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Street Fighting Moves - The 3 Reasons Why Training in Oriental Gis and Bare Feet is Not Common Sense

Author: Charles Prosper
Date Posted: February 11, 2009

For some reason, when it comes to learning martial arts, people get stuck more in the romance of embracing ancient foreign traditions rather than focusing on what one would think to be the primary objective which is to learn self defense in the real modern-day world of unpredictable street violence.

We are talking about the fierce custom in almost all martial arts school of ascribing to the wearing of gis and practicing in bare feet. There are 3 obvious reasons, if you give it just a little thought, that this is little silly and against all practical common sense.

Reason #1 - In The Street, When We Fight, We Fight With Our Shoes On - I am a big proponent that we should train for the exact situation and in the exact way that we expect to have to defend ourselves. If we always wear shoes when we go out in the streets, what in the heck are we training for in bare feet? This reminds me of a story that my teacher, Norm Bettencourt once told me. He said that he found himself in a real self defense situation outside of a club and the individual, obviously a martial artist went into his stance, then ceremoniously took his shoes off in order to fight Norm. Norm said, "It was easy to beat him. I just stomped the steel heel of my shoe deep into the instep of his bare foot. It was all over after that."

Reason #2 - If You Only Train In Loose Fitting Clothes, You Become Less Combat Ready - If you always train in a gi or some other loose fitting attire, what do you do when you put on tight fitting jeans? You can't do many high kicks in tight jeans. The solution? Train in your jeans as well, but practice effective low kicks like low line front kicks to the shin or to the knee.

Reason #3 - Even In Modern Asia Today, People Don't Wear Gis In The Streets - A gi is actually a loose fitting garb that people wore in the streets of ancient Asia, therefore, it made very good sense to train in the natural clothing that they wore in the streets during that time-period of their ancient history.

Even in many scenes of movies where the action hero is using martial arts, you rarely see him fighting in bare feet and in a gi. 007 fights in a tux. I am not saying to never wear loose fitting clothes to train, but I really do have a problem with the bare feet.

Okay, let's compromise. How about some days, you train in your gis and your kung fu wushu uniforms, (if that makes you feel more Oriental), but why not at least have a day when you practice street fighting--Duh!--in your street clothes?

Now, if I stepped on anybody toes with this article, it's your fault. Your the one who goes around fighting in your bare feet.

About The Author

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From Charles Prosper - The Kung Fu Fighting Guy

Article Source: JKD Street Combat - online collection of Street Fighting articles.

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