There’s a question begging to be made here: what is a good martial art? Is one that brings inner calm and equilibrium in itself? Or one that is effective in keeping aggressions away?
Not that those aren’t correlated, but some martial arts excel more in the former and in the environment of feudal Japan. I doubt the exuberance and aesthetics of most of those arts prove effective, however, confronting the dangers of modern cities.
In this sense, something much less choreographic or devoid of ancient philosophy — such as the straightforward and objective Israeli self-defense krav maga — seems to be much more effective.
What is curious here is: a great deal of krav maga training involves lots of restraining, since hitting “for real” would mean fractured necks or destroyed testes. So there’s no competition, either.
Can it be that in martial arts there’s a somehow inverse correlation between the potential of real-life damage (and therefore effectiveness) and the realism by which the training is executed?
Yes, jiujitsu is an exception. I learned that sometime in the past two years, but failed to update my comment ;-)
The precise statement is that samurai had a monopoly on force and it was illegal for others to learn martial arts. Thus extant feudal Japanese martial arts were for samurai. Sometimes samurai were unarmed, hence jiujitsu, though it assumes both combatants are heavily armored.
What I really meant in my comment was that karate was imported around the end of the shogonate and that judo and aikido were invented around 1900. However, they weren’t invented from scratch, but adapted from feudal jiujitsu. They probably have as much claim to that tradition as brand-name jiujitsu. In any event, jiujitsu probably wasn’t static or monolithic in 1900, either.
Can it be that in martial arts there’s a somehow inverse correlation between the potential of real-life damage (and therefore effectiveness) and the realism by which the training is executed?
Yes. Certainly for judo vs. most other martial arts. (Although I wouldn’t call judo ineffective—it can be used in many situations where you wouldn’t use other martial arts at all.)
[Judo] can be used in many situations where you wouldn’t use other martial arts at all.
I’d be really interested in hearing what those circumstances are. I usually make the same claim about Aikido (e.g., you probably don’t want to crush Uncle Mortimer’s trachea just because he happened to grab a knife in his drunken stupor).
I’d call the reality-joint-cleaving line the one between adrenaline-trigger training and adrenaline control training. Most training in traditional arts like Kuntao Silat and modern ones like the now-deprecated USMC LINE system involves using fear and stress as a trigger to start a sequence of techniques that end with disabling or killing the attacker. Most training in traditional arts like Tai Chi and (more) modern ones like Aikido involve retaining the ability to think clearly and act in situations where adrenaline would normally crowd out “system 2” thinking.
Any art can be trained in either way. A champion boxer would probably be calm enough to use a quick, powerful jab and knock the knife out of Uncle Mortimer’s hand in a safe direction. A Marine with PTSD might use the judo-like moves from the LINE system to throw him, break several bones, and stomp on his head before realizing what he was doing.
A less discrete way to look at it adapts the No Free Lunch theorem: A fighting algorithm built for a specific environment like a ring with one opponent and a limited set of moves, or a field of combat with no legal repercussions and unskilled opponents, can do well in their specific setting. A more general fighting algorithm will perform more evenly across a large variety of environments, but will not beat a specialized algorithm in its own setting unless it’s had a lot more training.
I’d call the reality-joint-cleaving line the one between adrenaline-trigger training and adrenaline control training.
That is an excellent point. My father and I still sometimes get into debates that pivot on this. He says that in a real fight your fight-or-flight system will kick in, so you might as well train tense and stupid since that’s what you’ll be when you need the skills. But I’ve found that it’s possible to make the sphere of things that don’t trigger the fight-or-flight system large enough to encompass most altercations I encounter; it’s definitely the harder path, but it seems to have benefits outside of fighting skill as well.
A less discrete way to look at it adapts the No Free Lunch theorem...
Possibly! I think that in the end, what I most care about in my art is that I can defend myself and my family from the kinds of assaults that are most likely. I’m not likely to enter any MMA competitions anytime soon, so I’m pretty okay with the possibility that my survival skills can’t compete with MMA-trained fighters in a formal ring.
There’s a question begging to be made here: what is a good martial art? Is one that brings inner calm and equilibrium in itself? Or one that is effective in keeping aggressions away?
Not that those aren’t correlated, but some martial arts excel more in the former and in the environment of feudal Japan. I doubt the exuberance and aesthetics of most of those arts prove effective, however, confronting the dangers of modern cities.
In this sense, something much less choreographic or devoid of ancient philosophy — such as the straightforward and objective Israeli self-defense krav maga — seems to be much more effective.
What is curious here is: a great deal of krav maga training involves lots of restraining, since hitting “for real” would mean fractured necks or destroyed testes. So there’s no competition, either.
Can it be that in martial arts there’s a somehow inverse correlation between the potential of real-life damage (and therefore effectiveness) and the realism by which the training is executed?
No empty-handed martial arts are extant from feudal Japan. They were illegal then, thus secret.
jujitsu is an empty-handed martial art of the Koryu (or traditional) school. (according to wikipedia) :)
Yes, jiujitsu is an exception. I learned that sometime in the past two years, but failed to update my comment ;-)
The precise statement is that samurai had a monopoly on force and it was illegal for others to learn martial arts. Thus extant feudal Japanese martial arts were for samurai. Sometimes samurai were unarmed, hence jiujitsu, though it assumes both combatants are heavily armored.
What I really meant in my comment was that karate was imported around the end of the shogonate and that judo and aikido were invented around 1900. However, they weren’t invented from scratch, but adapted from feudal jiujitsu. They probably have as much claim to that tradition as brand-name jiujitsu. In any event, jiujitsu probably wasn’t static or monolithic in 1900, either.
Yes. Certainly for judo vs. most other martial arts. (Although I wouldn’t call judo ineffective—it can be used in many situations where you wouldn’t use other martial arts at all.)
I’d be really interested in hearing what those circumstances are. I usually make the same claim about Aikido (e.g., you probably don’t want to crush Uncle Mortimer’s trachea just because he happened to grab a knife in his drunken stupor).
I’d call the reality-joint-cleaving line the one between adrenaline-trigger training and adrenaline control training. Most training in traditional arts like Kuntao Silat and modern ones like the now-deprecated USMC LINE system involves using fear and stress as a trigger to start a sequence of techniques that end with disabling or killing the attacker. Most training in traditional arts like Tai Chi and (more) modern ones like Aikido involve retaining the ability to think clearly and act in situations where adrenaline would normally crowd out “system 2” thinking.
Any art can be trained in either way. A champion boxer would probably be calm enough to use a quick, powerful jab and knock the knife out of Uncle Mortimer’s hand in a safe direction. A Marine with PTSD might use the judo-like moves from the LINE system to throw him, break several bones, and stomp on his head before realizing what he was doing.
A less discrete way to look at it adapts the No Free Lunch theorem: A fighting algorithm built for a specific environment like a ring with one opponent and a limited set of moves, or a field of combat with no legal repercussions and unskilled opponents, can do well in their specific setting. A more general fighting algorithm will perform more evenly across a large variety of environments, but will not beat a specialized algorithm in its own setting unless it’s had a lot more training.
That is an excellent point. My father and I still sometimes get into debates that pivot on this. He says that in a real fight your fight-or-flight system will kick in, so you might as well train tense and stupid since that’s what you’ll be when you need the skills. But I’ve found that it’s possible to make the sphere of things that don’t trigger the fight-or-flight system large enough to encompass most altercations I encounter; it’s definitely the harder path, but it seems to have benefits outside of fighting skill as well.
Possibly! I think that in the end, what I most care about in my art is that I can defend myself and my family from the kinds of assaults that are most likely. I’m not likely to enter any MMA competitions anytime soon, so I’m pretty okay with the possibility that my survival skills can’t compete with MMA-trained fighters in a formal ring.