Kat Stevens said:
All the flowery high kick multi spin arts are a thing of beauty to watch, between two trained practitioners. A madly rushing and swinging gorilla on the street needs to be closed with and shut down in short order. That's why I feel grappling, with a lot of choke and strangle holds, plus heavy use of joint locks is ideal. Almost every down and dirty scrap I was ever in ended up on the floor, very few standing back and jabbing each others head off. The longer a fight lasts, the less your chance of escaping uninjured becomes. Blitzkrieg, baby... hit hard, hit first, hit fast, get the **** outa Dodge...
A-men! Preach it, brother! I feel that the best system is one that incorporates strikes, grappling, and the mysterious art of the 911 cell phone call. Learn to box! For the love of Heaven, get into a boxing ring. I've seen so many artists get seriously hurt by fighters because they don't practice
hitting people or getting
hit by people. Learn to kick - TKD, Karate, Muay Thai, savate... Learn to grapple - judo, jujitsu, chin'na, shuai chiao,
wrestling. Gene LeBell once stated that Judo was wrestling with handles. Learn to have your cell phone handy and be able to call the cops, and survive while they get there. This is the first step towards your Shodan in "Court Kung Fu".
Failing your intention to study a modern eclectic system, I'd advise you to follow Bruce Lee's path and test your system against other styles. Take your Tae Kwan Do into a Wing Chun kwoon and spar with them. Go into a Judo dojo, a boxing ring, etc. Find a school that excells in weaponry, and try to defend yourself against knives and sticks.
Ghost778 said:
Teaching a little martial arts is a bad thing.
I'm not a fan of the odd hand to hand combat training that the army sometimes throws in as a space filler because it's dangerous.
not to mention useless, since it takes hours and thousands of repititions for an act to be committed to muscle memory. When sensory exclusion hits, and fine motor skills go out the window, the body falls back on instinct. Training must become instinctive for it to become effective. That means thousands of kicks thrown, and thousands of throws received, and thousands of choke holds applied.
Properly.
Soldiers either
a. get a false sense of security (also very common with womens self defense classes)
b. learn enough to seriously hurt someone but not enough control.
very true. As witnessed every year in Meaford and Wainwright where young recruits get their heads torn off by street-fighting farm boys.
I really like the idea of intrigrating martial arts into weekly PT. It's a good work out and will teach our soldiers how to defend themselves properly.
I think it should be mandatory. Not just to teach our soldiers how to survive, but to instill so many of the "manly graces". Failing to teach our troops how to survive Hand-to-Gland is negligent and criminal. Espcially in today's world of asymmetric warfare, when he may have to restrain a woman, shoot a man in the face, punch out an attacker, and try to keep the dog from biting his arse. All in the same friggin' room!