Agreed with almost everything you say except I'm interested in what makes you think the quoted bit above. There is no mention of magic, mysticism, ki, chi, spirit or anything else in Krav Maga as far as I'm aware. About the only principle in KM is 'Use whatever technique leaves you standing and your assailants incapable of attacking you again'. It has no other purpose, it doesn't claim to make you a better person, teach you secrets of the universe or make invulnerable. Just wondering where you got the 'woo factor' from as in my experience it's the least woo art I've encountered (apart from perhaps boxing).
It's their training methods that are woo, in most cases. They never train their "deadly" moves with full speed and power against a resisting opponent, thus they aren't going to be able to make them work in the heat of an actual fight.
That said, I believe they also place a great deal of faith in low-percentage moves like eye and groin attacks, which are great if they work but which require the kind of precise muscle control that is the first thing to go out the window when adrenaline hits.
A popular conceit amongst woos is that what a martial art is "designed for" matters. It doesn't. Judo was designed to be a safe sport, and I'd back a judoka over someone who wasted their time on krav maga. What matters is how you train first and foremost. Good training rapidly weeds out bad techniques.
One issue is though... are the type of hits (or other actions) that they do in greco-roman wrestling or boxing the most effective ones you need in a "real fight". Boxing and wrestling have rules of conduct. You might get experience in being able to punch and/or take a punch, but in general they frown on things like head butts, groin kicks, etc. that would be more effective.
The problem is that if you don't train with full speed and power against a resisting opponent your training is mostly useless, so I'd question whether they are actually more effective ways to spend you training time.
Not sure if all Ju Jitsu instruction is the same, but the class I'm taking contains elements of boxing and wrestling in it. And, in fact there are actually Ju Jitsu competitions as well.
(In fact, I believe Judo is actually an offshoot of Ju Jitsu, with basically some of the more 'dangerous' elements removed.)
That's exactly right. Judo is jujitsu with the dangerous elements removed or defanged, but because it's been defanged you can train it with full speed and power against a resisting opponent.
I agree that there are 'woo' martial artists. But on the other hand, it is possible that in some cases techniques cannot be done with full speed/power because they could cause significant damage.
Oh absolutely. There are tonnes of techniques which are far more immediately effective than judo throws. The problem is that until we create robot training partners we can't train those techniques properly, so the guy who spends all day practising a jujitsu technique which would break someone's arm is going to get reamed by the guy who spends all day practising a judo technique that just slams him into the mat.
As I said, my Ju Jitsu course covers wrestling/grappling and sparing. Some of this is done following something resembling "competition". On the other hand, we also cover techniques such as head butts, punches to the groin, eye-gouging, even biting. Granted, we may not have any definitive proof that kicking someone in the groin would work as a defensive tactic, but suspect it would. Trouble is, there's no easy way to simulate that with "full speed and power", so in many cases we have to effectively "pull our punches".
Yep, it's not fighting at that point, it's live action role-playing. Or martial-looking ballroom dancing. Sadly you cannot learn to fight without actually fighting.
I've said before that I really, really wish that live-action roleplaying with compliant partners gave you functional fighting skills. I'd much rather dance around in silk tai chi pyjamas than get teabagged by sweaty weightlifters who want to rip my limbs off. I'd also love to develop functional stand-up fighting skills without getting my legs kicked in by kickboxers and/or my nose pushed in by boxers. However the unfortunate reality is that if you don't train a given skill with full speed and power against a resisting opponent, you simply don't develop the skill.
