Tim,

You are so right, again!

I'd much rather fight a "master"(I rarely use that term)than a beginner.

And I too would love to see Rickson and Sak.

I'm also sure the Yang family didn't have to deal with ground submission through superior position.

Two things....

1) I'm kinda sorry that Maceij went on about CMC. Doesnt exactly play down the supposed arrogance of us Tai Chi guys. I'm believing that a guy who was a Marine and CIA op( Smith) was more likely to be a skeptic than not, so I'm thinking CMC was formidable. I dont think we can be sure how much. But in his day probably very?

As far as submissions, historically speaking, Tim, wasn't it a bit more "kill or be killed" in the Chinese arts for a long time?

2) A friend of mine had a boxing teacher who told him as wise a saying as I've ever heard..."Be careful of chumps. A chump will hurt ya every time."

..."kill or be killed"...

Can we say "Choke out"!

Stephen,

Well, I think it is "kill or be killed" at some point in all martial arts, it just depends on the situation.

People that really needed to know how to kill developed realistic methods of training so they could develop deadly skills without actually killing their training partners. The result, arts like Shuai Jiao and BJJ (now often considered "sports"), because they have perfected practical methods of training and SPARRING produce far more dangerous fighters than martial arts that do not include these methods (ironically, because they believe their techniques are too "deadly" to actually practice).

Hence my statement, those that cannot demonstrate their arts against resisting opponents in training, will almost certainly not be able to apply their arts against resisting opponents when actually fighting.

Dead verse Live training, you can certainly practice dead training but you will be quite dead if you do, OR,
you can do live training and stay alive.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html

According to the above, in the 20th century 151 million people died by violent means.

How many of them do you think died under circumstances that looked anything like a MMA competition?

No matter how good a hammer it is, it still cant turn everything into a nail.

Non-leathal training is a wrench that adjusts to every nut.

Doc
should I practice room clearing with paintball
or do you suggest live ammo?

are you avalible for practice?

Doc,

I'll try again.

I didn't claim that realistic martial training methods will solve the problem of world hunger.

My point was realistic martial training methods will greatly increase your odds of surviving a fight.

Want to know what does look like an MMA competition?
Every fight in the street, bar or alley.

I agree that realistic training methods increase odds of srvival.

But would I disagree with the opinion that training for MMA competition, in and of itself, is adequately realistic.

This is because I think that real violence is not separate from "real problems" (world hunger, access to oil, whatever). If you disagree with me on this, then I would ask what you mean by the term "realistic."

Was a survey ever done of how many people experienced pleasant deaths in the 20th century?

"Realistic" training in the context of martial arts practice include methods of full contact training against non-cooperative, resisting opponents in situations that are likely to occur in a fight.

Where I live, everyone has gas and enough to eat, but they still get into fights.

Where I live, everyone has gas and enough to eat, but they still get into fights.

Again another nail hit directly on the head with the hammer weilded by Tim.

Thanks for your response, Tim.

OK, guys. I admit that MMA is well suited to the needs of the average SoCal plebe.

But I dont think that makes it a universal standard by which we can judge methods of training created in and for other circumstances.

like parachuting? or Knitting? or Accounting?
Griffting? Painting? Plumbing? Fishing?

You mentioned not turning a hammer into a nail; which makes me wonder, who would you rather build your next house:
Men who have spent 5 years framing and building houses or men who have spent 10 years pretending to drive invisible nails into invisible wood with invisible hammers?

and... which of those two groups do you think will become injured while building your house?

"But I dont think that makes it a universal standard by which we can judge methods of training created in and for other circumstances."

Who ever said otherwise?

Well, it should be possible to state some sort of explicit standards by which we decide what to practice. But before we can do this, we have to make a kind of conceptual leap up from the immediate concerns of technical training and start talking about what kinds of goals we intend our training to achieve. In other words, if "Training is about how to solve problems optimally; education is about how to frame problems insightfully," we need to be thinking about the education part of our practice.

(quote is from: www.insightassessment.com/pdf_files/CT_Teaching_tips.pdf)

Anyway, I believe that the traditional Chinese approach to martial arts as "self-cultivation" has a lot to offer (not that a lot of people actualize these aspects), and it is possible to move with complete logical integrity from being concerned with pure "martial" practicality to a practice regimen that is focused primarily on meditation. But thats just me.

BTW, Shane, I am building my own house (with help from my friends).

"explicit standards by which we decide what to practice"

most folks who think like that hardly ever practice anything beyond deciding.

(quote is from: http://www.shenwu.com/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgic)

Bob#2

"Training is about how to solve problems optimally; education is about how to frame problems insightfully"

This explains how a doc in academia is able to create problems that don't exist with his education, and solve nothing.

Also it should be possible to state some ideas in a way that they are easily understood.


This could involve some training in something called...(insert your own idea here).

answers may be based on experience only, absent of training, education or even brains.

mine frequently are
TCB

Doc,

Good post.

I totally agree about the "self-"cultivation" aspects of training. But, depending on one's approach, why can't any activity be used as a tool of self-cultivation (martial arts training, competition, building a house...)?

Depending on one's approach to training, are the Chinese martial arts superior to the arts of other ethnic groups, or the practice of MMA for self-cultivation?