Re: Tell me again why TCMA's aren't successful in combatsport
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 6:58 pm
From history of the Kodokan, the founding of Judo by Jigoro Kano...
Kano had seen that many of the ju jitsu ryu had developed an appreciation for perfect form; for the aesthetic component of their movement art. This was a poison handed down from the most admired of the bujitsu, the swordsmen; the Kenjitsu who could not practice fully, because they could not make mistakes without crippling or fatal results. Because they could not make mistakes, and survive, they could not fully learn. Because they could not fully learn, they created a false world of form, which substituted for experience. Eventually it became Kendo, which, to restore vigor, nearly eliminated form (kata) entirely.
Disdaining "competition" as too dangerous, or even vulgar, many arts, during the waning twilight of the Tokugawa shogunate, had abandoned their martial spirit in favor of idealized movement forms. They convinced themselves that such perfection of movement reflected mastery of martial skills. Kano was not the first to see the fallacy of such an approach, which was simply rationalizing a way that eliminated, rather than preserved, the martial sweat, and agony, and ordeal that had characterized the training of men in the olden times; men who understood that perfection of movement held no advantages to the defeated, who were dead. Instead, they knew, above all, that martial spirit was strength, skill, conditioning, and above all, martial timing and ardor in the face of a determined adversary who gave no quarter and expected none. It was the development of "fudoshin" the immovable mind, that met all challenges and surprises with a state of composure but instant and devastating response
If I am not mistaken, the above quote comes from Tim Cartmell, who is in my opinion an excellent martial artist and teacher. He makes good points from his point of view and background as a BJJ pracitioner and someone who's actively inovled in competitions.
Forms:
Just like in CMA, in Jujitsu there have been and always will be the so-called "form collectors" who are only interested in the aesthetic aspects of MA and believe that practicing the prearranged, fixed techniques makes them invincible. But dismissing "forms" as useless based on the poor performance of the form collectors runs the risk of being unknowingly partial. Bruce Lee also came up with a similar conclusion regarding the forms found in CMA and went on to create his own method. If he had the fourtune of meeting a truly skilled CMA master, he probably would have thought otherwise about the seemingly pointless form training. The same goes for Kano and jujitsu. Forms were meant to be performed and used to "hide secrets." They contain components that eventually lead practitioners to become formless if practiced correctly. In order to do so, you need knowledgable masters who can unlock the underlying aspects of forms. Otherwise, forms are just forms - a sequence of dead movements linked together.
Competition:
I don't think that fighting samurai of the past disdained any form of resistant sparring. What they had problems with was the sporting mentality behind competition as I had pointed out in the earlier post.