Question 058: Karate elitists

 

Martial arts are just that—martial arts. They seek physical and mental perfection at some type of fighting skill, but none is particularly adept at self-defense. Any type of fight, be it in the ring are in the street, is a mutually consented test of fighting skills. If you do not consent to a fight, it means you are being attacked and you must defend yourself. In self-defense, you do not want to fight, your want to stop the other person from attacking and hurting you any way you can. You don’t spar or grapple or anything else in particular, you just take the attacker out in anyway you can. Martial arts training may help, but as any law enforcement officer will tell you, an ordinary person can take out a group of attackers. When fighting in self-defense, the aftermath is nasty. Parts of ears and noses are bitten off, eyes are gouged out, skin is clawed off, fingers are broken, hair is pulled out, etc. People do not stand apart and use the perfect kicks and punches they have trained in; they just fight like trapped animals.

Any martial art operates under the rules of the martial art. Under the rules of another martial art, a martial art may not fare was well. In a karate tournament, a Taekwondo practitioner will be hampered, and vice versa. Baseball is not better or worse than basketball, it is just a different way of playing with a ball.