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Fighting styles are always geared to the situations people expect them to be in. MMA is a combat sport based on unarmed street fights and holding to the ideal o
by panglott 9y ago
Fighting styles are always geared to the situations people expect them to be in. MMA is a combat sport based on unarmed street fights and holding to the ideal of as quickly and effectively subduing an opponent. Fencing, for example, is not aimed at battlefield combat between feudal warriors wearing mail and carrying heavy weapons, but unarmored civilians engaged in honor duels to first blood.
Traditional Japanese martial arts frequently descend from Edo-period traditions re-organized in the Meiji era, and often focus on weapons training. Kendou for example, still focuses on heavily-armored warriors fighting with swords. I don't think that many people think this is preparation for a realistic contemporary combat situation so much as it is lived respect for tradition and knowledge. Traditional martial arts frequently have other goals, as with Morihei Ueshiba and aikido.
MMA tends to market itself as "real fighting", but it carries its own assumptions about the conditions of fighting. It would be as ridiculous to pit an MMA fighter against an armed and armored Japanese kendoist as against a WWII-era GI with a Tommy gun.
- splawn 9y agoThis was my exact thought. Who cares if in the end its all just a contrived game. In reality, any 10 year old with less than an hr of training and a firearm could "win" a fight against a black belt of whatever.
- panglott 9y agoI don't necessarily think that either—pistols can be a lot harder to use in combat than people think, such as when your opponent can close and grapple before you can draw. Sports and games are organized by their rules, and combat sports are no different. No one should think that sumo is good combat training—the loser is the first to step outside the ring or touch the ground with any part of their body other than the foot. But it is a great sport that requires very specialized training, with some exceptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takanoyama_Shuntar%C5%8D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takanoyama_Shuntar%C5%8D But this means that, if practitioners claim that these are skills that can increase one's personal safety, it's important to test these conditions and assumptions. MMA fighters specialize to win MMA-style fights...but what about outside of those assumptions?
- noja 9y agoSo why did he agree to this ridiculous "fight"?