Martial Artists VS Street Fighters

This has been a long fought battle for me. There are many people who claim that the martial arts are useless. These people are usually the ones who had to grow up in a rough neighborhood and had to fight off many of their assailants without the help of martial arts. These people grow up with the idea that MAs are only for the weak or just for show. I know that many of these people speak from experience, but no matter how much I suggest that the martial arts would benefit them, they always seem to turn a blind eye.

Whats your thoughts on this subject?

peace

 

Well, there are up sides and down sides to learning to fight on the street rather than a dojo.

On the up side, you learn very quickly what works and what doesn't.

On the down side, if you try something that doesn't work you end up dead.




Hmmmm.


I think some very clever person said it on MAP before:

 

There is a lot that you learn in MA class that you can't apply to a street fight, which is where I think a lot of people get that from. Most of the time a street fight is going to be started by someone being sucker punched, and I wouldn't reccomend trying to use sparring techniques in a street fight, sparring is more about chess and out thinking your opponent, it only works if both people are on the same level really, at least that is what I have found. However all of the self defense that I have learned, and the one steps as well, have helped me a great deal in real life situations. Those are what you need to remember in a street fight, you get sucker punched get up as soon as you can and wait for another punch, when he throws it step to the out side of the punch, snake your arm in to an arm bar, reach around his neck and pop his shoulder out of place. With a little bit of practice you will have it wicked fast, and I am yet to meet someone who is willing to fight after having their shoulder dislocated.

On top of all that just the fact that you are training in martial arts and learning how to effectively throw punches and kicks, everyone knows that a straight punch is much quicker and more devastating then a hay-maker which you are more likely to see in a street fight. MA training also teaches you to keep a calm mind in intense situations, and a level head in a street brawl is always your strongest weapon.

Kuma-

 

You shouldn't fight streets.

 

Streetfighter's do M/A now, Muay Thai & boxing usually.

 

experience always wins. you become experienced by actually taking part in whatever activity you want to become experienced in. when it comes to fighting, sparring is the safest and most efficient way of doing that. i don't care how often you do one-steps and other drills, you won't be calm and level-headed in a real situation unless you've had some experience with fighting.

so you wouldn't recommend punching the other person?
i also don't get what you're saying about sparring not "working" unless both people are the same level. i suppose it doesn't "work" if one person is a lot better than the other, because it'll end in a couple seconds. i have a feeling that's not what you meant though.

 

I didn't begin MA until 17, but having been born and raised in NYC, fights were unavoidable, by the time I started w/MA I'd been in a dozen or more street fights.

By my 3rd or so visit to my Shorin-Ryu dojo, I was only allowed to sparr with the brown belts. I posted earlier on an incident with a green belt that almost broke his neck.

That being said, I can't imagine anyone, however skilled, not being able to benefit from good martial arts instruction. I continued on w/Shorin-Ryu, hand-to-hand combat in the military, Wing Chun after the military, and just getting back into it now with an eclectic MMA (Bak Fu, Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, TKD, Mauy Thai).

IMO you can never be too thin, too rich, or have too much fight knowledge.

 

Medi's point is correct, you learn what works and what doesn't work for you.

In a dojo, you're learning one style with one set of rules in one type of environment which creates one mindset among your opponents.

Outside the dojo, you go up against different people with their own style of fighting in different environments with different mindsets with no rules.

 

Exactly. Go to a TKD dojo and you watch them kicking each other into oblivion, go watch WC and they're doing chi sao. Both are good training, but adaptability to the environment, situation, and opponent on the street is crucial.

 

this is precisely what open competitions are for

 

Rules all the same

 

Streets always cheat. It's the ass fault.

 

hehe hehe.... cockpit... hehe hehe

 

Said it all, want to test a man go with M/A if you want to win go street.

 

Skrom:

What I meant was that in sparring it is about out thinking your opponent, for example typically I will switch to a relaxed front stance with my fists up just under my chin (naturally my midsection is open). In sparring I am basically opening up a target for my opponent and expecting him to strike at the target, this way if I know where he will strike then I can block / parry / counter attack that much faster [it's about thinking ahead of your opponent]. Street fights are chaotic at best, and you don't often have time to assess the situation, you need to go for whats fast and does the most damage with the least amount of effort, which unfortunately you can't do in sparring. Sparring is basically light to medium contact, and even if it's hard contact, it isn't going to have the same effect of popping the dude's shoulder. At least that's how I see it.

Kuma-

 

I could not agree more. Pavement wins 90% of the time. Asphault wins the other 10%

 

Well, I would guess that street fighters do have one important advantage that many martial artists do not have. All of the truly "street hardened" warriors are more mentally prepared for aggressive situations. In other words, they don't get shaken up if some punk starts cursing at them and pushing them and such. But many martial artists with solely professional training don't know how to deal with the adrenaline dump. So they freeze up.

The advantage that martial artists have in their training, is the capacity to make mistakes in the dojo and not wind up paying with their life or becoming seriously injured. (Most of the time.) They have a wider margin for error, and though the ones with legitimate training have to truly strive to excel, their mental/physical health is not threatened as it would be in an unstable environ. But as it is a controlled environment, the learning does take longer.

In short, street fighters learn faster, but with more extreme consequences for error while martial artists learn in a safer environment but over an extended period of time.


Nightblade

 

seriously, all you do in sparring is open up targets and expect your opponent to go for them? if that's really your entire gameplan, then i guess sparring wouldn't be as beneficial for you as it is for other people. you must suck at sparring too.

real fights are chaotic, just as sparring often is. if you've got any safe training methods which are more chaotic and spontaneous than sparring, feel free to share.

sparring is not "basically light to medium contact". if it is for you, you're probably not training hard enough. during the summer i was sparring light a few days a week and full once a week.

i don't really get what you're saying about popping someone's shoulder either. do you really think you'll be able to pull that kind of thing off with any kind of consistency? sounds like a pretty low percentage technique, and i'm assuming you only practice it in drills...you can't apply it properly during training either. the odds are against you there.

 

Ok enough of us Martial Artists arguing with each other. The direction of this topic is towards the Street Fighters.

I personally believe that trained technique always trumps untrained technique. Its pretty hard to consider martial arts are useless. This is due to the fact that many of them were created to be effective for the nightmarish situations of war. I've said this once before on another site and I'll say it again, If you think that martial arts won't work under pressure, then thats got to be the biggest bunch of BS I've ever heard in my entire life. If warriors of the past were able to take the pressure of thousands of men being killed all around them and be able to carry out their duties through skillful combat, then there is now way that you can disregard the potency of the combat arts.

peace

 

Can you block a bullet? Hows your rising block against a scaffold pole?
Did that last punch have a knife attached to it?

Sure you'll beat some drunk kicking off 'cos you looked at him funny (most of the time) but some people go out to fight, they stack the odds so heavily in their favour that you stand very little chance at all, and they train in full contact M/A. If you train like your warriers of the past, including experience of combat on the battlefield then you might be OK.

Sure way to win - don't be there