The Never Ending War between soft styles and hard styles

I have noticed that there is a lot of style bashing going around. Hard styles (karate, TKD,ect) bashing soft styles, and Soft styles (judo, aikido, ect) bashing hard styles. This idea of style vs. style is completely ridiculous. I believe a true martial artist isn't limited to one style or type of fighting, he/she trys to make himself wellrounded by becoming well versed in all aspects of MA, throws, grappling, punches, kicks, everything. Please put your opinion on this subject. Thanks.

Preston

 

Im not sure what your definition of soft and hard styles are. I always thought of Judo as a hard style, its pretty rough. Your more likely to get injured than in the 'hard styles' you mentioned.

 

And another VS thread sees the light of day...

*grabs the popcorn once again*

 

Is Judo a soft style? I think I must be going to the wrong class then!

 

gezz judo is the soft style, thats first i've heard about it. mind you am not quite sure what u define as hard or soft styles?, could someone describe this to me maybe?

Luke

 

Judo is considered a soft style because it doesn't incorporate strikes. If you noticed hard styles are pretty much nothing but strikes. Thats what I mean with "Hard Styles" and "Soft Styles".

 

It's just natural human response because of a few different factors. First of all anyone who's proud of a certain style they know or is drawn to one in particular for whatever reason is going to favor that fighting style. Generally so called "balanced" styles have rarely been practiced often, although there have been a few notable exceptions recorded like pankration, early Boxing, ancient Sumo, ancient Thiang, Vale Tudo, and today MMA. Plus I think the schism has created a few misconceptions, softer styles presume they are more humane but in truth if you wanted to use your skills to spike an opponent on their head or break their bones it can easily be done with good "soft" skills. Harder stylists just think they're so efficient just cause striking tends to look more dangerous but truth is Hard stylists usually emphasis certain strikes depending on what it is limiting their skill to certain ranges and situations and rarely emphasis how often strikes miss. Those are my best guesses for why there's so much bad blood between stylists.

It is best to mix it up but I think it's really best to choose styles emphasising your strengths while figuring out how to adopt your style to counter other styles. As long as you can figure out how to augment your own style by learning to counter other styles I dont' think it is imperative that a fighter become "balanced" Good examples of this in my mind are Matt Hughes who mainly body slams his opponents and then sets up a mount to strike or submit or Chuck Liddell who uses his wrestling skills mainly to counter takedowns but almost always wins fights with boxing or kicking. True they do use elements of both soft and hard styles but they clearly emphasis some techniques over others and so does every fighter even those who are considered more "balanced".

 

Well said, but first of all just to clear up some small points, Matt Hughes has a wrestling backround and it shows in his fighting but he isn't limited to just grappling, his strikes are just as dangerous, there are other factors that make Matt Hughes dangerous, for example his strengeth. He is considered the strongest welterweight in UFC, so that definantly plays a huge role on the power of his strikes and the tightness of his submission techniques. And Chuck Liddell, he's a completely different story, he almost has nothing but a kick boxing and muay thai backround. It has only been recently that Chuck has been working with wrestling and ground work. Look at Liddell vs. Cotoure 1, Liddell didn't know how to react to the grappling of Cotoure, but he began training to guard against grappling and countinued to train in Kickboxing, which shows in Liddell vs. Cotoure 2.

But I have thrown this discussion off topic, so please comment on the style vs. style subject.

And by the way, if you don't understand the difference between hard styles and soft styles then allow me to explain.

Hard Styles: These styles rely on primarily strikes such as kicks and hand strikes, some examples are TKD, Karate, Muay Thai, Kenpo, ect.

Soft Styles: These styles rely on primarily thorws, takedowns, and grappling, some examples are Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, Wrestling, ect.

P.S.- Do not take the terms "Hard" and "Soft" literally, it is true Judo is rough and I use these terms in a different context.

 

Well, lemme try to sum up what I was trying to say last post. I think the Hard Style vs. Soft Style argument is just symptomatic of a lot of MAers being to proud to reveal weaknesses in their technique or tactics. I think that's essentially the problem with style vs. style discussions. Too many people just think they're being insulted. Sometimes they don't want to admit they don't have the answer, or more specifically don't know how to deal with certain attacks.

 

Nope, judo is considered a soft style because the principles involve yielding to your aggressors force and redirecting it to their deteriment.

Ju = Gentle or Compliant

Do = Way

Hence why Judo is known as 'The Gentle Way'.

Wrestling could be considered a Hard style (no striking there).

 

Hard != striking
soft != grappling

Tai Chi is a soft striking style.
Most wrestling is a hard grappling style.

 

I think we need a definit definition of hard and soft here. We all seem to have different oppinions on what hard ans soft are.

 

Bingo, We have a winner. thats correct, I was partially wrong with what I said earlier, so thanks for correcting me.

 

I agree with your definition of hard and soft techniques, but I don't think any art is completely soft when it comes to real-world application. Sure, the throws and locks don't rely on strength in theory, but all the pushing and shoving in an effort to put someone off balance does. To my mind, the pushing and shoving is as much a part of judo as the throws and submissions, if not even more so. It's not a flaw with judo, it's just the messy reality of full-contact fighting where techniques don't always go to plan and strength still matters. Practitioners of any art would find this out if they sparred full/hard contact.

As for grappling vs striking, I agree it's a pointless argument. You're best off being a well-rounded fighter. Learning just grappling or just striking isn't going to work any better than trying to play football by just learning slide tackles. Even if you want to specialise in one aspect, you still need the other aspects covered.

 

Now that's philosophy! I think you've nailed it!

 

Erm, just one little question about the soft vs. hard issue.
If karate is a hard style then how comes it has soft, hard and hard/soft (sub)styles in it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I remember, shotokan is considered hard due to it's linear movements, goju ryu is the hard/soft one and soft style would be... erm... shorin ryu?

Maybe I'm going way off topic here, but... I guess what I'm trying to say is that not always you can arrange all things in two groups... with what I'm trying to say that not always can you draw a strict border between the two, for by doing so you would be generalizing things.
Ok, now I'm starting to scare myself so I'll just shut up.

 

I quote this because it made the point which people seem to be missing.

Some styles are purely soft (e.g. Judo) some are purely hard (e.g. western boxing) and some are a mixture of both (e.g. Shaolin Kung Fu.)

 

I wouldn't say that judo is purely soft - that'd be more like most styles of aikido. But yeah, as Johnno said.

 

Karate would be a mixture aswell then, there's throws and grappling in that too.