How are you supposed to use fancy FMA stuff in empty hands?

[Permalost]

The tendency is to accumulate more knowledge, rather than weed out stuff that doesn't work so much. Who wants to be the guy who only knows 2 disarms? Whaddya mean you only practice 3 sinawali patterns? It's very difficult to step back and cut stuff out of the curriculum - usually it involves a guy wearing a fencing mask and hockey gloves whalloping the **** out of your skull.

This is the only FMA I know these days- I learned formally years ago and kept it alive by sparring in fencing masks (and honestly most of it wasn't "whalloping the **** out of" kind of contact, but it was better than fancy routines), and I've pared it down to a small body of things that I feel I can always improve. My "system" for weapons is basically this:
-Stance with a right or left lead
-linear footwork in 4 directions
-circling footwork
-a few triangular entries
-2 disarms (for forward or reverse grip)
-8 angles of attack (focusing on the main 5)
-6 simple parries
-3 methods to avoid and counter leg attacks
-4 methods using a wide grip to strike
-4 methods using a wide grip to block
-3 chokes with the stick (half nelson stick choke, side headlock stick choke, and fang choke

For the knife, the last three are replaced by:
-3 assisted cuts
-3 finishing cut positions (similar position to stick chokes)

It might seem like a lot, but when you take it as your entire system, it's pretty simple.

[Dsimon3387]

This is the only FMA I know these days- I learned formally years ago and kept it alive by sparring in fencing masks (and honestly most of it wasn't "whalloping the **** out of" kind of contact, but it was better than fancy routines), and I've pared it down to a small body of things that I feel I can always improve. My "system" for weapons is basically this:
-Stance with a right or left lead
-linear footwork in 4 directions
-circling footwork
-a few triangular entries
-2 disarms (for forward or reverse grip)
-8 angles of attack (focusing on the main 5)
-6 simple parries
-3 methods to avoid and counter leg attacks
-4 methods using a wide grip to strike
-4 methods using a wide grip to block
-3 chokes with the stick (half nelson stick choke, side headlock stick choke, and fang choke

For the knife, the last three are replaced by:
-3 assisted cuts
-3 finishing cut positions (similar position to stick chokes)

It might seem like a lot, but when you take it as your entire system, it's pretty simple.

what you both propose is very good. See the thing is when you take stuff out and away you can always keep it for future reference and you can always add more stuff later if you feel like you are getting too thin with the material.

What I have found interesting is that the more you work through a small amount of material the more the whole of the material makes sense. situations come up which show why other stuff ws incorporated. Its a very interesting development really.

[Chili Pepper]

It might seem like a lot, but when you take it as your entire system, it's pretty simple.

Kudos, sir, kudos.

I had a student who was the FMA version of the Praetorian Guard, except instead of saying "remember, Caesar, you are mortal," he'd say "Guro, why do we practice this drill?" He liked training hard, and is a good student, so it wasn't like he was slacking off. He just legitimately wanted to hear my reasoning for why a drill should or should not be practiced.

[Punchmaster]

<shrug>

It's very difficult to step back and cut stuff out of the curriculum - usually it involves a guy wearing a fencing mask and hockey gloves whalloping the **** out of your skull.

Well said!

[Ryno]

Kudos, sir, kudos.

I had a student who was the FMA version of the Praetorian Guard, except instead of saying "remember, Caesar, you are mortal," he'd say "Guro, why do we practice this drill?" He liked training hard, and is a good student, so it wasn't like he was slacking off. He just legitimately wanted to hear my reasoning for why a drill should or should not be practiced.

I actually try to address this when I teach. If I am teaching a drill that we are using to train a particlular attribute, I'll tell the students that.

"This is just a drill, and not how you fight. What we are working on here is ____, which is useful when fighting. We'll drill it now, but be sure to try to work this in later when we spar."

Ideally, I try to phase stuff in, as the jump from controlled drill to sparring can be a big one. So, it's usually controlled drill > semi-live drill > controlled sparring > free sparrring. Phasing stuff in like this when training a particlular tactic or technique seems quite helpful.