Traditional Martial Arts Training?

"To search for the old is to understand the new. The old, the new, this is a matter of time. In all things man must have a clear mind. The Way: Who will pass it on straight and well?"

a quote written by Gichin Funakoshi the father of modern karate, written about a 100 yrs ago. even back then they had tradition vs modern.

what you fail to understand, is that modern martial arts has nothing new, the training concepts are the same as traditional, cross training mixing styles was been going on for thousands of years.. ground fighting, stand up, staking and grappling. that can be found in many single styles... the problem comes in is that people dont even understand there own style. the only thing is that you people are in a rush to get every thing at once rather then focusing on one thing at a time, and then moving on.

i have been studying shotokan for over 30 yrs. and i still am learning a lot about the style.. i have also cross trained in far more style then most of you, over 20 and i have ranks in a few of them. but unlike a lot of you i have a solid foundation in one style, over 30 years worth.

many traditionalist have cross trained various styles.

most of you peoples history starts with bruce lee... you never look at at martial arts before that point.

There is no way it is dying. There are still many traditional martial artists like myself that keep passing on traditional arts. And why not, they work well, If you are willing to spend the time to learn correctly. The problem is people are lazy. They want everything now. As such they become brawlers instead of technicians of perfection in technique. While most new age martial artists are either dancing around or rolling on the floor, a good traditional martial artist that has truly learned his art has finished the fight. However you must understand that traditional martial arts are no designed for competitive demonstrations. To do so means that you must take out the really effective techniques. To do that is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. Real traditional martial arts always avoids a fight if possible. BUT, if they must fight to save themselves, they have some nasty and effective ways to end an attack quickly. The traditional martial arts are not and should not be a sport. Sport martial arts defeats the purpose. It is like dulling the blade of a sword and then trying to call it a deadly weapon.

...

The whole traditional vs modern thing is a crock. I've yet to meet even one real martial artist who gives a damn. Martial arts are a living, evolving thing. There is nothing wrong with preserving an old style and passing on the whole of a system to your students rather than just the bits that seem practical for you (they may well work for someone else) but there is no need to refuse to adapt your training to meet the types of threat we encounter today. "Modern" martial arts are all pretty much based on traditional ones anyway. After all, there are only so many ways the body can move. They are simply adapted for the particular environment they are used in.

So are traditional martial arts dead or dying? Depends on your definition I suppose.

The traditional martial arts survived the invention of gunpowder, the mechanized infantry, and every other technological weapons advance. They're not dying, just becoming esoteric and hard to find one with quality.

There will always be traditional martial arts instructors like in my system, who do not teach to earn money or as a source of income but to pass down the complete system to the next generation because of the value it had in their own lives. They select from the people interested those who uphold their values and pass on more than just the techniques but also their own philosophies, experiences, and life-lessons.

If you can find an intact traditional martial art that was transmitted as a whole from one generation to the next then you can learn so much more of value than the techniques of the style. I'm the 7th generation of my style, which means what I've learned was the accumulated summary of the most important lessons, advice, and experience of 5 generations plus the valuable lessons modeled in my sifu's life. While I think the techniques are very good and effective, I am not trying to master this style because of it's fighting applications but because I want to pass on everything I learned from my sifu so my children and students carry on the lineage into the future.

A tradition with that kind of valent value to the students will never die.

Sorry, I wrote a book...

Traditional Marts are not dying per se as the others have focused on, but the training is... all over the place.

Thanks to the mcdojo of the world, the training has almost completely disappeared. The current training styles are nothing like they used to be in the honestly traditional schools. This really can be attributed to by the 'want it now' mindset, and by the getting 'something for nothing' mindset. Both mindsets lead to (for impact sake) crappy instruction, and crappy quality of the art they are trying to learn or pass on.

People think they can pay $1,000 for a weekend seminar that guarantees them full-proof protected from any criminal advances, and they pay it. The issue people aren't understanding, mainly because they aren't told (thanks to great advertising) is they have a LIFETIME of instinctive reactions that they will revert to when forced under pressure. A 'weekend' of training consists of a few hours sitting while an instructor talks about situational awareness, and then they practice a few moves to take home with them so they FEEL better. Then while home a week or so later, a would be aggressor comes after them and they cringe and shriek and curl up in a ball instead of using what they were taught. So much for that $1,000 being a worthwhile expense.

Now, that individual will spew propaganda based on the uselessness of traditional martial arts, or any type of self defense class.

This same type of circumstance happens within the 'traditional martial art schools'. The students only learn kata for example, and never learn how to think in the mindset of the kata, or move in the nature of the kata. They never learn the techniques within kata that train these concepts. When they spar its the ridiculous slam dancing from fifty feet away. How on Earth can a person learn to defend themselves properly when they train this way?

The problem here lies in the first two mindsets I mentioned. These drive up insurance costs, breed uneducated people determining what is safe and what is extreme, propagate the 'my baby is too delicate for that' ideology, etc etc. That keeps the training from what it should be to what it is.

As far as the mainstream is concerned that is what is happening to traditional martial arts and their respective training methods... (They are dying) However, that is only in the popular mainstream culture, which traditional martial arts are NOT a part of. Traditional martial arts were always a system in the dark, trained in secrecy, and with a moral and social attitude of being honorable and just.

Whether we'd like to admit it or not, morality and spirituality being taught alongside martial arts is not something new, and only recent of the 19th century. These ethical codes have been around since the early recordings of martial arts, (at least in the Asian systems). The martial arts were always connected with a religion, be it Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, etc and as such had moral codes to adhere to. This part of the training is also fading back into obscurity.

The sport of MMA may have closer training methods in learning to defend oneself to that of the olden days, but it is (as previously mentioned) nothing new. It is just brought into the mainstream eye. This sport has done good (in it's crazed growth from a brutal 'prove it' match in '93 of any size any style to what it is now) of calling out the mcdojo of the world. This is something that 'we' traditional martial artists have been huffing and puffing about for decades. I personally am very glad of that fact, and hope it continues, but in a well monitored state. Unfortunately, the rest of the world, (the one that does not practice any form of martial art) is led by propaganda, and is so incredibly gullible that they believe the mcdojo to be all martial arts, and they believe the mma sports to be the 'true' ways of learning self defense. Thus 'traditional martial arts' are a waste of time, and mma gym and training is the way to go.

How sad and wrong (yet in some ways absolutely correct) they are about this situation. YES, those mcdojo are a complete waste of time, energy, and money. Yes, most mma gyms have better training methods... NO, that is nothing new, and nothing better than training in the correct traditional manner.

Maybe, thanks to all of this wonderful propaganda, people... the gullible public, will begin to think, and they will realize that nothing good can be gotten without hard work, and hard work performed in the right way. Maybe, this will pull people out of those mcdojo, and force them to close down; or maybe it will force them to adjust and better their training methods.

Well I think it has been dying long before now but actually I think transitioning or changing is a better word for it and maybe not for the better in some ways. Of course most everything changes in life and certainly youth has in this country as well as many other countries. Traditional martial arts (TMA) has in large part given way to the commercialized, health and welfare side of the martial arts craze of the 90s so that it is harder now to find a program that is traditional in nature and adheres to the high standards that martial arts used to. Instructors that follow the old way and refused to change their programs and schools to such watered down dribble have aged, retired and no longer teach in many cases except to a select few or have died taking their skills, knowledge, and hard earned ability with them.

Newer, watered down instructors have taken their place, in shopping centers usually in their multicolor, sweat suit looking uniforms trying to teach and motivate students that think coming to class for an hour twice or three times a week will give them great skill, knowledge, and ability. Most students don't care to devote much more effort or time than that as they might have to give up golf or video games and what is even crazier is that they pay more for watered down training over the real thing much of the time.

So martial arts has really transitioned and TMA has been largely replaced by what I refer to above for some of those reasons and all things do change really when you think about it. There was just a question I answered this morning about boxing and the lack of legitimate boxing programs out there. That trend started a long time ago as other sports became more popular and now most youth, young adults and adults look for traditional sports and things like aerobics, spinning, and cardio boxing and cardio kick boxing now for fitness and exercise. That is not all bad though as most of them could not cut it in a real boxing gym or real TMA school and I send them down the road to the fluff and puff place if they are not cut out for my school.

How far this all transitions and causes TMA to shrink even more is hard to say but this trend has been happening for some time now. Balance this and the way people view things and how hard they want to work at something, how much time they are willing to commit to it, and their reasons for taking it against some of the things common in TMA training at a high level like time commitment, sweat, hard work, maybe a little pain and physical discomfort at times, and other aspects really also puts TMA in this situation also to some extent. Will it die completely? I don't think so but I do think it will become very hard to find and even less common than what it is now.

The easiest way to learn golf like a pro is by following "The Simple Golf Swing" program. It's primarily a 31 page eBook that teaches golfers how to make solid contact with the ball, how to avoid hitting fat, how to avoid slicing, how get more power, accuracy, and consistency in your swing. Consistency being the number 1 golf skill.

You not only get the eBook though, you also receive a ton of extra material including video, lessons on putting, driving, chipping, sand play etc. Here is their official site: http://www.golfswingguru.net/

Traditionally, some people trained to fight, some didn't. Some people sparred a lot and focused on high percentage, effective techniques. Some people just did forms and theory boxed behind the safe walls of their kwoon.

How is that any different than today?

The thing about it is, "traditionalists" don't realize they are in fact the anomaly. Truly traditional martial artists, trained a lot like the "modernists" do today.

I think its in trouble, but I don't think its going to die completely. I think a mix of the economy and just the MMA uprising, is gonna close down alot of traditional schools. But I think traditional styles will always be around, because people still see validity in them.

I don´t think so.

MMA have better marketing, but that´s the way their business work, that´s all.

Remember TMA are not exactly new, and they have survived currents of modern clones. They will exist as long as there´s people who value complete growth. (physical and moral)