Originally posted by Uke
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Why would you ever differentiate the empty hand from the weapon? Why not just master the motion so that everything in your hand becomes a weapon????
I do understand what you're saying though. Much of FMA is made up of fancy patterns and flourishes that resemble dances rather than real combat. There are WC schools that focus more on form than execution, and execution is what combat boils down to.
Imagine this:
You are on a battlefield. There are two armies on each side, and in 10 seconds they both will converge to meet in the middle. Once they charge and approach the middle, they begin to slow down. Each soldier from each army pairs up with an enemy soldier and begins circling, while swinging their swords to "feel out" the enemy, and throwing low kicks to dissuade the enemy from closing the distance.
That's ridiculous. Battle is not and has never been a series of 100 boxing matches simultaneously happening on the field. Soldiers/warriors didn't run up, pick a guy and then box it out with him while his comrades did the same. There isn't time to circle or probe when the shit hits the fan, and when you look at all combat like this scenario you see that.
Most times than not, one army was larger than the other which meant that there were two or more warriors to one. Real combat is and always has been making quick work of an opponent to be ready for what comes next. Combat is not pretty with good form because most attacks with a weapon involve stepping in and executing. Standing your ground to advance and retreat is a fencing match, not combat. Combat is about overwhelming, not dancing. Throughout history warriors on the field knew that their first attack better be their best attack because one may not get another chance.
Even in sword duels, the matches only usually lasted 3-5 strokes. They weren't the swashbuckling clanking of swords that Zorro movies make it out to be. Hell, even old time boxing matches didn't last very long before the Marquees of Queensbury rules were instated. All types of dirty shit was allowed.
You can thank Marquees of Queensbury and Kano's randori for successfully "gentlemen-alizing" combat and forming the current popular perception and ideas about what real combat is. Most people see putting their dukes up and going at it as combat. That's actually an illusion created by the confines of mutually agreed upon rules that allows people to think that dueling and sparring work. Most people in street fights put up their hands and go at it. They agreed to fight that way without so much as uttering a word because they stand there, moving their hands, circling each other until one man attacks and then they swing away. Boxing has brainwashed people into thinking that this is effective until they meet someone who has a weapon and then all their preconceived notions leave them unprepared.
You can even look at how soldiers were taught to use their bayonets. It was not a dueling affair. It was block, parry, strike/stab. There is no fancy quartering, or prodding as with jabs or front kicks/low roundhouse kicks. The method is to step in and kill. If the enemy moves first then its step in, defend then kill. There's no bullshit that makes it into a match or bout.
Good empty hand skills ARE good weapon skills, and its only once that you begin separating them that you lose the basis for all combat. Weapons are nothing but extensions of your own hand and arm. If you examine the art of Aikido, you'll learn that the movements and concepts are based on the Japanese sword. If you examine FMA, you'll see that in many of the systems the empty hand techniques are based off of the blade.
If you can successfully end a fight with a weapon using a particular method, why would you change that method when using empty hand? That doesn't make any sense. If the method works, then obviously its now only a matter of a lack of fight ending power that the weapon itself provides. This can be substituted with unrelenting attrition and overkill.
The method of using the weapon only provides the means to create an opening to strike and end it. The method itself isn't the tool in which you end it with. That's what some people here just can't understand and why they need to cling to sportive ideas. Their line of reasoning on this subject is predicated on the goals of sportive bouts. They're seek to achieve a knockdown in the case of boxing/thaiboxing, or a take down in the case of wrestling/BJJ. At least in BJJ they seek to force an end with a submission or choke.
People will argue these points back and forth, citing the fact that boxers seek to knock people out but .... MOST PEOPLE HAVE NEVER KNOCKED ANYONE OUT!!!!! Why predicate your practice on something you've never been capable of doing even during sparring or practice???? And even for those who have knocked someone out, they cannot do it with any regularity and their record shows it! They aspire to be like men like Crocop and Vanderlei Silva, who were known for knocking men out, but the truth is that the majority of people practicing MMA, boxing or muay thai will NEVER have that kind of power or be able to end fights based on power alone. People who think that MMA, boxing or MT will work in real violent confrontations HOPE to be able to perform like the men they aspire to be like, but often times they don't even perform as well in the ring!
If it takes you 12 three-minute rounds to beat a man in your best shape using muay thai, boxing or MMA ... what makes any of you think that you're going to be able to stop an armed man in 10 seconds or less with those methods who may have friends? Do any of you even train to do such things? And if so, how much focus do you put on that training? Are your results reproducible? Do you achieve those results with regularity?
I tell people not to rely on being able to handle situations that you haven't trained to prepare for. If you have no confidence in your ability because you haven't earned that confidence through training then you will hesitate ... and you will fall back to what it is that you have trained for: kicking and punching bouts that basically amount to tae-bo unless you are one of those blessed individuals that have natural knockout power and you have been able to KO nearly everyone you've been in the ring with.
Its not men who practice self defense and combatives that think they are invincible. In fact we are very aware or our own mortality. We are just prepared by training for combat and violence. Just like police who go through an academy to learn tactics and protocol for what they will face on the streets, self defense/combatives practitioners do the same with the focus on self preservation.
It seems to me that people who think that they are going to punch, kick and wrassle their way out of violent attacks involving weapons and groups of men think they are invincible. They have no training to deal with the physical aspect of weapons, no training to deal with the mental aspect of fear, and no idea of how to fight aside from circle and prodding with jabs, front kicks and low roundhouses. If they abandon this approach, then their approach shifts to seeking the take down, which involves another aspect that they have no idea of how to do: closing the distance for a take down without exposing themselves to a weapon.
In MMA, its fine to close the distance because the likelihood of getting caught with something fight-ending is slim. It's worth it in the ring to take those chances. In violent situations, getting caught with a knife, a brick, a bottle, a pair of knuckles, a metal pipe, a blackjack, a sap, etc means you're fcuked up. There's no tapping out. There's no ref. There's no help coming for you.
So go ahead an train in whatever you like, but once you begin thinking that you've found something that works outside of the parameters that it was engineered for then YOU become the one that's lulled into a sense of invincibility.
I do understand what you're saying though. Much of FMA is made up of fancy patterns and flourishes that resemble dances rather than real combat. There are WC schools that focus more on form than execution, and execution is what combat boils down to.
Imagine this:
You are on a battlefield. There are two armies on each side, and in 10 seconds they both will converge to meet in the middle. Once they charge and approach the middle, they begin to slow down. Each soldier from each army pairs up with an enemy soldier and begins circling, while swinging their swords to "feel out" the enemy, and throwing low kicks to dissuade the enemy from closing the distance.
That's ridiculous. Battle is not and has never been a series of 100 boxing matches simultaneously happening on the field. Soldiers/warriors didn't run up, pick a guy and then box it out with him while his comrades did the same. There isn't time to circle or probe when the shit hits the fan, and when you look at all combat like this scenario you see that.
Most times than not, one army was larger than the other which meant that there were two or more warriors to one. Real combat is and always has been making quick work of an opponent to be ready for what comes next. Combat is not pretty with good form because most attacks with a weapon involve stepping in and executing. Standing your ground to advance and retreat is a fencing match, not combat. Combat is about overwhelming, not dancing. Throughout history warriors on the field knew that their first attack better be their best attack because one may not get another chance.
Even in sword duels, the matches only usually lasted 3-5 strokes. They weren't the swashbuckling clanking of swords that Zorro movies make it out to be. Hell, even old time boxing matches didn't last very long before the Marquees of Queensbury rules were instated. All types of dirty shit was allowed.
You can thank Marquees of Queensbury and Kano's randori for successfully "gentlemen-alizing" combat and forming the current popular perception and ideas about what real combat is. Most people see putting their dukes up and going at it as combat. That's actually an illusion created by the confines of mutually agreed upon rules that allows people to think that dueling and sparring work. Most people in street fights put up their hands and go at it. They agreed to fight that way without so much as uttering a word because they stand there, moving their hands, circling each other until one man attacks and then they swing away. Boxing has brainwashed people into thinking that this is effective until they meet someone who has a weapon and then all their preconceived notions leave them unprepared.
You can even look at how soldiers were taught to use their bayonets. It was not a dueling affair. It was block, parry, strike/stab. There is no fancy quartering, or prodding as with jabs or front kicks/low roundhouse kicks. The method is to step in and kill. If the enemy moves first then its step in, defend then kill. There's no bullshit that makes it into a match or bout.
Good empty hand skills ARE good weapon skills, and its only once that you begin separating them that you lose the basis for all combat. Weapons are nothing but extensions of your own hand and arm. If you examine the art of Aikido, you'll learn that the movements and concepts are based on the Japanese sword. If you examine FMA, you'll see that in many of the systems the empty hand techniques are based off of the blade.
If you can successfully end a fight with a weapon using a particular method, why would you change that method when using empty hand? That doesn't make any sense. If the method works, then obviously its now only a matter of a lack of fight ending power that the weapon itself provides. This can be substituted with unrelenting attrition and overkill.
The method of using the weapon only provides the means to create an opening to strike and end it. The method itself isn't the tool in which you end it with. That's what some people here just can't understand and why they need to cling to sportive ideas. Their line of reasoning on this subject is predicated on the goals of sportive bouts. They're seek to achieve a knockdown in the case of boxing/thaiboxing, or a take down in the case of wrestling/BJJ. At least in BJJ they seek to force an end with a submission or choke.
People will argue these points back and forth, citing the fact that boxers seek to knock people out but .... MOST PEOPLE HAVE NEVER KNOCKED ANYONE OUT!!!!! Why predicate your practice on something you've never been capable of doing even during sparring or practice???? And even for those who have knocked someone out, they cannot do it with any regularity and their record shows it! They aspire to be like men like Crocop and Vanderlei Silva, who were known for knocking men out, but the truth is that the majority of people practicing MMA, boxing or muay thai will NEVER have that kind of power or be able to end fights based on power alone. People who think that MMA, boxing or MT will work in real violent confrontations HOPE to be able to perform like the men they aspire to be like, but often times they don't even perform as well in the ring!
If it takes you 12 three-minute rounds to beat a man in your best shape using muay thai, boxing or MMA ... what makes any of you think that you're going to be able to stop an armed man in 10 seconds or less with those methods who may have friends? Do any of you even train to do such things? And if so, how much focus do you put on that training? Are your results reproducible? Do you achieve those results with regularity?
I tell people not to rely on being able to handle situations that you haven't trained to prepare for. If you have no confidence in your ability because you haven't earned that confidence through training then you will hesitate ... and you will fall back to what it is that you have trained for: kicking and punching bouts that basically amount to tae-bo unless you are one of those blessed individuals that have natural knockout power and you have been able to KO nearly everyone you've been in the ring with.
Its not men who practice self defense and combatives that think they are invincible. In fact we are very aware or our own mortality. We are just prepared by training for combat and violence. Just like police who go through an academy to learn tactics and protocol for what they will face on the streets, self defense/combatives practitioners do the same with the focus on self preservation.
It seems to me that people who think that they are going to punch, kick and wrassle their way out of violent attacks involving weapons and groups of men think they are invincible. They have no training to deal with the physical aspect of weapons, no training to deal with the mental aspect of fear, and no idea of how to fight aside from circle and prodding with jabs, front kicks and low roundhouses. If they abandon this approach, then their approach shifts to seeking the take down, which involves another aspect that they have no idea of how to do: closing the distance for a take down without exposing themselves to a weapon.
In MMA, its fine to close the distance because the likelihood of getting caught with something fight-ending is slim. It's worth it in the ring to take those chances. In violent situations, getting caught with a knife, a brick, a bottle, a pair of knuckles, a metal pipe, a blackjack, a sap, etc means you're fcuked up. There's no tapping out. There's no ref. There's no help coming for you.
So go ahead an train in whatever you like, but once you begin thinking that you've found something that works outside of the parameters that it was engineered for then YOU become the one that's lulled into a sense of invincibility.
Check it out if you can, black knife.
~
It's a riot!
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