 2 targets to strike, the targets were 10 inch x 8 inch pieces of plywood, and each had a number assigned. i stood in the middle after drawing a few numbers from a box and struck each target as quickly as i could. it's similar to the football tactic of \"bull in the ring\". some targets were head level some at chest level and some at knee level.

another tactic i used was a 14 inch round post with 2 inch dowels it was similar in nature to a wing chun dummy except that it didn't spin but the dowels provide obstacles to get around in order to make contact...

i did lots of shadow sparring always trying to \"beat myself\", basically just visualizing myself as the opponent using the same moves but faster. visualization can be very useful...

i would also swing my 100 pound heavy bag out and try to block the impact when it swung back i would use kicks, punches, palm strikes, and blocks to do this. occassionally i would let it hit me just to get used to getting hit...nothing like a 100 pound bag hitting you in the ribs and knocking you to the ground to make you remember to block everything coming at you.

i always train with this one thought my dad told me once: no matter how good you are there is always somebody better.

if you think of that when training you'll find that it's easier to push yourself to improve.

another apparatus i used because it's movements were unpredictable is a rope with a couple of sticks tied into it hanging from an overhead branch. on the ends of the sticks i wrapped some padding about the size of a fist, you then hit one of them,or block, when you do this the stick bounces and the rope will spin bringing a different stick at you. since the bounce and spin can't completely be predicted it made for a very challenging device and somedays i was hit more then i blocked. i learned that trick when i was studying escrima, as some escrima schools don't spar because an escrima stick really hurts when you get hit by it.

Interesting methods... I'll have to try some of those. Thanks for the information, Ryujin.