problem with martial arts

[Celtic_Kerr]

I was in philosophy class today and something hit me. I studied Shito-ryu for 3 years, and it was pounded into my head that this was teaching my respect, honer, and all that jazz, but none of my teachers seemed to mention that this was made for KILLING. I never really saw it as respect more of an "Appeal to Authority". Non-Eastern fighting forms (eg: Krav Maga) are more survival oriented. In KM you are told "this is you enemy, he has a knife, kill him before he kills you". This is what Eastern fighting styles started as to paraphrase a comedian "Karate was invented to teach you how to kill someone with a rice ball from across the room." don't give me that "it'll teach you respect bullshit, it a method of killing nothing more.

You CAN kill with Martial Arts, but it was intended as a defense. Most forms of martial arts are abotu respect, inner peace, and defending yourself from a foe with an advantage. Krav Maga is about living to see the sun the nextday, any. means. necessary.

The first thing my martial Arts teach told me: There are three people in front of you: they have knives. Run. Sure you can try to be the hero, but chances are you'll fail.

 

[vanthebaron]

snip

As a ninja, I find your post mildly offensive. But I understand that it is mainly due to ignorance so I shall attempt to enlighten you.

A technique can teach you to trip someone up, disarm them, and kill them. Well done, you HAVE WON THE MATCH, you gain "Wanted for murder" achievement.

Why not use your techniques and skills instead to change the situation from a "undesirable situation" to a "desirable situation" instead (a more complex and complete "victory"), it will solve the problem, and wont get you arrested.

Consider the following from The Art of War.

"To fight and conquer in all you battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
- If you feel that fighting is to win and winning consists of battling an enemy and defeating them, then perhaps you have forgotten what you fight for.

"The highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the next is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and worst of all is to besiege walled cities."
-Every martial art favours keeping you in a safe position, and stopping the enemy from taking an advantage. You keep them at bay, you disable them, disarm them, stop them from continuing. To balk their plans gives you control; preventing them from mustering force keeps them weak; and attacking them directly will force them to defend. However, who would attack an enemy who is prepared to defend themselves, and has no need to attack - an unwise man indeed.

So the point of a martial art is to use it as little as possible. It is about maintaining control of a situation rather than fighting for your life, a wise man should never need to fight for his life. Maybe if you trained your mind and body AT THE SAME TIME you'd understand why martial arts like Tai Chi exist, they are as must meditative exercises as physical ones.

TLDR;
If all you see with a martial art is the ability to fight you're missing the point of why you are fighting in the first place. Conflict is more than winners and losers.

I don't think you understand my point, I WAS a Karate student, I know this, I just think it's a load of crap that simple self-restraint is something that need to be tough, I think that you honor is extremely overplayed (ex: in my fight in middle school when I was jumped by 2 kids, honor meant jack shit the only thing that was important was to make sure that my lip was the only thing that got bloody). you see in a really fight respect and honor only end up getting you beat, restraint is the only things that matter, next to surviving.

 

[Gamblerjoe]

Karate does not work against a decent fighter. This has been proven in mixed martial arts competition. Karate teaches discipline and honor on a spiritual level, but the fighting technique is incredibly flawed. Collegate wrestling teaches discipline and dedication, but not honor. Boxing teaches conditioning. Every martial art has something it focuses on, aside from the technique itself. A successful fighter must have strength, quickness, conditioning, cardio, good striking, good grappling, good clinch, etc. In other words, a good figher must learn many different styles.

Historically, wrestling has proven to be the best base for a variety of reasons. For one, NCAA wrestlers have heart and determination second to no one. They also tend to have an incredible work ethic, and the ability to absorb technique quickly. Inside the octagon, their wrestling ability shines through their practical strength, and ability to dictate where the fight takes place. If they would rather strike with their opponant, they utilize their good takedown defense. If they would rather graple with their opponant, they utilize their good takedowns.

As far as finishing fights goes, most successfull American and European strikers use boxing or kickboxing teqhnique. Muay Thai, however, is considered to be the most effective form of pure striking. Karate, doesnt even register. Other than Lyoto Machida, no one has used it with any degree of success in the octagon, and he simply puts a karate coat of paint on what is really a cookie cutter MMA fighting style and training regiment.

For finishing fights on the ground you have jiu-jitsu, which is a grappling submission art. It is preferred by most MMA fighters to Judo or Sambo. Then you have the old 'ground and pound' strategy, which only requires you to have wrestling skills and 2 fists. If a karate fighter gets taken to the ground, he is now even further out of his element than ever.

People are going to believe what they want to believe, but you're believing a myth. karate guys are not magic warriors who can crush your bones with their chi power. They are not even very threatening by everyday standards. The whole purpose of what they do is to teach you to believe in yourself, and to reinforce that beliefe through self discipline. They then convince you that you have superpowers (or at least above average fighting ability) but convince you not to use them. Anyone who believes that, and sticks to the righteous path, was surely done some good by the training. The problem is that this concept gets watered down over time, and diluted with american culture. Now its just a bunch of guys convincing little kids that they are able to defend themselves, when they in fact are not, for the sole purpose of making $75 a month off them.

 

[Gaz6231]

in a real fight respect and honor only end up getting you beat

I would love for you to define a 'real fight' for us.

 

[Jedamethis]

Well perhaps it used to be, but most where I am will teach you to run like fuck whenever you can. The fighting is only to disable them so you can run away a bit slower.

 

[vanthebaron]

in a real fight respect and honor only end up getting you beat

I would love for you to define a 'real fight' for us.

me getting jumped in the hall way at school, getting my eye blacked and getting my nose and lip blooded, 2(them)-on-1(me).

 

[vanthebaron]

Well, perhaps it used to be, but most, at least where I am, will teach you to run like fuck whenever you can. The fighting is only to give you a chance to disable them so you can run away after.

and getting the chance to get 2 of the biggest bullying cunts you ever met off you back doesn't hurt.

 

[bluejet]

my view on martial arts is you learn it not to start a fight, but to finish them

 

[vanthebaron]

my view on martial arts is you learn it not to start a fight, but to finish them

YES!! Its not about respect or honor, its about defensive and offensive combat.

 

[Gaz6231]

I think the problem we're dealing with here is that a disillusioned kid who gets beat up at school has lost faith in humanity.

Some people (like the types that decide to jump you two-on-one) show no respect and have no honour. These people are generally morons who end up in dead-end jobs where they earn no respect. Either that or they end up in jail, which destroys any trace of honour they may have thought they had.

Just because other people don't have it doesn't mean it's worthless.

 

[Folio]

Look. It might be designed to kill, but not designed for idiots to kill eachother. If you're not in a life-threatening situation, you're fine.

If some guy just shouts and insults you, you're fine. (And he might not be fine in his head, but at least his organs are still intact.)

If some guy is high on drugs and stabs his friend with a knife just to stab you. That's NOT fine! Run! If you can't run, defend yourself! He will murder without remorse because he's a total nutjob!

So it's not like every hand you shake has to end in killing. You just need to know if the hand will kill you first.

 

[vanthebaron]

I think the problem we're dealing with here is that a disillusioned kid who gets beat up at school has lost faith in humanity.

Some people (like the types that decide to jump you two-on-one) show no respect and have no honour. These people are generally morons who end up in dead-end jobs where they earn no respect. Either that or they end up in jail, which destroys any trace of honour they may have thought they had.

Just because other people don't have it doesn't mean it's worthless.

I fought back and won. But you are right about one think thought, I have no faith in humanity, but its because humanity has fucked up so many times they have lost all faith, not because I was bullied. I'm a realist, not an annoying optimist.
quote="Folio" post="18.242770.8806243"]Look. It might be designed to kill, but not designed for idiots to kill eachother. If you're not in a life-threatening situation, you're fine.

If some guy just shouts and insults you, you're fine. (And he might not be fine in his head, but at least his organs are still intact.)

If some guy is high on drugs and stabs his friend with a knife just to stab you. That's NOT fine! Run! If you can't run, defend yourself! He will murder without remorse because he's a total nutjob!

So it's not like every hand you shake has to end in killing. You just need to know if the hand will kill you first.[/quote]I know this but the people telling you honor is important when fighting for your life are full of shit. "If you fight, fight to kill"

 

[Jedamethis]

Well, perhaps it used to be, but most, at least where I am, will teach you to run like fuck whenever you can. The fighting is only to give you a chance to disable them so you can run away after.

and getting the chance to get 2 of the biggest bullying cunts you ever met off you back doesn't hurt.

Well of course if you manage to get both of them down you can do as you wish. But usually it's much easier to trip them and run.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

No that's MMA fighting. Real martial arts is teaching the power to kill with your bare hands, but also instilling both the respect for your power and the discipline to use it wisely. It's like using a gun: you own it, you know how to use it, but you also need to learn respect for the power you now wield. Power without discipline is dangerous.

 

[Zhukov]

"We will teach you how to kill people with your hands" doesn't sound so good on the brochures.

 

[Gaz6231]

I'm a realist, not an annoying optimist.

Then you are officially my kind of dude.

Also, some useful advice;

 

[vanthebaron]

Well, perhaps it used to be, but most, at least where I am, will teach you to run like fuck whenever you can. The fighting is only to give you a chance to disable them so you can run away after.

and getting the chance to get 2 of the biggest bullying cunts you ever met off you back doesn't hurt.

Well of course if you manage to get both of them down you can do as you wish. But usually it's much easier to trip them and run.

wanna know something glorious, they dumb bastards jumped me in front of the school cameras (it was in a bad neighborhood).

 

[Sleepingzombie]

(QUOTE)
So the point of a martial art is to use it as little as possible. It is about maintaining control of a situation rather than fighting for your life, a wise man should never need to fight for his life. Maybe if you trained your mind and body AT THE SAME TIME you'd understand why martial arts like Tai Chi exist, they are as must meditative exercises as physical ones.

This is what it is.

Martial art may have ben invented in the ancient times as tools for killing. But they were needed in the anarchy of those days. Today we do not need to fight to survive.

More to my point:
Every sensei have their interpretation of the school and the techniques and all that stuff. So of course there are going to be some karate-teachers saying that, and that,but as far as I have heard is that martial art today is a tool to know yourself and in a pinch to protect yourself.

As an example I practise aikido, you know gentle motioooons, pirouettes and harmony. . .Then I was shown the aikido of the old days. You break the attack, punch to incapacitate. . .maybe a little arm breaking. . . . Then you do the technique. So there are man many forms of the same art.

My opinion is that popoular martial arts like karate attract the wrong people, who just want to try to be the "alpha male" and show of. I thinks its abit of culture and abit of people not having the maturity to be themselfs.