Why i left martial arts

Discussion in 'Self Defence' started by Isaiah90, Aug 19, 2019.

  1. Isaiah90

    Isaiah90 Member

    This is my story of why i left martial arts.

    I always was a huge fan of martial arts as a kid. I watched films from people like Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, etc. and loved them. I started off as a Wing Chun practitioner. I studied Wing Chun for quite some time years ago because i wanted to learn self defense. I believed it would make me built for self defense. I decided to spar with people trained or not and see how effectively Wing Chun would work. I did not believe training with people of the same style.

    I got one guy i knew to spar no contact when he visited. He tried throwing straight punches. I parried and countered with straight punches to his face. He was surprised, but he tried a different approach. He threw a punch and i parried. As soon as i parried, he grabbed my arm then pulled me towards him as i was delivering the counter punch. He grabbed both of my arms to prevent me from striking. I realized Wing Chun's weakness was grappling.

    I was troubled by this so i searched how to counter grapplers. To my surprise, i heard many Wing Chun practitioners get submitted and taken down by BJJ practitioners. I looked for responses from Wing Chun practitioners on how to deal with grapplers. They didn't even address it. They did address how to deal with double leg takedowns, but still didn't fully address on how to deal with grapplers.

    My friend was a boxer. He showed me a video of him sparring with an amateur in a bathroom. Guy was swinging wildly and my friend simply moved his head slightly out of the way. Finally, the guy got tired and my friend swung once then knocked him out. I was surprised at how simple boxing was. He challenged me to spar so i agreed. I got in my Wing Chun stance and he came in swinging with boxing combos. I saw them coming, but couldn't parry or block with my techniques. Wing Chun techniques only dealt with straight line attacks. It didn't deal with attacks from curved angles such as hooks, crosses, uppercuts, etc. I got clobbered. I even saw one demo. of a Wing Chun master admitting Wing Chun could not beat boxing. He did a Wing Chun parry, but the boxing hook still connected to his head.

    I got frustrated so i researched Wing Chun more hoping to beat boxing. I looked for answers to deal with boxers from a Wing Chun perspective. I saw alot of Wing Chun practitioners get demolished countless times by boxers. Many Wing Chun masters didn't address it. Those who did gave unsatisfactory answers. One suggested you put your open palms in front of the boxer to keep your distance then move in and trap his arms. I knew it wasn't going to work on a pro boxer who was good at keeping his distance and doing some clinch-work. I was also impressed by how boxers trained full contact and defended with head evasions, blocks, parries, etc. Boxers delivered very powerful punches. They packed about 1,000 pounds of force. Some boxers like Mike Tyson packed more power due to their weight.

    I realized there was no way Wing Chun could beat a boxer with the punches it had. According to Wing Chun theory, you don't sacrifice power for speed as it lacks efficiency. However, you can't knock out a boxer if your punches lack power so how will you efficiently end the threat?

    I started looking at other traditional martial arts to supplement my training and i was still dissatisfied. Most techniques were flashy and unrealistic. After hours and hours, i noticed the same pattern. Traditional martial artists kept having a step 1-2-3 sequence of techniques for every kind of attack. They almost always did drills that didn't translate well to combat. They talked alot about theory, but didn't put it to practice. I realized martial arts was more of a religion than an actual self defense system. They insisted you do things their way even if it wasn't practical.

    I looked to combat sports to see if i could have better luck. After all, they sparred full contact and seemed to have a more practical approach. I may have resolved some issues as far as techniques go, but i ran into different problems. The rules were going to restrict your ability to defend yourself. Plus, many people in combat sports had the wrong mindset. They were looking to fight, not self defense. They ignored weapons, multiple attackers, foul tactics, etc.

    I had questions which led to more questions. I began questioning why i needed styles in the first place. For example, why couldn't i throw a finger jab in boxing? The boxers would say "because finger jabs are illegal in boxing and not boxing. If you want to throw finger jabs, join another martial art." If i went to another school, i'd run in the same problems. "You can't throw boxing combos. here. Go to a boxing gym." You can't be yourself in any school.

    I wondered if martial artists actually got attacked on the streets and were able to use what they learned in combat. To my surprise, i found most got hurt or killed on the streets by amateur street attackers. Nonetheless, martial artists keep insisting their arts are effective and make up excuses to justify bad training. "Some training is better than none.." they said. Some still insisted their training works even after they got beat up. They said "well it's only a sign i need to train harder..at least i didn't get killed so my training helped..my training taught me to get beat.." I said "but you got clobbered! I thought your martial art was supposed to help you defend yourself, not end up in a hospital or near a coffin?"

    With that, i left martial arts and started my own modern system of self defense. I learned from people who knew what they were talking about like Jim Wagner. I realized most martial artists were what i called "actors." What they present only works in the movies. It's mostly scripted. These guys didn't know much about combat. I learned more about combat from prison inmates and thugs than i did from the so called "masters" lol.
     
  2. Aegis

    Aegis River Guardian Admin Supporter

    Summing that down, it sounds like you did a bit of wing chun for a while, decided it had shortcomings, and decided that from there you were the best person to teach yourself rather than people who actually know what they're doing. Your videos clearly show that you don't have a good grasp of the fundamentals of stance and generation of both force and speed, so you can't have spenty much time at all actually studying.

    I think you're a fantasist, and certainly don't think you should be teaching anyone anything.
     
  3. Isaiah90

    Isaiah90 Member

    lol "those people" didn't know what they were doing. They just claimed to. Like William Cheung. He went up against Emin Boztepe and got taken down then beat up fast. He denies it happened, but it's clearly on camera. It shows Wing Chun doesn't have good defense against grappling. Plus, i offered to spar with martial artists in an unscripted environment to see if their arts worked. Most didn't respond.
     
  4. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    On short, got beaten by grappling and boxing, but didn't think training either of the two ways that beat him, was the way to get better.
     
    axelb likes this.
  5. Xue Sheng

    Xue Sheng All weight is underside

    Trained with Jim Wagner huh, so, did he come to you or did you go to him at his school?
    And in your profile you claim JKD.... so what is scripted about that, and who do you claim lineage to there?
     
    axelb likes this.
  6. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    Your offers to spar always seem to include multiple attackers and weapons.

    How about this? If you can't beat someone in an open rule set, you don't stand a chance when there are none.
     
  7. Isaiah90

    Isaiah90 Member

    If your art doesn't address multiple attackers and weapons, you can't claim you teach effective self defense.
     
  8. Isaiah90

    Isaiah90 Member

    I didn't train with Jim Wagner. I just learned what I agreed with and used it. There's nothing scripted about JKD. That's what makes it more effective than most arts. If you can't do your techniques in sparring, you might as well throw them out. JKD doesn't really have any lineages. It's an applied philosophy that anyone can use. It's not a style.
     
  9. Isaiah90

    Isaiah90 Member

    Boxing lacks weapons, dirty fight tactics, kicking, trapping, etc. Many grappling arts lack the same along with striking. Training those arts is useless and not the way to get better.
     
  10. Southpaw535

    Southpaw535 Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    I would argue if you can't demonstrate that you know how to throw a punch or a kick, you can't claim you teach effective self defence. No matter what philosophy is behind it.

    As it stands, I'd trust my safety a lot more to what I've seen PiP would be capable of teaching me from mma than I would what you've demonstrated so far on here in your tailor made system.
     
    Dead_pool and bassai like this.
  11. Isaiah90

    Isaiah90 Member

    Check out my youtube channel.

     
  12. Xue Sheng

    Xue Sheng All weight is underside

    JKD has a lineage, and you would know that if you really train JKD. That lineage starts with Bruce Lee and then goes to his 1st generation students then second then third. My brief JKD training trained with 2nd and 3rd.

    and based on your response you did not really learn "from" Jim Wagner either. At least not enough to be throwing his name out there to impress folks. I read books by a lot of long since dead Xingyiquan guys, learned from those books as it applied to my legitimate Xingyiquan training, but I would not go around saying I leaned from Li Tianji, Li Cunyi, and Sun Lutang. I did not learn from Bruce Lee either, but I learned form his student's students. I did not learn Taijiquan from Tung Ying Chieh, but I did learn a lot from one of his students, over a rather extended period of time.

    You can't read a book and claim to be a JKD guy, you can't watch a couple videos and claim to be a JKD guy. You also can't honestly claim to have learned from Jim Wagner if you never meant the man. Heck I physically trained with Fumio Demura and I physically trained with 3 JKD teacher and it does not mean I know squat about Karate or JKD, and I am most certainly not qualified to teach either of them

    If you have not trained, for a long period of time, with folks in the arts you claim to have studied, then you have not studied any of them and should not be trying to come across as a teacher of anything.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2019
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  13. Isaiah90

    Isaiah90 Member

    Jun Fan Gung Fu has a lineage, but that's not the same as JKD. Jun Fan Gung Fu is Bruce's interpretation of JKD.
     
  14. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    And yet you were beaten by people who only did them.

    Its almost as if the fundamentals of fighting are clinching and grappling.
     
  15. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    ^ edit, striking, clinching and grappling.
     
  16. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

    I’m not gonna lie , that was awful , I really wouldn’t put stuff like that up to justify what you teach.
     
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  17. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    I watched that video.
    It was horrible.
    You are claiming to teach self defence and yet you cannot display the fundamentals of power generation, balance, kinetic chain, posture, etc.
    You need to look up dunning-kruger because you are displaying a massive gulf between what you think you know and what you actually know.

    But then of course you know this. These posts are just about pushing traffic and views to your videos and various ventures.
     
    Xue Sheng, pgsmith, axelb and 3 others like this.
  18. Aegis

    Aegis River Guardian Admin Supporter

    I didn't spot a single good strike in there, which just demonstrates my earlier point that you left martial arts far too early. A good teacher of boxing, karate, muay thai, taekwondo, kung fu, kickboxing, etc would have had you striking far better than you demonstrate in that video. If you'd then combined it with a decent grappling art, you'd have a far better basis from which to add in your own theories on self defence.

    As it stands, you are the blind allegedly leading the blind - you don't know enough to realise how little you know, and you certainly shouldn't be charging anyone for this nonsense. You're an enthusiastic novice at best - at worst your teachings could get someone killed.

    Stop it. Go back to a school and learn before you even think about trying to teach anyone else.
     
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  19. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    Let me put it another way. If you can not beat one of me, how will you beat two of me?

    If I can not beat three guys attacking me you are far less likely to do so because you lack fundamentals in power generation, posture, footwork and have absolutely zero technique overall.

    I watched that video and I swear to God you're just trolling. You throw a punch, it looks weak, your chin comes up in the air when you throw it. It has zero intention and I don't think you've ever even hit someone before.
     
    Southpaw535, Dead_pool and axelb like this.
  20. Xue Sheng

    Xue Sheng All weight is underside

    You are incredibly wrong.

    Jun Fan was what Bruce first came up with first, based on his family name. He later changed it to Jeet Kune Do, while he was alive and taught it to several people, even certified Dan Inosanto to teach. This has been confirmed by Dan Inosanto....and just about every other "real" JKD guy on the planet, as well as Bruce Lee's family.

    There are 2 basic schools of JKD; those that teach the JKD that Bruce taught, and those that teach it based on the philosophy of JKD. The philosophy side would be folks like Dan Inosanto, who still requires his students to learn what Bruce Taught before branching off to the philosophical approach

    You should really stop claiming to have trained things you haven't. And stop telling folks you trained them to impress them so they will pay you to teach them things that are basically made up by you based on a tiny bit of exposure form books, videos, movies, articles, and the internet.
     
    Dead_pool likes this.

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