My Kung Fu is greater than your Kung Fu

[Star Wolf]

Let’s see I have taken one day of judo during summer sports camp, maybe a week of wrestling in Junior High and three months of Kenpo Karate. Now that the Karate Kid has been taught real Kung Fu the question becomes who's kung Fu is greater?

If I am following the UFC history correctly most tournament Karate fighters, even those who talked about their street fighting applications did not fight, it was like amateur boxing where a weak hit scored the same as a strong punch. Then a bunch of Brazilian guys came along with a challenge. The various karate types did their sparing routines and with their tournament scoring but don’t really hurt punches and kicks and the Brazilian guys ran right through the scoring hit grabbed the guy took him to the ground and made him submit through a pain submission hold. Meanwhile the Muy Thai kickboxers and boxers who did try to hurt with their strikes came up in a sport where the rules protected them from being taken down. So if the Brazilian got by their strikes they were also toast.

So the Brazilian Ju-jitsu guys dominated the sport and proclaimed their Kung Fu was the greatest. While this is going on a bunch of wrestlers, with no Temples or mystic energies in their history who had graduated and were left with WWE sports entertainment or nothing were sneering think no way Brazilian dude gets me on the ground as that was what wrestling was about, controlling who went to the ground. With a chip on their shoulders like the Brazilians had the wrestlers were able to control when the fight went to the ground and by now nobody was pulling punches or fighting amateur boxing rules where any strike scores no matter how hard scored the same.
So now we know any sport is constrained by its rules.

In the real world who fights one on one in the first place? Someone starting a fight is bound to have buddies around and if you take a guy to the ground. Well then you don’t need Tae Kwan Do to reach the head to deliver a fatal kick.

So who's Kung Fu is the greatest?

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Georges St.-Pierre's kung fu is the greatest. His kung fu will bitch slap your kung fu like a second grader and your kung fu will thank him for the honor. His kung fu will embarrass your kung fu in front of its girlfriend why she holds its jacket. His kung fu is so good he doesn't even have to use it. Guys see it and they just kill themselves for daring to live on the same planet as George St.-Pierre's kung fu.

Mauricio Rua's is a close second.

 

[Roshi]

My Kung Fu is the greatest!

 

[Caliburn24]

When I was in the Army we used to do some sparring once a week for PT. Some of us got into it and did it on our off-time too. The sixty or so guys who took part came from every ethnic group and martial arts background imaginable.

But overall Brazilian Jujistsu and wrestling were by far the most useful disciplines for winning fights. Not by coincidence the Army's Combative program largely draws from those two fighting styles.

No style is perfect, but any style that emphasizes striking over grappling is going to lose in most real world fights.

 

[Star Wolf]

When I was in the Army we used to do some sparring once a week for PT. Some of us got into it and did it on our off-time too. The sixty or so guys who took part came from every ethnic group and martial arts background imaginable.

That reminds me when I was in the Army I got two hours of bayonet training after I transferred from my Tank Company to the Brigade Staff. I was surprised when the new National Guard recruitment campaign was on movie screens and the Guardsmen where doing pugil stick training like you always see in Marine based basic training movies.

 

[Caliburn24]

You didn't have pugil stick training or the bayonet assault course when you came through Basic?

They were both part of the standard curriculum when I went through training at Knox in 2006.

As was introductory combatives training.

 

[Star Wolf]

You didn't have pugil stick training or the bayonet assault course when you came through Basic?

They were both part of the standard curriculum when I went through training at Knox in 2006.

As was introductory combatives training.

In 1982 I went through Basic in a test Battalion at Fort Knox, my guard unit couldn't get me to Fort Sill, we had females intergrated down to squad level. I don't know what the OSUT folks at Forts Sill and Knox did.