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[shadow_priest_x]

I know the article of which you speak. Do you have en email address provided by the magazine from which you can send me an email? That would be sufficient proof for this conversation I believe. If so you can email to jswentworth at gamil dot com.

I'm a freelance contributor and don't work directly for Beckett, so I don't have an e-mail address with them. However, I can be reached at firstname_lastname at yahoo (using the name in the article, which is actually a pseudonym I regularly write under).

I've also been published in Black Belt. (You'll find something in the Aug. 2007 issue if you can dig it up somewhere.)

I'm currently working on doing an interview with the director of this little gem. . .

YouTube- EMPTY HAND - The Real Karate Kids - Official Trailer 2010 [HQ]

. . . for which I hope to find a publisher in the near future. Hoping for Black Belt again, but I've also been talking to the folks at Shotokan Karate Mag.

We always like to have more writers here as well, so welcome to the boards. Don't be put off too much by Omega. He's a bit abrasive, but if you can deal with him then the rest of us are sweethearts in comparison.

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

[Kintanon]

**** you.

Take a number.

[DerAuslander]

Like Omega, you also are a pretty big fucking dick. You just run your mouth and give no thoughtful consideration to what anyone says.

You want to preach to me about manners but this is how you speak?

Hypocrite.

First off, forms are not a dance competition.

The way the ATA and other modern groups train forms is a dance competition when compared to the original purpose for which the forms were created.

They do it wrong.

Period.

Second, I think it's an interesting point about responding under pressure. Can you refute it? No.

I don't have to refute it, because there is ZERO proof provided of it being true.

Prove to me that how you perform a dance in front of judges has any bearing on how you perform in combat.

Provide me with peer-reviewed studies showing that there is a corrolary between low stress environments such as dance competitions and non-combative activities with the adrenal dump of actual combat.

The United States Marine Corps nor any other branch of the US military does not use dance competitions to instill fighting spirit in their trainees. They use live-fire drills.

[babo78]

I am 28 now. In the interim, I've dabbled in a number of areas of the MA community. I spent a month and half in Chinese wushu and got to the 2nd rank in the style. I spent 6 months in Judo and got a yellow belt. I did a few muay Thai classes and picked up the basics.

I hope you realize many folks here have been training long as you were alive or more. Some are and were ama/pro fighters and/or coach in various format including MMA, MT, and Olympic Judo. Also many on this forum are not faceless internet people who are keyboard warriors. Many on this forum will gladly meet up to throwdown either sparring or even far as going to fighting venue. Search for omega, der, and you will see videoes of them. Even myself if that matters for anything.

Just recently, I made a return to formal MA training. I could've joined an MT class or an MMA gym, but I guess I'm a traditionalist at heart, and I'm training under an ITF TKD instructor.

What's your definition of 'traditionalist'? If it is matter of how old a styles has been around and how its trained. MT is far more traditional than TKD in both areas. Heck even BJJ is more traditional than TKD in those two sense.

[shadow_priest_x]

You want to preach to me about manners but this is how you speak?

Hypocrite.

Just talking to you the same way that you seem to like talking to others. when someone says something to you in a reasonable and polite way and you act like a prick in return . . . well, yeah, you need to have some **** said to you about that.

The way the ATA and other modern groups train forms is a dance competition when compared to the original purpose for which the forms were created.

They do it wrong.

Period.

Well, definitely this is true to an extent. I don't disagree at all. In fact, regarding the ATA specifically, I think that this is OVERTLY true with their choreographed musical routines and all that ****.

With that said, if you have a form in which you are supposed to do a side-kick, and you work on that form 1,000 times with an emphasis on improving, then your sidekick should get better overtime and that is something that should eventually help you in a combat sense. You may need to train that sidekick in other ways as well, such as hitting a heavybag and using it in sparring, but in terms of improving the way you actually do the technique, the form/kata/routine/pattern certainly will be beneficial.

I don't have to refute it, because there is ZERO proof provided of it being true.

Prove to me that how you perform a dance in front of judges has any bearing on how you perform in combat.

Provide me with peer-reviewed studies showing that there is a corrolary between low stress environments such as dance competitions and non-combative activities with the adrenal dump of actual combat.

The United States Marine Corps nor any other branch of the US military does not use dance competitions to instill fighting spirit in their trainees. They use live-fire drills.

I didn't say I could prove it or that I wasn't even interested in trying. What I said was that the dude made a good point when it comes to learning to deal with stress. It's not unreasonable--in fact, I think it's very reasonable--to suggest that learning to deal with stress IN GENERAL will help you in all areas of your life, including combat.

You bring up the military. . . When I went through Army basic training, I noticed a number of things, and one is that they do all kinds of psychological **** to you to toughen you up. These things have no direct relation to combat, but they do it because the ability to deal with stress that you'll develop will help you if you ever do find yourself in a combat situation.

Would you disagree with that? And if not, could that same principle not be applied in regard to dealing with stress while testing for rank promotion?

If you disagree, then that's fine. But don't be a dick about it.

[shadow_priest_x]

I hope you realize many folks here have been training long as you were alive or more. Some are and were ama/pro fighters and/or coach in various format including MMA, MT, and Olympic Judo. Also many on this forum are not faceless internet people who are keyboard warriors. Many on this forum will gladly meet up to throwdown either sparring or even far as going to fighting venue. Search for omega, der, and you will see videoes of them. Even myself if that matters for anything.

No doubt there are people here who have infinitely more training than I have. A lot of my knowledge is theoretical. I'm a journalist, so a lot of it has come by watching others or reading . . . not directly participating myself (though as I've made clear I do, and have done, some training of my own).

To say that my opinion is invalidated because someone else may know more than I do--not that you said that directly, but you implied it--is like saying I don't deserve to have an opinion on politics because I didn't live through the Vietnam War. There will ALWAYS be people who know more, have done more, have thought more, and are better than all of us.

With that said, I didn't even jump into this thread because I disagreed with what most people were saying about the ATA. I wanted to comment on people being dicks to someone, which really doesn't have anything to do with martial arts at all. It has to do with being a human being.

What's your definition of 'traditionalist'? If it is matter of how old a styles has been around and how its trained. MT is far more traditional than TKD in both areas. Heck even BJJ is more traditional than TKD in those two sense.

MT is in its current form as a ring sport is a fairly recent invention and has evolved significantly from its ancient roots. But you're right, the term "traditional martial arts" is a bit of a misnomer. So when I use the term I am using it in its common usage form, essentially meaning Chinese, Japanese, or Korean martial arts that are more than 50 years old.

We'll agree that it doesn't make literal sense, but we both know what people are talking about when they say "TMA."

[Rene "Zendokan" Gysenbergs]

...With that said, if you have a form in which you are supposed to do a side-kick, and you work on that form 1,000 times with an emphasis on improving, then your sidekick should get better overtime and that is something that should eventually help you in a combat sense. You may need to train that sidekick in other ways as well, such as hitting a heavybag and using it in sparring, but in terms of improving the way you actually do the technique, the form/kata/routine/pattern certainly will be beneficial...

Sorry to say, but you are mixing up sparring, drill, bunkai and kata.

Even that I'm an ex-Taekwondoka, I'm going to explain it to you using a Muay Thai 5-count.

The 5-count is: left roundhouse kick, jab, cross, (+ closing distance), (clinch +) right knee to the abdomen, (push away to the right +) right roundhouse kick. so, left roundhouse, jab-cross, right knee and right roundhouse.

If I train the 5-count with a partner who's holding pads, I'm doing the drill.

If my partner is wearing his gloves and counterstrikes (feeds) a cross after my left roundhouse kick that I intercept/block and then finish the rest of the 5-count, I'm doing bunkai (two man kata).

If I'm training my 5-count in front of the mirror, without a partner and focusing on doing the perfect technique, I'm doing kata.

And in sparring when my opponent comes in with a cross after I did a left roundhouse kick, it's fighting.

The drill learns you to memorize the routine and put power in your techniques.
The bunkai learns you the timing and distance.
The kata learns you to do the "perfect" technique (since their is no resistance)
The sparring learns you to use the 5-count in a fight when the conditions of the bunkai manefest themselfs.

The problem with most kata nowadays is that they aren't based on the bunkai anymore.

So you get
1) unrealistic combinations of techniques (in kata that isn't based on bunkai)
2) since the bunkai is missing the timing and distance is offbeat if you would use a kata sequence in a fight (in systems that has kata that is/was based on bunkai)
3) Kata has never been a tool to become a fighter, that's where the drill, bunkai and sparring are for. Kata is the tool with which you learn to have control over your own body to perform the techniques picture perfect correctly.

[shadow_priest_x]

^^^^ I don't see how anything that I posted conflicts with what you just said here.

I said that kata will help you learn proper FORM regarding the individual technique and you agreed.

[Rene "Zendokan" Gysenbergs]

^^^^ I don't see how anything that I posted conflicts with what you just said here.

I said that kata will help you learn proper FORM regarding the individual technique and you agreed.

Kata is the byproduct of bunkai!

Please try to create a bunkai form of the Palgwé or Taegeuk forms (by adding an opponent) and then you'll see that the opponent doesn't use a logic attack pattern.
So the kata is flawed and yet other posters made a claim that performing a kata will learn you fighting skills or performing it in front of a jury will test your stresscapability in a fight...both are incorrect since only fighting will learn you how to fight and control your stress in fight situations.

[babo78]

No doubt there are people here who have infinitely more training than I have. A lot of my knowledge is theoretical. I'm a journalist, so a lot of it has come by watching others or reading . . . not directly participating myself (though as I've made clear I do, and have done, some training of my own).

To say that my opinion is invalidated because someone else may know more than I do--not that you said that directly, but you implied it--is like saying I don't deserve to have an opinion on politics because I didn't live through the Vietnam War. There will ALWAYS be people who know more, have done more, have thought more, and are better than all of us.

With that said, I didn't even jump into this thread because I disagreed with what most people were saying about the ATA. I wanted to comment on people being dicks to someone, which really doesn't have anything to do with martial arts at all. It has to do with being a human being.



MT is in its current form as a ring sport is a fairly recent invention and has evolved significantly from its ancient roots. But you're right, the term "traditional martial arts" is a bit of a misnomer. So when I use the term I am using it in its common usage form, essentially meaning Chinese, Japanese, or Korean martial arts that are more than 50 years old.

We'll agree that it doesn't make literal sense, but we both know what people are talking about when they say "TMA."

You are entitled to your opinions. Thanks to country we live in, we have freedom to do so. However having an opinion does not mean it carries weight. Weight of opinion is built upon expertise of the field by combination of experience, education, skill, knowledge,etc. Also opinion and fact that two different things.

That said. You have very little expertise in this area of martial arts. You are welcome to express your opinion however that does not mean it means much for the topic we are discussing in this thread.

Who is more credible? Individuals who have vast experience and knowledge? Or someone with very limited experience and knowledge?