Friday, July 03, 2009

A Note on Personal Combat

All thorough my life I have heard the question posed as to what martial art or fighting system is the best. I’ve heard many arguments and seen many inconclusive matches, tournaments, and unabashed braggadocio have led me to speculate as to the probability of a decisive event. This speculation has come about due to a combination of my renewed study of Taekwondo, my recent watching of the one and only season of Human Weapon, and all of the discussion on Blog Ing about which historical warriors would dominate if they actually met in combat. Since many of you are writing fiction, and fiction that involves personal combat on some level, I thought I would share my thoughts for what they are worth.

As a young student of Taekwondo I felt that it was very complete. I was, and still am, though in a much more subjective way, enamored with the art and its many strengths. Over the years I’ve seen and experienced things that made me aware of a large voids or weaknesses within Taekwondo. As I’ve learned more about other martial arts their flaws have stuck out to me as well. I will offer some examples to try to illustrate the point.

Taekwondo is a striking art known for its abundance of kicks, flying and standing. The purpose behind almost all movement is the production of power that will (ideally) end a conflict in one blow. A practitioner that can keep his opponent at leg’s length would be very difficult to beat. However, very little of its emphasis is directed towards grappling (systems that involve throwing, submission holds like joint locks, and/or pinning) in spite of a tidbit called Ho Sin Sul. This self-defense style is basic hold breaking good for fending off the school bully or an alley thug but probably not against someone who has studied jiu-jitsu, judo, aikido, its cousin hapkido, or wrestling.

Other arts, and styles within arts, are also laden with weaknesses, the greatest of which in my opinion is the culture that develops around them. The artist becomes indoctrinated with the rules and specific application of his or her style and is unprepared to deal with an unfamiliar culture. I’ve used the example of Taekwondo’s deficiency in the area of grappling already; I will further illustrate the point by looking at some other combat systems.

To flip the issue, I’ve seen grapplers in the ring take a beating because they are so focused on getting a hold of their opponent that they disregard the heavy strikes from hand and foot. In spite of these, the grappler usually has the advantage; most punches and kicks are fairly basic and not completely foreign to the grappler. Grappling on the other hand is often totally unknown to the striker as the main goal of most striking systems is to keep the opponent away. This is not always true; aikido for example is a peaceful art, meaning the goal is to protect yourself and your enemy at the same time. It is an art of counter-moves, but over the years moves that are considered too aggressive have been removed from practice. This leaves the practitioner without a practiced counter-move if faced with a cross-system confrontation.

Another aspect worthy of consideration is the cultural rules of engagement. Maui Tai, Pradal Serey, and Wing Chun all utilize knee and elbow strikes which are anathema in most other martial arts. A practitioner of Karate, Taekwondo, or Savate would likely be caught off guard by this brutal approach to fighting. Basically the stricter the tournament rules of a combat system are the more of a disadvantage their artist will have when faced with an anything-goes kind of match, whether it be on the street or in a ring. Another cultural feature is that of turns. In my years of Taekwondo experience I remember there being an unspoken rule of engagement: you attack, then I counter-attack, then you counter-attack, and so on. Many systems, especially those of Southeast Asia, spit in the face of such systems. Practitioners are taught that if you wait for your opponent to finish his attack you are already too late. Counter-attacks must be made immediately once the attack is recognized.

Because of each combat system’s innate weakness, newer hybrids have a distinct advantage over more historical and culturally accurate arts. Blends like Israel’s Krav Maga take the most effective and brutal moves from a variety of fighting styles and use them in urban warfare and anti-terrorist combat. It is a very effective art. Some blends lose a lot in their conception; mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting was historically a format where practitioners of different systems could meet up and see who had the bigger roundhouse, or armbar, or whatever. It has become a culture where a martial artist has a base system (like jiu-jitsu) and then picks up assorted moves from wherever he can. The result is a whole lotta slop, like in that song by Led Zeppelin. Kicks and punches are thrown with all of the technical awareness of a potato head, but with a lot more force. The one area they excel in is that they are not usually caught off guard by attacks of differing systems; they see more moves and have to contend with more variety in a match than any other art.

When it comes down to it, I don’t think there is a superior combat system. Each one has weaknesses and shortcomings due to the culture of its origination and the culture that has sprung up around the art. I propose that if two martial artists of similar stature but differing systems collided outside of the ring that the winner would be the fighter most able to deal with having the carpet yanked out from under him; by that I mean the one who can most quickly adapt to compensate for his lack of knowledge of the opponents system.

I think this would apply not only to empty-handed combat, but to that revolving around the use of weapons such as sword, shield, axe, pike, etc. Every system of combat would have its own set of strengths and weaknesses that could never be artificially compared by a computer because in the end it would be the fighter’s adaptability that would determine the outcome.

R.

6 comments:

Ben said...

Very interesting observations! I bow before your masterful explanation.

It's sad, but the only real knowledge of fighting I have comes from second-hand gleanings I've picked up from role-playing games. The Riddle of Steel is an RPG that claims to have the most realistic combat system of any game, ever. Their system is based on classical Western martial arts and is set up as a series of attacks and counter-attacks, illustrating the idea of turns you mentioned. But it kind of makes sense. If you ignore someone else's attack and try to beat them to the punch, you had darn well better be faster or you're dead. It seems pretty practical to just take a second to defend and try to put yourself in a more advantageous position to attack. But I also think they assume you are making immediate counterattacks after defending. It sounds like with your Taekwando experience there may have been a pause between turns.

It really makes sense that adaptability would be the name of the game when fighting someone with a different style, though. And it actually makes the comparison of different styles a lot more interesting. If you assume you're dealing with fighters who don't have much exposure to other fighting styles, it really highlights the differences, advantages, and disadvantages. Some fighting styles would be bound to do better against others, as your example of wrestling versus striking styles illustrates.

One thing about the Deadliest Warrior show is that it really seems to be more about weapons than fighting styles. The weapon specialists on the talk a lot of smack about how they would just dodge, or attack faster, or whatever, but that kind of data doesn't seem to go into their software program. At the end of the day, the show is really about how much damage the weapons do to their gel torsos and pig carcasses. It makes for fun TV, but it would be a very interesting to focus a little more on fighting style. What kind of moves does the warrior use, and how prepared would he be for the moves of his opponent?

riotimus said...

Thanks for commenting, Ben. While I think that different weapons and their various attributes are interesting and would make some impact on outcome of an individual match it is my opinion that most matches of a close-combat fight would come down to fighting style, whether it was hand to hand or using weapons. I don't think any single weapon makes that much of a difference unless your opponent is unarmed or one of you has a missile weapon (ie. bow, pistol, sling, machine gun, etc., though they have their own set of disadvantages). This is because of the trade off that every weapon has; a dagger has more mobility than a sword but less reach; a sword has more mobility than a pike but less reach; a mace can crush through the strongest armor but if circumstances limit the user's range of motion it becomes a heavy piece of metal in his hand that is only really a danger to an exposed face; I could keep going on and on (and I am willing if you want me too) but my point is that because every weapon has such contrasting shortfalls it would in the end come down to the adaptability of the combatants.

As far as the simultaneous attack/pause/turn situation goes I thought I should clarify. Reading back I can see that I didn't explain fully. Fighters using Maui Tai and Pradal Serey, and probably others, are trained to block (or dodge) and counter-attack simultaneously as opposed to just taking the blow.

R.

Ben said...

I tend to agree with you on the issue of weapons. Most of the weapons tested in Deadliest Warrior garnered a kill in the first strike. Of course, they test the weapon on an immobile gel torso, which assumes you were able to get past your opponent's defenses and get a solid strike. They don't address defensive techniques, reach, speed, etc. The point is, almost any weapon is deadly in the right circumstances. What really matters is your technique. Can you land the blow in the first place? Like you said, that's where adaptability comes in. If you know what to expect from a person trained in a particular style of fighting, you have a much greater chance of avoiding their attacks and landing your own.

I see what you meant now about the turn-taking. As usual, my knowledge comes from The Riddle of Steel (I really need to do some personal research). Most of their combat maneuvers assume that when one person is attacking, the other person is going to either dodge or block. There's one maneuver called Simultaneous Block/Strike that does what you describe from Maui Tai, etc., but it's harder to execute than most other maneuvers in the game. That leads me to believe it was uncommon in typical Western martial arts.

Ing said...

I think the weakest part of the Deadliest Warrior TV show is simply that they don't really explain why and how their simulation works; they've said on some comment boards and web Aftermath episodes that they take differing styles into account as well as differing weapons, but they never go into detail about it, so nobody has any idea how much of a role that plays. And if you hadn't looked elsewhere, the TV show itself wouldn't give you even the hint of an answer.

You both make really good points. I think making a block/dodge and a counterattack simultaneously is bound to be more difficult than simply blocking or dodging -- you'd need to be really sure about where your opponent's attack was going, and how you could move in to exploit its weakness.

I agree with most of what you've said -- although I have to differ a bit on how much difference a weapon can make. In hand-to-hand combat, a weapon's effectiveness does depend a lot on what type of armor it's up against, but I think you can safely say that some weapons will nearly always be superior to others. Seems to me it wouldn't matter how good of a dagger-wielder a guy was if he was matched up against a guy who had a sword and knew how to use it (unless he had good armor to even things up). One thing Deadliest Warrior is VERY good at is gauging the comparative effectiveness of weapons, and their tests have found a few that really do make a big difference.

Having said that, though, it's impossible to know whether the Deadliest Warrior simulations fully account for the adaptability of any given fighting style (rather than the use of the weapons). And I think you're right that in personal combat, especially unarmed martial arts but also to a great extent with weapons, it's the adaptability of the combatants that would make the biggest difference.

Ben said...

I don't know about the dagger versus sword, Ing. All you have to do is dodge the first blow and get inside his range. Once you're that close, he can't get a good blow and you just stab him. Of course, it's the first part that's the challenge, but I would think that someone who's fast and reasonably skilled would have a good chance of pulling it off.

Ing said...

There's always a chance, but I don't know about a *good* chance. For one thing, a trained swordsman would know not to let someone close in too close to strike, and would take steps to prevent that. And it doesn't pay to underestimate how quickly a sword can move...not to mention the sheer power advantage. I still say a swordsman would beat an equally skilled dagger or knife wielder 9 times out of 10 (all other things being equal).

Anyway... We could go round and round on this forever, I guess. :)