The Ultimate Sports Fan Contest Rules: Fill & Download for Free

The question posed is, “Do you think Martial Arts are becoming a dead concept?”There are many factors to consider here.Soldiers learn CQB (close quarter battle: hand-to-hand combat - aka CQC), which includes armed and unarmed methods of fighting - even though they have plenty of weapons, and their preferred mode of combat is at distance. There is always going to be a need for armed and unarmed close-quarter fighting methods.Martial arts generally started out as a combat method and then became something else. Many would say they became ‘more’ than this, and improved as a result - they covered more ground, although the purpose was not then specifically for fighting and only fighting.Some martial arts have strayed a considerable distance from pure fighting methods. They may not be as good - or even any good at all - for fighting now, but they have other purposes and other uses.Those that became sport forms have the considerable advantage of the most realistic testing and training it is possible to achieve: take English boxing for example (more on this later). These methods lost most of their fighting techniques (as they can’t be used for real, in contests) but gained ultra-efficient training and testing methods. You can combine the old and the new to get the best of both worlds.Some new fighting methods (aka systems or arts or martial arts) then started afresh by just taking what was need to fight with, in the simplest terms possible, and developing it with only practical situations in mind. Over time these things go the same way as anything else, as time modifies all martial arts (especially those that have no way to compete because the moves are all designed to cause the maximum possible harm, such as eye gouges).What would a truly modern martial art look like?It would have both practical fighting techniques and a realistic contest mode. This of course is about the hardest possible thing to arrange, as the people doing it tend to go off on a tangent and end up in all sorts of different places.As an example let’s take a quick look at old English boxing, as it was the ultimate martial art of its time:It comprised boxing, striking, wrestling (with holds and throws), finishing off the opponent by striking them on the ground, a wide range of weapons including sword and staff, contests that involved all the unarmed and armed fighting technique, and students apprenticed to a master. This is about the closest you can come to a definition of a complete martial art.It addressed the most used and most successful unarmed and armed fighting methods and tools of its time, apart from the use of firearms: a boxer routinely learned how to punch, strike, hold or throw the opponent, or how to defend using a sword and shield or a 6-foot staff.Three round demo fights were put on in which one round was fought with the sword and shield, one round with the quarterstaff, and one round boxing (although at the time this was a mix of boxing, striking and wrestling in which everything apart from kicks was used, in a stand-up mode).This method of training was commonplace in the time of the master James Figg, and persisted even up until the time of Jack Broughton - the greatest master in the history of English boxing, who introduced the hook punch, gloves in training, and the first documented rules: Broughton’s Rules.Looking at boxing now, it is a bastardised and castrated art that has lost 90% of its technique, but gained tremendous efficiency such that no other punching method can compete with it, due to the contest rules and therefore the continual pressure to win by punching better, defending better, and being fitter and stronger than the opponent over an extended match.What would a modern martial art based on boxing look like?It would use the current contest rules, as that has developed the world’s best punching system.It might have an additional contest form called perhaps traditional boxing, in which strikes and throws are also allowed. It could use the more padded style of MMA glove, to make clinching and throwing easier.It would have training in all modes of unarmed self-defence - in other words it would bring back what has been removed. It would also take heed of what has been used successfully elsewhere, since boxing is nothing if not practical.It would also include a groundwork element or it would have a fatal flaw. While old English boxing included a great deal of stand-up wrestling (exactly like modern Thai boxing, for example), it did not have any official groundwork (though all senior coaches teach other stuff that is not on the syllabus; junior coaches teach a lot of fitness work as that is what they are good at.)It would include training in modern weapons - i.e. those that are popular now, at this point in time, and are therefore likely to be encountered in a self-defence situation: knives, sticks/bats and handguns.It is also worthwhile looking at past times when gang wars were just as prevalent as now - perhaps even more so. You may not know of these previous iterations but they certainly had an effect on old English boxing.In London, in Tudor times - Elizabethan and later - large gangs of heavily armed youths roamed the streets at night, looking to stage pitched battles with other gangs. These were mostly prentices: young men apprenticed to trades, who were a large part of the population at this time. They were the main source of personnel for the army and navy - young men who liked a fight and didn’t care who it was against as long as it was a battle.They carried swords and shields, although it may be hard to understand this in terms of modern London, or New York, or anywhere similar. The citizenry was heavily armed at this time and there were no laws against it - since there were no police, everyone had to be their own policeman. If you were attacked on the street and you were better with a sword and dagger in the ensuing scuffle, that was the end of the matter.These large gangs went around at night beating their sword against their shields in an unholy row that attracted other gangs from afar, and battle commenced. The swords were rhythmically struck (swashed) against the buckler (a small shield - called a buckler at that time as it was strapped and buckled onto the arm), and this was the origin of the term ‘swashbuckler’ - an armed lout in a gang who went around causing death and injury on the streets. No doubt the racket of approaching gangs caused ordinary citizens to flee for their lives.English boxing taught how to use a sword and shield, a dagger (knife), and the wrestling and striking moves needed in short-range combat whether armed or not - exactly as Japanese samurai learned during the warring years. Boxing was a true martial art and a martial art of its times. Like modern judo, modern boxing is just a tiny fraction of what it once was. Judo is very good for throwing and boxing is very good for punching. All the rest of it - and there was a lot - has gone.What are the drawbacks of all martial arts?They have limits. The most obvious is the divide between standup and groundwork fighting methods. Thai boxing is useful while standing and near-useless on the ground; BJJ useful while on the deck and near-useless when standing. A combination of the two is known to be successful.They become diluted, diverted, and syllabus-based. They all lose elements over time. They gain better moves as seen used by others (perhaps in a ‘gaining back’ mode) - virtually all unarmed martial arts of today are composite affairs that are a mix of technique from different sources. Each was very different indeed, 50 or so years ago.They start anew and refreshed, with new names and new approaches based on what is seen to work in the modern world. Example: Chinese challengers in the Thai boxing rings suffered crushing defeats, again and again, whatever classical or modern styles they used, and whether or not they used gloves. After defeats while wearing gloves, they were allowed to fight with no gloves, which made no difference to the result. They are practical people and went away and did something about it: they invented Sanshu, a Chinese method of Thai boxing. It works.The Dutch were also defeated in Thailand at first, but not so badly as the Chinese, since they were using a method based on Kyokushinkai and boxing [1], which at least had some chance of competing (as Kyokushin trains realistically, and also has some Thai and Korean technique). Their experience was more in line with C Class fighters going up against A Class fighters: totally outclassed but at least heading in the right direction.…………………..[1] Typically, this was the experience of Thom Harinck’s Chakuriki Gym in Amsterdam. These were the first Westerners [2] to show any possibility they could compete with the Thais. They were heading in the right direction, just at at a far lower level of experience. This got fixed in time and the Dutch became good challengers in Thailand. Every fight fan, even in Thailand, has heard of Ramon Dekker for example - some Thais even said he was their favourite boxer.[2] Thai boxing was very popular in Tokyo, Japan, from around the 60s thru the 90s. Their top fighters often competed in Thailand, and as they were Thai boxers (though they called it kickboxing in Japan at that time), they were genuine challengers. Fujiwara for example probably did enough to beat the best Thai at the time, the Lumpini stadium champion at his weight, although the decision went to the Thai (see that fight in the film Kings of the Square Ring, a classic film for fight fans, and decide yourself). You will also recognise the strategy he employed, which was invented by his coach in order to beat the Thais, and later formed the basis of the ‘Dutch system of Thai boxing’ or perhaps more apposite, Eurostyle Thai boxing, so well systemised by Jan Plas at Mejiro Gym.…………..Whether you want to call them martial arts or fighting systems, they will always have a place and always be practiced. They change dramatically over time and never more so than in the last 30 years. The signature of the modern world is that everything acts on everything else now, and the kinds of changes that took hundreds of years now take place in a few decades.Q: “Do you think Martial Arts is becoming a dead concept?I don’t mean to offend, and I certainly don’t disagree that someone with proper martial arts training is going to be able to defend themselves far better on the streets. But in the modern day and age of guns and gang assaults, is it becoming more and more pointless? Is there a better alternative?”

Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning. Nobody “gets in” to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Those who are so honored are elected in by a selected group of authorities who have a specific combination of historical knowledge of the sport.Let’s also face two other facts. The Hall of Fame is an institution that was established to retain a history of the sport. It is not just a “list” of the sport’s greatest players and executives, but also the generally accepted center of the sport’s history and records. As such, even Pete Rose is “in” the Hall of Fame, since all of his statistical achievements and accomplishments are recorded there.Rose is not “in” the Hall of Fame for a specific reason, namely that the sport has an explicit policy that denies official recognition to any player who engages in gambling on the sport in which he is actively engaged. This rule is essential to the public image of the sport. Otherwise we would be faced with pro baseball - or any other pro sport, for that matter - having its image of being as potentially corruptible as what the Tour de France faced after the Lance Armstrong doping scandals, or the NCAA point-shaving scandals.Let’s also keep in mind that the ultimate viability of professional sports as an entertainment medium is dependent upon the image of the sport being based on the average fan’s sense of fair play. It is that image that allows one to believe that in any given game the worst team in the league can still win a game against the best team. And at the same time, it is that image that also gives people the sense that certain abilities, talents and strategies assure them of one team being able to outperform another. So the New York Yankees may have won more World Series than any other franchise, but that didn’t mean they had all of the greatest players.Whenever you allow the integrity of the sport to be compromised you allow the basic virtue of the sport as a fair contest between players to cease to exist. And when you accept without penalty the participation of those athletes who were guilty of compromising the integrity of the sport then you are admitting that the sport cannot police itself. And that means the sport has ceased to operate as a game of “fair play.”This is the reason why Pete Rose is not “in” the Hall of Fame. It is because to allow him to be “in” the Hall despite his admitted involvement in gambling would be tantamount to saying that any player in the future could bet on his next game and take the view that he could play harder if he wanted just to win that bet. And it could then go to a point where sports fans would be replaced by bettors. And then one would be less interested in home run records than one might be interested in why didn’t someone hit a home run when he had the chance? Or why did the pitcher throw the ball down the middle when his team was ahead by only one run?Nobody denies that Rose was a great ballplayer. However, he allowed himself to believe that his greatness gave him a special right to indulge in activities that he knew were impermissible. That arrogance alone is enough for many fans to look twice at him for Hall of Fame consideration; his acts of gambling made the matter a mere formality.

I would say sports, but women are avid sports fans, if sometimes the sports are cooking competitions instead of head-bashing events. For the life of me I don’t know how a man can be disdainful of Top Chef while believing that watching mutant steroid-pumped men concuss themselves on a field is honorable and important. At least with kitchen contest you end up with delicious food. Football is tribal and ultimately it’s only meaning it itself.Men do tend to hang on to old machismo symbols (like power sports) while women are more inclined to embrace change. Many men are obsessed with cars and speed and power and the status a car can bestow, as another example.Men seem to care deeply about a woman’s sexual history. Now that I think of it, men also seem to care inordinately about the sexual history of other men. Women, not so much.Men appear to be more interested in mechanical things than women are, like car engines and computer guts, and things like video games— the common factor being none of these things involve human contact or even human interest. Women care less about things that don’t have a personal, relatable element— playing with dolls vs playing with toy trucks. These are likely more channeled interests though, and there are lots of exceptions to the rule.