I will admit that I'm usually striking with palm-heel strikes rather than punches, but typically I've been unable to generate enough force to hurt myself. Not that the strikes are soft, but they don't cause damage to me.
Someone bigger or with a stronger strike might be able to start breaking parts of themself, I suppose, but I haven't had problems with it.

~J

woah, question, how are instructor ranking different?

Also, kempo goes IIRC (and instructors use the exact same ranking system as everyone else):

white
white with yellow tab
yellow
yellow with orange tab
orange
orange with green tab
green
green with purple tab
purple
purple with brown tab
brown
brown with one black tab
brown with two black tabs
black
black with one red tab
black with two red tabs
black with three red tabs
black with four red tabs
black with one red bar
black with one red bar and one red tab
black with one red bar and two red tabs
black with one red bar and three red tabs
black with one red bar and four red tabs
black with two red bars


When you hit black you're realistically a quarter the way there. maybe. Each rank above black, even counting black, takes an obscene amount of time.

Also, the karate for kids side cannot go past brown I believe cannot go past brown, and when they turn either 16 or 18 they are dropped back to orange and have to requalify all the way back up with the full adult requirements.

We went White, Orange, Purple, Blue, Green, Brown, Black, with an average of a belt per year if you studied pretty faithfully.
Our school, as I've mentioned previously, did not track Dan rankings. After you hit Ichidan, it was your job to keep track of your own progress.

~J

Ours went white, yellow, orange, purple, green, blue, red, brown, black. Some schools use a red-and-white belt at 5th dan, I think it makes you look like the grandmaster of Candyland Kung Fu.

In savate, bronze, silver, and gold are the highest ranks.

Goju belts:

Novice ranks
White
Red
Orange
Green
Blue
Purple
Brown

Student ranks
Black (shodan-ho)
1st dan
2nd dan
3rd dan (qualified to teach)
4th dan
5th dan (shihan or master)

Beyond that, there's little point in comparing as the quality of the fighter will not differ significantly. IIRC, our grandmaster in Okinawa is 8th dan and I believe that's the highest you can go (especially since the founder is already dead).

for me it's still the plain old muai thai

On a related note, What do people think are the most useful maneuvers in the SR martial arts system? I'd go for Whirling followed closely by the ability to apply it to melee weapons, blind-fighting is good too if your GM often imposes visibility mods. You can have 1337 melee skills coming out of your ass but in a 3-on-1 fight the odds go significantly against you.

Everybody was kirk-fu fighting, nanananana-na-na

In real life.. its a tie for three arts... Kempo Jitsu, Get Kund Do, Akiedo... all very very good arts.. if i had to only take one i would say GKD


In shadowrun my Troll Decker/rigger... would say.. You know it takes 34 lbs of presure to crush a skull.. you know my hand is the size of your head?

Capoeira is my personal favorite. Effectiveness in combat isn't so much a factor in my opinion as the art itself. The acrobatics, dancing, music, etc, are always entertaining to observe and hear. Like Backgammon said, it's just fun to practice. Unlike many other martial arts forms that stress things like philosophical enlightenment and discipline, Capoeira is more about having a good time -- Capoeiristas often refer to it as a game rather than a fighting style. They're so hang loose that even taunting is accepted while "playing" so long as it's all done in good spirit.

The pants are somewhat tight around the thigh, but end in a loose elephant-leg (i'm not sure if that's the name for it in english) style.

for fiction, I like kung fu. its super flashy and cool looking

for the real world, muay thai. in reality, its the most effective fight sport. Its based on practicality, not theory. too many martial arts are based on theory instead of FIGHTING. Also, Muay Thai is a sport, not a "martial art", and the difference in mentality is one of the reasons it is so effective. Conditioning is the primary factor. With constant training, pad work and bagwork, and real sparring and fighting, you toughen up.

if you didn't know by now, I train in Muay Thai

my current record is 4-2-1(wins, losses, draws).

i've trained in several other "martial arts", including kung fu, aikido, and tae kwon do. I can honestly say that the only one that has applied to real life situations is Muay Thai. Kneeing a guy in the stomach and then elbowing him in the face when he's trying to wrestle you to the ground (a standard street tactic) is more effective than trying to throw a flying kick at him. Actually boxing someone is more effectice than using reverse action punches and not defending your head. Kicking with your shin and using your entire body to do so is more effective than snap kicking with the ball of your foot.

ah...enough ranting, it makes me thirsty.



edit:i forgot an "is".

Things becoming sports makes them less effective, not the other way around. Witness Judo vs. Jujutsu, Kendo vs. Kenjutsu, fencing vs. rapier-fighting.

~J

Personaly, I prefer the steel toed boot to the jimmies and running away. After taking 3 years of kempo, and relizing that I still couldent block a punch or kick thrown at full speed and force, I decided that discression was the better part of a bank account. Im best with a kick to the knee and calling someone to carry him to the hospital. ACL injuries reallly suck like that.

Muay thai is just one of the more bloody and damaging sports, like BJJ, so it's one of the closest that sports come to "real fighting". But even if you had a sport with absolutely no rules, a literal deathmatch in some underground heroin-smuggler den in Thailand or something, there are major psychological differences between a competition fight between two people who are trained and conditioned and ready-to-fight and defending yourself against a suprise assault in your everyday life. That's the main reason good martial artists spazz in a street fight -- they weren't "ready" because the fight started before they knew it.

--K

i agree. But, without training in muay thai, I never would have been able to defend myself effectively in at least three real life fights. the reasons:

1)because I know how to box, which is the most effective thing for a real fight.
2)because I've taken enough real punches in training to know how to deal with it.
3)because few people expect a knee. and a little knee goes a long way.


and before anyone says otherwise, you can hit harder with a wrapped hand and a glove than a bare fist. when hands are protected like that, you can hit as hard as you want as often as you can, without f-ing up your hand. not so with bare knucks. three, maybe four punches, and you start to hurt. so when i say that I've taken real punches, i mean it.

But with palm-heel strikes you get around all that.

~J

i disagree. a palm heel strike still impacts the wrist, which in all straight strikes is just as important as the hand. if your wrist is jacked, your strikes will be weaker and cause you pain. plus, the bones of your hand (primarily first and middle knuckle) are no longer lining up with the bone in your forearm, lessening the effect of the "battering ram" that you use as your weapon.

If it takes five or ten solid strikes to a brick wall to start weakening noticable force due to pain, I don't think hitting a human body (which tends to be nice and squishy) will do anything during the duration of a typical fight.

~J

My experience backs up the palm-heel strikes as a pretty good method for hitting humans. Knuckles are fine for soft-targets like the abdomen and kidneys.

I'm sure your muay thai experience applied as you mentioned -- it is more directly applicable to a street fight than some of the more complex movements available in martial arts. Knees are good.

--K

Boxing and Muay Thai are both sports. Great combative sports, but sports nonetheless.

A lot of traditional martial arts have lost their focus and might as well be sports for all the practical good the contemporary teaching models will do for a student.

-Siege

Combative sports require some mental adapting to unscripted, "real" fights but in some respects these combative sports do a better job of preparing students than the mockery of martial arts taught today.

Sorry, ending rant now.

-Siege

Granted, muai thai is a powerful fighting style, particularly because of the high orientation towards conditioning and fight training, as opposed to, as someone mentioned, standing in a line (probably in horse stance) punching in time. Or fighting in a heavily rules-orientated tournament, a la tae kwon do, or not grading on anything besides patterns, a la TKD, which I guess between the two, would explain the high number of cocky TKD black belts getting their arse handed to them by people with little to no formal training in that area. Which I guess is where people saying "sport ruins martial arts" get their evidence.

In my opinion, to use martial arts skills practically, as a proper fighting style, emphasis should be halfway between learning techniques and learning to apply them in practice. Mind you, some people don't do martial arts to learn how to fight, and often if you really want to become a decent fighter, the onus is upon you to put a lot of effort into your personal development (i.e. get a boxing bag, learn how to strike properly, possibly take up additional fighting styles such as boxing, which will give you a fairly different perspective from more traditional martial arts.

Horse stance by it's nature isn't very stable at all. It's meant to be a somewhat awkward position to practice from so you'll be prepared for using less awkward stances.

~J

horse stance=center of gravity extremly low.. if your footing is right.. you are vertually unmovable like a dwarf! Trust me.. two thing i do when someone gets in a horse stance because when they do.. its means they are gunna either.. swing a bad ass kick at you or you aren't taken them down..so you weaken the ankles some. tho most arts call the same stance by different names.

For learn to fight.. its best to take multiple arts... but i am also big in unity and purity of body, mind, and soul.. i dunno just some kick i am on.. i don't do drugs, promiscious sex.. and i keep my body in shape and fit to handle myself, and always chanllenge my mind/body... its awesome to learn.. wanna hear something funny i learned that from a TKD instructor... TKD is a great art to take.. to learn stuff quick.. its the fast adcancing arts. Kempo Jitsu is very slow on the advancment.. the Nastyiness of Maui Thai..is the fact.. you constaly move, and stay active.. so you're body tones up.. and stay in awesome art.. Kind of like the Philopeno dancing martial arts.. where you kind of dance.. and you smack the hell out of people.. and its very very very lethal.. because the blows are so circular and have so much force behind them.. but very unpracticle in a bar fight.. street fight.. because in either one of those.. it gunna be close.. tightly packed..lots of other people not involvved in the fight, and a knife or gun is gunna get pulled now days.. thus why i am trained in the art (trigger-fu) I am a great shot.. MOA specs! (thats 6 shots .223 in a dime at 100 yards).... also.. you might get jumped agianst odds like 3-1 or 5-1.. i been in 7-2 odds.. errrr.. sucked for them.. heeh... but yeah.. fights in real life don't have rules..thats what GKD and KJ train you for.. to expect everything!

You only have two legs. In a horse stance your legs are spread relatively widely, meaning that while you're extremely stable against a force coming straight down or straight at you from the side, you can't move your legs to a different position quickly and thus it takes an extremely small amount of force perpendicular to the line through both of your feet to topple you right over.
Horse stance!=stable.

~J

Horse Stance weakness - push on the shoulders or exert an applied moment at the hip area.

The main thing is to overload the muscles in use in their most vulnerable area. I haven't heard of a martial art that told people to attack their enemies' strengths.

Well, I actually mentioned horse stance, because, well, I wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole in the middle of a fight. With the exception of applying an arm lock to a prone opponent. But I'd probably kneel onto him in that case.

Well adding force to the shoulders and hips.. is for ANYTHING REALLY! anyattack with a takedown involves force on teh shoulder and hip and legs.. i mean come on.. 98% of the take down i learned involved those.. you don't punch them in the chest to knocked them off their feet.

GKD.. my friends instructor and i quote said this sitting on a chair teaching how to attack if somebody surpirses you and hits you from behind while you are sitting in a chair.. (and he did office chair, school chair, school joined desk) He asked my friend to attack him from behind and hit him.. "ok when you get hit from behind like that you can be fancy and get up quick and punch him here.. and like this... but in all personal and realist taste i would do this " Picks up the chairs and hits my friend with it constantly! "See.. when you have chair legs.. or wheels on the end it makes it hard to block" and... with the joined desk.. "you push it straight into him several times.. then kick it like so" he fakes it but.. everybody gets the point!

and later on. he talked how to fight with a mop and bucket! it was funny.. watching a group of students half wit ha mob and a bucket deffending themselves agianst a guy with a fake gun!

I've had some formal training but mostly just sparring with freinds, and (don't laguh) Amptgard. which is only useful if you treat it like a real battle. but can quickly teach you to block and move, and if you have enough people who treat it like real weapons, can teach you some decent strikes too.

thought I would throw in my 2 cents about horse, I found the Horse stance to be most stable when I was picking cucumbers in a flooded knee deep with mud field.

you could quickly go down the row picking, and ump rows without damaging the crops, was very stable in the mud. though it helps to have a very deep stance, as the lower your center of gravity the harder it is to knock you down. as long as your center of gravity is above mine, I can move you around me. that is the strength of horse as I have used it. but it is also a stance that is not for everyone. I am kinda blocky, and already have a low center of gravity, so it is useful to me. my freind Tal who is 7' tall and lanky, avoids it like the plauge, cause even in a really deep horse, I still have a better position on him for grappling. so really what i am trying to say is, the art that works for some is the wrong one for others.

-Mike R.

I'm not dissing the horse stance, just that it is relatively static and less fluid and dynamic. I did some Tae Kwon Do/Aikido in the army, some Tai Chi from my grandmaster grandfather, some Yung Chun(Wing Chun to some).

Most martial arts assume you are fighting on land, so most of the stuff they teach is fairly useless once you are in the water. I had a guy try to kick me in the water... I almost drowned myself when he kicked himself deeper into the water. Those tae kwon do guys just don't learn... And please don't go, "Hia!" in the water, you'll drown.

Mostly I feel techniques like the close in fighting taught be Yung Chun and subdual techniques in Aikido and the pushing hands Tai Chi is very useful whether you are on land or in the water. In the water, there is no up(unless you want to breathe), no down(someone in "down" can hold on and you'll never surface)