Do you think some styles are bad and some are good? What styles then are bad and what makes them bad?

Question

I'm just wondering because some people seem to have this idea that some styles should be completely avoided. What are these styles and why should they be avoided in your opinion?

Answer 1

These people of whom you refer often have no idea what the style is for.



Take WTF Taekwondo, for example - since some dumbass mentioned it. It is primarily a sport style with certain rules. The ignoratti cry that it's no good because you can't use it on the street (it isn't meant to be), or that they'd get their a$$es kicked by a wrestler (which is probably true if they were fighting according to wrestling rules).



Or how about Aikido, since it's also commonly mentioned. The complaint about it is that it requires compliance (never mind that the alternative is to accept a broken wrist or back). People don't understand that you don't tap out in Aikido to concede the match: you tap out to tell your partner: you've secured the lock/bar/choke, and if you don't stop I'm gonna get injured - but in the meanwhile you're doing your damnedest to get out of the lock/bar/choke.



That being said, I still think there are entire styles (not just schools) that should be avoided.



Here's an example of one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi5xhTFHQ9M



@Sev, Jim R, yup. it's this bad. He's part of this org:

http://wmaa.com/about/



It says he sowed his seeds in Iraq and Afghanistan. No wonder they hate us.



@Ikde - maybe you need another example. Here ya go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=briMFF3duow



...and another:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92reqPJ4Z3Y



...and another:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQfu27gr60s



...shall I keep up the charade?





@Pugpaws - On behalf of the CDK organization, I am deeply regretful of his association; you are right, this is SOOOOO not like CDK on any level. He does claim to be 9th degree in something or another. Narcissism, in my opinion.



@JWBullDogs - SNL routine... LMAO!



Curious... in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NbWT1o_JGs



...the kid seems to outperform his fellow adult students. Maybe this style is like that Star Trek episode, where the aliens get younger and younger as they age - here, the students progress negatively as they progress in rank? :-)

Answer 2

Generally speaking I normally would say that no style is bad. But I must change this slightly. There are some bad style. For the most part it is bad instructors and some bad organizations.



A bad style is one that has been created by a bad instructor. These would be some of the new or modern styles. These bad instructor had called themselves creating a style from a variety of other styles and they don't have a good understanding of any style.



Possum, I have seen these videos before. You may have posted them I don't recall. The 1st time I saw them I was offended that they would call this garbage martial arts. But after seeing it this time I can only think this is some comedy routine. It has to be. No one can be that bad not even super Dave the trailer park ninja. LOL



I can take a group of white belts and have them do the same kata blindfolded and they will start and end the kata together. I have no idea of what those guys were doing. It has to be a skit for Saturday Night Live or something.



Edit:

The last video by Possum that kid does look better than the adults, but still would be a white belt in our dojo. He's testing for brown? Do they start at black and work their way to white?

Answer 3

It depends on what the style is actually offering.

If the style revolves around hand to hand techniques then my opinion is that the training method makes all the difference.

If they're trying to teach you to shoot chi-balls or some such garbage then no amount or method of training will change the fact that you're being taught useless technique.

I know a lot of people will claim that this is not a style and I'd agree, it doesn't have a definite style of origin but there are some styles that it is attached to far more often than others and while I won't say avoid those styles I will suggest people be very skeptical when they go looking for schools that claim to be part of those styles.

Answer 4

I will admit that I have been style bashing in the past, thinking that some styles should be completely avoided. But I was wrong. Last week I tried out taekvando, which is arguably the most bashed style in the world. And trust me it was a good school. Full contact sparring with MMA gloves, 2 hour training sessions and tough, good trainers, no kiddy black belts. Just a solid dojo. Frankly I was surprised.

It is not the style itself, but the school and the training provided. Most people would agree that muay thai for instance is a good style. They are known for being very tough when they train and spar. But if you apply that same intensity, that same quality in training to for instance TKD or karate, is it still the style that is bad then?



However with that being said, some styles have more McDojo's than other styles. It's not something I came up. It's the way it is. You just have to be more careful with looking for a school in those styles. There are McDojo's in all styles. I had to change from boxing to MMA because I couldn't find a good boxing school. They were McDojo's.



What styles have classically more McDojo's then others? In my opinion; TKD, karete, krav maga, ninjutsu, a lot of kung fu styles and so on. However quality training and quality intruction will make any art good.

Answer 5

When I first began my martial arts training in 1967, I was convinced that there were some styles that were inferior to others. As I got older and kept my eyes open I began to see some rare individual that was doing martial arts very well only to find out that his style was one of the ones I had been convinced was not any good. This happened more times than I can count in more styles than I can even mention. slowly you begin to see that every think in life that people do has good and bad examples. Each one leads back to the person and their ability to do it. That said there are good and bad students in every style. There are good and bad instructors in every style. There are those at the top of a style that can vary in knowledge and ability greatly. Even as person that has the mental and physical ability to be a great martial artist is limited by what and how he practices. If say a person trains for 20 years, but is doing something incorrectly, he will become good at doing it incorrectly. If nothing changes to correct what is wrong it will remain wrong. no amount of effort or time training will fix it. That requires that an instructor that knows what is wrong corrects it for you and you then train until it become correct all the time when you do it. It is much better to train in a style having a better instructor than to study under an inferior instructor just because he teaches a style that you do not like. This concept is to me like learning to drive a car. We all learned to drive using different cars that have different features. but they all do the same thing. An old saying in Okinawa about Karate and about life says this...... "There are many paths to the top of the mountain. Once at the summit, all see the same view".



So do you avoid styles, NO. You avoid bad instructors and those running badly managed schools and classes. If you look at the senior most adults holding the highest ranks, you will have an idea as to how good the instructor is. Bad senior students, or senior student that do nothing but try to look like they are something important is a bad sign. Schools with lots of children wearing high ranks is a bad sign. Contracts, especially black belt contracts is an extremely bad sign.





hope this helps!





Edit: Wow, @possum Do you mean to say that the people on the video you posted are testing for grandmaster status? Or is it meant to say that the senior person there is either testing for grand master status, or is already? In either case that is pathetic. None of the people performing in the video should even be black belts. Their execution of everything is terrible. No one has a clue how to engage enter and land anything. In the 1960s and into the late 1970's these guys would be one or two belt above white belt at best.

By the way, I have seen good Chung do Kwan and that is obviously not it. What ever organization that is is pathetic.







...

Answer 6

Personally I think stripes with plaids is a bad style. As is checks with polka-dots. They just seem to clash... oh,...wait,...we're talking Martial Arts. (snicker) : )

There are no styles themselves that are "bad". There are styles that are more suited to certain defensive situations, (GJJ/BJJ for ground fighting, Karate/Gung Fu/TKD/boxing for stand up, etc.) but the styles themselves all serve the purpose of self preservation.

When it comes to "good" and "bad" it boils down to the instruction. If the instructors are committed to the intent of the system to provide effective self-defense then usually you will get adequate training. Although not all qualified, quality instructors are directly connected to larger organizations, you have a better chance at receiving good instruction at a training center where the lineage of it's existence can be verified. I have known many high quality, qualified, independent instructors in my life who taught real world combatives and defense techniques. I have also known quite a few "certified" instructors that weren't qualified to teach basic stances, let alone being capable of teaching real world self-defense systems.

Answer 7

How can a style be bad? It has it's roots form another, right? You really think that? Don't even go there, all styles are equal, it's just that there are BAD schools within. Taekwondo isn't lesser than any other art, it's because it has a lot of kicking involved. But blame W.T.F. for it being in the Olympics. You shouldn't blame the style, but the bad schools. I'd suggest doing your research because this is a stupid question.

Answer 8

There's no such thing as a bad style. Martial arts styles are just tools, sets of skills to be utilized. They all depend on the people using them. No style is inherently bad. It is up to the people teaching them and learning them as to how well they will be used.

Answer 9

I won't bash any style. But some styles are pure junk. And I'd add that they could be dangerous to those who "study" them.



An example are the many styles "created" by someone who couldn't achieve rank (black belt) or get to a senior level black belt rank in a respected style.



What folks who train in these get is a beginners level of martial arts training with no ability to advance to a higher level.

Answer 10

Believe me when I tell you, you will be very surprised by the arts you suspect of being less. I was young and had that very thing figured out, just like you. Then a young (I was still young then too) judo brown-belt beat the tar out of the parking lot with me! Smart-arsed karate guy couldn't get close to that guy without hitting the ground, and I thought judo was girlish and soft! I saw some tai-chi demos that left my jaw hanging from the POWER of their art, and I do shotokan. I saw a TKD guy simply chop down a muay thai guy with fearsome kicks the MT guy could not fathom. every time I disrespected some different art, it hurt when I found out the hard way. Your martial art is yours alone, when it comes time to use it, and you will make of it what it becomes, and you alone, no matter the art, you the practitioner must make it work.



Possum, was that...I don't even know what to say. You could just stand there and let those guys kick you. And hit them any time you like. I could not pass a white -to-yellow student who had strikes so poor and movement so clumsy.

Answer 11

ALL styles have their strengths and ALL styles have weaknesses but ALL styles can help give you the tools to make you a better fighter and better prepared to defend yourself.



There is NO such thing as a bad style, there is only bad instructors and bad practitioners. If you have good Instruction and you lose then its one of 2 things; either poor use of skills by the practitioner or just fighting a better equipped opponent.

Answer 12

I'm generally of the opinion that it's less about "style" and more about training methodology. The latter can be variable within styles, though certain styles are known for certain methodologies. For example, the majority of boxing gyms are focused on fighting efficacy within the rule-set of boxing, while T'ai Chi is often taught with an emphasis on form and health. As such, the odds are that you will find a greater majority of boxers who can actually throw down compared to those who practice T'ai Chi, but of course there are exceptions: compare those "boxing for fitness" classes with these particular T'ai Chi exponents:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUghBtcrTPA



While I would consider the above sparring to be sub-optimal, largely due to the lack of contact to the head and body and some artificial set-ups, I'd definitely consider it superior to "aerobox" classes. In some ways, even superior to boxing sparring in that they're allowed to do more than punch and get a feeling for the opponent's balance and momentum. But my understanding is that this sort of sparring isn't nearly as common as simply focusing on solo forms and doing the far more restrictive "push hands" practice.



So when people come on here asking for recommendations, I tend to recommend systems that are known for having training methods that focus on efficacy. Boxing will teach you how to throw and defend punches. Muay Thai and Judo will teach you how to fight in the clinch. BJJ will teach you submissions and how to escape bad positions. And these systems are all known for having training methods that focus on resisting, non-compliant opponents who, within a restricted set of circumstances, are trying to actually do things to you. I also tend to recommend systems that, with respect to self-defense, tend to more closely reflect the circumstances one will find in a real fight. I really like Olympic Taekwondo, for example, for footwork and kicks, but the sparring format is extremely artificial in that the techniques that are allowed are limited to kicks to the body and head (most kicks will be aimed below the waist in a real fight) and punches to the body (most punches will be to the head in reality). This is an example of a good training method that becomes less effective for self-defense/"real fighting" due to stylistic restrictions.

Answer 13

@Possum: *Clasps hands to ears, starts rolling on the floor in anguish* MAKE IT STOP!!!!!

Answer 14

Oh **** here we go

Answer 15

WTF taekowndo