october_lost wrote:tempehmma, the gist of the video can be obtained from just a few minutes viewing. Matt Thornton is basically saying that kata, drills etc are counter productive to actually fighting. Only by practising alive against a resistive opponent can you develop and evolve, and 'dead' practice is isolated and doesnt prepare the student.
I can accept some of this, but I have a number of problems,
1. Kata and drills are actually a product of someones actual fighting experience, how else do we practice solo?
2. How do you practice 'alive' movements which would severly injure students?
3. Alive fighting doesnt necessitate giving you a theory to evolve from.
Aikido could be improved as far as street effectiveness if more live traning was incorporated into the practice of the art.
90-80% of Aikido is atemi, movements put alot of tension on wrists and resistant oppoents actually makes the move more dangerous because tension is generated in the muscles. I can see only highly developed Aikidoka practicing alive, but otherwise more sparring would help the art.
As for TKD, it incorporates alot of alive practice (sport), but most of the practicioners Ive come across are nothing short of awful.
The clip is 13 minutes and 7 seconds long.
1. A person can practice striking solo with a heavy bag at home or shadow kickboxing. Practicing grappling solo would be difficult, so find a training partner. I never said that kata is useless, I am simply saying that most martial artists that I know who train in an MA where there is less emphasis on kata can take care of themselves in a street fight as well as anyone. Practicing Kata often is probably necessary for training in some MA.
2. Which "alive" movements can't you practice without injuring a student. Most of MA experience is with krag maga, muay thai, BJJ, and judo. punches, elbow/knee strikes, kicks to knee, groin, chokes, arm locks, wrist, elbow, shoulder, leg locks, ankle, knee, throws, takedowns. Even practicing strikes techniques using finger punches, knife hand, ridge hand, hammer fist, palm strikes can be practiced solo. In WC they use the wooden dummy. I do not know what it is called. Some martial artist I know condition there finger tips and knife hand using a wooden or hard plastic cutting board from their kitchen. So I ask again, which "alive" movements can't you practice without injuring a student.
4. As far as Aikido, I think I mentioned that I am not as knowledgeable about Aikido as other MA. I have watched some classes and they practice break falling for much of the class. I will research the art more. There is theory behind the concepts of judo. Read
Kodokan Judo by Jigoro Kano. I will watch the entire video right now and post my comments.
Peace brother.
Any style of TKD that teaches primarily kicks 70 to 90% of the time will not work for the average person on the streets. Althought I do know some TKD practioners who can kick some arse on the streets if they had to. Many TKD instructors incorporate techniques from other MA or boxing and practice more elbow and knee strikes than others and add strikes to the knee and groin. Side Bar: The reason why some grand masters create their own style is because 
I may have posted this next statement on another thread, but how effective an MA depends on the individual practitioner as far as how often they train and practice. And lets face it some guys/gals cannot fight as well as others no matter how hard they train. 
