Are martial arts any good?

[Cornfed]

And if so, what should we learn? I used to think that the Western military CQB was the apogee of fighting skills, but really it is fairly limited in scope compared to what you might want in daily life and is just a few sensible tactics that appealed to a few guys. Most Asian martial arts seem to be a joke. Maybe there are a few exceptions. Those arts based on combat sports at least have some grounding in reality, but even then there don't seem to be any great techniques or anything magical. Keep fit. Lift weights to be strong. Learn to punch, kick, throw and grapple. There doesn't seem to be much to it.

[WilliamSmith]

Largely thanks to @Lucas88 there's a lot of thoughts about this in this thread I started earlier, because I am also getting back into martial arts since leaving the USSA means giving up fire-arms as a self defense option:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=45329&p=371502

I think @Lucas88's view that MMA and some cross-training is ideal, but basic striking (boxing, kickboxing) and freestyle wrestling are a good basic foundation to be able to fight with strikes, or possibly lock up an attacker in a clinch and either keep f***ing him up or use some of their neat throws. That kind of stuff is effective in real fights. (Source: Watching 1980s-90s Pacific Northwestern mouth-breathers with mostly a wrestling background beating the shit out of each other occasionally, but also seeing it show up very well in MMA circles.)

Re: Asian martial arts, Muay Thai is the no-BS one that definitely is very, very good. (Some of the other traditional ones have a really interesting history and I think at certain periods practitioners did know how to use them better because they fight life-and-death battles with them sometimes, but I think a lot of them lost their original knowledge in making them effective, but regardless in the modern times they for the most part have all got their asses kicked in MMA, with Muay Thai being the exception.)

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is definitely not BS (can be highly effective) but I'm not into it personally even though acknowledge it has value, but Lucas88 who has way more experience with it went into quite a bit of detail about why he prefers freestyle wrestling as a grappling foundation in the other thread.

[Cornfed]

Re: Asian martial arts, Muay Thai is the no-BS one that definitely is very, very good. (Some of the other traditional ones have a really interesting history and I think at certain periods practitioners did know how to use them better because they fight life-and-death battles with them sometimes, but I think a lot of them lost their original knowledge in making them effective, but regardless in the modern times they for the most part have all got their asses kicked in MMA, with Muay Thai being the exception.)

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is definitely not BS (can be highly effective) but I'm not into it personally even though acknowledge it has value, but Lucas88 who has way more experience with it went into quite a bit of detail about why he prefers freestyle wrestling as a grappling foundation in the other thread.

Combat sports are going to be effective within the sport, but they don't contain some of what you would want and emphasise some stuff too much. Wrestling on the ground and wearing people down with leg kicks aren't something you would want to do often IRL. A lot of their stuff is good though.

With the traditional non-full-contact arts, over the years many of their practitioners have failed miserably when tested and very little of their stuff seems usable. AFAIK, the only good things to come out of Wing Chung are their method of side stepping and the swivel punch, while the only good things to come out of Taekwondo are the turning back kick and shapely Korean female asses. My last hope for traditional martial arts that have something magical to them are traditional internal Chinese arts such as Tai Chi and Bagua as taught by the late Erle Montague and others, but many say they are all BS. If anyone knows about internal TCM, please post.

[WilliamSmith]

@Cornfed
Don't underestimate leg kicks! I know what you mean because when I first started MMA training it seemed kinda lame... until I ended up getting smashed with them and limping home with ping-pong ball sized lumps on my shins or side of my legs. I just posted this in that other thread about Asian incels confused if they're only valued for their money (answer = "no", unless they can't shake the "current thing" or being a bunch of faggots dressing up in women's clothing same as the whites and jews, but I digress): See here where Takayama totally takes out a big muscular dude who looked like he was about to dominate the match earlier, until he got hit with just one leg kick. But the "war of attrition" thing of wearing guys down with leg kicks isn't just BS either.

[Cornfed]

Don't underestimate leg kicks!

Nothing wrong with leg kicks in general. Leg stamp and axe kicks aimed at breaking the knee joint (or sometimes the ankle joint) are a mainstay of close quarter battle and kicks to the shins are useful. However, the general strategy of roundhouse kicks to the thighs to eventually make the opponent immobile is much less useful in real life than in Thai boxing matches IMO.

[Lucas88]

Combat sports are going to be effective within the sport, but they don't contain some of what you would want and emphasise some stuff too much. Wrestling on the ground and wearing people down with leg kicks aren't something you would want to do often IRL. A lot of their stuff is good though.

Leg kicks are extremely effective against opponents who are not conditioned to absorb them. I trained in Muay Thai for a while (Muay Thai fighters spend a lot of time conditioning their shins and legs and all know how to check a leg kick even from the beginner level). Then one day I went to a regular kickboxing gym and leg kicked a few of the high-graded students in sparring. Since many people at regular kickboxing gyms don't know how to check leg kicks or even condition their legs for them, I was able to drop them sometimes with just one or two of them. There wasn't even a wearing down with leg kicks. The wearing down thing only occurs when a leg kicker faces a highly conditioned Muay Thai or MMA fighter who knows how to take them.

And that's just talking about leg kicks to the muscle. If you aim a bit lower at the point just above the knee and slightly to the side, you can completely blow somebody's knee out.

Calf kicks are also a thing now in MMA. You can drop somebody with a well-placed and powerful calf kick. Again, it would be especially devastating against an untrained opponent who is not conditioned to absorb them.

From a street fighting perspective, wrestling and Jiujitsu can be useful to avoid fighting on the ground. In the event that you are tackled, thrown or taken down in some way, you can use basic wrestling and Jiujitsu skills to scramble and get back up to your feet. It is also useful to learn defense against punches from the mount and also escapes for in case you get mounted by an opponent in a fight. Basic knowledge of the open guard and technical standups too for if somebody tries to kick you on the ground.

My last hope for traditional martial arts that have something magical to them are traditional internal Chinese arts such as Tai Chi and Bagua as taught by the late Erle Montague and others, but many say they are all BS. If anyone knows about internal TCM, please post.

Chi Gong is very real indeed (I wrote a lot about my own experiences in WilliamSmith's "Energy Arts" thread). However, as far as I know, the internal Chinese arts such as Tai Qi don't really have any practical combat application. They are used for cultivating the body's qi. Qi cultivation can promote health and vitality and strengthen orgasms if done safely.

[Cornfed]

And that's just talking about leg kicks to the muscle. If you aim a bit lower at the point just above the knee and slightly to the side, you can completely blow somebody's knee out.

I wouldn't rely on leg kicks to the muscle in serious situations. They are a bit like punching people in the stomach. It might work or it might not. If you want to break someone's knee joint, the leg stamp is the way to go. This is similar to a side kick where you hit the front or weighted leg just below the knee either straight on or to the inside and aim to break the leg as you would break kindling leaning against a wall.

However, as far as I know, the internal Chinese arts such as Tai Qi don't really have any practical combat application

The late Erle Montague and now his son think otherwise. As with acupuncture, you build up the energy within you and then use your techniques to break the resistance of the other person's skin and inject the energy into them where it will make the appropriate internal changes. It is odd that others have a radically different interpretation of tai chi and seem not to have heard of Erle. He used to be a mainstay in martial arts back in the day. Here is their Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/c/taichiworld/videos

[WilliamSmith]

Leg kicks are extremely effective against opponents who are not conditioned to absorb them.

Good discussion here guys. I just popped in to comment on this because it gave me a chuckle remembering my earlier MMA training in my early 20s when I was limping home from the gym at night with big ping-pong ball sized lumps that it had raised from not being conditioned to block leg kicks well yet, then I saw that giggling happy drunk college girl with big tits sloshing around hanging on some dorky dude and decided it was time for a pause to make up for lost time and get my ass in gear to get more women on a regular basis.
Now I'm not putting women on pause, but it's the other way around otherwise and I need to get my ass in gear to do more leg conditioning and kicks, since I have been a bit slow on that (partly because of taking a renewed interest in boxing at the moment over getting started with kicks, but I ought to do at least a bit of regular conditioning).

[Cornfed]

It is an interesting philosophical question to ponder as to how you would actually test whether martial arts work or not.

[Lucas88]

It is an interesting philosophical question to ponder as to how you would actually test whether martial arts work or not.

I can think of three different methods, each with their own pros and cons:

Method 1 - Controlled Sparring at an MMA gym

Do some live rounds with some of your training partners and attempt combat techniques against full resistance. Observe what works against a trained fighter and what doesn't. Try different strategies.

Pros - You can discover what works against somebody who actually knows how to fight

Cons - You are limited by certain rules which need to be put in place to ensure that the sparring can be done in a relatively safe manner and so the sparring doesn't cover dirty tactics and some scenarios that you could encounter in a lawless street fight


Method 2 - Purposely get into street fights with alcohol- and drug-fueled wannabe tough guys at the weekend

Go out on the town looking for fights. See what works against some asshole in the street without rules. Observe whether your martial arts training holds up in that kind of situation.

Pros - You are not limited by rules and neither is your opponent and so this practice has the highest level of realism

Cons - Is this even ethical? Somebody could get hurt or arrested. It's a dumb idea.


Method 3 - Watch video footage of real fights involving trained martial artists on YouTube and observe what works from a third-person perspective

Sit down in the comfort of your own home and watch videos of Muay Thai practitioners, boxers, wrestlers, Jiujitsu experts, etc. using their martial arts skills in real scenarios

Pros - You get to see what works in the street without getting hurt or arrested yourself

Cons - You don't get to feel what works for you personally since we are all built differently and have different strengths and weaknesses

[Cornfed]

It is an interesting philosophical question to ponder as to how you would actually test whether martial arts work or not.

I can think of three different methods, each with their own pros and cons:

Method 1 - Controlled Sparring at an MMA gym

Do some live rounds with some of your training partners and attempt combat techniques against full resistance. Observe what works against a trained fighter and what doesn't. Try different strategies.

Would this really be a fair test? If people are into MMA perhaps because they are good at it, training specifically for that, benefiting from professional instruction, presumably in the correct age range, training with sparring partners in the same situation on a regular basis etc. it would stand to reason that they are likely to beat me at their chosen sport. Does that prove my techniques are no good or merely that certain individuals are going to be better than me in a particular situation?

Quite likely what would happen is that I would get taken to the ground and submitted with a triangle choke or similar. Those sorts of techniques would be completely unusable in many IRL situations where obviously you could only use it against a single person, you would risk being kicked in the head by his friends, risk being stabbed if he had a knife etc. So really the MMA people are trained for a kind of stylised dueling which you could argue was a waste of time for the average person to learn.

[Lucas88]

Would this really be a fair test? If people are into MMA perhaps because they are good at it, training specifically for that, benefiting from professional instruction, presumably in the correct age range, training with sparring partners in the same situation on a regular basis etc. it would stand to reason that they are likely to beat me at their chosen sport. Does that prove my techniques are no good or merely that certain individuals are going to be better than me in a particular situation?

I mistook your question for a general one and I was under the assumption that the learner would already have extensive experience in martial arts. I didn't realize that you were asking for yourself specifically.

Well, to answer your newly raised concerns, I have two possible suggestions:

1. You could try sparring with beginner MMA students with only a few months of experience (i.e., people who know the basic mechanics of fighting but are still not particularly proficient at them). The right training partner for your purpose would be an MMA newbie who has some basic technique and can put up a fight but won't easily defeat you. Spar with some guys like that. Try out your own techniques and strategies. Get a feel for theirs and see what you can do to defend against whatever they through at you.

2. Invite people of various disciplines to spar with you with limited rules. Invite karatekas, judokas, other martial artists, and even untrained streetfighters who like a good scrap. Spar together. See how your skills match up to each style. Since none of these people train specifically for MMA or Vale Tudo style matches, nobody should have a significant advantage over anybody else.

Quite likely what would happen is that I would get taken to the ground and submitted with a triangle choke or similar. Those sorts of techniques would be completely unusable in many IRL situations where obviously you could only use it against a single person, you would risk being kicked in the head by his friends, risk being stabbed if he had a knife etc. So really the MMA people are trained for a kind of stylised dueling which you could argue was a waste of time for the average person to learn.

Much of what you learn in MMA is applicable to street fights. A guy who has a few years of MMA training is going to know how to punch better, defend against strikes better, and clinch better than the average guy in the street. The essential components of fighting are included in MMA training and that's why I recommend MMA as the base for self-defense (a base to which other scenario-specific components may be added). Just because you have a stint of MMA training doesn't mean that you have to use things like triangle chokes or flying armbars in a street fight. You just take and apply the most basic and practical skills.

[Cornfed]

I mistook your question for a general one and I was under the assumption that the learner would already have extensive experience in martial arts. I didn't realize that you were asking for yourself specifically.

No, you were right first time. It was a general question, but it is interesting to ponder. Arguably there is no clear answer to these questions. With learning MMA, I suppose doing that in the sense of learning a striking art and a grappling art might be a good idea for young men. It is just that it seems like a lot of wasted effort for most people.

[Cornfed]

Kind of uncanny that this should pop up in my Youtube feed:

[Lucas88]

No, you were right first time. It was a general question, but it is interesting to ponder. Arguably there is no clear answer to these questions. With learning MMA, I suppose doing that in the sense of learning a striking art and a grappling art might be a good idea for young men. It is just that it seems like a lot of wasted effort for most people.

I see it more as an investment. A few years of MMA training will give you important fighting skills that will remain with you for life. Even if you stop training for years due to responsibilities or a change of interests, you'll still know how to throw basic combinations, defend against a variety of strikes, and grapple even if your sense of timing might be a bit off. Training in MMA also allows the learner to develop mental fortitude and learn how to react under pressure. I think that any martially inclined young man should invest a few years into MMA training even if he has no interest in MMA competition. Learning how to fight is certainly a much more beneficial investment than obsessively playing videogames and smoking pot.

Kind of uncanny that this should pop up in my Youtube feed:

Google spies on us all!