Style validity

So I was watching a couple YouTube videos about different styles of martial arts. It seems there are a group of people who believe that only certain styles are truly effective for combat. Those Styles being Muay Thai, boxing, judo, wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. They seem to think that every other style for the most part is just total bunk. They write off karate, Taekwondo, kung fu, Aikido, and just about every other style as being not effective compared to the other ones that I listed.

So, what do you all think about this line of thought and reasoning? Does it hold any weight at all or is it just a total bias on the parts of practitioners of those styles?

 

I think the majority of martial arts aren't what people think they are.

Training method is more important than style.

Certain styles are typified by poor training methods.

Poor training methods lead to bad impractical techniques.

Poor training methods and a lack of practical testing result in students and instructer who are out of touch with how their material functions and don't have the physical or academic understanding of how to make what they do work.

Combat sport arts and arts that include resistance training daily in their practice irrespective of focus (sport, self defence etc) will be more functional and produce capable students as standard rather than as an exception.

In short: those people you mentioned are mostly right. Although often that attitude is appropriated by people without the experience to understand why or to apprieciate the nuances and exceptions.

 

I disagree with Aaradia, there's definitely some validity to it.

Some styles have become associated with more and some with less effective training methodologies. Many of those that you have listed have competitive formats associated with them, and, in the past couple of decades we've seen the rise of competitive formats that allow for competition with a mix of different martial arts styles.

In that competitive format, styles that were competitive tended to do very well, and those styles that had looser rule sets tended to do better than those that had more restrictive rulesets. I think there's an argument to be made for the validity of specialized and isolating competitive rulesets (e.g. boxing has a more restrictive ruleset than muay thai, but training just your upper body and just your hands offers a lot to fighters in MMA or MT), but it seems that the most effective training methodology is settled; aliveness, training with resistance against someone who is trying to train against you, better prepares someone than training without it.

Those styles that train with aliveness are thus superior at preparing someone for the glorious struggle of hand to hand combat than those that don't. The styles that you've listed as being effective nearly uniformly train in this manner, while there is a much greater admixture of effective and ineffective schools in those that others are writing off.

 

Something about your cadence, I made you this:

via Imgflip Meme Maker

 

Honoured and amused I am.

You captured my male pattern baldness perfectly too

 

So as long as the style is trained with resistance and aliveness that's all that matters? That means any of the styles that most people write off can still be great depending on the training?

As a side note, I know that not all styles start out with this type of resistance and aliveness but eventually progress to it. If a person we're just watching training videos on YouTube and not seeing the aliveness and resistance training, even though it is in the art, they could really get a misinterpretation of what actually happens in the long run.

 

Not necessarily. Styles evolve and, without the practical testing, all sorts of weird things can get incorporated. Limited rulesets can give rise to false ideas of competency - witness the boxers who claim they would knock a grappler out before they were taken down. Some styles and many schools really never progress to practicing their techniques with resistance. Still others have some form of resistance but it's impractical and frankly weird.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbHlg1MqrxU"]Did you get your black belt from K Mart - YouTube[/ame]

There's obviously some sort of pressure testing going on here, but I wouldn't bet money on them even over a very inexperienced boxer.

 

As soon as you start live training and move away from restricted formats though the styles rapidly become functional though. It's not what you do it's the way that you do it.

 

See, I genuinely wonder about that - without some sufficient number of competitors will an art evolve or will it just stagnate? My guess is the latter.

 

Have you begun training yet?

 

Why? And why is competition necessary? I agree that competition has many positives but it also brings many pitfalls (exhibit A butt scooting!!!) so it depends on what you want from the system. Valid does not necessarily mean will win MMA titles, valid means does what it claims to do.

 

I start the first week of February!

 

Being good at a particular style of mma (namely great wrestling and hands) transfers pretty well almost everywhere that involes fighting, bit it doesnt work the other way around. It won't teach you how to use a weapon but timing and distance are just as important defending against one.

 

Good man! What did you decide on in the end?

 

In your opinion which styles are typified by poor training methods?

 

The majority of them.

 

While true to an extent, what does that have to do with what I wrote?

 

I think competition drives innovation, good innovation come from exceptionally talented people who are a small percentage of the number that walk into a martial arts joint. Without both a large pool of talent and the fiery crucible of competition I'm not sure how you generate new techniques that are practical and not simply theoretical.

There's not many arts out there that boast of their minimal efficiency or stagnant technique base.