As have I! I have found this extremely interesting and have also been following it pretty much right through. Should my comment have offended this was definitely not the intention nor was it to appear flippant, it was merely a comment that in a face to face discussion I believe could have been something that anyone could have said and the conversation would have carried on but when put into text can often be interpreted in a number of different ways. Please take it in the good nature it was intended.
The differences of opinion and the passion that each of you have for your chosen disciplines in this discussion has from my point of view been as someone relatively new to martials arts been very interesting. Also the difference in age and experience has made the whole subject matter for me very rounded and I can see valid points from both sides.
Luckily I have never really been in a fight of any kind since I left school ( and i hope it stays that way) and I think in my original post I mentioned that now training in Kung Fu I have come to know my limitations. By this I meant that basically in many real life situations I would be buggered against an attack from most males purely due to the differences in physical strength. I know this by trying to block my partners attacks through play sparring and its like trying to block a bleeding baseball bat. I think this is maybe partly down to inexperience but it is also down to the perhaps unrealistic situation when we are training and sparring during training as when learning and practicing a technique with each other so many factors that would be present in a 'real' situation are either not present at all ie the arenaline surge from the flight or fight response or would be very different ie your opponant is not going to do things in a set and ordered manner that your training partner would use in training drills. One guy i particulary like training with is quite big and powerful and he gives me a bit of a hard time but in the nicest possible way by putting up resistance when we are sparring so that he doesn't just fall backwards or forwards if that was the direction i was supposed to be moving him.....he makes me realise that i have to be decisive and realistic in certains areas rather than filling me with false confidence by making me believe that I'm some kind of aging Hong Kong Fooey rather than The Janitor
. But also in saying that there are more experienced lasses in my class that in 1 2 1 Kung Fu sparring would rag him all around the room as they have a much better technique than either myself or him.....there again with his superior strength he would just have to whack them once and they would be sparko and seeing twinkly stars for days.
In my very humble opinion I see that no one particular art is perfect and from what I can gather the no rules fights are a combination of many disciplines where each fighter takes what works best for him and basically perfects for his build,stature, strength and speed his very own fighting style. Have i understood this correctly? Like I said I've found this discussion really interesting as it also lies in something I'm pretty passionate about......gimme training over handbags and makeup any day lol!
LL I'll just have to keep practicing that stand up peeing lark to avoind a hug of you
