Kicking It 2

This post is a sequel to my first "Kicking It" post about the differences between traditional martial arts kicking as is seen in Muay Thai, San Shou and Knock Down Karate - vs - modern sport-only kicking as is seen most Olympic TKD, American (so-called) Kickboxing, and of course in Kumite Point Fighting. This former type of kicking is often justified through the writings of Bruce Lee (claiming his use of the side kick to try to intercept the opponent justifies a long, unorthodox stance) and the success of Bill "Superfoot" Wallace in Kumite Point Fighting and American (so-called) Kickboxing (who used a long, unorthodox stance.)

Today I had a chance to discuss "Superfoot" technique with Terry Dow (President of Superfoot Systems) in the Martial Arts Journey online facebook group.

I was very surprised on how much we agreed on:

1. Kyokushin, TKD and Okinawan Karate back when Wallace learned Karate were not nearly as different as they are today (they were all much more like Kyokushin is now... leg kicks and sweeps were common.)
2. The lead leg kicks to really watch out for with a long stance fighter are the side kicks and hook kicks, these sport "fighters" today chambering on one foot and throwing lots of snappy round house kicks aren't going to get the same results in full contact competition that Wallace got with his hook kicks and side kicks.
3. Full contact sparring in combat sports will give you the confidence you need to handle yourself on the street.
4. He agreed that Wallace suffered the loss of a testicle from a kick to the groing when doing Kumite Point Fighting.
5. He also bemoaned the state of modern TKD.
6. Wallace's Superfoot technique was NOT a traditional Karate technique found in any Kata.
7. Wallace was the Floyd Mayweather of American (so-called) Kickboxing.

Our disagreements were enlightening:

1. He was definitely of the school of thought that says "it's the person that makes the fighter, not the art." (I think 100 days of training in Muay Thai is more effective than training 1,000 days in TKD.)
2. He definitely thought it was best to focus on "7 or 8 strikes" and perfect them, and to not get side tracked by "flashy take downs and submissions." (I am of the mind that generalists do better in MMA and in self defense than specialists do. He went so far as to suggest the reason why Superfoot technique is not dominant in MMA is because people waste too much time on other things.)
3. I suggested Superfoot technique would have been more effective with people with a reach advantage, Terry didn't agree with that, apparently Wallace fought taller fighters that way.
4. Something I had been way off on is that Superfoot technique was NOT developed for point fighting, but when Wallace had been training in full contact karate with leg kicks and sweeps. Wallace was left handed and got a right leg injury in Judo, so he trained just his left leg.
5. Another thing I was off on was that Wallace was not a cocky show off. On the contrary, he is to this day highly reflective and aware of his blind spots. Wallace constantly strives to improve, and hasn't ever been content with his performance as far as anyone knows.

The most enlightening part of the conversation though was when I really pushed him on Lawrence Kenshin's "Three Fights that Changed the World" video, and what Wallace's thoughts were about most kickboxing globally converting over to Japanese and Thai Kickboxing instead of American (so-called) Kickboxing. His main response was this recent interview between Benny the Jet and Wallace:

Wow... so in the first 5 minutes we see that:

1. When Benny the Jet first saw Wallace fight, he immediately accused him of foot-fencing.
2. Wallace saw his style as a necessary adaptation because he had a bad leg.
3. Wallace was going for speed instead of power. 
4. Wallace's game plan was to use kicks to win by points, keeping opponents away with a powerful lead hook.
5. Wallace admired the superior power of Benny the Jet's technique.
6. They both think that today's Kumite Point Fighting is a no-contact mess, a disreputable martial art practice!

Look, I am still a major hater of Superfoot kicking technique. But this does go to show that if you spar with almost anything, you can develop actionable martial art skill with it. Even I wouldn't want to be stuck out at range getting picked apart by Terry Dow's hook kicks or side kicks.

But before you grab your kumite point fighting trophy and triumphantly declare yourself combat ready, keep a few things in mind here. You probably don't have a bad leg like Wallace did, so what is your excuse? Wallace relied heavily on hook kicks and side kicks, so why do you keep snapping out the world's crappiest round house kicks in Wallace's and Bruce Lee's name? Are you training with an American (so-called) Kickboxing instructor that actually knows how to do this, or are just thinking that if you break a few more boards your kicking power will be strong enough for your kicks to work in a fight? Are you the same caliber of athlete as Bill Wallace?

Letter to Cyan

Cyan, like me you trained in some form of functional Aikido and were no stranger to brutal self defense situations. You wanted to show the world that some Aikidoka were not above sparring serious fighters. You heard about the "Gracie Challenge" and started calling MMA gyms, and to your credit the outcome was pretty much what you expected. I have two points of this letter:

1. You should be proud of this accomplishment.
2. This is an opportunity.

Be Proud

There is no shame in having your ass handed to you, especially if you were pretty sure that was going to happen already going into it, and you were. You didn't do as well as you thought you would, but you had an idea you might not make it through round 1. You called it.

You knew when to quit. Some jerks like me go in over my head, and then don't know when to stop. You noticed right away that the MMA fighter you were up against had different expectations than you did. When you thought you might be too injured to go on, you put an end to it. This kind of humility is a very admirable trait in a martial artist in today's world.

Twice I have gotten into dangerously stupid martial arts fights, on a par with a Jackass The Movie stunt, where I learned extremely valuable lessons. In the 90's when training in kickboxing, I weighed about 130 pounds, and recruited a 350 pound brawler friend of mine to join the classes. I was one of the better students in class, and after about 3 months I figured he was ready to face me in the ring.

He proceeded to beat me bloody for 3 rounds. His every jab knocked my rear foot back about 6 inches. My shin guarded leg kicks had no physical impact on him, and he barely noticed any strike I threw except an occasional over hand right to his jaw, which still did not slow him down. When I tried to clinch to work my knee strikes into his thigh or drag his head into a knee strike, he dribbled my head on the floor of the ring.

8 Ibuprofen, an ice pack and 4 hours later I still had the worst headache of my life and my 350 lb friend was trying to get me in the car go to the emergency room. But in the months that followed I focused on my footwork, and learned side stepping, the most useful self defense skill I have employed over the years since that time... like this:

The second worst beating of my life was at a in-house Tai Chi push hands tournament with the Wudang Dan Pai, which they have in the spring every year at a Park in Seattle. (I had a silver medal in forms and a bronze metal in push hands from competing in Tai Chi in Canada. I had failed to get a yellow belt in Judo through the world's worst attendance record for about 5 years. I had a few years of Aikido and the clinching from a few years of kickboxing.) If you count the final match this in house event had 4 rounds of elimination. The first fighter I went up against had a similar background to me, which was heavy in kickboxing and Tai Chi. Out of 10 points, I beat him with about a 4 point lead, relying heavily on a parting-the-horse's-mane type of trip.

But in the 2nd round of elimination, I was up against someone with about a 50 lb weight advantage, and who had wrestled in high school. I figured out later he had something against me personally for doing Yang style international competition. The first bad sign was when I sprawled using a kickboxing clinch, they mentioned this was against the rules in their style of push hands. My technical stationary and fixed step Yang style push hands was no match for the no-Gi Chinese Wrestling type of push hands practiced by the Wudang Dan Pai. Not only did I suffer the worst defeat of the event (10 to 0,) but I was picked up and slammed like you were in the above video at least 3 times, leaving me wondering if I was seriously injured.

But I learned an important lesson: I needed to take my grappling a lot more seriously in order to be a good Tai Chi fighter. Since then I have dabbled far more seriously in MMA and BJJ than I ever did before in Judo, and it has made very significant improvements in my over all martial arts skills. In the 2019 Pacific North West Warrior Tipon Tipon I even pulled off a (left handed) Tai Chi single-handed push takedown in a knife fight against someone known to do very well against me, something I would never have been able to do if it hadn't been for the beating I took at the hands of the Wudang Dan Pai:

Fighting an opponent who is tough enough to take you out takes real courage and humility, and has taught me the most important martial arts lessons of my life. You should be proud of your experience Cyan, even if it is only in a Jackass The Movie "lol I can't believe I did something that stupid" sort of way. I am proud of you for it.

Opportunity Knocks

Celebrities are starting to take notice of what happened, you have been posted by Dana White, one of the most influential martial arts people in the world:

Like it or not, this is your opportunity Cyan. I am not the only one in the Martial Arts Journey facebook group who thinks you try to use a crowd funding source of some kind (Patreon maybe) to pull together resources to train under a well known martial arts master. Use your public defeat and now famous story to get funding to take your martial arts to the next level...

If you wanted to go pure Aikido, in my view you have four options: 1 - Lenny Sly - the downside being that his "aikigrappling" is still in development, but in the USA he is at the forefront of the functional Aikido movement. 2 - Tomiki Aikido - You don't have to  go to Japan for this, there appears to be clusters of Tomiki Aikido schools in Ohio and North Carolina. 3 - There is actually something called "Shoot Aikido," but you would probably have to go to Japan for that...

4 - If you are going to go all the way to Japan, the most exotic and least accessible to Americans type of Aikido is Hatenkai:

I think the best Aikido that has been going on globally since the 90's has been happening in the Thai Boxing ring. You speak openly about being trans, and the need for self defense skills in the LGBT community. Muay Thai is probably the fastest martial art to learn, and has effective techniques that work against larger or multiple opponents. Muay Thai has a unique history with the trans community specifically, and the Thai experience regarding trans identity may be something American culture could learn from:

But back to the best Aikido happening in Muay Thai, consider Muay Thai legend Oley Kiatoneway. He would pull stunts like using an opponent's force against them to put them over the top rope of the ring - not in a scripted pro wrestling match but in the middle of an actual fight... consider also his clever use of side stepping, "enter and blending," distance and takedowns:

Thailand is a popular destination for martial arts tourism, and the cost of living there historically has been low. You going to Thailand to train, after taking the public flogging that you did, would be a very compelling story. But like me you have family obligations and may not be available for over seas adventure. No matter, Muay Thai is trained in throughout the USA, and there are even numerous YouTube personalities you might be able to train with.

Muay Thai Saves TMA

I have been part of the Martial Arts Journey Facebook Group, where the arguments leading up to the latest case of an Aikidoka getting slapped around by an MMA fighter largely transpired:

My "lessons learned" from this is that basically all Traditional Martial Arts (TMA) should cross train in Muay Thai. Muay Thai is the combat sport that focuses on staying on their feet (one of the main goals of TMA, especially Aikido,) while also allowing most of the actually-usable TMA techniques.

In that group someone recently asked "what two martial arts go together best?" After giving it a few days, I finally came up with "any TMA plus Muay Thai." TMA has so much to offer in terms of strategy, obscure forms of conditioning, dirty tricks, tradition, and philosophy. Muay Thai is the most applicable combat sport to TMA, and makes sure TMA has their blind spots covered for the range of fighting TMA practitioners think they are good at.

Looking at the TMA of Aikido specifically, one of the core ideas is being able to "enter and blend," to counter strikes by redirecting and throwing the opponent (without going to the ground with the opponent.) This is one of the many areas where Muay Thai excels:

It would be easy to think that was a highlight of the entire sport, and that not all Muay Thai fighters learn that skill. You would be wrong on that, here's the throw highlights from just one fighter:

And that which is in Muay Thai but outside of your TMA is important blind spots to cover. From Tae Kwon Do to Aikido, most TMA for example have a big blind spot for the most likely kick to come at you, the kick to your leg. Muay Thai covers that more so than any other martial art.

Though this is certainly most true for Tai Chi, I here and now state that all TMA should cross train in Muay Thai. I had the fortunate experience of learning kick boxing from the same instructors that also taught me the majority of the TMA (including most of the Tai Chi) I have learned. Even my Aikido instructor was a Muay Thai fan. But if you have not been as fortunate, seek out Muay Thai on your own!

Before and After

A lot of people like to talk trash on combat sports for "not preparing you for the street." My story is simple: in spite of having years of martial arts training, it wasn't until I got into combat sports that I had either actionable self defense skills on the street, or the confidence to handle ugly situations on the street.

My first Martial Art was Tae Sho Arnis, in the late 80's. In class we sparred like "American Kickboxing" or "full contact Karate" of that era. We did light contact sparring with padded arnis sticks, and practiced various common Filipino Martial Arts Drills, some Karate kata, and some basic self defense drills. We would occasionally do 2 on 1 sparring. The most memorable moment of that time was when we were sparring and the instructor turned off the lights and said "keep sparring, you won't always have good lighting on the street."

The problem with Tae Sho Arnis was we trained to compete in Kumite Point Fighting, and we got good at it. We ended devoting most of our training to that end. I remember the day when that ended, when our grand master walked out of a point fighting tournament for getting called on contact for kicks the judges said weren't landing on his opponent. Being in a Navy town, our instructors kept moving and the local school closed down. We dabbled in Tae Kwon Do of that era, which was stylistically similar to what we had been doing, but it didn't seem as practical.

A bunch of us then got one of our friend's father, a 2nd degree black belt, to teach us Aikido. He was really focused on teaching us "self defense" and mentioned numerous times he wasn't following the standard Aikido curriculum, and he had other martial arts experience. It was a rough and tumble class with contact randori, brawling on the mat outside of formal class time, and eventually light contact boken sparring.

Now up until this point, you will notice that I actually had a very "live," self-defense oriented martial arts training, more so than most martial arts of that era, about 2 years all together. But I still lacked confidence and actionable self-defense skill. I once stopped a shoplifter about twice my size by doing a takedown on him from behind, and I thought I was pretty tough. Then a few months later on the way home from the same job, I was jumped by four people trying to get my wallet. They only hit me one time, didn't get my wallet, and I got away, but I had to get about five stitches between my right eye and the bridge of my nose, and was left shaken in my confidence in my ability to defend myself.

That was before, in my late teens.

Then in my early 20's I got with one of my instructors (Vern Miller, Doc Fai Wong's first student to be endorsed to start his own school,) and got into K-1 style kickboxing (as well as Choy Li Fut and Tai Chi.) Back then we had no appreciation for light contact sparring, we were over compensating for being involved in Kumite Point Fighting, and I was coming home with new bruises or bloody noses more days than not, 5 or 6 days a week. My fights cards were disasters, as I had to cancel both fights due to chronic wrist pain from pounding on heavy bags for hours and hours every week.

But I learned how to fight, really fight, like it mattered. I really learned circular footwork. I learned how to really hit someone. I learned how to really take a hit. I learned how to handle my nerves headed into a ring where I knew I was going to get the crap beat out of me, almost naked in front of a critical crowd, and how to keep fighting even though blood was spraying around the ring, peppering the walls and posts near the ring.

Since then I have had no problem at all handling myself on the street:

• I was once chased by five people at night trying to mug me, throwing rocks at me. I kept my distance, but kept taunting them to follow me dodging and ducking them though dark streets and back yards, until I was finally in the back of a police car with them lined up in front of the police car for me to ID them.
• I was once attacked by a homeless person throwing stuff at me at very close range. I thought it was funny, side stepping and blocking with ease, I wasn't even slightly alarmed. He was aggressive, but no threat to me at all.
• I had a guy try to head butt me in front of my supervisor, and I dodged out of the way with ease, and continued to address him as if nothing had happened. (My supervisor was not amused.)
• I once had to talk to a large athletic dude-bro smoking methamphetamine, who became enraged and tried to attack me. I used circular footwork to use a tree to keep us appart as I explained the rules of the neighborhood to him.
• And this happened: 
• 'At one project I was involved in I was responsible for protecting the perimeter of a block in downtown Seattle. I was recklessly talking on my cell phone as I patrolled the area. I ran into a man verbally accosting a woman trying to get into her car, using sexist language that made me very concerned for her safety. I interrupted with "Sir, do you know this woman?" He replied by coming at me swinging. Still on my cellphone I used bobbing and weaving and footwork to avoid the strikes... on camera, much to the amusement of my supervisor at the time. The miscreant eventually tired, wandered down the street, blocked traffic, got arrested and went to jail. This miscreant left behind a back pack. Interested in who he might be, we secured the back pack and examined its contents. We discovered sentimental objects from his childhood, medications, and documentation that led us to believe that he was a homeless veteran who was not recovering well from a back problem, and that he had been mixing medications with alcohol at the time of our skirmish. A few weeks later the miscreant reappeared on the perimeter, looking for trouble. I got his back pack, and walked directly up to him, and asked "Sir, is this yours?" He immediately broke down into tears. He sobbed "no one has ever done anything like this for me before." We never had problems from him again.'

I would also note that I have continued to add to my skill set, training in submission grappling and full contact weapon free sparring. This has further boosted my ability, as per my fights in 2017: 

For example I was once involved in a neighborhood watch type of program near a drug rehabilitation clinic. I knew I had upset some amatuer phramcists distributing illicit benzodiazapines. A man came stumbling towards me on the side walk, obviously under the influence of the said substance. He pulled out a knife, looked down at it, and looked back up at me.

I carefully stayed out of lunging distance, but still very much in his face. I told him "you need to put that back right now, before you get into real trouble." I stood there, all be it on my toes, full well acting like I expected him to just put the knife away and walk away. That is exactly what he did. (Pro tip: don't abuse benzodiazepines if you are nervous about getting ready to threaten someone with a knife.)

I will end with this Aikido black belt's thoughts on the difference combat sports has made for him: