| Martial Arts (first rant ever!) |
[Jul. 4th, 2004|08:10 pm] |
Originally written 1/16/03
"No martial art is better than any other. Instead, it is the amount of effort and the willingness to train and sacrifice that improves the individual, and expands the limits of achievement." -Unknown
What I absolutely cannot stand are debates over 'which martial art is best'. There isn't one. These debates are based mostly on opinion and ego and often lead to nothing positive in the least.
Edit (7/04/04): I recently made a post on a board that sums up things better than the original rant, so here it is:
Style vs style comes down to personal opinions and theories, when the fact is that any style can win against any style since there is an unlimited number of fight possibilities. When you take into consideration every factor that can affect a fight; health, environment, weapons, state of mind, personal experience, injuries, more than one opponent, you cannot prove a style's superiority over another. Just an individual against an individual, and even that may not be consistent unless you generalize the conditions.
The argument could carry on as: "I could grab and knee the joint" to "a good boxer would punch too fast to be caught" to "I'd low kick the lead leg" to "it wouldn't stop a combination" to "then I'd do this" to "well what about this" to "shut up" to "gay" to "random joke", but I'd rather it didn't.
And the original rant:
This topic was raised at one of the boards I frequent, many posts were full of ignorant style bashing. Here is my reply on the subject. I probably used the word 'different' too many times.
Let's not get into what works over what else. Every martial art has its merits, it all comes down to the individual. How that individual applies what he knows whether to fight or to avoid fighting altogether. Every person has different goals in the martial arts whether it be for fighting, athleticism, expression or health. How do you know there isn't a Tai Chi practitioner out there that could kick everyone's ass without trying? There's fucking billions of people out there. everyone trains differently and approaches a conflict differently. Besides, a fight situation has an infinite number of conditions, who can say what will work more often than not in a 'real fight'. It's always different.
One can be an excellent martial artist and not a good fighter. But if you learn the martial arts just to avoid having to get into fights, then hey. You wanna get into full MMA, go for it. Just don't slam other people for wanting to do different things with their training. Train for what you think is effective, train for what makes you feel good.
I'm a Capoeira practitioner. I get a lot of shit from other martial artists who love talking garbage about my art because they don't understand it. How can you judge something you've never invested a good deal of your life in? What, because maybe you beat up somebody who claimed they did it? please, like one person can represent an entire art form and all the people who take it. You think Capoeira is just all flashy shit and dance? Capoeira is a true cultural art form. The music, dance and singing is essential as Afro-Brazilian history. What you don't know is that the Capoeira you see is completely different from Capoeira as a fight. The most important thing you learn in Capoeira is the mindset. In Capoeira if you have a problem with someone, you don't go Eddy Gordo on his ass. You can either avoid the confrontation entirely, or you can buy him a beer and slit his goddamn throat while you walk him to the bar.
It's easy to look at a martial art and call it for how you see it. You haven't trained the shit yourself with a good teacher, you're just feeding your own ego and asking for trouble.
Keep an open mind, just do what you love to do and not hate on the people that do something different.
(Following my post was a supportive note by Bitoku):
Great post. I agree with everything here. There's not necessarily any one "best" martial art. There may be a best one for you. And there may be a different best one for someone else. It's really all a matter of intent and preference. I've trained for a fairly long time now. And although I only train in one style, I love going to see live demonstrations of other martial arts. And I don't consider them lesser or greater in value than the one I chose to practice myself. I'm interested in knowing about all forms of martial arts. I find they all have some intrinsic merit to them, and that I can get a lot of enjoyment and learning out of openly viewing all kinds of different styles, in a non-competitive basis. |
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