In looking around, I’m seeing some good applications that have popped up lately. Good solid stuff. The performers move very well and are crisp. Of course, they’re still application demos, though. The opponent is just standing there doing nothing. Pretty convenient, eh?
I’m not so impressed by any of that any more. Things look very, very different when the opponent is allowed to move and is skilled himself.
I thought of this at judo class last night. Everyone of the guys I train with do free-fighting (randori) as 70-80% of their training. And it’s competition style. No one falls for anyone else unless you made them fall. It rarely looks clean unless we get someone great in the club, like we did a few nights ago. It’s almost always a bit of a mess because everyone there (with me as the sole exception) has been doing this for years. Everyone knows the same techniques, everyone is pretty strong with some being really strong, and everyone has at least a few techniques that they specialize in. These guys have tons of experience. You don’t just pull off these picture perfect techniques with them.
There are many, many problems with practicing an art where 99.9% of the people that do it can’t apply it. One problem is that you quickly get used to doing techniques against beginners or other non-resistant people. The pool of potential fighters is so bizarrely small that you have to make do with what you have. Having a small pool to draw from is better than nothing and I applaud those who are doing this kind of training. You have to make due with what you have. I’ve been there, too.
But when you start doing a sport grappling style or other style where everyone is actually DOING the style instead of theorizing about it, then you’re playing a different ball game. The pool of fighters is sooooooo much bigger, so much more varied that it may be beyond comprehension.
And the way styles like judo or BJJ are structured lets anyone come into the dojo and train. The moves are standardized, meaning that judo is much the same all over the world. We have people from other clubs walk into our club and start randori right away because they have trained elsewhere.
We recently had a senior policeman/black belt who fought in Japan come in and wipe the mat with almost all of us. We had a former Chinese Taipei judo team member visit and do the same. A current high-level competitor at a top university came in and hit us with his mixed judo/BJJ style. Last week, we had the nicest guy in the world come in weighing probably 160 lbs. and throw many of us with the most beautiful techniques. In fact, now that I think about it, it’s a bit rare for someone good and new to NOT show up on any given night.
Because of all this, judo people acquire experience very quickly and they often have lots of it. Some of this can be intimidating. Look at my post on Yasuhiro Yamashita. That guy won 194 fights in a row and was All-Japan champ three times. Do you have any idea how many times he fought randori with other players? Thousands, maybe tens-of-thousands of times over the years. He’s been doing judo over 40 years.
Being a part of this now, I’m finding that you either sink or swim. And if you swim, you learn to do it quickly if you want to survive on the mat.
Frankly speaking, unless someone has done a sport grappling style like this, then I don’t think they can relate. No CMA style whatsoever, shuai jiao included, has the number of experienced practitioners that judo has. And the way it’s set up, you continuously acquire experience all the time against new people (assuming a large club in a big city). The quality of skill that this kind of training builds is unmatched in CMA styles (possibly with the exception of shuai jiao). This is one of the many reasons I’m doing judo now — I wanted to test myself against more skilled players than I was finding in CMA.
Not that I didn’t have excellent teachers that could apply their CMAs/CIMAs. I did, so we can dismiss the nonsense about how I didn’t “get it” in CIMA so I had to do judo instead. Simply put, reversing that ratio and being part of a style where 99.9% of the people can do the style gives a very, very different experience and I wanted to get that different experience.
Training applications against static opponents with little skill or sparring with a small group as in CMA may be the best that people can do, but it’s a far cry from practicing an art filled with experienced players. Try it out and see what I mean.
40 responses so far ↓
1 Jay Gischer // Aug 21, 2008 at 11:22 am
I’m really glad that you are enjoying what you’re doing now, Dave. What you say is true and solid. And randori is valuable practice. Randori also has limitations, just as any other drill does. In time, I think you will see them, or perhaps you already do.
2 Dan Paden // Aug 21, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Having a large pool of people to train with is certainly a huge advantage. We do a lot of tuite in our system, but the number of people in the area with any interest is very small and makes it difficult to get used to applying the techniques on a wide variety of body types.
3 Cyril // Aug 21, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I totally agree with your post. Eventhough I’m not that interested in actual fights, I do agree that new people to train with will increase your skills greatly.
that’s the problem we have at the taiji school I’m learning from. Our teacher wants to host and participate in competitions, but other schools are not willing to participate, because when the good students in this school push you, you are really being pushed. that’s not just a game. That’s a major problem in taijiquan, less and less people are practicing the art as it should be (as a martial art I mean).
4 YMAA.com // Aug 21, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Do you really say “Chinese Taipei” in Taiwan? They said it throughout the Olympics and it sounds odd. Kinda like saying ‘Chinese Province of Tibet’?
or am I misunderstanding?
5 neijia // Aug 21, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Yeah. That is also why I took up judo and bjj and stick with them and get something out of them that’s missing in most ima. Not that they’re the “best” or anything but no one in ima wants to do anything but sit around and talk (which I love a lot but eventually it gets old). If you push someone with nice whole body connectedness they still whine about “force” or some naive or theoretical b.s. I can’t take it any more. Life is too short.
6 neijia // Aug 21, 2008 at 11:31 pm
All that said, it sounds like your club is remarkably good. My judo class has a dearth of quality adult students. It’s mostly kid-oriented. My bjj class, in contrast, is filled with adult students. That makes the training experience much richer and more varied. Plus, some of the judo randori limitations are addressed (of course not all), but the material (98% ground, 2% standing) is not exactly the mix I prefer, which is much better at judo (my class is probably 70-80% standup, 20-30% ground). That is just my experience but I suspect back here in the U.S. the sport grappling scene is now mainly bjj and a judo club like yours is rare.
7 neijia // Aug 21, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Dave and others, what about the san shou / san da sport format? I’m guessing that’s not really adopted in Taiwan? The above criteria make yiquan attractive, plenty of “internal” plus sparring in the san shou format.
8 Frank Bellemare // Aug 22, 2008 at 12:36 am
I wholeheartedly agree Dave, judo is great, the training method is smart, gradual and logical, little time is wasted doing nonsensical movements and you get talented new people every class. I’m just glad I finally started!
And since judo principles are almost identical to tai chi, what I learn in judo is easily transferable to tai chi push hands. Just yesterday in push hands I dropped a guy with ippon seoi nage.
I still love and practice tai chi, but I can’t keep on waiting for that magical “in ten years you’ll be unstoppable” term while we’re not even practicing techniques or ever working with real speed and power.
9 Joseph T. Oliva Arriola // Aug 22, 2008 at 1:23 am
It’s not the application, It’s your intent
1. stomp his foot/kick him in the shin/always break/shatter a bone
2. grab his hair, lip, roles of fat/skin and twist
3. scratch, bite, and let them see blood
4. preferably use a knife
5. Know the game of the judo man, the bjj and mma practitoner but never play it!
6. Practice with killing in mind. But, fight only those battles where you are willing to die.
10 neijia // Aug 22, 2008 at 1:27 am
Frank, if it’s socially acceptable to use an ippon seoi nage in your push hands group, that seems like an unusual group. In that case, maybe your ph group could get most of the benefits of the randori, plus others, without needing to bother with the judo (unless it’s due to lack of participants)…?
11 Scott // Aug 22, 2008 at 1:51 am
Hey, great argument!
I tend to frame this as: you need to find or create a milieu which is itself capable of inventing the art if you want to really learn it. In that one sense I concede that yoga and judo have something superior to the internal martial arts.
I teach a lot of throwing in my Bagua classes, but we almost never take those throws to the ground. There are two reasons for this. One, it is dangerous–we practice outside in a park. Two, it isn’t necessary–when you are teetering on the edge of falling, you know it.
A student of mine who had studied hard for four years decided, like you, that he wanted to test his throws– so he signed up for judo classes.
I was happy about this, and really curious what would happen.
Using bagua technique, he could throw everyone but the teacher. Unfortunately he was alway disqualified for using non-judo technique. He hung out for a few months improving his judo but his bagua was deeply ingrained and unconscious. One day, he went down, and after he had conceded the throw, his partner used an elbow to brake three of his ribs. He said the guy wanted revenge for all those “unconscious throws.”
12 Frank Bellemare // Aug 22, 2008 at 2:17 am
Neijia, it’s a great group, and I realize that the kind of free style push hands we do (with locks, throws and light strikes) is a far cry from what most other schools do, and I consider myself lucky to have such a great teacher and 4 or 5 classmates willing to push hands a little harder.
But what judo has that I don’t find in our taichi classes is:
1. a technical breakdown and repetitive practice of the techniques
2. a logical and structured curriculum
3. equipment that allows for safe sparring at full power (mats and gi)
4. competitions to test our skills against people who really want to throw you down, sport-oriented as that may be. Whereas I’ve never even heard of a taichi competition held in my part of Canada (there’s supposed to be one this fall though…!).
5. ground-fighting techniques, which are a lot of fun
6. experienced practitionners who can tell you how to really apply something so that it works against a resisting opponent, e.g. set up and follow-through.
13 neijia // Aug 22, 2008 at 3:02 am
> Unfortunately he was alway disqualified for using non-judo technique.
Hard to know what he meant or what to make of the revenge, but some of the rules can be worked around. As good as his bagua was, one should respect the rules of the other format, just like a bjj student shouldn’t show up to ph practice, pull guard, and apply a triangle choke (imagine the indignant reaction). Too bad (or maybe it’s good for variety) there doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus across styles or groups where to draw the line for safety.
Frank, sounds like you are also lucky with your mix of classes. Some of the best lessons seem to come from between these arbitrary lines we draw. For those of us who enjoy multiple formats, too bad we can’t get together and create the milieu where we say “we’re doing ph for a while. now judo. now sumo. etc.”
14 Dojo Rat // Aug 22, 2008 at 8:14 am
Dave, I take your point well. Reality is being challenged by a resisting opponent.
- I am currently operating in a small pool of players, and I realize that limits my exposure to serious challenges.
On the other hand, I myself am nearly 50, and beyond my competitive years. While there are some younger guys that like to mix it up in our various workouts, some of the people that are doing Tai Chi Chuan with me are older people that have no interest in the challenge of competition.
That is what clearly seperates the Judo school you are at to a common neighborhood class- the judo guys all come to compete.
With that said, I do have a great deal of fun and gain varied experiance when I do my monthly visit to other schools in my part of the state. I’m really looking fwd to seeing Mike Martello in a couple of weeks in Seattle.
I think it will be interesting to see how you handle push hands or other CMA after your time in the Judo school, it will surely give you a different perspective for those challenges like the one you had with the Hsing i teacher in the park last year–
D.R.
15 Dave Chesser // Aug 22, 2008 at 10:17 am
We do have a large pool of adult players at my judo club. most of them have been doing judo a long time.
DR,
I certainly don’t think any of this is necessary for anyone. Not at all. People should get out of this stuff whatever they want.
It just seems to me that most of the people in thrall with applications and fighting of some type with benefit by doing a style that focuses more on that.
As I said in the post, the experience you get from doing a style where most of the people can actually make it work vs. being the 0.1% of a crowd is vastly different.
About the challenges, I suspect you’re correct. Time will tell.
16 neijia // Aug 23, 2008 at 1:32 am
Trying not to digress to a favorite rant, but everything discussed in this post are reasons I think people falsely believe skill in taijiquan takes 30 years to acquire. Unless they are talking about some kind of 1000th degree black belt equivalent, basic skill should be as quick to acquire as in other popular styles such as judo. Maybe elements of more uncooperative ph practice have been lost or watered down as the overall art changed to the health focus? Maybe what Frank’s ph group does now as the odd group out used to be the norm? Other than agreeing with Dojo Rat that when I’m 50 I want to turn it down a notch, I don’t see why we can’t increase the 0.1% a little.
17 Joseph T. Oliva Arriola // Aug 23, 2008 at 2:30 am
Simple
Take judo/wrestling, then study boxing/karate. When you do so you get “contact”.
Don’t start with tai chi chuan, bagua or modern wushu. You will never learn to fight because most teachers/students were not taught to fight from their 5th generation teachers.
When you have learned “contact” and want to beat “others” then study tai chi chuan from someone who can also fight…but can do so “internally”.
Too many guy, study tai chi first and then learn MMA only to bring their “external” methods to what is the grand ultimate.
18 wayne hansen // Aug 23, 2008 at 6:34 am
oh ye of little faith
19 CReidS // Aug 23, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I’m coming from 10 years of JMA background (karate/aikido) and I’m now studying CMA (Tai Chi/Wing Chun). Its been about a year and a half. The cultural differences are pretty startling to me. In aikido and karate, I spent a lot of time getting knocked down, trading kicks, and just generally DOING the martial art.
However, I find Tai Chi practice increasingly frustrating; It’s physically enriching, and I see tremendous potential in the art . . . but no one seems to capitalize on it. Tons of preparation go into very little application practice.
Even during application practice, I feel like moves never follow through to their conclusion, the kill moment. So I’ve got this guy kneeling in a finger lock. Now what? In karate, you’ll likely break something or go for the head. In aikido, you’ll probably progress up to his elbow and put him face down on the floor.
The most alarming difference between JMA and CMA (with the exception of Wing Chun, always the outlier art) is resolve. So few Tai Chi fighters know their physical limitations; every Judoka has a pretty good idea of the beating they can take. The Karateka knows where to look for strength when everything seems lost; I don’t see that in Tai Chi. As far as I can tell, these things are never experienced, much less trained.
20 Meow // Aug 23, 2008 at 2:17 pm
dave, sounds aws what youre getting, i used to train in judo years ago, it made learning tai chi easy for me, and tc gave me a better understanding of ju
21 Chad // Aug 24, 2008 at 5:00 am
CReiDS,
There are some of us that train taiji that way. Not many, but some.
22 CReidS // Aug 24, 2008 at 10:48 am
@Chad:
Any in NYC? I could use a recommendation — I see all this potential and it really, truly frustrates me. Tai Chi is much more than Chinese Yoga. Or, at least, it should be.
And I don’t give a damn about lineage or style. I’d certainly be willing to branch out into other neijia styles if they have better training in NYC.
23 cooliehawk // Aug 24, 2008 at 2:01 pm
@CReidS
William C.C. Chen’s Tai Ch’i school is known for turning out competent fighters.
24 taijiquestion // Aug 24, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I liked Frank’s comment about the lack of “a logical and structured curriculum”.
Sure, plenty of taiji schools have a great big impressive curriculum. Learn 400 forms. Learn various weapons too. Progress through the 3 frames on the road to mastery.
It can be like going to the chiropractor. Every session, he relieves some back pain; you pay some money. Twenty years later, you can still function; your back doesn’t hurt too much; and Doc has a new Mercedes. Fair deal.
I’m not knocking teachers. Without the teachers, we would not have taijiquan, and that’s all there is to it. But when you start kindergarten, you learn about A,B,C and 1,2,3.
The first form in taiji is just standing, straight, relaxed, with numerous nuances. That’s a posture we use all our lives. Now what if I’m in line at the Post Office and some angry jerk next to me spontaneously decides to give me a hard, violent shove? If I’ve been to the right kind of taiji school, I won’t fall on my ass. The attack will be neutralized while still in standing post, and I’ll have options thereafter.
If I know how to defend myself in Standing Post, I can then try to learn something about raise and lower hands, ward off, and onward from there.
That’s a logical and structured curriculum. But I’m not sure how many teachers could make a living with it.
One thing I’ve read, and tend to believe, is that “real fights” begin very fast and rarely last very long. I hope some day I’ll know the 108 Forms. Others have managed it. But mostly I want to know something about taiji. And how to handle myself. No reason the two shouldn’t mesh. It’s a beautiful art that’s supposed to be deadly.
Perhaps the solution would be a new model for taiji teaching. Each student’s introduction to the class would be the teacher saying, “Attack me”.
If necessary, he/she could add, “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you; and I doubt you’ll hurt me”.
Suddenly it’s Taiji, the Martial Art… brought to you by Chen, Yang, Wu, et al.
25 DavidK // Aug 24, 2008 at 7:26 pm
CReidS,
I know exactly what you are saying about the Taiji training not giving you the finishing options, much less the mentality. But since you’ve learned these options from other arts, it is not blasphemous for you to finish as you’ve been taught. What you said about not knowing your physical limits is also true. The younger students are really getting shortchanged when it comes to getting pushed. There is no way around the hard physical challenge of any gong fu style if you want to be a competent fighter. If anything, you just develop some grit from pushing yourself and eating a bowl of bitter every practice session. My mentality has changed thanks to a little exposure to xingyi and bagua. It was much more physically challenging than I expected coming from taiji training, and under a good teacher you will learn plenty of nasty options for breaking your opponent when you have been able to break his defenses.
If I were in NY, I’d study with Rudy Curry, Jr. He has a zillion clips on Youtube under “sifurudy” and he gives away a lot of ideas. Get past his buddy Blacktaoist’s larger than life persona–if that is even a problem for you (it isn’t for me)–and you will find some people who have studied with the likes of B.P. Chan, William C.C. Chen, C.K. Chu, and lord knows who else with the strict goal of learning how to use these things for fighting. Rudy has a good rep for freefighting, if back in his younger years, and he never fails to amaze me (on video) with his complete understanding of what he does, why he does it, and how it relates to combat.
Best of luck. Don’t ignore your nagging doubts. The last thing you want in your mind is doubt.
26 Frank Bellemare // Aug 25, 2008 at 10:49 am
CReidS,
A lot of us have been and are still in your situation. Honestly, don’t expect to learn how to fight in taiji classes. Fighting is rarely on the top of the list for taiji teachers, even the good ones. Some taiji teachers are more fighting-oriented than others, but even then you’re not going to get heavy cardio and strength training with lots of drills and sparring.
However, taiji has a lot to offer in terms of developing body alignment, internal and spatial awareness, continuously flowing applications, leg strength and whole-body power, which are transferable to other martial arts you practice.
Like DaveK is saying, the last thing you want in your mind is doubt. So try to enjoy your taiji as much as you can while being aware of its limitations and feel free to crosstrain in other disciplines to get the results you’re seeking.
27 taijiquestion // Aug 25, 2008 at 12:25 pm
CReidS,
another thought, Chen Xiaowang disciple Ren Guang-Yi has a school in Manhattan. To the best of my knowledge he’s thoroughly martial in orientation.
28 Morgan Buchanan // Aug 25, 2008 at 12:42 pm
sparring isn’t always the best practice for realistic self defence. i’ve done tai chi, some other cma’s and some western boxing, judo and bjj. the two best combat oriented teachers i have ever met both teach cma, one tai chi exclusively and neither emphasize sparring in their training methods. mostly conditioning/power development, two person drills, scenario drills and tactics. in my experience sparring is good for teaching you to keep your spirit up/focussed when under pressure and learning to pick the signals that initiate the opponent’s movement but it can also train many bad habits. it is a simulated training ritual not a real fight which you would want to be over as quickly as possible, with you gone and safe. you don’t want to take the other guy to the ground, you don’t want to close the distance, commit and tie up your arms and legs in a lock or throw in what might quickly turn into a multi opponent environment unless you have no other choice (the opponent closes the gap on you more quickly than you can respond-in which case you want to get up off of the ground asap). grappling arts are great fun because you can mix it up a bit more without serious injury but as a stand alone art it is a sport not a complete self defense method. traditional japanese fighting arts like the cmas contain striking, locking, throwing and kicking.
if you put all your energy into grappling then when you are under threat you will probably find yourself locking someone up, or doing a double leg takedown and mount the guy, beating him silly while his friends are doing the same to you.
cheers
morgan
29 Joseph T. Oliva Arriola // Aug 25, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I agree completely with Morgan.
Don’t be tempted by the current “popularity” of grappling “while his friends are doing the same to you”.
30 neijia // Aug 25, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Judo as a new art wasn’t technically better than its predecessor jujutsu. Its superiority (despite some obvious limitations) came from its training method. In the old days, taiji’s (supposed) superiority probably came similarly from its push hands training method. Too bad that seems almost gone as taiji is 99.99% health practice (fine for what it is), but there is no reason it has to disappear completely. On the grappling side of things, these kinds of training methods seem different but complementary, a bit like gi vs. no gi bjj, with a lot of people now training both those methods (oddly it was a large debate). Ph is even more interesting to me as it can simultaneously help with bridging to the striking side of things. However other arts seem to have a better focus there. If it is doomed to be at best an abstract layer between things that are more concrete like randori from judo on the grappling side and yiquan type training on the striking side, so be it. I don’t see why it can’t get into more of these independent areas and obviate the need for some of the cross training but apparently the world of students ranging from effete intellectuals to aging, health obsessed baby boomers isn’t into that. Of course health really is more important, but still, I agree it’s frustrating to see such unrealized potential. CReidS, let us know if you find the “more” you’re looking for. DavidK, I love sifurudy’s clips. You feel as if you’re standing there in the park with them. Chen’s two kids are san shou champs and I think Max trains people in san shou at the school.
31 CReidS // Aug 26, 2008 at 12:50 am
Thank you for all the feedback! This will really help focus my search.
32 neijia // Aug 26, 2008 at 12:59 am
sidebar discussion - if someone wants to learn combat, they teach that in the military. everything from hand-to-hand to long range computer-guided missiles and more. why stop with a no-spar teacher or grappling-only school? if you’re not into combat (and hopefully you’re not) the problem with self-defense is it’s more complicated. you can’t know the stakes, numbers of opponents, “rules”, etc. I don’t buy the straw man argument about some stupid grappler because who’s stupid enough to actually believe this idea of mounting the guy while getting beat on. judo deliberately put the dangerous striking in kata. same with bjj. the bjj folks will say the art and no art works against multiple assailants. bagua or other ma superhero fantasy syndrome notwithstanding, who wants to be that stupid, period? an argument based mainly on an assumption that some stupid person is going to do something stupid is essentially saying nothing. even some supposedly stupid mma viewer knows that grappling only is no longer sufficient. still, interesting that of those contenders that have a partial martial “base”, the wrestlers are the most heavily recruited…
33 Joseph T. Oliva Arriola // Aug 26, 2008 at 1:26 am
You don’t learn martial art in the military. You learn how to take orders.
I don’t base my arguements on “conjecture”, I base them on actions…
Tai Chi Chuan is a complete martial art…it’s just that few are now being taught to use it. Trust me Counselor. I too was frightened when I took the Bar 28 years ago. I too questioned the validity of Tai Chi Chuan 28 years ago.
34 Morgan Buchanan // Aug 26, 2008 at 7:09 am
when you are under pressure you fall back on what you drill. last time i checked that’s what they were teaching in the military. why drill techniques that are not going to be useful for a realistic encounter? if you are training for sport or fitness that’s fine, but if you are training for self defense it’s not. neijia mentioned the dangerous judo strikes in the katas. when was the last time anyone did or saw judo that was drilling striking techniques on the mat? if they do i bet they don’t do it often. judo is great, i did it for 6 years when i was a teenager. it’s a sport that has some use for self defense, but is not a complete method in and of itself, in that it is not designed to help you defend yourself when attacked. it is designed to show you how to wrestle with another judo man in a controlled environment.
cheers
morgan
35 Morgan Buchanan // Aug 26, 2008 at 7:24 am
“I don’t buy the straw man argument about some stupid grappler because who’s stupid enough to actually believe this idea of mounting the guy while getting beat on”
if you only know grappling and are attacked what else are you going to do but grapple? i recently heard of a student of a friend who got in a fight with four guys out the front of some council flats. not a good tactic to start with but there you go. he had only done a few classes, no self defense before and only knew one punch. guess what he did when he was under pressure? hit one guy with the punch while the others beat him up.
when you are under pressure you do what you know to survive. in this case he didn’t know enough. stupid is relative to what someone with more experience than you knows.
cheers
morgan
36 Joseph T. Oliva Arriola // Aug 26, 2008 at 7:30 am
Morgan…agreement
37 Dave Chesser // Aug 26, 2008 at 8:47 am
“when was the last time anyone did or saw judo that was drilling striking techniques on the mat?”
Watch for the next post!
38 Morgan Buchanan // Aug 26, 2008 at 9:15 am
look forward to it dave. you always manage to hunt down the interesting obscure videos : )
cheers
morgan
39 Hermann // Aug 26, 2008 at 10:05 am
Lately, I saw some National Geographic report on selfdefense, Buss Rooten, a Krav Marga master and a police guy. Their tenor: No Martial Art is necessary for selfdefense, only a certain state of mind. Totally untrained and weak, if you attack eyes, throat, ears and the lower pelvic griddle (not the groin!), all what is needed are 15 kg of pressure.
So, with 50, I also look more for the art than the martial, having done some free fighting and lots of phs in different rule sets.
40 neijia // Aug 26, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I can’t tell if you mean an article, Hermann, but they had a television episode about the same topic that was really good. Still, I’m not sure I totally buy that, either, but what else can ordinary (e.g., out of shape, older, not athletic, etc.) people really learn quickly that will be highly probable to be useful? Morgan, I see what you’re saying but it seems you’re just pointing out that people (or our nervous systems) are really stupid under fight or flight.
I hope that the old axiom of what you train is what you do does not also imply that the most recent thing you trained is what you do. In that case, most recently, I trained judo. It’s been a while since I learned any “self defense” things. I did those things for a longer period but they were done in a systema flow kind of way, not in the intense way of judo. So who knows what would come out under stress. Hopefully the good of all of that but who knows.
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