OT: Western v. Eastern martial arts

[Omnirizon]

Are there any experts on the martial histories of the West vs the East? Or can anyone de-essentialize these a little for me? In my research the history of 'Eastern' martial arts seems to be concentrated in Japan, Korea, China, and S.E. Asia. Likewise, Western martial arts are located in the fencing schools of Germany, Italy, and France, but there is also some history on French kickboxing, English boxing, and Portugese 'stick fighting'.

While Eastern martial arts have a history and consistent style and terminology that ranges across centuries, Western martial arts that have such consistent focus on style is concentrated in the German and Italian fencing schools, but none of these ranged for more than several decades; never even a century! French and English boxing are really nothing more than informal styles evolved from street fighting. The German and Italian schools may have focused on a weapon (two-handed sword, side sword, rapier) but none of them were tied explicitly to one weapon, and all trained in the use of several weapons or shields and armors, generally as a companion to their favored weapon.

Eastern martial arts seem to be tied explicitly to a single weapon or style, with a history for that style extending for hundreds and hundreds of years. I think this is why we today link the word "martial arts" to "Eastern martial arts". There is a specific style for each specific family of swords, a style for each specific polearm, and style for each specific weapon with its own name and terminology. This is something the West has never had.

So my question is, if I wanted to reduce East v West martial arts down to a form that could be represented in a game, what would the specific effects of learning naginatajutsu vs. learning in a German fencing school be? (consider that the West never even had something so specific as a consistent style tied to a specific polearm like the naginata).

any thoughts on this problem?

also, any thoughts on why so many specific styles were developed in the East but never in the West?

[Tifone]

You are notably missing Greece, which Pankration is probably the basis of *all* martial arts (born by Spartan warriors and learned by Makedonyan oplytes, then expanded to all Asia with Alexander, to forge there the basis of Easter Martial arts in India which from there were brought -with of course enormous differences- to China... just a common theory anyway) ;)

Your question is interesting but I'm not getting if you're referring to simulate the diifferences through Dom3-mechanics or another random game...

About the specific styles - in Europe we got mostly warriors practicing martial arts: practice war-arts, put some focus on your favourite weapon but you must be an all-around fighter, no time for style in war. Exception: Theutonics, Templars which were also warrior monks.
Asia: warrior monks practicing martial arts as a way to achieve perfection for body and mind. Highly acrobatic and coordinated styles. Different weapons coming from several needs (all those weapons coming from the law that paesants couldn't bring swords so you have to conceal self-defense weapons as agricolture tools :) ).

[Omnirizon]

sounds like a very West-o-centric theory to me. I'm pretty sure most Asian historians would disagree and claim that Eastern martial arts originated from some Chinese-Indian source.

[Tifone]

"Probably" being the key word. :) It's just a common theory. Nobody can negate Spartans gave birth to the first (chronologically) martial art - way of rendering the warriors super-efficient - and that this style was passed to Alexander's troops which conquered Asia. If those influenced India and through that, China (Indian monks going to China to teach philosophy and martial arts, tied together) it is of course a dark point :)

[Omnirizon]

I'd have a problem such a strong statement as "the Spartans gave birth to the first martial art", since as you pointed out these are dark points in history, and there is evidence of even the Native Americans developing open-handed styles of personal combat.

I'm more concerned with Middle Ages era of martial arts. It is at this point that we have specific styles developed for warfare (not just personal fulfillment or sport) in both East and West. Yet while the east developed a consistent style for each weapon or even multiple styles for one weapon, sometimes depending only on how you wore it on your belt, the West had a much more general focus; so while the east have specific terms for each style related to a weapon, the West has the more general term "fencing". Western styles are limited to the schools they came from, and typically when the teacher of a school died his style died with him. Eastern styles are focused on the weapon itself, and many schools would teach the same style with some variation. We just didn't see this in the west.

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

[Crust]

It's hard today to say what the martial arts were hundreds of years ago, what their relevance was. History is distorted and a count of "who won" does not tell what discipline the warriors practiced.

[Sombre]

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

I don't understand the point of this question in game terms.

So I guess the answer is - it doesn't matter. However you want.

Edit: I know quite a lot about Chinese martial arts, but not their history. No idea if that will help you at all, but feel free to ask.

[Nikelaos]

there are definately fixed european styles, though i think alot of them tend to be meant for team work whereas asian martial arts tend to focus on the individual. Not saying warriors didn't work together but the style was perhaps just as useful 1 on 1 as in a battleground situation.

fixed martial technique was definately used by the greek phalanx and roman legionnaires, though perhaps not as excentric as eastern martial arts there was a big sense of a central style, tending to focus on keeping the guy next to you alive (phalanx for instance covered half of themselves and half of the guy to their left with their sheild, this made a wall of overlapping sheilds leaving very few weaknesses)

for more easternish 1 on 1 styles there is the schools of european dueling swords (epee, rapier...etc), modern day fencing is derived from these styles, being a keen fencer myself i know there is a solid structure, there are set ways to parry,attack and even set ways on how to move you're feet - however evolving you're own style around the basics tends to be encouraged because it makes it hard for people to guess what you'll do next and how (a big virtue in a 1 on 1 duel)

[sector24]

Eastern styles are focused on the weapon itself, and many schools would teach the same style with some variation. We just didn't see this in the west.

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

I don't think this is necessarily the case, at least not for the entirety of history. There's a lot of anecdotal information indicating that talented fighters in the east would create their own schools which would last for roughtly their lifetime plus a decade or two and then be absorbed into other schools. For instance, the famous story about Sasaki Kojiro vs. Miyamoto Musashi. Kojiro founded his own school and even had a signature move, the "tsubame-gaeshi" but it didn't save him from being killed by Musashi. The school isn't around anymore, but the move survived.

So in the above case, I would consider training under Sasaki Kojiro to be the same as studying under George Silver except for one very vital difference; George Silver and many other European swordsmen wrote combat manuals which survive. I think the reason we believe the East had some kind of homogenous school of thought lasting thousands of years is because we don't have a written record to prove otherwise. But that doesn't mean things didn't change over time, it just means that when the process was finally put to paper, the independent schools had been absorbed.

The next important question is why do eastern fighters master a single weapon type while western fighters learn sword, dagger, buckler, etc.? Again, I think this is a misconception based on the fact that our contact with the east occurred during a relatively peaceful time in their history. For instance, significant western contact with Japan occurred just before Tokugawa Ieyasu had unified Japan. During the Edo period all these professionally trained warriors had no wars to fight. This led to a devotion towards perfecting their art rather than a practical application of arms. I think if you compared an 13th century samurai with an 18th century samurai, the 13th century warrior would have extensive knowledge of both the bow, the sword, and possibly other weapons such as the yari, hachiwara, naginata, etc.

By contrast, Europe did not have the social stratification that prevented samurai from being anything else. There was also a fairly constant level of warfare somewhere in Europe during the Middle Ages so martial skills were always innovating. And they wrote everything down so we have a record of it.

From a game design standpoint, I would not differentiate between west and east. And I apologize if the above is overly Japan-centric and massively oversimplified. ;)

[Illuminated One]

Eastern martial arts seem to be tied explicitly to a single weapon or style, with a history for that style extending for hundreds and hundreds of years. I think this is why we today link the word "martial arts" to "Eastern martial arts". There is a specific style for each specific family of swords, a style for each specific polearm, and style for each specific weapon with its own name and terminology. This is something the West has never had.

I think the true reason that we only think of eastern martial arts is that most of the western martial arts have been slowly forgotten since the discovery of guns. What has survived are only the written fencing manuals but also these show hints of different styles for different weapons.

[HoneyBadger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Martial_arts_by_regional_origin

This is a pretty good starting point towards understanding the geographical diversification of martial arts. Under the European section, you'll find information about 'Stav', a Norwegian martial art based on runes, Kiridoli-an ancient Georgian martial art, Bataireacht--Irish stick-fighting, Gouren-a Franco-Brittanic martial wrestling form, and Svebor, a Serbian martial art used by knights.

[Endoperez]

French and English boxing are really nothing more than informal styles evolved from street fighting. The German and Italian schools may have focused on a weapon (two-handed sword, side sword, rapier) but none of them were tied explicitly to one weapon, and all trained in the use of several weapons or shields and armors, generally as a companion to their favored weapon.

Asian martial arts evolved from street fighting just as much as western arts. By this I mean that the fights might have been fought in streets, or a forest or in a field or at your front door against hostile people trying to kill or rob you, and winning was to be achieved by any means necessary.

I also don't know any Asian martial art that would be explicitly tied to a single weapon that don't have comparable western equivalents, e.g. kendo - sport fencing. Most martial arts seem to teach both unarmed techniques and usage of many different weapons, or only unarmed techniques, or only usage of a single weapon.


Eastern martial arts seem to be tied explicitly to a single weapon or style, with a history for that style extending for hundreds and hundreds of years. I think this is why we today link the word "martial arts" to "Eastern martial arts".

In Asia, martial arts have stayed important for far longer than in the West, and the martial culture has been stronger and more secretive. At least in China, many martial arts are only passed down a single family line and to close family friends, and furthermore, people have remembered who taught who before their time. These charts and family lines go back several hundred years when there's that much history, but people often deviate from what they were thought, or learned from several masters, or weren't tought everything so they improvised the rest.

As for the reason many people don't think the Western martial arts are important, well, the reason is there have already been many generations who thought the same. Majority of the Western martial arts have been forgotten.

also, any thoughts on why so many specific styles were developed in the East but never in the West?

See above. Secretive families, and perhaps also the fact that the arts get fancier names in the east. "East-London Fencing School Style" probably doesn't live that long...


there is evidence of even the Native Americans developing open-handed styles of personal combat.

They fought, so of course they had a way of fighting! It's not about the style so much as the methods of teaching it, and for the systems used for that. They might have lacked the systematic methods of teaching that would transform a personal fighting style into a martial art, but surely they had something which they taught to friends and family.

I'm more concerned with Middle Ages era of martial arts. It is at this point that we have specific styles developed for warfare... ...while the east have specific terms for each style related to a weapon, the West has the more general term "fencing".

Terms are necessary for teaching the use of weapon. If weapons aren't used, the terms will be forgotten. See link to Silver's Paradoxes of Defence for some weird terms.

Western styles are limited to the schools they came from, and typically when the teacher of a school died his style died with him. Eastern styles are focused on the weapon itself, and many schools would teach the same style with some variation. We just didn't see this in the west.

"Eastern styles are limited to the families they came from, and typically when the sons of the school didn't learn it the style died with the master. Western styles focused on the school itself, and many students would spread the teachings around with some variation." :re:

It goes both ways. :p


For anyone interested, I tried to learn about Western martial arts myself, few years back. Here are some useful links.

Paradoxes of Defence, George Silver, 1599 (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/paradoxes.html)
It gets interesting after the half-way point, when he starts telling why the (French) rapier is bad and polearms, including the British shortstaff, are good. It's interesting because he mentions so many ways to fight with the various weapons.

British Quarterstaff Association videos (http://quarterstaff.org/gallery/videos/index.html)

A Brief History of the Quarterstaff (http://ejmas.com/jwma/articles/2001/jwmaart_docherty_0501.htm)

Irish stick fighting (shillelagh/bata) (http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/AEmblem/shillelagh.html)

Also, here's an Indian martial art. It's much less known than other Asian MAs, so I thought to post it here.
http://www.kalari.in/kalari_videos1.html


So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

How the LEARNING should be represented? That's a very good question. I guess it hasn't been asked often enough, because this is how it is represented in most games:

"Okay, you hold the sword like this, with your hand on the grip, between handguard and the pommel. That's good, now, the main thing is, you stick it to your enemies. Let me show you..."

*Ding! You have mastered Iaido! You can now use swords, katanas, sabres and two-handed swords!*

[JimMorrison]

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

How the LEARNING should be represented? That's a very good question. I guess it hasn't been asked often enough, because this is how it is represented in most games:

"Okay, you hold the sword like this, with your hand on the grip, between handguard and the pommel. That's good, now, the main thing is, you stick it to your enemies. Let me show you..."

*Ding! You have mastered Iaido!*


I love you. :p That approach seemed so innovative, at the time.....

[HoneyBadger]

I think one of the most important differences between eastern and western martial arts is that many of the eastern martial arts-karate, kung-fu, and aikido in particular-focussed on bare-handed techniques. Europeans encountered these forms at a time when they had assumed gunpowder was the pinnacle of fighting, and the techniques-combined with the mysticism and romanticism of the East-appeared almost superhuman.

European techniques were overshadowed because they were so often combined with more primitive technologies-swords, daggers, horses, etc. So I think gunpowder and exoticism were the keys.

[Omnirizon]

So my original question: how should the learning of of something like Kenjutsu vs the italian Dardi school be represented in a game system?

How the LEARNING should be represented? That's a very good question. I guess it hasn't been asked often enough, because this is how it is represented in most games:

"Okay, you hold the sword like this, with your hand on the grip, between handguard and the pommel. That's good, now, the main thing is, you stick it to your enemies. Let me show you..."

*Ding! You have mastered Iaido!*


Yes. The learning is exactly what I'm interested in and the point of my original question and why so many comments here MISS the point. The glibness of your comment has actually highlighted this. It's easy enough to model in a game the getting so many points of "skill" in using a sword and saying "oh that's training from one school or style or another." It could be training from a German school, a Japanese Sensei, or your pirate captain; it doesn't really matter. The game system can't really account for these nuances and most of them are superflous anyway, and I think this is actually the logical conclusion of most comments in this thread. I've no argument there.

The issue is that the learning doesn't happen in a vacuum and from the individual, not the historical point of view, there are significant differences in learning to fight with a Yari by practicing Sojutsu and learning to fight with a spear by practicing in some military school for Oliver Cromwell. The personal experience and affects between what are only two possible ways of learning to fight with a spear is significantly different. Because in my game the character is hopefully going off to adventure to their personal fulfillment, rather than die in an English Revolution, the experience and _affects_ of learning to fight with a spear in a military school for Oliver Cromwell should be different than practicing Sojutsu with some Master. Simply "learning to fight with a spear" isn't sufficient nor accurate; no one learns anything in a vacuum apart from the accumulation of other experiences. My question is coming from the angle that there is more involved in learning to use a spear than just how to fight with that weapon. "To fight with that weapon" cannot exist in the mind apart from other structures of the mind. What was placed in the mind in Cromwell's military schools versus what was placed in the mind by some sensei teaching sojutsu?

What should those differences be? I don't want martial arts to be simply the ability to swing a sword. For one reason they are a significant portion of "being Human" in my game, and for another they are so much more than that in history and real life too. We can never model the phenomenon of a Martial Art without doing a martial art, so creatively modeling their effects in a game is well within reason. There's no reason that some 'magical' effect modeling in game for martial arts is any different from any other way we might model the phenomenon of practicing and performing a martial art. I'm just asking for some ideas on what these effects may be; and how might I, for example, model the difference in personal affect from learning to fight with a spear in an English military school under Cromwwell to learning to fight with a Yari through practicing Sojutsu from some personal Master during a peaceful period in Japan. Or if you wish to not make any necessary split between West and East, how is there a difference between the Cromwell military school and learning to use a spear for the purpose of simply using a spear from, say, a French teacher in time of peace?

[Foodstamp]

Are you really asking a question here? From your last post I can only guess the question is:

"How is learning to use a spear in an English military academy different than learning to use a spear in France?"

We would have to know a little about the teachers to answer that question I think. Or are you looking for something else, the question getting lost in your very verbose posts?

[WaltF4]

Omnirizon, what other experiences come with learning a martial art? Does the significance of these experiences depend more on why someone learns a martial art or how they learn that martial art? Are you actually concerned with stylistic differences arising from instructional differences in the use of same weapon?

[Omnirizon]

Are you really asking a question here? From your last post I can only guess the question is:

"How is learning to use a spear in an English military academy different than learning to use a spear in France?"

We would have to know a little about the teachers to answer that question I think. Or are you looking for something else, the question getting lost in your very verbose posts?

Well I tried to ask (paraphrased):
"What is difference between learning a Eurpean martial art in a military school and learning an Asian martial art from a Master in a Dojo?"

in this question I suggested that there must be SOME difference because Eastern styles have strong consistent terminology whereas Western styles do not and instead are typically associated with a certain military school.

However, in response I got mostly pounced on by people exclaiming that European martial arts were just as highly developed (in fact probably more so!) than those in Asia, but that the Europeans were more fluid and quickly absorbed new styles and techniques into an overarching style and blah blah blah blah Europeans do EVERYTHING better than Asians blah blah blah is why we don't have such a rich heritage of specific martial arts in Europe blah blah blah.


So to avoid running into what is an obvious but subtle sore point in the Western mindset, I attempted to repose the question. Instead of saying "learning spear in military school" vs "practicing sojutsu", I said "learning spear in english military school" vs. "learning spear as an art for sake of learning to use the spear with the ideal that it may lead to higher levels of self actualization, and doing it in Europe, perhaps in France." Of course this sounds absurd, and the reason why illustrates the reasoning for my original question. But people seemed unhappy/unwilling to indulge a question in this form, and instead wanted to offer up examples of how the West had their own in depth martial arts. So when I tried to appropriate this in a way that would pose "military school" against the colloquial "martial art" without involving the East, it sounds pretty stupid; however that's basically the logical conclusion of what people were suggesting to me.


If you're willing to accept a non-essentialized difference between the East and West, and offer up ways in which the Eastern pedagogy of martial arts is different from Western pedagogy of martial arts, then please share with me. I'm looking for ways to model it in a game system. It could be anything... I'm NOT saying one is better than the other, I don't believe they are. I just don't believe the "put a skill point in swords and you learn swords" is a good model; easy, but not good. Learning a weapon comes with a lot of other ideals attached. I'm not afraid to be creative here, what is mundane to us could be good fodder for special abilities in a game world, and might even better model for the mundane than a simple skill point.

[Omnirizon]

Omnirizon, what other experiences come with learning a martial art? Does the significance of these experiences depend more on why someone learns a martial art or how they learn that martial art? Are you actually concerned with stylistic differences arising from instructional differences in the use of same weapon?

Walt, I'm not necessarily concerned with stylistic differences because they would be irrelevant in an RPG. I'm more concerned with the character affect impact they might have. For example what ELSE does someone learn in a military school in the English countryside? How about in a German military school? How about from a Master teaching the Yari, or the Naganita(sp?).

My idea is that no one learns the use of a weapon in a vacuum, so a simple skill point and you get "one level of spears" isn't sufficient. Rather, the pedagogy of weaponcraft has always come with other ideals and skills. What are these? I'd like something that can be reduced down to something easy to manage, maybe a few examples drawn from WEst vs. East martial pedagogy; thus my original question. I feel that the West - East difference in martial pedagogy offers the richest difference for cultivating weapon skill system ideas for a game.

[Fate]

So, here is my understanding of your question:

Different styles of fighting are taught in drastically different ways, even with similar or identical weapons. You want to represent this in a way more interesting than French spear fighters have +1 attack and English spear fighters have +1 defense or that kind of oversimplification.

I would counter that it is difficult to break this style of gameplay, especially when I don't know anything else about your game (such as whether or not you want to have stats or skills, and, if you do, what kind you would have). If you don't want a "The Punch does 8 crush damage" dynamic I am interested what you would replace it with.

You might want to look at the game "School of Sword" (an online flash game you should be able to play for free, though not without visiting obnoxious flashing sites). It is based on three areas (above, right, left) in which the player may make attacks or blocks. It is based on predicting where your opponent will strike and taking advantage of the long downtimes after every move. The important part, from my perspective, is the emphasis on the what is actually done with each move rather than abstractions (of course, you can always go farther in that direction).

If your interest is the learning itself, you might want to wonder to what extent the PLAYER learns different styles as opposed to their CHARACTER. You probably also want to consider what the basic unit of THING LEARNED (is it a style, a move, or something else?). Another part which is important, especially for many of the martial styles that come from militaries (as opposed to martial styles that came out of street fighting) is the other skills taught with equal or greater importance, such as marching and survival skills.

I hope that sheds some light. I can't give any more specific help without knowing any more about your game.

[Omnirizon]

So, here is my understanding of your question:

Different styles of fighting are taught in drastically different ways, even with similar or identical weapons. You want to represent this in a way more interesting than French spear fighters have +1 attack and English spear fighters have +1 defense or that kind of oversimplification.

I would counter that it is difficult to break this style of gameplay, especially when I don't know anything else about your game (such as whether or not you want to have stats or skills, and, if you do, what kind you would have). If you don't want a "The Punch does 8 crush damage" dynamic I am interested what you would replace it with.

You might want to look at the game "School of Sword" (an online flash game you should be able to play for free, though not without visiting obnoxious flashing sites). It is based on three areas (above, right, left) in which the player may make attacks or blocks. It is based on predicting where your opponent will strike and taking advantage of the long downtimes after every move. The important part, from my perspective, is the emphasis on the what is actually done with each move rather than abstractions (of course, you can always go farther in that direction).

If your interest is the learning itself, you might want to wonder to what extent the PLAYER learns different styles as opposed to their CHARACTER. You probably also want to consider what the basic unit of THING LEARNED (is it a style, a move, or something else?). Another part which is important, especially for many of the martial styles that come from militaries (as opposed to martial styles that came out of street fighting) is the other skills taught with equal or greater importance, such as marching and survival skills.

I hope that sheds some light. I can't give any more specific help without knowing any more about your game.

This is some great info.

I was purposefully ambiguous about the game because I have no established system, just some basic scaffolding that I'm trying to get some ideas on how to work with. I have skills and stats, but I don't want classes. I've got stats somewhat mapped out, but I'm still in square one with deciding how to make skills work.


While most games have Humans as sort of the neutral, central race, mine does no such thing. Human's special ability is the exact thing we take for granted in everyday life, the ability to structure the world around us through our Mind. In fantasy, this can translate easily to the Sorcerer crafting spells that effect the world around him, but even in a more mundane way the warrior, through discipline, structures the world around herself. Knowing how to fight with a sword, how to march, how to survive in the wilderness, necessarily makes the world completely different to that Mind; this is the point of Kantian and Heideggerian metaphysics.

To give some contrast, and display how another race can operate without the ability to structure the world around them, consider another race of mine, the Machinists. They are completely textual and logical. Humans think through axioms, deductions, and presence. We can make connections in our mind which have no logical arc and which we can't prove, and yet act on them productively anyway and actually shape the world through them; this is in fact basically what science does. Imagine a race of beings which could only think through context and logic, nothing has any set meaning and truth occurs at the point of interpretation. They would be unable to proactively shape the world around them without first assimilating it textually. At that point they would be able to reassign truth to the world and manipulate it systematically. A race like this could never develop a martial art because nothing would have a meaning outside of its text; they could never envision style and form. Such a race would probably never have specialized fighting forms, and may be more like our "put a point in swords" cliche system of modeling skill. However, since they can't even envision the style of a sword, nor follow the disjunctive arcs that trace the from the goal of killing a person to using a sword to do it, they would have never developed a sword. It's questionable they could have survived at all, but through some deus ex machina the can always be placed in the game world in a survivable position.


For some basic ideas, i'm thinking that learning to use a weapon could come packaged with a few other skills, but I'd like to go beyond that. Perhaps practicing in a specific style or heritage causes a certain stat to raise at an accelerated level (although I had kind of hoped stats would remain constant). Or perhaps as the practice of the weapon goes up other skills are being raised too, depending upon which school is being practiced within at the time. Perhaps the "school" is something different from the "skills" and which school is being trained with raises those skills at some rate, but at a certain level that school becomes more difficult to advance with and the warrior may be benefited by learning from another school. Therefore, someone who wanted to be a "warrior's warrior" would train with several different schools and masters, while a character who needed a weapon for defense but wasn't a warrior could learn a few moves or even perhaps in one school without having their life dedicated to weaponcraft.

Also, I'm not averse to just giving some kind of "special ability" dependent on the specific martial art.

Given this ability to learn structural and axiomatic skills, you can see that Humans have a very distinctive advantage. They will need it given what the other races have though... However, all races will have this to some extent, I just think that we humans have just mastered it and should gain significant benefits with it.

[JimMorrison]

Honestly, it seems like there are 2 problems, as far as giving directly helpful advice -

First, if you really want it realistic, then you will have to research the individual martial arts themselves, and then through anecdotal recordings of students of different philosophies, assign "personalities" to each art, and assign effects accordingly. However, I don't think anyone would fault you for just kind of making it up yourself, as long as you try to apply at least a superficial logic, ie- students of Tai Chi have enhanced Balance, and ability to Meditate. What does that mean though? That's the other problem.

And that is, it sounds like you want a non-traditional character design, which is definitely cool. But while cool, it means it's hard to just jump in and offer something well thought out, and hope that it applies to how you envisioned your system. It could be fun to assign factors like "Balance", that as they increase, give stealth bonuses to certain things such as Dodge, or a resistance to being knocked down. But do you want that info transparent, or hidden? We just don't know these things. I do agree with the different moves concept though. Perhaps one school of spear would get a critical strike bonus because they focus on powerful thrusts, while another school is more attentive to footwork, giving you enhanced mobility between strikes.

[Gregstrom]

As far as secondary skills go, I guess I have a few ideas.

In some schools of Eastern martial arts, I understand calligraphy and possibly poetry were considered as important as weapon skills. They would surely be part of any training that was undergone. Maybe religious knowledge, literacy, meditation?

Cromwell's soldiers might well have known some basics of leatherworking - enough to make leather bottles and the like - and how to make fuse cord, as well as a degree of animal husbandry and other general military skills.

A student at a German school of fencing might also be learning heraldry, court manners and dance. If the school had a military bent, maybe he'd learn maths, a foreign language or two, logistics, military strategy and the basics of codes and ciphers. Probably a bunch of other things too.

It's hard to talk in depth about the eastern martial arts, because I don't know that much about them. In the case of the formal schools, they seem to have been pretty much a student's whole life while they were in training so it seems reasonable to assume that a wide range of life skills would have been taught.

In a fantasy RPG with noticeable amounts of magic, it's probably a safe bet that any training above that of basic line infantry would cover some details of magical theory and possibly even practise.

[atul]

Can't say too much about the medieval stuff, but as far as the modern martial art sports go, I've practiced stuff from both east and west (kendo and fencing mostly, along with little boxing and capoeira). Anyway, the basics in all are the same, i.e. hit the other guy but don't get hit yourself. The major difference in my experience has been the way things are expressed.

At least the kendo practice had an emphasis on the group, most of the things were done as a part of a group and everyone knew their part/standing in the practice, whereas fencers appear really invidiualistic in comparison. There are teacher and students, but the tradition appears less rigid.

Apart from culture I really don't see much difference. The ideas are expressed in a more "spiritual" way in east, whereas the west favours mechanical expression. An example here is "kiai" versus "priority". In kendo, in order to score a hit, you must have proper posture, spirit and determination. In fencing, the priority one gets or loses is determined mechanically, but basically the end result is the same - attacker is the one doing the hurting, not the other guy.

In game terms, depends totally on your system. :)

[Endoperez]

I'm studying 3d-graphics for games, and I've given some thought to similar things. As I said earlier, it's a good question.

Here are some simple ways that can be used to differentiate martial arts from each other in RPG-type games with a strong main character. Some of these are inspired by ADOM, a roguelike game.


Mechanical differences in learning:

- Some skills are faster to learn than others.
- Visiting a techer may give you instant bonus, or you might get knowledge that only becomes useful after, say, 150 weapon hits, at which point you "understand" the teaching. This would be a nice way to incorporate kata-style practice in-game.
- Also, it may be easier to find teachers for some styles than others. If there's a school, you just have to be accepted, which may just be a matter of paying a fee. Being taught by an old master, whether he's a knight or a sage, may require you to run errands and do quests for him, perhaps before every lesson.
- Some part of the skill should be keyed to time. Increasing the level when a weapon skill has been used long enough often works well. What counts as a use could vary between martial arts. Another, much-used option is limiting the skills to your character's level: you only get so many points per level, and must divide them between the martial art skills. In the latter case, if there are lots of different martial arts styles, weapon skills and other skills should have separate points so that people wanting to play fighters will have skills other than fighting as well.


Mechanical differences in use, or more options to fight with:
- Skill bonuses to other skills. Teachers teach you what they know, and it's never just the martial art. Conversely, the associated skills could give minor bonuses to martial skill, and choosing martial arts with similar secondary themes could be interesting character design decision.
- You need both martial art skill and other skills to get the benefit. Say, knowing basics of Tai Chi doesn't do anything before you get level 3 Balance and level 3 Intuition, but at that point you get some special stance or something.
- Some skills give substantial benefits at lower levels, while others give better bonuses once you've trained them for a while. These can be bonuses to speed, accuracy, damage, defence, perhaps stats/armor/hp at high levels.
- Some skills give better benefits than others. Whips don't make efficient melee weapons, so they need that kind of incentive, and it's nice to get some benefit from being a Little John with a staff instead of a spear.
- Different tactics or stances with mechanical differences. Learning western fencing might give you a stance that alternates between defense bonus and fast, far-reaching lunge attacks. Learning Bagua might give you mobility bonus in your basic defensive-balanced-aggressive stances.
- Different magical effects tied to a martial art. Avatar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iegBUjlPN04&feature=related) cartoon is the best implementation I've seen of incorporating martial arts with clearly supernatural. Unfortunately, most of the fan-videos are crap, or only show the fancy big moves.


Different dialogue options that you only get if you are familiar with a certain philosophy or martial art. This could be fun! Examples:

* Here's the money! Just don't kill the girl!
* What do I care! Just kill her!
* [bluff] What do I care! Just kill her!
* [preacher] Kill her and your soul will be damned forever! (15% chance of Charm Person)
* [robinhood/swashbuckler] I don't think so! (55% chance to disarm)
* [robinhood/swashbuckler] Touch a hair on her head and I'll nail your ear to the wall! (75% chance of intimidation)
* [iaido] My sword is sheated! I'll bring you the money. (55% chance of surprise attack)

[Tifone]

Yeah, agreed on Avatar, they've got really nice stuff, IIRC they have a Sifu as martial arts expert for the moves, you can recognize easily many moves and stances of Kung Fu Hung Gar and Tai Chi katas, and the implementation of the elemental powers is very creative and unobvious :)

[Foodstamp]

I think a lot of the spiritual / artistic part of martial arts is exaggerated in popular culture.

That being said, I have come to one near spiritual conclusion concerning Jiu Jitsu...

The more patience I have and the more I focus on relaxing, the better chance I have of winning. Since I have come to that conclusion the effort I do exert is spent almost exclusively on getting safe and dominate positions. If my opponent is spending a lot of effort trying to out power me or perform submissions early without position, I know I am going to win.

When I first started grappling I could get gassed after a minute or two of rolling. Now I feel like I can go forever if I focus more on relaxing, going for position and tricking my opponent to shift their body weight a certain way by making them believe I want it to go the other.

I am not sure how that can be translated in dominions as an advantage of a grappling art, but unfortunately I don't study a striking or weapon art so that is all I have to offer. I hope that helps a little towards your comparison between martial arts.

[HoneyBadger]

As far as representing martial arts in a game-if the game we're talking about is Dom3, for example, you might consider that applying a specific martial art to a "basic unit" might give, for example: an additional fist attack (boxing, or striking martial arts), defensive points (aikido), protection (iron shirt), kick (kickboxing, savate, tae kwon do), movement (monkey style kung fu, capoera), claw attack (tiger style kung fu), extra hitpoints (drunken boxing), size (sumo), magic resistance (tai chi, dragon style kung fu), attack (dueling/fencing), stealth (ninjitsu), strength (pankration, Indian wrestling) or spiked armour (grappling forms).

Ofcourse, these are broad generalizations, but they would debatably relate, in some way, to those in-game abilities.

[Gregstrom]

I think a lot of the spiritual / artistic part of martial arts is exaggerated in popular culture.



I've just done a light skim of research, and I think I have to agree (certainly for samurai).

I'd guess that actual warrior monks (there must have been some, somewhere) would have at least learnt the spiritual stuff in parallel with the 'punching people so hard their eyeballs squirt our of their ears' stuff.

[Foodstamp]

Yeah I think a lot of the exaggeration started before WW2 when the Japanese were trying to instill national pride in their people. At least in the case of samurai.

That being said, maybe the people that hold Euro arts to the same level as Asian arts are not being ethnocentric and may be pretty close to the truth.

One thing is for certain though. With any martial art your getting a lot more out of it than learning to fight. And there is some good in every art.

[HoneyBadger]

In both the East (eg: Shaolin, Sohei) and the West (eg: the Knights Hospitaller/Teutonic Knights/Knights Templar), there were orders of monastic religious warriors.

[sum1lost]

In both the East (eg: Shaolin, Sohei) and the West (eg: the Knights Hospitaller/Teutonic Knights/Knights Templar), there were orders of monastic religious warriors.

Of very different forms. Shaolin monks, at least, had martial arts training for a very different reason than knightly orders did. The knightly orders went off and campaigned for religious reasons. It was because of this that they needed to learn how to fight. It wasn't their focus, and as a result wasn't as regimented and documented.

[Gregstrom]

I'm not sure all the western orders mentioned were exactly great at the spirituality bit, though. Possibly not even literacy. To give them their dues, they weren't too bad at the monastic bit (mostly), and the Hospitallers do pretty well these days on the good deeds front.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, I'm pretty confident the Eastern orders were just human beings too. They may have had some cultural advantages in education, but they were certainly ambitious, and often enough went off and campaigned for their own goals.

Also, the Knights of Malta (Hospitallers) were, and remain, a very significant and well-educated medical body, as well as a military force.

[Bwaha]

There's a show on the History channel, called Human Weapon. The hosts go to many different places, learn the forms of masters, then fight them. Here's the link: http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=mini_home&mini_id=54986

Enjoy. :D

[Tifone]

There's an even better show of that kind, but the name escapes me at the moment. This one is pretty interesting though, while some datas are incorrect. ;)

[HoneyBadger]

There's a good one hosted by a French lady...I forget the name, but she goes around the world, studying martial arts and meeting with martial arts masters. It's a very good show.

[Tifone]

Yes, but the one with the lady is more on the deep, artistic side. Absolutely interesting too of course. Human Weapon and the one I was referring too are more training-combat oriented.

[Endoperez]

Would you happen to know the name of this French lady, or even this interesting program you keep mentioning? :p

Pity DominionsFan isn't around any more. He left Dominions to focus on his martial arts training, trying to become a professional fighter. :eek:

[HoneyBadger]

I found it, it's called "Deadly Arts" Hosted by Josette Normandeau, on FitTV--It's very good, and Josette herself is quite charismatic and charming. She has black belts in Shotokan Karate and Aikido.

[Omnirizon]

If there's still interest in this, I've started to map a skills system, impacted significantly by comments here and my own research.

since the act of learning is central to my system ( I think that's a more accurate and fulfilling skill model ), I have three types of learning: self taught, tutored/coached, schooled. Basically, what is available from each type is largely dependent on where you are and who you are. Self taught has the lowest returns, but the most flexibility. Tutors in a specific skill may be hard to find, and can only train an individual to a certain level. Schools have the largest returns in "skills" for investment of "skill points", but should require a large chunk (a large investment) of skill points to get anything. There are also a very limited number of schools and what they teach is just what they teach, and they may teach things that from a player's point of view aren't necessary; thus there is limited flexibility, but some min-maxing control. Further, only noble or artisian characters would be able to go to a school.

The prevalence of schools and tutors and what kind of schools and tutors there are will be the main difference between east and west. This can work out to be very significant though... in my world (and I think this reflects history pretty well) the west is feudal and in a constant state of internal warfare and show. in the east there are periods of civil strife followed by periods of internal peace, but always a constant external "barbarian" threat. Further the east is more centralized and not nearly as feudal. This of course is reproducing some Western stereotypes regarding the east, but damnit it works! I'm working out exactly how this will impact skill-set lineups and availability, but it should be pretty diverse.

Lastly, "skills" and experience are two different things. Most systems are a sort of 2d outlay having skills and stats, where experience is just sort of a magnitude of those things, or a flat bonus to them. I envision my system as a 3d system with stats, skills, and experience all being three different things that must be taken in account in relation to each other. So a character can spend a lot of "karma" on skills, but never temper their usage through experience (I can imagine an army grunt who knows everything there is to know about everything in the army, and all the training possible; but has no battlefield experience). Of course, the Shadowrun style of fluid character building blocks is inspiring this system to a degree. How my so-called 3d character building system can be implemented without becoming a de facto 2d one is yet to be seen. However I think by doing things through interaction (or multiplicatively, mathematically speaking) may be key; this will require some fine tuning.

[Omnirizon]

part 1: West v. East martial arts

there are actually multiple types of weapons and martial arts; there are 'martial arts' like karate or whatever, and then there's martial arts of war. The arts of weapons of war are not significantly different in use between east and west, although the military tactics and strategy in which they are involved may be. weapons of war are the heavy military weapons such as halberds, long spears, and large swords. the colloquial "martial arts" are generally the martial usage of civilian implements, civilian versions of heavier military weaponry, unconventional and concealable weaponry, or ritualized usage of 'gentleman' and 'officer' weaponry. The reason these peculiar types of martial arts exist in the far east and not the west is perhaps due to
1) greater control of weaponry by the state,
2) combined with the celebration of the farmers and peasantry in the Eastern temples that led to the study of peasant weaponry and fighting techniques with
3) early reliance on conscription of peasant-soldiers trained in
4) nationalistic warfare methods.

this is contrasted with West where warfare was less between conscripted armies and more between nobles. focus of warfare was on capturing fortresses, seiges, 'shock' usage of knights and cavalry; rather than open fighting between armies. there was less usage of seasonally conscripted peasantry and more usage of small standing groups of elite warriors. further, any ritualization of warfare existed between these actual warrior-knights, who would use warrior techniques; contrasted with ritualized duels between generals of the eastern armies who were not trained warriors, but actually trained ritualized duelers. Further, in the West, ownership of weaponry was perhpas not controlled, or peasants had no interest in developing makeshift weaponry, or there was no one (such as temple monks) who would commit time to studying, developing, and preserving peasant weaponless or makeshift fighting styles (as opposed to committing time to studying some wanky religion).

so I think that's a pretty good summation, if somewhat essentialized, of eastern and western 'nations' in military and martial stuff. it provides a good ground for providing some instrumental environmental differences that a player can experience.

The new thread 'Making a game system part 3: the setting' will be out shortly.

[lch]

Further, in the West, ownership of weaponry was perhpas not controlled, or peasants had no interest in developing makeshift weaponry, or there was no one (such as temple monks) who would commit time to studying, developing, and preserving peasant weaponless or makeshift fighting styles (as opposed to committing time to studying some wanky religion).
I think that in the west it was more or less forbidden for peasantry to possess weapons that were more sophisticated than a club, too, or quite probably a real sword was just too expensive to possess. Those who could would be noblemen who'd be in a position to support being a knight or similar. Armoured knights were pretty much impossible to beat with most conventional weapons before the advent of gunpowder.

[KissBlade]

I think the problem with this debate is two fold. One is obvious bias/nationalism. But I think more importantly, if you're talking about actual combat effectiveness, you can't gauge it. After all, if one man is suited towards a certain style that another build isn't, would you say that style is superior? Consequently simply measuring up well if "so and so" fought with "so and so", you need to also figure in body weight, height, speed, etc. of those individuals as well. When you look at all martial arts as a combat formula, the idea of there being a superior style IMO is pointless. Even comparing two styles like karate and wing chun for example, would be futile in saying which is "stronger". Imagine now doing it for two different regions of styles! Keep in mind, even Jeet Kune Do had a vast amount of critics who basically claimed the main strength of Bruce Lee's style was that well ... it was Bruce Lee. The man could've taken pro wrestling and made it dangerous.

[Omnirizon]

I think the problem with this debate is two fold. One is obvious bias/nationalism. But I think more importantly, if you're talking about actual combat effectiveness, you can't gauge it. After all, if one man is suited towards a certain style that another build isn't, would you say that style is superior? Consequently simply measuring up well if "so and so" fought with "so and so", you need to also figure in body weight, height, speed, etc. of those individuals as well. When you look at all martial arts as a combat formula, the idea of there being a superior style IMO is pointless. Even comparing two styles like karate and wing chun for example, would be futile in saying which is "stronger". Imagine now doing it for two different regions of styles! Keep in mind, even Jeet Kune Do had a vast amount of critics who basically claimed the main strength of Bruce Lee's style was that well ... it was Bruce Lee. The man could've taken pro wrestling and made it dangerous.


my intent is not to do this kind of gauging, i'm actually looking for WHY there are these certain kinds of martial arts in the East, and these certain kinds in the West. I'm actually putting the effectiveness on the personal level, like I think you are suggesting with your Bruce Lee point.

you'll notice my post is about why there is this difference. I'm not concerned with if this difference is modern artifice due to nationalism; I don't care one way or the other. I really just want a historically plausible and engaging narrative to weave into a game environment. Of course, the more historically plausible it is, the better; and I don't think difference is simply nationalistic artifice. I believe there really are/were socio-cultural reasons for why there is a rich history of 'martial arts' from the East but not from the West.

[Endoperez]

If you take history as written knowledge, doesn't the West have more texts describing martial arts maneuvers than the East?

Since we're talking about a game, you could make it so that in the west, teachers would have schools where they teach nobles and rich people, or train professional soldiers, while in the east some teachers would be monks in a monastery, others would be craftsmen of their village, etc.

EDIT: also, in case I haven't posted it yet...
some interpretations of Hans Czynners treatise on harness fencing from 1538 (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vsh0aQTIg9g)
EDIT 2:
Wrestling blindfolded (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XNiLRd4kZ-w&feature=related)
This would be an awesome scene in a game (even without the blindfold). You finally get accepted as a student to a really expensive school, and all around you people are practising with swords, wrestling, trying out different stuff. Awesome!
Edit 3:
Actually, I just keep finding better and better stuff:
"throws" and counter-"throws":
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iCS_tFVv-Ww&feature=related
pollaxe techniques and training:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gTVC25hYJaY&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PVBTRFQqKGA&feature=related

[Lavaere]

I don't know how your doing this but each skill should have its own experiance chart. Start learn sword, gain enough experience and your sword would go up a level.

Self training this is going to take a long long time. But if you have a tutor it will be easier and your able to train up to what ever his level is. You want to be better then him, start some self training.

Now for schools of fighting. You would have prerequisites for learning them. First of all you need to join that school, or find a teacher to tutor you. Another prerequisite would be other skill levels.
Say you want to learn Franz Swordmanship(or what ever you want to call it) which is a dual fighting style of sword with dagger you might need level of Sword 3, Dagger 2 and Ettiquette 1. Before you can even start Franz Swordmanship. And because its a specialise fighting style it would have bonuses when using it.
And depending on the School it might teach you the prerequisite schools as well. Or perhaps you will need to go somewhere else to learn something.
Franz School teachs up to Sword 6, Franz Sword 3, Dagger 2. Meaning you would need to learn Ettiquette somewhere else before you can start on the Franz Sword skill.

You could even have other things restricting you like needing to sponsered by someone from that school. Or needing to beat someone or win a tournament before they will let you advance furthur in that school.

[Wrana]

To Omnirizon:
An idea of system looks just great! To me it looks more like Harn than Shadowrun, though... ;) An idea Lavaere puts out (about schools) was put to use in AEG systems: 7thSea & Legend og the Five Rings and works very well within them.
To Ich:
"I think that in the west it was more or less forbidden for peasantry to possess weapons that were more sophisticated than a club, too, or quite probably a real sword was just too expensive to possess."
That's wrong. Good-quality swords were expensive, of course, but in Germany, for example, many categories of peasants were allowed to possess and carry swords (and there appeared at one time a kind of sword called dusak (sp?) with curved blade often made of wood (!) with edge of iron. it wasn't particularly sharp in any case, of course, but some Rennaisance fencing schools still practiced with it :) ). At border regions such as Balkans weapons were carried as a matter of course. Main weapons of peasants were various kinds of spears or polearms, of course - something quite deadly and which no Japanese ruler would allow his peasants to have (in China, situation was somewhat different - but then, so it was in different West countries).
By the way, I think some of the difference can be attributed to the fact that book learning was wider spread in the East, so actual treatises on fighting technics appeared earlier and in larger numbers - so more of them survived to later days (even so, most schools we know now are known only from relatively late period - we know that there were some kinds of martial arts at 13th century, for example, but not which technics they actually used - different modern schools have different accounts of them). And a spreading of fighting schools in the West was then checked by an advent of an idea of industrialized warfare in 17th-18th centuries: kung-fu may beat a pistol, but not fire by platoons of line infantry or Vobanic fortress warfare...

[Tifone]

The most carried the knife, though... There are several different kinds and shapes of medieval knives, distinguished by areas as many of you guys surely know :)

[Wrana]

Yeah, and some of these knives weren't readily distinguishable from swords. :)

[Omnirizon]

thanks for the input. the game is just now getting _close_ to the point of where stuff like that might start to be added *uuhhgg*

things like this will be subsystems of the game. this makes them modular. there is a base skill system which is basically just a framework of values attached to keys. most subsystems, including combat, specialized weapon training systems, and even magic, will need to reference this framework. this allows the abstract skill framework to just be value holders, and each subsystem can use it as necessary, but without requiring special integration.

the skill framework is hierarchical, but doesn't enforce a specific depth of hiearchy. skills can give others a bonus if they are related in the hierarchy. this formula checks each skill a player possess and compares it to all their other possessed skills:


<starts with a 'for all skills' loop>
if id(baseskill) != id(bonus):
<should be an indent here, forum hates tabs>
skill.count = (skill.count +
(bonus.count *
(self.dictmatchcount(skill.fam, bonus.fam) /
(6 + baseskill.count))))


first, if a skill equals itself, then it can't give itself a bonus :D

basically, this formula checks to see what 'family' each skill is in and looks for all other skills that share part or all of its family, the more the family is shared the bigger the bonus (that's the dictmatchcount function, it looks at the two families and returns the number of matches). lastly, the bonus is divided by 6 plus the base value of the skill. the 6 is just to lessen the amount of bonus, and the basevalue actually means that a skill that has a real high base value is relatively unaffected by 'family association bonus'.

an outcome of this formula is that deeper hierarchies get bigger bonuses ultimately, but will never apply more bonus to things with shorter hierarchies that share some piece of their family. also, i think i could add something to the code handling adding to baseskill counts that make skills with deeper hierarchies more expensive to increase, finding something that would balance out exactly the effect of getting a bigger bonus from other skills that share its entire family. EDIT: actually, i just realized there is probably a way to make that constant '6' be a variable that varies by hierarchy depth of the base skill, this could be used to cancel out the depth bonus problem.

anyway...

basically everything will be subsystems that reference the values of this tree. each subsystem can specify what values it references and how they effect the action. even combat will be a subsystem that references the weapon skill values and whatever else (armor skill values maybe? tactics skills? who knows). at first it will pretty simple so that I can get a broad range of necessary subsystems in place. once this is done the entirely modular nature allows combat to be revamped without too much trouble.

it seems to me then that these specialized fighting styles and stuff can either be added as their own subsystems, or made as an addition to the combat subsystem. i'll handle that part when i get there :D

[Panpiper]

I first started studying martial arts at the age of five. I am now fifty years old and have never really stopped, though the degree of my commitment has waxed and waned variably over the years. My first public martial arts performance was at the age of fourteen in front of an audience of 3000 martial artists doing a combat demonstration of bo stick versus nunchaku. (My youthful nervousness was such that I forgot the practiced routine and had to spar full contact for three minutes! Ouch!) In addition to numerous forms of empty hand ranging from Muay Thai to Tai Chi, I have studied a number of weapons forms and applied some of that to seven years of full contact weapon combat in the SCA.

In addition to this, I have been a hobby wargammer for most of my life, primarily interested in highly detailed simulation gaming. I professionally managed a game store for ten years and under my management that store rose to having one of the highest sales volumes of any game store in the world. This was accomplished through a number of techniques, but not least among them was an insistence that our staff, most especially myself, be intimately familiar with the game mechanics of as many games as possible.

Most RPGs for me while being very colorful with their game 'settings' have greatly suffered from the point of view of mechanics. This was understandable to some degree as playing a truly detailed simulation game inevitably meant that a melee combat would take an entire game session to resolve. That's what I liked the most, that sort of combat simulation, while unfortunately for myself, most other gamers preferred a combat simulation that did 'not' take all night to finish so they could get on with the role playing part of the game.

With the advent of computers, I anticipated with relish the coming of role playing games with highly sophisticated and detailed combat resolution systems, as the computers could easily handle the details that bogged down human players working with pencil and paper. Alas, I was in for a huge disappointment, as game developers realized that they could market graphics easily and mechanics not at all. Virtually all computer games contain game mechanics less sophisticated than basic D&D.

The best of the pen and paper games out there with regard to combat simulation, fun and flexibility is in my opinion the Hero Games System. The latest incarnation of the martial arts simulations in that system actually describes the techniques used by that particular martial art and defines game modifiers for each technique. The player at their discretion chooses which techniques to use in whichever appropriate circumstance.

To learn a martial art in the game, the player must make an investment in character points at the onset to purchase 'knowledge skills' which represent a theoretical background, but do not yet confer any actual combat enhancing benefit. As the player gains experience (character points) they may purchase extra techniques within that martial art and then start actually using those techniques in combat. Progressing in skill involves purchasing extra techniques or purchasing 'skill levels' which can be applied during combat in numerous ways (typically conferring offensive, defensive or damage bonuses). This manner of training in the game is not particularly 'realistic' as in real training one tends to learn all techniques very slowly, hoping that one could apply any of them if a fight ever happened.

The problem with this approach in a game such as Dominions is that the game does not, cannot stop for a player to make such decisions. Ultimately the degree of 'realism' that can be applied to a game depends largely on the degree of complexity of the individual combat simulation. Dominions as it concentrates on mass battles, cannot afford to make these individual combats more involved than the calculation of a few very basic statistics.

As for the relative differences between Eastern and Western systems, they are rather moot in my opinion. What counts far more than stylistic differences is the degree of talent, commitment and training of the combatant. A student of Miyamoto Musashi who does not take his training seriously would loose to a street fighter with no formal training but who has the practical experience of having been in fights.

All other things being equal, a western knight with a lifetime of combat experience would handily defeat a samurai who has lived at peace. Comparing two veterans however gets sticky as they live in entirely different worlds. It's almost like asking, who would win in a fight, Luke Skywalker versus Gandalf? If you could magically teleport two armies, a veteran medieval western army versus a veteran Japanese samurai army, the victory would more likely than not be a question of relative equipment and combat experience than one of style. (Most wargame systems would actually give the advantage to the samurai army due to their preponderance of 'two hand cut and thrust' weapons.)

In individual combat, size and strength matter far more than training, until at least one has achieved a very high level of skill (your typical bouncer with no formal training will handily defeat most martial artists). Psychological factors are even more important. An enormously dangerous fighter who is not mentally prepared for a fight can be easily defeated by a resolute attacker engaging from surprise. And in a lethal combat, the combatant least afraid of death is by far the most dangerous opponent.

The 'techniques' that are taught in martial arts and simulated in game systems actually are rarely applied by martial artists in an actual fight. What most martial artists fail to realize (especially the new ones) is that the techniques being taught are not taught with the intention that "in case A, you do B". Rather techniques are taught so as to practice 'principles' that can most easily be learned by practicing techniques. For instance one cannot land an effective punch if one is not stable on the ground. This is true regardless of one's 'style' and regardless of the technique one studies, a good teacher will be on the lookout for problems in basic principles made manifest by practicing techniques.

All this to say really that while a detailed combat system matching up martial arts with their techniques makes for a fun game, it really has little to do with reality. For a simulation game, factoring in size, strength, weapons, armor, training, and combat experience is likely sufficient for realism's sake. Training in martial arts, regardless of style, would simply factor into general training level, better schools simply training faster.

[Endoperez]

Wow, that's a great post. It also sounds like it's been fun being you.

[Omnirizon]

I'll say

[Panpiper]

Wow, that's a great post. It also sounds like it's been fun being you.

Heh. And you don't know the most of it. If you ever catch me complaining, beat me with a stick. ;-)

[rdonj]

I don't have nearly panpiper's experience, but I just wanted to chime in and say pretty much everything he said rings true to me. I've done martial arts as well, and fought with a number of different weapons and in different styles and his post matches up with everything I've experienced and read about fighting fairly well.

Thanks panpiper for a great post, I'd love to fight you in virtual reality some day ;)

Omni: From what I can understand of what you've posted I do like the way you're handling the mechanics of 4th age, great work so far.

[Lavaere]

I really wish I had been given the chance to do Martial Arts growing up. But alas there where none and not till High School was there a Tae Kwon Do teacher in the area.

But that doesn't mean I don't have some skills that could be applied during such a period. Growing up I wrestled with friends at the beach, others in the area prefering fisticuff. Making bows and arrows (stone tipped or just none) or using sticks for sword and homemade shield or staffs for sparing contests. Going up the hills and in the woods for teamed war games.

Plus being a Maori you need to learn Kapa Haka. If you have ever seen any sport with a New Zealand team then you've seen a Haka. But part of Kapa Haka is also learning to use Patu and Taiaha. Which in war time are basicly a Club and Spear. Which I guess is New Zealand Martial Arts now in the form on song and dance only.


The thing is I'm sure everyone has at somepoint in there life learnt some sort of Martial Art, be it self trained from playing games or convention ones learnt from teachers.

[Panpiper]

Plus being a Maori you need to learn Kapa Haka. If you have ever seen any sport with a New Zealand team then you've seen a Haka. But part of Kapa Haka is also learning to use Patu and Taiaha. Which in war time are basicly a Club and Spear. Which I guess is New Zealand Martial Arts now in the form on song and dance only.

Capoeira is a recognized legitimate and respected martial art that for generations was studied uniquely as a dance form. Brazilian slaves practiced it as a dance because this way their masters would not recognize it as being dangerous. But you do not want to cross a well practiced capoeira dancer, trust me. ;-)

Your Kapa Haka is much more of a martial art than you realize. The dance is highly stylized, the techniques in it don't have much use. But performed properly, you are practicing all those principles I mentioned and as I also mentioned, the techniques don't normally get actually used in combat, but the principles always do. Plus, combat is three times the mental as it is to the physical (to paraphrase a French general). The ritual side of Kapa Haka is extremely martial and if studied taking the ritual side very seriously, could easily hone a true warrior spirit.

Do not sell your culture short, you have a great heritage there. My advice would be to go back and thank the teachers who taught you Kapa Haka and ask them if there is anything more you might learn.

(By the way, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that your most skilled teachers will tell you that the dance starts in your belly. Listen to them, this is a very important martial 'secret'.)

[Endoperez]

What most martial artists fail to realize (especially the new ones) is that the techniques being taught are not taught with the intention that "in case A, you do B". Rather techniques are taught so as to practice 'principles' that can most easily be learned by practicing techniques.

I'll post this link in here, since we're already straying away from Fourth Age discussion. This video shows 'principles' that are then broken down and extrapolated from. I can't even really imagine how much time it would take to be able to do something like this "on the fly". The same group has a collection of great videos in Youtube, everything I've seen from them is great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDP0rcqo4gA&feature=channel

[Sombre]

Hooray for MMA putting an end to the stupid "which would win in a 'real' fight" arguments.

[Panpiper]

By the way Lavaere, just a short addendum to what I said in my above post to you. I just looked up the exact nomenclature of Kapa Haka and I should amend to what I said. It is the Haka that is martial, not the Kapa. That said, it is performing the Haka in the Kapa that probably makes the learning of it more fun, so definitely take both seriously.

[Wrana]

May only say that, with a caveat of my own practice being much more limited, what Panpiper had said is true both from a practice and historician perspectives.
About New Zealand martial arts I've heard it highly recommended from a researcher in such things, too.
And to summarize a question on technics, as a master of my aquintance said: "All men have two arms and two legs. And nobody is able to bend knees backwards. So there are only a limited number of effective technics, used by most schools". (with a caveat of different things being stressed, of course - and weapons produced in local tradition can influence technics to a degree. Still, technics of a Chinese *dao* broadsword can be actually quite similar to those of a Scottish one :) )

[Sombre]

"All men have two arms and two legs. And nobody is able to bend knees backwards. So there are only a limited number of effective technics, used by most school"

But that isn't true. Haven't you ever seen the film 'The Crippled Masters'? Have you never heard of Nick the BJJ legend that used to train with Billy Rush? He had no legs and tapped blackbelts all the time.

Here's a random story about him tapping Joe Riggs. 3 times. And Joe Riggs has excellent grappling.

http://www.cagepotato.com/2008/02/27/joe-riggs-gives-no-quarter-to-the-handicapped-update-on-back-injury/

[Endoperez]

"All men have two arms and two legs. And nobody is able to bend knees backwards. So there are only a limited number of effective technics, used by most school"

But that isn't true. Haven't you ever seen the film 'The Crippled Masters'? Have you never heard of Nick the BJJ legend that used to train with Billy Rush? He had no legs and tapped blackbelts all the time.

Here's a random story about him tapping Joe Riggs. 3 times. And Joe Riggs has excellent grappling.

http://www.cagepotato.com/2008/02/27/joe-riggs-gives-no-quarter-to-the-handicapped-update-on-back-injury/

Nick is impressive, no doubt about that, and it was nice to learn about him.

The point of the part you quoted wasn't the existence of legs, though, but to point out there are only so many ways to lock an arm, and most of those appear in many different styles of martial arts.

[Lavaere]

By the way Lavaere, just a short addendum to what I said in my above post to you. I just looked up the exact nomenclature of Kapa Haka and I should amend to what I said. It is the Haka that is martial, not the Kapa. That said, it is performing the Haka in the Kapa that probably makes the learning of it more fun, so definitely take both seriously.

Yeah Kapa Haka is the whole think, where as the Haka is basicly the war chant/battle cry I guess. Of which some Haka Tane(Male) use Patu or Taiaha.

As for thanking teachers, that is so hard to do. Kapa Haka is very much a cultural thing here and everyone basicly learns some during there school years. And those schools that don't teach it will atleast make sure the one performed by sports teams is atleast known.
So you have school teachers, community elders, family elders, kapahaka groups I've been in. So many different instructors over the year.


Come to think of it I just remember one time when I was around 10. We were to perform a Haka with Taiaha. So the elder that was teaching us the song and action also went though action killing blows with the weapon. I remember him telling us.
Hit them with the shaft end and knock them to the ground. Then the other end which natually was a carved face, the protruding tongue be the spear part and go for soft parts boys. Eyes, Armpits, Groin, Belly and the such.
Now that there down take your Patu, not those wooden ones you have but you Jade Stone Patu and you can crack open there head. And being a Maori you go get yourself a good feed of brains and take there knowledge.

To bad when the English came to colonize New Zealand they gave us guns. So that we could shoot from afar instead of close combat.

[Agema]

Oh I don't know. Why not shoot someone from a distance?

I read "A History of Warfare" by John Keegan. It's quite interesting from the viewpoint that war in more primitive cultures was principally ritualised often with ranged weaponry, where both sides tended to try to avoid casualties even to the point where they might barely inflict any. Eventually one side would give up and go home. The suggestion he made was that was the original "natural" state, and where possible and without social conditioning or training humans want to revert to it.

[Panpiper]

John Keegan has a lot of respect from the circles I keep. And he is right, warfare aught by natural law be a matter of ritual posturing rather than coming to blows. It is a fact that it is extremely rare to 'win' a war. All one can really hope for is to loose less than the other side (and call that victory). The Allies 'won' world war two, but at what cost? Virtually the whole planet was war ravaged by the end.

Animals in nature will rarely fight (unless it is a carnivore killing prey, but that is rarely a fight). Two males squaring off competing for mates and status will posture and make noise attempting to intimidate the rival into backing down. Rarely will it come to blows, this because there is too much risk of injury. Even if one animal wins, it is likely to be wounded in the confrontation, which would severely impair it's ability to compete with any other male. Primitive human societies mimic this behavior for perfectly good reasons. It is our 'civilized' society that tends to habitually devolve into orgies of mutual murder.

[K]

Just to drop a line here:

The only difference between martial arts is the situations where they are designed to be good.

For example, kendo takes place in open ground along two axis and so is straight up superior to rapier fencing in an open field or something.

By contrast, rapier fencing was designed so that people could fight duels in alleys on one axis and it is flat out superior to kendo fencing in that situation.

My opinion for why Eastern arts are exoticized is because in the East orders of fighting monks and nobles trained from the age of 6. By the time they were adult they had enough skill that horribly inefficient but nice looking moves were possible with a young adult body and decades of training. Think gymnastics for a Western comparison.

The West never developed the same kinds of arts because of the simple "gun/bow > fists/sword". Heck, the history of the crossbow is fascinating because it was outlawed for hundreds of years because peasants could learn it with little or no training and kill armored knights.

So in a RPG, every martial art should have a situation bonus. Pirate Cutlass fighting should be better on ships and english military academy fighting should be better in closed circles and eastern wakizashi fighting should be better in house-to-house fighting.

[Endoperez]

My opinion for why Eastern arts are exoticized is because in the East orders of fighting monks and nobles trained from the age of 6. By the time they were adult they had enough skill that horribly inefficient but nice looking moves were possible with a young adult body and decades of training. Think gymnastics for a Western comparison.

The West never developed the same kinds of arts because of the simple "gun/bow > fists/sword". Heck, the history of the crossbow is fascinating because it was outlawed for hundreds of years because peasants could learn it with little or no training and kill armored knights.

The eastern martial arts weren't and aren't "horribly inefficient with nice looking moves". I can only speak for tai chi, because it's the only one I've tried myself, and it can be brutally effective, if the practitioner is taught to use it that way. In the week I had to learn it, I spent about as much time learning applications as I did learning the form.

In the west we had knights who were trained from childhood not only to fight, but to improve and keep up an impressive physical ability. Among other things, they practiced getting on and off a horse. Speaking of gymnastics... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pommel_horse)

And finally, even if the papal ban was made, it didn't get enforced, and it certainly didn't last for hundreds of years.


I agree with your post otherwise: different martial arts mostly differ in the time and place they were developed. Styles' effectiveness should be situational. Unless it's hard to implement, in which case gameplay triumphs over theoretical realism.

[Omnirizon]

In agreement with K's post (and I suppose a little implicit disagreement with a bit of Endo's) a lot of Wu Shu martial arts stuff (maybe its specific to Wu Shu though) is just 'show'.

I have a hard time believing that a guy hopping on his butt while swinging a nine-link whip around underneath it has any practical application in an actual confrontation (unless its a break-dancing confrontation).

[K]

While all I have is my personal experience, I can tell you that after several years of Tai Chi that a lot of it is not practical. You honestly can learn all the "moves" of an entire martial art in about three months. The rest is just physical conditioning like speed and strength training and learning to react both instinctively and intelligently with the correct move.

I also studied Karate under a streetfighter ex-Marine and I can tell you that the stripped-down version looks nothing like the moves you see on TV. He basically said "I'll teach you to fight first, then I'll teach the impressive stuff if you still want to learn it." I watched the Capoiera club at my school for weeks before deciding that presenting my butt to an enemy is just not practical in any form. Saber fencing and Tai Chi saber fencing also can be mastered in any practical way in a few weeks (I fenced with an Olympic saber fencer and could beat him 1 out of 4 times and I was nowhere near the athlete and half-blind to boot).

There's a great mini-documentary on the Batman Begins DVD that shows the progression of a modern martial art called KC. It's a good example of showing how martial arts are designed toward a particular focus (in that case, fighting several enemies at once).

Mostly, I think martial arts get great marketing and religious stuff added to it so that teachers can get students. Learning to fight well is simply a matter of practice so that even the best trained warrior can be beaten by a street-fighter who has cobbled together a style from kung-fu movies and a little formal training (see Bruce Lee).

[vfb]

It sounds like you're basing your argument (regarding whether studying martial arts is practical) on Tai Chi and Fencing. That's pretty funny! I've yet to see anyone in MMA whose martial arts style is "Tai Chi". If there was anyone, probably he didn't make it very far.

My personal experience is with Aikido, which may also be impractical in a street fight (or MMA), but it's great for keeping the wife and kids in line (see my wife and kids).

Aikido does have some lame mystical elements, but horrible marketing, so they probably added a bunch of extra moves so it would take longer than three months to learn, thus retaining their core student base.

P.S. Batman Begins was horrible.

[Omnirizon]

isn't Tai Chi that _real slow_ martial art. the kind that old men do?

my friend practices that. he says it isn't a 'fighting' martial art but is purely a sort of mind-body-soul thing.

[vfb]

Yeah, that's the one. Old ladies too.

But there was some book or movie a while ago where the hero studied Tai Chi for years and years, or 3 months, or something, and he was such a Tai Chi god that he could rip out people's hearts through their eye sockets. I think it was sponsored by the American Federation of Tai Chi Clubs Financial Committee.

[JimMorrison]

The "mystical" elements are quite important, for true mastery of mind, body, and environment.

Understandably, they are easy to downplay, because developing oneself spiritually, conflicts with putting oneself on public display - thus the martial artists (or "fighters") that you see in movies and documentaries, tend towards the practical, rather than the intangible.

I won't claim any exclusivity for any particular methods, but I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that honing the mind and the spirit is rather important to self-perfection. You don't have to be a good person to be spiritual, and you don't have to be spiritual to be dangerous. In fact, the more dangerous "fighters" are those who have developed the weapon, without developing the warrior.

I'm sure this post is going to open a hell of a can of worms (judging by the few posts just before it!), so have fun. :p

[Dedas]

mmmmmm... worms. :)

I will follow this thread with interest (adding nothing besides this useless post of course).

[vfb]

Spiritualism doesn't conflict with public display in Japan. The top spiritualists get their own TV shows and rake in the big bucks. Here's one of the most successful guys at the moment:

http://www.el-aura.com/english/img/trinity_cover/vol19.jpg

[Dedas]

In Japan almost anything goes thanks to western culture.

[JimMorrison]

Spiritualism doesn't conflict with public display in Japan. The top spiritualists get their own TV shows and rake in the big bucks. Here's one of the most successful guys at the moment:

http://www.el-aura.com/english/img/trinity_cover/vol19.jpg

Maybe I'm way off, but that picture just makes him look like a Japanese Jim Baker. :p I wonder when Jim and Tammy Faye stopped being touted as "top spiritualists". ;) Granted, I've no idea what this man is all about, it's just a superficial observation.

[lch]

My personal experience is with Aikido, which may also be impractical in a street fight (or MMA), but it's great for keeping the wife and kids in line (see my wife and kids).
I have no idea what Aikido looks like, but I have now the mental image of vfb throwing his family members around the house stuck in my brain.

[rdonj]

I've heard that there are people who teach Tai Chi as a martial art rather than as a method of exercise and that it can actually be quite dangerous. But I would say that pretty much any martial art can be powerful if practiced by a sufficiently gifted student, so long as it's not something silly like martial arts tea ceremony.

I don't know what aikido looks like either, but I suspect it looks a little like judo. My brother used to do judo... and of course he would always practice on me.

My personal experience is with Aikido, which may also be impractical in a street fight (or MMA), but it's great for keeping the wife and kids in line (see my wife and kids).

To my understanding, Aikido is basically a grappling art, like judo or jujutsu. Looking up the acronym MMA, I seem to get a hit relating to UFC, which I am vaguely aware of and heard somewhat to the effect that it was dominated for a while by practitioners of gracie jiu jutsu in particular. So apparently it would probably not be impractical for that, though personally I am not that convinced of grappling arts superiority. Then again, a lot does depend on the student.

And K, interesting that you dueled an olympic fencer. Olympic fencing kind of bugs me though... usually, the two people just lunge at each other and whichever hits first wins, so it seems mostly determined by who has the best reflexes. In my book that's not winning, that's mutually agreeing to die :P I tried fencing once... I was at a renaissance faire, and they had a few guys there offering fencing lessons. I had a bit of bad reflexes for it being used to somewhat different sword arts, so I would keep trying to do things I wasn't supposed to and had to restrain myself. Anyway, I ended up going 2 to 3 with my instructor, with a rather furious battle on that last point, neither one of us wanted to lose :) Relevance? Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that with martial arts, it's not necessarily so much learning the moves as perfecting the technique and acquiring the reflexes required for it. Being properly fit for the school helps too.

[Endoperez]

Ha! Challenge! To arms and argument! :D


isn't Tai Chi that _real slow_ martial art. the kind that old men do?

my friend practices that. he says it isn't a 'fighting' martial art but is purely a sort of mind-body-soul thing.

The slow thing that is done in tai chi is called a form.

Yes, the form is often practiced real slow, and yes, many old men do it. Once you are good you can also perform the form fast (if you want to), and some of the old people can do more than just the form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUf1llA3HXg

Also, moving slow isn't easy. Does your friend sweat during the form? I didn't, until I slowed down. I had been doing it too fast for several months! :doh: That's what you get for not having a teacher.

Many tai chi teachers don't even know that tai chi is a martial art, and of course anything they teach won't be a martial art either. It doesn't mean that your friend can't practice his meditative tai chi, or that other people can't practice just-for-show modern Wushu. I, however, am not interested in learning just the form, or in learning gymnastics. I want to learn the martial art, which has forms and (some) show, but also lots of fun stuff you won't get from the other two.


While all I have is my personal experience, I can tell you that after several years of Tai Chi that a lot of it is not practical. You honestly can learn all the "moves" of an entire martial art in about three months. The rest is just physical conditioning like speed and strength training and learning to react both instinctively and intelligently with the correct move.

I bolded the parts that tai chi teaches. :D

I speak about "tricks" instead of "moves", because sometimes similar movement can be done in slightly different ways. It's still a single "move", but at the same time, several "tricks". Learning all the tricks isn't what martial arts are about, because in a real fight you don't know what tricks are allowed and what the other guy is going to do.

A form can have a hundred movements, and the flowery names are a great help for learning all the tricks. I was taught to use "grasping bird's tail" to parry a straight punch while blocking the attacker's other hand, like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2co2w288Tho

In addition, the form helps with posture, footwork and balance, doing the posture very slow and very low will strengthen your legs, and practicing daily will help you learn to perform it more precisely. There are other ways to practice the same stuff, of course.


I also studied Karate under a streetfighter ex-Marine and I can tell you that the stripped-down version looks nothing like the moves you see on TV. He basically said "I'll teach you to fight first, then I'll teach the impressive stuff if you still want to learn it." I watched the Capoiera club at my school for weeks before deciding that presenting my butt to an enemy is just not practical in any form. Saber fencing and Tai Chi saber fencing also can be mastered in any practical way in a few weeks (I fenced with an Olympic saber fencer and could beat him 1 out of 4 times and I was nowhere near the athlete and half-blind to boot).

It looks like you have practiced more martial arts than I, and I'm impressed with your fencing merits.
Regardless, I disagree. The movements "that work" are simplifications. "Boxing is about punching" is a simplification, because a good punch relies on good footwork and balance and bluffing.
You can learn lots of useful tricks very fast. These tricks can be stripped-down street-versions, or applications based on tai chi form, or aikido wrist locks. They can be useful and save your life, but they're only one part of the story.

The tricks you use don't matter as much as the other stuff: your balance and speed and reflexes, your attitude, your ability to think fast and outsmart others, if you noticed you're in danger ot not, etc. I think it's the same thing you're saying in here:

Mostly, I think martial arts get great marketing and religious stuff added to it so that teachers can get students. Learning to fight well is simply a matter of practice so that even the best trained warrior can be beaten by a street-fighter who has cobbled together a style from kung-fu movies and a little formal training (see Bruce Lee).

(What do you mean about Bruce Lee, btw? Was he beaten up by some fan or something?)

In the short time I practiced tai chi (about a week) I didn't learn much about balance, but I've been practicing what little form I learned and it has helped a little. I did go through nice two-person drills where you have to react to your partner's movement, follow him when he steps backwards and change direction when he changes direction, and I'd love to do them again. They are very fun to do, and challenging, and teach reflexes and footwork.
Here is a great video about pushing hands practice. It starts with basics, and then moves to showing applications.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkyq9FljlG8


Now, before I go any further, I have to say I can't fight with tai chi. Not yet, at least. However, in a week of tai chi I learned more than in the ~2 years I practiced a Korean kicking art. In there, I only learned tricks: kicks, punches, counters to different kicks, parries to straight punches, etc.
In tai chi, I learned lots of new tricks, but also the fact that tricks alone won't be enough.

It sounds like you're basing your argument (regarding whether studying martial arts is practical) on Tai Chi and Fencing. That's pretty funny! I've yet to see anyone in MMA whose martial arts style is "Tai Chi". If there was anyone, probably he didn't make it very far.

My personal experience is with Aikido, which may also be impractical in a street fight (or MMA), but it's great for keeping the wife and kids in line (see my wife and kids).

I have seen one (1) MMA match which a tai chi- bagua-sanshou fighter won. I think it was his first MMA match. I'm trying to find it, but I haven't had any luck. It didn't look like tai chi, of course, because he wasn't doing a form.

I've been learning aikido for about half a year now. Aikido as I've been taught is nowhere near as brutal or direct as the tai chi I was taught, even though it shares some similar ideas. The practice has been too static, for one thing. We almost always practice a spesific counter-move to a spesific attack. The tricks are good, but we always practice from the same, static pose. I'd love to have this kind of practice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK7w1j-zRCQ

That's from a martial arts school in Rome, but that kind of practice could work in ANY martial art. Wonderful stuff.

[Panpiper]

But I would say that pretty much any martial art can be powerful if practiced by a sufficiently gifted student, so long as it's not something silly like martial arts tea ceremony.

A tea ceremony master was walking through the town market one day when he accidentally jostled a samurai. The samurai took great offense, but because the samurai and the tea ceremony master were of the same social caste, the samurai could not simply lop off the tea ceremony master's head. So the samurai challenged the tea ceremony master to a duel the following dawn.

Now the tea ceremony master knew nothing of sword fighting, but was bound by honor to show up for this duel. Not wanting to embarrass himself, he went to the town sword master and asked the sword master if he could be taught to use a sword. The sword master was rather flustered, not really being able to teach much in the space of one evening. He showed how to hold a sword, how to do a basic sword stroke, and then said this;.

"I can teach you nothing about how to fight this evening. But I will tell you this; Go to the bridge in the morning, hold the sword thusly over your head. Think of the tea ceremony. When your opponent approaches, strike with all your might."

The next morning at dawn the sword master stood at one end of the bridge and the samurai arrived at the other. The tea ceremony master held up his sword as he had been shown and thought of the tea ceremony. The samurai watched the tea ceremony master for a good while. Finally he bowed, turned, and walked away.

Here endeth the lesson. ;-)


I could write a LOT about the martial side of tai-chi, but Endoperez did a pretty good job of defending it.

[rdonj]

That was supposed to be an obscure joke, but thanks for the story :)

[K]

Well, Endo basically made the same points that I would, so I'll just clarify a few points:

1. I've studied the martial form of Tai chi, as well as martial form of Tai chi saber fencing, European fencing with saber and epee, and karate, and I've picked up a few moves from various people I've sparred with that range from Kung Fu to Aikido to Capoeira and escrima(sp?). That's a pretty diverse set of martial skills, but it is not even uncommon for any serious martial artist to try several forms for several years to cover perceived holes in technique (or just to keep interest since once you are conditioned for one form learning another is child's play).

2. At the end of the day, being a good fighter is about being really physically fit and training yourself in enough situations to have an appropriate response that comes instinctively. Breaking someone's nose with the flat of your hand is no different from grabbing a bar glass and smashing it across their face: both with take the fight right out of anyone who is not a professional fighter or soldier.

And that's the essence of the martial arts: having an answer to a situation. Tai chi is about keeping your balance and redirecting an enemy while KC is about locking up an opponent and tossing them into another guy and Aikido is about being able to take a fall while tossing your opponent. Each has a solution to the same situations and some are better in some situations. KC is great if you are bigger than your enemy, Tai chi for being smaller, and aikido if you are about the same size....however, each will do the job in a pinch.

But I doubt I'll convince anyone. The marketing behind all martial or fighting arts has been that there is a "secret" to fighting that only comes from a teacher and that teacher's special forms of initiations. The lie is told by Navy SEALs and wizened Asian masters alike and it's the same techniques of marketing used to sell potato chips and luxury cars.

[rdonj]

No, actually that made perfect sense to me. Maybe I just didn't need enough convincing.

[Wrana]

Two thumbs for Endoperez and K!
One small comment on mentioned Bruce Lee: Tai Chi was the first MA he studied. :) Actually, it can be seen as he often preferred relatively low "half-horse" stance to the high frontal one which he learned later in win-cnun (sp?).

[rdonj]

Wing chun?

[Endoperez]

Well, Endo basically made the same points that I would, so I'll just clarify a few points...

Coming from you, that's a compliment. Especially as I thought I was arguing against you!

I'll borrow the idea of your last post into another forum. In a computer game, it'd be interesting to have a good/evil axis represented by the character having a different answer/reaction to the same situation.

[Wrana]

Quite probably. I don't have English books on subject on hand.
By the way, a practical application of tai chi was shown in the film Shootfighter with Bolo Yeung for those interested.