How much better is a martial-arts master then just a well-trained fighter?

In My Humble Opinion
101

Thanks for that lovely image! :smiley: I firmly believe that anyone who questions boxers’ effectiveness really ought to enjoy the pleasure of gloving up with even a moderately skilled practitioner.

Tris - my interpretation of IOM’s reference to “schools of training” was referring to martial arts “styles” and approaches to teaching and training, rather than brick and mortar academies. Further on in his post he mentions “Boxing, Wrestling, Thai Boxing, Judo” - which, in my opinion, would probably be as good a starting point as any. And, as should be clear by now, he (and I) are strong believers that mixed martial arts (properly done) are superior to any individual art.

And while you’ll never get unanimity as to the best teachers/academies, I’m pretty sure most fighters would be able to draw up a short list of folks they’d like to train with. More significantly, IME the better fighters/instructors generally are always on the lookout for opportunities to train with evermore different people from varying styles, to both learn how to deal with what they are bringing, as well as to see if they offer anything he can incorporate into his arsenal.

102

Also, there’s styles that are totally different (eg wrestling vs kickboxing) and styles that are just different in the details (various forms of karate).

Judo, where you basically just learn how to throw someone to the ground, is worthless on its own. Jujitsu or other types of wrestling are more effective than kickboxing because it’s easy to take a fight to the ground and keep it there. But the best fighter has learned each of the various genre and can fight both on his feet and on the ground, so there’s no reason arguing jujitsu vs karate.

As for differences within a single genre… karate vs kung fu… that is usually not important. It is not important because the differences are in the riskier, fancier strikes. The conservative strikes (punching, low kicks) are universal. Everything else is gymnastics that you won’t use against a trained opponent, but might benefit you on the street. (If what you want to do is get out of a steetfight, throwing something fancy will scare the shit out of most opponents. He’ll either quit, or be at a serious mental disadvantage.)

103

I have studied for many years, in multiple arts, and am definitely not a layperson…and I disagree totally.

Boxing creates the best boxers, aikido creates the best aikidokas, UFC crosstraining creates the best UFCers, etc. Arts and training are contextual, and I have yet to come across an art that is the best in “global all-application badassery”. There are specific ones that IMO excel in specific merits, for example a UFC coach would create a fantastic ring brawler but I wouldn’t trust one to teach effective rape prevention.

Specifically define “fighter” and we’ll go from there. Otherwise, the only thing we are discussing is “best food” or “best car” which are far too generalized to arrive at any useful discussion.

104

I’m thinking the context is a fight between “A Martial arts master vs a well-trained fighter.” And by this, I would assume no rules. That means the better “fighter” would be the one best suited in an open fighting environment. Sure, if the UFC heavyweight wishes to go against against an Aikido master using nothing but Aikido moves and rules, the master MIGHT win. Put them both in a ring and say “you can’t leave until one of you go down,” and my money is on the UFC heavyweight.

Specialization is for bugs, not fighters.

105

Judo is useless on it’s own…ever been thrown head first into the ground by a Judo player? I have, and I know my way around a fight pretty well. Ever nearly had your arm broken being thrown by the coach?

Gargoyle, you are of course correct in that whatever you train, you get good at. The question is how best to spend your time. All the nonsense about competition fighting building in disadvantage by not allowing extreme ultimate power techniques like poking someone in the eye is precisely that; nonsense. Besides, how quickly do you think you could teach a skilled ring fighter effective rape prevention? I’d imagine pretty damn fast.

On the subject of rape prevention, any tips for us? This is an area I have thought long and hard about after being faced with the reality of a small, delicate female friend of mine being raped by a big, scary guy on drugs. When faced with the reality that 99% of what I teach relies on extensive training to stand a chance of working in such a situation, I was only able to come to one solution that might work for her - namely striking to the throat as hard as possible, then running as fast as she could.

Yes, everything has strengths and weaknesses, thanks for pointing out what should be (but often isn’t in discussions such as these) obvious. Cross training (the origin of MMA competition) is the magic bullet - train in several disciplines to cover each of the other’s weak spots. Judo and Boxing for example is a magnificent combination for self defence, provided that you think in terms of the “pavement arena” and take the time to familiarise yourself with dirty techniques.

What many fail to appreciate is that the groin strike, eye poke, fish-hook school of self defence is a collection of cool tricks. Tricks mean NOTHING without a solid base to work from. You gots to get that base from somewhere, and the aforementioned styles provide it. Not because they’re necessarily any better than the others, but because they are typically trained in a more realistic fashion. I’ve lost track of how many people have tried to teach me how to deal with this grab, or that one, two hands, one hand, wrist, lapel…and most of them are optomistic at best. I have one solution to ANY grab, and it’s based on a transition from freestyle wrestling. Does it disable the opponent? Nope. Does it at least twist their arms around in new and interesting ways? Nope? What DOES it do? It puts me in a position where I can apply my training. Knee strikes to the groin, the legs, the ribs and even the head become available. Throws which set up either a fight finishing strangle hold, windpipe crushing forearm strike or highly dangerous neck crank are right there for the taking. These are techniques which we have trained extensively at full speed against resisting opponents, so I know I can rely on them.

106

This also illustrates a fine point; the fighters who are effective are those who know a few techniques, but many ways to get to those techniques. I call it “playing your game”, as opposed to letting the other guy play his. This is another excellent way to work around your system’s shortcomings.

No one system is perfect. Some are demonstrably better than others, but there’s always going to be weak ranges. Even if your system covers all ranges, it is inherently weaker because your time is split; jack of all trades, master of none. Ultimately, the responsibility is with the individual to get the training they want, from where-ever they can get it. The vast majority of martial arts students choose not to, because the vast majority aren’t really serious about it. And yet, they like to talk the talk; it’s an ego thing. Hell, I know more than the average bear, but I’m also very open about my limits. My life is less about being a hardcore student of the fighting arts nowadays - I’ve come a long way from the timid, socially inept boy who went to his first taekwondo class. I’ve proved to myself that I can face a tough opponent, that I have the mental strength to back up my physical training, that I am informed enough to deliver good advice to those that want it/need it. I still teach, and I still train, but it is more for the benefit of my students than it is for me.

I want to be able to run my dance company, and perform magic tricks at corporate events for an obscene hourly rate, and teach maths and physics to my private students who are getting less than they should at school. So yeah, I take it easier than I should and sometimes I feel a little like I should practise what I preach, but I also know that our school gets a helluva lot closer than most.

107

I’m afraid she’ll just get scared and won’t strike with full force and confidence. There’s no technique that will be effective if your mind’s isn’t. Tell her to always use maximum force when training (which is a bit hard, if the neck’s your target) and she’ll stand a chance of learning it in muscle memory.

108

And another thing…

I’ve sometimes wondered whether the best self defence training wouldn’t be to do the first year of a variety of arts. A year of boxing, a year of Judo, a year of this, a year of that. The reasoning is that most martial arts end up trying to beat themselves, rather than the rest of the world. This is easy to understand when you realise that the overwhelming majority of the fights these people have is within their own training sessions. So judo has all these combinations and counter-throws, grip work and fancy techniques. Effective? Of course! But not, strictly speaking, necessary. O-Soto-Gari, properly executed, is a devastating throw, and often dismissed as a beginner’s throw because it is among the first taught and rarely works against other judo players. But it works against non-judo players very well; one assumes that your assailant isn’t a serious student of technical fighting arts (not to say thy aren’t hard as nails and very scary of course). You certainly don’t need to worry about said street thug trying to nail you with O-Goshi and ooo, what was the counter move to that again?

Same with boxing. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut, overhand and a few more make up your standard repertoire. Combinations, weaving, ringcraft are all essential to fighting other boxers but the basic punches are what matters in the real world.

The only significant arguement I can think of is that some of the fancier stuff may just click with you. I struggle to get a basic throw on, but I do love to body-slam my opponents :slight_smile: It’s just a move that suits me.

So a self defence programme lasting for 3 years could incorporate the fundamentals of three arts which emphasise different ranges of combat. Read the good books, watch the good DVDs while you’re at it and I reckon you’ve got a pretty good education on self defence right there. I think it would be an interesting exercise to run a school this way; have specialist instructors in the disciplines you want to cover and have a rotating programme; three groups of students focussing on one aspect for a year before all rotating to the next one. To really make this approach work, you would have to make sure each instructor spent some time covering the transitions from one aspect to another; your boxer would have to be able to cover the material on dealing with grappling and kicking, and moving between these ranges.

Hmm…totally off topic by now, just thinking aloud really!

109

Lord knows I’m not claiming to be an expert in anything but this is wrong on two points and I question why you say it.

First, while judo is obviously big on throws that is not by a long shot all that you learn. General wrestling and submission holds are a big part of judo as well.

Second, even if all you learned was how to throw someone that is a valuable offensive and defensive weapon - it will help keep you from getting thrown down and while judo players hop right back up after getting thrown onto a padded surface, with some expectation of exactly how they are going to land, by an opponent who is not actually trying to injure them, with a good breakfall at impact, it’s still quite a hit. The result will be much more dramatic when it’s someone fighting to defend themself slamming an unprepared, unskilled opponent into a cement sidewalk.

110

I was not really trying to find a specific place to learn martial arts, but thanks. I have never needed the limited training I did get, long ago. But, the point I have tried to make is that the simple fact that there is no consensus among the high level practitioners themselves leads me to believe that the schools (either philosophical schools or actual training establishments) are not the major operant variable in the final skill of the practitioners.

Tris
111

My feeling is that an art’s effectiveness is very highly dependent on the physical characteristics and ability of the practitioner. Continuing with the UFC-training vs rape-prevention techniques scenario is interesting.

Your typical pro fighter is trained heavily in powerful strikes, holds, and submissions, which for a male in the top 1% of strength/weight/conditioning/endurance means that they can easily apply these same skills outside of the ring in defensive situations with a large chance of success. They would likely never even have to resort to “martial art” techniques (throat strikes, eye strikes, groin grabs, joint breaks) or training (forms, chi development, stance strengthening, iron palming). In the pro fighter context, these extreme traditional methods can be convincingly waved off as superfluous traditional fluff since the pro fighting rulebook makes the fighter virtually invincible except against their own highly trained prime-specimen peers.

Now, take a 100lb female. Ask her to defend herself effectively from a large powerful attacker while she is using the same “ultimate fighter technique book” as the above–strength-oriented submissions, knockout punches, ring savvy, endurance, brawn and brutality, gi-choking, triangle locks…she will quickly become a victim. She simply can not succesfully fight that way with those techniques and hope to win against those most likely to be attacking her–larger stronger males.

No one claims that the pro-fighter technique book is ineffective for her, it is just inadequate. She needs more. Traditional arts now bring evasion and fleeing, avoidance, optimizing the physics of leverage and timing, eye strikes, groin strikes, biting, clawing, tearing, rending, screaming, every savage dirty trick that one could possibly conceive to squeeze out every grain of survivability from the small size and small strength she is unfortunately disadvantaged with. That is martial arts–optimizing the small in defense of the large.

Coincidentally :wink: those are all of the same techniques prohibited from professional ring fighting due to their deadly and injurious effectiveness. Hmmm, and we ask why traditional martial artists are skeptical at the claims of ring-fighting arts being the pinnacle?

I’d love to go further with the women’s self-defense angle…I’ve seen some good training and some bad training, and have seen some of it being used in real-life defensive situations. I’ll see if I can put some coherent thoughts and memories together… :slight_smile:

112

I strongly contest that the 100lb female will fail if she has been highly trained in knock out punches, endurance, brawn and brutality. Of course 100lb females are physically disadvantaged when vs. a bigger stronger opponent, but that is true no matter what she knows. If she, or anyone, tries to rely on submission holds, then I predict that matters will go south fast, no matter who they’re fighting.

You do however make some excellent points. The techniques excluded from competitive martial arts are excluded for a reason. As I said several posts up, you have to have both if you want to be well-rounded in terms of self defence.

The massive benefit to (MMA style/Judo style/Boxing style) competition is the very harsh arena you are training in. The mental strength that results is far, far more important than any one physical technique. Thats what makes these arts so practical.

Anyone who hasn’t been training hard for an extended period of time is unlikely to be able to apply effective self defence techniques anyway. It doesn’t take long to add the “dirty tricks” to your repertoire, but it is a mistake to rely on them.

Traditional martial artists have a track record of being pig-headed about just about anything that isn’t what they’ve trained. Traditional martial artists should go roll with the MMA guys before they make their minds up - dirty tricks and all!

Geoff Thompson back in the day ran a regular training session called “Animal Day”. This was literally anything goes; biting, headbutting, clawing etc. You put your stuff to the test against someone else who was trying to do the same. The injury rate was high (duh!) but the results were great. Yes, the dirty tricks do work, but they do not stand alone.

Oh, and I’d like at this stage to point out that the competitive arts being discussed here are very much exercises in leverage and timing! If you re-read my posts I make the exact same point that you need to add to the base that such arts provide. Learning about confrontation, awareness, avoidance etc. are par for the course for self defence training. As I’m previously mentioned, the hard competitive arts provide the effective techniques and more importantly, mental toughness (through facing adversity). Add to this a knowledge of dirty tricks (easy to add to what you already know) and a grasp of awareness, avoidance and confrontation management - preferably training in such a way as to apply these concepts - and you have a winning combination. It’s all about cross training.

113

What is chi, and how is it developed?

114

I completely missed the bit where you talked about chi and stances. Sorry mate, but that stuff is only real in fairy fairy whambootle land.

115

Contra

I’ll second ** IOMDAVE’s** statement. “Chi” is just another name for bullshit. This is the martial-arts equivalent of Sylvia Brown and John Edward, stuff you can pay for and pray for but it has fuck-all to do with kicking someone’s butt. Maybe it provides “inner peace” or some other indefinable crap but it has nothing at all to do with fighting. If you want to fight and win, take lessons in a practical martial art and work your ass off. Otherwise, consider ballet, transcendental meditation, or chess. There are no shortcuts in the world of physical conflict.

Regards

Testy

116

Gargoyle

Well, I have to agree that judo classes produce the best judoka, etc. OTOH, the question is what martial arts produce better ass-kickers. IMHO, no single martial art does this. Judo lacks strikes and certain techniques that pretty much guarantee your opponent isn’t going to be bothering you in the future. Boxing lacks chokes, throws, locks, and trips. Jiu Jutsu, which I have personally taken and enjoyed, lacks armed techniques. So what? There is no law that says you have to stick with a single MA.

Regards

Testy

117

Female martial arts / rape prevention

This isn’t (quite) a waste of time, but damn near it. Women almost always lack the upper body strength and (generally) the attitude required to kick ass on people that are seriously out to hurt them. I’ve studied martial arts for 20+ years and have met (maybe) one female I considered anything close to a peer. She was a Sudani girl that worked very hard in a full-contact course that we were in. I am in no sense a Bruce Lee wannabe or any other kind of bad ass, just an average guy that wanted some effective techniques to use in a fight and was willing to suffer through the inevitable pain that comes with learning this kind of thing.

Having said that, I trained my daughter in some JJ techniques and she managed to defend herself against a couple of guys in San Diego that wanted to rob / rape her. One had a broken nose and the other had a borderline concussion at the end of the fight. She surprised them and they were nothing more than a couple of wannabe, teenage bad-asses. Against a real hard-case, this wouldn’t have worked and she’d have done nothing more than seriously piss them off. If a woman can surprise someone she has a chance of hurting them enough to allow her to get away before they recover. Otherwise, she’s going to lose badly.

FWIW and IMHO, you can train women to surprise someone and maybe hurt them enough to allow her to get away before they recover. That is about the most you can hope for. Yes, a small fighter can occasionally, through harder training and superior technique, beat a larger and stronger opponent. Generally speaking though, that isn’t the way to bet. If a woman thinks that training and technique will allow her to go toe-to-toe with a trained male, she’s fooling herself and wasting her money. Martial arts training for women is better than nothing, but not much better.
For the future, my daughter’s effective martial arts will be a 9mm pistol.

Regards

Testy

118

Having said all that…take a look at some of the Women’s Mixed Martial Arts clips on Youtube and ask yourself honestly…would you want to mess with that?

119

IOMDave
Sure, I’ll agree that there are women in the world that could kick my butt. OTOH, they are damn few and far between and I’m nothing even close to being a bad-ass. (Truly, I only know a few techniques that have actually worked in the very few fights I’ve been in. Nothing fancy at all.)
I think the existence of Women’s mixed MA sort of proves my point. Otherwise, there would just be “Mixed MA,” without the qualifier, which women could join if they wanted.
Seriously though, I don’t have much confidence in most women being able to kick butt for the reasons I mentioned above. Mind you, I’m all in favor of them doing so if they get the chance. As I mentioned above, I gave my daughter everything I considered useful and then some. It was really strange when she called to tell me about being attacked and complain that I hadn’t told her how a nose sounded when it squashed. :stuck_out_tongue: I was extremely boggled whereas she took it calmly. The doctor confirmed that my daughter had two ribs cracked when one of the boys kicked her and the bruising was extensive as you’d expect but she toughed it out and won. I’m proud of her to say the least.

Best Regards

Testy

120

Having worked a bit in LE and done a stint working with sex offenders, let me say this about hard-core rapists: They like to attack from ambush. The first moment the victim knows about the attack is when she gets sucker-punched or otherwise blind-sided. Those assholes aren’t looking for a fight. They want a victim to terrorize and brutalize.
Female martial artists, even very good ones, are at quite a disadvantage trying to defend against an opponent with that M.O. Hell, everybody is at a disadvantage trying to defend against an opponent you don’t even know exists who practices bushwhack-fu. You can try to practice situational awareness and avoid known danger areas, but until we grow eyes in the back of our heads or develop prescience, there is no foolproof way to avoid ambush.