Originally posted by NoRiceBoys:
Hi
I used to be a UC instructor during my army days (loooong ago).
I fully agree with you that what's taught in UC class is mostly bullshit. Most of the stuff will never work in real life.
There were 2 directives, or priorities in why soldiers are trained in UC, and this is what instructers had to keep in mind.
First and foremost, the most important reason why soldiers train in UC is to help develop aggression and a fighting spirit in them. The ability and desire to want to close with the enemy. After all, if you have your rifle and a bayonet, why the hell will you want to fight empty hand.
The second, and less important goal, is to learn how to fight hand-to-hand.
The only things I found workable in the UC syllabus was the reaping throw (osoto-gari in judo?) and perhaps the hip throw.
Selection for instructors was mostly done from people who studied TKD. And we all know how good TKD is for actual fighting (its useless in case you're wondering). Even I as an instructor cannot make it work for myself, I don't want to talk about the students.
I'm sure the korean TKD people can probably kick some butt, but I've got a black belt in TKD and I can't kick my way out of a 7-11 full of old grannies to save my butt. It just doesn't work for me. My training consisted of 98% punching/kicking the air, doing katas and other silly 3-step sparring drills that had little resemblance to real life, and 2% sparring.
I have several theories on why this bullshit continues to be taught in the SAF.
1) The govt. does not want to train all male citizens in a skill that can really work to maim, kill or hurt. The majority of us become civilians after our time in service. If all of us are trained killers, we're going to have a social problem on our hands.
2) The people in charge of this don't know any better. The regulars I knew who ran the show during my time were all bozo deadbeat losers anyway. They were good in TKD, but I don't think many of them has ever been in a street fight, not to mention in a kill or get killed situation. Those that do may not have the gumption to go the way to see things change, or are not in the position to effect this change.
3) To train people to be effective in a fight, you're going to need to let them fight full contact regularly, or at least train effective drills over and over and over. It's as simple as that. If you let people go at it, you're going to get injuries. And the mamas and papas don't want to see boy boy going home with a black eye or a broken nose do they? And I'm not talking about no punching to the head, no kneeing to the groin bullshit. I mean everything goes, but with guards and protective gear of course (perhaps to the exclusion of eye jabs). And we know how SAF feels about injuries and accidents.
4) It's going to cost a lot of money to buy gloves for every soldier, mouth pieces, head guards, shin guards, belly guards and groin cups. Not to mention you'll need a lot of trained instructors to supervise the full contact sparring sessions.
Any kind of "martial art" that is not tried on a trained, fully resisting opponent in a full-contact, anything goes situation just isn't going to work squat in the streets. That is why I read in another thread about someone who learned TKD? but will just "anyhow swing" in a real street brawl. This is because what you're learning is not realistic or applicable to real life.
Let me just take boxing for example. Boxing is actually a highly scientific art. A good boxer will beat an "anyhow swing" untrained person any time. A seasoned boxer's head is hard to hit, because first, he covers up, his chin is down so you can't knock him out easily, and he's always moving his head. Even when he's punching, his punching arm is covering his head, and you can't hook him easily. He's trained to always keep his hands up, and has good reflexes. He is also used to taking shots to the head and body. He's going to be able to beat most of the untrained people out there in a fight. Most importantly, his punches are going to pack knockout power.
Full contact sparring teaches you two things.
First, it teaches you to be down to earth, and forget about all your fancy hollywood moves you see in the movies or you're going to get your butt kicked. It may work on an untrained person, or your training partner who's not very good at fighting, but it sure isn't going to work on someone who's good at stand-up fighting.
Second it teaches you the vital timing to make your tools (punches, elbows, knees, kicks, chops, palms, etc.) work for you. Third, it gets you used to getting hit.
The third point is very important. If you're training and living in a make belief world, and in a real fight you get socked in the head a couple of times, you're not going to be able to continue unless you can take a hit and go on.
I know this is politically incorrect, but all the akido and TKD guys (I was one of them in the past!) if they ever get into the unfortunate experience of landing themselves in a place where they have to defend themselves are going to wake up to a really shocking truth. I've been in a fight before, so I know what it's like. Your opponent is definitely not going to stick his hand out for you to grab.
Any fighting art that has full-contact, uncorporative sparring as 90% or even 100% as its core curriculum is going to beat everything else that is done with a compliant partner. These are the arts that will really work. Kyukoshin karate, muay thai, boxing, BJJ, shan shou, etc. Add to that some dirty street fighting techniques and practical weapon counters, and you're good to go.
I spent a long time finding out what works and what doesn't. My advice to fellow martial artists interested in real self defense is this:
Don't waste time arguing with people on a forum. Put on some boxing gloves, mouth piece, groin cup, some body protection if you like, shin guards, and invite people from other martial arts for a friendly full-contact sparring session and find out for yourselves. You'll find out very quickly if your "art" works, or is just pure bullshido.
If you're doing it because of excercise, beauty, etc. its fine, but if you're doing it for self defense, you've got to test it out before you need to use it.
Hey, thanks for the post. Nice to know that at least some instructors realise the silliness of what they are teaching.
I agree with you, esp the part about the importance of sparring. The problem as I see it is that if you do not get used to having someone come at you aggressively, your instinctive reaction is to cover up, turn your back. And we all know how dangerous that is! In fact, I did that too! Until I was told to use jabs, block and move.
I think that somesort of sparring can be incorporated into the cirriculum cheaply. If the aim is aggression, then slap on some boxing gloves and head gear (with cage) and then let them go at it. No kicking, no kneeing, no biting etc. Or, slap on some boxing gloves and let the trainees go wild at a pad for 2/3mins. Only those able to keep up the pressure and their composure for the full 2/3mins ought to pass.