Is Classical Martial Arts Better Than MMA?
Now, obviously, we are going to have a difference of opinion, the main thing is can we come up with some facts, or at least opinions so well grounded, that belief in one system is superior to another? I believe it is possible.
First, there is sport v art. In a sport one fights an opponent. In an art, one is in conflict, and thus attempting to resolve conflict, with oneself.
Second, there is the question of control. In a classical art one is attempting to control ones body, ones opponent, and ones own spirit. In MMA one is all too often just attempting to knock somebody’s face in.
Thus far, the edge seems to be headed in the classical direction. In attempting to control ones own self there is a high ground, after all. This is not to say, however, that the MMA school of thought does not have considerable attributes and qualities.
The main consideration, UFC stylists would argue, is whether an art works in the dark alley, and in this they would appear to posssess an edge. After all, the face smashing, body twisting, leg breaks that one perceives in the octagon is definitely useful for self defence. This writer, however, is not completely convinced of the argument.
In the ring rules are present. No fingers to the eyes, strikes to the coconuts, small joint twisting, punching the back of the skull, and so on. These are the techniques that a classical practitioner might veer towards in a street encounter.
Thus, in the final tally, while experience with violence, such as one might find in the MMA ring, has a definite edge, this writer is still going to stick with the classical. After all, in traditional martial arts one learns how to fight without getting mugged, and there are lessons to be learned outside of violence, and which can actually de-escalate conflicts. Choose which you wish, be true to your choice, both classical martial arts and MMA have much to offer.
Got an opinion? Head to Monster Martial Arts and get more facts, see if your opinion is really right. Pick up a free book explaining Matrix Martial Arts while you’re there.
The Real Secret Of The Dim Mak Poison Hand Death Touch
In the first place, there really is an art that teaches this thing, but it is extremely hard to find a teacher, and to be accepted to learn is really hard. You have to actually know a few kung fu styles, you have to have an recommendation from a Kung Fu Master. And that is no guarantee that you will be accepted as a discipline.
In the second place, one must question the worth of studying such a rare and esoteric art. It will take years to understand the teachings and to be able to actually use them in a fight. Quite honestly, the time spent learning the poison hand death touch you could spend learning other arts.
And, what is going to have more worth? The ability to touch somebody with your fingers and have him go off and die three days later at seven thirty eight if the moon is full? Or to get so good at other arts that nobody could get close enough to you to even try such a technique as the poison hand?
To learn the Dim Mak one will be studying medicine, but not the normal medicine. You will not learn to alleviate sickness, but rather to cause the body to go into disharmony and die. This means that you will have the double study of learning the right way of curing people, and the wrong way.
You will also have to learn certain things about the time of using the death touch. You could strike (touch) somebody with a finger, but if it is the wrong time of the day, your touch is wasted. This means you are going to have to learn all sorts of things about the time cycle of the internal organs of the body, and how this translates to the trigger points on the outside of the body.
Look, I’m about done here, and you’re free to do what you want, but let me tell you one little tale of a real death touch. Certain ninpo arts teach how to wear ring needles (and other types of gimcracks). They coat the needle with a deadly poison, then cover the needle with wax.
They can poison anybody and cause death, but they are safe to themselves and their friends. Now this is a real art that I am telling you, but one that doesn’t take decades to learn and use. And that is about all I have to say on the subject of the real secret of the kung fu dim mak death touch.
Al Case began studying the martial arts in 1967, and became a writer for the magazines in 1981. If you want some really great techniques, visit his site, Monster Martial Arts.
Sure Fire Ways Of Achieving The Ultimate Kung Fu Chi Power!
First, for kung fu jump kicks, I’m going to do the following exercise. I’m going to dig a hole, one shovelful a day, and practice jumping into and out of the hole a thousand times a day. By the time I’m down to ten feet, I should be able to do jumping kicks that’ll knock over skyscrapers!
Okay, for body slamming that would put king kong to shame, I’ve got a real he man, kung fu drill! I’m going to live out in the country and every day I’ll lift a calf on my shoulders. By the time the calf is a thousand pounds, I’ll be able to lift anybody in the world, and throw him or her at the ground so hard they strike oil!
Of course brute force isn’t all I want, not when it comes to getting the kind of Kung Fu power ‘m thinking of, so I’ve got a gung fu training drill that will sharpen the eyes and make my fingers nimble. I’m going to sneak up on a wasps nest and practice snatching wasps out of the air with my chopsticks! Hah!
Taking punches is pretty important, too, and I’ve got the right idea for that. I’m going to practice running into walls and trees and things. A thousand days of running full tilt through orchards with a blindfold on should prepare me.
And the old noggin, how could I forget martial arts head conditioning! I saw a guy in a flick who could ring a giant bell just by slamming his head against it! Hey, if I practice smashing into bells with my head long enough, ain’t nobody gonna be able to ring my bell, if you know what I mean.
Let’s see, what else do I have to…oh yeah, ‘that!’ I think a little makiwara training with ‘that’ will strengthen ‘that’ immensely. Of course it may look a little ugly when callouses start appearing, but that’s a small price, and if even ‘that’ is a weapon, I will have achieved my goals and be the ultimate gung fu strong man!
I will be the strongest Kung Fu warrior in the world! Every body part will be thick, immense, dense, rippling with muscle, and able to be used in combat to the death! All hail to me…the possessor of the ultimate Kung Fu Chi Power!
For the best in home study Kung Fu books and DVD/courses, mouse to Monster Martial Arts.
Where Did The Martial Arts Come From?
As one might expect, I was quite surprised by my co-workers viewpoint, the Philippines were famous for their martial arts, and so I tracked him down and queried him further. “Why do you think the martial arts are so bad?” I asked. This is the anecdote he told me.
“One day I decide I need know martial arts, so I go outside and hit tree. I chop like so (he did a downward chop, as if hammering down on somebody’s forehead), and a I chop and I chop. I do this karate two hour a day for two year.
“One weekend my neighbor have crazy party, and three in morning I go ask him to turn music down. He laugh at me, so I karate him. I chop his face and he turn upside down, so I go home and worry I kill him…that why Karate bad!”
I didn’t l reveal my grin, because he was serious, he really thought that karate was bad, and didn’t understand that his bizarre method of training, and his own lack of control, might have something to do with the art ‘being bad.’ But his story led me to wonder where and how the martial arts had been invented. I mean, the fighting disciplines are as old as the world’s second oldest profession, so how did they come about?
They came into being because somebody wanted to take something away from somebody, and they came from somebody wanting to stop somebody from taking something away from him. This is the same as lawyerism, but applied to the actual hit and punch that occurs when politics breaks down. Eventually, the idea of taking something away from somebody, or protecting your property from somebody reached the levels of armies and weapons of mass destruction.
The idea that what you have belongs to me, and I don’t have to pay you no stinkin’ money…that is where the martial arts came from. And people train to war, and steal money and property and wives and whatever else they covet. And, oddly, as my previous words indicate, the solution to this avarice and misbegotten art is…in the study of the true art.
You practice the art to be able to protect yourself, and in that practice you discover the truth of yourself…you realize your self worth, and the idea that you are honorable and suddenly you don’t have to fear others, or that they might take from you. On the day that every person on earth practices the martial arts immorality and war stop, and on that day everybody will know why the martial arts were invented. They come from inside, from the spirit within, from the honor that pulses with every beat of your heart and every breath you expel.
Discover the true arts at Monster Martial Arts. Whole arts, faster training methods, a logic that has never been seen in the combat arts. Click on over to Monster Martial Arts. A-1
A Very Intriguing Method For Making Martial Arts Chi
So we have a two part question here: how do you make chi, and how do you use it? Interestingly, the second is the answer to the first. Unfortunately, this results in a catch 22…how do you use it if you can’t make it, how do you make it if you can’t use it?
To solve this mystery let me give you an internal exercise and a drill, and see if you can solve the problem. The exercise is an old Bagua exercise named ‘Stroking the beard.’ The drill is based on the old ‘Catch hands’ game we used to play as children.
To Stroke the beard simply move the hands in medium circles, coming together at the chin and moving downward as if stroking a beard to your navel. To do this effectively you must relax your muscles, let your weight drop, breath low, and do it until you can do it with no distraction. Doing with no distraction means concentrating on only the exercise, and this is very crucial to your success.
Once you have stroked the beard for a couple of hours, find a friend and practice ‘Catch Hands.’ To do Catch Hands simply face your partner at handshake distance and let your hands relax at your sides. Your partner places his palms together and extends them in front of his body.
The object of this drill is to take your time, create lots of silence, and then catch his hands. Don’t slap at them, just catch them, like catching birds without breaking their wings, and do it gently. This simple move is the same motion needed to block or a strike, and is well worth practicing.
As you practice, over time you will become more adept at the exercise, and you will find yourself becoming calmer, jerking less, and that is when the benefits of stroking the beard are going to appear. You will find that energy flows down the center of your body and gathers at your center. It will be like a fountain that is bubbling backwards, and it will be as if energy is entering into your tan tien with every breath.
Eventually, you will be able to catch your partner’s hands easily and there will be nothing he can do about it. The important thing, though, is that you will feel the ‘universal energy’ that is chi. Keep practicing this exercise and you will experience some fascinating results, and it will be proof positive that you can create and use Martial Arts Chi.
Al Case has written a fascinating book on how to Create Chi. You can find it at Monster Martial Arts.
Quicker Reaction Time Through Traditional Martial Arts Practice
But to have a body is to have reaction time. If you conduct your self defense through a body then you have to have the time it takes to make that body work. It’s going to exist no matter what you do.
Unless, of course, you see what is happening before it happens and move with it. Or, better yet, move before it can even occur. You simply watch what is going to happen and insert your body into the desired place and time.
Training in Martial Arts techniques is going to help you do this. You create a plan, and you carry out the plan. Eventually, all actions can be predicted, eventually this carries into life, and life becomes something you can predict.
Of course, those that don’t believe this have there own way. A boxer or MMA specialist trains his body to react, but the other guy is also training his body to react, so what you have is two virtual robots bashing their bodies together, and less awareness. This is not shortening reaction time, it is increasing it, once you have been bashed enough times.
You have to be willing to face yourself and ask the question, what is reaction time, if you are going to to undo it. You are acting after something. But what?
Well, after reality has already occurred. That’s right, you are making your body do something because of something that has already happened, and thus you are already late, and thus you are a victim. You have to be a victim if you follow this path of muscle memorization, acting after something has happened means you are moving after somebody has already acted.
If you don’t want to be the victim, you have to seek out methods which do not have muscle memorization, and which short circuit reaction time. While classical martial arts practice (if you can find a pure school, and an instructor who knows what he is doing) doesn’t provide the glory, and sometimes seem a bit confusing, the fact of the matter is that they have been expressly designed to get rid of reaction times. Reality fighting methods may draw in the crowds, you will gain faster reaction time through traditional Martial Arts training.
If you desire to know more about ridding yourself of reaction time, mouse to Monster Martial Arts. Get a free ebook while you’re there.
Bruce Lee The Modern Martial Artist
October 24, 2010 by Larry Brown
Filed under Fitness
In Japan, around Ming dynasty in China, samurais had special authority to carry samurai sword. The sword fighting technique they used was very brutal. Later a man from China appeared there who began to teach a special martial art, Chinese Kung Fu. Kung Fu is a kind of martial art that can capture someone without killing.
During that time, in Tokyo, people admired Confucian and Zen martial art. The sudden coming of Tao Jujitsu has made a lot of changes to the ancient form of martial art. Chinese Kung Fu is an ancient martial art condensed from thousands of years of combat experiences. This changed the habit of the Japanese who only knew sword, archery and sumo.
Just as marvelous as what this Kung Fu master did to Japan, Bruce Lee went to the North America in 1959, three hundred and forty years after master Chan, to introduce Chinese Kung Fu to the world. He almost captured the world with his Wing Chun Kung Fu learned from Yip Man.
Bruce Lee travelled on a ship for many days and finally came to San Francisco. The first problem he faced after he arrived is how to make a living. He didn’t want the help of his family, so he worked part time to continue his study.
Lee’s father wrote letters to his friends in San Francisco to ask them to take care of Lee. After three months, Bruce Lee went to Seattle because he didn’t like the environment in San Francisco. A friend of Lee’s father, Yeung, lived in Seattle and helped get Lee there.
Seattle is at the North West part of America. It is only two hours of driving away from Vancouver of Canada. It is a big coastal city developed from a forest in Washington. There are lakes in Seattle which made the air very fresh. Bruce Lee went there and did not think about moving in awhile.
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How The Various Martial Arts Create Power
The secret of Fah jing is to drop the weight into the earth, which causes a charge of energy to go up the legs and into the tan tien. This energy enters the tan tien, which causes an explosion of power to emanate from that point. The energy coursing out from this energy center can be directed and controlled into the arms, and into various martial arts techniques.
To ground one’s weight is not just jumping off a rock and landing on the earth. It is a method that will not work if one does not actually put his awareness into the action. Putting weight into the ground without awareness is like dropping an egg on the sidewalk…it just splats.
When you direct your awareness into the earth–and this is an actual perception apart from such things as eyes, ears, and so on–you will actually feel the pulse of energy in the lower body. It will feel like plasma, and you will suddenly feel a vast space and power inside your lower body. You will also become capable of motion that people only dream of.
Oddly, though the energy enters the tan tien, the whole body that becomes the storage center for the energy. The body will become a tool through which you can direct the energy coming out of from the tan tien. This is the point at which your training really starts to accelerate, because you have to analyze what geometric path the energy has to follow if you are going to put it into your martial arts techniques.
Do you generate an edge on vertical circle on one half of the body? Do you transfigure the chi from the vertical to the horizontal, then pulse it out the arm? Do you spiral it through the limbs, as would a Baqua master?
Obviously there are going to be many ways of utilizing this manifestation of energy, once you become able to make it and control it. The real point is to make your technique able to manifest the chi power easily and naturally. This is a two edged sword of physics that, to be truthful, not many martial artists teachers have been able to master.
What we are really saying, you see, is that the body is a motor, and this is a datum new to this planet and to our culture and to our martial arts. But if you can understand this data, which I call flux theory, then you will be able to do things with your chi that have, up to this point, been the stuff of legends. The golden age is on the rise, you see, and it is possible through understanding such things as martial arts fa jing.
You can find out more about fa jing and neutronics theory in Matrixing Chi by Al Case, which is available at Monster Martial Arts. 3e
Three Martial Arts Dirty Tricks You Can Win A Life And Death Street Fight With
It’s not really much of a dirty tactic in these times, at least not as much as when I was in high school, but a good, swift kick to the peaches can win a back alley brawl quicker than fast. It doesn’t require a lot of martial arts training to do this, and it will distract the thug, and maybe even end the fight. When he rushes towards you do a front kick, or simply bring the leg up and let him run into your foot, and the fight is completed.
One important item you should understand, dirty fight or not, is to not take your eyes off his. If you launch a snap kick to his silly sacks, watch his eyes, and be willing to change tactics as you must. You will find that this eyeball thing can really change the fight.
For example, as you run at him throw something in his eyes. Heck, you can even spit at his eyes, and if you can make those lids flicker, you have just increased the odds of you living and him going down for the count. Even a quick flick of the fingers, an intention to make him think you are going for the eyes, might turn the tide in your favor.
Now, let’s say the fight is hot and heavy, and you have to do something or you are going to lose. Something you won’t learn in a polite training hall, and especially not in the MMA arena, or the UFC octagon, is to go after his fingers. One of the first things we were taught, back when I was first learning freestyle, was to use a snappy backfist to his open fingers as you close the distance.
If you can make him say ow, or even damage his fingers, you’ve got an edge. Make him blink, or make it so he can’t close a fist, or use his hands to grab, and you’ve essentially destroyed his weapons. The idea here is to win the fight, to walk away from the mugging, and to leave him with a better idea of how to behave in polite society.
Now, in closing, I know these tricks aren’t much, but they are an edge. If you want more than an edge, if you want a fighting chance, you really should find and concentrate on learning Martial Arts Techniques. Heck, a little time having a blast in the dojo, and you’re going to have Karate power, or Kung Fu power, or Kenpo Power, or Taekwondo Power, or whatever kind of power you want, and whether you use martial arts dirty tricks or not, you’re going to win the street fight.
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True Martial Arts Power Starts With Building Ideal Muscles
The purpose of a muscle is to to pull, and thus to make a limb or body part move in a specific direction, or become tense for some purpose (impact). Thus, when somebody builds his biceps so people will think he has ‘big guns,’ he is reducing his punching power. Punching power comes from building the muscles on the other side of the arm, the triceps, which cause the limb to extend, which is where you’ll find a punch.
The point is to figure out which muscle, or set of muscles, results in what action, and then to isolate and work those specific muscles. Want hard punches? Then do a slow strike and examine the workings of your arm and body.
Figure out which muscles result in the extension of the arm, which muscles support the impact of the arm, and so on. This will enable you to develop specific exercises which will cause you power in the punching muscles…which will give you harder punches.
If you want to really gain some punching power, try doing ‘punch ups.’ These are push ups where you don’t go all the way to the ground, you only go down six inches, then up. This isolates and builds the exact muscles which come in to play in a knock out punch.
Yes, you should work other muscles, explore other variations of push ups, but concentrate a bit of your work out on punch ups and you will shortly be amazed at your growing ability to knock somebody all the way down. You should explore this concept for places where you will get hit. By this I mean some sort of wrestler’s bridge so you’ll have a strong neck, or some sort of crunches for when you get hit in the belly, and so on.
Now, the other thing you should be concentrating on is endurance. By this I mean you shouldn’t be growing a large, bulky muscle, for that weighs more, runs out of juice sooner, and is more awkward to move around. Instead, you should be growing dense muscles, muscles that are leaner and not fatter.
To do this you should reduce the weight you are working with (or just go to body calisthenics, which is my personal favorite) and focus on how long you can do the exercise. Try for hundreds of deep squats that take 3-4 seconds to complete (build the number slowly to avoid injury), or build up the number of pulls ups you can do into the hundreds and hundreds. I’ll write more on this subject, but for now, this should give you a good idea on how to change your work out so that you have maximum body endurance, the potential for lightening quick motions, and all the other things that go along with creating real Martial Arts Power.
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