Although much of his review on the layout of my book may be spot on; I was amazed at his blatant ignorance in not knowing the difference between combative training and martial arts.
If you take some sort of martial arts class for any period of time; that is worth anything; eventually you may learn half of the techniques in the book.
Distinguishing the difference Before one can truly distinguish between a martial art or combative training, they must reflect upon the origin of today’s practiced martial arts.
The term “Martial art”, refers to a war like art; with martial referring to war.
It is true that ages ago during the conception of today’s martial arts, the countless numbers of systems and styles were born from military drills and close quarters battle of the time.
Through out generations and over the centuries the ancient arts have been passed from master to student and master to student.
Many practice the ancient martial arts for a plethora of reasons.
After World War II, the west was introduced to the Asian martial art craze.
Many of the indigenous instructors or gurus realized the opportunity to make a buck from the naive westerners and began teaching watered down versions of the fighting arts.
Today there are martial art companies that place their clients on programs known as “Black belt plans.” People are forced into contracts that they can not afford to breach for a certain amount of time until they receive their black belts.
Today the sport of Mixed Martial Arts has proven that the martial arts of old are obsolete to even today’s modern training methods.
The MMA athletes of today , that hold no belt in any martial art would dominate over more than half of the practitioners of traditional martial arts.
In essence it is the tradition itself that makes many martial arts training methods in effective and inefficient.
The two men realized that they needed to develop a system for training or ideology of training that would enable masses of troops with no prior experience in martial arts to learn hand to hand combat quickly in a matter of days, not the years often required by martial arts training.
Today’s combatives are often known for the dirty fighting aspect, not found in traditional martial arts.
It is for many of these reasons that combative training stands far apart from traditional martial arts.
In summary The traditional martial arts, practiced today was actually the combative training for the military of it’s time.
The world is not as spiritually guided or involved with mysticism as it was during the time traditional martial arts were conceived.
The once effective combative techniques of their time, have evolved into an art form surrounded in mystique and the legends of old; enhanced by modern media.
Simple general Principles must be taught – Must not rely on power or athleticism – The focus is on destroying whatever the principal comes into contact with – Efficiency and economy of motion – Be able to be learned and applied in a very limited amount of time In conclusion Combatives training today most definitely contains many of the techniques that one will learn in the traditional martial arts if they attend classes for any period of time.
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