Is Too Much Protective Equipment Hurting Martial Arts?
I first started to think about this years ago as I began to wonder why the palm strike has fallen by the wayside in favor of the fist. My guess is that this has come about in part because hitting someone with your fist does not hurt because of padding and wrist wraps that can be used during training. Also, people don’t have to fight hand to hand day in and day out for survival so if you break your knuckles you get a cast rather than lose your life because you can’t fight the next day.
My next point comes from watching people execute various techniques on youtube, at McDojos, and instructional tapes. People are willing to block heavy kicks with the blades of their forearms. Hammer fists, and bolo forearm techniques are often considered sloppy fighting in MMA circles rather than the harbingers of a broken face (and knuckle savers). I see various iron fist techniques going by the wayside as time goes on. People are willing to take bad angles to low kicks. People are less concerned about center-line kicking because the cup will protect you if you get hit in the groin. However, the rules usually prevent groin kicks anyway.
Now when you throw BJJ into the mix, people think that they can go out onto the street and apply submissions from their backs because they are used to training on a mat.
I have often considered making a video on how to not hurt yourself in a street fight. I can see a long-time McDojo practitioner going out throwing 1 kick, hurting his leg, and being defeated with the opponent throwing no offensive techniques. This should not happen and would not happen if people would take the pads off from time to time in order to figure out what they need to do to protect their bodies when executing techniques.
The problem is not as simple as your question would make it. The problem goes into many other areas too. Several reasons are evident. Lack of realism due to training methods, equipment, and teaching. Instructors have been taught watered down martial arts for so many generations now that most don’t even know the real art they teach. It is a fact that you can’t know things that you don’t know. Then there is the issue of instructors that have never had to really use their art in the street. Many years ago Black belt magazine had a article saying the less then 10% of the instructors out there have ever had so much as a bloody nose fight. Now the statistics are much worse. We have all kinds of so called experts telling us what works and what does not. Most of these guys would not know a real punch if it hit them. Then there are the muscle-heads in the martial arts. These are the guys that fight full contact. They are quick to tell the rest of us that what we do does not work. They seem to think that what they do is real and everything else is a waste of time. WHAT they don’t seem to realize is that they too are not realistic. No one steps into a match believing that their life is in danger. Until you do it is not real. Even the roughest fights are under rules. Judges are there to keep things safe. Sure it is realistic, but it is not real. We all are playing games with our training. Some more than others. That is the only difference. Believe what you will, but the truth is the same regardless.
pretty old argument, I have trained with and without safety gear and yes, the gear does make you more brave with what you can get away with. It also keeps people coming back to class, especially kids, nobody wants little johnny to get bruised and battered at karate class, not the parents, not the teacher and not Johnny.
A lot of the old ways are not incorporated in the typical training you find in American dojo’s, nobody toughens their shins by rolling things over them, very few do knuckle push ups on hard surfaces, or makiwara work, nobody really wants to walk around with big red knuckles, they just want to look cool.
When I was in Asia we always sparred with contact and no pads, we controlled it but you still took your lumps and bruises, in America I learned how to wear big thick vests, gloves, etc. It is still good exercise, and it will still give you an edge, but you are in for a rude awakening to the pain of actually getting hit if you get into a real fight.
MMA only uses four oz gloves
Kyokoshin no padding
shotokan no padding
Very good question. Yes, in ways it hurts martial arts and can hurt the martial art practitioner that thinks that they can block a side kick with their wrist. I believe that the best way to block a kick, is to get out of the way. And I do agree with you, on how protective gear can be bad for you considering the fist and how people don’t focus on center line kicking.
However, I think that if used correctly, protective gear can be very useful. Even though they can be kinda cumbersome, they help you learn from your mistakes without getting mutilated in the process.(ex: get hit in the jaw, keep your guard up) Then there are also the instances in when you make a mistake and accidentally hit someone a little too hard.
In conclusion, if used correctly and the not used enough to make you feel as if you are invulnerable from any harm, protective gear can be helpful. Yet, it should be used interchangeably with no pad sparring to make the learning experience as realistic as possible, while still avoiding a lawsuit.
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Greg has a good answer, and Pugpaws has some very good insight into the this question.
I don’t think equipment has much to do with it. As always it’s about the quality of instruction. There is nothing wrong with using protective equipment as long as an instructor explains the purpose of the equipment versus the reality of what techniques can be compromised by it and why some techniques are not suitable for different forms of training with protective equipment and why they could be very effective for certain real life situations.
Also with the exception of Muay Thai, Boxing and Kickboxing, hitting with your fist still hurts quite a bit with the padding on protective handgear for MMA and similar types of handgear. There are many MMA fighters that break or otherwise seriously injure their hands right through the relatively thin padding of the handgear. Maurice Smith said in at least one interview that he simply does not unload as hard as he can with his right hand because he has injured it too many times in the past doing the same when competing in MMA.
The amount of time spent training students in these kind of techniques over hand techniques such as palm strikes and hammerfists has more to do with the rules for sparring in most martial arts schools and sparring competitions than it has to do with protective equipment.
Your analysis of BJJ is bit off too. It’s a popular misconception that BJJ practitioners prefer to fight from their backs, but like anyone else they prefer to fight from the top position. Fighting from the back is simply making the best of a situation where one loses in a clinch or clash to get top position. The techniques don’t require a mat to be effective. The only thing a mat does is make slamming less painful (but you can actually still knock someone out on a mat by slamming them) if a BJJ student is inexperienced enough to insist on holding closed guard on someone with the strength to stand up with a closed guard around them but any seasoned BJJ student knows that outside of a tournament you abandon the closed guard for another position. (My preferred technique is simply to recover a standing position when that happens since I never really wanted to be on my back to begin with.)
Every Instructor is different but for me i use safety gear to help improve training. EX shoulder throw more to the side is ok but to teach an over the head shoulder throw i use a mat. i only use safety gear in high risk activities to mitigate the risk. that’s with my students over 18 years of age after they have signed a no-holds wavier. students under 18 are required by many insurance agencies to have safety gear at all times or during any type of contact training. In the Martial arts Injuries are going to happen, its a giving and every student should be aware of the risks. Training should never be done only within the limits of safety gear. safety gear should only be used when it is necessary to maintain safety.
palm strike are still big but fist cause more damage then palms and if u get jumped you want to be able to take your assailants down fast if that means broken knuckles i would do it because i cant stand around trading blows with one guy as the other guy takes me out from behind.
plus if you hit a guy really hard it make Other guys think twice about coming after you. so in a way it helps to use your knuckles to fight. also its like you said if you brake a bone you can get a cast. you don’t have to fight every day unless you are in the front lines of a war.
it is true that people are geting dumb with there blocks and risking injery. and its because they dont have a clue what they are doing. but i would not say its bucause of protectinve gear. it because the instructer has never realy had to fight for real just little sparing matches. you can never realy know what works and what dose not until you have ben there for real