Wushu Watch: The Dumbest Ideas in Martial Arts

Reasons why you need to Learn martial arts to fight harassment

A taekwondo trainee said that it was an intellectual and physical sport, and the best self-defense for girls. “Now I have learned how to defend myself, I am no longer afraid at all. I enjoyed it, and I think that every girl should join a self-defense course.”Another trainee said: “I encourage all girls to practice this sport to defend themselves from abuse and harassment in workplaces or markets,” adding that some girls, who suffer from abuse, were unable to protect themselves nor report the problem for fear of social stigma, and they silently suffer from what they experience.

As someone who loves researching and practicing the techniques and methods of traditional martial arts, I have to say that the traditional martial arts (TMA) community is a weird one to be active in. Seemingly everyone is out to tell everyone else what they’re doing wrong. Be it neglecting to cultivate their qi, failing to use a technique effectively because they don’t believe in it, or not learning it from the one true source. Fruity arguments about lineage and who is the real student of whom abound.

In what I hope will become a recurring feature, because god knows there’s enough material, today we’ll be examining some of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen in my time in martial arts.

Barbaric Bloody Master of None

To kick things off with a current idea, last week a photo made the rounds on Facebook that made me cringe.

On the left is a tattooed, muscled up brute. On the right is a small Asian man in a gi, with a black belt on—a master of martial arts. The man on the left competes in cagefighting: where hitting on the ground is legal and where seemingly anything goes. He studies widely and therefore cannot understand deeply. The man on the right has that perfect combination of wearing a gi, owning a black belt, and being Asian going on: he must have some deeper insights on the purpose of life and human endeavor.

Of course, anyone who follows mixed martial arts or competitive grappling even a little knows that the ‘cagefighter’ is in fact Jeff Monson. Far from a master of no trades, Monson has competed at the highest level in the world in pure grappling. He’s thoughtful, well spoken, and pretty much just a fun guy to listen to talking about martial arts. He has some unique political views, but believing things would be better another way—whether wrong or right—is not a character flaw.

Does Monson lack obedience and tenacity? I’m fairly certain that he didn’t swagger up to the gym on day one, ready to take on the best grapplers in the world. No, he started out as a wrestler in high school. One of the most grinding, thankless sports to excel in: you work as hard as any other athlete but for no money or even the hope of it in future.

Then he went on to train in submissions and build a striking game of sorts, spending his weekends driving to tournaments of no note, to wait ages to compete, and sometimes lose.  Loyalty? Well the man has been with the guys at American Top Team for the best part of a decade and earned a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu which, in turn, takes years.

Funnily enough, the group of traditional martial arts fanatics who believe MMA is too brutal and barbaric shares a notable overlap with the group who believe that their martial art just won’t work in MMA because of the bans on eye gouging, hair pulling and groin striking. Of course, that is what most traditional martial arts were developed for—that’s the reason for the light lead foot and the knock kneed stances, everything is about kicking the crotch and stomping a man while he’s down.

If you look at any ancient training manual, pre-dating the move towards making chuan fa and karate more spiritual, good-for-exercise systems in the twentieth century, everything is about grabbing a hold of something tender and hitting your man while you hold it aloft. Modern students of these arts getting upset about a combat sport because they forgot that blood is just one of those things that happens when two bodies collide at force is pretty darn silly.

70s Karate is the Best Karate

Over the years I have been fortunate enough to accumulate a library of books—some of which are good, some of which are bad, and more than a few of which are outright hilarious. Almost every martial art started in a good place, the purpose was to win fights or protect ones self or possessions. Forms contained techniques, these techniques were practices through pushing hands exercises or sparring. A couple of generations form the source, everything becomes a lot more basic. Suddenly instead of performing a grip strip or a release from a hold, everything is a block for the same old stepping punch. The one which no one ever, ever uses.

One need only look at Gichin Funakoshi. There’s photos of him teaching kata-guruma, double leg takedowns, and a host of other throws, but after a while in Japan, the Okinawan school teacher was suddenly all about down blocks and stepping punches.  When the martial art becomes about the form of the fundamentals rather than the function, things get very weird when you start trying to twist logic to apply said techniques. Masatoshi Nakayama wrote a series on self defence with the great American martial arts explorer, Donn Draeger, and it was straight up garbage. This tradition has continued in the works of seemingly every traditional karateka who has been moved to write about self defence since.

70s London in an image.

Opening Karate Defence and Attack by Keinosuke Enoeda and John Chisholm on a random page, I was treated to this escape from that most dangerous of all holds, the Full Nelson:

Step one, be Full Nelsoned. Step two, stamp on the foot. Step three, grab the groin. You have now escaped the Full Nelson.

Turn the page and there’s nothing. That’s the escape from the Full Nelson. Stamp on the foot, then somehow get your hand down to the attacker’s groin. The very thing which makes the Full Nelson so valuable is that even an untrained boob can keep his victims arms way up in the air and away from his crotch.

Held at gunpoint in your living room? Crescent kick that sucker and send it sliding across the room, then fight the attacker for it.

Or better yet, side kick without putting the foot down.

But it gets better.

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