>martial arts won't help
This is patently false and completely ridiculous. Someone who is trained to take and give a hit will always have a significantly better chance in a fight.
This is patently false and completely ridiculous. Someone who is trained to take and give a hit will always have a significantly better chance in a fight.
The winner is most often the person more inclined to inflict damage on the other combatant. The idea that you are worried about hitting and being hit means you are still operating in some sort of a rules-based sphere. This is why martial-arts isn't really taught to soldiers beyond a few "look how you can do this" training sessions.
The ultimate combatant is the person that sees the weapon within arms reach that will end the fight - permanently. Most people never achieve this level of death dealing, because it's a really, really abnormal way to operate.
Needless to say, my classwork improved after that conversation. I jest, but he was quite intense.
I cannot stress enough how true this is. The person willing to take it the farthest, up to and including killing you, is the person that will win that fight.
As for martial arts not being taught to soldiers, what do you call Krav?
Fighting is about winning but survival is about... surviving, and anything goes. Survival is dirty, in the sense that if you think it's going to be a fight you will only realize he had a knife when the damn thing is already between your ribs or whichever side you momentarily forgot to leave less protected. Survival is something where you will get injured, bleeding and body parts disjoint very quickly; most often both of you do, and running like hell is often the best way to survive: in a war that might not always be an option, though.
Of course, that is, assuming it started as a one-on-one situation and ended as one, too.
Of course, it is rare to come across a situation in any martial art where your training opponent will be resisting 100%, the way a real opponent would on the street.
However, there are some martial arts where opponents do give a significant amount of resistance both during training and in competition. I have heard the claim made that this factor makes the students of these other arts more ready for real survival situations than something like Krav Maga.
That said, I agree that simulating twisting the weapon out of someone with a gun pointed at your forehead with a fully extended arm might lead to a boost in confidence, but not so much of a boost in survival rates. I'd still argue that your chances are better with techniques fine-tuned for the streets, rather than the ring.
You will train against resisting opponents. You will train against multiple resisting opponents simultaneously. Then you will train against opponents with plastic knives and guns.
You are taught things like 'If your opponent is on the floor - keep kicking him - because then you look like a psycho and nobody wants to fight a psycho'.
And you'd be surprised at how many hits a fat, untrained drunk man can take and dish out, especially once adrenaline kicks in...
(using Bruce Lee because he is internationally famous, but assume I mean any world-renowned, elite trained multi-dimensional fighter)
The person still needs to be trained how to use a knife in combat. Have you ever stabbed anybody? (I haven't) but it seems obvious that it would be a lot harder than you'd think. (what is the proper grip? how do you thrust, how not to break your wrist, obviously can't go lunging blindly because if you miss your momentum carries you to a defenseless position... lot's of things going on here)
We saw it play out recently. Remember Kimbo Slice? If you don't, he used to post videos of him beating the crap out of regular dudes in street fights for money. He became a legend. People were saying he was unstoppable. He went to the UFC based on that and lost just about every major match he was in. Why? Because he doesn't train for the various martial arts the way even the lowliest fighter does there. He's currently in boxing, now, and likely will be back fighting normal people in the street for 500 bucks again.
Seriously, you think guys who train 8 hours a day in Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu aren't going to be good at beating you up? You think some street thug would rough up Junior Dos Santos or Anderson Silva? They would KILL the common man, likely in short order. A broken glass would just make them more careful about it (and piss them off even more).
This isn't even to say if Silva grabbed a glass, too. Then what?
This is how a pub fight does down: you go to the gents, and a bunch of guys pile in after you. None of them can fight on a martial arts sense but it doesn't matter, there's no room anyway for fancy high kicks. They drag you to the floor and stomp on you 'til you stop moving. Then they go back into the bar, calmly finish their drinks, and quietly leave.
The true martial artist sense trouble brewing, phones a taxi to come right to the front door of the pub, and gets straight into it.
And, why is it always in hypotheticals that the trained guy is going to sit there doing katas and flowery BS belt presentation moves? I can't think of a martial art that doesn't practice (at one level or another) dirty, close-quarters, and stick-n-move fighting. You can always tell a skilled fighter vs drunken haymakers, which looks alot like this:
A broken bottle is probably not as dangerous as you may think. A knife, you are probably going to get cut but your attacker will fair far worse. A gun becomes less useful the closer an attacker is, during something like a mugging, they are typically very close.
But, even when learning how to deal with an attacker with a knife or gun, any decent instructor will tell you the best response is just to give them what they want and get out of there. It is the same as when engaging in just a fist fight, it is more a matter of 'is this worth it' or 'do I have a choice here' rather than 'can I take this guy'.
I think that training was mostly useless, some nerd in a dojo attacking you in a predetermined way with a plastic bottle while you do "hip throw #3" is going to be very different to a real fight.
All the judo skills in the world aren't going to help you when a guy 100 meters away tears a plate-sized hole in your back with Mr. 5.56.
I think some people here underestimate what kind of preparation regular, twice a week, hour and a half long training for a year or two can provide. Many brawlers train martial arts as well, but if your enemy is not one of them, he will not have spent anything near that amount of time on deliberate practice.
On the other hand, martial arts are not much of an use if there's more than one enemy. Sure, you may be able to take out one of them, but the second one will not wait gladly for his turn.
My point? To paraphrase Han Solo: "Hokey religions and hand-to-hand are no match for a good blaster at your side ..."
Well, not quite. But that was too fun not to use.
The argument was that as someone trained in martial has significantly better chance than someone that isn't.
Depends on your definition of 'trained': attitude is everything.
A guy can be a trained martial artist, kick-ass in tournaments and still loose big in a fight because - away from the mat - he utterly lacks the will to fight.
My point - I guess this goes back to Mr. Solo - is that martial arts are great and all but it's way to easy to fool yourself that you're capable of kicking ass, but you're not.
Especially if you're facing off against a guy with a gun.
Which are pretty much available to anyone in the US, where I live.
Well of course, and a guy with a gun may still lose to a kid if he tries to operate it with his feet. In other words -- I don't accept your premise. If he has no will to fight, he will not fight. If he is forced to fight, he's at least no worse than someone who's not trained.
People trained in martial arts are more than capable of kicking ass, because, well, that's the whole point of martial arts. I suggest you to go to the martial arts training and see for yourself what kind of fight can trained people give.
And the whole gun talk only proves the fact that if you live in US, you're fucked and nothing can help you.