"Martial arts has changed more in the last 20 years than the 2000 years before it"

Discussion in 'Koryu Bujutsu' started by Christianson, Jun 29, 2014.

  1. 47MartialMan

    47MartialMan Valued Member

    Yes. And it also seems people are killing each other more
     
  2. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    thats because war and progress are linked

    the greater the war and greater the number of parties involved, the greater the technological and other progress derived from it.

    opening up the world through travel and information to the greater public is of course going to lead to some conflict
     
  3. callsignfuzzy

    callsignfuzzy Is not a number!

    Um, about that "more people killed" thing...

    http://www.cracked.com/article_20731_5-amazing-pieces-good-news-nobody-reporting.html

    #5 on there. Warning (probably?) for language, though nothing actually popped out at me while I scanned it.

    On-topic, I'd say there's some truth in Rogan's statement, though I think I'd back it up another century or so. We've seen more technology that's allowed for more in-depth studies of what works under specific circumstances, better fitness and nutrition, and much more cross-pollination between those who practice applied unarmed combat. When have we had more people practice unarmed combat as a profession, one that sometimes pays very well?
     
  4. AussieJKDguy

    AussieJKDguy Valued Member

    While we can’t pick when or where we fight unless your inebriated one should always be aware of where they are, These days we live in a concrete world so 90% of the time its guaranteed the floor area will not suffice.

    So 90's but still relevant having worked the door for 10 years I can tell you I have seen stuff go down in those exact circumstances every week.

    In my time I have seen two instances of people being charged for this very reason one punched a patron and the patron and fell hitting there head well it actually bounced a few times on the asphalt, the other a failed goose neck resulting in a leg sweep and the guy again here face planted on concrete.

    On two occasions I have seen rugby players at a bar tackle a guy in a fight only to be jumped on by the other guys mates one was hit with a stool.

    So from my experience the floor is always the last place I want to be and the last place I want to take somebody. In my experience it is highly unlikely that a high level grappler will take you down in a street fight as they are probably too bust training or like most people that train don’t get into altercations. Just my two cents guys I’m not a BJJ nut rider as you can tell but doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the art

    Maybe America is more prone to ground as you guys wrestle in school etc unlike Australians
     
  5. AussieJKDguy

    AussieJKDguy Valued Member

    Agreed but comes back to my notion of distance, These are just things that i have based on my own experiences and what i have learned over the years from some very cool teachers, dont expect people to openly agree with me but thats cool aslong as there is discussion there is thought which ultimately leads to self realisation and better practices :)
     
  6. Heraclius

    Heraclius BASILEVS Supporter

    I think you're missing the point. True, using an axe when you could use a gun doesn't make sense in a lot of contexts. But using your fists when you could use an axe doesn't make any more sense. So why are you arguing that we needed to develop guns to realise that:
    ?

    But as you have previously pointed out, one does not need to intentionally go for the takedown to dump someone on their noggin:

     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2014
  7. AussieJKDguy

    AussieJKDguy Valued Member

    Yup, which comes back to surroundings and floor which i was also getting at.
     
  8. Heraclius

    Heraclius BASILEVS Supporter

    That might be what you meant, but it isn't how you said it. Also, HFCT (sorry, your name is too long now :p) and I weren't talking about close-quarters combat but empty-hand fighting, which is different.

    Sorry, but what exactly are you getting at? First you single out takedowns as bad in places where the floor is unforgiving, but then you say that other techniques can have the same result. Are you trying to say that people just shouldn't fight where the ground is concreted or covered in broken glass etc.? Why single out takedowns in the first place?
     
  9. AussieJKDguy

    AussieJKDguy Valued Member


    Im stating there is a various resons why I would not go to the ground, one being surface area, Im also eluding to the fact one should be aware of there surroundings where permitted. Takedowns in my eyes and from my experiences have no place in self defence persay.

    Like I have said this is based on "my journey" in Martial arts and my observations I might not be pop culture when it comes down to fighting but im speaking from my experiences some wont agree thats fine
     
  10. Heraclius

    Heraclius BASILEVS Supporter

    Empty hand is CQC, CQC is not necessarily empty hand. I could fight CQC with a whole range of weapons, and, as I said before, you would be just as daft(or thereabouts) to challenge a swordsman with empty hands as a gunman.

    I agree with your point about being aware of your surroundings. I don't agree with your thoughts about takedowns, but I guess we'll just put that down to experience.
     
  11. Happy Feet Cotton Tail

    Happy Feet Cotton Tail Valued Member

    Hmm.. some stuff in that that is highly contestable. Notably the claim about tribal societies being really violent.

    AFAIK that argument is often taken from Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of Our Nature" in which Pinker looked at violent deaths in cherry-picked tribal societies in the 21st century and relied on the testimony of the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon (whose characterizations of modern tribal life, and in particular the yanomami, have been considered so dangerously mis-leading as to warrant an open letter by other anthropologists to defend them: http://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/920/yano-2013-anthropologists-letter.pdf )

    As for violent death statistics of periods we can measure, while the rate of violent death in the 20th century was, as the article says, around 3% the rate of violent death in the 19th century was only around 1% (http://necrometrics.com/wars19c.htm) the 18th is even lower but that can be attributed largely to the fact that most people died as infants before ever seeing a battlefield.

    Don't really want to derail the thread but the jury is still out on whether or not violence as a global phenomenon has really been going down so steadily.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2014
  12. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    I'm English and I live in Canada for reference :)

    Going to the floor is not about "choice" - it's about preparation. The point I am making is that the objection you hear about about "concrete, broken glass, needles, dog poo and lava" is nonsense because you don't even feel it at the time. People dying from hittin the deck off a punch suggests grappling is legally the better option to n'est pas?

    The "mass attack" threat is ever present and oft mentioned, but assumes that I don't have mates and that when it hits the ground it will be an even battle....it won't

    From a purely SD perspective it is essential as a "parachute" option and needs to be trained a lot; From those of us who have a professional need for combat it is vital and a first response option

    Let me clarify - I grapple and i grapple a lot, but it is not my go to and is primarily so I can avoid being grappled myself. That said in nearly every single encounter I have had...and there have been a LOT...it ends up with me controlling the person on the deck

    Groundfighting just isn't optional
     
  13. Christianson

    Christianson Valued Member

    That's amusing, I'm Canadian and I live in England!

    I'd say "I agree" but as my opinion and experience counts for nothing beside yours, that seems rather vacuous. To drags things back to the topic of the sub-board, however, here's a short explanation of why koryu bujutsu tends not to have much or any ground fighting. I don't know to what extent that's tended to influence the traditional anti-groundfighting perspectives, but from my understanding, the absence tends to reinforce Hannibal's point rather than contradict it.

    Koryu bujutsu had three main "competitive" environments -- the battlefield, the duelling in the Tokugawa period, and then the civil unrest around the Meiji Restoration. In the battlefield environment, groundfighting was definitely a major component of fighting and training. It is, I think, a very different beast -- submission holds, chokes, and the like were pretty much useless, and the objective you were aiming for was more along the lines of "both his arms trapped and one of mine free for five seconds," but nonetheless. It was also regarded very much as a deadly last resort, because winning that fight would not end the battle (quite literally), meaning even the winner would end up on the ground, in heavy armour, potentially surrounded by enemies with long weapons. For all of that, however, starting by taking someone to the ground was a primary, principal tactic.

    In the duelling period, the primary aim of battles was reputation. People fought to establish themselves as being masters of the martial arts. Taking a fight to the ground was seen as a low-class thing to do. A fight you won by taking it to the ground was, effectively, a fight you had lost -- nobody respects someone who needs to resort to "cheap tactics."

    But implicit in this is the recognition that groundfighting is effective. In a duelling environment, it's not difficult for the fight to end up on the ground (especially if you settle for mutual death), ergo someone who can prevent fights from ever getting there is highly skilled. If you were taken to the ground, you had already lost. So at this point, the focus of training would again have been obsessed with preventing things getting to the ground.

    (This changed a little towards the end of the Tokugawa period, with the advent of pure jujutsu schools. The preference for ippon, I'd argue, still reflects the same biases.)

    Fighting again became a literal, rather than social, life-or-death matter come the end of the Tokugawa period. In every account of those times I've read, however, the dominant form of violence was group assassinations. One side would have had a massive numerical advantage over the others. If a fight ended up the ground, it would have been settled by being on the side of the ambusher or the ambushed. So once again, the preference was for training that prevented the fight going to the ground -- as remote as your chances are fighting multiple opponents, you have much better chances on foot than on the ground.

    So basically, in those three main periods of combat, groundfighting was: effective (but dangerous); effective (but socially frowned on); or effective (and so much so it didn't require a lot of training).
     
  14. AussieJKDguy

    AussieJKDguy Valued Member

    Agreed and in my vast experience being a doormen for such a long time and having more fights then most people have had hot dinners I never myself found takedowns to be appropriate on the "street"

    however having said that I do in my training incorporate grappling as I believe to be able to counter it I need to understand it. Like I said not poo pooing grappling etc I’m just stating from my experiences I do not find it smart to take to the ground and if it does happen I hope my training has it covered but I will always attempt to get back up when opportunity presents itself.
     
  15. robin101

    robin101 Working the always shift.

    I was always of the mind that the "UFC was created for BJJ" line was the rallying call of the Martial artist whose arts cant cut it in MMA. Surely if it was a BJJ showcase, there would be next to no knockouts and striking, but that a huge part of it.

    As for the "there is concrete and glass on the street and friends helping" etc and the "no rules on teh str33tz" well, if you cant beat a guy in a safe enviroment with protection and rules, why do you think you are gona be able to without these things?

    As for the doorman thing,many famous doormen sing the praises of BJJ, Judo and Muay thai.
     
  16. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    If a doorman is afraid to take a fight to the ground he has a lousy crew...it would be the same as me not doing it in my job and to be honest I don't have much of an option!
     
  17. John Titchen

    John Titchen Still Learning Supporter

    I should point out that lots of doormen only work in a 2 per venue situation. It's not unusual at some points in time to find one outside stopping people coming in and one inside encouraging patrons to leave. Obviously that's at venues where the management isn't expecting lots of trouble.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2014
  18. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Fair comment and it is dependent on venue of course

    A doorman on a nightclub will typcially work in a large crew of at least 4-6; if it's a bar that changes a lot, but "mass attacks" even in bar scenarios are not that common
     
  19. jameswhelan

    jameswhelan Valued Member

    Show us your data for the 2000 years before 1994 C.E.
     
  20. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    I'm not claiming anything, I'm just playing devils advocate in this :p

    I wouldn't say it's a claim about anything more than method changing and styles changing. More like painters changing their technique to paint a picture more effectively. I'm not sure how one would put a statistic on this. Any suggestions?
     

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