'Fight Science' Television Show Review
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There are a lot of misinformed comments out there on this show. You
really find some absurd stuff that people believe in out there, despite
the fact that there is no rational reason to believe in such things.
This show was quite popular. It is two hours long and is similiar to a
previous show "Xtreme Martial Arts" which was done some years ago and
sometimes shows on Discovery.
Probably, the most valuable thing that happened in this show was that
they measured strikes from some top martial arts practioners.
The sad fact is that the vast majority of people who practice martial
arts have no way to measure their own strikes. I can not think of
another sport like this. If someone says "boxing", well, boxing is an
art and it is martial, and I very much consider it a martial art.
This would be like practicing swinging in baseball and not knowing how
far or where you hit the ball.
Why would anyone want to train this way?
So, I hear a lot of stories from people about how to train and "what
works". They make up some incredible stuff.
Like in weightlifting they are eager to lie to themselves to conserve
their own energy expenditure.
As this show reveals, they also lie to themselves for other reasons.
Here is the truth: there are tools which can measure the force of your
strike available today which are also relatively inexpensive. If you
are training and it has not even occured to you to seek out something
like this -- I think that is obviously indicative of a problem.
Why would somebody want to train in baseball, where they do not know
how far or where they hit the ball when they hit it? What could be the
reasoning there?
That is what we are talking about when we are talking about modern
martial arts.
What is absurd beyond this is that the bag really does not give enough
feedback here. So, what is left? Breaking. Breaking is often mocked by
martial artists who do not engage in breaking. Yet, breaking is a way
to measure actual strike performance. It is as scientific as you can
get, next to having a force measurement system.
This show is also useful here: the strongest hitters measured in the
show were two breakers. No surprise there to me. The scientists
confirmed one of the head hits this one guy did would ordinarily be
fatal. They also explained how the sort of "hard body conditioning"
made the bones more dense.
Yet, there will still be guys out there saying "wood does not hit
back". Is there some reason they want to be unable to measure their own
strike power and progress in training? Is there some reason they want
to be unable to hit anything hard -- like human bones are hard?
Notes on the show:
-> the show, of course, was largely much ado about nothing: the force
measurement studies were the core of it, and much fluff was added
around it
-> it was, however, very entertaining and should be educational to
people
-> they did have some experienced and impressive contenders from
various martial arts backgrouns
The Kung Fu and Tae Kwon Do guys did poorly, though their styles were
beautiful. The Muay Thai and Boxing guys did not do poorly. Differences
here? Tae Kwon Do and Kung Fu (Wushu) are not fought as contact sports,
sadly. Of course, their strikes would be weak. They have no reason to
train for true strikes. These people, very sadly, have helped destroy
two very profound martial arts systems -- that is, these people who
have insisted on the "points" fighting system.
This is a point many have argued since the advent of Mixed Martial Arts
competition. I bring it up here again. And, I highlight this specific
aspect of it.
One of the most absurd things in this show was when the Tae Kwon Do guy
used his staff against the crash test dummy. It broke. This surprised
him. This was made all the more stupid because he talked up the ability
of the staff quite a bit before this.
Of course it would break. I bet the guy will sting for that one.
Imagine: training a weapon yet never having actually hit anything with
it. What is this? How are you training if you do not know what hitting
is like it?
He was quite good at spinning the staff around, I should note. The form
looked impressive.
Some web commentators have said "there is no best MA" and such in
comment to this show. Truth is the various contenders showed themselves
quite well. If you do not train for hard strikes, which contact sport
competitors like boxers train for (though quite unscientifically), you
will not be striking hard. Striking hard is not easy to do. It requires
years of experience.
There are Tae Kwon Do and Kung Fu martial artists who can strike hard.
They train to do so.
Boxers and Muay Thai kickers generally do not use systems to
scientifically measure the force of their strikes. They are generally
blind to progress. Bags do not give very good feedback. But, they do
train for speed and they train to hit hard. It may be blind, but they
train under realistic scenarios.
-> Some have taken exception that the Ninjutsu guy's hammerfist hit
stronger then the Muay Thai guy's knee.
This was a thread posted on the skeptical "Randi's" site. These guys
were typical mindless numbskulls, but they had the additional
condemnation on their heads as pretending to be debunkers. ("The
Amazing Randi" was a famous magician who was also an athiest and
founded a lot of skeptical inquirer type work out there. Of course,
some of his work was effective and real, but some of it is just stupid.
Like all of those guys. He is now dead.)
The Ninjutsu guy was great in this show. I was really taken back. As
for the hammerfist hitting harder then the knee -- if you see the show
you see the guy steps into the hammerfist. The hammerfist also hitting
harder then the baseball bat or crowbar. But, if you hit using those
while stepping into it (they did not for the show), those hits would
have been much more substantial.
Basic physics.
What is doubly absurd here is anyone can test out their various strikes
with a force meter that costs 70 bucks. They don't. They have no clue
which method works harder nor which less.
If you take a baseball bat and hit from a foot away... or hit from all
the back over your shoulder... which hits harder?
Sad truth is: the debunkers need to be debunked. This is how our
society is.
-> They showed the Tae Kwon Do guy far too much. He was not that
skilled and it showed, especially with the sword and staff when he hit
stuff with them. But, he was handsome and in good shape. Several also
noticed this.
-> Some have argued they did not have MMA guys on here. They had
Rickson Gracie, who basically helped found the whole MMA movement. This
shows the brilliance of the critics.
I do not have any complaints in these regards. A lot of the MMA guys
out there are not such hard strikers. Many can be improved by taking up
boxing.
What I would like to have seen are more breakers.
They train to hit hard. They would have brought the scales over the
top.
The hardest hitters were breakers, but these guys apparently were not
allowed to compete with the strongest punch or kick.
-> They chalked up the boxer's punch as being the hardest as being in
his form. The guy is a boxing trainer. That is what he would have said
was the secret to his punch. He doesn't know what he is talking about.
They all had good form. The reason he punches so hard is he punches so
fast.
Mass? Yeah, mass is a factor. Form? How far you pull back is a factor,
sure. Form matters. But, above all it is speed of the strike which can
be altered for a hit.
Will more people be trying to train using force meters? Will more
people try "hard body coditioning"? I think some out there will see the
reasoning for such methodology.
Hopefully, far more studies will be done with such work.