u/Flaky_Performer7960

Whenever I see new Kung Fu content, and I follow through the explanation, despite the explanation being super complexe with the use of Chinese words and philosophy thrown in, everything shown just ends up being very basic — basic as in a simple explanation would have sufficed.

Kung Fu is legitimate, I’m not saying otherwise, the explanations do give you the answers nonetheless — but often times, the same concept is explained in a much easier way in other more straight forward martial arts/combat sports.

Moreover, many Kung Fu students seem to think extremely highly of basic body mechanics — maybe it’s because of the explanation. And I find it kind of laughable because they seem to believe to have unlocked some kung fu secret when in reality, it’s quite basic — I don’t wrestle, but the kids class next in he wrestling class next door also possess these “skills”.

Another thing is energy, people talking about energy a lot in Kung Fu. But when you think about that energy, it’s often times just you flexing your muscles — maybe it’s a way to visualize things and have better muscle control? Personally, I don’t need to visualize energy in my core to flex my abs; or to visualize my energy exploding to exhert sudden force.

For examples, I can take is “sinking the dantian”. For one, I don’t believe in the dantian, it’s a pseudoscience. So sinking the dantian is used to root yourself into the ground to be stable — this is often explained by having to move your dantian and feel the energy move to between your legs (this was how it was explained to me in Baqiquan). But the explanation could be much more grounded in reality; in MMA, you’re simply lowering your center of gravity, taking a wider stance to spread out your weight better — simple.

I don’t know about others, but personally, I like my Kung Fu without mysticism. I cringe at explanations in class. Maybe it’s because I’m a science major, I don’t know. Or maybe it’s because I have an MMA background and so going back over basic body mechanics that I already master feels boring.

Credit where it’s due, I think that visualizing energy helps certain people that wouldn’t have been able to do things if they had received the simple explanations.

I used to underestimate Choy Lee Fut for its swinging haymaker punches.

However, after looking at footage of sparring, fights — as well as haymaker knockouts in MMA, it doesn’t look that bad.

But this is why it’s interesting to me. It’s the only style that opts from swinging punches as opposed to straight punches used by literally every other style.

So now I’m wondering, what are the drawbacks?

I’ve noticed that some fighters are able to time and land a straight punch through all the swing, though they get hit by the follow up swing right after.

Moreover, after taking in the style for a bit, I think that the style is kind repetitive — without the element of surprise, it seems like I could easily time the attack. The volume of strikes is definitely impressive, though the punches are objectively slower than a straight punch, so if the volume fails to act as a deterrent, it seems like it could fall short against other trained fighters that are familiar with the style.

And yes, a huge part of Choy Lee Fut’s success seems to stem from the element of surprise as most Muay Thai fighters aren’t used to it. Though following Marco Tentori’s fight career, it seems like opponents become used to his style, and he slowly moves towards more conventional fighting techniques — this makes my hypothesize that surprise plays a big role CLF’s initial success.

All and all, I’m talking about sport. But if I were to speak about street, it’s definitely effective. You have the element of surprise, the sheer volume and knockout power, even if you were to be mugged by a Muay Thai fighter, you’d stand a chance with it. I’m tempted to say that it’s better than Wing Chun — I’m doing MMA, but I have done Wing Chun before.

I don’t know what kind of feedback I’m looking for with this post. I guess that if you have experience in it, give me some pointers, some details, try to sell me the style more, correct me, corroborate with me, whatever you want.

— oh, and I don’t really care about discussions about sparring much — with my MMA background, I’d surely be able to make it practical myself even if the CLF school doesn’t spar.

I practice MMA for self defense as I believe it offers the best combat skills — emphasis on combat as in fighting.

I don’t compete in any major events; simply sparring and occasional competition within the gym.

However, I am also aware of its limitations, as in the lack of weapons and all of the self defense aspects outside of combat/fighting.

This is why I’m considering Krav Maga, though I have questions.

To me, it doesn’t seem like Krav Maga is worth going full-time for. When it comes to “illegal” and ”dirty” technique, it doesn’t seem like it takes much skill esp considering my background — I might be over confident, but assuming I trained Krav Maga for 2 weeks, I feel confident that I could eye gouge and bite better in a grappling situation than the average Krav practitioner (considering my BJJ and Wrestling knowledge from MMA), eye jab better (considering my boxing skills) or groin kick and knee stomp better (considering my Muay Thai/Kickboxing)

Next, when it comes to other aspects like strategy; it doesn’t that complicated. From what I’ve read, using the element of surprise and sudden agression, either strike first or defend while moving in then strike, then strike until knockdown before creating space, getting out of danger, then assessing the situation. Strategy isn that hard to learn — not just for me but for anyone — the same way I can learn a game plan and strategy with a few sparring sessions in MMA, I could do the same with Krav Maga.

Then, I guess that weapons would take more time, though I’ve done Kali and HEMA Sabre — with the combat skills developed with MMA as well, I feel like I could also pretty much learn Krav Maga weapon skills (outside of guns) pretty easily.

It seems like you are all very focused on wrist grabs for some reason, but cross training with Judo within MMA, I’ve developed grip fighting skills that I believe would surpass the more general grip fighting skill set that Krav Maga offers.

Moreover, Krav Maga doesn’t seem to offer much prolonged combat skills — something I’d probably need in case the initial encounter fails to wrap up. So I’m somewhat treating Krav Maga as a plan A, then MMA as a plan B in case I’m swept into prolonged combat.

As of right now, I’m planning to only take a mont. I’m asking this sub because I feel like if I were to ask the head coach, they try to talk me into continuing — it’s understandable since it’s in their interest to have me pay — so that’s why I’m here to see maybe more objective point of views.

Side note: even though I only plan to take a month of class, I’d still be practicing it alone and incorporate the techniques into my person training regime.

TLDR, I feel like I could learn everything from Krav Maga in only a month. Does Krav Maga offer anything more? Can my MMA training cover for most of Krav Maga?