deciding on a martial arts

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monsterland
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08 Jun 2010, 4:49 pm

mechanicalgirl39 wrote:

right-hand-child wrote:

monsterland wrote:

I have to reiterate that the only type of training that is really "effective" for self-defense is reality self-defense training.

Claiming that one martial art is "more effective in self-defense" than another martial art is highly irresponsible.

if you were refering to me, im not saying you're wrong, but some martial arts more 'centered' around the idea of slef defense, some around semi-religous beliefs, some even for sport. im not just saying "x martial art is better than y martial art"

self defence class is probably better but there's no denying that some martial arts are better than others in terms of defence

Agreed.

Kickboxing and Muay Thai are realistic. TKD is more stylized but still effective, due to heavy emphasis on competition, you do plenty of sparring.

Some Karate schools on the other hand only teach you to do very stylized movements, in robotic fashion, to the air. Not all; Kyokushin is a very good style, so are other ones I forget the names of.

That's why I advised that the OP ask the trainer a bit about what the class is like before signing up.

Some karate schools

You guys should really read the page I linked. It explains things well.

Self-defense is not just about physically protecting yourself. It is MUCH larger than any individual martial art, and 90% of it is not addressed in ANY martial art school, be it boxing or anything else.

Yeah, martial arts can help you defend yourself from a violent physical attack under a very narrow range of circumstances. However, sparring is not self-defense.

In real life, getting into a fighting stance can escalate a situation. There are obstacles, uneven ground, there's the possibility of attackers having STDs that are transmitted by blood. There are no gloves. There are everyday objects lying around that can be used as weapons. There's a strong emotional element. There's no set of rules aimed to extend a match for maximum length and enjoyment of spectators - instead, people are more likely to aim to take your head off with the first attack.

There can be bystanders who can interpret the whole situation wrong and think the defender is the attacker. The good samaritans can be very dangerous. There's the overuse of force, legal implications.

There's different goals of the attacker. They may want to beat you up, or they may want to take your jewelry, purse, your clothes or weapon you're holding, and then use the weapon against you. Does boxing teach weapon retention?

Do you know where the exit is? Is your wife in the bathroom during this attack? Are you wearing a thick coat restricting your movement? Are you inebriated, are your movements compromised? Is it icy outside ? Are you sitting in a car, and someone is trying to strangle you from the back seat?

In real life, attackers don't square off with knives, they don't show them to you until you're stabbed, and under andrenaline you will feel like you've merely been punched. Therefore you always have to assume they are holding a knife.

Have you TRAINED for these things?

. . .

That's why when people readily go "oh yeah, this martial art is good for self-defense", it makes me cringe. This sort of thinking can cost someone their life one day.

Reality self-defense courses like Senshido teach actual self-defense. Martial arts teach a very narrow fraction of it.

mechanicalgirl39
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08 Jun 2010, 5:30 pm

monsterland wrote:

mechanicalgirl39 wrote:

right-hand-child wrote:

monsterland wrote:

All of those are true but it doesn't take a whole lot of sense to translate your martial art to real life.

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monsterland
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08 Jun 2010, 5:45 pm

Ignorance, of course, is bliss, but you should read the article I linked a while back.

mechanicalgirl39
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08 Jun 2010, 5:56 pm

I did...

And you know I am ignorant, how?

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monsterland
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08 Jun 2010, 6:03 pm

Because you said "it doesn't take a whole lot of sense to translate your martial art to real life", after reading that.

That site tries to break through many a martial artists' dogmatic thinking using just words. As you're either unable or unwilling to understand those words, I hope that real life(tm) doesn't break through yours using other means... because that will hurt.

mechanicalgirl39
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08 Jun 2010, 6:09 pm

monsterland wrote:

I understand perfectly well what those words mean. I never said doing a martial art will make you immortal. Nor did I say you don't need or won't benefit from other skills besides fighting, such as how to watch out for danger in the first place or how to alter your body language so you look confident and therefore not a good victim.

I'm fine at real life thanks very much. I don't go doing stupid things. I don't go walking around deserted areas or go out alone at night. I don't go where the piss heads and thugs are. And yes, I happen to be okay at real life fighting, although I have mostly managed to stay out of those.

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monsterland
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08 Jun 2010, 6:19 pm

That's all great, but this thread isn't about you or your skills. It is about recommending a martial art, and you are claiming that yours is good for self-defense, and you imply that the "missing pieces" don't require any training or research, because a person's common sense will fill them out.

This is simply not true. And your use of the term "real fighting" still indicates a narrow vision of what reality self-defense is like.

This man knows more than you. Listen to him.

nononsenseselfdefense.com wrote:

We are constantly contacted by people who ask simple questions that have no simple answers. In fact, these questions often have no truthful answer at all.

An example of such a question is: What kind of martial arts training should I take so I can defend my family and teach my kids self-defense?

These kind of questions are not based on knowledge and understanding of violence, crime or self-defense. They are based on what the person thinks he or she knows about those subjects. Although, in the person's mind they all look like one big subject, they each are entirely different fields unto themselves. That example question actually covered about seventeen different topics.

When you say 'defend your family' we have to ask against what?

Are you talking about handling a quarrelsome drunk at a restaurant/lounge (who after making a pass at your wife swings on you for stepping in)? Are you talking against an armed carjacker who will shoot you at the first sign of resistance? Are you talking about against home invasion robbery by a gang? Are you talking having to intervene because Drunken Uncle Albert started a fight at a family reunion? Are you talking about how to survive being attacked by a knife wielding attacker? Are you talking about having to shoot a break-in-rapist before he attacks your daughter? Are you talking about surviving a road rage incident when someone starts riddling your car with bullets? Are you talking about protecting yourself against an abusive ex?

And while we're on the subject what level are you talking about for your children? Do you want them to do a full tactical response on a schoolyard bully? (That's called 'a school shooting' in case you missed it). Or, in wanting to help them stand up to bullies, do you want to teach them to take a karate stance against armed gang members?

And then someone asks 'what's the best martial art style for self-defense?'

Everything we have described happens on a daily basis. All of these are possible -- and depending on your lifestyle, probable -- scenarios. We are not joking when we say violence comes in many different levels. What's more is we are serious as a heart attack when we say there is NO cure-all wunder-tool that will prepare you to handle everything that could happen.

It doesn't matter if it is a martial art, a weekend long self-defense course or a shooting course. The issue is just far too complex for any one system to cover it all.

There's a reason why I don't recommend the arts I study for "self-defense". I know a lot of Aikido, and a little boxing and a little Wing Chun. Yes I can cause damage to a person who attacks me under SOME circumstances. However that is about 2% of possible scenarios, as these arts by themselves simply do not cover anything more than BODY MECHANICS.

mechanicalgirl39
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08 Jun 2010, 6:46 pm

monsterland wrote:

nononsenseselfdefense.com wrote:

I couldn't see that article. Just got redirected to a site called Senshido...

I didn't say there was no need for those other skills and someone's common sense would fill them out. I said it doesn't take a lot of nous to be able to translate martial art skill to 'getting out of a situation alive'. No one is going to hang around on the street and have a fair kickboxing match against an attacker and avoid using a really dangerous move on him. No one except a stupid person is going to pull a fighting stance against 2/3 guys when they can simply run away.

When someone asks what style is good for self defence, they mean against 'physical assault' not 'any threat whether that is machinegun fire or carjacking or anything else your mind can whirl out'.

Questions like that are admittedly vague broad but still reasonable IMO. If I was in any sort of dangerous situation I would rather have, say, a Muay Thai fighter by my side to help me out, than someone who has done nothing but kick air and do katas. (Unless of course the threat is not one you can solve by martial skill)

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monsterland
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08 Jun 2010, 7:11 pm

Here's an anecdote. Here in San Francisco we had an accident where a Judo guy was robbed at knifepoint. He threw the guy, but got stabbed during the throw, and died before the ambulance arrived. That's because a lot of Judo footwork goes INTO the attacker, assuming there's no weapon, and he confused his sports Judo training with self-defense.

There was also a highly trained boxer here who got shot in the head after trying to pursue a carjacker. Why did this happen ? Because he was projecting an image of roid rage. He had no idea of how to approach the situation, so he just ran up to the car door and started yelling and ripping it off, scaring the s**t out of the guy, who was already on andrenaline, he saw this Schwarzenegger-size abomination, freaked out, and shot him.

Martial arts training can actually be counterintuitive to self-defense. It's not always a help.

And what is "physical assault"? People who attack in reality, a lot of them don't look to fight. They look to win. So your friend's Muai Thai training may be worth nothing if he gets clubbed with a baseball bat from behind, because he hasn't developed proper environment awareness.

A lot of weapon disarms taught in martial arts schools are also wrong. The good ones don't let the attacker see that you're moving, and use verbal distraction/interruption.

One of the students of Richard Dimitri of Senshido (reality self-defense school) got held up by two guys at knifepoint. He was with his girlfriend. They were about to rape her. So he used his training. You know what he did ?

He became the most miserable, weak, begging, pant-soiling person imaginable. Just like he was taught. He was crawling on the ground, crying and begging. The guys lowered their guard for a moment and started laughing. They took the focus/knife off him just a little bit. That's when he went apeshit, in the process burying his thumb deeply in one of the guys' eyes, who started screaming savagely and freaked the other guy, who cut him with the knife on the bicep, but then ran away.

If he didn't know this distraction, if he wasn't acting miserably, likely, they both would've been dead.

Martial arts are physical movement. They're very limited in application, and they can also lock the mind in dangerous patterns. That's why I always say... if you want to learn self-defense, join a proper school, which will teach you ALL ASPECTS OF IT, from psychological and proper conflict deescalation, to a variety of tricks. If you want martial arts... go martial arts.

mechanicalgirl39
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09 Jun 2010, 11:27 am

Ah, fair enough. I guess not everyone can in fact easily diverge from what they're trained to do in class..

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CMaximus
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09 Jun 2010, 11:58 am

First, learn to use

[taps forehead]

this. Then I'll teach you to use

[lifts the sword]

this.

:lol: Sorry, couldn't resist.

mechanicalgirl39
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09 Jun 2010, 12:14 pm

CMaximus wrote:

First, learn to use

[taps forehead]

this. Then I'll teach you to use

[lifts the sword]

this.

:lol:

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Hehehe. My stepfather used to say something like that, except it was 'you have to use your head before you use your fists'.

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chasingthesun
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05 Jul 2010, 12:36 am

mechanicalgirl39 wrote:

right-hand-child wrote:

monsterland wrote:

Agreed.

Kickboxing and Muay Thai are realistic. TKD is more stylized but still effective, due to heavy emphasis on competition, you do plenty of sparring.

Some Karate schools on the other hand only teach you to do very stylized movements, in robotic fashion, to the air. Not all; Kyokushin is a very good style, so are other ones I forget the names of.

That's why I advised that the OP ask the trainer a bit about what the class is like before signing up.

Some karate schools

This is a general statement and not very accurate. Not all TKD schools spar a lot and/or focus on competition. WTF (Olympic style) generally does, but there are other styles and organizations that are very, very different.

Back to the initial question:
There is a martial art and a school for everybody. It depends on what is accessible. First of all, you want a school that is not a belt factory and/or trying to take your money. If you see 20+ belts before black, run the other way! If you see 5 year old black belts, don't go there!

Once you've narrowed it down, approach a school you are interested in joining and see if you can get some kind of trial class, or see if you might be able to watch one of the classes. See what they're doing and see if it's right for you.

I'm not sure if you'd be interested in something more modern or more traditional, so it's hard to recommend a particular style, but I would go with something harder, like Karate, Taekwon-Do, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Krav Maga (probably the best for self-defense training), etc.

mechanicalgirl39
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06 Jul 2010, 3:33 pm

chasingthesun wrote:

Sorry, excuse my ignorance

I thought pretty much all TKD schools were mostly competition oriented. The ones here certainly are.

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'You're so cold, but you feel alive
Lay your hands on me, one last time' (Breaking Benjamin)

Anicho
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07 Jul 2010, 9:09 am

I don't understand why there is so many topics about martial arts on WrongPlanet, I mean I thought aspies have social anexities from schools? Yet they can attend a martial arts class? I can't even attend one of those, eh. Any advice?
Sorry for hijacking this thread.

mechanicalgirl39
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07 Jul 2010, 12:10 pm

Anicho wrote:

I find social interaction much easier if it consists of doing an activity together.

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'You're so cold, but you feel alive
Lay your hands on me, one last time' (Breaking Benjamin)

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