Combat Martial Arts & Energy systems

[Eldros]

Aikido has always caught my curiosity. / Using your hands and the opponent's own weight against them looked like such an exciting tactic.


I wouldn't expect too much from aikido. It works well enough (and rather elegantly so) between politely cooperating practitioners but not so well against aggressive opponents that behave unexpectedly and throw entire combinations of punches and kicks instead of single uncontrolled haymakers. I've already written about my reservations concerning aikido in my martial arts journal.

The danger with faith-oriented martial arts is that religion can become more important than quality of instruction and technique. These groups are often independent, i.e. without affiliation to national associations that enforce technical standards, where you can confidently join any member without fear of being taught sloppy techniques, and where there's always an exchange of ideas at large summer camps, competitions, and workshops. Now you may be lucky and find a Christian martial arts dojang with a good teacher but it will be probably more or less insular as well as isolated from your country's TKD mainstream.

Yeah, I can see what you mean about aikido. There’s quite a gap between making a technique work with a cooperative training partner and trying it on someone who is actually aggressive and unpredictable.
What I find interesting, though, is the whole issue of size in close combat.
Being taller, heavier and stronger gives you a pretty significant advantage - you can't really argue with physics.
But at the same time, so many martial arts have techniques specifically designed for dealing with someone bigger and stronger, using leverage, positioning, timing, or their own momentum.
It doesn't mean technique magically cancels out a size difference, of course. I just find it interesting that martial arts have developed so many ways of trying to bridge that gap.

And I do get what you mean about the faith-oriented martial arts. I wouldn't want the Christian side to become more important than learning good martial arts. But if the instructor is good and the training is solid, I don't see anything wrong with having faith as part of the philosophy. I actually find that combination quite interesting.

 

[HoldAll]

Yeah, I can see what you mean about aikido. There’s quite a gap between making a technique work with a cooperative training partner and trying it on someone who is actually aggressive and unpredictable.
What I find interesting, though, is the whole issue of size in close combat.
Being taller, heavier and stronger gives you a pretty significant advantage - you can't really argue with physics.
But at the same time, so many martial arts have techniques specifically designed for dealing with someone bigger and stronger, using leverage, positioning, timing, or their own momentum.
It doesn't mean technique magically cancels out a size difference, of course. I just find it interesting that martial arts have developed so many ways of trying to bridge that gap.

And I do get what you mean about the faith-oriented martial arts. I wouldn't want the Christian side to become more important than learning good martial arts. But if the instructor is good and the training is solid, I don't see anything wrong with having faith as part of the philosophy. I actually find that combination quite interesting.

Fighting larger guys in karate is scary because of their superior reach, and you really have to be on top of your game and not easily frightened. There's this towering guy standing in front of you who can simply shoot you down with a jab before you can even touch him - the psychological handicap alone can be debilitating. I've found that the best strategy when attacking taller opponents of inferior skill is to guard my head with both hands (bigger guys aren't used to punching and kicking to comparatively low levels, so I don't have to protect my midsection), just cannon into the him and use lots of sweeps whenever I can (tall guys hate to be unbalanced, I guess it's because they have a longer fall). However, with superior fighters you have to evade, be elusive, and wait for a chance to counterattack, attacking first would be suicide; lots of big guys aren't that nimble and won't be able to follow you so well.

As far as grappling is concerned, I wouldn't rate judo so highly against bigger opponent. For all the 'using the strenght of an aggressor against him' judo propaganda, you still need some robust muscle for these throws, esp. when the other guy won't budge and is standing with both feet planted firmly on the ground. You need excellent timing for that spectacular overhead sacrifice throw (tomoe nage) at 1:23 of your nun video, have the presence of mind to place your foot exactly where your opponent's leg and torso meet, get the trajectory just right, etc. (a judo guy once showed me how it's done), or he'll just land on top of you. One thing you learn in free sparring as well as in tournaments is that things often don't work out, and the more complicated your kick or sophisticated your combination is, the more can go wrong with it; it's usually chaos all around anyway - how to hit someone who doesn't want to get hit without getting hit yourself? You also need a strong grip to successfully execute such a throw, one small slip on a sweaty skin surface, and ouch.

Groundfighting is another skill I'd dearly love to have. The few classes I attended at various karate workshops gave me a healthy respect for BJJ, and I'll never ever want to be caught in a neck crank again, it's a horrible feeling.

 

[Eldros]

Fighting larger guys in karate is scary because of their superior reach, and you really have to be on top of your game and not easily frightened. There's this towering guy standing in front of you who can simply shoot you down with a jab before you can even touch him - the psychological handicap alone can be debilitating. I've found that the best strategy when attacking taller opponents of inferior skill is to guard my head with both hands (bigger guys aren't used to punching and kicking to comparatively low levels, so I don't have to protect my midsection), just cannon into the him and use lots of sweeps whenever I can (tall guys hate to be unbalanced, I guess it's because they have a longer fall). However, with superior fighters you have to evade, be elusive, and wait for a chance to counterattack, attacking first would be suicide; lots of big guys aren't that nimble and won't be able to follow you so well.

As far as grappling is concerned, I wouldn't rate judo so highly against bigger opponent. For all the 'using the strenght of an aggressor against him' judo propaganda, you still need some robust muscle for these throws, esp. when the other guy won't budge and is standing with both feet planted firmly on the ground. You need excellent timing for that spectacular overhead sacrifice throw (tomoe nage) at 1:23 of your nun video, have the presence of mind to place your foot exactly where your opponent's leg and torso meet, get the trajectory just right, etc. (a judo guy once showed me how it's done), or he'll just land on top of you. One thing you learn in free sparring as well as in tournaments is that things often don't work out, and the more complicated your kick or sophisticated your combination is, the more can go wrong with it; it's usually chaos all around anyway - how to hit someone who doesn't want to get hit without getting hit yourself? You also need a strong grip to successfully execute such a throw, one small slip on a sweaty skin surface, and ouch.

Groundfighting is another skill I'd dearly love to have. The few classes I attended at various karate workshops gave me a healthy respect for BJJ, and I'll never ever want to be caught in a neck crank again, it's a horrible feeling.

Yeah, I think that’s exactly the interesting thing about sparring - once the other person isn’t cooperating, all the nice theory suddenly has to deal with a lot of chaos.
And I can imagine facing someone much taller is intimidating even before they throw a punch at you. / That psychological part can be a pretty big handicap by itself.
About grappling. “Just use their strength against them” sounds great in theory, but physics still has something to say about it. Even though technique can be helpful, a 30 kilo difference cannot be just eliminated..

I also got a flashback of a girlfriend I had maybe 15 or 20 years ago by what you said about ju-jitsu.
She was kind of a tomboy and used to train in ju-jitsu because of her job. Sometimes she had to deal with unpredictable people, like children with behavioral problems, she mainly trained for self-defense. She wanted to be ready in case anything went wrong, even though all was safe most of the time.
I always found that quite interesting - not training to become a fighter, just wanting to have a few useful skills and a bit more confidence if things got out of hand.

Listening to you talk about all this, I’m not sure I’d want to volunteer as your training partner.