"it's a serious martial art"
It may be a serious, and quite cool, sport. But i don't think something that has zero real world practicability or application falls under the banner of a "martial art".
It may be a serious, and quite cool, sport. But i don't think something that has zero real world practicability or application falls under the banner of a "martial art".
This is one of the major reasons why "practical" martial arts, such as Krav Maga, have become so popular in recent years. It doesn't mean the less practical arts are not "arts," or are somehow not "martial." The history of martial arts is a history of the militaries, weapons, circumstances, etc., that have given rise to the need for formalized combat styles throughout the world. In feudal Japan, for instance, it was probably a very helpful and practical thing to be well-versed in the art of the samurai sword. In present-day Japan, a bit less so.
Some martial arts are practical in 2015. Some martial arts were practical in 1915, and some were practical in 1515. Circumstances change. The stuff people wear, or carry around with them everyday, or bring into a combat zone, change pretty quickly and dramatically. And of course, some martial arts have never really been practical at all, being used mainly for ceremony, discipline, and lifestyle.
I would hope so! If an average, everyday person needed to deploy martial in more than 1 out of every 10,000 of their normal, everyday circumstances, it would be a very sad state for humanity :)
There are many reasons why this is the case. I'll go over two or three of them. First, many of these martial arts were developed a very long while ago, in very different eras, with very different combatants in mind. Second, many of these martial arts are actually "staged" versions of real combat. If you're a karate master, for instance, you are mostly trained on how to fight combatants also using karate, who've been taught the same moves, the same stances, and the same patterns. Or, at least, you assume they've learned similar variants. Now, in a bar fight with a drunk, who's maybe got a few pounds on you, and is going to come out fighting irrationally and unpredictably, all of your karate staging, and your karate timing, and your karate pattern-seeking flies right out the window. Your mind will be addled by adrenaline. Your reflexes will be clumsy and jittery. You won't have time to think. If you've received very formal training, you may well panic and forget it.
Modern arts are a lot less formal, because many of them were designed with modern fights in mind——be it a close grapple with an enemy soldier on a battlefield, or a standoff against an aggressive assailant in a dark alley.
Full disclosure: I'm a 99-pound pencilneck who couldn't take your grandmother in a fist fight. I trained in karate to a fairly high level as a young teenager. To this day, I harbor no illusions that my karate will do anything for me, other than earn the occasional Daniel LaRusso joke.
Tell that to aikido...
1: even those of who were black belt
It's like saying someone can take a class and earn some networking certificate, and from that point on they are an undeniable expert in networking. Of course that's ridiculous; that certificate is meant to certify a basic level of knowledge that is enhanced through experience, not complete mastery.
I don't know if it's true, but it's a nice image.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_belt_%28martial_arts%29#O...
The downsides of aikido as a practical style are the same as many of the more intricate/interesting martial arts: they are far from including a complete set of skills for real fights, and it takes much longer to be proficient enough with their intricate techniques to actually use them than it does to get competent in train-by-actually-doing-it styles like boxing, judo, wrestling, etc.
Aikido does have the added disadvantage that being entirely defensive in nature, you only learn to defend against the level of attack you train with. Unsurprisingly, people who train in an entirely defensive style don't attack well without outside influence, which can lead to unfortunate delusions like being able to "catch a punch" that would last approximately one session training with anyone skilled in any decent striking style.
"Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practices, which are practiced for a variety of reasons: self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, entertainment, as well as mental, physical, and spiritual development."
I guess it's hard for you to understand the value of physical health, entertainment, mental, physical and spiritual development. This is something that people in these boards should value a lot more, and that can have a huge impact in your life.
Sorry for the long reply, but your comment made me feel sad for you.
Only you take the time to belittle me based off 2 sentences.
In the same vein as you presume to proscribe to the rest of the board that they need to lead better lives, i ask you to please try and lead a more compassionate life. :)
My comment was -indeed- actually trying to be educative, at least it was my goal.
In my phrase I should have stated that I was referring to many people that spend most of the day in boards like this one, I made a mistake and generalised in my statement.
> "This is something that people in these boards should value a lot more"
should be:
> "This is something that a lot of people in these boards should value a lot more".
"so ignorant it makes me sad" - yes it was ignorant, as i admitted and explained in why i used the wording i did, and certainly not an ignorance i cling to, so the sad part just comes across as a holier-than-thou ad hominem
"I guess it's hard for you to understand" - that phrase in its own is pretty bad
"I guess it's hard for you to understand the value of physical health, entertainment, mental, physical and spiritual development." - i had just come from the gym, don't think i need to say more to that
"This is something that people in these boards should value a lot more" - who says i don't, i didn't even say it was worthless
"sorry ... your comment made me feel sad for you." - both a non-apology and a needless ad hominem
Edit: I love how the downvotes on this only serve to demonstrate how some parts of this community actively loathe discourse in dialogue.
By "Hacker News" I presume you mean news that hackers find interesting? In which case, that is your answer.
If I imagine the internet usage of the visitors of hackernews as a enormous Venn diagram with each visitor his own circle, these type of articles allow me to look beyond the border of my own circle into the circles overlapping mine most, allowing me to expand my circle.