Are martial arts any good?

[Cornfed]

Another interesting question is - Does a good martial art need a combat sport associated with it? If not, are there ways to train without sparring or competing in a sport without the martial art devolving into fantasy?

[Lucas88]

Another interesting question is - Does a good martial art need a combat sport associated with it? If not, are there ways to train without sparring or competing in a sport without the martial art devolving into fantasy?

All of the effective martial arts that I know of have a combat sport element and involve sparring. I don't know of any effective martial art that doesn't have a combat sport element. That is because training techniques against live resistance and pressure testing are essential for realism.

The more realistic combat sports are the way to go but you must still filter them for maximum realism and practicality. You can't really go wrong with boxing and Muay Thai. General MMA training is good too. A bit of basic wrestling also helps. Take up some of these arts and concentrate on the most basic and practical techniques. Cut out the more flashy and impractical techniques that you don't deem to be very useful in a street fight. For example, cut out things like the spinning back kicks and hook kicks of kickboxing. They are low-percentage and can expose you to unnecessary danger like giving your back to your opponent or getting swept. Instead focus on boxing combos, simple low kicks, and knees from clinch. Take a conservative approach to fighting.

[Cornfed]

Another interesting question is - Does a good martial art need a combat sport associated with it? If not, are there ways to train without sparring or competing in a sport without the martial art devolving into fantasy?

All of the effective martial arts that I know of have a combat sport element and involve sparring. I don't know of any effective martial art that doesn't have a combat sport element. That is because training techniques against live resistance and pressure testing are essential for realism.

Western military CQB is effective without a sports element although they have ways of sparring. Of course any sort of sport or sparring is going to add elements of unrealism to minimise injury. Hopefully in the future expendable people such as the vaxers while they are waiting to die can be made to assist. Like you could have sword fights with trainers armed with steel blades and them armed with lead blades. Or trainers would have the option of battling female military officers to the death in MMA type fights or some such.

For example, cut out things like the spinning back kicks and hook kicks of kickboxing.

I'm going to try to learn the spinning back kick. It seems like the best of the Japanese origin kicks - powerful, strait on, hard to defend against when done properly. In general though, yes, drilling down to the basic functions is the way to go. Like Judo is really two basic throws with a few basic ways of breaking the opponent's balance when throwing him. That is how I am going to think of it from now on. Boxing is a way of moving while throwing four types of punches.

[Lucas88]

I'm going to try to learn the spinning back kick. It seems like the best of the Japanese origin kicks - powerful, strait on, hard to defend against when done properly.

The reason why I mentioned the spinning back kick as a low-percentage or impractical technique was because just today I happened to watch some video footage of an old friend of mine competing in a kickboxing bout. I noticed that my friend's opponent for some reason attempted many spinning back kicks throughout the three rounds of the fight but all of the attempts were either easily countered or did almost no damage (none of them landed flush in a vulnerable area). Obviously we are talking about a sporting style but I was wondering why this guy kept throwing those flashy spinning back kicks. I was thinking the whole time that it would have been better for him to throw simple low kicks instead and take out the legs. Low kicks are way easier to execute than spinning back kicks, don't expose the kicker's back, and can do serious damage to the leg if left unchecked. People have been dropped with low kicks. I don't understand the flashy stuff. It's better to stick to highly practical basics.

[Cornfed]

I'm going to try to learn the spinning back kick. It seems like the best of the Japanese origin kicks - powerful, strait on, hard to defend against when done properly.

The reason why I mentioned the spinning back kick as a low-percentage or impractical technique was because just today I happened to watch some video footage of an old friend of mine competing in a kickboxing bout. I noticed that my friend's opponent for some reason attempted many spinning back kicks throughout the three rounds of the fight but all of the attempts were either easily countered or did almost no damage (none of them landed flush in a vulnerable area).

Here is a good explanation of a practical way to use them.

[Lucas88]

Here is a good explanation of a practical way to use them.

I sometimes watch Ramsey Dewey's content too. Nice stuff!

Hey, if you can make spinning back kicks work for you in real-life situations, good on you. Basics are always the best, but what works for each of us is ultimately an individual matter.

Good luck with your training!

[WilliamSmith]

The new grappling thread reminded me of @Cornfed's inquiries about whether martial arts are "any good" here in this one:

My thoughts:
You never know what trained military or police are going to know that'd be superior in some cases, but in most of the cases of violent confrontation where guns are not involved, it's so often involving hoodlums or people who aren't especially good or well-trained (even if those thug types are any or all of tough and fierce, desperate, or on drugs that make them even more dangerous).

I've seen a few cases (and noticed lots more in videos or anecdotes) of even basic boxers dispatch belligerents with ease**, just since a lot of times attackers aren't especially skilled even if they started all the trouble due to having bullying personalities (often also not being the sharpest knife in the drawer on judgment), and also wrestlers getting into dumb drunken brawls. Those who did have hundreds of hours of training striking and grappling even in what were considered "combat sports" did indeed come out on top, sometimes with laughable ease, to the great embarrassment of the other belligerents who lacked training but imagined themselves as simply being street toughs (often wanting to prove themselves, while also fueled by a lot of liquid courage).

This is also true of some of the much more deadly violent encounters, where the attackers are dangerous and may have lethal intentions but still aren't as skilled as most MMA fighters would be.

The "traditional" martial arts, of course, are in a different category, the problem not necessarily being that they're inherently unsound, but that they did not cross-train. But at bare minimum, basic striking and grappling training certainly has value against street hoodlums, muggers, etc., even if weapons are obviously better if possible.

** Just for fun: What I mentioned about even sport boxers dispatching belligerents with ease sometimes comes with a twist, like the guy who deliberately provoked and insulted Mickey Rourke without provocation at a bar, in order to deliberately get dropped with a left hook from Rourke (which he did). Unfortunately for Rourke, that was the man's plan: The attacker apparently filed a lawsuit to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlement payments from Rourke, who in theory could've won the lawsuit, but I think decided to settle to avoid exorbitantly higher court fees.
I remember Rourke commented that after that, he often would only go drinking surrounded in other MMA fighters as his drinking buddies, so that such belligerents wouldn't approach him, so no left-hook would be needed, and his remaining diminished funds would be safe.

[WilliamSmith]

One more comment on military or police techniques vs MMA that cross trains and tests their skills:

While I'm not qualified to say, I have also seen some ex-military people argue that their training was practical but tended not to factor in as high a proportion of physical combat, since the percentage of time they spend preparing for less likely scenarios involving fighting without any weapons was low, whereas the MMA guys obviously specialized in that, so they argued that the MMA guys might win (unless of course the special forces types also trained in MMA too).
The opinions from other military and MMA types were mixed though, so I have no argument of my own to make there.

Last but not least: @Cornfed, you mentioned stuff like knee stomps and other brutal fight-ending techniques, which would be great to know, but a caution you guys may already be aware of is that you need to be careful about being thrown in foreign prisons if the authorities decide you used more force than whatever they considered appropriate. Obviously, this takes due diligence for each area you'd be visiting.

Of course, if your life or the lives of innocent people under your protection are in danger, you should not hold back worrying about the safety or even survival of your attacker, I fully agree, but that doesn't mean you might not end up becoming legally the bad guy and doing some time even if you win the fight decisively.

In hyper-civilized places like Japan, for example, you could end up in serious legal trouble if the authorities deemed you used any more excessive force against an attacker than necessary, and in some cases may actually have expected you to run away to the nearest police koban squealing for help until the police save you, rather than actually fight yourself with any extreme force. So be warned.

P.S. @Lucas88 though you had your falling out with Japan, you and some others here probably would've enjoyed the guy who wrote the GaijinAss blog and was also into MMA, though he unfortunately died young of unexpected heart failure (quite a while before covid, btw, probably a result of heavy exertions like power lifting as well as heavy combat sports).
I thought of him because he was a case who f***ed up another gaijin in a bar fight with his MMA skills, and the Japanese police and courts didn't approve of this, hence throwing him in Japanese prison for a stretch, which is actually where he learned to become fluent in Japanese from studying "Making Out in Japanese" volumes 1 and 2 while in isolation.
(He'd been nailing scores of Japanese women earlier while living there without even being able to speak Japanese, but then after being in prison studying in isolation, he actually became fluent and lived there after being released, and I think was married several times before unfortunately passing away young, I think while sitting on the toilet...)