Stupid things you used to believe about martial arts

[Epicurus]

seagal's "combat aikido" choreography is responsible for at least one person i know studying aikido.

after a month or two of judo, i threw this person down and choked him.

... he's just like steven seagal, all right.

When I was considering taking Aikido not long ehough ago, I watched the clip of Segal doign aikido randori with people and totally smashing them all, which looked alive enough to convince me at that time. I heard that Aikido is full of spiritual crap and compliant techniques, but hey, it has Randori in it! It must be pretty good. I'll just look for a more technically focused class...

In short: Steven Segal almost got me to study AIKIDO to improve my kickboxing... I really dodged the fucking bullet.

[Backdraft]

The logic of seeking out a (Bad) grappling art to improve your kickboxing eludes me.
But hey, I did Bujinkan.

[Virus]

Doing bujinkan usually precludes believing in a whole strata of associated BS such as:

Good taijutsu will save you from going to the ground.

If you do go there, you can apply it's principles.

Sports train your body to go for less-lethal moves which only serve to keep the fight going for longer.

Taijutsu will eventually allow you to detect unseen attacks like some spiderman ****.

[sochin101]

Things I believed that I now know were not true

breaking boards was a useful part of my training...

kata has hidden techniques that I would learn when I got my black belt...

you must respect your instructor even if he's a prick, just because he's your instructor...

[steve_990]

I used to do Genbukan, like Virus stated, it had alot of nonsense imbedded in my head like being able to dodge attacks like Spiderman.

Used to think that Bruce Lee was the end all be all of martial arts.

Used to think that Boxing was really limited, and learning any other striking art would be better cause it would have kicks, knees, elbows, etc...

And when I was really young I used to believe that Kung Fu masters could jump 30 ft into the air like in all those infamous Kung Fu movies in the 80's.

Good think I found grappling and MMA, or I'd be a lost cause in _ing _un or something :)

[Permalost]

A few years ago I used to do lots of the drills in Attack Proof. I was actually on that forum before the bullshido folks pretty much got John Perkins to take it down. To be honest, I still think there's good stuff to be found there, but also a lot of goofy stuff. Imagine systema where you fight with your hands up, there's no psychic/no touch BS, and no obscure pressure points attacking. The "sparring" is done slow motion at contact range- this is where I started to find problems with it. I still do some of the drills because they work well into CMA "games" like push hands and chi sao, but I do these every once in a while because I enjoy them like chess, not because I think they're deadly fighting drills.

[Virus]

Going back a year or two I used to believe something that probably a lot of people on here still do:

You can train anything with aliveness will make it work.

Now I think you can train anything with aliveness if you want, but at best you'll end up with mediocre kickboxing and wrestling with the occasionally functioning gimmick which seems to lose its significance once tested in the long term with better trained and competant fighters from modern sports.

[Fearless Ukemi]

1990'ish: If I spend years practicing TKD, I'll be able to fight like Van Damme.

2004: If I spend years practicing aikido...

[polishillusion]

Ninjutsu was so deadly it was illegial is most countries. My College Freshman Wrestler roommate told me this. He knew more then me so i believed him.

lol at one of the tkd larpers a while back telling me this and getting smacked by my master upside the head like a second later. then my master said "some of those guy would ring your ass out to dry" and made us run ten laps for being idiots. that was awesome.

[new2bjj]

I used to believe, if you were really good, your **** would look like the movies. I believed that wing chun punchs could be effective as boxing punches. I believed in a lot of crap, then came the UFC, and I realized how much time I wasted. It's sad really, but at least I got wise. I have friedns that still believe the UFC is nonsense and you can drop those guys with a kempo sidekick to the knee....or an eyepoke. Just thinking about it gets me depressed some times. NOw I focus on making money and enjoying the good life. I stopped worrying about kicking ass or getting my ass kicked. I mean a monkey or a huge dog can **** you up, but do you have to admire it?