From: operator@anasaz (System Operations)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: Bruce Lee on Classical Karate
Date: 13 Apr 92 05:25:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: anasaz.1992Apr13.052538.18675
Organization: Anasazi, Inc. Phoenix, AZ, USA

+-------
| Spontaneity is very important in the MA.  If you focus on techniques,
+------
Definately,  however, you need the tools to apply to the spontaneity.  It is 
true that people can fight without training but how well or to what degree is 
another matter.  Think of a gymnist highly skilled in gymnastics.  This person 
can be spontaneous according to the rules of gymnastics, a beginner will only 
accomplish little though he wants to be free.

+-------
|kata, sparring, etc. - I mean when you stood with another student and
|practiced a defense against a lapel grab, for example), he would show
|us a few ways to do it, and we would practice them, but mostly he
|would try and get us to spontaniously invent (or piece together might
|be a better way to put it) a response. For beginners, before you get
+-------
Suppose that is cool, but there is a science to joint locks and that is what
you're hopefully attempting to learn.  There are no better ways, they have 
all been thought of.   Learn Chin Na, or Jui Jitsu, Hapkido, or my style
of Hwa Rang Do.  However if you just want a flavor of what to do in an instance
I imagine with you're height you may be alright, but what if the dude is bigger
or stronger or there are many?

+-------
|	Contrasting this teaching method, in all of the TKD schools
|I've trained at, there are preset defenses for a bunch of standard
|attacks. Sometimes this is done via one-step sparring, sometimes more
|informally (i.e. the teacher says: "Give me the first lapel grap
|defense," then "Give me the second one," etc.) and everyone in the
|school will do the exact same thing - it's formalized, like kata.
+-------
This depends on what you want to learn in martial art.  Basic defense is 
quite effective, (i.e. just developing a reactionary attitude that will come 
to you're aid immediately with a few minor tools)  All you really need is three
tools to drop someone.  A punch, backfist, and frontkick are devastating as 
in traditional Japanese Karate, but can be limiting against skilled opponents.

+--------
|one-step sparring deals just to be able to do them on request, like a
|trained monkey, is something that really depresses me.
+--------				Ed Hartnett

There are a couple different levels to a technique, and you're right, acting
like a trained monkey won't cut it.  What you need is the repetition and 
intricasies of the technique then the ability to apply it to your body and 
mind.  (Do it fast, make it effective, put him down -of course be gentle to 
you're practice buddy- and make it your technique)  The stories that I have 
heard, and from my own experience, is that how you train is how you're 
technique will come out.  Just so happens that many other masters way 
greater than myself have said the same thing.   

If you want high level training you must find a comprehensive system that 
invloves all aspects of fighting from legs to gappling and pressure points to 
the multitudes of strikes, and of course the applications of internal strength.
It'll frustrate you, but then you specialize and you're knowledge is always 
way ahead of you're skill, not to mention that you become good in many 
techniques and awesome at a few.  Ya gotta pay you're dues to get excellent, 
that is why it is called skill.

Humblepracticioner