Phil Doherty is Editor of Martial News.

He is one of the founders of DFM Martial Arts which teaches street combat Directional Fighting Method, DFM Reivers Mixed Martial Arts and DFM Kickboxing.

He has trained in Wado Ryu Karate, Ninjutsu, Taekwondo, Kung Fu and Kali and is Managing Director and a senior conflict resolution trainer for DFM Self-protection Ltd, the company behind Martial News.

TWITCHY...

PHIL DOHERTY:  I Don't know about you but I always get twitchy during the festive season.

You know what I mean, restless.

I guess that's what happens when your body expects to go and do some exercise and you can't because classes are shut for the hols.

I find myself pacing up and down like some mad demented zoo animal, with a wild glare in my eye...

So I'm glad classes are back and the familiar structure of my week has been restored (The wife's happy -  I'm not getting under her feet as much!).

Its funny how when training stops - even for a brief time - you start to miss it, and part of that missing is the structure that you construct your weeks by.

I know I go training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday...so I plan everything else around those nights (This can drive the missus mad!).

My body knows I train on those days and, I suppose, it's adjusted its internal clock to expect a certain level of physical exercise on those days. If I don't get it man, then I get twitchy.

(Does that mean if I'm attacked it would be better on a training day because my body expects it?  Answers on a postcard...)

YIN - YANG - ROUND TWO

PHIL DOHERTY: THERE feel better now...

It just never ceases to amaze me how a small minority of people are just closed to seeing anyone else's point of view...and frankly I need a good old rant against everything and everyone.

But this is my soft side...

Here's a rhetorical question: Why is it that people seem to need to feel superior... because what I'm really talking about is that terrible British condition - snobbery, but in this case of a martial flavour.

Now, I was being deliberately provocative in the earlier blog...I want to shake the tree.

I respect the martial arts but not a person who tries to use them in a negative manner...to exercise martial snobbery over others.

As I said - this snobbery is in all branches and systems of martial arts - Mod and Trad - because it doesn't enamate from the systems but from individuals.

And frankly I've been lucky to meet few of these because its my experience that most people are opened minded, at least enough, to appreciate the differences if not embrace them.

Most of us aren't snobs...

We enjoy other arts and what they do without the need to judge.

I speak to people all the time from art to art, system to system - Mod and Trad - and the vast majority of people I have spoken to are just interested in martial arts and love talking about it.

But we all know these snobs are out there...we have all met some one at some time who just doesn't get the Yin-Yang of what we collectively do.

The "My arts the best in the world..."; the "Your art is rubbish because you don't know the secret...; the "That's not authentic because you don't belong to such and such a organisation; the "Well you know, my art goes all the way back to the Stone Age; well what you do is all right if you just wannaaaaaa......"

And haven't just wanted to shout the blog below in their face!

I suppose like all snobs those people see the rest of us as the "others". We are the outsiders, them, the great unwashed...and not the chosen.

Everyone should have pride in their system...but they should also let others have pride in theirs.

Below I was being provoking and rude - because that's how I see martial snobs. Rude.

Martial arts are meant to be Yin-Yang, hard soft, soft hard. It's meant to enclose all ways of doing things and all reasons for doing so.  If it didn't then it - The Martial Arts - would be seriously incomplete.

This is why all martial arts deserve respect - even if you'll never do it yourself - because otherwise you are just dissing yourself. 

---

A LOAD OF B*LLOCKS

PHIL DOHERTY: I'm a MOD - not a TRAD -  I used to be a TRAD but got fed up with people back biting, infighting and being negative towards each other.

I grew up and wanted to have a more grown up attitude than name calling and put downs

The reason why I made the above statement is because there is one thing that I simply cannot be bothered with in martial arts and that is the pathetic game of one-up-manship.

You see it all parts of our martial world. Both traditional and modern.

Instead of "My dad's bigger than yours!" read "My traditional lineage is longer than yours!"

Swop "My system is more authentic than yours" with "My c*ck is bigger than yours!"

How can some thing be more authentic!!!!!!!!

Got news for you - ITS ALL MADE UP!

Yes, somebody INVENTED all the different systems! And they ALL started off as something new, or evolved from something else.

So, when some one comes up to me and tells me that "You shouldn't train with such and such because its fake" and "What they are doing isn't real!" I roll my eyes and reach for the Pampers for the soiled little darlings - coz they are frankly talking...

Real! Not real! A punch is a punch a kick is a kick and it doesn't matter if it the system is a 1000 years old or a 1000 hours old if the person connects with a powerful front kick to your b*llocks I'm sure the last thing that will go through your mind as you bend over doubled in pain is "That's not real! You can't do that because you haven't got the correct lineage!"

Its the same when MOD people tell me that this Trad system is "rubbish" and that Trad system "won't work".

Context please! Its no good saying sport karate won't work in the street...doh, its a SPORT! If the people practising that form of karate wanted to be street killing machines they'd be doing karate-jutsu...

And don't tell me that modern MMA is the ULTIMATE fighting art coz it isn't...try using MMA against a Kenjutsu expert and see how far shooting in will get you minus your arms!

If you do Kenjutsu lets see how far you get against a Kyudo expert at 100 yards...for that matter.

Ditto street combat systems - please go to the cage, have half your arsenal taken away from you by rules and see what happens. Street combat is quick and brutal and doesn't have rules -  but MMA guys will be a hellavu lot fitter than you and in the cage will most likely knock ten bells out of you because you will have to compete by their RULES!

(I recommend biting and nut grabbing! Or biting his nuts which I once witnessed in a take-on-all-comers wrestling match at Blackpool Pleasure Beach! The wrestler wasn't expecting that from the punter when he took him down and into a North-South! The punter then got absolutely flannelled by a female wrestler who jumped in to save her neutered colleague!)

And as for MMA guys thinking that cage fighting equates to self-defence...pleaaaasssee!

Half the moves you see in MMA done on the street will quickly get your head kicked in by your opponent's mates. Yes, please roll around the ground while the thugs stomp all over you! Worse, see yourself in court on a murder charge because you shot in with a double leg takedown and...smashed the opponent's head into the concrete killing them with a fractured skull.

I've covered enough news stories on so-called one punch deaths thank you very much - that isn't self-protection that's a SPORT.

If I had a pound for the number of times I've been told that by someone that their system is authentic and traditional and others aren't I'd be stinking rich and enjoying the sunshine in the Med.

This is usually said by someone who practices an art INVENTED less than a century ago (Here take your pick: Wado Ryu; Shotokan; Taekwondo; Judo; Aikido; Hapkido; many Japanese Ju-jitsus; many forms of Escrima; Brazilian Jui-jitsu etc etc etc ad nauseum).

And you can shove your lineages where the sun don't shine because tracing your art back 1000 years won't help you on a dark night in alley facing half a dozen drug crazed youngsters armed with knives and intent to cause you GBH. Being a good sprinter and long distance runner is the martial art I'd recommend in that situation...

And save the mystic rubbish for the fairy tales...its fake and has been replicated by sceptics so many times I don't want to even go there. If not the magician Randy has a cool £1m for the first person who can fly around as seen in Kung Fu movies...go and collect it!

Now I started this blog with a statement about TRADS and MODS.

The truth is MODS can be just as bad.  I was once told by a Krav guy that Ju-jitsu was rubbish...hello, Krav has more Ju-jitsu in it than some ju-jitsu systems!

I was told that I was a "disgrace" for mixing up different countries traditional systems by a Taekwondo guy who obviously didn't know that his system is a mixture of Korean and Japanese styles...and is as modern as they come!

I've been reliably informed that the modern art of Aikido is the ultimate martial art because it uses yielding principles. Obviously never seen Judo or Ju-jitsu, Tai Chi or a zillion other arts then.

A MOD street combat instructor stated that traditional martial arts don't work. Tell that to half a dozen doormen I know who use arts like Aikido and Shotokan karate etc. Seems to work for them mate!

I once witnessed a Jeet Kune Do guy being dropped by a Kyokinshinkai Karate guy outside a pub after he said karate was cr*p and wouldn't stand against a modern system. Cue two rapid leg kicks to the thigh and one Jeet Knue Do guy lying on the ground yowling "You've broke my leg!" (which he hadn't - just give him food for thought!).

Its all a load of B*LLOCKS.

Do your art, enjoy it and show and respect the differences whether they are TRAD or MOD!

BUSY BOY

PHIL DOHERTY: As I mentioned in my last blog I've been a very busy boy recently...

On Friday, Oct 30th we held our Cage Fight Night up at The Alnwick Gardens.

And tonight (Sunday, Nov 1st) I'm busy finishing off Martial News for the November First Edition.

Strange thing is though I'm bone tired through lack of quality sleep and stress I still love to talk shop as it were.

I never get sick of talking to other martial artists, regardless of style or system.

While others, over the years, have fallen by the wayside and given up training I've keep going, week-in week-out...I guess like thousands of other instructors up and down the country.

Its true that some times I ask myself "Why?" while I'm wondering if its all worth it. Like when you rush up to training on a horrible night and find only the cats turned up to train, or everyone has turned up to train but the caretaker has forgotten to open up!

Oh boy!

But I suppose its like yin-yang those dark days are balanced by the good times when students excel at a grading or you do a demo without making one major cock-up (rare - but nice!).

Then you know why you do it, or at least I do.

I guess the combat arts are just too deep under my skin after 26 years of practicing them for me to seriously consider every jacking it all in...beside, I'd miss all those chats with students and instructors...

Yours in budo - Phil Doherty

TIME FLIES...

PHIL DOHERTY: I've had a busy few weeks recently turning the website interactive and preparing for the Cage Fight Night up at Alnwick.

If you click on the ads they will take you directly to the websites of the club's and businesses advertising on site.

These are part of the changes that are taking place with Martial News, albeit more slowly than I anticipated.

Ah...there is always so much to do! But so little time to do it!

Its a bit like that with the martial arts themselves...there are so many systems I'd love to have time to train in.

But unfortunately there is not enough time in the world to train in the multitude of systems and styles that exist today.

I was asked recently by a parent which was the best style to learn. I truthfully replied all and none of them! It depended on why she wanted her son to learn for, I said. And more importantly why HE wanted to learn in the first place.

Explaining that our organisation doesn't teach anyone under 16-years of age because of the nature of the systems we teach, I suggested that she talked to as many instructors of the club's in her area as possible before committing to a particular club.

I didn't want her wasting her time, you see, blindly choosing the nearest club or class and then finding it not to her son's liking, or being led to believe that that systems is the "best" because someone else says so.

Many students just go along to the first system or closest class to them, or the one that advertises the most, without really giving it much thought as to why they want to learn a martial art.

They don't ask questions even of themselves never mind the instructor.

And, if they are not careful, they can find themselves going down a "Way" that really wasn't what they were looking for afterall. 

And when you get to my age you realise why time is so precious, and why you shouldn't waste it.

But what of the instructors? How many of us - me included - have told some one they could join without first asking the prospective STUDENT what it is they are looking for?

Guilty M'Lud!

Surely we have a duty though to make sure what we teach is appropriate to what the student needs are. 

Afterall we are the experts!

Gotta go - haven't got the time you see, must finish off this second edition, walk the dog, speak to the wife in passing and round me awol kids up for their dinner, speak to my business partner Darren and write a load of publicity up for the fight night...

DFM Martial Arts presents its Cage Fight Night at The Alnwick Garden


The event will feature some of the top MMA and kickboxing clubs in the region in an explosive night of non-stop action


There will be pro, semi-pro and amateur MMA
and
full-contact and semi-contact K - 1 and kicboxing

PHIL DOHERTY: I was reading a blog from a boxer the other day where he slagged off MMA guy's because they didn't strike with orthodox boxing punches.

He further went onto to say the MMA lacked any science behind as it was just "street brawling at its worst".

Apparently, according to the blogger, a boxer with a few weeks training in ju-jitsu could easily defeat an MMA guy because boxers were superior in every respect.

I then went onto another boxing blog - where to be fair the blogger himself was far fairer in his appraisal of MMA - but where the commentors were equally full of cr*p.

Of course the words could just be bitterness than the "sweet science" is now on the ropes and dying by inches as the young contender, MMA, batters it into second place as the world's premier combat sport.

(Though in truth boxing has never enjoyed the participant popularity of martial arts in the West never mind the Far East!)

This is because young people don't go to boxing matches. They don't care who is the world champion in WBC, WBO or the other plethora of so-called boxing governing bodies.

In fact research has shown that the vast majority of under 20-year-olds don't even know who Mayweather et al are.

Yet they can name at least one MMA fighter.

Like themselves, there's a new kid on the block, something new, different yet rooted in ancient fighting traditions.

Why? Most young people at some point in their lives join a MARTIAL ARTS club not a boxing gym.  They relate better to high kicks and low takedowns because they have done at least some of those skills themselves, to obviously various levels of skills and intent.

But back to the punching debate - well it blindingly obvious to me that MMA guys are not going to throw orthodox boxing punches.

First off, why do boxers think that only their "sweet science" can punch!!!!

Studies into punching power show that arts like karate punch a lot harder than boxers ever do. This was measured on impact pads with computers in them. The Karate reverse punch is a far more formibable strike than a cross, for example.

But that is just one style and one type of punch, there are many many other martial arts that throw devastating punches that would never satisfy a boxing purist because they aren't throwing boxing punches....doh!

(The clue is in the name...MIXED MARTIAL ARTS)

And if boxing punching is so great how come it takes 12 rounds often to decide a winner? And how come old boxing matches before Mr Queensbury stepped into the fray a bout could go on all day!!!!

Now I'm not decrying boxing or saying its punching is rubbish because it clearly isn't and it can and does deliver devastating punches.

What I'm decrying is ignorant comments from people who have never looked at MMA in the first place.

Personally I like boxing, have a lot of respect for the art's ability and admire the hard work, dedication and commitment displayed by boxers.

I see boxing as a specialist combat art and MMA as jack-of-all-trades. I think a boxer would beat most MMA guys in a straight punch fest because that's the boxer's speciality...punching.

But, unlike the earlier boxing blogger who believe a few weeks of Ju-jitsu would still see the boxer come out on top, I don't think that in a cage fight the boxer would survive very long before he ended up flat on his back and submitted or ground 'n' pounded.

Which is why comparing the two really is pointless...they're different animals at the end of the day. 

Yours in budo - Phil Doherty

DFM Martial Arts presents its Cage Fight Night at The Alnwick Garden


The event will feature some of the top MMA and kickboxing clubs in the region in an explosive night of non-stop action


There will be pro, semi-pro and amateur MMA
and
full-contact and semi-contact K - 1 and kicboxing

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