Which art is better?
My friends out there,
If you have spent enough time in the martial arts, you will surely come across the "Which art is best?" debate. Now I have long since left all of that nonsense behind. But I have a friend who asked me to speak on it, so here I am.
First off, there is no best art. I know that fans of ultimate fighting will say that boxing, kickboxing, brazilian jiu-jitsu, sombo and wrestling are the ideal mix of arts, and the most effective. I say, that I should call Oscar Meyer on this, because it is bologna. I am going to say this one time, and slowly for the easily confused. The artist is what matters, not the art. Good boxer bad wrestler, boxer wins. Bad judoka, good karateka, karate wins. That should be really simple. But fans of ultimate fighting are often quite myopic. They often say stuff like," well if "x" art works, why dont we see it in ultimate fighting?" Someone said to me, "
if kenpo is soooo good, why dont we see it in ultimate fighting?" I told him, "we do stupid, they are called punches." Kenpo means "fist law." Fist as in punches. Chuck Liddell, UFC champion has kenpo on his shoulder. But maybe that doesnt count.
Anyhow, I am going to let the ultimate fighting fans, calm down, and come off of the ledges from which they are currently teetering. People do NOT take martial arts for the same reason. Some want to focus mainly on self-defense, some on fitness. Some want to learn more about philosophy of the East, others flexibilty. Are there any bad reasons? Yes, if a person is looking to be a bully, that is about the only wrong reason I can think of. Other than that, it is ALL good.
So here is amazingly well cliche statement #1. Take 2 people. Give one 6 months of karate training, and the other gets 6 months of Thai Boxing (Muay Thai). The Thai boxer will be a better fighter every time. Well, that may be true MOST of the time, but not for the reason that you are thinking. Muay Thai is NOT better than karate. Fact is that MT is a very formidable fighting style. I have trained with MT fighters before. It is strictly a fighting style. Karate involves a lot more than merely fighting. It involves katas, and history, and philosphy and a host of other things. They simply do not spend the whole class time doing sparring drills and sparring. So in 6 months a MT boxer will probably have more fighting experience than the karateka. But that never seems to matter to the ignorant. They simply want to talk about how they saw some Muay Thai fighter manhandle some karate teacher. That may be true, but Muay Thai fighters also have much shorter careers in fighting due to the nature of the sport. You can take your pick on which path you would like to pursue........
I was going to write a lot more, but I am not in the mood. Emily if you are reading this, it is passed you bedtime. Tracy if you are still out there, please email, I miss ya. And for the rest of my martial arts family, get out there and train harder :)
If you have spent enough time in the martial arts, you will surely come across the "Which art is best?" debate. Now I have long since left all of that nonsense behind. But I have a friend who asked me to speak on it, so here I am.
First off, there is no best art. I know that fans of ultimate fighting will say that boxing, kickboxing, brazilian jiu-jitsu, sombo and wrestling are the ideal mix of arts, and the most effective. I say, that I should call Oscar Meyer on this, because it is bologna. I am going to say this one time, and slowly for the easily confused. The artist is what matters, not the art. Good boxer bad wrestler, boxer wins. Bad judoka, good karateka, karate wins. That should be really simple. But fans of ultimate fighting are often quite myopic. They often say stuff like," well if "x" art works, why dont we see it in ultimate fighting?" Someone said to me, "
if kenpo is soooo good, why dont we see it in ultimate fighting?" I told him, "we do stupid, they are called punches." Kenpo means "fist law." Fist as in punches. Chuck Liddell, UFC champion has kenpo on his shoulder. But maybe that doesnt count.
Anyhow, I am going to let the ultimate fighting fans, calm down, and come off of the ledges from which they are currently teetering. People do NOT take martial arts for the same reason. Some want to focus mainly on self-defense, some on fitness. Some want to learn more about philosophy of the East, others flexibilty. Are there any bad reasons? Yes, if a person is looking to be a bully, that is about the only wrong reason I can think of. Other than that, it is ALL good.
So here is amazingly well cliche statement #1. Take 2 people. Give one 6 months of karate training, and the other gets 6 months of Thai Boxing (Muay Thai). The Thai boxer will be a better fighter every time. Well, that may be true MOST of the time, but not for the reason that you are thinking. Muay Thai is NOT better than karate. Fact is that MT is a very formidable fighting style. I have trained with MT fighters before. It is strictly a fighting style. Karate involves a lot more than merely fighting. It involves katas, and history, and philosphy and a host of other things. They simply do not spend the whole class time doing sparring drills and sparring. So in 6 months a MT boxer will probably have more fighting experience than the karateka. But that never seems to matter to the ignorant. They simply want to talk about how they saw some Muay Thai fighter manhandle some karate teacher. That may be true, but Muay Thai fighters also have much shorter careers in fighting due to the nature of the sport. You can take your pick on which path you would like to pursue........
I was going to write a lot more, but I am not in the mood. Emily if you are reading this, it is passed you bedtime. Tracy if you are still out there, please email, I miss ya. And for the rest of my martial arts family, get out there and train harder :)
posted by Anthony, freestyle kenpo teacher | 10:02 PM
1 Comments:
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