From: M.Lawrie@lut.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: Choosing a martial art - effectiveness?
Date: 13 Apr 92 08:18:15 GMT
Reply-To: M.Lawrie@lut.ac.uk (Michael Lawrie)
Organization: Loughborough University, UK.

In article <31037@skye.dcs.ed.ac.uk> tk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Tommy Kelly) writes:
>opinion - but for me, self-defence is number one.
>
>I AM interested in mental discipline - but I don't require that from martial
>art training.
>
>I AM interested in physical fitness - but again, if a particular martial art
>doesnt provide that (and instead demands supplementary fitness work) thats fine.
>
>I am NOT interested in meditation, zen, pseudo- (or actual-) religious
>philosophies.  
>
>I want to learn an effective method of unarmed self-defence - period.
>
>
>KARATE - has a heavy weight of tradition behind it.  I enjoyed it.
>
>TAE-KWON-DO - seems to have the benefit of drawing from karate's tradition,
>
>Jiu-jitsu - Is more felxible that karate and TKD, but classes in my
>
>Jeet-kung-do - This, in my poor opinion, seems the ideal choice.  It seems

I have to admit, I know nothing at all about Jeet-kung-do and not a lot
about TKD, so bear in mind that this is pretty biased... I did a bit of
Jiu Jitsu, but eventually gave up - I missed about a month of lessons and
when I got back I got beaten to a pulp about 10 times over, literally, I
was just out of it - Bear this in mind, if you are going to miss lessons
you are going to get hurt - You are going to get hurt in JJ anyway, it seems
the best way to teach you to hurt someone effectively is to learn how it
feels ;-)

The gradings in JJ are hellish, I did a lot of research on psychological
torture techniques and this still rates pretty highly ;-) Oh, did I mention
it hurt?

Make sure your club is a Samuri JJ one, the others have a habit of killing
folks, there is competition but it hurts ;-)

From a self defence point of view, JJ is pretty good, my gf. is a karate
dan and when we have wee fights, unless she wants to beat my brains out
she normally ends up in a wristlock and then resorts to threats (mind you,
they work ;-) - I must say I wish I'd never taught her thumblocks! Did I
mention, they hurt?

Self defence, it's good, it is good for restraint but putting a little more
pressure on a lock, or applying an atemi will finish the opponent off should
you want to, since most locks will take a joint out if you apply just slightly
too much pressure, be careful not to partner with anyone who looks like they
bend trees for a living. Even at novice you'll be taught defence against hits,
bottles, knives etc, though I tend to think it could make people slightly
over confident.

Fitness, you don't need to be that fit, it's a nice MA in that it's not very
strenuous at all, unless you want it to be!

Philosophys... Um, what's philosophy?
"Since he's down on the ground anyway, you may as well break his arm because
 it's fun"
"Look, you have this guy here now, in a lock, there's 4 of his mates about to
 run for you - You can either put the one you have out of action and get into
 stance for his mates or better, torture the one you have in front of them
 and watch them run away!"
Jiu Jitsu does have it's amusing side... 

Mental discipline, nope, not really. I suspect that a lot of the dan training
is heavily psychologically based "how to freak out your opponents" and all
that, but you won't touch that for years... Oh yea, you get taught to ignore
pain at higher grades, you need it!

There you go, and who said I was biased - JJ is something yuo can't take up
half heartedly, I want to start again but I just haven't the time at the
moment - If you can take the fact that it's practically impossible to have
competitions in, then go for it!

Michael.

PS, Did I mention, it hurts?
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts