How effective is martial art in battles?

Western fighting arts have a long and rich history, and, while most have either died out or been diluted into combat sports (fencing, boxing, & wrestling, which still have practical application, btw), this doesn't change the fact that Europe had arts as effective as anything in Asia.

i think the effectiveness of martial arts comes to how much a person is willing to put into it. If someone trains for a few months, they wouldn't be a bruce lee anytime soon. But if someone trains truley in the body, mind, and spirit for a long time, i think that it would be effective. I have been doing tae-kwon-do for five years and i trained pretty hardly the last 3 years and i think that if someone, within reasonable range(not like a linebacker in the nlf) attacks me, i think i have a good chance in disarming,if its a knife, or defending being able to defend myself

Originally posted by Mangudai Then we have the Viking-wrestling art Glima, practised still today on Iceland

A famous Icelandic glima wrestler supposedly defeated some high-ranking judoka, early in the 20th century.

Wrestling is the "original" martial art.

Animals wrestle.

And thus, such grappling arts were often an important component of various fighting systems from around the world.

Originally posted by Mangudai I'm not surpsrised. The disadvantage with eastern martial arts is that they are unnecessarely complex and difficult to master. They have turned into stylized techniques that can't be developed, or used for fighting

Mangudai,

I didn't post the glima player's victory over the judoka to show any supposed superiority of Western grappling methods over Eastern ones--I merely wanted to show that they are comparable.  Judo is actually a highly effective combat sport, that features both standing throws and takedowns, as well as ground wrestling.  This actually makes it more versatile than glima as an overall fighting method, since glima has no groundwork at all.  I don't know what rules the glima player and judoka fought under, but I suspect that it was either under glima rules, or post-1925 judo rules which emphasized the standing throws over the ground grappling.

Judo's ne-waza represents the one great Asian tradition of ground wrestling that we know of, while in the West, such techniques are mainly featured in English Lancashire wrestling, and it's American cousin, known as catch-as-catch-can, or simply catch wrestling.

And not all Eastern martial arts are "unnecessarily complex"--the various Filipino methods of swordfighting and stickfighting are comparatively straightforward, and very practical.  Just as in the West, some Asian methods have retained more practical application than others.  We should all be careful of making misleading blanket statements.

Peace,

L_D

 

Chaeokh: I know one man who has practised karate for over 30 years and he says that he would never try to fight a man with knife. I train knife fighting tecniques and know that it's a horrible weapon in the right hands. Disarming fighter who knows even the basics is very difficult. Believe me.

Russians have also some martial arts but I don't remember their names. Any Russians here who know?

 

"SAMBO ("SAMozashchita Bez Oruzhiya" - "Self-defence without weapon")"

i see why they shortened the name