OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts

[K]

While all I have is my personal experience, I can tell you that after several years of Tai Chi that a lot of it is not practical. You honestly can learn all the "moves" of an entire martial art in about three months. The rest is just physical conditioning like speed and strength training and learning to react both instinctively and intelligently with the correct move.

I also studied Karate under a streetfighter ex-Marine and I can tell you that the stripped-down version looks nothing like the moves you see on TV. He basically said "I'll teach you to fight first, then I'll teach the impressive stuff if you still want to learn it." I watched the Capoiera club at my school for weeks before deciding that presenting my butt to an enemy is just not practical in any form. Saber fencing and Tai Chi saber fencing also can be mastered in any practical way in a few weeks (I fenced with an Olympic saber fencer and could beat him 1 out of 4 times and I was nowhere near the athlete and half-blind to boot).

There's a great mini-documentary on the Batman Begins DVD that shows the progression of a modern martial art called KC. It's a good example of showing how martial arts are designed toward a particular focus (in that case, fighting several enemies at once).

Mostly, I think martial arts get great marketing and religious stuff added to it so that teachers can get students. Learning to fight well is simply a matter of practice so that even the best trained warrior can be beaten by a street-fighter who has cobbled together a style from kung-fu movies and a little formal training (see Bruce Lee).