Official IWS Traditional Martial Arts Thread

[poopoo333]

Would be awesome if the UFC went, would definitely get some tickets for that. Are you going to do the grappling comp there?

[MMA_scientist]

Would be awesome if the UFC went, would definitely get some tickets for that. Are you going to do the grappling comp there?

Yeah,that is the plan.

[poopoo333]

Yeah,that is the plan.

Alright, gonna try and get my brown belt by then and whoop your ass

[Ludo]

Which do you think are more useful, X, kicks or punches? I have My own theory on this that I'll explain a little later. I'm posing this question as it pertains to real situations by the way.

[SPX]

The UFc used to be there, maybe they will bring it back since the Arnolds seem to be improving again.

Improving how?

[SPX]

Good stuff here. . .

[Ludo]

Improving how?

Moar pammmmp

[SPX]

Which do you think are more useful, X, kicks or punches? I have My own theory on this that I'll explain a little later. I'm posing this question as it pertains to real situations by the way.

I think a good punch is the foundational strike for any kind of fighting, just from a practicality standpoint. They're easier to land, easier to put them right where you want them to be, you can land them in greater volume in a shorter amount of time, you can maintain a very solid base while punching, and you can easily transition into a throw or takedown.

Kicks, at least good ones, should be more powerful. But they basically lack every other advantage that I listed for punches: harder to land at all, harder to be accurate, harder to maintain a solid base (so a good counter attack will take you off your feet), and it's harder to transition into a grappling technique if that's what you want to do.

With that said, unlike some people, I do think that kicks can have a valuable place for self-defense purposes. They just have to be set up really well and used intelligently. I can't remember his name, but I read a story not too long ago about a bouncer who was well known for knocking unruly patrons out with kicks. Apparently he was quite successful with ending altercations that way.

[Ludo]

I agree. Even though so much of martial arts involve alot of kicks for a variety of reasons(keeping distance, wearing someone down, potentially ending an altercation without having to knock someone out, etc etc etc), balance is key in these kinds of situations. Getting dropped or slammed onto an extremely hard surface(concrete, hard wood or tile flooring) can be extremely dangerous and any time you kick you run the risk of having your leg/foot caught and ending up on the ground which may not always be a terrible thing depending on background and training, but getting knocked out or having your shoulder fucked up by landing on the ground or whatever doesn't really allow that to come into play.

Punches on the whole can be less effective pound for pound than kicks, but like you said they allow for proper footwork and balance that can be crucial. A well placed kick could very well give you enough time to get out of there, but placing them can be very difficult without extensive training and drilling. A well placed punch may not be as effective, but you can place them without near as much training and even if you don't place it well the first time you can follow up much faster to make up for the lack of aim.

[SPX]

Yes, kicking is a very specialized skill and it takes a long time to get good at it. This is why I've always appreciated TKD. The guys who really know what they're doing are pretty amazing in the way that they can be so fast and accurate with their kicks.

If you want to see an awesome kicker who translated his skills from TKD to kickboxing, then watch this:

[Ludo]

Impressive stuff. I noticed he chained spinning back kicks with roundhouse kicks alot. Shit probably took a long long time to perfect, either that or he's just some kind of natural born kicking machine.

[SPX]

I think Steve Vick is just fucking incredible. That guy is seriously one of my MA heroes.

And yeah, I'm sure it took a while. I saw a vid of his first TKD match and he looked to be about 13 or so. Who knows how long he was training before he actually started competing.

I'm actually really interested in the kickboxing scene that existed from the 70s to about the mid-90s. I think it's very interesting historically. I'm not positive why kickboxing never really took off in the US.

BTW, if you're interested here's another Vick highlight. Some of the footage is the same, but a lot of it is different. There's a guy on YouTube with the username "svickutube" who has uploaded not only highlights but also a lot of full fights. I really wonder if that is actually him.

[Ludo]

What weight is that? Dude looks like he's between 155 and 175lbs give or take. I wonder how he'd have fared against some other highly skilled kick artists. Alot of these guys he's fighting look like they're looking for a way in with kicks rather than actually trying to do damage with them.

[SPX]

I'm not positive. One of the vid descriptions list one of his fights as being for the "world welterweight kickboxing title," but I'm not positive what they consider to be WW.

This guy is kind of a ghost. Search for "Steve Vick kickboxer" on Google and you won't come up with much except for a very short bio that someone wrote up in a blog once. No official website, no interviews, no nothing.

I do think the "svickutube" channel is his. I just looked and apparently I sent him a message on YT asking if he was really Steve Vick, but I didn't get a response.

Here's the channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/svickutube

There are several full fights on there. If you want to see a great fight that he actually LOST, watch the fight with Hector Pena. It was a very close, back and forth affair. A "war," if you will.

[Ludo]

Dude, Pena was fucking Vick UP in the early portion of that fight. Vick clearly does not like being crowded or pushed up on at all because Pena was wading in even through those kicks and lighting him up with his hands. Pena was ultra tough and durable though, he ate a lot of kicks and shit at times when he was just standing there and then just kept coming forward. It's kind of interesting to see a primarily boxing oriented striker dismantle the guy who has all the kicks, but Pena was one scrappy motherfucker because he ate some horrendous looking body kicks through those rounds and was just always in Vick's face.