samedi 18 octobre 2014

Can sheer size give a person a false impression of MA effectiveness?

Without going into specifics, I've seen a couple of martial arts clubs lately which train in arts that I'm not particularly fond of and which seem to train in what looks to me like a rather unproductive fashion (lots of flowery arm waves and excessively scripted scenarios). They're clubs that sometimes train in the gym that I go to, so I've sort of half-watched the classes as I've been exercising.



But one thing that stands out to me is that the senior students and teacher are all big, beefy guys with arms like tree trunks.



Would this be the sort of thing that raises any eyebrows for you?



I can imagine that some people would look at it and think "Those guys look big and strong and tough - they must be great martial artists and so that must be a good school".



But I wonder if being big and strong and tough can give you false sense of the effectiveness of your martial arts training. I'd rather see some skinny people with good technique proving that the training is effective rather than all the black belts being big guys/gals who, even with no martial arts training, would probably be able to knock out the rest of the class through sheer size and strength.



Don't get me wrong, the best martial artists often are physically strong as it contributes to their martial abilities, but I wonder if it can be easy to overestimate the effectiveness of less-than-effective training if you are simply the strongest person in the room and you're actually just testament to the effectiveness of weight training rather than MA training.




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