Self defense or...

Yours truly is NOT an author of this article.
All credits to the Marc Mac Young of http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/

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Aaaaand someone just asked me why Asian MA are so flowery and full of mystic, warrior BS ... while Western stuff is so much more 'real'
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You do of course realize you are talking about westernized Asian martial arts don't you?
Like you might as well be saying "Why is Mexican food not that good" when you're talking about Taco Bell.

What you have 'tasted' is a watered down, commercialized, made for white people's tastes, simplistic version of something much, larger and more complex. And that's on one hand.
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I have a friend who breaks the Japanese martial arts into three categories. Classic, traditional and commercialized. The classic stuff has great body mechanics and wide application in both fighting and survival. I've seen it and it furkin' works. I mean, if you try sports fighting stuff against them, they will hospitalize you. Not in an extended fight either. I'm talking they will break stuff as they're pile-driving your skull into the concrete. You're either not going to get up from that stuff, or you're going to need a ride to the ER.
Then you get 'traditional.' That's where a lot of that bone snapping, skull shattering stuff was intentionally pulled out and replaced with the least effective way of attacking another human was emphasized -- punching. Yeah, stop and think about it, if punching is all that effective then why do boxing and MMA matches last so long?
A punch by itself ain't shit. The real injuries from a punch are usually because the guy loses his balance and hits his head. That applies to pretty much any kind of hit too. (If you watch the Ray Rice video, he didn't knock her out, she hit her head on the elevator hand rail). The traditional martial arts pulled out the other stuff that makes kicks and punches effective and just left those. That reduced them to either sports or fighting. (Fighting equals two guys punching each other out to prove whose dick is bigger -- NOT trying to kill each other.)
It's especially in commercialized stuff you'll find the mystic and warrior tradition and history of the Samurai or Sula Warriors horse crap. It's mostly a cover for the fact that they can't fight their way through a wet kleenex.
Now having said all this, let me point out that in their own way Western arts are just as screwed up. That's the other hand...
See, one thing they really suck at is self-defense. Come to think of it, they're even worse at high levels of street violence and crime. Wanna know why? Because they are teaching you to fight. Better known as dick measuring. Self-defense has totally different goals, tactics and mindset. Trying to fight in a self-defense situation is likely to get you killed. More likely though, since -- while self-defense is legal - fighting is illegal, overwhelmingly what you learn in a boxing or MMA school will get you arrested if you use it outside that sports context. Because it is sports fighting. And it doesn't belong out in the streets.
For every story you can come up with about someone successfully defending themselves using their MMA or boxing. I can come up with twenty about arrests or getting injured in street violence. Since I teach cops, I can tell you five about a drunk MMAer getting tasered.
In their own way people who practice Western styles are just as bad. Instead of being proud of their mystic and traditional ways (like Asian martial artist) they're proud of what bad asses they are and how much smarter they are than those Asian arts guy because they keep it real.
Yeah... their macho fantasies are so much more real than those other guys' woo-woo ones.
Original Post and full article here.