Quote:
Phi Truong wrote:
..."unless they have fought in a war, some vicious street fight or organised professional fights then for me it is just theory."
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1) vicious street fight
2) organized professional fights
3) war
The first one has no necessary rules, no necessary theory and survival is the only "win."
The second one has rules, no particular theory, and winning is achieving more than the other guy under the rules.
War also has no necessary rules -- but it is an exercise in ruthlessly applied competing theory; winning goes to whoever combines the best application with the most capable theory. (e.g. -- "First with the most").
To my mind, any martial
art must approach either 1 or 2 or both in the spirit of 3. Good training must be informed by good theory. Bad training will not be able to put into effect even the best theory. You will likely lose a war or a street fight if your application is crap OR if your theory is crap. Rules serve as substitute for theory in competition, but that isn't really the same thing at all, which is why IMO aikido largely (and correctly) avoided competition.
Aikido matters in that way.