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Each type of fight correspond to a specific context

Often those who have never had anything to do with it tend to consider combat as if it were a single great discipline: nothing more false and wrong.

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

For each combat category we can identify specific:

Scenarios to face (environment, time of day, number of opponents, weapons involved, etc.)
Determinating skills (resistance, speed, spatial intelligence, technique, power, etc.)
Goals to reach (escape, survive, knock out, etc.)
Risks to avoid (to fall, to be angled, to case serious damages, etc.)
Rules to follow (sporting regulations, rules of respect, no rules, etc.)
Psychological implications (competitive tension, fear, panic, tension, confusion, etc.)
Consequences to prevent (to cause damage, to kill, to trigger revenge, to end up in jail, etc.)
Premises to consider (the opponent is drunken, is a friend of us, is truly endangering our life, etc.)
…

A small premise

Before starting to list the various kinds of fighting it is important to stress that:

6 Dragons Kung Fu refuse violence and does not like war (read Violence and martial arts: the difference)
When we discuss these topics we always focus on knowledge andunderstanding, we never encourage their pursuing
From our point of view, the use of violence is the worst human intellect defeat (read The 6DKF’s diagram about the use of violence)

The 6 basic types of clashes

In our school, we recognize, among the infinite shades: 6 basic types of clashes. Let’s start listing them in order from the most “harmless” to the most extreme (with or without weapons):

Exchange of declared techniques (as study / assessment, included for example in Karate)
Sparring (as training, included for example in Boxing)
Sportive fight (as competition, included for example in Judo)
Self-defense (as street survival, included for example in Krav Maga)
Martial clash (as a duel, for example, as it happened a lot of time ago, among practitioners of different styles of Kung Fu)
War clash (like open field / guerrilla war, as happened for example in feudal Japan; samurai’s open field battles, ninja’s stealth assaults, etc., read also Ninja (shinobi): who they were and how they acted)

Why is important to make these distinctions

This classification has been made with the precise goal to stress the differences that exist between the various types of combat.

The idea is to make it easier to:

Understand the distance between prevailing physically on an opponent within a defined context and doing it in a “complete” way and / or in a ruleless situation (read also What is the difference between real fights and combative sports?)
Understand for example why a friendly and / or a sportive confrontation will never be comparable to a war struggle (read also Hand to hand combat: elite soldiers in MMA / UFC?)
Understand for example the difference between street fighting, self-defense and sportive martial teachings (read Martial art and self-defense: what are the differences?)
Figure out (for example in a personal defense context) how far we can reasonably push ourselves and where instead we must wisely stop (read Best martial arts for self-defense)
Understand with what spirit the ancient martial clashes has taken place and were done
Understand (respectfully) why traditional styles are so different from the modern ones (read also Is traditional Chinese Kung Fu practical for fighting?)
Imagine what level of preparation is truly necessary (so far from normal gym martial training), to accept to truly risk life in extreme conditions of combat
Understand that the careless use of violence aims gradually to more and more negative conclusions
Understand that martial arts should also be evaluated in (and above all in) terms of purpose and context
…

In the next article of this series, we will explore deeply, schematically and in parallel the various types of clashes:

In-depth video courses

Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu Exercises – The crucial practices of our school to build real martial skills
Advanced combat tactics – A guide about how to organize a general combat strategy made of effective subtactics
Self-defense basics: how to – Our self-defense video course: from the theory to the practice
S elf-defense: not violent self-preservation – A new set of safety possibilities at your disposal
The basics of the knife – How to build a functional fighting capability with the knife
Weapon disarming: what works and what not – The truth about disarming: what, how, why and when
Basic stealth techniques – A video course about ancient and modern stealth methods

In-depth articles

Why martial arts do not work: 5 reasons – A few thoughts about the reason why common martial arts courses fails in self-defense
Self-defense: why 90% of martial arts does not work – The (reasonable) limits of martial arts exposed

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

In your opinion, what is the most common prejudice about martial arts?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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