Why do people believe that studying martial arts alone is helpful in a fight?

"I'm not trying to be a dick or anything but martial arts nowadays won't help you in a fight."

Boy when guys like you get going about things they really don't have much knowledge about......

I won't take time to try to change your mind. It seems that you have it made up already. You come here ranting and trying to convince people that you have it all figured out. I guess you think that young people are smarter than than older, more experienced, people? If that is so then how come your cell phone, Ipad, and all the other things we all rely on were created by us older guys?

As for your long rant, I'll only comment on a few of the things you said....

"There's no way you can learn a couple fancy moves and expect to be able to handle yourself against everyone."

We don't study, do or recommend anything that could be called "fancy moves". That is the way young uninformed people think and what they think martial arts are. We do practical self-defense. No fancy techniques, jumping kicks, spinning kicks,....etc.

"Especially nowadays where being a black-belt doesn't mean you're good at your martial art it just means you've been training for a couple years at least."

This is the only thing you said that is correct. Having a black belt does not mean that you can fight well. It means only that you have (or at least should have) learned the basics. You may not be very good at them...

"You can be 5'6 and still become a black-belt but physics and common sense will still dictate everyone bigger than you will still have an advantage."

Here again you are off the ball...... you can try to apply this logic as if life and the martial arts all are governed by some universal rules that are are always exactly right. As if we were talking about math. In math something is correct, or it is not. Life is not something that works like that.

I happen to be 5'6" and 57 years old. Yet I have many times beaten people that are bigger, and stronger than I am. Skill, timing, distance, leverage, knowledge of the bodys weak points,.....and a thousand other things all can and often do effect the outcome of any fight.

NOTE: I certainly don't tell people that learning a martial art will make them invincible. Nothing will. But before you spend the rest of your life believing the uninformed stuff you have been spouting, I suggest you find a truly good martial artist and go pose your questions to them. I'm sure that many of the old timers in the martial arts, like myself, would be happy to show you that you are very work in your beliefs. By the way, i live North of Atlanta in Cumming, GA. you are welcome to come see what you have not seen before. If you ask , I'm sure that many of the other old timers here will be glad to tell you where they live. Perhaps you can go see one of us.

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Seriously, you have a wrong view in your life, you had been blinded by the correct points of the term Martial Arts, I am telling you that such words or what you said in your post is not enough to convince someone that what they did is wrong or what we do is not correct, every practitioner has his own reasons, aim, interest, objectives, goal and purpose why he intent to train in Martial Arts, because what's more you can take if you are a smaller person and not having any skills and knowledge in Martial Arts, then what's his chances to survive if ever he encounter an opponent that is much bigger than him, what a mess it would be that in survival situation, you will think of many ways to escape but you cannot seen any hole, because you don't have enough tools to use against an attacker.

But, didn't you think that Martial Arts is not just about physical abilities, there are many factors that covers it, it will make certain person physically and mentally fit, knowing the many meanings and enough understanding of the terms respect, discipline, right attitude and good behavior will certain realize the gap between trouble and peaceful nature, and what matter most is satisfaction and contentment in life, because passion is something that makes a person enjoyed a lot on what he is doing.

Human body is like a glass that needs extra care, there are many weaknesses and flaws in human parts, knowing and studying those will only attain if you train on the right place, a legit Martial Arts practice area that will let you know some important things related to Martial Arts, having a qualified instructor on, will let you guided accordingly and it will let you meet your expectations for being their, no matter how big certain person is or how small a guy is, if he knows what to do and not to do, then having enough confidence will give him many chances to endure and stay alive, survival is another issue that only with enough abilities can have it.

Having a well just like you said is like a person driving a boat on the middle of the ocean, he don’t have any compass or guide that will tell him where to go and what direction they must choose to pursue.

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We all know that you aren't trying to be anything. But you rant is based upon pure ignorance. I agree with pugspaw that the only state you almost have correct is that having a black belt doesn't mean you are good at you art. If you have a black belt after a couple of years you haven't earned one. You just paid for it.

I'm about 5'7. I have only have confrontations with much larger guys. That was before or after I began training. Larger guys are no problem. Weight class are made for fairness in sport. That has nothing to do with self defense. When I was still competing I always fought a minimum of 2 weight classes above my weigh. I even once fought a guy that was well over 200 when I was 95lbs and beat him. But that was tournaments. In the dojo we fought everybody. There are no weight classes in the dojo. You must be prepare to take on all sizes.

To some martial arts may be a hobby. To others it is a way of life. Others have their own reasons for studying. My hobby is showing and training dogs. Martial arts are a way of life for myself.

If you study physics since you mentioned it you should have learned that size is overcome by the laws defined in physics such as leverage or in martial arts term knowledge and applied techniques. There are certain principles that are in effect that no what you do or how big and strong you are you can easily be taken down to size. I suggest you take another physics class and pay attention this time.

I have to disagree with you in principle and I can offer several examples of where a smaller, weaker individual or even a women dropped someone bigger and stronger when they needed to. Does that happen every time? No, of course not but one of the things good martial arts training gives them is more of a chance than what they would have otherwise.

The other thing about this is that in some of these situations you don't need to necessarily physically dominate the other person but instead just hurt them enough to give you a chance to get away so that they can't physically dominate you.

I do agree that there are few reasons to risk your life in general and so awareness and avoidance should always be employed so that you minimize the chances of being caught in a situation. Even when I carried a concealed firearm as part of my duties I did that and still do today.

In closing there are many paper tigers out there given the level and quality of training that most receive these days in watered down schools and programs. However don't lump everyone into that category as I know a number of people who really are anything but that. While martial arts still gives them no guarantees, or anyone for that matter, they are extremely tough, capable individuals who are quite capable of defending themselves and are a step above those that you probably had in mind when you posted your question.

Contrary to your statement, studying martial arts IS helpful. However, that doesn't mean you become invincible. It's HELPFUL in the sense that you'd be better off studying martial arts than if you had no training at all.

There's also many factors that determine advantage, and advantage doesn't ever guarantee the outcome of a fight. Physique, technique, available resources, situation, etc all factor into a fight. And just because one person has an advantage doesn't necessarily mean they will win. Because anything can happen in a fight (such as a lucky knockout punch) that can determine the outcome of a fight regardless of advantages one person may have other the other.

"So in conclusion, if you're practicing a martial art without taking weight-lifting conditioning then please avoid confrontation with people who are noticably bigger and stronger than you, you're not a warrior you're just a hobbyist, there's no reason to risk your life and get seriously injured."

A reasonable person and a good martial artist will avoid confrontation as much as they can regardless of size difference. You make it sound like martial artists go around picking fights with bigger people all the time.

By the way, if you have enough superiority in technique, you can compensate for lack of size. For this and other reasons, there are competitions (such as the Kyokushin Karate World Championship Tournament) that does not have weight classes.

Maybe you should get alil training before u decide to go ranting about this subject. Martial arts were never designed to teach you how to fight. They were ment to give you tools to use in a fight. The only way to learn how to fight is to fight! Thats why sparring and competion is so important to the fight world. Weight training does not help u fight better itslightly makes it easier to wrestle with someone. Lifting weights doesnt make u hit harder. Thoughs "FANCY MOVES"are tools just like everything else in martials arts and can and will be applied in a suited situation. I have seen lots of real big strong weight lifters get stomped in a cage fight or on the streets. The key to being a good fighter is your attitude. Being big and strong dont mean anything when somebody breaks your nose. There are weight classes because if u get 2 fighters of the same skill thats when strength becomes important. Watch royce gracie at UFC 1 as proof that size doesnt matter.

Well the "do" art that I have trained in for over 35 years, Shito-ryu and those I trained under was very closely associated with the idea and need for a "jutsu" art and so they always encouraged training and studying that as well. Many "do" arts did not take that approach back then and I think I was lucky and fortunate to find those people in Shito-ryu after first studying Shotokan for several years. It did not hurt that I had already also studied Judo as a child and saw a need for both ground fighting as well as stand-up fighting capabilities if a person was going to be a complete martial artist in my mind also. Of course many stand-up or "do" arts now include more "jutsu" and or teaching those aspects in their arts to make their students more capable and well rounded. However that was not the case in the late 60s and early 70s in most stand-up arts as I stated earlier. I think its great that they do now and the mark of a good instructor among other things is that they are well rounded and well versed in their art in total-not just those stand-up aspects. They must of course be willing to learn and train in those aspects as well in order to teach and coach others in those aspects and some are. The only bad side to it is that you still have some that don't and will only focus on and teach the stand-up or "do" aspects of their art and really don't know what they are doing when addressing and teaching the "jutsu" aspects. Then of course the teaching is not so good in some ways but it in some ways might still be better than nothing especially if we are talking about self-defense and if a technique saves a student from being assaulted. I think also some of all this has also brought about a resurgence in TMA and some people now understanding that some "do" arts always had a "jutsu" aspect to them which was not taught maybe, or as heavily emphasized as it is now.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Size and strength are a secondary factor, as is conditioning. Of course, to be the best you can be, you need some fitness training. I bike and do core strength work. However, by far, the most important stuff I do is my TKD work, because it not only boosts my skill level, but it builds endurance and strength.

Your whole argument is based on a false assumption.. Smaller, well trained guys take down, larger, less well trained attackers all the time. Now, I'm not that small, but I work out with friends who are. They are really good. In a life or death situation, not MMA or some other situation with rules limiting what you can do to stop the other guy, a well trained small person can chop a big guy down with one strike.

This is a typical external point of view, emphasizing size, strength, and speed. It's sort of obvious that the asker here lacks significant sources of information and is limited to only high school and collegiate wrestling where size, strength, and speed plays a disproportionate part in who is crowned the victor. One guy in my dojo was always looking for ways to beat bigger people, because of his experience losing in wrestling matches back in school. So his solution was weapons, any kind, to balance the playing field and he stopped training in martial arts H2H because he thinks H2H sucks if you are a smaller guy against a bigger guy. Given his experiences, that's true for him. But it's only true because he dropped out of several martial art styles before he ever got to the "advanced" soft applications, and had never seen the hard applications of internal arts whatsoever.

Lack of experience does not dictate that your world view is the truth, however.

Well, it makes it easier for me all in all, if people continue to believe in the external philosophy of size, strength, and speed. It makes people easier to beat.

90% of people don't know how to fight to begin with. They shouldn't be taking anything and thinking they can fight, period. I would say there is no more than 1 per 10 million people on this planet that knows how to train a complete newbie in a short time to allow them a fair chance of winning a fight, and even fewer who can teach them to survive or defeat an enemy in a deathmatch. Weight lifting is not going to help any students out of this little statistical issue.

The kind of person you are unfamiliar with is the individual that has gained a significant amount of battle experience (where there is no fighting, simply who lives and who dies at the end), that have combined their experience with martial arts knowledge and training. You have never met that kind of person before. Thus it is one of those "unknown unknowns" in your world view, that your strength based training cannot account for.

As they say, seeing is believing.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=wolverine+vs+b...

If you like animals, watch that carefully and then look up wolverines. They are small, yet there's a reason why larger animals don't try to chase them down and kill them. Because a small animal like that only has two choices in a fight. Kill or be killed, thus there's no playing around. When you are up against a small person, male or female, and they have survived many fights, there's a reason why they have survived and their larger opponents have not. Find that reason and you'll realize where you made your mistake.

How long did you stay awake to figure out a statement that wrong?

You are wrong in so many things I don't know where to start. I never lifted weights in my life, and I am tall, but slightly built. As a bouncer for years, I never had any trouble handling weight lifters, and jocks who could not figure how the hell I could handle them so easily. Simple answer, many years of karate.

Yes I avoid confrontation. When it doesn't avoid me I deal with it decisively. Hope you can learn this before you confront a real martial artist.

Your profile claims "truth and logic" but you avoided both in this question. Way to be a hypocrite..