The Fundamental Logical Flaw of Martial Arts

[Chris McKinley]

As a number of threads both very recently and over the years on this forum all obliquely or directly touch on, there is a fundamental conceptual flaw in almost all traditional martial arts and even some non-traditional arts. That basic flaw is this:

That whatever way or ways you can learn to move your body, in however precise a level of coordinated detail, you will be able to move that way under the duress of a surprise life-threatening attack. As the crime and forensics reports and the science show, and frankly, as anybody who's ever been in that situation can tell you, that notion is pure 100% industrial-grade bullshit. Yet this very notion is endemic throughout almost every single traditional martial art one can find, regardless of ethnic, geographical, or cultural origin and regardless of when, historically, that art originated.

Granted, this trait does not manifest in exactly equal proportions in every system, and certain systems are subjectively known for being either more natural or more stylized in their movements. Yet in thread after thread on this and other forums, this fundamental problem surfaces again and again whether by implication or direct reference, and still many seem stubbornly to choose a stance of purposeful ignorance in regard to it. Further, as if to prove as a textbook case study in cognitive dissonance, it would seem that the more stylized the movements in a given art and the longer the time period required to replicate that art's movements to an approved degree, the more that art's adherents engage in the fallacy and the more stubbornly they refuse even to acknowledge the possibility of its existence.

There is also another sub-trend that seems to accompany it. Namely, that the more stylized the movements of an art, the less proponents of that art seem to speak from personal opinion, experience and reason when addressing matters of combat and their art's approach to it, and the more they seem to uniformly refer to some form of orthodox manifesto by default. This phenomenon is a bit like what the business world would colloquially label someone as being a "policy parrot" or "policy wonk", or someone who won't or can't answer relevant questions directly and from personal knowledge or opinion.

That this fundamental flaw exists and is in effect in the vast majority of all traditional martial arts is assumed to be true for the purposes of the starting conditions of this thread. What I would like as input from the forum posters is not opinion as to whether or not this phenomenon exists (as I stated, that is already assumed to be true for the purposes of discussion), but rather, their insights and opinions on what if anything can be done, is being done, or has been successfully done in regard to correcting it for the purposes of training so that that training will produce realistic and functional results for the purpose of self-defense in real life-threatening situations. Thank you all for you time.

[kenneth fish]

Here Here! You are preaching to the choir in my case. As I have mentioned in other posts, the military have the ideal laboratory for testing what works and what doesn't (i.e. war) To a considerably lesser extent the same may be said of law enforcement personnel. Having trained and trained with both, what appears to provide the most applicable training is repetitive training of simple techniques under various conditions and with varying degrees of stress. Not kickboxing, not forms (except to teach the fundamental technique).

[RobP2]

I agree with you Chris and I think the issue that needs to be addressed that so often isn't is how you react under pressure. This doens't mean training "animal day" every week, but starting with the smallest yet most important of things - your breathing. Understanding your reaction to different types of stimuli is the first step to either incorporating that reaction into your repsonse or overcoming the reaction with another more "useful" one. Without that fundamental understanding, any movement pattern laid over the top will always run the risk of coming second place to your root reaction, however many hours a day you spend practicing it.

Hopefully this will become an interesting thread

cheers
Rob

[JusticeZero]

Well, the fact that the MA's that you particularly are concerned with don't have much showing in either FC matches of any stripe or in RBSD tends to hold it out.. the fact that form is viewed as an ideal of motion to replicate in combat rather than a means of teaching movement principle is an issue too.. you speak of "replicating that art's movements to an approved degree", which seems like overemphasis of the tool, 'looking at the finger instead of the moon' as it were. I'm going to have to side with the RMA crowd in this regard; the goal is adherence to principles under pressure, not choreography. You need to do things like sculpt your 'sparring' rules much more carefully for one, and abandon the idea that the movements of the form contain all of the proscribed ways one can move. De-emphasize the memorization of strings of movement and save it for solo practice; when together, work principles and responses and improvisation.

[Doc Stier]

This should be an entertaining thread!

A better title would have been The Fundamental Logical Flaw of Martial Artists...!

Doc

[Dmitri]

[Enter Chris, with a stunningly beautiful troll by the arm.]

jk

[GrahamB]

I like that quote from somebody else elsewhere on the forum. To paraphrase:

The purpose of training to copy movements (i.e "form") is to teach you how to move, not limit your movements.

[Ian]

As a number of threads both very recently and over the years on this forum all obliquely or directly touch on, there is a fundamental conceptual flaw in almost all traditional martial arts and even some non-traditional arts. That basic flaw is this:

That whatever way or ways you can learn to move your body, in however precise a level of coordinated detail, you will be able to move that way under the duress of a surprise life-threating attack.

which threads?

[RobP2]

I like that quote from somebody else elsewhere on the forum. To paraphrase:

The purpose of training to copy movements (i.e "form") is to teach you how to move, not limit your movements.

And yet we come back to a point I made earlier about all my forms teachers being so precise about placement of hands, etc - we are talking millimetres - even to the extent of contradicting each other at times. Maybe that was just my experience yet, but I saw very little that was "formless" or free - present company excepted of course Graham Quite the reverse there were so many things that you were not allowed to do

[Ian]

I like that quote from somebody else elsewhere on the forum. To paraphrase:

The purpose of training to copy movements (i.e "form") is to teach you how to move, not limit your movements.

And yet we come back to a point I made earlier about all my forms teachers being so precise about placement of hands, etc - we are talking millimetres - even to the extent of contradicting each other at times. Maybe that was just my experience yet, but I saw very little that was "formless" or free - present company excepted of course Graham Quite the reverse there were so many things that you were not allowed to do

I have also seen precious little in terms of people (who do forms) giving themselves permission to move in a way that is formless i.e. the way they would move if they hadn't learned a single form in their lives.

Examples?

[GrahamB]

Rob and Ian,

I think the purpose of the form training in TCC is to teach you how to move in the "TCC-way" - i.e. 'correct' posture according to TCC (e.g. spine extended, weight sinking down, on balance, plus co-ordinated movement - limbs movng in harmony with torso, etc) once you understand that then you can be 'free' within the confines of the 'rules'. Some of the Systema movements look like 'flailing' of the limbs - while Vlad etc seem to make them work, I don't think they would classify as TCC 'free' movement. Free movement in TCC isn't 'formless' in that sense - it's done within confines of posture and co-ordination. probably also true in Systema, but in a different way, I wouldn't know.

Ian, I don't want to speak for other TCC guys or gals, but my YouTube page has some vids of me sparring - is that what you're looking for?

Rob - I don't understand how you could actually correct a student in terms of "millimetres" anyway - that sounds, frankly, bizarre?!?!?! How do you even know if you are 1 mil out? Stupid idea. Sounds like you were taught a load of crap to be honest!

G

[cloudz]

This is some of the best self defence if not the best all round training program I've seen. I basically agree about forms and stylistic matters. Other than putting oneself in life threatening situations I don't know what can be done about that.

[GrahamB]

One thing about this thread confuses me. I've never looked at somebody doing a form and though "that's how a fight would look"

Do people really think that? I find that hard to believe.... Unless I'm unusual?

[RobP2]

Rob and Ian,

I think the purpose of the form training in TCC is to teach you how to move in the "TCC-way" - i.e. 'correct' posture according to TCC (e.g. spine extended, weight sinking down, on balance, plus co-ordinated movement - limbs movng in harmony with torso, etc) once you understand that then you can be 'free' within the confines of the 'rules'. Some of the Systema movements look like 'flailing' of the limbs - while Vlad etc seem to make them work, I don't think they would classify as TCC 'free' movement. Free movement in TCC isn't 'formless' - it's done within confines of posture and co-ordination. probably also true in Systema, but in a different way, I wouldn't know.

Ian, I don't want to speak for other TCC guys or gals, but my YouTube page has some vids of me sparring - is that what you're looking for?

Rob - I don't understand how you could actually correct a student in terms of "millimetres" anyway - that sounds, frankly, bizarre?!?!?! How do you even know if you are 1 mil out? Stupid idea. Sounds like you were taught a load of crap to be honest!

G

To answer the 2nd point 1st this was part of the work of the - apparently - Yang family method (as opposed to Yang style). They had a Chinese name for it (of course!), twiddling thumbs or something. Basically it was fine tuning of the postures. Doesn't sound particularly bizarre to me in context of forms training, which at "advanced" levels was always adding in more and more detail. You can check this with the likes of Jim Ugolw and co

I think you are right - TCC teaches you to move in a TCC way. Whether that way is practical, efficient, desirable etc is down to the individual in many respects. Movement in Systema is "formless" but in context of the body form and the needs of the moment. So while there is an ideal of maintain perfect poise, composure, etc there is also recognition of a reality off crapping yourself, flinching, having to dodge things, etc. That's a reality I see as profoundly lacking in TCC / CIMA in general. Valentin puts it nicely as "clean work" and "dirty work". Both get the job done, but cleaner is better!

[RobP2]

One thing about this thread confuses me. I've never looked at somebody doing a form and though "that's how a fight would look"

Do people really think that? I find that hard to believe.... Unless I'm unusual?

No, I never thought that - and yet people spend probably about 80% of their training time in forms? And application work from the traditional "name" teachers always revolves around form postures