On a completly seperate note, using Bruce Lee as an example is not by any means fair. Lee was exceptionally fast and strong, and was by all accounts far outside of the human norm. If you are unfamiliar with some of his feats of strength and speed, I suggest you look them up. Bruce Lee himself also admitted that he believed that Muhammad Ali could beat him. He was also pinned at least once by an Olympic level wrestler. Lee was a physical wonder with a sharp mind and amazing reaction time to boot, but could be defeated because of a size and power difference.

On another seperate note, fighting dirty is an excellent way to equalizes a battlefield. Eye gouging, and biting off chunks of flesh certainly help with a shock and stun effect.

I’ve seldom found that turning one’s back on an opponent works well. Actually, our fighters occasionally got DQ’d from point-fighting tournaments because we were taught that as soon as the opponent starts to spin, kick them in the back. We occasionally did some two on one or three on one stuff, but not very often. Things tended to get a little out of control then, especially thanks to one ruthless black-belt whose favorite defensive tactic was throwing opponent one into opponent two with cheerful abandon.

We use the attacker’s momentum to throw him (or her), and it’s dependent not on speed OR strength but on timing, distance, and technique. I have to wonder if Theo has ever tried, or even seen, a jujutsu school or comparable Chinese style.

I’m quite familiar with both traditional soft-style karates as well as modern wrestling, although I personally dislike the latter since it tends to favor size and negate speed. The five main influences on our style were: Shorin-Ryu, Wing Chun, Kali, boxing, and wrestling. We sparred both traditional contact style and shoot-fighting style; the latter incorporated grappling and was very similar to what is today known as MMA. The main problem I saw with jujitsu and judo styles is that in their training, they seldom experience any non-grappler who anticipates the pull, the twist, or the throw, and is therefore able to mess up all the flippy-flippy business in much the same way that crashing your shoulder into a Tae Kwon Do fighter interferes with his pretty high kicks. When you fight a jujitsu or judo grappler, it’s often effective to dance around a bit, then throw a slow jab that give him - or her, given the theme - your weaker arm as bait. Grapplers always want to grab something so they can seldom resist it, which opens the window for stepping in with a nice rear upper-cut or a hook. They’ll usually let go at that point. I will readily admit, however, that if you let a grappler get you on the floor, you’re in serious trouble. And I was always impressed with the economy of movement exhibited by the good Aikido fighters.

The point about having bones broken etc doesn’t make sense for me …who would attend a school for long if people were constantly getting broken bones etc?

Well, that’s just what happens every now and then when you block with your elbow instead of your forearm. Actually, there are few things funnier than a good Tae Kwan Do fighter who is scared to throw any more kicks and has to use his hands for once because the blocks are destructive rather than passive. Obviously, one tries not to break anything when sparring, but it happens occasionally if you’re going hard enough. When I first started, I visited almost every dojo in my city, and I joined precisely because of the way everyone reacted after a karate black belt got his ankle broken when his sidekick was blocked with an elbow. I couldn’t believe it when everyone started laughing and the guy with the broken ankle started hopping on one foot with his arms extended ala the Karate Kid.

Your first thought is: Oh, Sweet Moses, his ankle snapped! Your second thought is: Holy crap, these people are insane! And then, a third thought: Damn, I’m pretty sure I would have been on the floor shrieking like a little girl who lost her puppy if that happened to me… I want to be like THAT! Of course, we did have a lot of people come in and decide it wasn’t for them. That was fine, and there were two or three good, but less physical schools which we always recommended.

Yes. As I said in a comment to my original post, there is a fundamental difference in the kind of fighting Theo is talking about and what a great deal of other martial arts do.

I have been an aikidoka in a “hard” school for over 25 years and have taken countless hard falls, have been hit hard when I didn’t get out of the way in time, have collided head on doing breakfalls (two whole bodies-worth of momentum) and been slammed in the face with a jo (with a far higher pound-per-square-inch energy than a mere fist; it not only knocked me on my butt but halfway across the room first). I’ve trained in the techniques our school (the Yoshinkan) teaches the Tokyo Metropolitan Police riot squads, though not happily–I couldn’t do it for long and my joints survive.

I well understand delta because it is what we deal with first and foremost.
But we don’t fight with, or against, delta. The whole point is that there is always someone out there who is stronger or faster or meaner than you. We use the attacker’s momentum to throw him (or her), and it’s dependent not on speed OR strength but on timing, distance, and technique. I have to wonder if Theo has ever tried, or even seen, a jujutsu school or comparable Chinese style. My former street-fighting senior chose our dojo because he couldn’t land a punch or kick on the then senior students. (He said in the other aikido dojos he went to, he could hit the students but not the instructor.)

Re Gozo Shioda, the 5′1″ founder of the Yoshinkan, his investors funded the school after they invited him to a meeting where they had a group of senior martial artists from other styles jump him when he entered the door. Re experience, speed, strength, size, toughness, technique, and aggression: I’d say what he undoubtedly used, and what I would need most if attacked by a 220-lb 20 year old (age does slow those fast-twitch muscles), is what in Japanese is called mu shin, empty mind, which is actually much harder to achieve and much more effective than aggression–the reason the samurai who genuinely did live or die in combat worked so hard to cultivate it.

I realize I’m coming to this late, but I remember Lee once saying that as good as he was, if he had to go up against a 300 lb. man that had any clue about fighting, it was the big man that was going to win.

Hi Theo,
The schools I attend aren’t point schools, they are self-defense (jkd, kali, silat, wing chun, kfm) The point about having bones broken etc doesn’t make sense for me …who would attend a school for long if people were constantly getting broken bones etc? But yes, I get knocked down, choked out etc…and we reserve the right to “tap out” lol

As for sparring, it depends. If it’s a test and a specific technique is being tested, then you might feed them in a way to draw it out.

I agree if two people are going to stand there facing each other and just pound the crap out of one another, then the guy will more than likely win!

You’ve got to have awareness of multiple opponents, the ability to dispatch them quickly and keep moving thru until either you’ve won or are dead.

Maybe a difference between our experiences is that my training most of the time includes weapons. They do equalize a lot of these things we are discussing. Especially a plain old knife.

As a former member of the SCA, a form of armed martial art, and I’ve seen heavy armored women fighting men and hold their own.

However, the best of the women were no match for even the top 25% of the men. Strength plays a big role in armed combat. It’s one thing to flip somebody over your shoulder, using their momentum, but it’s another to get try and stand toe to toe with a sword and shield. Even blocking a few sword swings with a shield can be very draining on the arms. Of course, swinging back takes a certain amount of strength, and I believe the rattan is lighter than steel.

Rapier fighting is different. Strength can become a hindrance without proper control of the blade. I’ve seen women kick the crap out of men in non-lethal rapier fighting because balance, agility, and

I’m not saying women can’t fight with weapons, but the best of them would be hard pressed against most decent male warriors. The successful women would have to be exceptional in some way.

Wasn’t Red Sonja was blessed by a goddess?