just out of curiosity... who studies martial arts here? also, please respond with what style you study and how long you have been studying. let's not let this turn into "my style is better than yours" because there's no such thing.

i'll start things off... hung kuen, approx 4 years active.

Oh I am glad you created this thread! I've been curious to see who all studies martial arts! I think there are probably a lot who do. As I mentioned before I am in Wing Chun Kung Fu.


Any other "chunners" around?

Good topic :)

I studied a little of judo and Jeet Ki Do. It's a laotian martial art, was created in 1940 by Nguyen Luxuha Xuam and developed in Thailand and Japan. It's a synthese of traditional Jeet-Ki-Do, JEET-KI-DO Vo-Lag-Hong-Dao, MO-THOÏ, JEET-KI-JITSU and JEET-TAI-CHI.

I have practiced karate Shotokan for 10 years,but I don't practice anymore.

Training for self-defence in a club is very different from self-defence in a street fight.Trainings and competitions require rules,and street fights don't;thus a black belt can be beaten and even killed by someone who has never practiced martial arts.What lacks about trainings in clubs is self-defence against sticks,knives,etc..I mean that the most important aim of martial arts is being able to face any dangerous situation/any kind of weapons/white weapons.I am not sure that trainings in almost all martial arts clubs are fit for real street fights.

First of all,

Not everyone trains in martial arts just so they can "street fight".


Second of all, how practical of self-defense training one receives depends on the teacher. Training at my school has definitely given me better skills to get away from an attacker.

Plus, I enjoy learning the forms and the whole "art" aspect.



Oh and by the way, at my club we do practice weapons and defense against knives, sticks, etc.


However, you want to know what the best defense is?


Avoiding dangerous situations and running! Your best defense is always to run away.

KungFuGirl, you rock. i agree with everything you said.

i just want to add some things... sibor, you said
the training for self-defense you do in a club should be the same self-defense in the street. also, the best self-defense is to not have to defend yourself. that applies in every situation, including when the fight has already started.

there are so many factors in any physical confrontation... just because someone has a black belt doesn't mean anything. yes, a black belt can be defeated by someone with no formal training... but someone with no formal training can be beaten by a black belt too. the color of the belt means nothing. techinique and training is not the most important thing. most important is courage. training in martial arts not only increases technique, it also increases strength and courage. most important is courage, next strength, next technique. that is a traditional expression in kung fu.

sibor, you are right in one thing though: most martial arts clubs do not provide adequate training. there are some that do though. obviously KFG found one, and i found one too. don't condemn all martial arts....

No, I don't condemn martial arts.
I criticize trainings in clubs.There are not enough trainings against weapons in clubs.Besides,trainings only concern the martial art of the club,that is kung fu vs kung fu or karate vs karate,etc.. well you know what I mean.

How often do you train against knives in your club for instance ? Every time or 2,3 or 4 times a year? How often do you practice full contact fights ? How often do you organize fights/competitions against disciples of other martial arts ? Have you ever been involved in a street fight ? An experienced black belt can be beaten by someone who is used to street fights because this black belt won't have been taught the real 'no rules/no style fight,and because the thug is used to street fights.

I've been in Tae Kwon Do for the past 6 years. I am a red belt now(like it means anything)..and I have started with Wing Chung.( the martial art in which Jet Li, Jakie Chan, and bruce lee have practiced)

sibor, hope you don't take this the wrong way because i don't mean to insult you. but here goes...:

I criticize trainings in clubs.There are not enough trainings against weapons in clubs.
in addition to the empty hand training and aside from the traditional southern chinese weapons (broadsword, staff, spear, butterfly knives, kwan-do), i also practice in stick fighting and knife fighting. the drills are from kali. the knife fighting we do is particularly messy. for those who train in knife fighting, you know what i mean by "messy."

trainings only concern the martial art of the club,that is kung fu vs kung fu or karate vs karate,etc.. well you know what I mean.
yes, i do know what you mean. but what goes on in your club isn't necessarily what goes on in my club. in my school, we don't just train "against kung fu." we don't really train "against" anything. we train to fight. it doesn't matter who or what style they do, or if they are just street fighting. the point is that we train to fight in a certain way, and if we are concerned with what the other person is doing, we don't fight the way we train to fight. maybe i don't describe it very well; tell me if i didn't make any sense.

How often do you train against knives in your club for instance ? Every time or 2,3 or 4 times a year?
2-3 times per week. does that mean i won't get cut if someone has a knife against me? no. it means that i have improved my chances to survive by a tiny bit. i'm very realistic about knife fighting. 99% of the time, the person with the knife will win, no matter how much training anyone has. that's just the nature of the blade. anyone with solid training in knife combat will understand.

How often do you practice full contact fights ?
full contact... not often. when i spar in class the only rules are: no groin strikes, no limb destructions, no eye strikes, no throat strikes. i spar in class about 2 days per week.

How often do you organize fights/competitions against disciples of other martial arts ?
i spar/practice/cross-train with my friends from tae kwon do, wing chun, lung ying, choy li fut, 7-star praying mantis, shotokan karate, goju ryu karate, judo, and one with no formal training, once a month. we spend 6-8 hours together that day.

Have you ever been involved in a street fight ?
yes.

An experienced black belt can be beaten by someone who is used to street fights because this black belt won't have been taught the real 'no rules/no style fight,and because the thug is used to street fights.
yes and no. in cantonese there is an expression: yut, daam. yee, lihk. saam, kung fu. it means: first, courage. second, strength. third, technique. the most important thing in a fight is courage. you have to have courage and aggression to win a fight. you can be very strong and have very good technique, but what good is either if you don't have the courage to use it in a fight. conversely, a person can be totally aggressive, totally crazy... and it doesn't matter if he doesn't have any good technique or isn't very strong... if he just wails about with his limbs flying all over the place, chances are he will cause some damage. i personally don't think someone needs to be taught that there are no rules in a street fight; i would think that's obvious. the only time you should be fighting in a street fight is to preserve your well-being or the well-being of your loved ones. if that's the case, you should do whatever is necessary.

girls in martial arts are soooooooo hot. big ups to sawatdee, vanessa, and kungfugirl. :thmbup:

vanessa, are you sure jet li trained in wing chun? as far as i know, he just trained in wushu with beijing wushu team. jackie chan trained in peking opera, and picked up a few different martial arts styles along the way. i've seen him free-style the wing chun wooden dummy in a movie (i think it was rumble in the bronx). his favorite martial art is actually a style called bak mei, which is a really cool style. bruce lee (much as i love him) never completed the wing chun system. he left for america before learning biu jee. william cheung is said to have taught it to him later.

what was my point? oh yeah... sawatdee, vanessa, kungfugirl...:

Sibor,

I'm very curious as to what happened to you!

You studied Karate for 10 years (!) which is a very long time. Yet, you denounce all martial arts.

So obviously something must have happened...


I'm curious! What happened? :blink:

i study karate-do a basic form, i used to do thai boxing.
Now i try to get in volved in many martiel arts. i learn lots of the philosphy,
diferent arts. right now i reading on many of bruce lee books, studying
jeet kun do (the way of the intercepting fist) i dont just learn about the moves but the way of life the state of mind how to improve one self. its really good and imbracing, you feel more confident when you walk the streets and not show your self off but keep it inside you and when trouble comes you now what to do not just fighting but in a daily life.

many styles have a set pattern such as karate im not saying its rubish but more
of a competition kind of fighting. you feel you want to express your self more
then what you are told to do. i sometimes see that in some martiel arts but there are no trouble learning new one's

i agree with you and kung fu girl, its really good to see some up lifting people here. its the whole piont of this site helping each other

so i was quickly skimming the "presentation" thread in the "talk about yourself" section, and i notice there are a lot of people here who study martial arts! where did you all go?

hi shafaan, looks like you've got your heart in the right place regarding training. it's not about being able to beat anybody up. most of the time, walking with confidence (but not arrogance) keeps trouble away. and like i keep saying, the best way to defend yourself is to not get into a dangerous situation.


shafaan, you're a little but right about that and a little bit wrong too. too many styles do train only for competition fighting instead of actual fighting. but you're wrong about a set pattern. that was a catch phrase bruce lee invented to turn people away from martial arts and make his jeet kune do more attractive to potential customers. true karate does not fight in set patterns. the kata you learn in karate are NOT how you fight in karate. the kata in karate, the "forms" in kung fu... they are the encyclopedias of the system. they contain the formula for drills and excercises, but they do NOT teach you how to fight.

kungfugirl, can you back me up on this? in wing chun, you can't extract a section of a form and just fight with it... but instead you can extract sections from a form and create a drill or an excercise that helps develop attributes used in fighting.

shafaan, in regards to your training, if i may suggest: when you sign up with a club, don't worry about what style you train in. look for a traditional teacher who doesn't hold secrets from his students. look for the best teacher you can find.

I'm pretty sure that they all had trained in wing chung. it started off as a martial arts specifically for women, in the fact that if they ever were attacked, by say, a man..that they would be able to defend themselves at close ranges. this art is deadly, but put into the hands of a man, them being phycially stronger would be twice as deadly. I think Donnie Yen also does this form of martial arts.

well, legend has it that wing chun was developed by a woman, first taught to a woman, named after a woman, etc... the validity of such is questionable. there is no doubt though that it is a highly efficient, highly effective style.

I took karate/jujutsu for two years, moved to jeet kune do for 1 year but stopped because the place they taught it was out of my area, I have taken tae kwon do for a very brief time because the place I used to train at was closed down by the landlord who wanted more money, And currently I'm learning the art of Krabi Krabong with my teacher every week. The weapons fight scene in the caves of ongbak is a perfect example of what i'm learning. I also practice at home the basic techniques of muay thai, and tae kwon do from a friend who is a black belt. Sometimes me and my friends mat spar. It was a great experience in training in many forms of martial arts.

I look forward to learning gymnastics and break dancing in the future so I could perhaps train hard like Tony Jaa does with his patented 360 flips and such. I wish I could be taught the proper technique of that fire kick. It would be awesome if he opened up his very own training instute because I would for sure be there.

I agree to the fact that even an experienced black belt (with no experience in real fight situations) can be beaten by an street fighter (with experience in real fight situations) who takes no martial arts. In other words, "just because a person is a black belt doesn't meant that they're invincible"- an old friend.

thank you for correcting me there and found some mistakes. but i said
fighting does not solve anything but keep it inside you. i see what
you meen

I think that is right. Anyway, it's hard to say what martial art is the most effective. Where as most Kung fu's seem to channel energy (chi) into one point, which is fatal in mostly hand strike. Where as martial arts such as Karate, Tae Kwon do, Muay Thai...focus more on what is in front, instead of what is behind.
What I mean is, it you ever watch old clips from when Bruce Lee was younger (they had to ask him to slow down his punches in order for them to catch it clearly on camera) he tends to direct his power behind his opponent. Don't get me wrong Muay Thai is an amazing art (I'm glad Tony brought it to the big screen, it's about time some new life stepped to the plate).

vanessa, i agree that there's no point in saying "which martial art is better" or anything like that. it's not really about the style, it's about the person who's doing it. how much effort does that person put into their training, etc...

you brought up a good point about focusing energy behind... here's my take on it: every person i have ever touched hands with always intends to land their punch/kick/elbow/whatever several inches below the surface/behind the target. this is simply fundamentally sound technique. tae kwon do, muay thai, karate, etc... they all do this. look at the muay thai roundhouse kick. that kick is certainly not a surface kick. that kick definitely penetrates the target. bata loop pak too... the foot contacts the face, but the target may as well be the back of the opponent's head! everyone i have ever touched hands with does the same thing.

vanessa, kfg, i'm sure you gals know who william cheung is... did you know that in the 80s he set the world record for most punches per second with something like 8.6 punches per second!! for those of you who don't know, william cheung is the current grandmaster of wing chun kung fu, and a former classmate of bruce lee. the story goes that william cheung actually taught bruce lee most of what he learned (they say yip man only taught bruce occasionally! who knows if this is true or not). william cheung is also said to have taught bruce biu jee and maybe the 108 wooden man form (the last 2 out of the 4 yip man wing chun hand sets).

danny, what is the training for krabi krabong like? is it anything like the trainging for kali? i would like to learn krabi krabong (obviously) but there's no school near me!!

Well, actually, I was more getting at the fact that Tae Kwon do, Muay Thai, karate etc. doesn't do that...they do not focus energy behind the target. But then again, what do I know, I have only studied TKD. I find with Kung Fu, there is more of inflicting harm on someone because the Chi is focused in on one particular spot(fatel points) and behind. In my years of TKD...nothing like that has ever been practiced.

After a short time training in Tang Soo Do in an attempt to rediscover my own 'roots' and channel my considerable energies, I found myself gravitating towards Kenpo Karate, after seeing what it was all about through Jeff Speakman's first movie. His Las Vegas camp director just so happens to teach not far north of me in Baltimore, and life's seemed larger ever since I signed up. Along the way, I attended a seminar given by Ajarn Chai Surisute (one of Muay Thai's leading proponents in the US), and had some previous exposure to Thai boxing principals growing up.


Without realizing it at the time, Kenpo is about the closest thing we have available in the US that approximates some of the original intent as classical Muay Boran. I think my bretheren in the sport Muay Thai community however, would appreciate Kenpo's scientific approach to kinesiological motion and completeness across a broader spectrum of fighting ranges.

I seem to be formulating a very similar outlook to Dan Inosanto- Bruce Lee's most prominent student, a black belt in Ed Parker's kenpo, a dear friend of Ajarn Chai, and a guest of our own summer camp last year. Absorb what is useful.

Larry Hartsell, one of Dan Inosanto's former students (JKD grappling) and himself a Parker kenpo black belt remarked I was one of the biggest Thais he ever met I do have Mon in my blood, not to mention being a corn fed American-born Thai. I'm around 6'2"/260 lbs. I know the best Thai fighters aren't suppose to be in the heavyweight categories, but it's still funny watching peoples' reaction when some one my size stomps the floor when sparring, as any good Thai would

To add to 2004's memories, my friend and I also happened to meet Russell Wong, of all people, while he was enjoying himself at the Bellagio hotel. This is the man whose voice can be found in True Crime: Streets of LA and who was selected by Rob Cohen (director of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story) & associates for the Vanishing Son series.

PS. Sorry if I barged in the middle of a conversation... :sad:

not at all, very interesting. you met Russel Wong? that's cool. I enjoy his acting, and martial art skills.

Hi Vanessa!

Yeah, Russell Wong was very personable; I've met a number of celebrities before-not all of them are friendly, but Mr. Wong struck me as a very good guy and I hope he has better luck with new projects.

Regarding your other observation, here's a quote from a book I have (Ninjas and Superspies, 1984-89)

"Without exception, (Thai boxing) is the world's deadliest martial art. Thai boxers have dominated the world's martial arts contests for years, forcing most other forms to adopt their training styles and techniques."

I don't know how true that really is, but judge for yourself on how the techniques look when an expert performs them. Are they mechanically sound? Is there much wasted motion? etc. For me, I see alot of the same thinking in kenpo, JKD/JFWC, Muay Thai- three arts with not a great deal in common technically, but very similar philosophically. Again, Dan Inosanto has experience with, and teaches, all three (and a number of other arts, at his place). The best choice is what works best for yu

T

Thai-ger: barged in? of course not! this is a forum, and your contribution is not only welcome, but intriguing as well! i'm actually pretty happy russel wong is a nice guy; i've always enjoyed his work. my hung kuen sifu studied kenpo for a while in his younger years... i can't remember with whom, but after he started studying hung kuen, he was surprised by the number of kenpo techniques that are actually within the hung kuen system. two of my cousins in thailand are over 6' (which makes me angry i got the less-than-six-foot gene), but both are considerably less than 200lbs... one of them is so thin he's probably my weight. hey, if you make it big in the heavyweight division, that'd be a great boon for thai people, so best of luck!

vanessa, i think i misunderstood you before. i follow you now, and i agree with you. as far as focusing energy goes, i don't know if they do or they don't. i was just talking about the physical strike itself. i'm not making a statement about all TKD here, but i know that many TKD schools focus on point-sparring and tournament fighting. in those schools, it would make sense if they teach their students to not penetrate the target. the intent there is not to injure, it's just to score a point.

i practice muay thai from 10 january 2005! i'm 24 y old and i'm from italy, byez

np...and I do agree with you on the point where TKD focuses on point sparring..it's almost...boxy...you know what I mean, it's almost like, you can see the move coming.
ps Chi scares the bjeebies outta me, haha. that is one element I would not want to play around with, even if you have been practicing it for ages, or new at it. It's still dangerous.

muaythai4life, welcome to the forum! what are your impressions of muay thai so far..? can you share with us a little about what you've learned in your first month in muay thai?

vanessa, don't be too scared of chi. it's good that you don't want to mess with it, if for no other reason than it's not wise to mess with anything like physical conditioning, breath-work, etc unless under the supervision of a qualified, skilled instructor. but i hope your fear of chi doesn't turn you off of kung fu. keep up with the wing chun by the way... i bet with your TKD background you've got some crazy kicks... if you adopt the wing chun principles you'll be punching way more than kicking, but you'll still be able to unload with a crazy kick if you wanted to.

well, to tell you the truth I only do martial arts to stay active....I do not believe in the spiritual part of it (Chi) . but that is my opinion. Many members of the Triads use Chi ..in a very distructive way, I've seen the damnage it can do, it's not pretty. I have also seen what it can do to the actual person it's self, scary. (my BF last room mate use to be in the Triads)

members of the triads aren't just focusing chi though. usually they're into san-da (which in this case does not mean chinese kickboxing... if you know what it means then good... if not, probably better that you don't know) and they smoke a lot of opium too hahaha! anyway, the handful of triads i've met would rather shoot you than fight you, so i've never seen any of them use their chi.

what were the triads doing up in nova scotia anyway? it's freakin cold there!!!

well, I think triads would rather kill you without being notices(like a gun would be too loud) or just give you a warning(kicking living crap out of you).
well not in Nova Scotia...more in Ottawa...be he is back in Hong Kong right now..I hope he is doing good for himself.

i guess they operate differently here. the thing in the movies where the traids or tongs would wipe out an entire restaurant to make a point...: that kind of thing did happen in new york chinatown decades ago. and a warning for someone was usually killing someone they cared about... or mutilating them.

new york chinatown is a lot more tame these days, but you just gotta watch your step. there are still a few buildings that you DON'T want to wander into.

anyway, what other martial arts styles are represented here?

I have learn ancient muaythai Stlye Chaiya With Master Preang

hello, deoz. i looked at your website-- looks awesome! can you tell us about what your training is like?

what you want to know ?

I want to see Deoz's website too! Where is the link?!? :blink:

hi deoz, well if you could elaborate a little on the footwork patterns, the drills that you do, hand technique drills, etc. maybe talk about your system a little... how much does it rely on kicks, punches, elbows, grappling, throws, joint locks, etc.

kfg, here's the link

you can ask all of this in the Webboard of my website at here

http://www.212cafe.com/freewebboard/list3....user=muaychaiya

Becuase My English is not good ^_^

just watch my nickname to find out if i like muaythai :P

i practice it only from one month.
in the gym, teacher teach us basically the ring thai-boxe, and sometimes little figures of muy thai- muay boran.

personally i like the most the martial art .
and i'm studyng myself it thru videos and thru the www.muaythai.com site

i watch a lot of fights on tv and my favourite are thailand fighters of course.

personally i got nervous when i see fighters who presents themselves as a muay thay fighters and the fight just with fists or in the wrong way.....

muay thai is muay thai, not kick boxing or boxe.........!!
:P

i've seen different names of same thai figures;
i read they have different names because teachers named them in a different way, is that right?

Different name comes from different schools.
Or we can say that it comes from different style.

Hold on.. you just hear "different style".. yes, I just said it.

Muay Boran actually has different styles depending on where it comes from: North, Center, North East, South, etc.. of the country.

But you know what. Different name somestimes meaning the same thing.
Rice in English and Gohan in Japanese both mean white grain that we eat.

Understand what I am saying?

Aha!! Thawan, Hung Kuen is five-animal gung fu, isn't it? No wonder your sifu recognized kenpo techniques in your system; Ed Parker's teacher William Chow is said to have re-incorporated five-animal style back into kenpo when he found that this otherwise 'Chinese' art tended to be devoid of circular movements for the purpose of 'Japanifying' it. Ed Parker later saw Chow's teacher Masayoshi(?) 'James' Mitose demonstrate the original kosho-ryu style of kenpo and agreed that Chow had made the right decision...

As I progress in kenpo, and perhaps if I learn any Muay Boran at some point, I probably won't be finding myself in a ring, as many techniques they are trying to teach as natural reactions would be forbidden. All the same, I still hope the world will come to know what it means when we say that a Thai warrior walked among them...

I read your other post back in the introductions forum. If you find yourself in the Washington, DC area, for the Wong tournament you mentioned or some other reason, I think it would be fun to meet. Unfortunately, our camp seems to coincide with your tournament schedule-wise, but as the Wong Jow Ga site has not been updated with new tourney info since 2002, maybe there is a chance...

OTOH, I've always wanted to play pool at the Amsterdam Billiards Club in NYNY :cool:

right on, Thaiger. and i'm glad you referred to hung kuen as 5-animal... it always cheeses me off when people say it's tiger-crane, or tiger. i have heard my sifu talk about william chow re-5-animalifying kenpo, but i couldn't quite recall the particulars. thanks for the info!

i think you'll be able to incorporate muay thai boran techniques into your kenpo training quite nicely. my sifu has given me a vote of confidence in adding whatever muay boran techniques i can into my hung kuen. he operates on a kind of grand unified theory of hung kuen, and quite easily finds similarities between hung kuen and other arts without turning the system into mixed martial arts (of which i am not a fan). also, he understands my desire to express my heritage in my fighting. obviously, i won't be doing any of p'jaa's crazy acrobatics... but he has known since day 1 that i throw more knees and elbows than average (i think i mentioned that my dad taught me how to elbow and knee instead of punching and brawling when i was like 7).

anyway, if you're ever in the new york area let me know. if i can make it to the wong tournament (or whenever) i'll drop you a line. we'll go to a bar and pick a fight. just kidding. we'll go find some beer singha!!

oh, one more thing... i found it very interesting when you mentioned that you stomp the floor when sparring. i'm a little embarrassed to say that stomping the floor in the thai style has never occurred to me! but now that you mention it, i definitely think i should be doing it... of course, me being 5'8" and 150lbs i wouldn't have quite the same effect as when you do it... but like you said, a thai person should be doing it! so... um... what do i do?

(1) You're very welcome! I think it's a little coincidence...!

(2) 'Grand unified'- I like that!! Yeah, the martial arts have a lot in common with each other. I can appreciate the wise sifu who would agree with Bruce, "now empty your cup so that you may taste my tea".

Crazy acrobatics looks great in movies, but I tend to think they can leave you exposed if your opponent is still in any sort of shape to counter, so don't sweat it. My size limits acrobatics too, but my speed is Thai

(3) Mmmm, bar fights and beer singha!!!

j/k- there's that pesky legal stuff to deal with...

(4) You should stomp the ground, silly. Well, OK, it depends on the context. If you mean to 'unnerve at offset' to show your opponent that if he does not get out of your way, you will destroy him. We have a kenpo technique called 'Scrapping Hooves'. Like the brahma bull, you are getting ready to charge. Also, you sandwich or compress your elbows to your knees, right? What do you do when your leg returns to the ground? Show everyone how gentle you are by placing it gingerly back...? Sensei Bob White said that the army that screamed loudest in battle, a good 'kiai'- would more likely win. But there are times when you might not want to do either...

Thanx Deoz.

I would like to know more muay thai technic name of movements in thai ( written in english ) etc..
like the guard and moving name..
can u help me?
bye!

What are your thoughts on aikido though? Im not cut out for muai thai cuz frankly it scares the hell out of me.

Hello, I am new at trhe forum, I am from spain.
I´ve been parcticing Karate goyu ryu for 11 years, and Kobudo, also I have started training wing chun recently.
Anyone from spain??