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Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

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Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#101

Post by brigandish »

saiya-jin wrote: post #72
doikor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem with this logic is where does it end. Should modern day Italians pay for what Rome did? Turks for Ottomans? Mongols for Genghis Khan and his children’s empire? The Danish/Norwegian Vikings for taking over large parts of the British isles? The Moscow Rus for taking over the land that became Russia? Basically human history is one long bloody path for conquest and sadly rarely do the victors pay for the cruelty…

Well sure our history is one of pathetic murderous species, with few exceptions. That doesn't make it anyhow being OK with what your/their ancestors did, does it. Whataboutism about ancient civilizations does detract from current topic, Great Britain is the same place as 80 years ago, same government, same everything. Heck, almost the same queen. Same for France for example. But sure you can try desperately to come u…

Firstly, as pointed out in another comment, it's not whataboutism to ask what the principle is by bringing up other examples. Whataboutism is a fallacy of relevance, the point you were asked is not irrelevant, it directly grapples with the issue at hand.

Secondly, which riches were my ancestors (I'm British) enjoying, and which ancestors? Try to be specific, you're advocating punishment, after all, wouldn't want to find out you're simply being bigoted against a group of people in that vague way bigots do.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#102

Post by matwood »

aikinai wrote: post #78
danenania wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from multiple opponents, those all seem like fairly minor variations on MMA technique in the sense that defending against the legal MMA attacks naturally defends against the illegal ones as well, and similarly the same skills that allow a fighter to land legal attacks would allow them to land illegal ones in a non-sport situation. It seems unlikely an overall inferior MMA fighter could win just by focusing on s…

Attacking eyes, fingers, groin, etc. would change everything. Everyone thinks grappling is more “realistic” than pre-MMA striking styles, but they forget that most of those grappling positions leave tons of delicate targets wide open for poking, ripping, gouging. The effective techniques in MMA are just as defined by the ground rules as any other martial art. Real “anything goes” fighting would be as different from M…

It actually wouldn't change much at all. Every MMA fighter already instinctively protects their head which includes eyes. Finger locks are laughable in an actual a fight. I know a person who (I think stupidly), refused to tap to an ankle lock in a BJJ match, broke his ankle, but did win the fight. No finger lock was stopping him.

I guess someone could try to kick someone's groin and maybe get one through. An MMA fighter is already trained to check kicks down so again unlikely. And if you think someone is going to drop their hands to get to someone's groin...ok.

The reality is BJJ and MMA is basically how most street fight/self-defense situations go down. Untrained people wildly throw some punches and end up on the ground.

The only caveat, which every grapplers knows, is pulling guard is a competition only thing. In a 'real' fight you never want to be on the bottom.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#103

Post by ksec »

imasrilankan wrote: post #25
throwmaway99 wrote: post #3

As a Sri Lankan it breaks my heart whenever this type of topic is brought up, the amount of damage colonizers including the British did to my country, my culture is just heart wrenching. How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable. But on a more positive side, more and more Sri Lankans are starti…

As a Sri Lankan, most of us like to whinge about our past. We like to think we're the only country that was "oppressed" and the colonizers are the reason for all our current problems.

No wonder why they are cozy with the China. That is exactly the Chinese way of thinking. Every problem and suffering are someones else's fault.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#104

Post by doikor »

VortexDream wrote: post #98
7thaccount wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but even Jeet Kune Do has already died out almost entirely in favor of a combination of (Muay Thai, BJJ, and either Greco-Roman wrestling or Judo) aka MMA. Maybe throw in some Krav Maga for defense against common street attacks and you're set. Realistically, hybrid martial arts have been around for a long time. When I was a kid (long before the MMA hype train), I did Karate, but it also involved learning ~30 ju…

Well, clearly. He developed JKD decades ago before MMA was ever a thing as we know it now. That's not a slight on JKD, and if he were still around, whatever art he'd be practicing now would be closer to modern MMA than JKD. He was entirely against keeping up techniques/ideas out of tradition. His philosophy was to find what works. If it turns out something stops working, replace it. He was never so married to any ide…

While not modern MMA the Gracie brothers were doing their vale tudo fights before Bruce Lee was born. Though obviously they were mostly using the techniques that today is called BJJ the fights themselves had almost no rules. This also meant no rounds or stand ups so if a BJJ fighter managed to pull a striker to ground the fights is effectively over.

Problem back then was information. Pre internet and stuff happening really far away from each other (Brazil and Hong Kong/USA).

UFC and the internet really helped to spread information on what actually works to a much wider audience (and from there to a group of practitioners) and thus sped up the development of the techniques a lot.

UFC also made it possible to make a living from actually fighting instead of teaching others which is/was the “traditional” way of making money from martial arts which allows the fighters to fully concentrate on their own skills.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#105

Post by rasz »

austinjp wrote: post #42
cowanon22 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, most martial arts are more of cultural dance and ceremony than an actual effective fighting techniques. MMA/UFC has done more to advance the state of the art than a 1000 years of dojos ever did. From a cultural standpoint it's a shame that this martial art is lost, but I would be surprised if it had anything novel that would translate to real combat.

Well, MMA is a one-on-one sport, with all that entails. No multiple opponents, no small joint manipulation, no gouging, no biting, no spitting, no striking the neck or back of the head, no kicking the head of a downed opponent.... etc etc. All of which could happen in actual combat and non-sport fighting.

those are the guys training in mma gyms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HtnV2M1pAc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z--ZO3fuhz0

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#106

Post by 7thaccount »

propertymagnate wrote: post #74
7thaccount wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kung Fu is a major tourist attraction for China and part of their cultural heritage, so they're pretty invested in it. There is a Chinese citizen that is a very mediocre MMA fighter who goes around and challenges so called "grand masters" to show how full of BS they are. He's beaten so many without any serious effort that the communist party got upset and downgraded his social credit to where he can no longer fly to…

"There is a Chinese citizen that is a very mediocre MMA fighter who goes around and challenges so called "grand masters" to show how full of BS they are." This guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Xiaodong

I can't edit my original comment, but after re-reading it I hope it didn't come off like I was insulting the fighter. When I say "mediocre" I mean that despite MMA wins (very impressive by itself) I assume he's pretty far from ever being in the UFC. In other words, he represents a fairly average (maybe below average) MMA fighter, yet he was able to take out "master" after "master" in just seconds without any effort. Clearly, MMA is more effective in a fight than Tai-Chi. That isn't an insult to Tai-Chi either, as I think it makes for terrific low-stress excercise and does have some martial merit, just not a whole lot in today's world.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#108

Post by dugmartin »

matwood wrote: post #102
aikinai wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacking eyes, fingers, groin, etc. would change everything. Everyone thinks grappling is more “realistic” than pre-MMA striking styles, but they forget that most of those grappling positions leave tons of delicate targets wide open for poking, ripping, gouging. The effective techniques in MMA are just as defined by the ground rules as any other martial art. Real “anything goes” fighting would be as different from M…

It actually wouldn't change much at all. Every MMA fighter already instinctively protects their head which includes eyes. Finger locks are laughable in an actual a fight. I know a person who (I think stupidly), refused to tap to an ankle lock in a BJJ match, broke his ankle, but did win the fight. No finger lock was stopping him. I guess someone could try to kick someone's groin and maybe get one through. An MMA figh…

I think this is just dangerous thinking. A real street/bar fighter will head butt your nose and then while your hands go to your face trying to stem the fountain of blood will (if you are a guy) reach down and twist/crush or knee your testicles. The fight will be over in 10 seconds and no amount of knowledge learned on the mat is going to help. The real problem with martial arts is you really can’t train for real fights without being seriously hurt all the time. I say this as a black belt in TKD who still practices but knows the only real winner in a fight is the one that walks away before it starts.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#109

Post by tmmx »

publicola1990 wrote: post #61
chakkepolja wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more about linguistic structure than origin of words. Kannada, Telugu & Malayalam, even pre-dravidan-movement Tamil have lot of borrowed sanskrit vocabulary, but they retain structure of Dravidian languages. Also most common words used are also Dravidan origin. For example: Kannada - Naanu, Tamil - Naan, Telugu - Nenu, Malayalam - Njan Etc.. Another small thing unique about Dravidian languages is clusivity, ther…

Yes, but does Sinhala hase the linguistic structure of Dravidian languages or not?

Sinhala does not have the structure of Dravidian languages. However, the alphabet used to write Sinhala has a shared origin with the alphabets used to write Dravidian languages. Also due to long coexistence with Tamil in the island, Sinhala burrows lot of loanwords from Tamil.

I am Sinhalese who grew up in Sri Lanka. As such I am exposed to Tamil, but when I watch Tamil TV, at best I can pick few words here and there. But when I watch Hindi show, I understand a lot more due to the structure is very similar to that of Sinhala.

Re: Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art

#110

Post by roel_v »

VortexDream wrote: post #97
roel_v wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bruce Lee's movie fighting style" then, which has little to do with his proper fight training, like Jean Claude van Damme's fight choreography has little to do with his fighting background. Apart from that, I do take issue with the for some reason increasingly popular notion of Bruce Lee's fighthing being some sort of proto-MMA. MMA is not just taking something from various sources and calling it " -fu" or " tang do…

So, exactly what Bruce Lee did. Read his books. He talks about how he was disappointed with traditional martial arts and how he was always interested in finding the most effective techniques and ideas. I honestly don't understand why you're so eager to criticize what he did when you don't seem to know much about what he actually did and what his thoughts were about martial arts.

Please show me the full contact fights Bruce Lee was in.
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