Secrets of the Martial Arts

People in the know look at a martial art like Judo and say this is totally a sport. They took out the dangerous moves and the nasty things like strikes that can hurt people in training and kept alot of the other things. What did it look like before it became a sport? What did fencing look like before it become so distorted as a sport?

I have recently been a witness to seeing a martial art in the process of BECOMING a sport.

IDPA or the International Defensive Pistol Association was originally founded in order to better the skills of people who carry pistols for self defense.

When you go to an IDPA shoot, there are normally 2 types of shooters there, the Tactical Teds and the Gamers. Tactical Ted is all about real self defense scenarios and wants to improve his abilities and is not interested in his score or winning the contest. The Gamers will take advantage of any and all rules to try and improve their score to win the match.

One time I created a scenario where there was a guy with a knife 21 feet from the shooter, and the idea was that you had to shoot him while running to cover and then engage the other opponents from cover. Then you move to another bit of cover to engage more opponents(represented by cardboard that roughly similates the head and torso of a bad guy)

So I took off running at 90 degrees to left and shot at the guy with the knife quickly. I wanted to hit him but I also needed to get out of the way QUICKLY since he can theoretically run and cut or stab me before I can draw and get off a shot. I then engaged the other targets from behind out simulated "brick wall" exposing as little of myself as possible. Then I went to the next bit of cover and did the same. Yes, I am a Tactical Ted. For me it is a simulation of a life or death scenario that could happen to me.

So how does this become a sport? Well is is what the Gamers did....First they brought a gun to the shooting match that is not the gun they carry when carrying a gun. They brought one that was more accurate and they might have even loaded it with ammo less powerful than what they would carry with the for protection. they face the knife welding bad guy and slowly ever so slowly walk with baby steps to the cover since they are more concerned with accuracy than getting out of the way. Then they put way too much of their body out of cover so it is easier to shoot the other bad guys. Then they reload their gun since they already know the scenario and have counted how many shots they would have shot before reaching the next to the last cover and know that they will save time by reloading now instead of waiting to run dry "unexpectedly" like what happens in real life.

So anyway for them it is all about their score and they are not worried about getting away from people with knives, exposing themselves to opponents with guns when they have a perfectly good brick wall to hide most of their body behind. The score in IDPA is partly accuracy and part how fast you do the scenario. Basicly bad accuracy means add time to your score. So a combo of speed and accuracy wins.

Anway, they are training themselves to win competitions and not training themselves to survive deadly encounters. You can see this martial art turning into a sport right before your eyes. It is facinating.

# posted by The guy @ 11:55 AM