Martial Arts That Aren't Useless

[Irmekroache]

No martial art is useless. Sometimes martial arts have very obscure applications, if you go learn more traditional martial arts, you'll notice that all the movements are weaved into philosophies and schools of thoughts, and that the movements aren't necessarily the most practical for fighting.

I've done Wing Chun(chinese) for a few years, and I can say that even for a style with such a big focus on sparring, some of the movements we are taught are needlessly complex ways to deal with attacks. I'm currently learning a sort of modern kung fu that picks elements from various styles to make up a more efficient, direct, fighting system.

Honestly, martial arts today are really only what their name proclaims they are: arts. It is incredibly rewarding to study these arts and understand the human body, but their practical application is disputed and the prospect of a fight should be avoided altogether. Learn martial arts for its spiritual, physical, and mental benefits, not for beating up people.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

I don't think anyone mentioned this one yet : Kali Silat.
It's quite a large family of different schools of fighting, but they're all quick and rather brutal. They really focus on practicality over flare.
Kali isn't the type of martial art where you "become one with your inner self", it isn't the kind where you meditate with incense in the corner*.
Kali is "this is how you beat up a ************ in five moves so that he will never walk again".
I've been doing Kali for about half a year now, and I really enjoy it, despite the pain involved. Wouldn't be much of a martial art otherwise.
It has heavy focus on weapons,but it goes in depth with hand-to-hand as-well. This is also good for fitness, as many strengthening drills are done with heavy wooden or metal sticks. They also fracture and re-fracture your finger bones over and over again so they become extremely dense.

It's effective, quick, and brutal.


[small]* I am not criticizing those types and styles, only trying to explain the difference between the two clearly[/small]

 

[RoonMian]

Edit: As an amateur-ish boxer myself I have to add though that boxing has some problems in a bar fight or similar scenarios. What separates the hand techniques of boxing from other martial arts is how you stand. But the way you stand in boxing requires a lot of space in your pants, very light, thin-soled shoes and is comparatively wobbly (boxers don't need to stand firm like an oak tree because they don't kick). So if "real world" application is your goal and not athletic competition and/or fitness then boxing might not be the thing for you. You'll learn how to deck someone, sure. But to do that in a bar brawl other schools will teach that to you better than boxing.

Clothing is the bane of most traditional martial artists too, kicking in skinny jeans is freakin impossible

But as an actual question, something I never got, Boxers always emphasise the light footwork and staying as mobile as possible, but doesn't that make it harder to launch power-shots since that requires hip/knee/weight rotations, is there like a balance I've never spotted (coming at this from a Kung Fu/MMA background where we do balls of the feet balance but that's for launching kicks, I'm curious if Boxing had a different approach)

Huh? I'd always thought that in other martial arts you need a firm stand to launch kicks. So no balls of feet but standing on the whole foot to be able to shift weight onto one foot better when the other leaves the ground.

In boxing you stand on the balls of your feet for precisely the reason to be able to gather the kinetic energy from down your toes and up. That's the reason why I thought boxers hit harder than other martial artists who stand firm on their feet because they need to be able to lift one foot to kick. You stand light on the balls of your feet to lean into your punches even with your feet.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Clothing is the bane of most traditional martial artists too, kicking in skinny jeans is freakin impossible

But as an actual question, something I never got, Boxers always emphasise the light footwork and staying as mobile as possible, but doesn't that make it harder to launch power-shots since that requires hip/knee/weight rotations, is there like a balance I've never spotted (coming at this from a Kung Fu/MMA background where we do balls of the feet balance but that's for launching kicks, I'm curious if Boxing had a different approach)

Huh? I'd always thought that in other martial arts you need a firm stand to launch kicks. So no balls of feet but standing on the whole foot to be able to shift weight onto one foot better when the other leaves the ground.

In boxing you stand on the balls of your feet for precisely the reason to be able to gather the kinetic energy from down your toes and up. That's the reason why I thought boxers hit harder than other martial artists who stand firm on their feet because they need to be able to lift one foot to kick. You stand light on the balls of your feet to lean into your punches even with your feet.

Ahhh, see, this is interesting, because kicks have the same rotation through the ground that punches do it's tricky to do completely flat and means most kicks are thrown the same you'd do a punch, with the support leg on the ball of the foot (easier to pivot and all that). But conversely punches or particularly powerful ones might have the whole foot down on one leg to add more rotation from the other one going up (which I always figure boxers must do because they punch so damn hard)
(e.g. about the ball of the foot thing, the thai round kick, usually looks like this

Spoiler

)

There'd be reasons to try and make your support leg more stable, like you'd probably not go up so high for a front or side kick but you still need to twist your hips in a bit (least for the side one, where you rotate all the way through from the ground so your heel should turn 90 degrees on your support leg, I never quite got how you engage the hips for a front kick, still working on that one).

I always assumed boxers did something similar but I never got how they stay mobile when power-shots need so much rotation.

 

[Trude]

Sounds like I'm restating what's already been said, but most martial arts are practiced to develop a portfolio of skills.

Spoiler

Kendo for example strengthens dexterity, since it is a sport involving swinging about a large piece of bamboo. You could easily leave it at that but if you want to become proficient in competitive Kendo, physical strength will only get you so far. Fast footwork, timing, posture and impeccable balance are required to convince the referees that you deserve that point. I regard Kendo as a cognitive sport like chess, one that requires as much thought regarding your own movement as your opponent.

That being said, I never expect to find myself in a situation where I'm facing someone wielding a sword, just as a soccer player won't put 'ball player' on his CV when applying for a desk job.

 

[mistahzig1]

I worked as a bouncer for 5 years. Seen/been involved in, say... 200 fights to make it an even number.

Know how many fights I saw that was a clean, 1-on-1 fight?


About 5.

That's it. Reality is not like in movies.

You do NOT kick someone in a fight. The LAST thing you want is to fall down and get your head stomped in.

Grappling? Same thing. While your're schooling your opponent on the ground, his friends with bash your skull in. I even saw someone attempt a triangle-choke on someone and got his balls bitten as a result hahahaha


I would recommend boxing. GREAT for cardio, which is your main goal to get in shape, yes? And practicing getting hit hard on the nugget will help diminish the amount of hesitations and akward postures should you ever get into a real fight.

 

[RoonMian]

-snip-

Ahhh, see, this is interesting, because kicks have the same rotation through the ground that punches do it's tricky to do completely flat and means most kicks are thrown the same you'd do a punch, with the support leg on the ball of the foot (easier to pivot and all that). But conversely punches or particularly powerful ones might have the whole foot down on one leg to add more rotation from the other one going up (which I always figure boxers must do because they punch so damn hard)
(e.g. about the ball of the foot thing, the thai round kick, usually looks like this

Spoiler

)

There'd be reasons to try and make your support leg more stable, like you'd probably not go up so high for a front or side kick but you still need to twist your hips in a bit (least for the side one, where you rotate all the way through from the ground so your heel should turn 90 degrees on your support leg, I never quite got how you engage the hips for a front kick, still working on that one).

I always assumed boxers did something similar but I never got how they stay mobile when power-shots need so much rotation.

Yeah, I see what you mean. That guy is obviously not standing on his full foot. I have to confess I never thought much about kicking because, you know... Kicking is for girls...

You're right, the more oomph you put behind a punch, the less you can move freely. This is somewhat explained away that in lower weight classes, where fighters are more agile, you punch less for effect and more for points. Just notice how for example a fight in bantam weight (up to 56kg) pratically never ends in a KO while in super heavyweight (91kg and up) you sometimes do have knockdowns. Super heavyweights are less mobile over all of course. I never had a proper match I should add, because that was something I was never interested in. My grandfather was super heavyweight ("Wehrsportmeister Superschwergewichtsboxen" in 1938, I think) and my father was light heavyweight (when he didn't have a gut to punch you out with yet) and their styles were already completely different because of that alone even though my grandfather trained my father.

Another factor is to kind of use the rotation of your upper body as a pendulum to hit in combinations with both hands. Your feet are of course somewhat stationary during this but you keep kind of mobile with your upper body.

But beyond that I can't think of anything to actually answer your question. I haven't been practicing in 10 years (inherited my father's paunch) and I was never that mobile a fighter anyway. To me a good footwork was always more about positioning myself well before I strike. Again, I never actually fought beyond sparring and maybe I would've just eaten gloves with that style but in sparrings I did okay.

Edit: For clarification I should add that I am 6'3" and was about 200lbs before I lost all shape and form so I would have been super heavyweight, too.

 

[Cerebrawl]

Unless you're some sort of 5th dan black belt champion, you never kick above the knee in a real fight. Kicks to the knee and foot sweeps have their place though. Especially front kick to the knee because you can break the knee and that's a fight ender. Punching and grappling is mainly the way to go, and by grappling I don't mean wrestle them to the floor, I mean grab an arm, throw them to the ground, but remain standing, optionally break their arm(good move if they have buddies, one less combatant).

 

[Princessbabe]

If a particular style interests you enough to commit to it, then go looking for that. But ultimately there aren't really many bad martial arts, just bad teachers and bad training.

I did Karate for several years, which cops a lot of flack, but the Dojo I trained at and the people I trained under were dedicated and a strong community. That's the only real experience I can share.

People think of Karate as Kata, or patterns. They are drills, and a good exercise and a good tool for loading the building blocks of the style into your muscle memory. Kata and physical training is what I did a majority of the time in the beginning, and if you find a good karate school prepare to do a lot of it. Physical training is a good sign, if you see running, pushups, crunches, bagwork, etc. in every class from white belt to blacks that will be the most practical thing you'll have work with in terms of your confidence and ability to defend yourself.

We also did grappling, and sparring from open hand light contact for footwork and reflex, to fully geared contact.

The thing about practical martial artists is that they are dedicated and studious. There are no good black belts who think they have mastered their art. they study, they train, they work together to develop their styles and discern their weaknesses, and they're not afraid to learn from other styles. They learn the line between the sporting and performative elements of their style and the practical, violent and defensive elements.

I honestly didn't get into karate for self-defence initially. It was just exercise with a regimented and disciplinarian aspect that kept me focused and interested. After about two years give or take, I still hadn't graded to the point where the full contact sparring was allowed. That was when I was attacked by a group of about five guys around the end of high school. it wasn't in anger, but for their enjoyment. Their plan was to run up while I was alone in the open and each get a punch in and run off. I saw it coming and I pretty much resigned myself to it, I figured I wouldn't be able to fight one of them let alone the group and I wasn't fast enough to run. They had broken another guy's nose with the same game a day or two earlier.

The first punch was thrown and I deflected. Another came and I defended myself again, and then a flurry I absorbed with my forearms. The momentum had stopped and they were all standing there a little deflated, spat and muttered and walked off. My forearms were bruised but I had defended myself against what I thought was going to leave me in a puddle.

the point isn't to boast or suggest that is a surefire way to defend yourself or that karate is the style that lets you fight off five bigger dudes. If they wanted to fuck me up after I had disrupted their expectation of an easy victim they absolutely could have. The point was that all the training and repetition had allowed me to defend myself even though I didn't take it seriously and was absolutely not prepared. The thing about a real fight is that there is no "now I'm going to use this technique" or "he is punching with his right so I'll step left and cross to the jaw, then sweep the leg". Real fights are quick, violent, reflexive moments and commitment to a martial art gives you martial conditioning that might just allow you to react effectively in that moment. Whatever one you pick just make sure it can give you that conditioning and the physical training that will let you use it effectively.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Fencing, and I suspect just about an martial art, is actually useful. Not because of the skills you gain - being handy with a sword has been an utterly useless skill for over a century after all - but because of secondary effects. General fitness is improved along with balance and flexibility. You gain a better understanding of fairly subtle cues of body language. And, unlike most martial arts which tend to restrict actual use of the skills on one another at combat speed do to risk of injury and death, fencing actually teaches you about psychology. While ultimately a physical sport, fencing is often referred to as physical chess. It's less about skill with a sword than it is about bluff and counter bluff.

If you looking to martial arts for a useful set of skills derived from the violence aspects, you are absolutely going to be disappointed. The set of conditions in which any of those skills would come in handy are so very rare for the average person that they are not even worth considering.

 

[R4ptur3]

Excuse me, but allow me to argue against the title of this thread.
No martial art is useless. What exactly do you mean by "useless"?

If you wish to perform martial arts only to hurt/scare people, I would say that you are better off buying a gun, and you seem to have misunderstood the whole point of martial arts.

This. This, so much this.

Honestly, if you're looking for a martial art only for fitness and so you can perform 'practical application' then that basically takes most east Asian martial arts out of the equation, as there is so much more to them than getting fit and being able to take someone out. The main question is why do you want one just for fighting? Are you looking for/getting into fights all the time, because if so doing a martial art isn't really going to help the situation much.

I'm a black belt in a south Korean martial art called kuk sool won, and honestly, if I got into a fight, a lot of what I learnt probably wouldn't work very well because the fight just wouldn't go as I would want it to, but that doesn't make it any less challenging, enjoyable or makes it 'useless'. I believe it has made me a better person than had I not done it. You have to think carefully and really think what you want to do. Let's say you did boxing for example, even boxing requires more than just getting fit and punching someone in the face. It takes a lot of heart, mind, effort and passion to understand it well. It takes years to understand just one martial art, and a lot of people fail to understand that.

 

[Therumancer]

(I'm not sure if martial art is the broadest term, but basically, I'm just talking about any style of fighting.)

I want to get fit and I figured that I may as well learn a useful life skill while I do it, so naturally, I thought of learning a martial art. The only problem is, all the martial arts that I'm aware of (Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Tai Chi, Yoga, Sudoku, etc etc etc) seem to be about as useful in a real life fight as training in Baseball (or so I'm told).

So, my question to you is, do you know of any fighting styles that actually have a practical application.

In honour of the upcoming Brazil Soccer World Cup, which I'm sure we're all super excited about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie], have some Capoeira.

It's all about the person, not the style of fighting. Training can give someone who has the right mentality and abilities an edge over someone who doesn't have it, but as a general rule people do not go out, take a few years of karate, and go from victim to barefisted war machine unless their mindset changed as well, along with of course getting into decent enough shape to make use of the skills (which in most cases goes with the training, but out of shape martial artists tend to be just like any other out of shape guy for the most part, again it coming down to mentality).

It's true that most organized schools of fighting do not teach you much that is useful in a real fight, most teach people to get ready for tournaments and such. Training with a focus on "self defense" typically teaches you what you need to get away, as opposed to being able to take people down.

As a basic rule in a fight you don't think, you just react, if your stopping to think you've already lost for the most part. What martial arts training is good for is practicing repetitive motions so when you react instinctively you tend to do things that happen to be effective. Specific ways of reacting when you block, ways of striking when you attack, etc.. when you fight you go through your trained routines. At a certain level there is some truth that martial arts training can be a disadvantage as people trained at the same schools by the same people (it's more about the instructor than the style) tend to do things a specific way. Even if it's not fully conscious knowing what someone is going to do can give you an advantage. If you say know some guy was trained at "Jimbo Jo Fu's Dojo Of Kung Fu" and you know Jimbo teaches his guys to say throw a specific combination from a certain position, and you know that's coming, you can of course counter it. This of course sometimes gets in the way when you get into schools that compete, where say a regional tournament might see the same schools putting their students up against each other constantly, and instructors training people specifically to try and beat the students of other instructors without necessarily explaining this, and this can lead to people learning to react like garbage in a general sense.

That said I'm not big into martial arts, I have my own style it's called "Just Plain Mean", not that I get into many fights mind you. I've talked to people who are though, and really, other than that, I've noticed a tendency for people who study martial arts to get themselves into trouble. It builds confidence (as the instructors will point out) but in many cases it's confidence that gets one into stupid amounts of trouble. In reality for example some dude isn't going to take down another guy in similar shape that's twice his size just because he knows some kung-fu. That guy can be tough to talk down and stop to get antagonizing people in a heated situation in a club or whatever, because he's convinced he's King Kong.

I did a little wrestling in my high school years (not that I was super-wonderful at it, I was never a champion or anything), and honestly I'd recommend that as a foundation for a lot of people looking to learn how to fight. One thing you'll notice in MMA and such, is that a lot of the very successful guys have come from a Wrestling background (serious Wrestling). For example, Lesner was a REAL wrestling champion before doing the WWE thing, which is why he got jumped right to the top to fight big name people when he went into the UFC. While the end result was mixed he was the first guy to defend the title twice if I remember, then he got sick, and there is all the financial/contractual baggage that might have lead to him throwing his last couple of fights that occasionally gets mentioned here and there. To put it bluntly, outside of kung-fu movies, in a real fight things rarely stay at striking range or look fancy. Although to be honest being able to avoid or defuse fights is a more valuable skill than being able to fight well.

 

[lechat]

martial arts don't mean fuck all if you can't take a hit or are surrounded by 50 guys.
i would advise Parkour cause the best way to win a fight is to not get involved in the first place.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Martial Arts ..."seem to be about as useful in a real life fight as training in Baseball (or so I'm told)"...
Then why learn them? The very fact that you wrote this shows how ignorant you and your 'friends' are. If you are serious about learning an art, find an instructor who is willing to teach you how to defend yourself without rules. If the school is one that concentrates on point tournaments, RUN, Do NOT pay a single $ to these schools. Find something combat orientated. This can be any style as long as what they focus on is FULL CONTACT sparring. I grew up in Japan and studied a couple of Karate styles where the tournaments were full contact, no pads, no gloves, mouth guards if you wanted them, and you HAD to wear a cup as that was also a valid target. There were only 2 choices in these, either learn to take hits and return them, or you quit. I then moved on to Muay Thai as an adult and it was the same way other than now I had to learn how to fight with gloves.

As long you find a school willing to teach full-contact fighting, you WILL learn valuable skills. If there is no full-contact sparring, you won't learn anything of real value...

 

[FoolKiller]

The Bujinkan doesn't fuck around. They generally aren't allowed to have/take part in martial arts tournaments because almost everything they do is geared toward killing and maiming as efficiently as possible.

That's kinda dumb, since maiming and killing is pretty much illegal (even in self defence), it's like a group where you teach civilians how to best hunt endangered animals. While such groups probably exists in some underground places of the world, they're in no way official.

In fact, a simple google search easily proved you wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bujinkan Like alls martial arts, it's focused on defence. you want to know why? Because killing and maiming people is illegal. If they would dabble in illegal stuff they'd get shut down, and the guys teaching how to kill people would probably be locked up.

Actually, isn't this what Krav Maga is all about. Its not that the point is to maim and kill. It's that the goal is to eliminate any hostile as efficiently as possible, which could involve maiming and killing. And frankly, if you are the instigator and you introduce a weapon to a fist fight, you deserve to die.

 

[Ieyke]

The Bujinkan doesn't fuck around. They generally aren't allowed to have/take part in martial arts tournaments because almost everything they do is geared toward killing and maiming as efficiently as possible.

That's kinda dumb, since maiming and killing is pretty much illegal (even in self defence), it's like a group where you teach civilians how to best hunt endangered animals. While such groups probably exists in some underground places of the world, they're in no way official.

In fact, a simple google search easily proved you wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bujinkan Like alls martial arts, it's focused on defence. you want to know why? Because killing and maiming people is illegal. If they would dabble in illegal stuff they'd get shut down, and the guys teaching how to kill people would probably be locked up.

Yes, you now know all about it thanks to Wikipedia. Good job.
Pat yourself on the back for having so thoroughly learned all of the things they don't go loudly advertising in the basic information synopsis.
Oh how wrong I have been proven by a Google search!
Woe is me.

"maiming and killing is pretty much illegal (even in self defence)"
Also, it's really not. It's perfectly legal is self defense.

Dude, you got wrecked by the first link. Try to actually say something that doesnät come from your own ass. Don't act smug when you've actually been proved fucking wrong by a wikipedia link.

And yes, killing and maiming people are actually illegal in most countries (unless you're part of law enfrocement or military, of course).

Okay. Let me put it to you in plain English. As a member of the Bujinkan myself, I can tell you for certain that you don't know shit.

 

[Wyes]

I like sword-fighting myself. Sure it's not as effective as an unarmed combat style when your unarmed, but I do think its cute when people come at me with a knife. When you grow accustomed to dodging a 3 ft. long razor coming your way, the site of a knife in the hand of some street person doesn't even quicken your pulse. Unless they have been trained in its use(you will know by the way they handle it), odds are good you'll have little trouble disarming them.

As a fellow swordsman, I completely disagree with this. Knives scare me a lot more than swords do - they're easy to conceal, they're easy to deceive with, and even a dumb brute can completely mess with what most places are teaching as knife defence.

If you must learn something where your primary goal is self-defense, learn to shoot and get a CCW.

Unfortunately this is only possible in a small subset of countries.

If you want to get fit just work out, martial arts aren't all that effective in a street fight anyways. Most fights are won by the guy who swung first. Just sucker punch someone if they're getting in your face.

There is a lot of truth here. Of course, I recommend supplementing this with martial arts training. Just find a school/teacher that encourages this mindset.

Know how many fights I saw that was a clean, 1-on-1 fight?


About 5.

That's it. Reality is not like in movies.

You do NOT kick someone in a fight. The LAST thing you want is to fall down and get your head stomped in.

Grappling? Same thing. While your're schooling your opponent on the ground, his friends with bash your skull in. I even saw someone attempt a triangle-choke on someone and got his balls bitten as a result hahahaha

A million times this. Going to the ground any time it's not one on one is going to get you messed up. Stand up grappling is the only way to go, if you're going to grapple.

Fencing, and I suspect just about an martial art, is actually useful. Not because of the skills you gain - being handy with a sword has been an utterly useless skill for over a century after all - but because of secondary effects. General fitness is improved along with balance and flexibility. You gain a better understanding of fairly subtle cues of body language. And, unlike most martial arts which tend to restrict actual use of the skills on one another at combat speed do to risk of injury and death, fencing actually teaches you about psychology. While ultimately a physical sport, fencing is often referred to as physical chess. It's less about skill with a sword than it is about bluff and counter bluff.

If you looking to martial arts for a useful set of skills derived from the violence aspects, you are absolutely going to be disappointed. The set of conditions in which any of those skills would come in handy are so very rare for the average person that they are not even worth considering.

I have actually found my sword training (albeit it's not sport fencing) to have been immensely helpful in developing the way I look at martial arts, which is probably the single most useful thing to learn.


Anyway, OP, here is my advice;
First of all, read a book called 'Meditations on Violence' by a chap called Rory Miller.
He's a prison guard (+ some other stuff) and has seen a lot more hand-to-hand fighting than anybody you're likely to talk to here.
The important thing to take from that book is not which art to train, but how to train, which is by far the more important thing.

Just about any martial art be made to work if being trained the right way and taught by the right person.

Otherwise most of the advice in this thread has been pretty good - avoid McDojos, make sure you train striking and grappling - even boxing and wrestling, despite being 'sports', are going to be immensely helpful. There are some arts that do both - (Japanese) jujutsu is one, but the focus is definitely on the grappling and not on the striking. The rest should be easy to find with a little searching.

 

[Wyes]

Okay. Let me put it to you in plain English. As a member of the Bujinkan myself, I can tell you for certain that you don't know shit.

Why are we playing 'who's got the bigger martial arts penis'? It's a stupid game, nobody wins.

 

[Ieyke]

Okay. Let me put it to you in plain English. As a member of the Bujinkan myself, I can tell you for certain that you don't know shit.

Why are we playing 'who's got the bigger martial arts penis'? It's a stupid game, nobody wins.

I'm not.
I stated a simple fact in response to the OP, and this guy starts spouting off a bunch of BS like he knows anything of the subject, when clearly he doesn't. Given that I'm personally familiar with it, I tried to enlighten him to the notion of not mindlessly accepting everything on Wikipedia at face value.
He failed to grasp it, soooo plain English.
*shrug*

It's not so much for his benefit as everyone else, just so they know the value of his "opinions".

 

[Fireaxe]

Comment: Karate is legit if trained correctly, but it's often not.

Boxing and Muay Thai are both good, Wrestling is also good.

Jiujitsu is pretty useless in a street fight with 2 exceptions

1) You're 100% sure the person you're fighting doesn't have a friend who is coming over to stamp on your head.
2) You've got into a fight with someone who knows enough about Wrestling to actually put you on the ground.