Thread: Martial Arts

There is a difference so strong that it pains me to know that you may not see a difference between sport Martial Arts and Traditional Martial Arts.

Point fighting, aka tag, is nowhere close to an appropriate representation of a real life fighting situation. One hit does not end everything, and if you think you can end it with one punch then good for you, hope that you land that one punch, and good for you if you have nothing to follow it up with.

I'm not bashing sport fighting though, they're completely different things and I can't really say that the two are at all similar. There are different intentions to the fighters, different strategies, different weaknesses (dropping their hands and standing up on one leg and kicking multiple times with their leg still in the air? Pfft. That's laughable in a true fight, though for point sparring it's whatever will get you the points to win).

Anyhoo, I do Kungfu. And perhaps I didn't word that properly, Polilla what I meant was simply that if you're going to be very injured, raped, killed, etc, you do what you must to prevent them from doing so. Sometimes that may involve breaking their arm if the opportunity brings itself, choking, making the attacker unable to harm you. Obviously if someone throws a punch, you aren't able to just "block their punch break the arm and hit them in the temple." It is NOWHERE near that simple. People with the intent to harm typically don't want their arms to be grabbed, so one can expect a hell of a lot of resistance before getting a chance to break their arm.

I hope I cleared that up though, because really it is the practical way to think if you want to come out alive or uninjured. Of course you have to use your own discretion to say whether you're using excessive force or not, but for the time being, risking the excessive force is better than being killed.

Back to me doing Kungfu, I've been on the Canadian National Team twice now and have competed at the World's (I'm not sure many of the details, I just know it was a worldwide competition) and placed 2nd one year for my division and 3rd the next time in my division. I really don't personally enjoy fighting for sport, so I take no glory or pride in carrying these medals around. I don't do that to be snooty, not in the slightest, I just feel that I have FAR more potential to prove myself, in a real kickboxing match (that's what I do, full contact kickboxing, not point sparring. Far more fun for me ).

But yeah, it's all up to the mentality of the fighter to use what he/she has learned to react appropriately to a situation. That's why Martial Arts is great, getting to know solutions for limitless situations, and dealing with them properly, rather than in an irrational manner that may resort to "dirty fighting."

Some years ago i practised Wado-kai. We did all the traditonal stuff like katas and kumite. I fought in karate competitions, semi-contact competitions where you only go for points. I had been practising wado-kai for some years before my father joined a new "style" or what you call it.. i joined him too. I now do Kyusho Aiki Jutsu, where my father is the teacher. Kyusho aiki jutsu is basically self-defence.. Our training isnt only physical, we also focus on the mental stuff. We use pressure points and stuff like that, the style also includes "Chi" stuff.

Our training starts of with bowing and greeting.. Then a light warm up (warming up the joints).. Then we do all kinds of stuff. Kata, sparring, systema exercises and loads of self defence stuff.. We end the training with some tai chi thing, "Qi Gong".

And just a little quote from our grandmaster
"The best kind of self-defence is one hundred meters away"