I'm suprised that there are not more threads regarding martial arts here. There is a lot of Eastern Philosophy passed through the study of Aikido, Jujitsu, and others. Much of it teaches the opposite of what we see on film and video.
Eastern forms of martial arts are derived from a practice known as “Kalaripayattu’ which is nothing but a system of living were you try to understand your body to its core nature and understand the pressure points in the body so as to protect the same from getting harm. It is more towards understanding once body to protect it, than learning how to attack another person. This practice also has a combat version were they teach more mature students to use weapons in a way so that the same is used only to protect the truth and goodness. Masters of this art can stop an opponent by mere look at the pressure points in the body. This art also has versions that is about animal body. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=KalariPayattu&spell=1
Yeah yeah, and masters of Japanese martial arts can stop a katana attack by shouting 'KIAI!', Ninja can really make themselves invisible, and Kung Fu masters can really kill you with one touch using 'Dim Mak' techniques. If you want to believe that stuff, fine, but it's all horsepuckey. I've seen practitioners of Ninjutsu, and they never once turned invisible. You can stand in front of me and shout all you like, but if I want to hit you with my Bokken, you're getting hit. The supposed world expert in 'Dim Mak', William Cheung, had his clock cleaned by Emin Boztepe, who, for some reason, didn't die mysteriously shortly after the fight. Oddly, Cheung had to make up some bullshit excuses as to why a supposedly lower ranking martial artist beat the living crap out of him. Most of the impressive martial arts demonstrations invlove what are known as 'vagabond moves', and are little more than magicians tricks. Martial artists employ some philosophy, yes, Zen, mostly, but you can learn Zen without troubling yourself with martial arts. Learning Zen can help with martial arts, kind of like sport psychology can help you run a race. But you will never attain the mythical attributes of these supposed masters, because the attributes are just myth.
The best martial artist I have ever met was a third degree black-belt in Hapkido, and I believe he really could kill someone with one finger. One finger can be very strong and deliver damaging blows to vital areas and pressure points. Other than that, I mostly agree that there is alot of BS in the martial arts, and my friend felt that Hapkido, a Korean style, is one of the purest, with no flowery moves, no forms, and an emphasis on practicality. Strangely, he and his master (a Korean) would pray for an hour each day, they were both Christians.
I studied Aikido for four years and japanese Jujutsu for about 10 now. For Aikido there is a heavy empasis on spirtuality because the founder was a deeply spirtual man. I don't watch tv so I can't comment on that. There is a lot of variation of thought in jujutsu schools and in ones that I have visited some spent time on eastern philophy others did not. Judo actually was very spirtual in its beginnings at the end of the 1800's beginning of 1900 before evolving into its modern day sport configuration. If you google aikido you can read that arts spirtuality until your eyes feel like concrete so I won't touch on it here. Osensei (Morihei Ueshiba) subscribed to the oomoto religon which is a direct link to shintoism. Jujutsu schools have a common theme that is very zen called mushin. To most (and I accept this as true also) without mushin there is no jujutsu. Mushin is a state of mind where ones thoughts and actions almost happen at the same time. For instance someone grabs your shirt collar and shoves you towards the wall but as he pushes you turn in a circle ( using his momentum) and shove him into the wall. If you did that without having to mentally think it out than in Jujutsu (irregardless if you study the art or not) we would say that was mushin. Things that a manufactured instint//sorta of. The best analogy I have heard from others is comparing it to driving a stick shift. People who can drive one and have done so for years will manuever it at 65-75 miles an hour on the freeway downshifting through traffic and back up on break aways without much thought despite the fact they are going as abnormal speeds for a human. In jujutsu theory that is mushin too. In zen it could be phrased as thinking without thinking. Meaning someone who is experiencing mushin is doing somthing that is so automatic for them that they do it as fast as the thought inters their mind. Like facial pointed out Zen is big in the japanese martial arts scene and taoism is prominent in chinese martial arts. The most noticable effect from all of this is the idea of the warrior pacifist. Many of the oriental belief systems are pacistic in nature and those thoughts carry over into the physical activies of oriental martial arts. In regards to phlogistician comment about invisable ninja's the literature that claimed that from Japan may have been allogorical and invisable might have been a way of saying concealed from sight or camouflaged and somehow was taken literally at a later date. Also most people accept a "kiai" as a verbal exhale but also as a techinque inasfar as breathing is done in a consistant fashion and strong exhales help with the transfer of power on concussive techniques and help with the speed/fluency of excution of techiques. Again I don't know what texts you are referring to but I am going to go out on a limb and suggest it may have been allogorcial when written and than possibly taken as literal that the kiai was technique that halted a sword cut as opposed to a techinque that compliment body motion (technique) that stopped deflect, dodged ect a sword attack.
robtex, that was a good post. The book that i am reading now, "Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere," makes great importance in the objective of developing <i>Ki</i> and <i>mental extension</i> and <i>Hara</i>. They are interesting concepts. My son and I tried the <i>unbendable arm</i> and, by golly, he couldn't make it bend. Aikido looks like fun, but Jujitsu looks more practical. Thanks again for your post. Please share any resource links that you might have.
Sadly, I saw a demonstration where a McSensei stood, unarmed in a dojo, one of his students attacked using a Katana with Shomen Uchi. As the student made his first move, the McSensei shouted 'KIAI!' and the student fell backwards, like he'd been kicked in the solar plexus. Now, I can understand the reluctance of a student to cleave his Sensei in two, and be happy that he's supposed to fall over, and not kill anyone, but participating in this farce was dishonourable. But yes, the supposed feats are perhaps meant to be allegorical, the Japanese love their puns and plays on words, but some become almost evangelical, and live the myth. Facial just repeated what I'd already written, if he'd read the thread, he wouldn't have needed to have made a post, .... Although my friend, who is a Wing Tsun instructor, studies Zen Buddhism.
Before my friend's teacher, Master Kim, became a Christian, he was a Buddhist priest in Korea. I don't think you need to study Zen Buddhism specifically to be a good martial artist, but I suspect it's lessons can be taught in subtle ways suitable for people of other religions. One that I remember is what he called the "water principle", which involves flowing around your opponent's strikes while attacking relentlessly at their weak spots. It sounds very much like Taoism. Meditation was also considered very important to his teaching, and developing "internal power" or Ki (sp?).
Wow thanks for the comment. Brazil has the second largest Japanese population in the world after Japan. The Japanese brought a lot of their culture with them and marital arts was one of them. Brazilian Jujutsu (or BJJ for short) the the Brazillan interpretation of Jujutsu. I have practiced with them before and it feels like I am working out with judo players but they hate it when anyone says that. The art is almost entirely focused on grappling and has no weapons little to no emphasis on concussive techniques. It seems focused on sport fighting really heavliy and I say that because they have a few arm and leg locks that they use and a few chokes and every thing is always practiced one-on-one with both guys fighitng within submission grappling rules over and over. Most to the schools spend time in "key postions" on the ground and working to get out of them. The things they don't have that Jujutsu from Japan has is: 1) weapons 2) wrist locks 3) about 1/4 of arm locks as japanese counter part 4) empasis on only two chokes instead of many 5) pressure point study (mostlly for massage and stuff) 6) breathing and mediation exercises 7) severly dimished concussive portfolio What they have that Jujutsu from Japan does not 1) more ground work (which is at least 90 % plus of art) 2) sport competitions which all their training seems to center around (some jap juju does but not nearly as common) What BJJ does that Judo does not: 1) naked chokes (not using the gi or uniform) 2) leg locks 3) emphaiss on a few key positions during mat work 4) heavier emphasis on wrestling type takedowns 5) more training without a martial arts uniform 6) emphasis on slipping and dodging punching and kicking attacks What Judo has that BJJ does not 1) sleeve chokes (useing ones own sleeves to adminster a choke) 2) more throws 3) sacrifice throws 4) fewer submission holds used in sport judo than BJJ 5) time holds like wrestling (pinning ones back to the matt) 6) longer technique list published on the net
I hold the same view as my Taekwon-do instructor and father , i.e., for defence there is nothing better than a hand gun. I'm into martial arts and particulary Taekwon-do for about 7 years now and I introduce the youngsters into it, but I consider it as my lifestyle not a weapon against "people who want to harm me". I love my body and I would hate not to be able to jump, kick, run, anything else. I think that fat people are like cripples. As for my favourite martial art technique when I have to fight.., because I'm 1.74m "tall" and weight only 55kg I concentrate on speed. I do all the moves that on a tournament floor would take about two minutes (to be correct technique and look good) in just a few tens of seconds. Basically it is move fast, hit even faster, then stop and watch the beated opponent or start running really fast and look for a place to hide. I'm not the heroic, noble fighter type at all, if 'll be able to win dirty and my health or life is at stake, then I'll rip opponent's throat open with my teeth given the chance. Philosophy and beautiful moves are good in the comfort of your training hall, not on a cold, hostile street.
http://judoinfo.com/techjudo.htm Cool site. I had to give it a look. Now Aikido must require many years to master, where as Judo or Jujitsu seem less difficult.
so browser are u looking for a school? I tried to PM you and ask you if you needed guidence but your profile not take pm/s. If you are tell us why and what you are looking for....age.....health and motivation. If not...sorry I got the wrong vibe from you on this thread...my bad....
Thank you for your offer, I'm looking into all of the do's with an interest. Online resources, such as the one I posted, help. What I would like is an open gym where I could pratice with others the things that I am learning. It would also be nice to have around someone knowledgeable who could revive me or drop my jewels should disaster strike.
I would roughly agree about Aikido taking longer to master. I had 3 years of karate before I did 2 years of Aikido whilst keeping up the karate, and you can get more powerful results faster with the hard direct martial arts than the softer ones. But then it depends on what you want to do it for, and how dedicated you are.
I think people have a tendency to greatly over-dramatize the ‘spiritual’ aspects of aikido. Yes, there are spiritual aspects to it – but when you get right down to it, it’s a brutally effective set of techniques for breaking people’s joints and/or sending them flying through the air. While it’s true that the founder of aikido was a spiritual man, keep in mind that he also taught that it’s better to kill someone by stabbing them with a katana than by cutting them, because hacking motions wear the blade out a lot faster.
Nasor you got a source for that? I read some of Ueshiba's stuff and I don't remember reading that. I am not saying he didn't say that..I would just like to see the source. I studied Aikido for 4 years and in the time I first started out I was fresh off 5 years from Tae Kwon Do and I was kickboxing with boxing gloves and leg kicks. I used shoman uchi undo after about a week of practicing it to slip jabs and get inside to work my sparring partner's body. It was modified a tad cause of the boxing gloves but the motion was the same. I used ikkyo on a guy in my first year of study who wanted to wrestle with me (goofing off) and I was not in the mood. My brother who studied aikido also used kote gashi in his college dorm wresting match and nikkyo ( i know very uncool but he did do that) in his first year of study. I used makkomi (sp?) in a fist fight I had with shop lifter --I threw him into a wall made of brick with it. ...in my 5th year. I say this to you because I think Aikido has its core techniques like many arts which are simplistic and applicable and usable...but it certainly does have its flowery techinques too.
