Thought I'd post this both here and in the Spartan/Samurai topic, as it is relevant to both.
First Dave, I'd like to make clear what my point was initially when the debate started. We could go on and on about Roman Legionairres and antyhting else, but I'd like to get back to the specific issue.
In response to a few posts that thought a samurai would have an advantage against a Spartan due to the Samurai's knowledge of the Martial arts, I pointed out that there were western combat martial arts as well. Wrestling and boxing are decendants of these.
I made a point that it is not uncommon for
many (by many I am speaking of many with little knowledge of martial arts in general) to give the Eastern Martial arts a mystique that is not warranted. This IMO is due more to a lack of knowledge of western martial arts, and that the mainstream ones we have now are designed to be used in very controlled bouts, trying to limit injury.
I think you made the assumption that I was downgrading or had little respect for western martial arts, which was
clearly not my point, I think your misunderstanding of my point led to some of the debate.
Now as far as whether combat sports make a good
real fighter - Of course they do! Any martial training is better than none. Of course a wrestler or a boxer has an advantage over an unskilled opponent. There seems to be some statements on the combat training thread to where if someone knows boxing, and they are a better fighter than one who knows nothing, than Combat sports must be effective methods of training. Well that's a no-brainer.
My point was and still is that if someone trains striclty tournament style, they will be lacking in both attacking and defending things which are outlawed in their sport.
Now when you compare a style of martial arts taught with an unresisting opponent but designed to teach self defense, i.e. no holds barred you say they will not do well in true combat against someone taught "tournament style" for lack of a better word. I fully agree.
Tournament type fighting is of course important to learn many things about combat you cannot learn from fighting an unresisting opponent.
It's like the old pressure point move - "See, all I have to do is grab you here, here and here, and I win" - but of course to be able to do that particular move against a resisting opponent is rather impossible.
There are things however that are these type of moves that can work against a resisting opponent. There was a self defense move I learned to get out of a headlock - put your hand under neaththe nose of who has you in the headlock and pull the head back. It's hard to resist. Tried this in wresting practice, worked well but my coach told me I could not do it in the ring. Got into a scrap a few years later, tried it and the other person was resisting it pretty well, they were more focused, had more adrenalin going or something. I changed my grip to the eyes, and it worked well. This would not be allowed in MMA to my knowledge, similar to eye gouging. It also works best of the two parties are at least somewhat close in strength.
Take a boxer - most fights, if one party desires and are somewhat equally matched will wind up at least some of the tme in a grapple, barring the one punch and done. A boxer who has no knowledge of wrestling, Judo or some other grappling art will get eaten up by a skilled wrestler. Thats my whole point - Boxing is striking, no real grappling, wrestling is grappling, no real striking.
While a trained boxer can hit hard, he can only do well in his particular specialty. That is why I used the term "dumbed down"
A good MMA fighter an handle both striking and grappling. They may be better at one, but the understand and can at least defend against the other. This is why I also said MMA has brought some more respect back into western Martial arts.
Whether people get injured or not in a combat sport is somewhat irrelevant. The point is is that if they learn say boxing only, and fight a skilled opponent with a broader skill level like MMA, they will struggle as long as both are roughly evenly matched in size, athletesism, and skill in their particualr form.
This idea also is why one needs to learn technigues that might be illegal in ones combat sport to be most effective in a real fight . Both so they can anticipate and defend and use offensively.
Same goes for weapons use. I have never participated in SCA, but my understanding for safety reason there are not a whole lot of
shield strikes you can use, nor can you intentionally bowl someone over using a shield. If an SCA fighter were not exposed to this and placed in a real fight with weapons, hopefully the learn to defend against things like this quickly, and they won't get to many second chances in real combat.
Unfortunately true training in this area would lead to too many deaths and injuries to make it effective for both hand to hand or weapons combat sports.
My guess is training done my knights and legionairres was not quite as restricted. After all, they are learning to defend their own life, not training for a fun sport or even just a means of making money. They learned to deal with real issues that may come about in combat, at least they did if they were trained well. I'm sure they still had some safeguards in effect though. The Spartans I am not sure of. From what I know many trainees died before they became Spartan Equals. This may have had something to do with the manpower shortage they started experiencing after the war with Athens.