Sports vs. Arts

Dear tareh,

Regarding the importance of martial arts competition and it's relevance to street survival skills/self -defense. (formal giler tuh!)

Erm, I think these competitions in a way would help us to familiarize with the actual situation on the street. You see not everybody will encounter penjahat (bad guys) on the street, so to test their skills perhaps these tournaments and competitions are the best platform. But you also have to know that these competitions are organized mainly for the purpose of sports. It's a way to preserve the art. Not many people are interested in learning the really arts of wushu, taekwon-do, jujitsu and so on. I myself, when I spoke to my cikgu and told him that I wanna learn the traditional pattern more than to practice the sanshou or chinese kickboxing, he laughed and said "Alia, you sound so old already". But, when these arts were introduced in the sporting arena, they managed to attract more practitioners, or rather "sportsmen/women" - preserving the arts through sports.

Concerning the pattern/kata/bunga competition, it's true that we won't go and peform our pattern when handling the penjahat on the street, but pattern helps us in building our inner strength, the breathing techniques, balance, self-control and so on. I've seen many people who are "kebal" when being stabbed by a sharp knife, no blood, not even a scratch. Actually, this is not ilmu jinn/hitam (black magic) but it depends very much on the breathing techniques. Through pattern we would gain this ability, provided that you train hard and follow the correct techniques lah.

Ok, now the disadvantages of competitions - most of martial arts competition (sparring) have very strict rules, semi-contact (restricted to certain part of the body) vs. full contact (can hit from head to toe) sport. This in a way, (referring to semi-contact) will limit our techniques. This will also create artificiality and will be a defect when facing the actual situation. For instance, when I spar according to the taekwon-do rules, I'm not allowed to hit below the belt, but in goh chor, I can grapple, wrestle, hit from head to toe. When I first sparred in goh chor class, I had some difficulties because I was not used to kicking below the belt, to wrestle, and to grapple and I too had problems when my opponent catched my leg and tried to throw me. In real situation perhaps goh chor would be more practical, but taekwon-do has given me a very strong foundation to adopt the goh chor techniques. This is one of the reasons why we should learn various martial arts - let the non-existent teachnique of one art be covered by another. Tak faham? It means, in taekwon-do, there's no grappling, thus, when you're considering to learn another martial arts, perhaps you should consider those which offer grappling/wrestling techniques.