How hard is it to become proficient in weapons based arts compared to physical fighting ones?

When I was a newbie, my school sponsored (or something similar...hosted?) a Shaolin Monk team here. A few members came and did a preview of the big show at our schools. The big show was in a theater and it was a full performance that we got (I think) discount tickets too. It was awesome! They had the whole leaning the body into a spear tip thing, and other feats as well as some great Wushu performances. It may not be an art for real fighting, but Wushu has some incredible athletics.

Anyways, a few days later at the school, I was all exuberant and talking about some of the more fantastical things, and my Sifu looked at me and said that our GM had told him once how they do all those things and it is tricks. I was a bit crestfallen. But I also appreciated that my Sifu let me know the reality and that he didn't let me go on believing in these things as real. It gave me a good appreciation for what my school teaches. Hey, it was still a good performance. My school did sponsor or host or whatever they did. But they knew the difference between performance entertainment and what we do at the school.

No, it is NOT ok to let foolish dangerous notions of skin toughening stopping sword slices go unchallenged here. Not even considering the "possibility." It simply is NOT possible. Period.

With kids (and some adults) doing stupid things like Tide Pod Challenges, blackout challenges, fire mirror challenges you just can't remotely endorse this. Someone could search through this and then try it out. Sadly, we live in a world where people are doing a lot of dangerous stupid things, spurred by media.

Look at the world right now! We let these ridiculous flat earther, anti-vaxxer types go without challenging strongly enough. We let them think what they want largely unchallenged. What harm could it do to let them go on being stupid, right? It only affects them, right? Wrong! Then a pandemic hit and they wouldn't take the dang vaccine and it is having global repercussions. The whole dang pandemic is being dragged out longer because we didn't speak out loudly enough. Not trying to get political. But I AM stressing that this ignoring basic realities of science and how the world works has real dangerous repercussions. We need to prioritize rational thinking again!

So no. I don't want some newbie teen perusing MAP and thinking they can try toughening their skin and letting a friend slash them with a sword or knife.

No, just no.

 

A friend of mine used to run a company doing corporate bonding events, back in the day when that stuff was really popular. They got clients doing firewalking and bending iron rods on their throats.

If a business can get members of the public with office jobs to do this stuff, you have to ask yourself how much iron body conditioning is really involved

 

consider this your one and only mod warning , believe in what you want , but , if you imply that you wish harm on another member as you have in the quoted post there will be a ban.

 

Let me preface this by saying I was not the one who veered this conversation off topic. I responded to a tangent that already had done that. And threads do that sometimes.

I am more than willing to let it go back to the original topic after posting a response. But I do feel a need to respond to what you say here.

Mod note: While threads have a natural ebb and flow that take it of the exact topic as a natural part of forums, if it veers too far and too long, mods will split the thread. And that will happen here too. So don't worry about this.

I am not sure if you are referring to me, since the issue was not an anti-vaxxer bringing it up, but in case you were....

What it has to do with this thread is that I am making the point that it is dangerous to let ideas that can hurt someone go unchallenged. That we have seen before, in the anti-vax movement, that letting anti-science things go unchallenged can actually end up having repercussions that help extend pain and suffering in myriad ways to greater society.

I also brought up the point of the crazy tik tok challenges.

I used to not challenge anti-science frankly IMO dumb ideas because it doesn't affect others. But when dangerous ideas hurt spread and hurt innocent people, I have rethought that. My statement is totally in the context of using it as an example of how important it is to call out dangerous ideas like the one brought up in this thread.

(I could go on and on about the science of why it is not extremist to follow the evidence of 11.6 billion doses of the vaccines administered, with only a handful having dangerous serious side effects, but that isn't the main point, you are right. So, I won't say more on that here. But there IS a correlation.)

You cannot condition skin to resist sword slices. Period. It needs to be challenged. Period. Show me the science or an example of this successfully happening or it will continue to be challenged.

 

It is interesting how different martial arts have opposite philosophies on this. My school teaches that you want to get a foundation in using your own body, particularly having good control of the basics, before adding the additional danger of weapons into the mix. Also, we learn that weapons are an extension of our body, so learn the body first and the extension will be easier to learn.

I would also say that odds are, in a real situation where you need to use your martial arts, I think learning to use your body is more practical in more situations that will come up. Most people in modern society do not carry a weapon. And frankly, many of the weapons taught in martial arts are not practical to carry in modern society. You can make an argument for stick and dagger, but even then most people don't carry them around.

I have heard arguments for both, and frankly, I can see valid points in both views. I think it comes down to there being valid different approaches in this case. And you just have to find the one you resonate with for your training.