I got poked in the eye today

[SimonM]

Today, after class, I was free-wrestling with another guy from the kwoon. It was a lot of fun. But, as anyone who has done grappling knows, accidents do happen. first I accidentally head-butted him in the nose. Fortunately it wasn't broken or bloodied. I was just pulling out of a leg pick that I aborted when he sprawled and the back of my head contacted his face.

Anyway, long story short, later in the match we were closing to a clinch and he poked me in the eye. Again, he didn't mean to do so but accidents do happen and fingers sometimes go where they weren't intended. So his index finger poked me in the right eye.

And you know what?

It hurt... a bit.
My eye wasn't reduced to jelly.
It didn't fall out and dangle from the optic nerve.
Hell it didn't even get puffy and irritated.

Why?

Because I reacted as humans naturally do when somebody tries to poke them in the eye and turned my head... a couple of degrees.

That was it, just a few degrees of rotary movement and the lauded eye poke went from "teh 133t d34d1y fight stopper" to a mild irritant somewhat less effective than an accidental head-butt delivered with the back of the skull.

So to those of you who think that dirty tricks like eye pokes and ball kicks are the path to combat effectiveness remember: a couple of degrees of rotation triggered by instinct neutralizes the eye poke.

And the ball kick... well... it hurts. But again - it's not going to stop a fight if your opponent is an adult with adrenaline coursing through him.

[冠木侍]

A lesson well learned Sir.

Free grappling is always fun. Not to hijack but I once did it without a cup and you know where that story's going.

S**t happens but we do it cuz we like it.

[TenTigers]

well then, you didn't actually get poked in the eye then, did you?
I'm not saying that it didn't hurt, but it wasn't a focused shot.
I'm also not claiming that the "secret deadly strikes" will stop a trained fighter, or an untrained crackhead.
Strikes are strikes.
Focused strikes that land with power are effective,
non-focused strikes that are weak, are inneffective.
No secrets, no great claims.
I've gotten my eye gouged, and it stopped me. I was able to continue the fight, but not well, and a better fighter would have owned me. I was lucky.
I've also been kicked in the cojones enough to raise me almost off my feet.
I snapped and threw the guy up against the wall and had to be pulled off of him.
When I calmed down, I dropped onto the floor and remained in fetal position for what seemed like an eternity. I was lucky.
I had two fingers dislocated, and the pain was excruciating, and stopped me cold. I broke out into a cold sweat. Not so lucky.
I've taken hard elbows to the head and it barely stunned me.
-and I ain't no tough guy. I'm not a trained cagefighter. I'm just a guy.
Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not.
Sometimes they work, sometinmes they don't.
But, it's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater either.
Train hard, hit hard, and hit places that will do significant damage.
..and don't push your luck.

[Ray Pina]

I've seen seasoned pros have to take a loss because of an accidental open finger eye jab. I've also seen them have to do the same from a laceration due to a strike. It happens.

I've seen probably ... couldn't even count how many times more.... fights end from good old fashion KOs and a$$ kickings.

Eye jabs work. But the arguments these guys, you know it when you read it, use is just a joke.

If you train your eye poke in the air 1,000 times a day, every day, have it down so good but haven't fully fought a resisting, also trained player at least quarterly, you are going to cave in badly from the sheer aggression that person is going to bring.

Also, who are you fighting?

My point? If you are a truly trained martial artist you don't need to fight like a girl to even control peacefully, never mind beat, a civilian bum off the street. Period.

As for the arguments about competitive fighting rules: A kung fu guy and karate guy agree to test their skills against each other. It's not a fight to the death, so they agree to certain things, usually the rules I like to fight by, gentlemen rules: no biting, no hair pulling and no striking the groin. You can do anything else. And I'm prepared for you to do those things too. But if you do, then all bets are off. When you tap, I'm going to still break your arm. I'll try to break the wrist, elbow and shoulder if I can.

But guys who fight at that level don't do that. It's disgraceful. Too much honor and respect for each other.

I like MMA rules except for one. I think you should be able to knee the head after stuffing a shoot. All moves are a gamble with a reward/punishment tied to them. I think the current rules favor grappling, where you are not punished with fight ending knees to your captured head for a failed shoot. yet if you succeed you get points and good position.

But I can live with that. And in return I've developed a double leg takedown of my own. I like it against bigger guys.

Competition by its nature pushes people to get better. The best have trained hard and create the cutting edge. Its up to everyone else to either decide to evolve and remain current or to defend why they make claims but don't show up to support them.

There's no bull****ting in fighting. You either show up or you don't.... where are all these wonderful eye pokers?

[Lama Pai Sifu]

Aren't you glad that I didn't poke you??

THE WATERMELON CHALLENGE! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM17URoyKbk)

Zing!

[Shaolin]

Grab a man by the skull, stick your thumbs deep into his eye cavities trying to touch your thumbs to the back of his head. Grab a man's testicles, squeeze tighter than a bear trap and pretend you're starting a lawn mower.

Sparring is merely mock application; an opportunity to perfect accuracy and precision. My hope is that all martial artists strive to be so good at their martial arts they never have to use them. But the reality is, attack me and I'll kill you.

Peace and Love - Shaolin Kung Fu

[uki]

i am always telling my co-workers when they smash their fingers with block, bang their heads on scaffolding planks, or get mud in there eye... it's all part of the job. atleast you still have your eye... it could've been much worse. :)

[Ray Pina]

the reality is, attack me and I'll kill you.


Have you ever been attacked?




Did you kill them?

[Ray Pina]

i am always telling my co-workers when they smash their fingers with block, bang their heads on scaffolding planks, or get mud in there eye... it's all part of the job. atleast you still have your eye... it could've been much worse. :)


In the end I don't think it's that easy to take an eye. I've seen UFC slow motion replay on several occasions were someone buried their finger two knuckled deep into someones eye (accidentally), it stopped the fight, but the person didn't loose an eye. In fact, they are fine.

I've seen countless war veterans missing arms, legs, in wheel chairs... you don't see too many one-eyed, patched, pirate-like folks walking around.

[uki]

In the end I don't think it's that easy to take an eye. I've seen UFC slow motion replay on several occasions were someone buried their finger two knuckled deep into someones eye (accidentally), it stopped the fight, but the person didn't loose an eye. In fact, they are fine.people tend to forget just how resilient the human body is...

[SimonM]

Train hard, hit hard, and hit places that will do significant damage.
..and don't push your luck.

Shot to the throat dropped me - had THAT little piece of fun twice.

My point is simply to say that training good fundamentals with resistive partners is, in the end, a better strategy for becoming an effective fighter than training dirty tricks in a compliant environment.

[Ray Pina]

Worst shot I ever took... a monster of a dude was kicking my a$$ and for some reason backed up. I followed. He kicked my luck, spun me, I bounced off the ropes and he clocked me clean in the face. Broke my nose an the floor came up to greet me real fast. No pain. But that was the heaviest shot I've ever taken.

I was figthing at 198 and that dude had to have dropped from 220. He took the amateur San Da tournament and later learned he's already been fighting MMA. I don't think I'll ever have to face a guy like that again. And if I do, I'll be better prepared. That woke my a$$ up about a lot of things.

[unkokusai]

But the reality is, attack me and I'll kill you.

Peace and Love - Shaolin Kung Fu




Uh-huh. :rolleyes:

And just how many men have you killed so far?

[Xiao3 Meng4]

Well, he's fulfilled all of MY contracts...

[SimonM]

One question to Shaolin:

How do you intend to hold my head still while you dig your thumbs in? What do you do to prevent me from using all four of my free limbs to protect myself and / or seriously hurt you while you try to hold my head.

Ever done clinch training?

[CLFLPstudent]

Ouch, Simon...

Better hope it wasn't a delayed death touch! I wouldn't go to sleep tonight!


Maybe Shaolin will dim mak you into paralysis and then eye gouge you to death?

-David

[uki]

it's easy to punch the throat and break the neck... otherwise a cracked trachea will lead to a suffocating demise. personally i am a fan of samson, of course it would be a human jawbone and not a donkey's.:)

[Scott R. Brown]

I have been kicked in the eye so hard I thought I lost my eye!

I have been kicked in the mouth so hard I thought I lost my two front teeth.

I have been kicked in the groin 5-10 times; it can and will incapacitate you if you are kicked hard enough in the right place! But if you have about 15-30 secs. to recover it is possible to get up and still fight, IF your opponent gives that amount of time to writhe before he kicks your head in!

I have been hit and kicked in the solar plexus at least 5 times and each time I hit the ground IMMEDIATELY, do not pass go do not collect $200! I landed, as they say, "Like a sack of potatoes!" You will not get up for 5-10 minutes, and the strikes I took were with very little power, they were more like medium to light impacts. They were just targeted well!

I have taken one impact to the kidneys and it was similar to the solar plexus shots, you hit the ground and writhe a bit, except that all you can say is, "Huuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh!!! Huuuuuuuuuhhhhh!!!" for about 5-10 minutes.

When and where you use pokes depends upon the circumstance. You can't say kicks don't work when you are on the ground grappling, because that is not the circumstance when kicks should be used. You might as well say guns are useless because you can't fire them in outer space or under water. They are not designed for that environment so you don't use them there. (Everybody knows you use lasers and light sabers in outer space anyway!)

Pokes are not necessarily used when grappling although they may be used for specific circumstances. For example, when you want your opponent to lift his chin so you can slip your forearm under his throat! In this circumstance you are using the poke or gouge to elicit a specific response in order to apply another technique. This is called using strategy!

If your intention is too take out an eye, that is a low success move, however if you are using it to stun, then it can work rather well. If they lose the eye that is just a bonus. I recommend a pencil or pen to the eye or throat anyway. They it will work well if used in the right circumstances!

[Ray Pina]

it's easy to punch the throat and break the neck...

I have to disagree with this. The neck is a very narrow and heavily protected target. Nearly every style focuses on protecting this area.

The neck, it is terrible to have attacked. And cranks are very effective. But again. who are you doing them on? Not that easy.

[SimonM]

it's easy to punch the throat and break the neck... otherwise a cracked trachea will lead to a suffocating demise. personally i am a fan of samson, of course it would be a human jawbone and not a donkey's.:)

And yet I have been punched hard in the throat twice and my neck and trachea both remain unbroken.

I'll tell you it hurt like a mother****er and made me puke... but I didn't die.

Defending your neck and developing a strong neck and back are both musts for any fighter. You are only as strong as your core.

[uki]

i was swinging around my 21 lb iron bar one day and i cracked myself in the left temple hard with the tip of it... i nearly ripped my porch railing off it hurt so bad, but i am fine now.:)

[冠木侍]

i am always telling my co-workers when they smash their fingers with block, bang their heads on scaffolding planks, or get mud in there eye... it's all part of the job. atleast you still have your eye... it could've been much worse. :)

If they weren't in so much pain, they would probably dislike you even more. ;)

[Lee Chiang Po]

The eyeball is an amazing piece of work. It is attached by a whole bunch of little muscles and tendons along with the nerves that make it work. It is hard too. Like a baseball. I have held one in my hand so I know this as fact. You can abuse it really bad without destroying it, but you can make a person blind for long time and inflict horrible pain on them. No one in the ring will attempt to do someones eye in for real. But in a life or death situation where you are dealing with a human gorilla that is intent upon killing you there is a different mind set. If you strike a fellow directly into the eye socket hard enough to put half your hand in there the eyeball will fly out and hang by all those little muscles and tendons. I don't care how much crack he has had to smoke, his a s s is going to scream and run in circles. And a good strong thrusting chop to the wind pipe will end his days. I am not talking about a tap, but a thrusting chop that will crush wind pipe against neck bone.
Has no one here ever had a serious fight outside the ring? I mean where a person is going to kill you or wants to? Eye gouges and groin kicks are not dirty tricks. They can save your life. Groin does not necessarily mean the testicles. The groin is the line of blood vains and nerves that run along the V from your pelvic bridge to your hip. This is a very sensitive shot and there have been people die from being struck there.

[SimonM]

And a good strong thrusting chop to the wind pipe will end his days. I am not talking about a tap, but a thrusting chop that will crush wind pipe against neck bone.

LCP, please allow me to clarify somewhat. The shots that I took to the throat occured on separate occasions. Both were right jabs delivered with a bare fist. Both struck me on the adam's apple. Both were delivered with intent and had good form and power.

And yet I survived.

I'm not wolverine.

Can somebody suffer a fatal blow to the throat? Yes.
Is it easy to deliver a fatal blow to the throat? **** no.



Groin does not necessarily mean the testicles. The groin is the line of blood vains and nerves that run along the V from your pelvic bridge to your hip. This is a very sensitive shot and there have been people die from being struck there.

Who?
Where?
When?
What struck them there?

Because if you mean they got struck with a car that's one thing. Kick to the groin is another all together.

Traditional Martial Arts tends to sometimes have what I call "the legend of the paper body". It's the opinion that human beings are easily destroyed by minimal application of force. This is, really, not true. Maiming a person is not an easy thing to do. When you see some guy in a hospital bed after a beating... it's because they got hit a lot. A whole lot. I can't recall a single incident of a one-shot bare-handed kill outside of fiction. I've seen it a whole lot in action movies.

[Scott R. Brown]

Hi Simon, LCP has a pretty good record here of his real life experiences. I recommend everyone do a search of his posts and read them. Is it possible he is making it all up? Sure it is! But it rings true. He probably has more experience with REAL fighting than anyone else here. Your experience is limited.Just because you have no experience of a phenomenon does not mean it doesn't exist. I spent 12 years working for the Calif. Dept of Corrections. We had an inmate who was legendary for his one punch knock outs. He was in his late 50's when I worked at the prison he was in. He regularly knocked out the young punks. One of my friends had the opportunity to interview him just after one of his knock outs that was witnessed by a couple of hundred guys in the yard! my friend asked him how he did it. He was up front with his reporting of his strategy. Needless to say he was also an ex-boxer. i agree there is alot of martial arts fantasy out there, but your own comments reflect some of your own fantasies too. Be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water just because you have not experienced something yourself.

[Ray Pina]

No doubt those are good targets. But sometimes dealing with CMA folks is a lot like dealing with children.... the truth and what's good for them are two different things. Tell them the throat and groin and great targets and they have no motivation to develop all the attributes you need as a fighter to deliver weapons to those targets effectively while under fire.

To me, much more important, is working on developing your body as a weapon. Being able to create openings to then deliver a host of attacks to a variety of targets. The ability. After one has that, changing a lead jab to a lead finger thrust is not so hard. But you have to be confident in that range to deliver with full intention and focus.

.......

I've only been attacked twice were I believe their intent was to kill me or seriously mess me up. Once was a solo guy with a gun. Another time was a crowd with a gun. Both times I got the hell out of dodge was not even considering standing my ground. Well, the last time I considered it for about 2 seconds, then wised up.

[iron_leg_dave]

I have been in the throat more than once and not been hurt at all. I wouldn't say a person never gets hurt, I've seen it hurt people, I just think it depends on placement etc. I got a hook in the temple, barenuckle a couple of weeks ago, and it didn't do anything more than getting punched in the forehead.

The worst pain I have ever experienced from a punch was in the sternum, and the kidney. Absolutely anywhere in the sternum , if it's a solid punch will knock you the f*** down.

When I was 14, I dropped someone at a party, that tried to call me out and start a fight by punching him in the testicles. I sat down on the futon, in front of him, as if I were going to back off, then just "pop" and he went down. He was enormous, and I was average sized, but the youngest person there. I tried to leave before he could get back up, without losing any cool, but he almost got ahold of me at the door, haha, and I had to run like a *****. Everyone understould later though, he was e-fu*****-normous, everybody called him the "grape ape".

I have also been poked in the eyes, had someone deliberated try to bust it with their thumb and never been hurt. When a person sticks their thumb in your eye, you will naturally, squint preventing any scratches, turn your head, and start thumping them.

That said, someone who was really training old school gong fu to be an assasin or some ****, I'm sure could pull all of those off.

We don't train to clean kill etc. usually. Most of us train to fight, but the principles are all there, you would just need to cultivate it.

[iron_leg_dave]

LCP, please allow me to clarify somewhat. The shots that I took to the throat occured on separate occasions. Both were right jabs delivered with a bare fist. Both struck me on the adam's apple. Both were delivered with intent and had good form and power.

And yet I survived.

I'm not wolverine.

Can somebody suffer a fatal blow to the throat? Yes.
Is it easy to deliver a fatal blow to the throat? **** no.



Who?
Where?
When?
What struck them there?

Because if you mean they got struck with a car that's one thing. Kick to the groin is another all together.

Traditional Martial Arts tends to sometimes have what I call "the legend of the paper body". It's the opinion that human beings are easily destroyed by minimal application of force. This is, really, not true. Maiming a person is not an easy thing to do. When you see some guy in a hospital bed after a beating... it's because they got hit a lot. A whole lot. I can't recall a single incident of a one-shot bare-handed kill outside of fiction. I've seen it a whole lot in action movies.

You've never read the paper in Maine. It has happened twice in my area the last two years, that I heard of, and I never watch the news. One shattered the dudes cheekbone, one punch, the other one was a fluke shot of some kind.

Most of the people here are very rough. The people in the cities are old logging blood, poor kids lift bricks, soup cans whatever to get stronger. The people in the country are made to cut and stack would by hand all summer, and carry bundles all winter.

In school, people don't take education seriously, and lots of people end up in highschool without ever learning to read. The whole point of going to school is to get into fights for most people that aren't the financially elite whos parents have an athletic plan for them.

Marcus Davis, the Irish Hand Grenade, lives less than a block from me.

There are UFC style fights in the middle of the city on peoples lawns constantly.

Last night, and the night before, are the first nights this year that there wasn't a fight loud enough to wake me up somewhere on my street.

When I was a kid, we would take our shirts off and beat eachother with sticks to make our bodies more resistant to impact. Even adults here, wrestle eachother. I'm 26. Everytime someone comes over, the first thing we do is start play fighting. Feint a punch, push eachother, something. It's the same at work, as soon as you show up, somebody wil play fight with you, even though it is technically against policy, it's just part of the culture here.

Anyway, as a result, there are a lot of real fights. Thus making the likelihood of lethal hits higher. It happens.

[Scott R. Brown]

We must remember that just because something doesn't work all the time doesn't mean it doesn't work some of the time.

We strike targets of opportunity. If the target is not available we don't attempt to strike it!

Circumstances will dictate to us what technique we can use and when. Skill and other variables will determine the efficacy of the technique we execute. A highly skilled boxer does not knock out every single opponent. Strategy, tactics and happenstance events play important roles in our success or failure.

As I mentioned above, I have been kicked in the groin many times. I am lucky I have children I have been kicked in the groin so much. I was not incapacitated every time. On the other hand, I have been instantly incapacitated more than once.

If someone is eye gouging with the sole purpose of taking out their opponent's eye they are eye gouging with a narrow purpose. If you are smart and experienced and you eye gouge, or throat strike, you are doing so for a specific purpose.

If you are eye gouging you WANT your opponent to turn their head and squint their eyes. This tactic is intended to temporarily distract the opponent in order to perform a follow up technique. If you happen to pop the eye out of the socket that is a bonus. Another purpose of the eye gouge is to get your opponent to STOP doing whatever it is they are doing to you.

The same thing with a throat strike. If it takes the guy down, good, but if you strike, pause, and then step back to admire your work, you should not be fighting in the first place! Your over-confidence will get you into serious trouble.

[wiz cool c]

This happened to me about three weeks ago in judo. Didn't really hurt that much. Didn't think is was important enough to make a thread out of though.

[TenTigers]

"When you see some guy in a hospital bed after a beating... it's because they got hit a lot. A whole lot"

bullsh1t.
I got punched once in the kidney and I was in the hospital pi$$ing blood for four days.
ya ****ed right it was a hard punch. No, it didn't stop me. But when I went home and went to pee about an half hour later, well it was probably the scariest thing I ever saw. I called up my friend and told him what happened.
He said,"Omigod! That's gonorreah! Your ex-girlfriend fukin gave it to ya!"
I said, "No, you idiot! Ya don't pi$$ blood from Gonorreah. Now get over here and take me to the hospital!"
Four days later, I was fine, but the doctor said my kidney was engorged with blood, and I almost lost it.

ps-I tried the "'ol substitute the apple juice in the specimen cup, and drank it in front of the nurse trick. "Looks a little cloudy-better run it through again!"
The candy-striper almost fainted!
I did it again with another (older)nurse and she smiled and said, "I've been a nurse here for twenty years. You know how many times I've seen that trick?"

This is the same nurse that handed me a bedpan. When I said I wouldn't use it, she said that if I didn't, she was going to have the orderly hold me down and give me a black and white, which is a heavy-duty laxative. I told her that the orderly would end up in the bed next to me if he tried.
When She came back an hour later, I had already gone. I wheeled my IV unit into the bathroom with me.
I'm sorry, but I just can't s*** in my bed in a bedpan. Nope. Can't do it.
The bottle thingy is fine. That's like peeing in a bottle when you're driving on the highway, and there's no place to stop. But not a bedpan.

[Lucas]

wasnt it knifefighter that posted that stuff about those guys back in the 1800's early 1900's or whenever that would fight and the goal was to take the other guys eye(s)? I think he made mention a relative of his was involved in these fights.

I remember a pretty long thread about it.

Anywho it can and has been done. Sure not in your sparring match. I doubt the guy was manhandling you and trying to take an eye. Accidental jab and getting your eye gouged out are totally different. For every acount someone has of getting 'poked' in the eye and not losing it, there is also an account throughout history of people seeing someone intentionally trying to remove someones eye and succeeding.

There are a lot of ways around it, and a lot of factors involved, but point blank if a guy has you down, has full control of you and is trying to remove your eye, it can very well be done.

Of course you need to be able to capitolize correctly, and having the ability to be able to dominate your opponent is the most sure fire way to accomplish that task.

It goes both way folks.

you cant just train these 'dirty' tricks and think you can pull them off against a good fighter.

BUT

like wise dont fool youself into thinking someone who can dominate you wont have the ability to remove an eye.

Of course you arent going to see this in the competative fighting world. Often times even if rules allow, you wont see this, do to sportsmanship and honor.

my two cents on being realistic.

[SimonM]

All I'm saying is that dirty tricks trained compliantly will NEVER be as good a combat education as basics trained with resistance.

[uki]

All I'm saying is that dirty tricks trained compliantly will NEVER be as good a combat education as basics trained with resistance.there is no such thing as dirty tricks or cheap shots... whatever works... works.

[TenTigers]

Fighting is dirty.
I look at fighting the same way Woody Allen looks at sex.
"Do you think sex is dirty?"
"Yes, if it's done right."

So, is fighting is dirty?
Yes, If it's done right.


(Woody Allen is my hero, He actually raised a wife!)

[SimonM]

Ten Tigers you have entirely missed my point. Please let me cut it back to the key words to make things clear:

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah trained compliantly will NEVER be as good a combat education as Blah trained with resistance.

[B-Rad]

Anyone see Willis McGahee bleeding from the eye in the Ravens - Browns game yesterday? Turned out just his eyelid was cut, but it looked pretty nasty :p

[TenTigers]

ok, I get the Blah, Blah, Blah stuff.

What was that other thing you were saying?:p

[SimonM]

My beef with dirty tricks is not some honour based opposition to brutality. Nor is it a macho aversion to sneaky fighting. It's simply this: it takes away from your resistive training time to drill dirty tricks compliantly and/or through forms. That time would be better spent wrestling or boxing or kick boxing or drilling throws or training clinch escapes or.... well... basically doing anything that involves learning a bit about what fighting is really like.

And it is true that there are lots of LARPers walking around believing they are 133t d34d1y n1nj4s because their sensei / sifu / coach / etc. told them that pressure points and eye pokes are all they need.

That is not just kung fu. Nor is it ALL kung fu. I go to a kung fu school. We DO resistive training.

This isn't a "tradition vs modernity" debate. After all the "black arts" school is based entirely on compliant training of dirty tricks and fantasy pressure points and, AFAIK, makes no attempt to create any mystique of ancient tradition.

[TenTigers]

I don't think there are (aside from some of the McKwoons, fantasy island schools, and one or two on this board) any people claiming that they practice soley in the air, or against compliant partners, who believe that they are preparing themselves for real violent encounters.
I think MAists are doing more and more pressure testing and realistic training.

BUT-styles and techniques that have been passed down and developed through centuries of real combat, did so because they worked. If you are teaching people to fight, why would you add in ridculous techniques? It's self-sabotage.
And when you look at it, All TMA contained vital point strikes.Now, don't confuse this with the watering down of styles, and the emphasis placed on forms, including the adding of more demonstrative movements. These were added after the need for fighting was no longer the goal, and marketing your school was the issue.(several generations back) Yes, there are people who do these forms and styles and believe they are learning to protect themselves, but let's take for granted that for the most part, the members on this board do not fall into that catagory.

Look at the posts by people who have used, and have been on the recieving end of these techniques, and have met with success. Everything else is moot.
There are people who know for a fact, through real life experience, that eye gouges,strikes to the throat, groin strikes, etc work. NONE of them say that that is all they rely on. They have it in their arsenal, but it is not all they have and use.To use this as an argument is nitpicking. Too many people jump on one word of a conversation and create an entire scenerio.

[Lucas]

I agree we should spend our training time developing good body conditioning and hands on fighting skills.

the great thing about 'drity tricks' is that you dont really need to train them at all.

it only takes intention and thought to gouge an eye. learn to fight so you can put yourself in that position. you may want finger conditioning, but IMO thats part of conditioning your body. a fighters fingers and grip should be like steel.

it only takes intention and thought to grab/twist/squeez someones balls into oblivion. no special training time needed on that one.

lookie, same with throat shots.

im pretty sure, after watching the watermelon/walnut challenge, that lama pai sifu could gouge out an eye/throat pretty easily were he to put himself in positional advantage, or be quick enough to beat the defense.

[TenTigers]

perfectly stated, Lucas.

[Knifefighter]

Hi Simon, LCP has a pretty good record here of his real life experiences. I recommend everyone do a search of his posts and read them.

Actually, his posts reek of someone who has never been in a real-time situation but tries to make things up to sound like he has.

[Knifefighter]

BUT-styles and techniques that have been passed down and developed through centuries of real combat, did so because they worked.

Not necessarily. The ones that worked were done with two basic methods. One was done in sporting type environments and the other was done with weapons.

All the others were fantasy-fu pretend "deadly" techniques that were never used because they were supposed to be deadly. The irony was that they weren't.

[TenTigers]

Knifefighter, I don't understand. What are you referring to?
sporting type enviornments other than shuai-jiao or Pankration, did not exist in TMA. Kendo is not kenjutsu and was created longf after the need for the Samurai. Kumite in Japan and Okinawa was a recent innovation. In China, the closest thing to Martial Arts competition were the Yuan-Ching Dynasty Imperial Civil /Military Examinations, (which was actually a method used to find the smartest and best fighters, and to place them in positions of power for the Government-sort of like splinter cells, to maintain "order" and quell Ming loyalist uprises)and many people were severely injured and some died in them.

[Knifefighter]

Knifefighter, I don't understand. What are you referring to?
sporting type enviornments other than shuai-jiao or Pankration, did not exist in TMA. Kendo is not kenjutsu and was created longf after the need for the Samurai. Kumite in Japan and Okinawa was a recent innovation. In China, the closest thing to Martial Arts competition were the Yuan-Ching Dynasty Imperial Civil /Military Examinations, (which was actually a method used to find the smartest and best fighters, and to place them in positions of power for the Government-sort of like splinter cells, to maintain "order" and quell Ming loyalist uprises)and many people were severely injured and some died in them.

My point was that when people did combat for real, they used weapons. Most of the unarmed stuff used "back in the day" was b.s. compared to today's unarmed close quarter combat techniques.

[TenTigers]

and you are basing this on what?
What have you actually studied?
Who have you actually met?
What have you actually seen?

[unkokusai]

Are we getting into time machine stuff?

[SimonM]

The same question can be made to people who think archaic fighters were better than modern pugilists at bare-hand fighting. One thing does tend to support Knife Fighter's position (albeit weakly) and that is that footage of pugilistic events at high levels half a century ago demonstrate technique and conditioning that would not cut it at the same level of competition today. Sports records in other events continue to be broken also. This suggests that technique (which is essentially a technology) has been improved continuously for a long time - like other technologies.

[TenTigers]

I definately agree that we have made strides in nutrition,sports medicine,exercise physiology,and training methods. I also think that there will always be people who try to evolve their art, and keep it alive and growing.

Unfortunately, the only video footage we have is that Tai Chi vs White Crane guy fight, and some rooftop footage, and that is all people have to base their opinions on. Two poor videos is not representative of the entire state of TCMA. It is only representative of these individuals. That is like judging MMA by a vid on youtube, made by some beginner. It's a stupid argument.

Do we judge all of MA by the bullshido schools? Of course not. Yet, we have people who base their entire argument on these few vids, and the opinions of a few LARPERS and Fantasy Islanders on MA forums.

Out of these people who like to come on the forum and prove their "superiority" and vast knowledge, how many, if any of them actually have real experience in TMA? And I mean experience and understanding.
Sure there are people who have trained in TMA schools, but that does not mean they understood what was being taught to them. It also does not mean their teachers understood either.
Just because I teach a traditional system, and have a wonderful lineage, doesn't mean I have the vaguest idea what I'm teaching.

Yes, I understand that for many years, even before the "Kung-Fu Boom," there were many schools that did not train realistically. But, there were also schools that did.

It is unfortunate that the whole of TMA is judged by the poorest examples and not the finest.
It is also unfortunate that it is the ignorant who have the loudest voices,
and the masses, who are just as ignorant, listen.

[SimonM]

Um... boxing footage.

Are we limiting discussion just to CMA all of a sudden? Because I thought I made it clear, like, WAAAAY back that I was not discussing any one tradition.

[TenTigers]

It is unfortunate that the whole of TMA is judged by the poorest examples and not the finest.
It is also unfortunate that it is the ignorant who have the loudest voices,
and the masses, who are just as ignorant, listen.

I love quoting myself. I'm my biggest fan!:p

You know what my teachers and peers say about this?
They say,"Let them."
"Don't try to educate them. Let them think what they think. The less people know about what we do, the better."

This is true. Why put it out there for all to see? Do football teams show their opponents their playbooks? Should we share our military technology with our enemies?
The only reason for doing so is to advertize for your school.
That, and for those who somehow feel threatened by all the squawking, and feel they have a need to justify their decision to train TCMA.

Keep it behind closed doors. Close the Bamboo Curtain.
(but train realistically, and grow and evolve your art.)

[TenTigers]

yes, Boxing footage. You are right. But,we still use Dempsey's book as the bible. His ideas about power generation, structure and mindset were dead-on. We simply take that and evolve. I agree with that.
The sport has changed due to the structured rules as well.
How do you feel it would have evolved if it was not a sport?

[SimonM]

The tradition of secrecy in TMA is another topic for another day; we were discussing the transformation of pugilistic competition (inclusive of all traditions) throughout the history of video doccumentation.

Would you concur that boxers, fencers, wrestlers, etc. have improved in technique, preparedness and conditioning over the last 50 years?

[TenTigers]

Would you concur that boxers, fencers, wrestlers, etc. have improved in technique, preparedness and conditioning over the last 50 years?

yes. Most definately.
Although I have to admit, I used to fence in H.S., and I don't much care for the behaviour(shouting,posturing,lack of sportsmanship) and the limp-wristed, dangling hand, that I see in today's competitions.

[SimonM]

If Boxing were not a sport...

A loaded question since most of the martial arts are precisely that.

Anyway... my guess... probably it would involve more techniques from the clinch. Boxers do tend to clinch up but the rules preclude the vast majority of things that can be done when in a clinch... elbows, knees, headbutts, and throws.

I think we'd see more of those. Boxing does have the best basic hand strikes (hands down) and Boxing footwork is definately top 10 for footwork in any fighting system so I imagine those would be essentially the same.

[TenTigers]

Boxing footwork is definately top 10 for footwork in any fighting system

what are the other nine?

[SimonM]

I said top 10 in order to avoid stepping on anybody else's toes. ;)
I'm not going to ruin that by trying to create a list of 9 other martial arts with superior footwork. :p

[TenTigers]

ok, to diplomatic, what are some of your personal favorites?

[bawang]

i agree modern technology especially safey equipment lets people spar harder and more often and improve our skills. but for twice a week weekend warriors they still suck balls doesnt matter what style they play pretend in.

u know, its hard pokin ppls in the eye. it is. but you said it made you turn your head. thats what its good for. distracting you make you close your eyes turning your head, then put fist inside the face.

[SimonM]

Boxing, Wrestling, Bagua, Fencing, my local school (although much of it is basically drawn from those four)

[TenTigers]

u know, its hard pokin ppls in the eye. it is. but you said it made you turn your head. thats what its good for. distracting you make you close your eyes turning your head, then put fist inside the face.
yep. All I need is that split second of hesitation.
Even in grappling, my teacher uses the term,"I blinked" -meaning, I missed an opportunity, which was there for just a fleeting moment.

[Knifefighter]

Keep it behind closed doors. Close the Bamboo Curtain.
Which is exactly why it stagnates and exactly how all of the b.s. techniques evolve until it becomes completely unrealistic.

[SimonM]

Knife Fighter: Well, I wasn't going to go there but, since you did, I have to agree. Hiding practice and pulling away from public competition breeds bad martial arts.

[bawang]

i disagree a little bit. hiding ur martial art practice doesnt neeccesarily make it stagnate. not competing and not constantly proving yourself makes it stagnate. look at gracie ju jitsu. when it first showed in america at the first ufc people were liek wtf how do i counter this?? it was new and dangerous. now days every serious martial artist knows ground fighting and how to defend it. its not as dangerous anymore because the gracie family taught anyone and everyone.
i think hiding your training is good as long as you compete and fight.

[Knifefighter]

i disagree a little bit. hiding ur martial art practice doesnt neeccesarily make it stagnate. not competing and not constantly proving yourself makes it stagnate. look at gracie ju jitsu. when it first showed in america at the first ufc people were liek wtf how do i counter this?? it was new and dangerous. now days every serious martial artist knows ground fighting and how to defend it. its not as dangerous anymore because the gracie family taught anyone and everyone.
i think hiding your training is good as long as you compete and fight.

Gracie JJ was well known and well tested publicly in Brazil for 40+ years before the UFC ever came about.

GJJ is actually an ideal case study for how taking your art "in house" causes it to become less effective. In the late 90's, Rorion's school discouraged openly sharing and competing against other schools and became more of a "closed-door technique" school. On the one rare occasion when there was a competition involving the Gracie school and the Machado school (whose students openly competed), the Torrance guys got their asses handed to them. The only Gracie students who did well were those who had been competing and crosstraining under the radar.

[Ray Pina]

Unfortunately, the only video footage we have is that Tai Chi vs White Crane guy fight, and some rooftop footage, and that is all people have to base their opinions on. Two poor videos is not representative of the entire state of TCMA. It is only representative of these individuals. That is like judging MMA by a vid on youtube, made by some beginner. It's a stupid argument.

To be fair, those two kung fu players were not "beginners" but generally held in high regard for their skill.

I have no doubt in Kung Fu's technique. It is the quality of its followers today -- and for that each school must take responsibility for itself -- that is dragging it down. The advantage that Judo, BJJ, MMA, Thai Boxing, boxing, fencing, even full-contact karate has is that the players put their technology to the test daily in free play. The results of that is why a large percentage of them go out to compare in various sporting venues and grow and perpetuate an art and training method.

From my experience, every kung fu school I ever attended not only looked down on, but spoke poorly of surrounding kung fu schools, their methods, etc. Made it so that it seamed a waist of time to compare with such "low level" kin. To play with them we have to play by their rules, because they don't know the deadly stuff, and that's not fair for us, because we can't express ourselves.

But then can we spar in class?

Didn't you hear what I said, it's too dangerous.

And thus a combat art becomes opera.

[TenTigers]

hiding your art behind closed doors has nothing to do with stagnation.
It doesn't mean not being aware of what is going on around you,
it is keeping others from knowing what you are doing.
You can be doing any type of cross-training-MMA, TMA, whatever. It just means you are not revealing what you do. It doesn't mean you wear blinders.
It's like concealed carry.

[Ray Pina]

It is unfortunate that the whole of TMA is judged by the poorest examples and not the finest.

The truth is there just aren't any straight Kung Fu guys doing anything impressive right now. I know there are tons who swear they have unique material, and fine, but what is it's value?

To be fair again though, there are no straight any stylists doing anything really impressive today. It's a new world. People are training very hard. You need to be well versed in a few disciplines, if for no other reason then to offer a skilled fighter a few different looks and to survive standing or down.

[Lucas]

I think instead of using old footage of lame fighters based in CMA as a level of judgment, people should instead take the top ranked CMA trained SanShou fighters to base their examples......

edit:

know one knows what chinese unarmed fighters were like 1000 years ago.....because.....well no one was there. All we can go off of are historical and literary records. examinations in the military and so forth.

[bawang]

to tell the truth, most people who learned from money making school i met arent that good. the traditional people that were amazing i met learned from different people, and their teachers all refused to be called sifu and taught them for free. there are kung fu teachers out there teaching only one student. i just want to say good people are out there but its usuallly not on youtube except for few exceptions. if you get your info from youtube your viewpoint can get REALLY skewed and messed up

[Ray Pina]

Why put it out there for all to see? Do football teams show their opponents their playbooks? Should we share our military technology with our enemies?
The only reason for doing so is to advertize for your school.
That, and for those who somehow feel threatened by all the squawking, and feel they have a need to justify their decision to train TCMA.

Keep it behind closed doors. Close the Bamboo Curtain.
(but train realistically, and grow and evolve your art.)

This brings back the worst feelings I have for Kung Fu.

Football teams may not share their playbook per se, but they run those plays every Sunday in front of millions of people in stadiums and on TV. Their "enemies" have open access to it. Even at the high school level we filmed other school games to study their formations and tendencies.

The best don't hide. They show and then dare you to top them with it. They're already working on the next generation.

Kamuras are great. You're not going to catch any decent guy in a straight Kamura. But you change the way you enter the technique, how you set it up. Skill and brains. That's what it comes down to.

[Ray Pina]

its not as dangerous anymore because the gracie family taught anyone and everyone.
i think hiding your training is good as long as you compete and fight.

Gracies, who I respect highly, brought the style to the forefront. Jiu-Jitsu has been in practice for a long time. As has various forms of wrestling.

[Lucas]

The truth is there just aren't any straight Kung Fu guys doing anything impressive right now. I know there are tons who swear they have unique material, and fine, but what is it's value?

To be fair again though, there are no straight any stylists doing anything really impressive today. It's a new world. People are training very hard. You need to be well versed in a few disciplines, if for no other reason then to offer a skilled fighter a few different looks and to survive standing or down.

I like to look at it like this:

a hundred to a thousand years ago you trained what you had at hand. For most that was your region or country. cross mingling was not very common because of the time it took to get that done. you had to go by boat or horse or foot to another country, where you may just be killed for being a foreigner.

Today, mass communication, airlplanes, internet, phones.....As you said Ray. It is a different world.

Take what you have at hand. Which is the entire world.

IMO there is only martial arts. You only limit yourselves to what you allow yourselves to be exposed to. If you limit yourselves to just boxing, your a boxer. If you limit yourselves to just kungfu, your a kungfu guy. MMA is the modern martial artist.

I dont view it as Mixed Martial Arts by definition anymore, to me, its Modern Martial Arts.

[Lucas]

if you get your info from youtube your viewpoint can get REALLY skewed and messed up

very good point. I like to call this 'selective criticism'

you choose to base your critique on a very limited source. very bad IMO

[TenTigers]

The truth is there just aren't any straight Kung Fu guys doing anything impressive publicly, or on videos, or in open MMA competitions, right now. To be fair again though, there are no straight any stylists doing anything really impressive today, as far as I'm aware of.. It's a new world. People are training very hard. You need to be well versed in a few disciplines, if for no other reason then to offer a skilled fighter a few different looks and to survive standing or down.

there. fixed it for ya.

Ray, and others. There are many schools out there. There is an entire world that you may not be aware of, happening right under your nose.

( It's like the opening scene of "Blue Velvet," where in this perfect blue skies, white picket fence,Mayberry world is going on, while an entire dangerous, violent, perverse underworld is going on right beneath their noses.)

Look how many Kali schools there were before Dan Inosantos brought it to the public eye.

Until Poo Yee started writing articles, nobody knew what Southern Mantis was.

Until Steven Segal did movies, very few knew the word, Aikido.

Until Bruce Lee, Westerners never even heard of Gung-Fu.

Until the Beatles, Westerners never knew India had a Sitar, or Meditation.

Until Cheech and Chong, nobody even thought of snorting Comet.

yet I digress...

[bawang]

Gracies, who I respect highly, brought the style to the forefront. Jiu-Jitsu has been in practice for a long time. As has various forms of wrestling.

i meant ground fighting dood. its not as effecive anymore since they teach openly counters to their own techniques.

[Ray Pina]

to tell the truth, most people who learned from money making school i met arent that good. the traditional people that were amazing i met learned from different people, and their teachers all refused to be called sifu and taught them for free. there are kung fu teachers out there teaching only one student.

This is true. I know of one case where an old Chinese man completely saved a casual friends life after he was temporarily paralyzed from a snowmobile accident. The guy gained crazy weight.

The old man had him pulling heavy sand bags on the beach, hard core training. His hands were heavy and sensitive. The raw material was right.

With that said, raw material aint enough. It's how you apply it. And in martial arts, that requires access to at least one guy who is willing to punch you and be punched in the face.

[Lucas]

I like to look at it like this:

a hundred to a thousand years ago you trained what you had at hand. For most that was your region or country. cross mingling was not very common because of the time it took to get that done. you had to go by boat or horse or foot to another country, where you may just be killed for being a foreigner.

Today, mass communication, airlplanes, internet, phones.....As you said Ray. It is a different world.

Take what you have at hand. Which is the entire world.

IMO there is only martial arts. You only limit yourselves to what you allow yourselves to be exposed to. If you limit yourselves to just boxing, your a boxer. If you limit yourselves to just kungfu, your a kungfu guy. MMA is the modern martial artist.

I dont view it as Mixed Martial Arts by definition anymore, to me, its Modern Martial Arts.

I would like to add I dont think there is anything wrong with not crosstraining. Focusing on one style is just fine. As long as it helps you toward your goal.

[bawang]

With that said, raw material aint enough. It's how you apply it. And in martial arts, that requires access to at least one guy who is willing to punch you and be punched in the face.

true true, i forgot to mention those ppl i met had no qualms sparring anyone outside teir style, its good u mentioned finding people to train with. im just saying the things and skills they learned didnt come from those schools with ying yang symbols on the yellow pages

[SimonM]

I think instead of using old footage of lame fighters based in CMA as a level of judgment, people should instead take the top ranked CMA trained SanShou fighters to base their examples......


Well, if we were concentrating on CMA exclusively and wanted to create a continuum of what constituted a skilled practitioner than the best thing to do would be to compare the old tapes (lame guys) to the new tapes (high-ranked San Shou players). This could be used to develop an hypothesis that CMA has improved in the last X years (where X is the time frame with video-documentary evidence).

Since we were not concentrating on CMA the point is to compare a wide cross-section of older martial arts footage to newer footage to determine if there is an indication of improved conditioning, technique, etc. This says nothing viable about CMA in particular (as it was never about just CMA) but helps to settle whether fighting arts, in general, have progressed in a simmilar manner to other human technologies.

[Lucas]

Well, if we were concentrating on CMA exclusively and wanted to create a continuum of what constituted a skilled practitioner than the best thing to do would be to compare the old tapes (lame guys) to the new tapes (high-ranked San Shou players). This could be used to develop an hypothesis that CMA has improved in the last X years (where X is the time frame with video-documentary evidence).

Since we were not concentrating on CMA the point is to compare a wide cross-section of older martial arts footage to newer footage to determine if there is an indication of improved conditioning, technique, etc. This says nothing viable about CMA in particular (as it was never about just CMA) but helps to settle whether fighting arts, in general, have progressed in a simmilar manner to other human technologies.

First of all, I think the guys in that 30s vid were shams. frauds. pretenders. there is evidence of guys trained in CMA around the same generation that were not sissy's like the 2 guys in that vid. Those guys probably never even sweated when they trained.

I think those guys sucked, but at the same time there were guys around that were not on that particular radar.

On this forum alone I'm sure some studends of CTS could attest that he could likely have worked those guys using his CMA....possibly both of those guys at the same time. We can all admit, those guys sucked. bad.

If anything CMA, as a whole (not to say there were still at that point men training very hard and developing real fighting skills), at a point declined and then is now on the return of getting back to the basics so to speak.

[SimonM]

Ok... however the available evidence appears to conflict with that assertation. Evidence?

[bawang]

rofllollmaocopterlol youre using that old youtube vid as evidence
just because their old doesnt mean theyre skilled. my friend's grandfather teaches fake and taichi and bagua to old ladies for money he fights just like those two old geezers . why dont you use the youtube videos of blacktaoist or that wudang school tanglang. hows that for evidence. lol

[Lucas]

Ok... however the available evidence appears to conflict with that assertation. Evidence?

I think its best to say there is no evidence either way and to dismiss those rediculous videos as simply that. rediculous videos....

I mean please, your average high school line backer could probably have beaten either of those guys with no martial training.

[Lucas]

Ok... however the available evidence appears to conflict with that assertation. Evidence?

in turn, i take the word of several posters that their teacher was indeed on scary mamajama as evidence that he had real martial skills.

[Ray Pina]

i meant ground fighting dood. its not as effecive anymore since they teach openly counters to their own techniques.

Once one serious fighter gets got by something, he'll find a way to counter it or become obsolete. Again, the Gracies reminded everyone how effective ground game is.

With that said, a change of rules in MMA, and you might just see a return to striking. It's never ending evolution. But wrestlers are beating BJJ guys and vise a versa.

You can't take such a narrow view, even if it is convenient to defend defending ancient Chinese secrets... which did little to prevent foreign invasions from the north and east.

[Ray Pina]

r
just because their old doesnt mean theyre skilled. my friend's grandfather teaches fake and taichi and bagua to old ladies for money he fights just like those two old geezers . why dont you use the youtube videos of blacktaoist or that wudang school tanglang. hows that for evidence. lol

Black Taoist had one video of what I would consider a full contact karate tournament 10 years ago. I'm fighting in a similar venue in two weeks, for kicks. It's hardly a representation of today's fighting standard.

I have more real fight videos that those organizations. And most of them were filmed when I was strictly studying kung fu. I beat a lot of guys, but I sucked. I still suck, but the harder I train I realize I suck less than a lot of other people.

[Lucas]

With that said, a change of rules in MMA, and you might just see a return to striking. It's never ending evolution. But wrestlers are beating BJJ guys and vise a versa.



excellent piont. after time the ground game will be as common place as striking. its already pretty much there. just need more people to jump on the bandwagon.

at which point, ground fighting wont be such an over-awe type of deal.

when its common place, no one will even consider it any different than striking.

it will just be fighting, one full package. no differentiation to the fighters.

this is the game.

[Ray Pina]

in turn, i take the word of several posters that their teacher was indeed on scary mamajama as evidence that he had real martial skills.

You have to be careful with this. I know who you're referring too and I can't speak to his skill and his students all seem like fine men and martial artists. But the NYC Chinatown scene is a scene off it's own. Not many of these guys were going to Gleasons gym and mixing it up with competitve boxers of their time, etc.

Everything is relative. It's one thing to be the bully in grammar school, another to be head honcho in high school and yet another to be a free man open to the whole world for comparison. I knew a lot of dudes who thought they were bad, beating Wing Chun guys at the Free Masons club. These were little skinny a$$ waiter, wanna be gang bangers any HS football player could put through a wall. I did, with two years of wing chun to their 10.

It's important to live in reality. That's why the bamboo curtain, which many think protects their technique but really them and their students from ridicule, only hurt those behind it. The best fighters in the world could care less about these secret techniques. They have more than enough technique freely available for download off the internet to kick all of our a$$es.

[Ray Pina]

There are many schools out there. There is an entire world that you may not be aware of, happening right under your nose..

This is true. But more likely it wreaks of the "legends in their own minds" syndrome.

My own master, who I love and respect, who has wonderful technique.... it is unique and effective. So what? It will die with him because he doesn't have one fighter under him. Not one.

They can tell each other how great their technique is. They can invite and welcome second rate clown martial artists to friendly demonstrate how superior their methods are. At the end of the day they're alone in a back yard dojo. And yes, the Gracies started that way. Now they're millionaires, famous and revolutionized martial arts.

But it's in the doing, not the talking. And the doing requires that you step out of your own backyard.

These conversations have become draining. How much time do you divert to discuss with someone why they need to stop being proud of their short bus B+?

If everyone here is happy with what they got, awesome. Those doing it, know they are doing it. Those that aren't doing it, know that they're not doing it.

[Ray Pina]

at which point, ground fighting wont be such an over-awe type of deal.

when its common place, no one will even consider it any different than striking.

it will just be fighting, one full package. no differentiation to the fighters.

this is the game.

It is common place. It is different than striking but equally important. Depending on time and place each one has its advantage. It is one full package. It is no different to fighters. It is not a game. It's man on man competition at its most raw with your physical well being at stake.

[Lucas]

Hey Ray, how is the boxing working out for you? Enjoying?

[SimonM]

Saying "only mokes got filmed in the past but now things are different so let's start from modern players (Black Taoist) and extrapolate backwards, assuming that masters only got better the f@rther back we go" is not good science.

Let's start with a basic assumption of technological devlopment:

Aside from occasional paradigm shifts the development of technology is largely a matter of improving upon the designs and ideas of those who developed earlier technology.

Eg: (Stone flake - bronze knife - bronze sword - steel sword) is a progression of cutting tools.

Now martial arts is a technology

As a technology we expect to see it follow the same pattern. In other words the technology should have innovators trying to improve it in relation to present conditions who, over time, cause a net improvement in the quality of the technology.

Now we have (limited) video-documentary evidence.

Old boxing matches, Some still photos of Yip Man as an old codger showing how to do stuff, I heard there was some tape footage of Mas Oyama and that Aikido guy and the oh-so-controversial hong kong mokes on a roof top.

This is our OLD stuff.

We then have a progression of increasingly available video-documentary evidence demonstrating the performance of martial artsts between that PAST date and now.

Now this is important because in order to determine either improvement or decline we need to establish what was DONE in the PAST.

I think we will find that my assertation - of improvement - is more accurate than one of decline.

[Lucas]

by this are we to assume that wrestlers from the roman times are highly inferior to wrestlers today?

[Lucas]

personally i woud rather just say, "i dont know"

than to assume in either direction I guess. since it is all just hypothosis and guessing based on very very limited evidence.

actually the only evidence we have is in the recent times. video evidence cannot be applied to what people did before there was video.

show me consistancy, i mean show me 100 videos of the same time period to compare with.

1-2 videos is hardly enough material to make any solid claims with.

[Knifefighter]

hiding your art behind closed doors has nothing to do with stagnation.
It doesn't mean not being aware of what is going on around you,
it is keeping others from knowing what you are doing.
You can be doing any type of cross-training-MMA, TMA, whatever. It just means you are not revealing what you do. It doesn't mean you wear blinders.
It's like concealed carry.

Hiding your stuff from outsiders keeps them from knowing what you are doing and "stealing" your stuff. The dichotomy is that the only way to keep from stagnating is to show your stuff against outsiders.

Those who are out there mixing it up will always surpass those who are keeping themselves cloistered in their closed door mentality... which is exactly why so much of kung fu cannot measure up.

[uki]

by this are we to assume that wrestlers from the roman times are highly inferior to wrestlers today?the hard truth to take into consideration is that during the older times... mankind was much more physically active and therefore much more physically superior than mankind in it's present state of western decay(modernization)... modern man is fat, lazy, and horribly out of shape compared to our ancient counterparts.

[SimonM]

That would follow logically from my assertation.

My only caviat would be to say that one should exercise caution when making non-disprovable statements.

[Knifefighter]

by this are we to assume that wrestlers from the roman times are highly inferior to wrestlers today?

More than likely. Every human performance measure has improved as time has gone by. Back then, 26 miles was almost unheard of when the marathon was first brought into play. The first person to have run that distance was reported to have died. These days people regularly run 100 mile races without a second thought.

[SimonM]

the hard truth to take into consideration is that during the older times... mankind was much more physically active and therefore much more physically superior than mankind .

ROTFLMFAO!

You crack me up Uki, seriously. You actually buy into the "golden age of the ancients" nonsense don't you.

You don't seem to understand how modern nutrition science and medicine have impacted humanity and our physical capabilities.

Knifefighter: Thanks for a good example.

[uki]

You crack me up Uki, seriously. You actually buy into the "golden age of the ancients" nonsense don't you.i have not bought into anything... it is just what i understand based on my life experience.


You don't seem to understand how modern nutrition science and medicine have impacted humanity and our physical capabilities.unfortuantely it is not in the world we live in today.

[uki]

i should clairify some, by saying that modern man is being oppressed on all levels... the impact of nutritional sciences only seems like something new because of the fact that mankind has been hoodwinked for so long that we have forgotten a vast portion of what we are capable of...

[Knifefighter]

i should clairify some, by saying that modern man is being oppressed on all levels... the impact of nutritional sciences only seems like something new because of the fact that mankind has been hoodwinked for so long that we have forgotten a vast portion of what we are capable of...

LOL... this is the ignorance displayed when the public schools don't teach history.

The fact is, for most of human history, the majority of the population of the world has been significantly underfed and struggled to meet basic nutritional needs. Ever heard of scurvy, rickets, pellagra, kwashiorkor, or beriberi? These were common nutritional deficiency diseases of times past.

[SimonM]

Right, because there is some vast (intelligencia?) conspiracy to hide the secrets of atlantis or whatever.

Do you have anything that isn't fantasy to contribute to the conversation? Anything resembling logic... or a fact... or something verifiable... or something slightly more credible than Mitchell Hedges' autobiography?

[TenTigers]

Hiding your stuff from outsiders keeps them from knowing what you are doing and "stealing" your stuff. The dichotomy is that the only way to keep from stagnating is to show your stuff against outsiders.

Those who are out there mixing it up will always surpass those who are keeping themselves cloistered in their closed door mentality... which is exactly why so much of kung fu cannot measure up.

ahhh...you almost get it.
Nobody said anything about not inviting outsiders IN. There are schools that are closed to outsiders, but they regularly bring IN outsiders for training their guys.
Like I said, the closed doors school is not about being closed off from what is going on outside.It is about being closed off from outsiders knowing what is going on INSIDE.

now, do you get it?

[Knifefighter]

ahhh...you almost get it.
Nobody said anything about not inviting outsiders IN. There are schools that are closed to outsiders, but they regularly bring IN outsiders for training their guys.
Like I said, the closed doors school is not about being closed off from what is going on outside.It is about being closed off from outsiders knowing what is going on INSIDE.

now, do you get it?

Sure, if your school is regularly bringing top fighters from the outside, you can do pretty well... for a while at least. However, if you have all these "secret" strategies and techniques and are humbling these outside guys, it won't take them long to figure them out and surpass you.

Again, the dichotomy is, you are limited by the teachers and students of your school, as well as the limited number of outsiders you can bring in. These outsiders, on the other hand, have a laboratory of thousands of practitioners and coaches who will immediately start to work on dissecting your techniques and strategies and quickly become better at them than you are.

A good example of this is the D'Arce choke unleashed on the grappling community several years ago. At first, a limited number of guys were familiar with this technique and were catching everyone with it. It didn't take long for the laboratory of thousands of grappling practitioners to not only figure out counters to this new technique, but to develop counter-attacks that put the D'Arce attacker at risk of being caught himself.

The fact is, a closed door school will be behind the those who are openly sharing, comparing and competing 95% of the time.

[TenTigers]

"This is true. But more likely it wreaks of the "legends in their own minds" syndrome."


you say. "More likely" but you base your statements on your own narrow opinions, and limited experience.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'My own master, who I love and respect, who has wonderful technique.... it is unique and effective. So what? It will die with him because he doesn't have one fighter under him. Not one."

That indeed is a problem. I have met many of the "old Masters" those of the older generation, whio "had the stuff." But-they did not pass on their hand. To anyone.
I don't know why. Perhaps they taught for money, but felt the real Gung-Fu was not meant to be passed on. (I don't get it. They got it, why not let others?)
Perhaps they were waiting for that one, true golden child to walk in their doors?
Who knows? I know of one, who devoted his entire life to his training. He developed sublime skill. He feels that there is simply no one to whom he can teach. Nobody has the patience, the time, or the work ethic to train the right way.
So, we lose out in the end. He will be the last of his kind. -and it's thinking like that , that creates this situation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"They can tell each other how great their technique is. They can invite and welcome second rate clown martial artists to friendly demonstrate how superior their methods are. At the end of the day they're alone in a back yard dojo. And yes, the Gracies started that way. Now they're millionaires, famous and revolutionized martial arts."

not everyone surrounds themselves with their own personal fan club, although I know what you are talking about. I have also seen this all too many times.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"These conversations have become draining. How much time do you divert to discuss with someone why they need to stop being proud of their short bus B+?"

well, stop coming on a TCMA forum and thinking that you will somehow enlighten everyone, and it won't be so draining. You talk as if you are saying something new and exceptional.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[TenTigers]

"Sure, if your school is regularly bringing top fighters from the outside, you can do pretty well... for a while at least.
Again, the dichotomy is, you are limited by the teachers and students of your school, as well as the limited number of outsiders you can bring in. "

why is that? What, there is a law that says I cannot bring in as many as I want?
What if I have a circle of friends who are from various backrounds? Since when did you decide on these limitations?
-basically, do you have any idea what you are talking about?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'These outsiders, on the other hand, have a laboratory of thousands of practitioners and coaches who will immediately start to work on dissecting your techniques and strategies and quickly become better at them than you are.'

-this is what we do on a regular basis-with each other.
I think you watch too much youtube.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The fact is, a closed door school will be behind the those who are openly sharing, comparing and competing 95% of the time."

you need to re-read my post. There are closed door schools that do share, albiet with a select few. This does not mean they don't openly share, just that they are very discriminating about what they share, and with whom.

Look, we all have discriminating tastes. Whether it is food, drink, people, places, or in this case Martial Arts. Some are simply more discriminating than others.

[bakxierboxer]

The truth is there just aren't any straight Kung Fu guys doing anything impressive right now.....

To be fair again though, there are no straight any stylists doing anything really impressive today.....

There's something about that post.......

[sanjuro_ronin]

Sure, if your school is regularly bringing top fighters from the outside, you can do pretty well... for a while at least. However, if you have all these "secret" strategies and techniques and are humbling these outside guys, it won't take them long to figure them out and surpass you.

Again, the dichotomy is, you are limited by the teachers and students of your school, as well as the limited number of outsiders you can bring in. These outsiders, on the other hand, have a laboratory of thousands of practitioners and coaches who will immediately start to work on dissecting your techniques and strategies and quickly become better at them than you are.

A good example of this is the D'Arce choke unleashed on the grappling community several years ago. At first, a limited number of guys were familiar with this technique and were catching everyone with it. It didn't take long for the laboratory of thousands of grappling practitioners to not only figure out counters to this new technique, but to develop counter-attacks that put the D'Arce attacker at risk of being caught himself.

The fact is, a closed door school will be behind the those who are openly sharing, comparing and competing 95% of the time.


Everything old is new again, hey Dale?
:D

[sanjuro_ronin]

While finger flicking people can get them to pause enough to make them regret it, I wouldn't put much stock on the finger attack to the eyes on an unrestricted head.
On the flip side, to not acknowledge the dangerous of things like getting your eye gouged out or nose bit off like one guy I saw, is rather silly.

[sanjuro_ronin]

As for MA schools that tend to keep to themselves, there are obviously pros and cons to this.
Some schools to just fine that way, example is the Ho chun Shuai Chiao school, others do tend to become less combat effective.
It ends up being all about the training, how open they are to innovation and adaptation and how dependant the systems is in regards to "what the other person is doing".

[CFT]

What Knifefighter is advocating is analogous to what people who write about computer security/encryption advocate: open standards vs. security by obscurity.

Windows vs. Linux/Unix
Internet Explorer vs. Firefox
Snake oil encryption vs. RSA

Hiding it away doesn't make it any more secure/effective.

[sanjuro_ronin]

What Knifefighter is advocating is analogous to what people who write about computer security/encryption advocate: open standards vs. security by obscurity.

Windows vs. Linux/Unix
Internet Explorer vs. Firefox
Snake oil encryption vs. RSA

Hiding it away doesn't make it any more secure/effective.

No one is arguing that an open environment leads to quicker improvement and adaption and, to a certain extend, effectiveness.
Its just not the ONLY way.

[CFT]

No one is arguing that an open environment leads to quicker improvement and adaption and, to a certain extend, effectiveness.
Its just not the ONLY way.Only if you're the equivalent of the NSA!

[sanjuro_ronin]

Only if you're the equivalent of the NSA!
Remember, open competition is a thing of today and yet, in the past there were great fighters and innovators just the same.
They did what many still do today, train hard, cross train, and actually fight.
We are living in a great time, where we can reap some of the benefits without many of the risks.
Open competition in a friendly environment has allowed us to develop our skills without the need to actaully risk our lives.

[CFT]

s_r, that doesn't square with your previous post does it? In other words: if you want to develop your fight skills nothing has really changed.

[sanjuro_ronin]

s_r, that doesn't square with your previous post does it? In other words: if you want to develop your fight skills nothing has really changed.

I may not have been clear, I don't agree with "secret training" though I may understand it, I don't feel it is the best way, but it is A way and depending on the system and more importantly the training, it can be a valid way and highly effective way ( though certainly not for everyone).
Many of the old masters got together and sparred, but they rarely laid it all out or showed "everything".
We tend to be more open about that, winning being everything and all that.

[Ray Pina]

... mankind was much more physically active and therefore much more physically superior than mankind in it's present state of western decay(modernization)... modern man is fat, lazy, and horribly out of shape compared to our ancient counterparts.

Today's professional fighters/wrestlers, etc., can focus all of their time and energy on their craft. What's more, they don't have to worry about drinking $hit tainted water, eating bad meat, magic, etc.

Why would all other technology improve but that which is aimed at keeping you alive and healthy? Wrestling goes back in the olympics a long way and remains today. Are we to assume each year the best stuff was tossed aside, or improved upon to beat competitors who have witnessed thus said best stuff?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Of course, the freaks will always be the freaks, regardless of the time frame, case in point Strongman Paul Anderson.

[Crushing Step]

Good thing you weren't poked by the watermelon guy.

[SimonM]

Yeah, if I were an inanimate piece of fruit I might have been in trouble. :p

[sanjuro_ronin]

Yeah, if I were an inanimate piece of fruit I might have been in trouble. :p

Don't forget the nut crushing !