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Iain Abernethy
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No martial art has ever worked in self-defence or in combat

A martial “thought for the day”:

No martial art has ever worked in self-defence or in combat. There has been zero cases of any individual ever being knocked out / incapacitated by a martial art. What does work are the actions of martial artISTS. Pick any martial art you like and it is ultimately an ethereal concept. It can only be brought into being by the actions of the martial artist. Our martial art can’t fight for us and it can never protect us. Only we can do those things. We therefore need to focus on the making ourselves work, because the martial art is nothing but an intangible idea without us.

mike23
mike23's picture

I guess that what is meant when people say- "That doesn't mean your style is better than mine..Just that you are better than me.." Every style has its offensive techniques that will work 100% of the time and every style has counters that work 100% of the time however you are the one who has to apply the technique and that is where things start to break down.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

mike23 wrote:
I guess that what is meant when people say- "That doesn't mean your style is better than mine ... Just that you are better than me.."

I can kind of see what they mean when they say that, but it’s not the full picture. I think that some styles are better than others when it comes to achieving certain objectives. If you want to be great at throws, training in judo will get better results than training in boxing.

If a given method of training (which is what a style really is) is proving more effective in producing competent individuals then it better than a training method that is failing to produce competent individuals.

The point I was making is that “judo” can’t throw people, only judoka can so we can’t claim effectives on the basis of style i.e. “I do judo, judo can make good throwers, therefore I can throw” is a logical fallacy. If it were true, there would be no poor martial artists.

Not all karateka are equal simply by virtue of being karateka. Not all BJJ practitioners are as skilled as Ryron Gracie simply because they belong to the same style. The individual has make it work for them through their own efforts.

The second point is that the “style” is not the aim. Individual effectiveness should be the aim. This was “Mistake 3” in this article:

http://www.iainabernethy.co.uk/article/karates-three-biggest-mistakes

The above “thought” was the most liked thing I’ve ever put on Facebook, so it certainly struck a cord :-)

All the best,

Iain

Ian H
Ian H's picture

When you find yourself in a fight ... *ahem*, when you find yourself attacked and need to defend yourself ... you will be alone.  

Your sensei won't be there.

Your dojomates won't be there.

The police won't be there.

The ghost of Gichin Funakoshi won't be there.

... it's just you and the bad guys ... and whatever you can do based on your own knowledge and training.  Good luck ... train well.