The blogger above is a very cool intense kung fu teacher who spoke a lot of truth. He is old school, and believes, like many old school martial artists, that there is only one style of boxing, only one format of boxing, and that boxing has no bare-knuckle application. Since I’ve had 7 bare-knuckle fights and lost none, and having trained two boxers who between them have KO’d over 20 men in brawls, I do take some exception to that statement. However, just like the statement that most strip mall karate black belts can’t fight, it is also true that most armchair boxers and wannabe MMA fighters can’t fight. I tend to look at the person and not the art.
Also, with real ring boxers, who get in real street fights, they almost never ‘box’ but sucker punch, and are almost always overwhelmingly successful. In other words, dudes who have grown up in bad areas, and have then learned to box, tend to use their boxing skills in an altercation in ways similar to how a karate man would use his art. Although martial arts people always teach that boxers will put up their dukes and throw a single jab followed by a robotic straight, the reality is that boxers almost never consent to a fight, usually pretend they are not boxes, and then crack the antagonist to the ground, without throwing a jab. A boxer’s primary concern is not getting shot, stabbed, or arrested. A real boxer took up boxing to find an outlet for his aggression, not for self protection. He knows well that if he makes a habit of punching people out he will be shot.
Woodshed Wisdom
I would say that the statement above is often—and even generally—true, excepting advanced age. There are two reason for this.
Old boxers lose to young boxers, primarily because the sport is an artificial format that requires extended high volume output, which favors the conditioning and physicality of the younger man. Also, older fighters with shoulder injuries have difficulty with the gloves. Fighting with boxing gloves on—especially amateur weight gloves—is very tiring, and is more like gladiatorial combat with a small shield than a spontaneous attack. Older fighters lose speed to begin with. When they have a hitch in the shoulder, the glove causes them to lose it more.
Old martial artists beat young martial artists, primarily because karate kumite is an artificial format that stipulates a break on point contact, and also places some targets off limits—like the nose and eye—so that the older fighter’s durability is not tested above the neck. Furthermore, the karate game is rigged, as the skill set is so vast, and is dished out according to the older man’s discretion, meaning that he always has more tools in the bag than the younger man.
Overall, martial arts and boxing are not realistic preparation for actual survival situations. These reasons are:
1. Boxers wear equipment, have limit targets and have a slew of artificial rules imposed upon them
2. Martial artists limit contact [with a bloody nose and broken jaw fairly alien to the experience] and are unable to practice their ‘most effective’ moves against eyes, throat and genitals as they would maim or kill their partner.
3. Both boxing and martial arts utilize ritual face offs as their base combat form, essentially dueling. Think about it, the only thing that sparring, boxing, MMA fighting, and kumite prepares you for, is fighting a fight that could have been walked away from [for it is manifestly not an attack if there is a face off and a start cue] and to do so almost exclusively against fighters practicing their very same skill set.
Although I have boxed competitively with gloves and without I am primarily concerned with surviving criminal attack. Hence I practice boxing the way bare-knuckle and ancient Hellenic boxers did, which is in many ways indistinguishable from the approach of Asian-based martial artists. For instance I do not punch the heavy bag, I slap it. I punch a rope and canvas covered wooden board bolted to the wall. I will devote a future article to such hand disciplines for the survival boxer.
Getting back to the question of young versus old in its pure sense, I have often wondered who would win, 50-something James or teenage James? I can see it going either way.
I can tell you, as a stick and blade fighter that still spars and competes with minimal gear—just enough to stay alive—with men generally half my age, it has gone both ways. This past Sunday my best man Charles, 29 I think, beat the dog shit out of me. I should have sold tickets to my ex girlfriends and former employees and made a fortune for the school. The other older men [martial artists, unlike I] were feeling my pain, sitting or standing back like someone unable to turn away from a gruesome train wreck. At one point I felt like the victim in a horror movie and just had to laugh, it was so ridiculous.
Let’s specify here that Charles is actually in his prime, not ‘young’, but experienced. The old man has no business in there with the prime fighter. Nevertheless, this is usually how the workouts go, Two hours of Charles beating my ass if I can make it that long. However, I have my moments, and when it comes competition time and we do our sudden death stick fights, I win as often as I lose, and when I win I win big.
This brings us back to the longer combat favoring the young man. In reality it favors the prime fighter. The truly young fighter, despite his conditioning, will bring tension to the session that will compromise him later on, where the older guy is more relaxed and can cruise in later rounds.
For a final note, I would like to recall a time with my father. Once a month, between the ages of six and twelve, my father took me to the orthodontist. When I was eleven I discovered that I was the fastest kid in my age group. Finding this out during a discussion of gym class as we left the office one day my father suggested we race.
I took him up on it, and as I began to say ready set go, he pushed off me, and sent me back into the door, giving his fat ass the lead he needed to make it to the car first.
The next month I was ready for his trickery and flew out in front of him, only to have him shove me from behind. As I chewed on driveway gravel he ran by at a jog.
The month after that I ducked his big bear paws and was grinning to myself as I took off, only to have him hook my foot and send me into the bushes.
The fourth month, I had it in for the old man. He would lose the race to his car by hook or crook. As we left the building I asked him if that was a woodpecker in that tree and he went for the bait. I was off, the fastest brat in Pleasant Plains Elementary school cruising to a cool win. Then, as I rounded the garage behind the dentist's house where Dad always parked, I saw that the lot was empty. I turned around to see the old man walking leisurely up to the car, whistling a tune and twirling his keys. He had moved it to the side driveway while I was in the dentist chair.
Be warned young bucks that that kind of shit never gets old.
If you want to read more about fighting into old age check out Winter of A Fighting Life, available in e-book and print at the links below.
Very nice article!{Overall, martial arts and boxing are not realistic preparation for actual survival situations}.If this is true(and personally believe that it is)what remains for the self defence student to practice,if there is any point to practice at all?I am saying this because every real self defence situation is unique and full of emotion,you just can't rehearse such actions.
So besides recreation and fitness is there any point to practice ,and if
there is what kind of skillset would be worthy to practice for survival?{ I will devote a future article to such hand disciplines for the survival boxer}.Every time that i threw a punch in the street ,i injured my hand.I ain't no boxer and the punches were sloppy for sure, but for every fight that i have participated or witnessed SLOPPY AND AKWARD WAS THE NAME OF THE GAME.I'm waiting anxiously for that article Mr.LaFond(a video on slap boxing would be a big treat).
You keep me on my toes Alex.
Boxing and serious contact martial arts all have aspects of real spontaneous combat in them. You have to look into the fight, not at it's totality. For instance, in looking at a boxing match look for the clinch—end of fight. Now start it again.
Another way to look at a boxing match or MMA fight as self defense is wait for a fighter to get hurt, because that is how attacks start, and then see how the scenario develops. The referee could even represent a cop or a bouncer.
Now Alex, as soon as I can get mister Oliver Hayes out of the booty bed of his seductress and into the gym, we will make that video!
I always enjoy reading your point of view. Kudos to Charles, great article James.
I'm still sore from that beating. It was like wearing a starter jacket in a slasher flick.