Sports The Tatami: Martial Arts thread

[theyearis1706]

Hey:)

Welcome to The Tatami, my Martial Arts general thread.

I practice traditional Jujutsu and Judo, and train some MMA for extra training with practitioners of other arts.

My journey started when I was quite young, and practiced for a long time on and off, but only over the last few years have I really took it seriously again with a vision of doing some amateur MMA fights or competitions and seeing where that goes.

I find the state of Jujutsu, especially where I am in the world a little disheartening. Everyone is split between Judo, BJJ, with only a small minority still practicing the whole art of Jujutsu. If you're not clued up on modern Jujutsu (or JuJistu), Brazilian Jujitsu and Judo are both martial arts primarily developed for fighting in a sporting/competition environment - Judo born of Jujutsu and BJJ of Judo, with BJJ being extremely popular world wide now due to it's effectiveness in MMA competitions and UFC.

I like to describe traditional Jujutsu as the original MMA, however fought in a Gi, as it encompasses all elements of effective fighting, from Te Waza - throwing/takedown techniques, Katame Waza - grappling techniques/submissions, and Atemi Waza - striking/punching/kicking. As well as this, there is a massive focus on anatomy and body mechanics in a good dojo, knowing where to strike for maximum damage (rarely the face or head), or where to position yourself to take your opponents Kuzushi - balance, to initiate a throw or a takedown. There are many other specific "waza" pertaining to other elements of body destruction also.

Judo, focussing mostly on throws and takedowns to score points in competition, and BJJ looking for positions and passes for points, both are thought to be great bases for MMA fighters, while glossing over the all encompassing grandfather of both of those sports.

It's important to recognise that traditional Jujutsu was never thought to be trained as a sport, but a martial art developed by the Samuari class in Japan , and many techniques are disallowed in modern MMA competitions due to their "dirty" (translation, effective) nature.

I'd love to hear from any of you who train or are interested in training in martial art/combat sports, I'd be interested to hear views of the states of traditional martial arts and the direction modern combat sports are heading.

I'll leave you with two videos, the first some slightly old school footage of Jujutsuka punching and kicking the shit out of each other with very little rules, and the second video a modern Jujutsu competition.


Jujutsu Full Contact - Old school competition

X Combat Jujutsu World Championship - Final - Kyiv 2021

 

[Khastle]

Great thread, I hope it gets plenty of interest.

I wanna take up boxing, what are your views on it? Also is Krav Maga the meme people say it is? Ju-jitsu sound good too from what you've said, I'll have to see what's available in my area.

 

[playFACE]

>fellow martial art autist has somehow joined the mariana bay
>i will now be able to sperg about combat techniques and their history and application

ive done bits of the major ones. boxing, karate, kickboxing, bjj, wrestling, mma, and muay thai (i do wish i could try judo though, the only judoka places nearby are 25+ miles just going there) and from my experience traditional martial arts are on the way out due to refusal to adapt to the changing times. like how the rise of no-gi grappling is taking shape as of now, and how ive seen some bjj/grappling die-hards say that "its not real bjj" or "real grappling" since it has no gi. or how its "not a real martial art" due to some arbitrary reason.

with the rise of combat sports, how the internet can easily help expose the fiction vs the reality of martial arts, and how we can actually see if something has some merit vs "trust me bro" science means a lot of these older martial arts are now being tested in real time to varying levels of success. hard to trust a combat system when you can go to youtube and see some guy destroying a "BLACK BELT IN DWAWHJWOAJ MARTIAL ART SYSTEMS WITH OVER 1000 KUMITE WINS"

personally, the view of "traditional" martial arts as something more than a combat system with specializations is something that doesnt click with me. karate was taught to teach people how to defend and throw kicks and punches, and to help reinforce the body for war. muay thai is an off shoot from another martial art system that help trained soldiers for war. wrestling comes from grappling another opponent and trying to take them down to kill them with a knife or dagger. boxing is literally the sweet science on how to throw a punch while not getting hit. while yes, you can apply wisdom and philosophies to an act, i think the idea that "X" martial art has a "philosophy" to it is nothing more than silly to me.

 

[playFACE]

while on the topic of martial arts, any ufc enjoyers here? im excited to see how boring leon and belal can make their title fight at 4am

 

[theyearis1706]

>fellow martial art autist has somehow joined the mariana bay
>i will now be able to sperg about combat techniques and their history and application

ive done bits of the major ones. boxing, karate, kickboxing, bjj, wrestling, mma, and muay thai (i do wish i could try judo though, the only judoka places nearby are 25+ miles just going there) and from my experience traditional martial arts are on the way out due to refusal to adapt to the changing times. like how the rise of no-gi grappling is taking shape as of now, and how ive seen some bjj/grappling die-hards say that "its not real bjj" or "real grappling" since it has no gi. or how its "not a real martial art" due to some arbitrary reason.

with the rise of combat sports, how the internet can easily help expose the fiction vs the reality of martial arts, and how we can actually see if something has some merit vs "trust me bro" science means a lot of these older martial arts are now being tested in real time to varying levels of success. hard to trust a combat system when you can go to youtube and see some guy destroying a "BLACK BELT IN DWAWHJWOAJ MARTIAL ART SYSTEMS WITH OVER 1000 KUMITE WINS"

personally, the view of "traditional" martial arts as something more than a combat system with specializations is something that doesnt click with me. karate was taught to teach people how to defend and throw kicks and punches, and to help reinforce the body for war. muay thai is an off shoot from another martial art system that help trained soldiers for war. wrestling comes from grappling another opponent and trying to take them down to kill them with a knife or dagger. boxing is literally the sweet science on how to throw a punch while not getting hit. while yes, you can apply wisdom and philosophies to an act, i think the idea that "X" martial art has a "philosophy" to it is nothing more than silly to me.

Definitely try judo if you get a chance, the rules can be really frustrating in competition, and some clubs only train what can be done in judo competition. Where I am they use the British Judo rules my main gripes being - no leg take towns, no submissions involving the leg, no pressure to the neck (guillotines), and if the fight goes to the ground you have 25 seconds, and you don't need to get a submission for a point on the ground, just a pin.

The gi vs nogi grappling debate does my head in. It's all grappling!!

At the end of the day, the effectiveness of a martial art is largely down to how it's taught and trained, granted if a martial was based entirely off of only fighting with your back turned, it wouldn't matter how it was trained, but when it comes to things like Karate, and Jujutsu, there are massive discrepancies in training from club to club. My experience is with Jujutsu so I'll speak to that, and the majority of clubs where I am based are just not worth attending for anything more than just getting a few reps of some throws in if at all, the classes are only 1 hour long, 10 mins wasted with "warm up", they don't do sparring, and they don't really allow you to make a technique your own, they're very rigid. Take someone from there to fight against someone from a club that spars, works on conditioning, trains with resistance, and encourages students to make a technique their own, and it won't look like they trained in the same martial art lol.

Yeah and some people get rly caught up in the "philosophy", the philosophy is, put them on the ground with force then do what you want as far as I'm concerned lol.

 

[theyearis1706]

Great thread, I hope it gets plenty of interest.

I wanna take up boxing, what are your views on it? Also is Krav Maga the meme people say it is? Ju-jitsu sound good too from what you've said, I'll have to see what's available in my area.

Boxing is cool, but like Judo and BJJ, they are sports that focus on one aspect of combat almost exclusively. It really depends what you want out of it. If you want to compete in boxing, then do boxing. If you want to learn a wide range of skills, try an MMA gym. Where as MMA is also a sport, it draws from many martial arts and if you train hard you'll become a real weapon in all situations and not just competition :)

You could also mix and match, do some BJJ, Judo, and something like Muay Thai or kick boxing but it'll be up to you how to put it all together :)

Jujutsu is really good but like I said above in reply to face, it can be hard to find a good club that thinks with a modern mind set. Some clubs are still stuck with a very rigid self defence syllabus, and their combat it is Jujutsuka vs Jujutsuka. While others have stuck with the times and train self defence and combat vs fighters trained in OTHER martial arts and styles - and there in lies a massive difference.

 

[Bibr]

Where as MMA is also a sport, it draws from many martial arts and if you train hard you'll become a real weapon in all situations and not just competition :)

Oi mate.
What a silly little knife I got in here

 

[theyearis1706]

Oi mate.
What a silly little knife I got in here

Real, knife always win.

 

[Bibr]

Real, knife always win.

You can always try to outrun a knife

To not further derail the thread

At the end of the day, the effectiveness of a martial art is largely down to how it's taught and trained, granted if a martial was based entirely off of only fighting with your back turned, it wouldn't matter how it was trained, but when it comes to things like Karate, and Jujutsu, there are massive discrepancies in training from club to club. My experience is with Jujutsu so I'll speak to that, and the majority of clubs where I am based are just not worth attending for anything more than just getting a few reps of some throws in if at all, the classes are only 1 hour long, 10 mins wasted with "warm up", they don't do sparring, and they don't really allow you to make a technique your own, they're very rigid. Take someone from there to fight against someone from a club that spars, works on conditioning, trains with resistance, and encourages students to make a technique their own, and it won't look like they trained in the same martial art lol.

This part brings back memories kek.
As a kid (8-10 yo) I used to go to such karate classes. After a "warm up" we were just learning some kicks, punches (most downward) and later sequences. I don't recall a time where we had some sort of fight. We had "duo sequences". Where one person pretends to hit someone while second person was making wacky choreographic moves as a defense. Our coach would randomly give us ranks (strip of black tape on our belt) and after collecting 3 ranks parents were asked to buy different color belt.
We also had summer camps. Training was quite similar to what we were doing normally. It's just that we had 2x 1.5h blocks a day of it. I think on those camps we were also interacting with kids from different karate groups. Training together and such.

Dam it was a while ago and also I don't have very fond memories from there. Anyway. like 95% of the time spent on training we were in a closed group. NGL it felt a bit like a LARP. We were going to practises, gaining ranks and belts that had any meaning only in our group. Our "karate" had no practical use. It's not like I could've defended myself from a school bully by doing wacky timed moves and obnoxiously loud gasps

 

[Khastle]

Boxing is cool, but like Judo and BJJ, they are sports that focus on one aspect of combat almost exclusively. It really depends what you want out of it. If you want to compete in boxing, then do boxing. If you want to learn a wide range of skills, try an MMA gym. Where as MMA is also a sport, it draws from many martial arts and if you train hard you'll become a real weapon in all situations and not just competition :)

You could also mix and match, do some BJJ, Judo, and something like Muay Thai or kick boxing but it'll be up to you how to put it all together :)

Jujutsu is really good but like I said above in reply to face, it can be hard to find a good club that thinks with a modern mind set. Some clubs are still stuck with a very rigid self defence syllabus, and their combat it is Jujutsuka vs Jujutsuka. While others have stuck with the times and train self defence and combat vs fighters trained in OTHER martial arts and styles - and there in lies a massive difference.

Hmm thanks, maybe I'll consider Ju-Jitsu due to the amount of areas it covers but I'll think on it, thanks. Judo and Muay Thai looks promising too and boxing will stay as one of my top picks ofc.

 

[playFACE]

You can always try to outrun a knife

To not further derail the thread

This part brings back memories kek.
As a kid (8-10 yo) I used to go to such karate classes. After a "warm up" we were just learning some kicks, punches (most downward) and later sequences. I don't recall a time where we had some sort of fight. We had "duo sequences". Where one person pretends to hit someone while second person was making wacky choreographic moves as a defense. Our coach would randomly give us ranks (strip of black tape on our belt) and after collecting 3 ranks parents were asked to buy different color belt.
We also had summer camps. Training was quite similar to what we were doing normally. It's just that we had 2x 1.5h blocks a day of it. I think on those camps we were also interacting with kids from different karate groups. Training together and such.

Dam it was a while ago and also I don't have very fond memories from there. Anyway. like 95% of the time spent on training we were in a closed group. NGL it felt a bit like a LARP. We were going to practises, gaining ranks and belts that had any meaning only in our group. Our "karate" had no practical use. It's not like I could've defended myself from a school bully by doing wacky timed moves and obnoxiously loud gasps

yep you had the fake karate shit that some guy learned in some McDojo and say that he was a "BLACK BELT" in X DISCIPLINE or whatever bull to get parents to buy into their class. that and martial arts for kids are 95% just a daycare.

i managed to get into a class where they taught real karate (forgot which exact version though) but i remember us doing hard sparring, learning takedowns and sweeps, basically more than what is expected of your generic karate mcdojo meant for kids.

 

[playFACE]

Definitely try judo if you get a chance, the rules can be really frustrating in competition, and some clubs only train what can be done in judo competition. Where I am they use the British Judo rules my main gripes being - no leg take towns, no submissions involving the leg, no pressure to the neck (guillotines), and if the fight goes to the ground you have 25 seconds, and you don't need to get a submission for a point on the ground, just a pin.

The gi vs nogi grappling debate does my head in. It's all grappling!!

At the end of the day, the effectiveness of a martial art is largely down to how it's taught and trained, granted if a martial was based entirely off of only fighting with your back turned, it wouldn't matter how it was trained, but when it comes to things like Karate, and Jujutsu, there are massive discrepancies in training from club to club. My experience is with Jujutsu so I'll speak to that, and the majority of clubs where I am based are just not worth attending for anything more than just getting a few reps of some throws in if at all, the classes are only 1 hour long, 10 mins wasted with "warm up", they don't do sparring, and they don't really allow you to make a technique your own, they're very rigid. Take someone from there to fight against someone from a club that spars, works on conditioning, trains with resistance, and encourages students to make a technique their own, and it won't look like they trained in the same martial art lol.

Yeah and some people get rly caught up in the "philosophy", the philosophy is, put them on the ground with force then do what you want as far as I'm concerned lol.

yeah i'll definitely will have to give judo a try when i have the chance. not going to be exciting wearing a gi again though. always felt like i was wearing a huge linen cloth uniform with it on. its probably why i like no-gi grappling and wrestling so much.

also yeah ive had my fair share of McDojos too as well. a lot of them just focus on getting your cash and not bothering to teach you anything worthwhile. good thing with the internet, that it is generally easy to spot them nowadays. i cant imagine going to a place and recommending it where they do not have sparring/sessions or force-on-force training, or anything of the like. why yes, i do too would like to learn some technique but not be given the time, place, nor effort to practice it in reality. its why I hate the guy from Detroit Urban Survival Training guy. dude is genuinely a snake oils salesman training people false lies and fake realities and you have people who dont know jack shit defending them saying "no bro trust me these can actually work in real life" despite every single accredited individual saying no it does not.

and yeah, i remember back during my first karate class the teacher tried to teach us some karate philosophy or some bs that i didnt bother to buy into.

 

[playFACE]

Great thread, I hope it gets plenty of interest.

I wanna take up boxing, what are your views on it? Also is Krav Maga the meme people say it is? Ju-jitsu sound good too from what you've said, I'll have to see what's available in my area.

boxing is the sweet science of learning how to throw a punch while not getting hit. it may seem easy on paper but once you step foot into the ring you quickly realize "oh shit its surprisingly a lot harder than i expected." that and combat sports in general make you SWEAT like nothing ive done before. imo, i would take boxing for a few months to a year or so, really get down the fundamentals then begin to branch out and diversify your skill sets. by simply knowing how to throw a punch and how to not get punch, you are instantly a better fighter than a solid chunk of the world.

krav maga is also 50-50 since krav maga is being sold to you as a brand rather than its original intention of being a combat system. i havent been to any krav maga gyms but i have spoken to some who have done it and its been 50/50 with them. some of them went to mcdojo gyms with clearly people who dont know what the fuck theyre talking about, and others went to real krav maga instructors who taught them the actual arts and skills used. it just all depends honestly.

i personally havent done any pure jujitsu but i have done bjj and boy, do i love grappling. doing a simple rolling session will quickly make you realize just how out of shape you are lol.