Martial Arts v. Fighting Arts

[TravelingMan]

It is really sad, but a lot of people equate "martial arts" with kids running around in gis while they scream and practice totally impractical techniques. Is the typical member of this forum someone who practices kata and spinning back kicks, or are any of you guys seriously training to fight?

[frankiefuller]

I don't need weapons because I can fight and kill people with my bare hands. My katas will protect me from wimpy JKD practitioners. I used my karate to beat up Bruce Lee, and I used the kata bunkai to fight imaginary opponents. Tim was too slow, and Bob Bremer just couldn't handle my power. The whole battle scenario is worked out in my head, so that when the Wed Nite crowd attacks me, I'll already know how to anticipate their actions and counter with the 1000 hands technique. Alright, now I'll stop spouting weird stuff and get serious. I hope someday that all this kata they make me do will be worth my time, because I can't still see how the kata or the bunkai is supposed to blend with the JKD. Hey Tim, did you ever try doing bunkai with JKD techniques, or would that defeat the purpose of the JKD itself? I wonder how easy AZJKD01 was able to leave the karate school when they didn't like how he wanted to do techniques a different way. I hope the bunkai is worth my time and money. That school makes me do things their way if I don't want to fail their tests for rank advancement, but at least I have other JKDoers to help me out, and to heck with them if they don't like me combining my training methods.

[Arron Grammond]

Me? What?

Frankie,

I have the most powerful Kata form for you to try It will set you free from the limitations of the Karate classes...

First assume a strong stance with your feet shoulder width appart and your arms down in a nice ready stance.

Then bring one of your hands up to your ear with your palm facing the back of your head.

Next take a small step in the direction of the front door, rotate in place like a nice military about face and start walking with clear determination.

As you approch the door open and close your hand in rappid succession.
From your gut with power and passion break loose with a resounding "Cee-YA!" Some like the less powerful cry of "Bub-hie!"

Now the tricking part... Pass through the door without it hitting you in the back side.

If you master this successfully!!! you will find yourself liberated from the Karate schools. :wink:

Now that I have revealed this most powerful and secret of techniques to you, I charge you with the task of teaching it to others.

All things being equal its pretty painless man.
Forget Chi! "Free will" is the most powerful force in the Universe!

When someone asks me what my most powerful asset is. I tell them it's "exorcising the same common sence God gave a horse."

[Arron Grammond]

HAHAHAHAAAAA Joe! you kill me man! :lol:

Read it again... and Think Smart arse. :wink:

Its not a reverse punch kata!

It is just overly describing how to wave over your shoulder and saying
"Cee Ya"(SEE YA (See you later)) or
"Bub hie" (Bye Bye (Good Bye))
as you walk out the door.

Reread Frankie's post, he's being a wise crack as well.

As to the other stuff you mention... Huh?!? :shock:
Are you playing along as a straight man to our humor?

Sort of a Who's on First What's on second deal. :wink:

[Arron Grammond]

What the heck was that? :shock:

Drunken "Forum" Kung Fu! :wink:

[jeff]

Gentlemen: I fled to this board largely because most of the other m.a. forums I have posted on, or read, have
degenerated into flame-fests about irrelevant matters.
I have nothing against spinning kicks, kata, or even kata-bunkai.
If people want to train in karate, taekwondo, and other gi-waering, shouting styles, fine from them. I wish them well. Many people in rural areas in the USA train in tkd because it is the only training available to them. Please, let us not allow this great board to degenerate into a verbal blood-bath. Religion, politics, and bashing of gi/dojo/kiai arts does not help us. I want to discourse about wing chun, jun fan, jkd, and related matters. Let us allow this board to be a "safe haven" for people who desire relevant and useful conversation.

[Arron Grammond]

Gentlemen: I fled to this board largely because most of the other m.a. forums I have posted on, or read, have
degenerated into flame-fests about irrelevant matters.
I have nothing against spinning kicks, kata, or even kata-bunkai.
If people want to train in karate, taekwondo, and other gi-waering, shouting styles, fine from them. I wish them well. Many people in rural areas in the USA train in tkd because it is the only training available to them. Please, let us not allow this great board to degenerate into a verbal blood-bath. Religion, politics, and bashing of gi/dojo/kiai arts does not help us. I want to discourse about wing chun, jun fan, jkd, and related matters. Let us allow this board to be a "safe haven" for people who desire relevant and useful conversation.

Jeff, we are only playing around here. Joe, Frankie, and I have history here of playing and joking about katas and Karate land (see the older posts)

Traveling man has been firing up some flames here but we took this one into jokeing and playing around. No hostility or flames... all in fun.

Flames are mean and hostle, we are simply being active and jokeing with each other.

It is a JKD board though so a few people here are not advocates of Kata and its related classical application. (again refer to older posts) If you want to compete and do kata, great. If you want to focus on Street application and JKD. Many advise against getting into Kata especially in a JKD group.

All advice is meant to be helpful and offered with loveing intent :P

[beatdaline]

Once you have used the boat to cross the river, don't continue to carry the boat with you.

The above statement can be used both against doing forms/kata as well for doing forms / Kata.

Gentlemen lets not forget that doing forms & Kata is a means to an end. No different than shadow boxing or repeating the same movement thousands of times. Many people do forms like that...just doing one move thousands of times until moving to the next and then until finally you have completed the form. This could take days or years. You then know that you are able to synchronise with yourself at least a series of movements. you next step is t synchronise with your opponent. and finally using them in application.

What's important is not weather you do forms or you don't. What's important is whether or not you know why you are doing them. Its like any drills!

Unfortunately JKD practitionaires like the ones above seem to think that its a very JKD "in" thing to advise against forms if not mock them. I think that is ridiculous. Even bruce advised against denying the classical method simply as a reaction. Because by doing so you are entrapping yourself in a pattern not too unlike the classical mess he once rebelled against.

[Tim Tackett]

Bruce taught 5 kicking sets and 1 hand set. The 1st 4 kicking sets were done classically (kata). Then they were done non-classically which is more like shadow boxing.

[SlantRight]

In the early 1960's BL taught the Chinatown Boy Scouts. He gave a demonstration to the Scouts once & some 30 of them joined his class. A few weeks later & the number had dropped in half. One of his students from this Boy Scout Troop says they would wallk down the stairs to the basement...and crawl out. Some trained with Bruce for years & later for more years with Taky.

I recorded one of them 47 years later performing a Mantis form Bruce taught the Chinatown Boy Scouts.

[BGinNJ]

between martial arts and fighting systems (NOT arts), but they're not mutually exclusive. They just have difference emphasis, and different goals. Those kids in gi's yelling through basic forms, jump spinning crescent kicks, and twirling foam nunchakus aren't in the dojang to win the UFC or survive a street fight. They're there because well meaning parents brought them there to learn some respect, how to pay attention, achieve goals (like a belt), and get off the couch and the video games.

I know MMA has changed that, at least when those kids become teenagers. I feel bad for the people who get into it and never learn there's more to it than being an ass-kicker.

Bruce Lee knew this, he wrote quite a bit about it. It's not that he rejected the philosophical and artistic side, rather he did not want to be bound by it. I would guess that if he were alive at age 70, he would come back to practicing Si Lum Tao and Tai Chi in his backyard just as he did at age 24.