OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts

[rdonj]

I've heard that there are people who teach Tai Chi as a martial art rather than as a method of exercise and that it can actually be quite dangerous. But I would say that pretty much any martial art can be powerful if practiced by a sufficiently gifted student, so long as it's not something silly like martial arts tea ceremony.

I don't know what aikido looks like either, but I suspect it looks a little like judo. My brother used to do judo... and of course he would always practice on me.

My personal experience is with Aikido, which may also be impractical in a street fight (or MMA), but it's great for keeping the wife and kids in line (see my wife and kids).

To my understanding, Aikido is basically a grappling art, like judo or jujutsu. Looking up the acronym MMA, I seem to get a hit relating to UFC, which I am vaguely aware of and heard somewhat to the effect that it was dominated for a while by practitioners of gracie jiu jutsu in particular. So apparently it would probably not be impractical for that, though personally I am not that convinced of grappling arts superiority. Then again, a lot does depend on the student.

And K, interesting that you dueled an olympic fencer. Olympic fencing kind of bugs me though... usually, the two people just lunge at each other and whichever hits first wins, so it seems mostly determined by who has the best reflexes. In my book that's not winning, that's mutually agreeing to die :P I tried fencing once... I was at a renaissance faire, and they had a few guys there offering fencing lessons. I had a bit of bad reflexes for it being used to somewhat different sword arts, so I would keep trying to do things I wasn't supposed to and had to restrain myself. Anyway, I ended up going 2 to 3 with my instructor, with a rather furious battle on that last point, neither one of us wanted to lose Relevance? Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that with martial arts, it's not necessarily so much learning the moves as perfecting the technique and acquiring the reflexes required for it. Being properly fit for the school helps too.

[Panpiper]

Originally Posted by rdonj

But I would say that pretty much any martial art can be powerful if practiced by a sufficiently gifted student, so long as it's not something silly like martial arts tea ceremony.

A tea ceremony master was walking through the town market one day when he accidentally jostled a samurai. The samurai took great offense, but because the samurai and the tea ceremony master were of the same social caste, the samurai could not simply lop off the tea ceremony master's head. So the samurai challenged the tea ceremony master to a duel the following dawn.

Now the tea ceremony master knew nothing of sword fighting, but was bound by honor to show up for this duel. Not wanting to embarrass himself, he went to the town sword master and asked the sword master if he could be taught to use a sword. The sword master was rather flustered, not really being able to teach much in the space of one evening. He showed how to hold a sword, how to do a basic sword stroke, and then said this;.

"I can teach you nothing about how to fight this evening. But I will tell you this; Go to the bridge in the morning, hold the sword thusly over your head. Think of the tea ceremony. When your opponent approaches, strike with all your might."

The next morning at dawn the sword master stood at one end of the bridge and the samurai arrived at the other. The tea ceremony master held up his sword as he had been shown and thought of the tea ceremony. The samurai watched the tea ceremony master for a good while. Finally he bowed, turned, and walked away.

Here endeth the lesson. ;-)


I could write a LOT about the martial side of tai-chi, but Endoperez did a pretty good job of defending it.

[rdonj]

That was supposed to be an obscure joke, but thanks for the story

[K]

Well, Endo basically made the same points that I would, so I'll just clarify a few points:

1. I've studied the martial form of Tai chi, as well as martial form of Tai chi saber fencing, European fencing with saber and epee, and karate, and I've picked up a few moves from various people I've sparred with that range from Kung Fu to Aikido to Capoeira and escrima(sp?). That's a pretty diverse set of martial skills, but it is not even uncommon for any serious martial artist to try several forms for several years to cover perceived holes in technique (or just to keep interest since once you are conditioned for one form learning another is child's play).

2. At the end of the day, being a good fighter is about being really physically fit and training yourself in enough situations to have an appropriate response that comes instinctively. Breaking someone's nose with the flat of your hand is no different from grabbing a bar glass and smashing it across their face: both with take the fight right out of anyone who is not a professional fighter or soldier.

And that's the essence of the martial arts: having an answer to a situation. Tai chi is about keeping your balance and redirecting an enemy while KC is about locking up an opponent and tossing them into another guy and Aikido is about being able to take a fall while tossing your opponent. Each has a solution to the same situations and some are better in some situations. KC is great if you are bigger than your enemy, Tai chi for being smaller, and aikido if you are about the same size....however, each will do the job in a pinch.

But I doubt I'll convince anyone. The marketing behind all martial or fighting arts has been that there is a "secret" to fighting that only comes from a teacher and that teacher's special forms of initiations. The lie is told by Navy SEALs and wizened Asian masters alike and it's the same techniques of marketing used to sell potato chips and luxury cars.

[rdonj]

No, actually that made perfect sense to me. Maybe I just didn't need enough convincing.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by K

Well, Endo basically made the same points that I would, so I'll just clarify a few points...

Coming from you, that's a compliment. Especially as I thought I was arguing against you!

I'll borrow the idea of your last post into another forum. In a computer game, it'd be interesting to have a good/evil axis represented by the character having a different answer/reaction to the same situation.