Seems to be a popular topic lately. Rather than go from thread to thread posting the same stuff, I thought I’d just open up my very own general thread.
So, if you have any questions dealing with self defense, armed or otherwise, martial arts in general, feel free to fire them at me from here and I’ll answer it if I can.
Been seriously thinking about switching arts. Currently been in Tae Kwon Do for the last 10 years off and on. Got bored after I received my 1st dan and havent attended a class in the last 2 years. I still train about 3 times a week. Was thinking about a good hand fighting art like Kempo or a kung fu style that will complement the TKD. Any suggestions? Btw, whats your background?
Of course, as Burrido stated, the first question is, “why should I listen to you.”
Before someone else complains about you not titling your thread appropriately, I’ll do it (hopefully this will save some trouble later): you should have titled it, “Ask a Self-Defence Expert.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with your title, mind you, it’s just that martial arts debates always get a bit passionate…
As for Burrido: boxing is surprisingly good as a hand combat art, and it’s significantly more “hands on” than most other arts. The problem is that it takes quite some time to get proficient. I’ve never gotten knocked as much by a martial artists (i.e. kick/punch system) than I have with a boxer. In fact, I’ll get back in the ring as soon as the brain swelling goes down…
To Anyone Who Wants to Know:
I’ve been posting on the boards for some time, although with a few gaps here and there, so I honestly thought my background was pretty well known.
So for the record. I’ve been a student of the martial arts for 27 years. I’ve been teaching for a little over 20. Up until recently, I operated a personal protection/security business. I’ve taught hundreds of armed and unarmed self defense classes for a wide variety of people, including excutives, sales people, police, military personnel, women’s groups, school children and, of course, my own employees. This doesn’t include running my own martial arts school for 15 years. I recently completed my book “Lies My Sensei Told Me” and I’m searching for a publisher, so hopefully you’ll be able to read it in the near future.
Burrido:
Recommending a style is always the most difficult thing to do. The main reason being that instructors vary widely even within the same style. There are three factors to consider: 1) the instructor, 2) the school, and 3) the style w/respect to you. Always make sure that you speak with the instructor of a school and that it is somebody who seems competent and like somebody you would like to learn from. Second, if you walk into a school and all the students are giving you the “evil eyeball”, walk back out.
But now to the real heart of your question… if what you really want to do is improve your hand techniques you really would be best served by a boxing/kick boxing school. They’ll teach you excellent punching techniques and upper body defense that is often missing in a lot of TKD schools. That being said, hand technique comes in a lot of different forms. As you mentioned as an option is Kung Fu… there are lots of different sorts of Kung Fu. Wing Chun, for example, is very well known for their particular kind of hand techniques, but they tend to be closer in and use a kind of misdirection and control that may not complement TKD methods.
Not that my opinion should matter much to anyone, but I have always been impressed with Glitch’s MA knowledge and ability to express it.
I’m in a wierd spot with my attitude towards MA right now. I loved so many aspects of doing it. But I regret some of the permanent residuals of injuries I incurred doing it.
I trained and competed in various full contact styles/settings for a few years. I stopped a couple of years ago following a couple of injuries. Most severe was a shattered left wrist which I never had set, and for which I should probably undergo surgery one of these years. And while grappling I broke and repeatedly aggravated the big toe on my right foot such that it hurts with every step. Progressing through my 40s, I am developing considerable arthritis in both of these areas.
IMO, a combination of full contact striking and grappling is the most practical method for acquiring useful ability. Moreover, to my personality, it is the most thrilling. Just the other day I was recalling the sensation the first time I sparred with a boxer far better than me. What an amazing combination of emotions goes through your mind, the first time you get hit REALLY hard, and realize you have to dig down and find something to keep you going until the bell rings. To someone who hasn’t done it, I can imagine that sounds masochistic, or just plain stupid. But it is an experience unlike any other I gain in my middle-aged, middle-class life. Moreover, IMO someone who has not trained in such a manner is far less equipped to respond in a real-life situation.
Altho I recommend full contact/“live” “styles” and training, my experience is that just about everyone who trains in this manner ends up with occasional injuries. Strains, sprains, and fractures, cuts needing stitches/staples, and concussions, choke outs… These can happen despite the use of proper headgear, gloves, padding, etc. For example, I busted my wrist while wearing bag gloves simply throwing a poor hook into a thai bag. Certainly not my instructor’s fault. Just a momentary break in form on my part. But if I hadn’t thrown thousands of hard hooks into a pad/bag, I would not become part of my instinctive arsenal.
Having said all of this, what is your experience/opinion on how a MA student can best seek practical training/experience, while minimizing the likelihood of injury, and reducing the longterm effects once injuries happen?
I had a nice long reply for you Dinsdale, and it got wiped out by the evil Internet gods… curse their oily hides. I really have to start typing the long ones in notepad and they copy and paste it over. Oh well…
The first thing is to learn how to treat your own minor injuries and do so. Don’t ignore minor sprains, bruises, etc. They can turn into larger injuries due to repeated use, or can be a weak point in your overall system that could be prone to sustaining a more serious injury. Of course, for more serious injuries follow your doctor’s advice! If he says to cool it for a couple of weeks, then cool it for a couple of weeks, the benefits of such will last a lifetime, and so will the penalties for failing to do so.
One potentially good book: “The Bare Essentials Guide for Martial Arts Injury Prevention and Care” by Trish Bare Grounds
Secondly, avoid injuries in the first place. Three factors are important here. First is your own attitude. There is no need to be reckless in the pursuit of realistic training. Training diligently and pursuing the proper mindset (pre-visualization, using the adrenal dump, etc) are more valuable then beating your own body to pulp. Second, your instructor is a vital component, even for seeming incidental occurances like hurting your wrist on a punching bag. What is the instructor’s attitude towards hard training? A good attitude is not that hard training requires you to spit blood and death, and that anything less is for wimps. This is simply tough guy posturing or reflection of his instructor’s training. Lastly, your fellow students are a factor. Typically, in hard training there is always some fool who thinks it is fun to try to hurt people (this is the malicious type), or he just doesn’t understand the difference between hard training and striking to injure. In any event, if it is a problem speak to the instructor and/or the student in question. Refuse to spar that person, it isn’t worth it. If the instructors refused to help, tell him that you’re okay with that but you don’t want to spar that person because it makes you feel uncomfortable or in jeopardy. Most reasonable people, let alone instructors, will understand this.
Ahhh … and the disadvantge of copying and pasting from notepad is it can mess up your formatting. Apologies for that last paragraph.
Thanks, bro.
You are spot on on the importance of attitude - even with respect to inanimate objects. I busted my left ankle a couple of weeks after hanging my heavy bag. Didn’t respect the bag, and tried to end a combination with a sloppily stupid spinning side kick as the bag swung back towards me. (My son was certainly impressed by the gunshot-like sound, tho!)
Personally, I think I lost the ability to distinguish between minor and major injuries. And didn’t seek medical treatment for either. For example, I just wrapped my wrist and kept training and fighting. Stupid me. Now I’m paying the price.
Here’s another question. How important do you feel MA training is and why? Now that I am a couple of years out of training, I consider myself still capable of handling myself in most situations. However, I realize given the manner in which I lead my life, it is extremely unlikely for such situations to arise.
Like I said, I really enjoyed many aspects of MA. Not only getting in incredible shape, but the brotherhood, and the thrill of having to be “in the moment.” But I think people very often grossly exaggerate the need for extensive self defense training. Especially for men of average size and fitness. (If I were a woman, I would train in knife and or firearm use, and carry.)
But for many if not most people, they can go through their lives never encountering physical threats by exercising good judgment as to where they go, and how they conduct themselves.
My wife and I have been practicing Tai Chi for nearly ten years…we stopped practicing with a teacher some five years ago. When we had all of our form down, we started practicing faster and faster, and then back down, slower and slower. Combat aspects of Tai Chi are very interesting to my wife and I, however, we would like to know the applications from a strict tai chi view point.
Fostering the circulation of the Chi with-in the body has taken many years, and only now ten years into it do I feel I can see a grasp of it coming soon. I have certainly not mastered anything.
In the form of “pushing hands” my wife and I at different times of our study have knocked each other to the ground…My wife only weighs 111 pounds, and she knocked me completely off the porch last summer and I’m 220 pounds!
We realize directing the chi from an opponent is one thing, harnessing it towards an opponent is completely different.
What are the methodologies, and practices that can make tai chi combat related? Can it be employed as a self defense practice.
When practicing in our back yard, we start to feel the energy of each other after about 10 minutes…after 25-30 minutes I feel like my legs are tree trunks and nothing could knock me over…but thats after 30 minutes…If I’m walking down the street and someone decided to mug us…I’m not sure I’d be of sound enough mind to do anything*
**Ancient story that gets me thinking: Long story short.
A young man goes to Shaolin to learn from the masters…he walks into the master’s office and sees him sitting behind a large wooden slab of a desk…
the first task the master has him do is to slap the water out of a 55 gallon barrel until it is all gone.
Eager to please…he does this task. Three years go by and he is getting very fed up…he has been asking the master to change his task these three long years…Finally, he goes in to the masters office and slams his fist down on his desk demanding a change…Cloven in two: the desk cracked down to the floor.
You are now ready for your next task the master says:)
I know I butchered the story but I am sure you understand.
Important for what though? For being able to defend yourself. Not very. The answer for self defense is not a technical one. When I teach my short focused self defense class I don’t teach much technique. Certainly, once you have the proper mindset all the add’l tools that MA gives you tips the scales more and more in your favour. As you started, only by doing the techniques thousands of times is it ingrained in your soul and ready to be used in case of emergency. The greatest benefit of MA is what it can do for the rest of your life, at least imo. It certainly has made all the difference for me. Of course, it also saved my life literally when I got attacked by a junkie with a knife. I doubt I could have defeated him without the training I had.
If this carries over, and it should, from being able to handle a physical situation to being able to handle life, then you’re getting the best benefits of martial arts there is.
I’m not a big fan of Tai Chi for self defense. I personally don’t feel that the techniques as they are done in practice can make the transition to fighting. The techniques themselves are ones you can find in many styles of Kung Fu (surprise surprise since they’re both Chinese right?).
Short story of my own.
Years and years and years ago, when I was just starting my training my instructor told me that I was performing to slow and with no power. He said, that doing things the way I was I’d have to learn everything twice. First, learning it slowly and weakly, and then by trying to add in strength and speed everything would change and I’d have to learn it all over again. And he was right. You need to start off attempting to do everything right, and you’ll fail, but by making the attempt over and over you’ll get it all, proper technique, proper strength and proper speed.
So this is where Tai Chi has a problem, in my mind, your muscle memory, your instincts just won’t be used to respond with speed and strength under adrenal stress.
If you really have your heart set on using Tai Chi in self defense then using the same techniques but under the proper conditions would be fine; however, it would no longer really be Tai Chi.
However; all that being said, nothing and I mean nothing precludes a Tai Chi practicioner (sp?) from developing the defensive mindset. It is well within reach of pretty much anybody, and again the answer to self defense ultimately isn’t a technical one anyway.
I see. I must be thinking of a style that comes out of tai chi, for my initial instructor could not be hit. Or at least it appeared that way. To this day, I have not seen anyone move like he did. For someone who weighed maybe 130 pounds, he could move and hit faster than anything I have seen. Except on TV. Then again I have not been in any circuit for quite a while. And I am sure there are some guys and gals out there now who are very fast!
Keep in mind that just because he taught Tai Chi doesn’t mean he only learnt Tai Chi. Tai Chi and Kung Fu are heavily related. Tai Chi is great for what it is. It conveys the calming, control spiritual elements of martial arts. It supplies the best benefits of martial arts, assuming it appeals to the individual. It would for example drive me nuts, but that’s me. However, under adrenal stress fine motor skills get through out the window. Self defense technique needs to have 4 elements in order to be consider good technique for self defense:
In a violent encounter, you will come under attack. Time play against you. Your attacker is already in fight mode. He’s pretermined that he wants to attack you and is now attacking you. It will take you time, no matter who you are, to switch into your own fight/flight mode, if you do at all, many people simply lock up. So that’s why self defense technique needs to be fast. You need to make up time.
You want to overwhelm the opponent for a similar reason. You, as the defender, are playing the catch up game so you need to get the attacker back on his heels.
Effective. Some technique is pure crap. It just doesn’t work, it doesn’t cause enough damage, it doesn’t set anything up, it doesn’t give you a chance to escape. It doesn’t do anything except prolong the fight. You want to cause damage, get the fight over with or get out of there.
Simple. Under adrenal stress fine motor skills are largely lost. With sufficient training, some moderately complex skills can be retained into instinctive behaviour or so called “muscle memory”. As an example, there is a well document case of a person being awoken in the middle of the night, grabbing his gun and throwing it at his attacker. His animal mind could not comprehend the pistol as a firearm only as a heavy, hard object to hurl at his attacker. Similarly, the most common reaction when somebody is attacked and they do not have the proper defensive mindset is to curl their fist and throw it at their attacker. This is our most basic, primal attack.
The problem with Tai Chi is not the technique, although I think there is a simplicity issue for sure, but the manner in which it is taught and learnt.
I thought some more about the question “Why should you listen to me?”. The real answer is you shouldn’t, or at least you shouldn’t believe what I say out of hand. I firmly believe that if you listen to what I say, you should then go and learn it for yourself, that way the listen will really stick. I encourage people to believe I’m nuts and don’t know what I’m talking about. I know that with even some basic attempts to learn what I’m talking about will reveal the truth and the lesson will stick. So, keep that in mind as you read any replies here or in any other thread.
The Primers:
“Real Fighting” by Peyton Quinn
“The Truth About Self Protection” by Massad Ayoob
“The Gift of Fear” by Dr. Gavin deBecker
“Strong on Defense” by Sam Strong
“StressFire” by Massad Ayoob
Good Courses to Take If Available in Your Area:
Anything offered by the Lethal Force Institute www.ayoob.com
Anything offered by Peyton Quinn www.rmcat.com
Anything offered by Marc MacYoung www.nononsensedefense.com
Anything offered by the British Police (story behind this, but wow, take their course if they offer one)
Anything offered by me… okay a shameless plug 
Is there any specialized courses being offered in your area? Post them here or mail them to me, and I’ll be willing to check them out for you and post my thoughts.
Well, what are our Green Berets, Marines, and Navy Seals taught?
Various things. I will allow G to elaborate since this is his show. But remember that their - uh - mission may differ somewhat from that of an average civilian. As well as the resources they are able to expend in this area.
I’m Canadian so I’m not that familiar with US military practices although I’m happy to tell you what I know.
I’ll start with Canada, because I know much more about that. In Canada, they don’t do much empty hand instruction. As a infantry sargeant once told me “Why would I need it? Most of the time I’ll be using my rifle, if I don’t have that I’ll use my sidearm, if I don’t have that I’ll use my knife, and if I don’t have that then I’m dead”. The modern battlefield is not empty hand friendly. That being said, he was taught some basic throws and strikes. Practically no kicks at all. They do teach a fair bit of knife fighting.
In Canada, Tae Kwon Do (TKD) is very popular on military bases, and last I knew, there was a Canadian Forces National Tae Kwon Do team. There is also some Kendo, Judo, and Aikido. A smattering of other disciplines as well.
In the USA, I did an informal poll once (1995) using students and their contacts in the US military. I don’t have the exact results anymore but one thing that did stand out was that all of the had some kind of martial arts club on base or associated to the base. Many of them were also TKD, 60% or so seems to ring a bell.
I do personally know a former Marine Corps hand-to-hand instructor. He taught Kempo in a civilian capacity, and he told me that they basically have their own curriculum within the Corps and it isn’t any particular martial art. I.e. it is similar to the Canadian military, basic throws and strikes.
I also know a former Navy SEAL. He told me that they teach a lot of knife fighting. For empty hand training throws, strikes and chokeholds are popular. The last being for eliminating somebody silently and without a knife. Again, no particular martial art, but rather what they want and what is effective from a variety.
I would assume that other military forces around the world are very similar, including other special forces in the US military.
Keep in mind, that all the techniques you’ll see coming out of the military tend to be very common, so you’ll see them in a variety of martial arts. Of course, the main introduction of martial arts to the USA came through military forces in Japan learning Shotokhan Karate (primarily, yes yes I know there were other sources), so ,as an educated guess, some of the techniques have their origins there.
One exception that really sticks out in my mind is Israel, where they teach Krav Maga; which, was also developed by the Israeli military. I know it is taught to their special forces, but I do not know if it is taught in general to their entire military. Israel is a bit of a special case though for three reasons:
it is ALL urban combat, where hand fighting might be more useful
combat takes place often with civilians present and so firearms might not be appropriate
Israeli soldiers are heavily involved in policing actions, where again immediate lethal force might not be appropriate
Dinsdale, if you have any specifics on military martial arts training I’d love to know. I’ll add it to the old database between my ears.
Also, thanks to Tomcat for the www.nononsensedefense.com link, since I had no idea that Marc MacYoung had a website until he posted it in another thread.
Tai Chi practitioners compete and win quite often in san shou tournaments. San shou competition is full contact and involve throws and take downs. It takes place on an elevated platform without ropes. Throwing an opponent off of the platform is par for the course.
As has been mentioned previously, the teacher makes quite a bit of difference. I’ve run into a number of Tai Chi instructors who, when I question them, have only taken a six month course or who’ve never been involved in any sort of fighting practice, push hands or otherwise.
OTOH, there’re a number of Tai Chi instructors who have years of experience and plenty of experience w/ actual fighting as well as practice w/ fighting practice.
There’s nothing that can replace experience and there’s nothing that can replace practice.
I’ll also second the idea that simple is best. W/o a great foundation of the basics, the rest is worthless.
glitch-
I study Shaolin Kenpo.
After Ten years as a Marine Sniper I had been taught many individual techniques from various Martial Arts styles, but never had I studied one Martial Art from “white belt” up…
as I approach Black Belt level, I find myself wondering about street application of my art.
There is no “gloves-off”, full contact training at my dojo.
Specifically I worry that after so many sessions of padded sparring in the dojo, I am going to “pull” my kicks/strikes in an actual street situation.
I know I need to cross-train in another Martial Art…what Art would you, (or any Martial artist reading this), suggest that would complement Shaolin Kenpo?
Stranger