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No Mind. Do you use it? How?
Sir Brian:
--- Quote --- BTW how fast & hard do y'all fight where you fight?
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Well that is a little subjective. I make a greater conscious effort to pull my hits more when I am using aluminum as the blade is thicker and has no give it actual has the potential to cause greater injury to your training partners. The steel seems to get going at a higher velocity and getting hit with the sweet spot of the steel on a lightly padded area can cause anywhere from moderate discomfort to broken bones. Then again some of the people I've trained with either don't have the appropriate level of protective equipment or spurn the use of it which is a little bothersome as I feel it gives them a slight advantage since they do not have to worry about granting me the same consideration since I'm pretty well protected, yet I only became that way because I was getting battered and bruised up pretty badly until I learned how to block a little better! ;)
Joshua Santana:
--- Quote ---I have never seen an actively intellectual fighter rise beyond the middle. My step-dad is one such. Because he must plan and think of the fight he is as Bruce Lee said "If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow — you are not understanding yourself.".
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I think that what he was trying to say was that it is never a good thing to use the same strategy many times. This calls for an open mind that is quick to adapt a new strategy when the situation calls for it. But you make a good case.
--- Quote ---Well that is a little subjective. I make a greater conscious effort to pull my hits more when I am using aluminum as the blade is thicker and has no give it actual has the potential to cause greater injury to your training partners. The steel seems to get going at a higher velocity and getting hit with the sweet spot of the steel on a lightly padded area can cause anywhere from moderate discomfort to broken bones. Then again some of the people I've trained with either don't have the appropriate level of protective equipment or spurn the use of it which is a little bothersome as I feel it gives them a slight advantage since they do not have to worry about granting me the same consideration since I'm pretty well protected, yet I only became that way because I was getting battered and bruised up pretty badly until I learned how to block a little better!
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That is a good point! Assumptions are the kind of decisions combatants tend to make, yet they can influence them to make a mistake in bouting. To me, I am to never assume anything unless if my opponent is a fan of repetitive strategies. However I take this quote into deep consideration:
"The best swordsman in the world has nothing to fear from the second best swordsman in the world, but everything to fear from the worst swordsman in the world."
This is not only a warning to those who find it difficult to defeat a very bad swordsman, it is also given to show how the lesser skilled swordsman will use weakness in his opponent's protective gear and forget his own weaknesses in his own because he wants what he wants to do and disregard his own situation. The better swordsman will be aware of his weaknesses and will compensate them or use them to his advantage. That is he can appear to be open in his guard or defensive posture until his opponent willingly takes the "bait" or assumes that you are stupid then respond with an attack he will not be anticipating.
Or in other words: "Fight or deceive your opponent by strategies so that you can give or make your opponent have the OH F*** moment" ;)
Thorsteinn:
I think that, when trying to explain a lot of this to other WMA'ers is that, if you have not read the 'Tao of Jeet Kun Do' & 'Book of Five Rings', but have read Fiore, Lichtenauer, Meyer, and Thibault then the essential meaning behind my words, which is just the words themselves striped of all but their trueness, can be missed.
Also, if you have not fought at full speed and power then you may not be aware as much of the artifacts of perception inherent at a slower and lighter setting such as seeing the super small moves that are usually hidden, not having to fight or use your own inertia, being unable to truly flow, & blocking the shots that can be powered through a block.
This is not to condescend slow work for safety or training, only to say that a fight, a real fight, doesn't happen at 50%, and at less than 100% you cannot feel the true whole of your fight. Armour allows us to do this, and if a Padboy wants to go minimums well then, pain is a great teacher. :)
BTW: While it is not how I work I do like this- "Or in other words: "Fight or deceive your opponent by strategies so that you can give or make your opponent have the OH F*** moment"" because I can tell you I've had that moment. ;D
More good Quotes from Mr Bruce Lee:
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--- Quote ---Knowledge in martial arts actually means self-knowledge. A martial artist has to take responsibility for himself and accept the consequences of his own doing. The understanding of JKD is through personal feeling from movement to movement in the mirror of the relationship and not through a process of isolation. To be is to be related. To isolate is death. To me, ultimately, martial arts means honestly expressing yourself. Now, it is very difficult to do. It has always been very easy for me to put on a show and be cocky, and be flooded with a cocky feeling and feel pretty cool and all that. I can make all kinds of phoney things. Blinded by it. Or I can show some really fancy movement. But to experience oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, now that is very hard to do.
--- End quote ---
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--- Quote ---In JKD, one does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I've understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum. It is the halfway cultivation that leads to ornamentation. Jeet Kune-Do is basically a sophisticated fighting style stripped to its essentials.
Art is the expression of the self. The more complicated and restricted the method, the less the opportunity for expression of one's original sense of freedom. Though they play an important role in the early stage, the techniques should not be too mechanical, complex or restrictive. If we cling blindly to them, we shall eventually become bound by their limitations. Remember, you are expressing the techniques and not doing the techniques. If somebody attacks you, your response is not Technique No.1, Stance No. 2, Section 4, Paragraph 5. Instead you simply move in like sound and echo, without any deliberation. It is as though when I call you, you answer me, or when I throw you something, you catch it. It's as simple as that - no fuss, no mess. In other words, when someone grabs you, punch him. To me a lot of this fancy stuff is not functional.
A martial artist who drills exclusively to a set pattern of combat is losing his freedom. He is actually becoming a slave to a choice pattern and feels that the pattern is the real thing. It leads to stagnation because the way of combat is never based on personal choice and fancies, but constantly changes from moment to moment, and the disappointed combatant will soon find out that his 'choice routine' lacks pliability. There must be a 'being' instead of a 'doing' in training. One must be free. Instead of complexity of form, there should be simplicity of expression.
To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.
In building a statue, a sculptor doesn't keep adding clay to his subject. Actually, he keeps chiselling away at the inessentials until the truth of its creation is revealed without obstructions. Thus, contrary to other styles, being wise in Jeet Kune-Do doesn't mean adding more; it means to minimize, in other words to hack away the unessential.
It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential.
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http://www.fightingmaster.com/masters/brucelee/quotes.htm
Joshua Santana:
--- Quote ---I think that, when trying to explain a lot of this to other WMA'ers is that, if you have not read the 'Tao of Jeet Kun Do' & 'Book of Five Rings', but have read Fiore, Lichtenauer, Meyer, and Thibault then the essential meaning behind my words, which is just the words themselves striped of all but their trueness, can be missed.
--- End quote ---
You're right on that Rautt and that can be problematic but I have read 'Book of the Five Rings' in my earlier years although memory on it is more rusty. But when reading the words of Liechtenauer, Fiore, Marozzo, Meyer, Thibault, Fabris, Carranza, George Silver, Di Grassi and others, fighting is more like a science or an art that serves a single (or multiple) purpose and the training is more like theory, combat science and experience put together. This is what most WMA'rs will say if put against a eastern martial artist.
--- Quote ---Also, if you have not fought at full speed and power then you may not be aware as much of the artifacts of perception inherent at a slower and lighter setting such as seeing the super small moves that are usually hidden, not having to fight or use your own inertia, being unable to truly flow, & blocking the shots that can be powered through a block.
This is not to condescend slow work for safety or training, only to say that a fight, a real fight, doesn't happen at 50%, and at less than 100% you cannot feel the true whole of your fight. Armour allows us to do this, and if a Padboy wants to go minimums well then, pain is a great teacher.
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That I agree, I would say that strategies should be a flowing improvisation (if you will) of counter offenses and defenses. Static offenses and vice versa will only make you readable and the fight would be over quickly.
BTW: That the nature of that statement was to convey a real goal that you want vto accomplish in bouting or fighting and it's a good saying ;)
BTW: thank you for the quotes and this was a good, civil argument. :)
Sir William:
I tend to overthink it...but as I continue to learn, my hope is that it will become more instinctive and less thought-centric.
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