What to teach...

So, the question is this:  Can one school teach in each of these contexts without creating a conflict in the goals of training?  Sport, Self Defense, Martial Arts.

Honestly, I don't know.  I can see arguments all over the place for and against this type of thing.  If your intent is self defense and most self defense occurrences take place in a very messy, heated, and quick exchange you don't get much time to think.  Thus your reactions need to be honed to a specific set of responses.  You need to react appropriately and do so consistently.  This of course is to reduce the margin of error, which is never going to go away.  To may variables, to many things that can go wrong. 

So, conversely I want to teach sport and add in some self defense techniques.  Most sports take place within a set of rules designed to make the fight last longer and where no one walks (or crawls) away with any major injuries.  When I say major I mean a broken back or punctured lung.  However, that is at some level the goal of self defense.  Now we have a conflict in training.  I train to hurt people or I train for sport.  The goals and strategies are very different.

Now lets add one more context to the mix.  Martial Arts as a study could be anything from a spiritual pursuit for some to a observance of the historical and traditions for another.  They do not necessarily fit into sport or into self defense.  Some Aikido and Tai Chi schools have come to this... They study their art for the art's sake.  Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that if that is what you want from your studies.   

If fact, I am not trying to recommend any particular context with this article.  My goal is to seek understanding only.

I tend to think that it might be okay to focus on one or two of these things but not all three.  That also doesn't include contexts I believe might very well need to be considered as well.  Law Enforcement/Security.  What about a Military context.  Strategies designed to work for a Law Enforcement Officer are probably not best used in most sports and certainly not in wartime.  At least in my opinion.

The one thing that is going to be true in each of these contexts.  All the techniques we use are going to be the same for the most part.  It is the strategies, the method of application of those techniques that changes between contexts.  The strategy might also change which techniques are useful and which are not but the techniques remain the same.

I heard one quote I think about from time to time.  Paraphrased.  "Karate tournaments are a nice distraction but when they are done it is time to go back to the real Karate training."  I have heard it said that Tournament style Karate represents only 10% of what real Karate is all about.  I agree with that whole heartedly.  That doesn't make it wrong just not the direction I want to go with my art.  So no sport. 

For now, I am going to focus on Self Defense as my primary context and Martial Arts from a historical perspective to fill in the gaps with fun stuff. 

Feel free to chime in...

N.