The broader problem with the martial arts = self-defense myth

While I'm new to this community, I've dug through the archives and I see a lot of conversation regarding "is insert martial art here good for self-defence."

Instantly what happens is practitioners of that art will jump in and say how it has amazing benefits and it's a perfect solution, while those who practise other arts will retort about its shortcomings. It becomes a massive schmoz and the (naive) OP is none the wiser as to who to trust at the end of it.

I've spent nearly 30 years around martial arts now. I started out in traditional martial arts as a child, moved into sporting martial arts as a teen, then got into reality-based self-defence in my 20's while working as a bouncer. Now my approach is a mixture of all. I love competition and hard training of sporting martial arts, I love traditional values and discipline of TMA, and I love the practicality and science of RBSD. I've got black belts or instructor certifications in five systems across the spectrum. So what I say below is not meant to disparage anyone, but rather to provide a lens through which to see the problem.

The biggest problem martial artists have when evaluating whether something is good self-defence or not is that we nearly always view violence through the lens of martial arts. We look at problems on a technical level, trying to see where our techniques could have resolved the issue.

"He's got his hands down, I definitely could have used an uppercut to the jaw here."
"Look at them clinching, I could throw him all day."
"Oh the fights on the ground, that guys doesn't know what he's doing, I'd put him to sleep."

Therefore, self-defence training in most martial arts clubs actually looks very little like real violence. It looks like a sequence designed to illicit a certain technical response that fits within the syllabus of the martial art being practised.

REAL SELF DEFENCE like any other scientific pursuit (note: not art, science) needs to begin with a clear idea of the problem we're trying to solve. We need to see what violence looks like and reverse engineer solutions from there.

If we're trying to teach rape defence, we need to look at how people are actually raped (spoiler: usually it's not someone jumping out of bushes.)

If we're going to teach home invasion defence, we need to look at how home invasions take place, what position you're likely to be in when you know it's happening, what laws apply to the local environment, and what is the best option to give you the more desirable outcome.

If we're teaching "street fight" defence to young males, we need to understand why young men get into fights in the first place.

Martial arts are not self-defence.

Can martial skills be applied in a self-defence setting? ABSOLUTELY!!! But they are not self-defence in isolation.

Submitted January 27, 2020 at 07:10PM by Joe_MVP https://ift.tt/3aQ0NwY