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Japanese and Martial Arts - ghinzdra - 2009-02-18
Would you say that compared to others martial art , there is a special technique in 合気道 to take a fall ? I'm suddenly extremely interested .
Japanese and Martial Arts - nest0r - 2009-02-18
Okay, I think it's safe now. I will tell you all about Ninjutsu. It's very secretive, and I could get in trouble for this... You see, the thing about Ninju--sdf3rrrr
Japanese and Martial Arts - Jeromin - 2009-02-18
mafried Wrote:To the Japanese mindset, martial arts are a thing of the past: antiquated, and of little value. The reasons for this are cultural, and come from both directions. In Japan there is certainly a strong bias to "throw out the old, bring in the new." You'd need only look to the Meiji restoration and the post-WW2 recovery to see examples of that. Unfortunately there is the risk of throwing out the baby (traditional M.A.) with the bathwater (vestiges of feudalism). On the other side of the ocean, we (I'm making some assumptions about my readers here) have to recognize that for the most part our culture has lost its traditional martial arts. So to us Asian M.A. seems exotic and enticing. But this is us orientalizaing something which to the Japanese is as mundane and anachronistic as that cowboy strutting around Texas.I don't know about Japan, but Spain is a country with a rich architectural heritage that is, in many places derelict, due to the kind of ignorant attitude that you describe here. It often takes a foreign lover of Spanish art to make us see ( usually on TV, in front of some beautiful Medieval church in ruins ) what we are losing and shaming us into action. Finding traditional Japanese culture mundane and anachronistic is equally ignorant and foolish, an error the Japanese will only regret when it is completely gone, if they ever do. Being gaijin, former Western colonial oppressors, etc., does not make us always wrong, and the Japanese always right, even with regards to their own country. No harm in some form of admiring, romantic Orientalism, if only to compensate for Japan's own, perhaps excessive, Occidentalism.
I know that there is something deeply profound and illuminating to be found in the study of traditional martial arts, something which is difficult to express in words but which nevertheless makes it a worthwhile cultural investment. However I freely admit that I initiated my study of 武道 because it was exotic and foreign, and therefore interesting (to me). Most 日本人 would never give it that chance.
J
Japanese and Martial Arts - QuackingShoe - 2009-02-18
nest0r Wrote:Okay, I think it's safe now. I will tell you all about Ninjutsu. It's very secretive, and I could get in trouble for this... You see, the thing about Ninju--sdf3rrrrNot again! Not agaiiin!
I was so close!
Japanese and Martial Arts - mafried - 2009-02-18
ghinzdra, nest0r: I know you're probably just having some light-hearted fun, but lest somebody take you seriously, please take the time to read up on the *actual* history of ninjutsu. It's not a secretive art (not anymore than any other traditional art), although its techniques are based on deception. Here's one resource that might be helpful: http://www.ninpo.org/ninpohistory/ninpohistory.html. This is the only post I'll make on this topic, as I don't want to hijack this thread into yet another ninjutsu-vs.-bullshido flame war (the internet's full of those already).
Jeromin: The attitude you describe is exactly what I was trying to convey. It's frustrating at times to be an outsider arguing the value of someone else's culture, despite their best attempts to ignore you.
Japanese and Martial Arts - nest0r - 2009-02-18
hehe, I'm actually quite familiar with the topic. I've been so tempted to rant about martial arts here, I'm proud of my self-control.
Signed,
Person that is definitely nest0r and not some impostor.
Japanese and Martial Arts - phauna - 2009-02-18
rich_f Wrote:Personally, I prefer to have new students learn to respect the senior students not because they BEAT them into mash, but because the senior students know what the hell is going on, and can teach the new students proper technique and how to improve, and the new students RESPECT them for that.Well I feel like I'm in a different forum now and so I'll rant out some old arguments for nestor. You are doing Aikido, by definition there is no beating. You can of course learn how to throw and pin people without their cooperation, even while learning. Some would say the corollary is that you *can't* learn to throw and pin someone without them resisting. Respect for seniors should surely come from their ability to use their skills. Knowing a technique is not the same as being able to do it. Without some form of free competition you are going to be unsure of what you know.
Also, the new students learn pretty fast that if they don't pay attention to what's going on in class, they'll get hurt. Everyone takes falls, both senior and junior students. That's just how it goes. You can't learn how to take someone down and pin them if your partner isn't willing to be pinned. (In the learning stages, anyway.)
Japanese and Martial Arts - rich_f - 2009-02-18
ghinzdra Wrote:Would you say that compared to others martial art , there is a special technique in 合気道 to take a fall ? I'm suddenly extremely interested .Take everything I say about 合気道 with a grain of salt-- I've been off the mat for about 5 years now. (Dying to get back on now with all of this talk, though.)
I don't know if it's "special" to 合気道, but rolling out of falls and learning how to take breakfalls were pretty common in my dojo. You use them a lot, because someone has to be the uke (attacker, or "sucker"), and someone has to be the nage (defender, or "guy trying to figure out how to do the technique the instructor just demonstrated") The uke winds up getting thrown around a lot and taking a lot of falls.
So knowing how to fall is really very handy if you want to be a good uke who can still go to work the next day without needing the 合気道 dose of Advil. (Which is 4, minimum, to stop the pain.)
Yes, I've been thrown hard enough to put a hole in the wall with my knee. Lol. At least I wasn't thrown towards the mirrors.
The basic rolls involve being able to point the back of your hand towards your center, and then down a bit, creating a curve along the back of your arm, then you roll along that curve, and roll diagonally across your back. (But please don't try this without professional instruction, because you can seriously mess up your shoulder, spine, neck, etc.)
If you do it right, you can go from standing to rolling to standing without much fuss. The main difference between this kind of roll and a gymnastics roll is that this kind of roll is *really* good at dissipating force, and you can do this kind of roll on concrete. (With practice.) So when you go at someone, they turn your attack around and throw you "out" with momentum, you can just roll out of it to dissipate the excess force from the throw.
There's also a backwards version, too. It's harder to learn.
Breakfalls are used when someone throws you over and down and you land on your back. The trick to taking that kind of fall without totally screwing up your back is to involve your arms and legs, too. It takes practice to get it right so you hit the mat just right and dissipate the force properly. Even then, it hurts until you get the knack for it. I know people who used to train on concrete. (Guy from our dojo who was working in Bulgaria at the time. They couldn't afford mats, so they trained on the concrete floors. o_O)
For both kinds of falls, you learn to tuck your head in when falling, to protect that brain thing. Surprisingly, a lot of people forget to do that at first. It's a good habit to create.
I seem to recall reading something in the late 90s about members of the US Ski Team using some sort of variant of 合気道 to help with falling, but I have no idea where I remember reading it, so take it as apocryphal.
My favorite part of 合気道 was when we'd do randori practice. That's some seriously fun stuff. It's basically multiple attackers against one opponent, and a requirement for -dan level tests. I just think it was a total blast. You learn really fast how hard it is to deal with 3 people who are intent on beating the crap out of you. We never went full speed in class, because most of us were just learning the basics, but it was still a lot of fun. You get the basic ideas: don't stand in the middle, don't let them surround you, circle your attackers, throw them into each other, don't stop moving, vary your techniques, don't get too fancy, put them on the ground, etc.
But once they start coming at you the first few times, your mind just goes blank.
At upper levels, they'd go full speed, because that's how the upper level tests go. Fun.
Japanese and Martial Arts - rich_f - 2009-02-18
phauna Wrote:Well I feel like I'm in a different forum now and so I'll rant out some old arguments for nestor. You are doing Aikido, by definition there is no beating. You can of course learn how to throw and pin people without their cooperation, even while learning. Some would say the corollary is that you *can't* learn to throw and pin someone without them resisting. Respect for seniors should surely come from their ability to use their skills. Knowing a technique is not the same as being able to do it. Without some form of free competition you are going to be unsure of what you know.As I said above, I found randori to be a very effective test of my skills. It was also a lot of fun.
Aikido is a little funky, because you're asking someone to be your practice dummy. As the practice dummy, you need to be a good dummy. The only branch of Aikido that lends itself to bouting is Tomiki, if you're into that. But the thing about bouting is that it can become an end in and of itself, too. I fenced a little in college (intramurals), so I already was involved in a "martial art" that had a lot of bouting involved, so I when I got into Aikido, I was looking for something NOT involving constant bouting.
For learning the more formal techniques, there are more formal methods of instruction. You're not going to resist a white belt as much as you'll resist a blue or brown belt to check his or her technique. White belts are just trying to figure out where to put their feet and where to grab. If I resist against a white belt, that just makes me a jackass.
If they move a little like Frankenstein at first, it's no biggie. They'll smooth it out over time.
Now if I'm working against an upper belt, I'll be a lot straighter with my attacks, and I won't cut him/her any slack. I'll resist if they have bad technique, because I'm not helping them by taking a fall for them just to make them feel better.
But I am NOT going to engage in the Most Tired Argument on the Earth.
Japanese and Martial Arts - mistamark - 2009-02-18
rich_f Wrote:But I am NOT going to engage in the Most Tired Argument on the Earth.At last someone with the right idea
Talking about which martial art is good for x, or suitable for y, or whatever, is inviting a shitstorm of both good opinions, bad opinions and just opinions.
I've been training MAs for the last 23 years (since I was 5) and the only advice that is worth anything is to do the martial/fighting art/style/system/whatever that you enjoy. Everyone has a different goal for their training (get fit/be strong/look flashy/compete/etc) and not only is every art different in some way, but also every teacher/school is and even further, every practitioner is.
It's like arguing which language someone else should study. You study the one which you need to/interests you/you enjoy and accept that the next person studying Esperanto (or whatever) has a good reason to do so and just let them get on with it without giving a partially informed opinion about the pros and cons of a load of other languages they should study instead, or to try to show/persuade them that their choice is wrong in some way. It should be the same with MA.
Japanese and Martial Arts - mafried - 2009-02-18
Amen.
Japanese and Martial Arts - phauna - 2009-02-19
I'm a 3F exponent myself, fit, fun, functional.
Japanese and Martial Arts - mafried - 2009-02-19
tokyostyle Wrote:Yet every high school and college on these islands has clubs for martial arts and other classical cultural pursuits. They might not be hard core like they were when they were a necessity, but they haven't been forgotten.But which martial arts? You'll find Judo, Kendo, Karate for sure. Sometimes Aikido. Name me a pre-1850 battlefield art that enjoys the same popularity. And I'm not bickering about semantics here; there is a vast difference between sport/competition and battlefield/traditional martial arts. It's the disappearance of the latter than I'm concerned about.
Japanese and Martial Arts - phauna - 2009-02-19
I think you just need too much equipment for those things to become popular, not to mention a large space which is somewhat at a premium in Japanese cities. At the above mentioned festival I went to, one of the battlefield arts was striking with a four metre lance. It would be really hard to practice that.
Also, I'm not sure many people would be willing to practice something which is of so little use to them. Are you willing to? I certainly am not. Weapons arts are universally practised less than empty hand arts these days. Numerous Western weapons arts like Italian cane and historical broadsword are also unpopular. Westerners are allowing their battlefield martial arts to die as well. Guns have made them mostly obsolete. I can throw a boomerang though if that counts.
Japanese and Martial Arts - MeNoSavvy - 2009-02-20
Well having done a few martial arts over the years and having lived in Japan, I can give you my impressions.
Some martial arts like Judo, Kendo are taught in the Junior High School and High Schools as a club activity like Basketball or Soccer or something (people choose the activity they are interested in ). Once people leave high school they may give it up, or they may do it at University if they are good.
After people leave high school / university they are less likely to keep practicing although there are still clubs around. Some of the clubs are associated with the police or companies for example. The nearest Judo club to me was a police dojo.
Other martial arts such as Aikido, karate are also reasonably popular (they aren't school sports to my knowledge). Often the clubs are relatively small and taught at a community centre or similar. It is probably fair to say practicing the martial arts is around the same popularity as in most western countries. Certainly most Japanese don't practice martial arts.
Other "martial arts" can also be found such as Muay Thai, BJJ, Wrestling etc, but again they are probably about as popular as in most western countries.
It is worth noting the MMA and Kickboxing (K-1) were quite popular to watch on TV and tended to have prime time coverage (at least when I lived there).
I can't really comment on Ninjitsu etc, but my impression is that it is taught in a manner similar to other martial arts in Japan. It isn't especially common. I visited the birth place of the Ninja in Iga, Ueno. It is worth going there to see a Ninja demonstration, ninja house, ninja museum etc. Every so often the public officials dress up as ninjas as a tourism type thing. Don't expect anything fantastic, but it is a good day trip.
Japanese and Martial Arts - mafried - 2009-02-20
phauna Wrote:I think you just need too much equipment for those things to become popular, not to mention a large space which is somewhat at a premium in Japanese cities. At the above mentioned festival I went to, one of the battlefield arts was striking with a four metre lance. It would be really hard to practice that.By "battlefield" I did not mean "weapon." I meant arts which focus on combative scenarios that are truly life-or-death, no-holds-barred. I.e, recognizing that your under no circumstances should opponent be allowed to freely touch or grab you; he could have a knife hidden in that hand and no qualms about stabbing you. I.e, recognizing that you should never just go to the ground BJJ-style because he (or his buddy) will just pull a gun and shoot/knife and stab/mace and spray you. etc. At the risk of pulling up a very ancient and tired argument, the point is that sport martial arts (including Muy Thai, BJJ, and MMA) are only of value in a sport context. You may have some luck with them against untrained opponents, or other sports-trained martial artists. But good luck fighting someone who doesn't play by the rules in a real life or death situation.
Also, I'm not sure many people would be willing to practice something which is of so little use to them. Are you willing to? I certainly am not...
You will find military guys in any martial art, sport or traditional. But it is interesting to note that the majority of dan-level students in my art that make the trip to Japan are military, military intelligence, ex-military, or private contractors. I've met SEALS, U.S. Marines, FBI, NYPD, Israeli IDF and (we suspect) Mossad, Blackwater folks, Executive Outcomes/Northbridge, Aegis, and I've heard of others. Certainly people from these organizations train in a multitude of arts, but I've never seen them as concentrated as they are in traditional Japanese M.A. My own reasons for training are personal (the same reasons one would train in Yoga or meditation). But I guarantee you every one of them will argue the personal utility of old "battlefield" arts in the modern world, be it for self-defense, law enforcement, or on the modern battlefield.
But back to the cultural point, the issue I have is that few of these guys are Japanese. In my art, the top instructors are Japanese, but with some exceptions they all have longstanding family or friendship connections. And nearly all the top instructors below that level are 外人. Nothing wrong with being 外人 per se, but in an art with thousands of participants worldwide, but only a few dozen students training year-long with the grandmaster and top instructors, I worry about what'll happen when they decide to retire. It's a very real concern that if the Japanese continue to show no interest, the essence of these arts might die out with the art's top-level instructors. And that would be a shame.
On the issue of weapons, there are some arts that are solely weapon-focused. But these are dying out for the perfectly legitimate reasons that you enumerate. The most successful traditional martial arts have recognized that empty-hand body movement is primary. Primary in the sense of practical application, but also (more importantly) that the empty-hand movements of such a school carry over exactly into the use of weapons (including modern weapons). Advanced method for handling an assault rifle and katana are actually remarkably similar in close quarters combat. Developing good empty-hand technique is essential in these arts, and part of the reason they have maintained applicability in the modern world.
Japanese and Martial Arts - phauna - 2009-02-20
mafried Wrote:By "battlefield" I did not mean "weapon." I meant arts which focus on combative scenarios that are truly life-or-death, no-holds-barred. I.e, recognizing that your under no circumstances should opponent be allowed to freely touch or grab you; he could have a knife hidden in that hand and no qualms about stabbing you. I.e, recognizing that you should never just go to the ground BJJ-style because he (or his buddy) will just pull a gun and shoot/knife and stab/mace and spray you. etc. At the risk of pulling up a very ancient and tired argument, the point is that sport martial arts (including Muy Thai, BJJ, and MMA) are only of value in a sport context. You may have some luck with them against untrained opponents, or other sports-trained martial artists. But good luck fighting someone who doesn't play by the rules in a real life or death situation.I think it's been well shown that non-sport training doesn't actually give you the attributes which will allow you to do all those deadly strikes you are kind of referring to. If you can't punch someone in the head then you aren't going to be able to poke them with your deadly dim mak either. Kano already showed even the Japanese that sport beats traditional. By all means learn that deadly stuff but beware of non-resistive training.
As for LEOs, military, etc. has it ever occurred to you that lots of them know little about hand to hand fighting. They are just as in the dark as the rest of us, no more able to judge from the evidence as to an arts effectiveness as we are. And anyway I think you'll find that Japanese arts are merely more popular to the general populace, and that perhaps Filipino Martial Arts are preferred by LEOs and military in the know.
Japanese and Martial Arts - Jarvik7 - 2009-02-21
Personally I prefer to use 南蛮. The chicken is awesome too
Japanese and Martial Arts - mafried - 2009-02-21
tokyostyle: context determines everything.
phauna: no, Kano demonstrated that sport martial arts beats out traditional in the context of a sport competition. Imagine that. The "deadly dim mak" comment is a red herring; I've never talked about such a thing. But if you want my opinion, it's that martial arts should be simple (it's a philosophy of my art as well). Simple, effective techniques have a higher chance of success.