Poll: which MA do you practice?

Jimkel

Out of curiosity, I have made a poll to see which MA is the most popular on the forum. Even if you dont normally post please take the poll so we can get the big picture. If I havent got all the bases covered in the poll please tell me what im missing from the list, Of course there are only 10 possible poll spaces so sorry if your art isnt here. I know theres a typo there It should be Judo/Jujitsu/Bjj.

Try keep the answers current, for eg if you took Kenpo classes for 1 month when you were 10 there is no need to say you Practice Kenpo

If however you are a 1st dan in Goju Ryu for example, But no longer practice in a club, you can of course vote karate as one of your styles, or any style you have studied for a long time but no longer do.

Jimkel

Wrestling (Any purely wrestling style)

Sorry if its been done here before, but members come and go so its still relevant.

I have grouped TKD with Karate styles as they are all essentially "Te" arts.

Kenpo and American karate are seperate from Karate and TKD because These styles are generally not true "te" styles but contain elements of modern Kung fu, Jujitsu etc, and as such have there own option.

Chinese styles were generalised into One option because there is simply too many to name.

Boxing/Kickboxing were grouped together because of their technical similarities (Im talking of the kickboxing style which evolved out of boxing)

For military self defence, police self defence, or pure self defence classes etc select other/Modern self defence.

Jimkel

Wrestling (Any purely wrestling style)

Cheers lads (and Ladies ), keep the votes a'comin!

arybvtcw0eolkf

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

''Juso" for me!...

Jimkel

Wrestling (Any purely wrestling style)

No one can stand against my mighty "Juso"!!!!

dlofnep

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Juso, BJJ and once in a blue moon, a bit of MMA.

Nothingcompares

What does "any purely wrestling style" mean? What is submission wrestling? Judo is purely wrestling is it not?

dlofnep

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

I think he means greco or freestyle. Anything not involving submissions.

Nothingcompares

What about sambo?

dlofnep

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

I guess sambo could fall under the judo/bjj category..

arybvtcw0eolkf

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Nothingcompares wrote:

What about a sambo?

I'd love one.

Ham and cheese please.

Nothingcompares

i just looked up sambo in the directionary. it's got a multitude of uses

Jimkel

Wrestling (Any purely wrestling style)

dlofnep wrote:

I think he means greco or freestyle. Anything not involving submissions.

Yup! Or an easier way to put it, anything involving Leotards!

Baggio...

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

It's interesting to see that only myself and Kenpo Dave still seem to do American Kenpo. In the nineties AK was one of the biggest Martial Arts around.

While I'm not interested in MMA at all, it definitely gave all the traditional systems a good kick up the arse which they they needed. Combatives/RBSD ,etc. have also played their part to dispel the some of the Dubious myths that surround some of the more traditional systems (please note: I include AK as a traditional system).

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

forgot to add in. am also learning on occassion Kali stick and knife, and some philipino boxing throw in....

BobbyOLeary

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

I'm still doing Kenpo, its where its at.

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

Kenpo was the first MA in Ireland? 1962 or something??

Nothingcompares

judo, although in its infancy, was "around" in 1952 (http://www.swordsjudo.com/content/view/42/36/)

John Kavanaghs granddad was the first judo black belt

and in 1962 the first Dublin practitioner, S, Kavanagh, earned his black belt.

Unpossible

Wrestling (Any purely wrestling style)

My "main" art isn't up there but it comes from other Korean arts so I selected the TKD option

Baggio...

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

Millionaire wrote:

Kenpo was the first MA in Ireland? 1962 or something??

I believe so... John McSweeney is often considered to be the father of Irish Karate. I read an article he wrote and despite doing Kenpo he came to some very realistic conclusions. So I have a lot of respect for the man. He placed huge importance on Boxing and striking first, etc.

BobbyOLeary wrote:

I'm still doing Kenpo, its where its at.

Hi Bobby,

I was just wondering if you think Kenpo is effective for realistic self-defense? Do you think the techniques will work under pressure? While I really like my Kenpo training. I don't think it would anywhere near as effective as CQC, Muai Thai, Boxing, etc. That's just my opinion...

I seem to remember one Martial Artist saying to Ed Parker "these techniques wont work in a real fight". Parker replied "they are the A B C's of motion". I can see Parker's point, but I feel that proper body mechanics from arts like Muai Thai or boxing would be much better fundamentals of body motion.

I'm really not trying to slag off Kenpo here, but I think it has become dated and does not address or understand how the modern street attacker operates. Again I'm sure there are a few Kenpo guys who know what's going on, but as a whole system it has many holes in my opinion. Just wondering how you felt as another Kenpo practitioner?

Cheers,

B.

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

yes John McSweeney was one of Parkers 1st ever batch of blackbelts.

I did a few months on kenpo in dublin circa 94 up in Rathgar, and the guy teaching was was one of McSweeneys original students, and still taught the original system as per what mcsweeney taught him, and would not changes.

He was none too pleased when I side stepped a big lunging reverse punch, and whacked my opponent on the jaw with a left hook. so that was end of me and Rathgar Kenpo Club, so off to Fuscos Kickboxing on meath street I went for a bit! LOL! got the aggro battered out of me down there for sure, especially by the late jimmy curran!! and that was a long time ago!

Roper

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Baggio... wrote:

I seem to remember one Martial Artist saying to Ed Parker "these techniques wont work in a real fight". Parker replied "they are the A B C's of motion". I can see Parker's point, but I feel that proper body mechanics from arts like Muai Thai or boxing would be much better fundamentals of body motion.

Well, to expand on his own analogy- does he speak in sentences or in single letters?:D

Baggio...

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

Millionaire wrote:

yes John McSweeney was one of Parkers 1st ever batch of blackbelts. He was none too pleased when I side stepped a big lunging reverse punch, and whacked my opponent on the jaw with a left hook. !

Ouch! that'll learn him....:)

I was talking to one of the original Kenpo Black Belts some months ago and he admitted to me that Kenpo was totally "useless" for the street. His words incidentally. After his many years of working on the doors he got all his students to learn Boxing. The Kenpo side of things was done more for fun and as a hobby...

kenpo_dave

Boxing/Kickboxing

Baggio... wrote:

Ouch! that'll learn him....:)

I was talking to one of the original Kenpo Black Belts some months ago and he admitted to me that Kenpo was totally "useless" for the street. His words incidentally. After his many years of working on the doors he got all his students to learn Boxing. The Kenpo side of things was done more for fun and as a hobby...

Im really only doing Kenpo these days as a hobby. Saying that, I do believe that if the training was more along the lines of typical Kyokushin/Muay Thai/MMA training, then Kenpo could be a very effective style. Unfortunately thats not the case. As far as Ive been told, training at one stage in Ireland was very tough and I believe that people from that time can use Kenpo effectively, but people now days dont train in the same way and so only a handful who have cross trained will ever get to that level.

OSU.

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

kenpo_dave wrote:

As far as Ive been told, training at one stage in Ireland was very tough
OSU.

That is true, I mentioned on here before when I started in early 80s, sparring sessions often became full on brawls. and us teens were lumped in with adult men, and given the same treatment. I often sat in secondary school the next day with my head ringing from punches and kicks. (I guess I wasn't very good back then! LOL!)

Worse still, in the early 70s the karate training in ireland which has mainly Kenpo and Wado Ryu was as big (my own instructors were all Wado men, and this slowly changed into full contact kickboxing mugendo). They told me that training under the Japanese in dublin in late 60s was brutal, and the Japs would often hit students full force in the mouth when teaching techniques. and basically beat the students black and blue with broken teeth being the norm. getting whacked across the legs full blast with a Tonfa for poor stance was another trick.

Anyway dave, you know yourself, as Shane T told us John Bluming said something like "its is not full contact, then its not karate"

As far as my own experience went, I suppose the instructors I had... none of us knew any better, and that was the way it was done. its sure weeded out the talkers from the doers. People forget that then before internet and pay per view TV and all this stuff, the only access we had to martial arts was getting a copy of Fighters mag from the UK once a month if we were lucky.

Paxo who posts own here too, also went through this stuff and mentioned it before.

BobbyOLeary

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Hi Baggio,

No, I don't think Kenpo in its most common form is realistic for the street. I find it relies on being ready for your attacker and always reacting to his moves rather than the other way around. I can't see how this works in reality, even Ed Parker himself said that action beats reaction but the entire Kenpo syllabus is reactionary.

Sorry about the badness of my reply, I'll post again in full when I'm back at a computer.

Bobby

kenpo_dave

Boxing/Kickboxing

Millionaire wrote:

That is true, I mentioned on here before when I started in early 80s, sparring sessions often became full on brawls. and us teens were lumped in with adult men, and given the same treatment. I often sat in secondary school the next day with my head ringing from punches and kicks. (I guess I wasn't very good back then! LOL!)

Worse still, in the early 70s the karate training in ireland which has mainly Kenpo and Wado Ryu was as big (my own instructors were all Wado men, and this slowly changed into full contact kickboxing mugendo). They told me that training under the Japanese in dublin in late 60s was brutal, and the Japs would often hit students full force in the mouth when teaching techniques. and basically beat the students black and blue with broken teeth being the norm. getting whacked across the legs full blast with a Tonfa for poor stance was another trick.

Anyway dave, you know yourself, as Shane T told us John Bluming said something like "its is not full contact, then its not karate"

As far as my own experience went, I suppose the instructors I had... none of us knew any better, and that was the way it was done. its sure weeded out the talkers from the doers. People forget that then before internet and pay per view TV and all this stuff, the only access we had to martial arts was getting a copy of Fighters mag from the UK once a month if we were lucky.

Paxo who posts own here too, also went through this stuff and mentioned it before.

Yeah, the head instructor in my club showed me some deep scars he has around his knuckles. Apparently they are from hitting people in the mouth during competions back in the old days when they didnt even wear gum shields, and people lost teeth all the time.

BobbyOLeary

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Baggio,

To continue my earlier points.

I feel that Kenpo as it is taught in the majority of schools in Ireland today will not and cannot work in the real world. This is due to, IMHO, the way in which it is trained. Most TMA schools train mostly in the air or on a completely compliant partner, this I feel is where Kenpo is let down. I think if Kenpo were trained in a similar fashion to Thai, MMA or similar it would be just as effective.

European Kenpoists, namely in northern France and Belgium seem to have grasped this point, they train Kenpo in a much harder, more realistic way than we do. A visiting French kenpoist is running classes in our academy and they are a real eye opener. All pad work, strength work and plenty and plenty of sparring. This was a fighting class mind you.

I think this is the way to go with Kenpo, still keep the Forms & Sets but train the techniques and sparring more, much more! This is where we meet the conundrum. How far can you change the class physically while still keeping enough people coming to run the place? Money will always dictate how a class is run, if nobody wants to pay to train like a MMA fighter in a Kenpo club then no Kenpo clubs will train like MMA fighters.

That probably didn't answer your question but its what was on my mind at the moment!

Bobby

Baggio...

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

BobbyOLeary wrote:

I feel that Kenpo as it is taught in the majority of schools in Ireland today will not and cannot work in the real world. This is due to, IMHO, the way in which it is trained.

Hi Bobby,

Cheers for your reply...I'd totally agree with you there. I remember hearing some of the old school Kenpoists talking about their training regimes - and to be fair, they were very very tough. Although I still think that some of the individuals were tougher than the actual system itself.

I know what you are saying... You can only change a class so much otherwise people will just loose interest and disappear. One of the reasons I still really enjoy Kenpo training is the huge variety of the syllabus - it never seems to get dull (unlike Shotokan with I dropped very quickly). I also think the techniques are great for "accelerated learning".

I guess as long as the Kenpo instructors understand and explain various principles like action beats reaction, pre-emptive strikes, and impact development then they will be near enough on the right path.

Cheers,

B.

kenpo_dave wrote:

Im really only doing Kenpo these days as a hobby.

Hey Dave,

I'm the same...But I really enjoy the training so I'm going to keep on doing it.:) Personally I still think Kenpo is the best out of all the traditional systems that I have ever studied.

Baggio...

MMA (we probably all mix MA's so click here only if in an actual MMA school/club)

Baggio... wrote:

It's interesting to see that only myself and Kenpo Dave still seem to do American Kenpo.

Me too!

Baggio...

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

Deleted User wrote:

Me too!

Hey,

There is four of us now! We can start our own Kenpo army...

bjj-fighter

Boxing/Kickboxing

Baggio... wrote:

Hey,

There is four of us now! We can start our own Kenpo army...

If its any consolation I used to do Kenpo for almost a year but got sick of that dancing crap and standing there kicking air for a while so I quit.MMA,BJJ and Muay Thai are my life now:D

Colm_OReilly

Like Bobby said, Kenpo, it's where it's at.

cowzerp

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

As a child i done kenpo for 6 months and thought i would be like bruce lee!! i can honestly say i left no better a fighter as i was naturally,then i joined boxing and after a matter of weeks it was obvious the improvement-this is an art system and not a fighting system, thats fine if its what your looking for-everyone to there own.

Baggio...

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

cowzerp wrote:

this is an art system and not a fighting system, thats fine if its what your looking for-everyone to there own.

Hey Cowzerp,

I'd totally agree there mate...I think Boxing is several steps ahead of any traditional system. If you look at the way Kenpo was designed it was probably by guys who had very little "live experience". If they had they would have probably reached similar conclusions to people like Geoff Thompson and Lee Morrison, etc. It's obvious that the techniques had only ever been tested in a friendly Dojo environment and not under any real duress. Many of the moves were based on "aesthetics", as opposed to functionality. Again, I never expect anyone to take my word for it. All they have to do is put on the boxing gloves and go all out at close range (and full contact) and see if it works - better off letting people make their own conclusions at this stage.

That said... a lot of people who do Kenpo and other Martial Arts are nice guys and don't really want to take it to the level of full contact pressure testing. I remember my instructor saying that many years ago he had a very strict training regime, but most of the people that came to the club just left because they could not enjoy or hack it. So for the average enthusiast there has to be some kind of trade off I guess. This does not just happen in the world of TMA by any means. I've seen quite a few RBSD groups that go far too light. Which can in itself create a false sense of security which I think is wrong if you are trying to instruct people how to defend themselves.

Just my thoughts...

Baggio.

Jimkel

Wrestling (Any purely wrestling style)

I agree with alot of whats being said about Kenpo here, I did it myself for a While as a kid and then again when i was a teen, but eventually moved to wing chun after a short spell in judo.

Any Kenpo people here heard of any of these?? Paddy Mason, Anthony tailer and Mick traverse? all instructors, Paddy passed away sadly, but Anthony still teaches,

My brother tried Anthony's kenpo class. he found it to be full of black belts doing very extensive exercise and Bag/pad work and almost no instruction, he did not learn anything.

A yellow belt was asked to take him aside and teach him the form, He ended up correcting the Yellow belt as my brother once held a Brown belt as a child in kenpo. He said it was all very much "watching the black belts show off and trying to keep up".

He went to about 12 classes in all and each time he came home exhausted but without any enthusiasm as he recieved little to no attention from any of the Instructors during any of the classes. As the only white belt there he just felt like he wasnt taken into account so eventually left the club. It wasnt like he wasnt fit or capable or anything, He was just brushed aside by instructors, put at the back, taking instructions from a yellow belt whom technicly he was more advanced then.

Its just an example of the sad state of one Kenpo club, tough it reminds me of my previous experiences in kenpo, and thus reinforces my negative attitude towards Kenpo clubs. The style itself I respect and think if trained right would help make a good fighter, but alot of the Kenpo instructors oversized Ego really gets to me.

In (USKF) Shotokan there is nothing of the sort. Here it's all about the students and no one makes any money from the classes. Its tought for the love and development of Karate, not the expansion of ego. My opinion only guys no offence to anyone, I cant judge your clubs or instructors, my opinions of kenpo are based on my experience in several clubs and testimonys from my Brother and his experience.

cowzerp

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Them guys where my kenpo trainers all them years ago.
1 time my boxing coach got them to do boxing pads and they where burned out in under a minute-not a good thing to happen when someone wants to beat your head in!

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

Jimkel wrote:

Mick traverse?


.

A well know "heavy" around dublin in the 70s/80s before he was shot, certainly did the MA scene in Ireland no Favours. in fact Today Tonight (fore runner of Prime Time on RTE) did a slot on the criminal underworld involvment in MA scene in ireland, thanks to some of these guys antics.

Baggio...

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

Jimkel wrote:

A yellow belt was asked to take him aside and teach him the form, He ended up correcting the Yellow belt as my brother once held a Brown belt as a child in kenpo.

Man... I had a very similar experience in the early nineties when I started Kenpo.

I was supposedly going for private lessons in one of Ireland's "top Kenpo" places. After about 4 lessons the higher belts suddenly disappeared. I ended up being taught by purple and orange belts! They were very inexperienced as you'd expect - I had already had about 6 yeas of TMA training so I was well ahead of them. The other Black Belts were no where to be seen - wrapped up in there little cliques. Why train a white belt when you can get one of your sycophantic lackeys to do for ya'? I remember leaving the club within a few months. My only regret is that I when I left I bollocked the secretary instead of the head instructor as was not there at the time. But I was so just so frustrated at the time, as I really loved the training (before I got into Combatives).

There were many people who jumped on the Kenpo gravy train back then, and took shed loads of money off gullible people. Thing is though... If you treat people like **** they eventually cop on, and hey presto! you 'aint got a club no more. A Ha... The guy I train with now is a very nice bloke and knows his Kenpo. He's also very progressive and is always trying to look ahead.

Apologies for the slight rant...I'm not bitter...;)

paxo

muay thai

Millionaire wrote:

As far as my own experience went, I suppose the instructors I had... none of us knew any better, and that was the way it was done. its sure weeded out the talkers from the doers. People forget that then before internet and pay per view TV and all this stuff, the only access we had to martial arts was getting a copy of Fighters mag from the UK once a month if we were lucky.

Paxo who posts own here too, also went through this stuff and mentioned it before.

Cheers Gerry that brings back a few memories
In my experience Kempo students in the 70's and early 80's ,esp the brown and black belts, could fight. My brother was a brown belt under Ambrose Maloney. Ambrose and his wife ( also a BB) had a school on the north side of Dublin. They were the 1st club that I encountered that trained specificaly for tournaments. i.e they would have seperate training sessions for tournament training and concentrate on high scoring techniques e.g reverse punch etc.
However outside of tournament training they were a hard club. They had good technique and lots of bottle and really got stuck into each other during sparring

My training in Wado at that time consisted of thousand of reps of a few techniques, hundreds of push ups sit ups etc and very heavy contact sparring without any protection. All of this took place in a local band hall that had no heating in winter and often no glass in the windows anyway.

I 've said before in comparison with students today we were very rough and raw technique wise but we had loads of bottle and were hard to put away
I have good memories of attending various clubs around Leinster and Dublin for friendly free sparring. LOL
I used to read fighters and combat magazine however the daddy of them all was Terry O'Neill's fighting arts

Paxo

arybvtcw0eolkf

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Millionaire wrote:

A well know "heavy" around dublin in the 70s/80s before he was shot, certainly did the MA scene in Ireland no Favours. in fact Today Tonight (fore runner of Prime Time on RTE) did a slot on the criminal underworld involvment in MA scene in ireland, thanks to some of these guys antics.

One of the Northside free newspapers (I won't name it here) recently ran a story about the Darndale kenpo Karate club founded by Mick.

He was some man to lose the head

FiannaGym.com

Other/Modern self defence

Lets just be clear on one thing: Kenpo wear black gis.

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

Mairt wrote:

He was some man to lose the head

I heard a few stories along the way, from my own old skool teachers...mugendo.

Yeah, Paxo...good old days them training days! LOL! lads swining haymakers full blast, every monday and wed nite in local parish hall. well at least we graduated up to cheap 10oz boxing gloves! I seem to remember by shins being black and blue for about 3 years continous. lads dropping elbows on your bare shins when you kicked in sparring.

Roper

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Nothing says Kenpo quite like Larry Tatum

kenpo_dave

Boxing/Kickboxing

Roper wrote:

Nothing says Kenpo quite like Larry Tatum

Ive been told that Tatums skill should never be doubted, just the way he presents himself in the Kenpo world.

http://www.kenpoamericano.com/Larry/larryhumo.gif

:rolleyes:

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

I did read in a real old Inside Kung Fu mag from USA interview with ED Parker about his early years training under Mitose in Hawai, and apparently there was supposed to have been plenty of hard sparring, and Parker was supposed to have been a boxer with plenty of street scraps behind him.

You'd think if he has seen action on the street, he would have a better idea to what works.

Having said that, remember Ed Parker in one of the Pink Panter Movies, and he look out a room of dudes... that was the 1st MA i ever saw on TV... even before Bruce Lee, and certainly was a cause of me wanting to learn "kratty" !!

Thank God I ended up in Kickboxing instead! Lucky for me!!!

arybvtcw0eolkf

Weapons style ie: iaido,eskrima, Ninjitsu etc

Millionaire wrote:

I heard a few stories along the way, from my own old skool teachers...mugendo.

.

I was making a (sick) joke about him getting his head blown off!... "lose the head".

Btw, I see someone here has clicked on EIGHT style's!. Dammit thats one busy chappie!.

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

Mairt wrote:

I was making a (sick) joke about him getting his head blown off!... "lose the head".

!.

LOL! I am a bit slow today!!!

Back in the less murderous 80s, you certainly did not "loose the head" as much as these days unless you were a bad puppy !

Baggio...

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

kenpo_dave wrote:

Ive been told that Tatums skill should never be doubted, QUOTE]

I've seen tatum's moves, and to be fair hes good at the auld Kenpo - but that's it. He could not fight to save his life, and people have been slagging him off for it all over the world. He still moves like he lives in the 70's - huge circular movements and massive wide stances. Which most of the decent Kenpo guys have long since abandoned. Even in his prime he would have been destroyed by any half decent boxer. To him it's all about lookin' good... I doubt that mustache has ever been in real scrap.

Millionaire

Juso/ Bjj/ Ju jitsu

we're sitting here having a good ol laugh at larry the kenpo mustache. and he is probably having a good ol laugh with all the money hes making from his DVDs... that guy has been around since I ever remember!!!

Jimkel

Wrestling (Any purely wrestling style)

Millionaire wrote:

A well know "heavy" around dublin in the 70s/80s before he was shot, certainly did the MA scene in Ireland no Favours. in fact Today Tonight (fore runner of Prime Time on RTE) did a slot on the criminal underworld involvment in MA scene in ireland, thanks to some of these guys antics.

I was in the Darndale Club myself, I grew up in Belcamp and I remember when Mick was Shot. He was allegedly involved in a protection racket with the local shops. One day some guy pulled a gun in the shop and mick, who was there tried to stop him from robbing the place, got killed doing it. Thats the news that went around Darndale at the time, how true it is I dont know.