Historical sword techniques vs modern recreation of same

[carlos13th]

I figured thats why you put Kata in quotations marks.

In all fairness art is just mistranslation of sorts anyway. The art in martial arts is closer to skill than how we would use the word art.

[Johnno]

I was always taught that the first (and most basic) rule of sword fighting was to stick them with the pointy end!

[Arlequín]

I was always taught that the first (and most basic) rule of sword fighting was to stick them with the pointy end!

An essential first step in training I would think, you would probably be surprised at the numbers of folk who failed to grasp that concept.

In all fairness art is just mistranslation of sorts anyway. The art in martial arts is closer to skill than how we would use the word art.

   

I don't know so much... as I understood it, part of the scoring is in how gracefully the combatant moves and how well he adheres to the stylistic and traditional norms. It seems odd that in Aikido, Kendo and the like, that you can beat your opponent down, but lose marks for the wrong placement of feet and stuff like that.

Imagine that principle applied in boxing? Mike Tyson would never have won a fight. Ali would of course never have been defeated either way.

[former user]

It seems odd that in Aikido, Kendo and the like, that you can beat your opponent down, but lose marks for the wrong placement of feet and stuff like that.

it is my understanding that this is the essential difference between sports and real fighting. Of course the sportive aspect has been all to clouded in our century by the aspect of "winning"  (and not only in sports  )

[carlos13th]

Kata comps are scored on aesthetics (Cant say I am a fan of Kata myself) I just meant that when people hear the word Martail Arts they often seem to think the Art part of the term means how it looks etc but the Art part is a translation of the word skill. Very few Aikido places compete in any way or do much sparring so I not sure there is much marking going on there. Kendo however I have heard some explanations for how one does and doesn't get points that I didn't really understand the reasoning for.

To me Tysons fighting style is pretty damn beautiful. The way he moves is amazing his head movement combined with the force he could generate over such a small space is fantastic to watch. Sure it isn't flowery or showy but its ruthlessly efficient and beautiful in its own way.

Title is a bit hyperbolic but tell me thats not stunning to watch if you are into fighting.

http://youtu.be/vC5PTPV4Frg?t=3m14s
 

it is my understanding that this is the essential difference between sports and real fighting. Of course the sportive aspect has been all to clouded in our century by the aspect of "winning"  (and not only in sports  )

Full contact styles tend to be pretty good at teaching people how to fight. Many Martial Arts though do very little sparring and when they do compete they compete under rules such as point sparring which are so far removed from a fight that much if what works well in those competitions just cannot be used in a real fight. Compare Olympic TKD to Boxing for example. Boxing is clearly more directly applicable to fighting of the two.

[Arlequín]

Okay, point taken re Iron Mike, but he is mostly noted as a 'slugger' and not a 'dancer'. 

The marking criteria is beyond me too and is apparently far less harsh in Western than in Japanese competitions. I suspect that it originates in the concept that "If you can't do it perfectly in 'training', you will suffer when it is for real". My limited experience of Kung Fu was essentially katas for the 'drill' part, but using them to actual practical effect in 'combinations' when sparring or competing was more creative... I guess the idea was to build 'muscle memory' as part of the overall process. Certainly those who relied purely on the taught sequences tended to lose pretty quickly, while when you watched the winners you were seeing these same katas used in a more modular fashion.

Before the advent of CGI in movies, the 'trick' sequences you used to see in 'martial arts' movies are often quite basic techniques at their root and while looking impressive, are not so effective when it comes down to it. Even I could do the 'spinning swords' bit, but would have been screwed if anyone attacked me while I was doing it.   

The point remains, as Carlos put, that 'sport' is about competition and not incapacitating or killing your opponent, so any training can only take you so far. The most removed example would be Tai-Chi, which are in fact combat 'katas' phenomenally slowed down, mock those pensioners at your peril!

It would be how you applied any form of training for real and beyond the rules of friendly competition that determines the usefulness of any form of martial art (in which I include fencing too) and that which divides the 'sportsman' from the 'killer'.

[carlos13th]

I think thats more than fair to say about Tyson. He didnt dance like Ali.

I have always thought of Kata as primarily a visual catalog of techniques to pass techniques on before the widespread use of cameras to film everything. Personally when I train (Cant atm due to injury) I spent no time on Kata as I feel there are other more useful training methods. People training some arts may disagree with that though.

I find that you rarely get anything perfect once the other guy is fighting back.

While I agree that sport is not for killing you have to look at it like this. You are only as good as the stuff you have tested and the stuff you can actually do against a resisting opponent. How do you know this killer move you are doing can actually kill someone? How do you know it will work against someone fighting back? By training moves acceptable in a permissive ruleset (MMA being the best example) you actually get to test your stuff against someone genuinely fighting back and what you personally can and cant do against a resisting opponent, not only that but you get to find out what works and what doesn't. Sure you have to remove some potentially dangerous things like eye pokes for example but someone who spars and can hit a moving target fighting them back is far more likely to be able to eye gouge than someone who doesn't anyway, or someone who is used to grappling and gain positional dominance against other people skilled at that is going to be in a better position to do those killer moves than people who practice all the so called dirty stuff without someone fighting them back.

In order to really practice and test your stuff you have to try to get the right balance between safety and realism and spar with a permissive ruleset (Obviously not going flat out every time you spar because you would be injured constantly)

Personally I think despite the fact it has rules and is a sport the top guys in MMA would beat almost anyone else on the planet in an unarmed street fight because the fight hand to hand for a living there are very few people in the world who can say the same thing.

I wonder how much sparring people did with training weapons around the time the various manuals that HEMA groups try to reconstruct from were written. I know Hema groups now seem to be quite big on sparring for the most part.

I include fencing as a Martial Art too. I also include firearm shooting (Which I have only ever done once) and archery personally although many would disagree with me I am sure.

[Arlequín]

Can't fault that train of thought. The 'show' sports tend to always have your opponent coming from the optimum direction (directly from the front or rear), or a set number of equally spaced directions, which I think was the joke behind the Monty Python "What if he's got a pointed stick?" sketch from way back when.



In the thankfully very few occasions where I've had to defend myself against someone with a pointed stick or similar for real, they tend to come without warning and out of line of sight... something you don't get in sport. However training does indeed kick in, but in a fashion that might have most trainers throw a fit if you did it in a gym. Certainly you're better prepared with it than without it, which would almost certainly be the case in the medieval era too.