Is Combat really Evolving? Or are we just rediscovering it?

Reviews, Videos, and Everything Else Bullshido.ORG Martial Arts Encyclopedia Discussion
1

In the first UFCs, the strikers were dominated by the grapplers because once the strikers were taken to the ground, they do not know anything.

Gracie Jujitsu was supposedly Japanese Jujitsu that was taught to the Gracie family by a Japanese immigrant… and the Gracies modified its techniques. If Jujitsu is such a great system, then it mustve been used by the NINJAS in medieval Japan. But all I hear in here about Ninjitsu is it being bullshido and being bashed all over the place. Crappy instructors for ninjitsu or what?

…Then there’s all this talk about mcdojos who only care about money and dumb down martial arts and churn out lousy students… etc… etc…

…Then there are people in Bullshido and other related sites (Sherdog, Subfighter, etc…) who say that martial arts should have contact and real fighting because that is what it is supposed to be.

So has combat REALLY evolved today just like any other piece of technology? Or are we just rediscovering what the ancient people knew about hand-to-hand combat? Roman gladiators had to put their lives on the line every single fuckin day… and in every civilization that was before modern times… people were trained to fight at an early age since we were all about little kingdoms//tribes//whatever…

So is it REAL DEAL —> McDojo —> Back to REAL DEAL

or

REAL DEAL —> Fighting has REALLY been improved and perfected today… that if there is a time machine to send back Matt Hughes and make him fight the best Roman Gladiator or any ancient warrior (unarmed… no weapons!)… he will be kicking their asses in no time at all!!!

What is it really? I’m no expert in martial arts. I only have little BJJ and kickboxing experience so I dont really know much about it.

2

If you invented a time machine to bring you back to ancient rome and all you wanted to do was watch two guys fist fight in the gladiator pit then I’d suggest that your not an expert in having fun either :slight_smile:

3

Well, you can rationalize that while their has been much more training knowledge gained in the last 2 thousand years, most of it has been in the health/training/nutrition fields. As far as unarmed NHB combat, I mean, assuming this went on back in Roman days (why wouldn’t it, after all), there are some ways of breaking people that can’t be much improved upon until maybe cyborgs or some shit. I remember some physio class or whatever when the TA talked about how it’s funny how the armbar really is just about the most anotomically efficient way of breaking someone’s elbow.

I mean, it didn’t take the gracies to figure out that:

Most of the muscles in your body

vs.

Their elbow

=

You: 1 Elbow: 0

Actually verifying this histrorically is going to be a little harder.

Although I do remember going to an exhibit at the SD art museum ’ In Stabiano: Exploring the Ancient Seaside Villas of the Roman Elite’ while I was high and there were a pair of mosaics with a naked guy called ‘the boxer’ I think and he had MMA-style wraps and stuff, I dunno.

4

Personally, I think the best unarmed fighters are alive today, not hundreds (or thousands) of years ago. Not because of whether what they’re doing is new or not, but because of the advancement in training methods, nutrition, increased knowledge of strength training, etc. I think that’s pretty typical of athletics in general. Our ability to share our knowledge on such a wide scale is also key.

As far as your example of gladiators - I definitely wouldn’t use them as my gold standard of what a fighter should be. And no, the best gladiators didn’t put their lives on the line every day. The best fighters weren’t usually forced to fight to the death because people wanted them alive so they could keep watching them fight. Gladiators that fought to the death were usually unskilled slaves, prisoners, etc.

Greek pankration fighters were probably much more skilled unarmed fighters than the Roman gladiators because of the high value the Greeks placed on skill and athleticism. The Romans just took what the Greeks did and cheapened it by turning it into a pure blood sport.

Obviously, today’s fighters aren’t constantly reinventing the wheel. Most of the techniques and ideas are nothing new. But there’s no question that fighting is evolving, and it will keep doing so.

5

I can answer this at least. First Ninjutsu aren’t fighting techniques, they are spying/esponiage techniques. Maybe schools had them in addition to their Bujutsu (War Techniques).

So, coming from a different angle, what about the fighting techniques of the Iga Region people. The people historially called Ninjas. Well, they used Jujutsu. Remember that Jujutsu is not a tight term in Japan like it is the west. Well refering to any older style unarmed combat, the term Jujutsu was used. Some schools used Koppojutsu/Gohojutsu/Koshijutsu/KumiUchi/Aikijutsu/Taijutsu to name a few. However, the over arching term for these systems is Jujutsu. Therefore arts like Gyokko Ryu and Koto Ryu which fall in the realm of Ninjutsu Arts, contain Jujutsu inside there school. Therefore, Ninjas did Jujutsu.

Source: Classical Fighting Arts of Japan by Serge Mol

6

Very Interesting…

Great little thinker you’ve started here Da_AzN. I think Camus really hit the nail on the head bringing up all of the non-fighting technique advancements that have been made. Recovering from injuries, both armed and unarmed, today is a lot easier than it used to be.

I think it’s also important to consider the realities in which non-modern fighting was taking place. By and large training was done in the context of reasonably large scale fighting; bloody battles where you weren’t necessarily killed so much as you were maimed to the point of non-resistance.

It really comes down to training and situations. The fighters of today have the advantage in terms of mind set (how many fighters do you know that didn’t choose to participate) and training (specific rule set trained towards, vast amount of knowledge to draw on to get the most from their bodies and effort).

If every now and again modern fighters were handed a sword or a gun, sent to war and told they probably wouldn’t come back, I think we’d have a very different picture than we do.

…I’m sorry, what was the question?..

Oh yeah, I’d say that basic unarmed combat hasn’t changed, and won’t until human physiology changes. And I don’t think that the McDojo phenomenon has affected true combat as much as it may seem. Hard training, be it for boxing, grappling, etc. hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s just that the promotion has changed. Groups of guys that beat the hell out of each other today aren’t much different from groups of guys that beat the hell out of each other 20, 50 or more years ago.

Styles and fads may change, but asskickings look the same whenever they happen.

(Well I hope I got my point across, if not ask me yes/no questions, those are more my speed)

7

I think that maybe the scientific aspect of fighting (meaning studies on the best angle for armbars, increased knowledge of nutrition, easier acces to information on your opponent and so on…) Has evolved. Nowadays, people who want to perform in fighting have more efficient ways of doing so. At least, that’s what I think. Of course, double leg takedowns probably looked pretty much the same back then, but things like suplex dummies and protein shakes did’nt. (As far as I know.)

8

the halo reference in this thread title pisses me off.

9

hides name from pauli

10

I’d vote for today’s fighters being much better unarmed fighters - simply because there wasn’t much percentage in training unarmed combat before modern professional fighting came along. Why would you spend your life learning how to hit with your hands when some doofus with an axe could easily take you down? The only reason these arts evolved in the East were because the peasants were banned from carrying weapons.
As for western wrestling and boxing - sure people did them but which would you spend the most time on - fighting with weapons to save your ilfe or mucking around with your mates?

11

Do you do MMA and BJJ and kickboxing?

12

I think this is a double edged sword here.

Now: Better nutrition, better training technology, better medical technology.

Then: More time available to train, desperate mentality.

–This reminds me of a Chris Rock stand up routine he did on HBO a few years ago. He was talking about the difference between an Olympic javelin thrower and an African tribal hunter. He joked about the African hunter coming to the Olympics and chucking spears at the announcers, since they train to kill things and not to win an event.

Same kind of deal.

The African tribal hunter has worse nutrition and archaic training methods…but this is what he does for a living! If he misses with that spear throw, his family might die of starvation. Therefore, his continued survival is only assured by his continued growth as a “Spear Thrower”.

The Olympic thrower, on the other hand, does this for fun and for competition. At the end of the day, he probably goes home to easily accessible food that he bought with his non-spear throwing job…and not once does he think, “If I miss with the javelin, my wife and kids might die of starvation.”

Ultimately, I feel that the events we focus on are the events that we will become superior at. If we were to transport a Grecian Pankration champ to the future and throw him in the ring with gloves, a mouthpiece, and the UFC rules set…then I think Matt Hughes would eat him for breakfast.

If we transported Matt Hughes into the past and had him fight the same Pankration champ in a Grecian ring with Grecian Pankration rules…then I think we’d be out one excellent modern fighter.

13

I’m with Satori.

I think there is only so much you can learn involving breaking other people, whether its today or 500 years ago. Cross training isnt a new idea. Unarmed training isnt a new idea. Ground fighting isnt even a new idea. Ground fighting was so ground breaking because people nowadays can afford the luxary to be down there. Being on the ground 500 years ago means getting stomped on by horses and having crazy sword weilding vikiings chop off your head.

Meanwhile, training with swords now a days, wont get you far, but 500 years ago would save your life. I dont think that any kind of training is actually EVOLVING, if anything as a human race we are just specializing in different areas of combat than we did 500 years ago.

But then, of course, we go to firearms, and then to cannons, and then to bombs. Maybe soon they’ll be a fighting art that uses laser beams on the end of our hands. Cool. The only real thing that us humans have truely evolved is the ability to think and create new technology. Once new weaponary becomes available, new technology, maybe then fighting would be different. But as of now, limbs, sticks, sharp things, and bullets still hold the majority of ways to attack and kill another human.

14

Training methods are safer these days,
less injuries, better nutrition, better recovery.
Drugs.
All adds up to an easier path to expertise.

BUT I think the crucial thing is communication.
A ‘secret’ technique could win you the whole contest …
Not now, what is secret one day is common knowledge the next.

15

I think most of you underestimate the Romans when it comes to medical treatment/nutrition, because at the time, the gladiators were a sort of an industry, the star gladiators got the best treatment that was available, and that included even different sorts of wellness and massage, etc. . As for the Injuries during training, I am pretty sure that the experienced gladiators watched out for that.

As for the olympic contestants, I think this was also a sort of profession, because the homecity payed a rent to the winner of an olympic contest.
And as in todays sports (boxing vs. mma), I think historic sources claim that in boxing they had much worse injuries than in pankration, partly due to not having modern kinds of gloves, which is to me another evidence that the people at the time were not so different.

So I am pretty sure that the best roman gladiators or for that matter olympic contestants would not be that inferior to MMA competitors, but of course they would also not own them.

However with the Fall of the roman empire, I think there was no economic reason anymore to support gladiator schools plus its “unchristian”, and the roman empire changed to christianity towards its end, and through the middle ages a lot of knowledge got lost, especially scientific knowledge, where interestingly enough, a lot of that was rediscovered in the renaissance through arabic translations of greek/latin texts.

I’ve heard all this stuff at school a long time ago and forgot most of it, so I apologize if not everything is correct, but if youre interested, I’m sure you are going to find a decent history book.

As to the secret techniques: I would disagree, in the sense that once shown in a big arena, the secret technique is known to other gladiator schools too. So they could maybe train to “avoid” a particular speciality of a contestant. However I agree that it is much more difficult to actually learn the technique, so maybe one of the biggest changes in martial arts and sports in general in the 20. century was the universal use of videotapes, for analyzing the opponent/ones own movements/…

One last thing: Aliveness. I know that most of you emphasize that a lot, and that some of you think that traditional training methods do not emphasize that.
I am not sure whether this is the case, because today MA has become a sort of leisure activity, along with fishing and golfing. But at the time (I am sure this applies as well to the romans and greeks, as to the japanese) , people practiced their MA, either as a competitive sport or for survival. And at some point I am sure they were sparring, all of them. Otherwise they just got beaten/dead in teh real fight.
To you japanophiles: didn’t even Myamoto Musashi prefer the Bokken ?
But as soon as you want to market your MA to anyone as a funny hobby, possibly with a philosophical undertone, then black eyes and other remnants of a real punching, or broken ankles suddenly become uncool…

16

I also think it’s a little of both.

Today we have a better understanding of anatomy and yes better nutriotion and training tools.

Back then there were not guns, so as a warrior or to survive, for war everything was blood and fire.

But honesly, look at old drawings of teh samurai and everything they do bears a closer similarity to MMA/submission wrestling then it does Traditional Jujutsu(other then the armor part)

Look at traditional boxing, i mean didnt they have shin kicks and take downs?

But today we have the internet, more books, tv and video. We are aware of stuff.

I have never taken boxing in my life, i know people who are boxers and talked with them but i have never trained in boxing.

When talking to them i already know everything they tell me about(theory i mean)

because i read about it on the internet.

Could a karate or boxer in the old days have the same fore-knowledge?

17

One aspect that hasn’t been touched on - maybe because it’s simply understood - is that combat evolution is also based on the individual fighter. What would happen if Matt Hughes went back in time to fight the Greeks? I would say it depends on who trains more, who had more experience; it would depend on who is the better fighter. I would be highly surprised if ancient wrestlers didn’t know about armbars or RNC or submissions. Like the articles on aliveness, there are fundamental delivery systems that everyone should learn, after that it turns into a “who has a more effective style*” discussion.

Other than that, I would say one can see an evolution in certain areas where the fundamentals are reworked. Take boxing - how many people in professional boxing are standing toe-to-toe with their opponent, palms in and fists extended away from their body? The fundamentals of punching have changed since then, and I would imagine if you took a boxer of today and pitted him against a boxer of yore - no matter what ruleset - that the modern boxer would ruin the other guy’s day.

*By style, I mean as defined by Thornton as an individual’s application of the fundamentals and overall gameplay.

18

new or rediscovered

l started boxing about 1942 as a kid ,l have watched it ever since. most boxers in my day went 15 rounds , now its 4 or 6 max is 12 . they werent as pretty as some now,but to-day most couldnt do 15. also lots of things have been lost that was done then. as to martial arts how many to-day calling themselves master of this and that ever had to fight for his life? and then some even come up with a new style when they got wupped because they couldnt do what they had learned with any skill. then claim they have all the answers. the difference then was we did need to have to be able to fight we didnt have uzzis and so on. plus back then when you fought someone we had a code if you broke it you werent considered a man . when you say we didnt need to learn to fight , how about when factories had signs men wanted irish need not apply or no d.ps. and worse we sometimes had to . l remember when catholics and protestants still fought over religeon or when strikers got beaten by local police. what do think we used clubs. or rocks ?it wouldnt be manly. when l went to my first martial arts club the class was 3 hours long . the first was all workout and two hours of learnig how. we had to show up 3 times a week if we missed without calling wed be replaced as there was always some waiting for a spot. and yes we cross trained by fighting boxers , wrestlers , we even had a champion boxer in one class to play with. l dont remember to many back then did it for bragging rights or a hobby . we worked hard and played harder. we had no computers , tv , we had lots of time to train and we did. l am now over 70 (l wont go into how far) l still teach and still get time for myself. to say that without proffesional fighting nothing would have happened maybe if one lived in a closet and never came out. living now is easy not like the dirty 30s with back room bare knuckle fights to earn enoughj to eat. or trying to keep the locals from beating on you because you were the wrong race or from the wrong country. thats where martial arts in the beginning in asia and modern boxing got its start in alleys and back rooms. so one cannot compare with oldtimers against to-days fighter when you werent there . l respect anyone who takes the time to spend hours in the gym or kwoon to learn but you cant compare . like the boxers of old they learned from no videos or books but by doing. and the developers of arts in asia by doing . what you do have is the benefit of there experience. and no youve not invented anything new .

19

I believe this was one of the original poster’s theories, if I read correctly. The whole idea of “aliveness” that all self-respecting Bullshido members live for. It was only recently, I believe, that martial arts took the turn for the worst and began teaching more “gentle” (or dead, as the case may be) arts. Fighters never learn how to fight by posing, they learn by doing. It’s just how the human mind works.

My theory is that person A learns an art, kicks a bunch of ass, and person B notices. Person B wants the same respect that person A has earned, but without the hard work, so instead uses crap like kata as the majority (if not entirety) of his art and claims the same skill as person A.

Now, of course, it’s probably not that simple, and “person A” and “person B” are probably more likely “generation A” and “generation B,” but you get the idea.

20

Maybe it is not even that person A “learns” the art, maybe its just that person A is the only survivor of a series of battles- thus it may well be that he developed a large part of his martial art by himself.

But his “training” was to a large extent from real battles and thus he can not give this experience to his students - the experience that comes closest to this is of course randori/sparring.

Now for me personally, I do not think that “traditional” training methods like kata are always BS - in the case for example of kata, I think it is a sort of a mind training, which somehow uses other parts of the brain than the ones I am used to (Learning words/logical sequences,… <=> Learning movements).
Now I agree that I could also learn dancing for that, but I think dancing isn’t necessarily bad either. I think a dancer has even more feeling for rhytm and timing than the average bullshidoka.
Maybe one could say, martial arts without aliveness is dancing without music - without any negative undertone (at least for me).