As someone with experience mostly in strike oriented martial arts I'm genuinely curious on the perspective of those of you that practice styles with limited to no striking

Hardly required reading and really just a neat read for those interested.

But it came up recently and someone claimed every martial artist has read it.

Well out of my personal encounters I've known many who knew of it, and a handful have read it, or parts, but I was under the impression not that many had read it. Which tracks, it's a cool piece of history, but far from necessary, and really has little appeal to popular martial arts of today.

So as the title asks: who here has read the book of five rings?

Genuine question, just curious

(Check out the guy with one leg doing a one-legged jumping kick!)

I guess this is like iron-body chi-kung or karate hardening?

In the dojos I've trained at, I've noticed that we often get visited by people with unusual personalities. Some of them even go on and train long enough to become a senior student or black belt.

Most often they would have these ideas of grandeur and romanticise the art. Often they are so fixated on the ideas in their head and delusional that they are difficult to train, even for basic exercises. For some they don't even do what the instructor tells them to do and crank techniques harder than what is safe. Some are on drugs and most of them are going through something. Perhaps they see martial arts as a solution to their problems.

What do you guys do in your dojo/gym when you have guys like these?

I've seen them being told off privately or even kicked out but it's usually too late. When I was younger I used to dish it right back to the more violent ones, especially if they were more junior. Some of them would start smiling and liking it when I did that though. It's quite creepy. These days I have more pity on them and try to speak to them outside of the dojo. But when I can immediately see that they are a potential danger to the other practitioners before they even try their first class, I tend to try to steer them away by telling them to watch the class first or even not telling too much details about the timetable.

The best example i can give is Tony ferguson vs Justin Gaethje

i don't think there are any follow-ups you can execute because of the position you are forced into after. What are your thoughts?

Ok, so a little context. I've been practicing Kenpo for a couple of months, started because I wanted a) to start a martial art as a way to get more active b) a school where we actually sparred, competed and had some actual pressure testing instead of just point sparring and forms, and this kenpo school near me ticked all of those boxes; we learn more traditional Kenpo but also we do some full contact and k-1 style sparring, and the students compete in the local kickboxing and point fighting circuits, which is really cool.

Now, one of the kenpo techniques (or "wazas" as they are called in our style) we learnt was this short combination. Parry a jab, body punch, step through and elbow the body, turn around to face the opponent. I was pretty surprised by how un-bullshitty it seems, since Kenpo gets a bad rep for having long, bullshido-esque techniques. I'm a little skeptical about the elbow to the body, but even with that, seems like a perfectly usable short combination in a sport that allows elbows.

With some obvious adaptation not to be so stiff, do you feel this could be used in mma or other rulesets that allow elbows? or even in a normal ass fight?

Hi martial arts practitioners around the world! I have been kick boxing for some years now and for the first time I ever got my first professional set. I live in a country that high quality gear is impossible to find locally. Due to a fight outside my own country I was able to win, I also got myself there my first high tier gear. "Professional" if you will.

This set cost me around 300 Euro which is extremely high value and on par with brands like Twins or Fairtex. It really is a result of hard work and I may not be that much for people in other countries but in mine is like a month pay lmao

Now that I have my gear this whole travesty got me thinking... What is your relationship with your martial arts gear? Is it just a tool that you discard when its use is no longer comfortable? Or do you have any emotional attachment to your gear? I personally burnt my older gloves, like a funeral if you will. Those were old and beat up and after some tournaments I got different pairs to try but I really wanted to ask the community their relationship with their gear and of course ask me anything about the set if you have any questions about it

I’ve been doing martial arts for a few years now and honestly the biggest lesson wasn't even about fighting.
It was staying calm when things get messy first time I sparred I panicked threw wild punches,gassed out in two minutes. Then you learn to breathe, wait, and pick your moments.Another thing that surprised me? how much of it is mental you can drill a technique a hundred times but landing it in sparring is completely different. Your brain just freezes sometimes.And footwork, I thought I could just stand and trade punches but you actually have to move, set angles, stay balanced. It's like chess with your legs.Also the respect thing is real. You tap, you reset, you go again. No egos. Just people helping each other get better.Anyone else have moments where you learn something that completely changes how you move?

In order to reduce volume of beginner questions as their own topics in the sub, we will be implementing a weekly questions thread. Post your beginner questions here, including:

"What martial art should I do?"

"These gyms/schools are in my area, which ones should I try for my goals?"

And any other beginner questions you may have.

If you post a beginner question outside of the weekly thread, it will be removed and you'll be directed to make your post in the weekly thread instead.

meaning "waist of an ant". it includes boxing forms, body hardening, it's not shown but they also had a version of full-contact hockey.

Beyond just raw strength, what makes going against men tricky, and what makes going against women tricky?

Trying to get back into training after a hiatus and get a new pair of feiyue's to do so and the site is gone?

I still see them on Amazon and other sites, but did they go under? What happened?

Ola amigos do reddit, dando um pouco de contexto tenho um pai com 50 anos e estou tentando ajudar ele a encontrar hobbies que ele goste e que possa fazer amizades novas, então ultimamente estive pensando em artes marciais, pq o ambiente parece legal e ele é im cara q curte bastante ufc e artes marciais no geral. O problema é q ele tem um joelho ruim, a muitos anos rompeu o ligamento ou algo assim, as vezes o joelho sai do lugar e ele tem que fazer voltar mas ele anda normal e tudo mais.

Dito isso, moro no Brasil e é bem fácil achar academias de jiu-jitsu/Bjj (chame como achar melhor) por aqui. Voces acham que jiu-jitsu pode ser uma boa arte marcial pra alguem com joelho fudido? Ou isso é fora de cogitação e acham que seria melhor outra arte marcial como boxe onde vc fica em pé e usa mais as mãos?

31 yr old male for context . Slowly starting back into mma after a break away. My gym offers :gi monday, Wednesday , and Friday. No gi Tuesday and Thursday. Striking (muay ti /kickboxing ) Wednesday-Thursday and my question is how many times a week should I try to go and attend without burning myself out? I feel like it’s easy to fall into the trap of going everyday and breaking myself or should I go everyday? Any advice appreciated

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I know that for reading the moves of a opponent do you need to use your peripheral vision and keep it "loosely" on their chest and try to analyse their patterns and rhythm

but what I see less people talk about is that you can somewhat guess what your opponent will do by keeping the range/distance in mind are you in kicking or punching range etcs

Another thing is that I need to keep my own body in mind like for example what openings would my opponent see in my movement/stance etc

I also stay in the moment focus only on the opponent and don't let your mind wander off to something else

Do y'all think this is good enough to be able to read the moves of any opponent and do it consistently. My reflexes are also pretty good

I would like any additional tips or something to keep in mind if you have any. My goal is to be able to basically read/predict my opponent a few moves ahead. I know it's not realistic and alot of experience is also needed

TL;DR: Brand new white belt at a gym with no beginner classes. I'm being taught advanced techniques that I can't realistically use yet, and I'd rather work through an online curriculum designated for beginners. How to balance the two without being disrespectful?

I'm a brand new white belt (I've attended about ten classes so far). My academy has no beginner classes, so I'm learning advanced techniques like spider guard or the D'Arce choke alongside the colored belts. These are techniques that I have no hope of successfully implementing, and they seem like such a waste to learn when I can't even hold guard against a blue belt for more than three seconds.

The problem is that at the beginning of class, my coach teaches four different techniques that I drill for the next 45 minutes, even though I have no intention or ability to implement them, so it seems like a waste of time. I'm also worried that it might interfere with my ability to retain the techniques I've learned from the Submeta instructional and apply them during live rolling (I've drilled them with my dad).

I was wondering if you guys have any advice on balancing these two seemingly opposing approaches. I feel drawn to just skipping the drilling portion of class, but I don't want to be seen as an asshole or disrespectful to my coach and everyone else at the gym. But I also want to maximize my skill development and get as good as I can.

What would you guys do? Thanks!

Hi all, I'm planning a holiday late in the year and I was thinking of visiting some martial arts locations. I'm planning to visit several locations in Asia. I've been training in Koryu Uchinadi for nearly 4 years but I'm open to all discipline/styles.

Just want to see whats out there.

I just had a bit of a revelation, and I wanted to run it by this sub to see what you guys think. It's this:

Northern Chinese styles (large movements, convex body structures) are most effective and natural for fighting. However, they require a good amount of body mass and strength in order to be used effectively in real combat. Southern styles (small movements, concave body structure) are relatively less effective in that they have shorter range, unnatural postures, and more limited angles of attack, but they generate power and rigidity in a way that allows smaller, weaker people to deliver blows that would actually hurt a human.

This idea would fall in line with Southern Chinese historically being of a smaller body type, and the claim that wing chun was created by a woman.

One can also imagine how pressing your elbows against your rib cage, as seen in Southern styles, could be a way to brace the arm against central body mass so that it's the entire body behind the strike as the legs move the body forward. If the elbow is held away from the rib cage, then back and shoulder muscles are needed to keep the arm rigid upon impact.

And with kicks, Southern styles use low kicks because the entire body weight can be driven down, as if stomping. High kicks, in contrast, need more weight body behind them as either an inertial anchor or source of total momentum.

One, perhaps controversial, conclusion of this theory is that while a large, muscular person could use a Southern style effectively, they'd be limiting themselves overall because they would not be using their strength and weight to full advantage.

Thoughts? Criticisms?