Tag: civ

Viewing 1 - 4 out of 4 Blogs.

I had this question asked of me recently:

"Curious situation, I find that in sparring I am better able to deal with orthodox, skilled fighters rather than raging brawlers who throw flurries.

In a technical sense brawlers are easy to deal with but when it actually comes to going at it I'm thrown off by such a chaotic and aggressive style. I can handle them but it always throws me for a loop at first and it takes awhile to get my bearings and deal with that strategy. The punches thro... Read More

I’ve often heard it said that while modern “mixed martial arts” type tournaments (including UFC and Pride) are not real fighting, they are “about as @#$% close as you can get”.

It is certainly true that these sports (which I shall collectively label “MMA”) have a far higher level of “intensity” than many traditional martial arts. And by reference to “intensity” alone, MMA is clearly closer to real fighting than, say, a taekwondo competition. Taekwondo competition... Read More

Introduction

It was in the late '80s in South Africa where I first heard my teacher Lao Tze Bob Davies describe what he taught as a "civilian defence system". At the time I paid little attention. It seemed nothing more than another variant on the term "self-defence", perhaps with some extra resonance because of its contrast with the military training undertaken by conscripts in the apartheid regime's armed forces. However over the intervening years I have had occasion to consider this... Read More

I have often been confronted with the argument from modern or eclectic martial artists that karate or other traditional martial arts are deficient because they use what I call "blocks" [ie. parries or deflections] as their primary means of defence rather than purely evasion (as in boxing).

[In relation to the effectiveness of blocks, note my article "Why blocks DO work".]

As I said recently on the fightingarts.com forum, it seems that the above article has at least shifted the deba... Read More