Follow this link to the Entire Book - AN OVERVIEW OF MARTIAL ARTS

AN OVERVIEW OF MARTIAL ARTS was written by Chris Traish & Leigh Olsson

Below is a sample of the Books Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Foreword

1.  Introduction

2.  Chart

3.  Offensive Principles

4.  Defensive Principles

5.  Peripheral Qualities (empty hand)

6.  Striking Arts. Karate

7.  Striking Arts. Kickboxing

8.  Throwing

9.  Locking and Choking

10. Peripheral Qualities (weapons)

11. Projectile Weapons

12. Short range rigid speed cutting. Knife

13. Medium range rigid speed cutting. Kenjutsu

14. Long range rigid speed cutting. Naginata

15. All ranges rigid mass Cutting.

16. Short range rigid speed impacting. Yawara

17. Medium range rigid speed impacting. Arnis

18. Long range rigid speed impacting. Bo jutsu

19. All ranges rigid mass Impacting.

20. All ranges flexible Impacting.

21. Sport.

22. Teaching.

Appendix

1. Grading syllabus.

2. Tournament Rules.

3. Tournament Organisation.

4. Training Routines.

5. Bibliography.

CHART 2 - Empty Hand Self Defence.            

     The study of self defence in the martial arts can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

     At it's simplest there are only five ways you can be attacked;

         - with the attackers lead hand.

         - with the attackers rear hand.

         - with the attackers lead leg.

         - with the attackers rear leg.

         - with the attacker grappling with you.

Picture it, you are a Karate man and you are walking down a dark alley when a threatening figure looms out of the darkness ahead of you and begins a series of elaborate Kung-Fu postures and stances. Your initial response, being totally unfamiliar with Kung-Fu, is " shit, what the hell is he going to do ? ". But think about it, what can he do ? In spite of postures, kiais, feints and verbal threats he can only attack you in 5 ways, with lead hand, rear hand, lead leg, rear leg or grapple. Now this sounds obvious but it's surprising how many martial artists don't think of attacks in this way and are intimidated by something they haven't seen before and are therefore at an initial mental disadvantage.  

     Now, temporarily ignoring grappling, we can make empty hand self defence slightly more complicated by increasing the range of options of striking. Each strike, be it with lead hand, rear hand, lead leg or rear leg, can be either straight or circular. A straight hand strike, as the name suggests, moves in a straight line as it is executed e.g. a jab or a reverse karate punch. A circular hand strike moves in a curved trajectory e.g. a hook or uppercut punch, a knifehand strike. A straight leg strike might be a front or side kick and a circular leg strike a roundhouse or spinning kick. Grappling can also be divided into sub groups : locking, throwing and head butting (included in grappling because of the close range required in execution). So, initially we had 5 ways of attacking and now we have 11.

     The next step in increasing complexity is to divide the straight or circular strikes into striking area variations (i.e. the part of the strikers body that impacts on the opponent). Thus hand strikes now include single knuckle strikes, knife hand strikes, finger strikes, ridge hand strikes etc., and leg strikes include front kicks, knee strikes, axe kicks, spinning kicks etc.  (for fuller details see Chart #1) as you can see there are now 23 lead hand striking variations, 23 rear hand striking variations, 47 lead leg striking variations, 47 rear leg striking variations, 44 locking variations, 38 throwing variations and one head butt to give a possible 222 ways of attacking. You may well suggest that there are other hand, foot, throwing and locking variations that we haven't mentioned and you are certainly right but exact numbers aren't important, the principle is.

     The next step up in complexity is to consider blocking. There are 6 basic ways of blocking :

        - Force to force

        - With the force

        - Jamming

        - Absorbing

        - Evading

        - Catching

These 6 blocking methods can easily be further divided into more specific blocks and counters for throws and locks but at the moment we won't do this.

The Equations

     If we consider a basic 2 step attack, 2 blocks and 1 counter-strike the total number of possible combinations is:

     222 x 222 x 6 x 6 x 222 = 393,877,728 combinations

If you executed 6 combinations per minute (1 every 10 seconds), 24 hours a day, it would take 125 years to run through all possible combinations.

     If we then consider other variables :

         *  Height of the attack - low, mid, high.

         *  Specific target areas - e.g. a high punch to   

            the head area may impact on the teeth, nose,

            temple, mastoid bone, eyes, base of skull,

            jaw, throat etc.       

         *  Direction of the attacker - in front, behind,        

            to the side.

         *  Direction of the attack - if the attacker is 

            in front of the defender the attack can come

            from the front, either side or even behind

            (a spinning kick may hook around and hit from 

            behind).

         *  Feints.

         *  Speed of attack.

         *  Combination attacks, blocks and counters.

         *  Distance the attack starts from the defender.

           then the total number of variations tends toward numbers in the millions of billions, numbers so large as to be meaningless.

     What then, you ask, is our point in this exercise ? The point is a simple one. As you have seen, the martial arts ARE as simple or as complicated as you want to make them. We believe that many people complicate the martial arts to bolster their own egos. We've all seen the sensei with the "I can teach you 500 different methods of self defence" and he can, but as you've seen even 500 methods is a drop in the bucket in the almost infinite variety of martial arts. What he should be teaching is not specific methods but PRINCIPLES of martial arts. Let the student develop his own specific methods based on his own circumstances, flexibility, strength, physique,    preferences and skills. Let the student build his martial    arts specifics (with the guidance of his sensei) on the foundation of basic principles taught to him by the Sensei.