And other things do not. It all depends on what it is. Some things only work at full speed, and never work in semi-contact sparring. Again, I am just talking about a way of generating power here, not some complicated technique. If anything, something like this should work better at full speed and full power.
I think it's unlikely, because the range at which a one-inch punch might be useful barely exists in full-contact competition, but it's always possible. I strongly suspect that the one inch punch has the same problem as the fancy trapping techniques of wing chun and praying mantis kung fu, which is that opponents pass through their useful range in a fraction of a second on their way to a takedown so there's almost no chance to use them.
Irrelevent. Again, I am not talking about a specific technique here. I am talking about a method for generating power. Whether or not it is the best solution for a specific case, is quite beside the point. Maybe I don't want to grapple? Maybe my opponent is a much better grappler than I am, and my goal is to get free. Maybe I do want to grapple, and I am just using it to gain a better position? There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all for fighting.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Show it working in a ring or it's a party trick. If you think it will get you away from a much better grappler then try it. If you think it will get you a better position in a grapple then try it.
No, that is the only way to test its efficacy in a ring against skilled martial artists who have trained extensively for fighting in a ring.
There is a lot more to fighting than full-contact competitions in a ring.
Have you seen the "Why do people still study traditional martial arts?" thread? We've gone over this issue in detail.
So far as the documented evidence goes, when people go at it outside a ring then the same people (full-contact athletes) win using pretty much the same techniques (full-contact sporting techniques) as they use to win in the ring. So far as the documented evidence goes, when people who are not full-contact athletes try to use their stuff outside the ring it fails to work and they are reduced to improvising terrible kickboxing and worse wrestling. They look like utter rubbish.
The idea that non-contact training might allow you to manifest useful skills against someone genuinely trying to hit you turned out to be almost completely false. It's a great pity, really, because it would be so nice if you could get good at fighting some easy way.
In the early UFCs when non-contact types went up against sport fighters they got creamed of course, but when two non-contact types got into the ring together it was just awful. Neither of them could ever make their supposed skills work, even against each other. Or look at the infamous Boztepe versus Cheung fight. Each was a grand master of wing chun kung fu, but you see better technique when a couple of seagulls fight over a chip than we saw in that fight.
If the goal of your training is to become really good at competitions with other martial artists, then that is certainly the way to go. Not everybody has that as their goal. I certainly don't.
As I said, your thinking is based on the evidence we had in the eighties. It's 2006. We now know that if the goal of your training is to be able to apply your skills at all, you need to train like a full-contact athlete.
I'm sorry you wasted all that time, but believe me I wasted an awful lot of it myself.
I have watched some full contact competitions. It doesn't really interest me. Like all martial sports, the rules and conditions of the match greatly restrict what is and is not useful and/or effective.
As I said, the fact is that the rules don't appear to make a great deal of difference in practise. Some difference certainly, but not a fundamental difference.
If I took the kind of martial arts you are talking about as my hobby, yes. But I don't. Full contact competition style martial arts is not my hobby. It is not even something I am interested in. My interests lie in weapon combat and self-defense.
If you're interested in self-defence in 2006 you have to train with full contact.
Again, there is more to fighting than competitions in a ring. Just because something isn't particularly useful there, doesn't mean it isn't useful.
I am not going to make any claims about what is or is not effective for an unarmed person fighting another unarmed martial artist in a ring, while constrained by a set of rules I am not even really familiar with. I will make claims about what I think I can make work against an uncooporative opponent. Those are two very different things.
As a matter of fact, the evidence says they are not. The evidence says that a mouse could starve on the difference between what works against an uncooperative opponent in a ring and what works against an uncooperative opponent anywhere else.
This isn't a martial arts issue, it's a skeptical issue. Either non-contact training produces functional skills or it does not, and we need to look to the evidence either way. So far the evidence has come down firmly on the side of "not".
