|
Interesting. Ok, I kind of see your point, though I will point out that there is more to it than that one side. To be honest, in the military, we also do train mostly for that "one perfect day", in a way. Rather we train so that we get into a "battle ryhthme" or battle mind, and can act similar to how we train when everything gets chaotic. To me, that is pure martial arts, (not the tv semi-mystical version).
We also train daily, in a lot of different ways that civilians don't, and honestly I wouldn't have even concidered prior to doing it.
Having actually studied a little boxing (western, and not via the military), I will say it is probably the greatest example of a martial art there is. Thai Boxing being another, which I've also learned a little of. No offense to anyone, but I concider MMA more of a celebrity-sport than a combat art. Just my opinion, and it's admitedly bias.
The reason that martial artists are called martial is because unarmed combat has always had a strong tradition in all militaries. It actually does fit, though the name is slighlty misleading. As anyone knows
From my experience most gamers are under achieving rich kids, who can't
even do 1 pullup.
Martial Arts, Military... hahaha. Now way, have you seen the giant
tummies on these people?
(In fact, I actually cringe a little bit at Monks and Ninjas in some games.)
I couldn't agree with you more.
No active military or former military in either of my gaming groups, though there are two out of eight of us who are recruitment rejects for health reasons (I have tb scar tissue on my lungs, course didn't find this out until I tried to enlist, and another of my group failed for health reasons as well, but he won't say why). Oddly enough however, 7 out of 8 of us either currently or have in the past studied / practiced martial arts. (Akido, fencing and Gouquan {dog-boxing} kung-fu myself; 2 capoeirists, 1 blue glove Savate practitioner, 2 karate practitioners, and 1 active student of Tai Chi Chuan). Equally odd, all of us are target shooters and 6 of us are also hunters.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Both.
We had a joke;
my friends and I played a lot of Palladium/Rifts back in the day, and we would run a few campaigns where we statted ourselves up "IRL" then the world went through some changes and we ended up fighting dragons and ogres and stuff or teleported to Rifts earth;
the joke was that many of the guys I played with went in the military just to buff their Rifts characters.
To clarify, I took some classes in tae kwon do a long time ago. I've read a lot of history on Asian martial arts and styles.
But I am in no way a martial artist, and definitely not military. I listen and read quite a bit about the art of war, but the honest to goodness realities of being a true combatant, the little subtleties that make a soldier, I'm afraid the best I can do is remember a lot of military novels and combats.
And wrestling is definitely a martial art, it's just not an ASIAN martial art. Boxing and wrestling are the core European open hand martial arts, with a long and storied history. Likewise, the West has an extremely developed history of weapons work, that unfortunately was allowed to founder when gunpowder became more prevelant. Fencing is the primary Western weapon style that survived, and it IS extremely developed, if not currently optimized for combat instead of a tournament.
So, anyone with experience in wrestling, fencing or boxing is definitely a martial artist.
MMA is definitely the real thing, btw. Basically it's totally open as far as styles. If you look at its history, it springs from boxer vs wrestler vs judo vs karate combatants, and then evolving as the fighters borrowed from one another's styles, then mixed and matched it all up.
MMA is closer to legalized barroom brawling then anything, but have no doubts...a MMA combatant is a tremendously dangerous person in a fight. It's called 'mixed' simply because they don't adhere to a pure discipline...they use whatever will work.
Very military, in its own way.
===Aelryinth
No and no.
I however do live practically next door to an Airforce base.
No and no.
I however do live practically next door to an Airforce base.
If you just go lurk at bullshido.net for a few days, you'll be knowledgable enough to fake both.
bullshido...Heh heh...
I love the Bullshido site.
|
I am currently active duty Air Force and have been a gamer for some years (many more than I've been a soldier). Have I studied martial arts? I did for some time, but fell out of it about five years ago - shortly before joining.
I think that those gamers you find among us military-folk are due in large part because of the comraderie that things like Pathfinder and video games build amongst people living together for six to twelve to fifteen months at a time overseas in deployed locations. I know my last deployment I had a group of about six - two of which had played before and the other four had never heard of it, but saw us doing it one day and wanted in.
My home group now consists of military and military spouses, but anyone's welcome to join.
Nobody in my groups(that I know of) have been in the military. I had 2 years of Tae Kwon Do(really basic stuff) and a couple years as a wrestler in high school, the rest came from just general hooliganism in my early years.
It's been so long since I've done anything martial arts related, I could practically just not count it at all, really. The wrestling experience has come in handy more than a few times, though. I've ended more fights by twisting guys up like pretzels than throwing any punches.
In my own experience (gaming for, wow, 30 years now), I haven't seen that connection.
I did study tae kwon do for two years, when I was a teenager, but that's in the distant past.
If I sat and counted, I've probably had long-term gaming friendships with 50 or 60 people over the years (defined as gaming with them for at least a year or two). No more than 4 or 5 of those folks were military veterans. There have probably been a few more martial-arts students among my gaming friends, but that's skewed by one family of four, all of whom game, and all of whom studied tae kwon do.
I am the only one of my RPG gamer friends to have joined the military, so far as I know. That said, I have noticed that there are a fair number of servicepeople on this site.
I don't think there's anything particularly odd about there being a lot of gamers who have been in the military. Young men are the most fertile recruiting ground for both and gaming is something for a lot of these young soldiers to do together in their off-duty hours.
|
In France, most gamers are University students or graduates. I cannot remember meeting a gamer who was in the military. The only exception being students of Ecole Polytechnique which is both one of the highest recognized scientific schools in France (and produces a LOT of France's top managers) and a military school (created by Napoleon himself). I do not really count them as military though, since most of them do not choose a career in the military.
Many gamers did some Martial Arts though (myself included). There is a mystic about the Martial Arts which is very similar to what you can find in Fantasy and RPG.
<-- Guilty of both
Mandatory conscription over 10 years ago, and Kendo for exercise these days.
|
|
Most of my gaming buddies are in the military or were at some point, though few have martial arts experience. I'm an 18yr vet and have trained in Taijitsu, Kenpo Jiu-Jitsu, and now Krav Maga.
I've studied a bit of Krav Maga myself, but that isn't why I'm quoting you.
Is it bad if I initially read that as Kaer Maga?
Is it bad if I initially read that as Kaer Maga?
Welcome Home.
|
Have most gamers been in the military and/or studied martial arts? Maybe. Sure seems like it some days when I walk into my FLGS!
My groups' make-ups haven't supported it though. But then again, I started young and tend to play with a very diverse crowd. Generally speaking. I play in two groups. Right now the one groups's mostly underemployed college educated twenty-somethings; the other is full of thirty-something RF engineers and their spouses. I doubt any of them have been in the military, or would know anything about martial combat of any sort in real life.
|
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
|
Most of my gaming buddies are in the military or were at some point, though few have martial arts experience. I'm an 18yr vet and have trained in Taijitsu, Kenpo Jiu-Jitsu, and now Krav Maga.I've studied a bit of Krav Maga myself, but that isn't why I'm quoting you.
Is it bad if I initially read that as Kaer Maga?
Kaer Maga: the martial art of ripping your own guts out and beating people up with them.
|
|
Kaer Maga: the martial art of ripping your own guts out and beating people up with them.Most of my gaming buddies are in the military or were at some point, though few have martial arts experience. I'm an 18yr vet and have trained in Taijitsu, Kenpo Jiu-Jitsu, and now Krav Maga.I've studied a bit of Krav Maga myself, but that isn't why I'm quoting you.
Is it bad if I initially read that as Kaer Maga?
I laughed for an extra minute or so longer than I probably should have. Good ol' augur trolls.
Not military - but some martial arts, Hapkido, Zen Do Kai, and Mauy Thai, I fought in a few tournaments... I am old fat and slow now and have not done anything for years. Hapkido was my favourite of the martial arts.
A few of the people I have gamed with have been Military - Two were in the Royal Australian Navy (one of those guys was a Clearance Diver), Two were Army (Signals and Infantry).
not military, but did study karate when i was but a wee laddie.
fear me, for i am a master of the deadly art of... Krap Karate!
Just some general statisitics to go with the thread. There are 21.8 million military veterans in the United States as of 2010. That combined with the 1.9 people in service currently puts us up to 23.7 million people alive with military experience in the USA today. The current(ish) population of the USA is 330 million.
Which means that less than 10% of the USA has been or is in the military.
|
I am the 2%.
That made me chuckle.
OP- I am ex-military but I was gaming long before and long after. The only martial arts I ever took were in training in the military. (ie- not much)
Lot of ex-military at my home game, including TOZ (still active), houstonderek, and originally Silverhair (who was a lifer until retirement). Once upon a time I did a brief stint too, before they advised me to find a new career path. Dunno about martial arts for the others; I was a tournament champion for my weight division, about a million years ago -- but tend to break my toe walking out the door these days.
Sorry Kelsey,
I thought you were a minor! ;)
Damn those icons!
No, I'm 20.
I served in the Army - twice.
I also practiced Judo for a couple years.
In my old group, one was a retired Navyman, and the other a military brat who loves everything warfare and tactics, was a martial artist for some fifteen years until a car accident (now, he's just the guy with the "bigger badder better worse" syndrome, while at the same time trying to convert everyone to his interpretation of Buddhism while simultaneously insulting and degrading every other way of living other than his own, damn if he wasn't a great story-teller though)....
I myself practiced martial arts, a few of them, over the years, until my funding ran out (I am now near-dirt poor). I still practice, and as soon as I get the money I intend on picking up where I left off. Lucky for me, I managed to find teachers who taught the traditional, combat-oriented versions of the martial arts, not that "this is just for health/sport/competition" stuff.
As for MMA? I don't consider that really a martial art, or many of the dojos and schools we've got in America today. Yes, they may teach some techniques, but most of them teach for competition and sport. MMA is (now at least) nothing but sport-fighting, and don't even get me started on that laughable mockery of combat UFC. It's worse than those flashy martial art competitions where what matters is how good you look, not how well you can put an opponent down.
Also, Cranewings, if you are being serious... You really need to take another long, HARD look at martial arts. To shoot a huge hole in your assessment, South Korean (at least I believe it was South Korean) government bodyguards become masters of Tae Kwon Do, because even for them guns are illegal and cannot be used, and do their jobs VERY well. This is fact (thank you travel and history channels!). It would behoove you to understand that there is a difference between martial arts for actual combat, which is rare in the age of the Gun, and martial arts for sport or health, which is what many have become in order to survive.
Even beyond that, REAL martial artists, those who follow the Martial Way, are nowhere near the "self-flattering" people you seem to color all martial artists. Those that truly follow the Way do not brag, do not show off, and do not even chat up their own prowess. Many of them would actually do something should the need arise, as well. Then again, you also seem to consider MMA an accurate representation of true martial artists, which is patently false.
Back on topic, every other PnP gamer I know hasn't taken any martial arts, or been in any form of service... That I know of.
Does Thai Bo count? :: snickers ::
I think I've played the game with exactly two guys who studied martial arts. One was a TKD guy and the other was all about Kung Fu.
As for playing with military men, same thing; one guy was Texas Air National Guard and the other was Navy (Corpman). Incidentally, the Navy guys was also the TDK guy.
/ I don't practice martial arts, gets in the way of TV surfing and sitting on the couch.
Total Darty Kill?
Throwing me off on TDK?
Taekwondo - usually TKD
Or
Jeet Kune Do - JKDI am lost!
Does anyone know what TDK is?
Typo - I could edit it, but then I'd invalidate your post.
I am a member of a paramilitary police force, with some martial arts background.
|
|
Does anyone know what TDK is?
A Japanese company that makes electronic materials, electronic components, and data storage/recording media.
(used to buy their blank cassette tapes, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away-- before compact discs were commonly available, and for a while longer before cd-r technology became readily available)
I have one gamer friend who has stuck with MA (Hapkido)
One gamer friend who joined the army reserve but promptly got discharged...
And a friend of a friend who is in the army.
All the guys from my old high school group tried martial arts. Nobody in my current group does either to my knowledge.
I've never served in the military, and now I'm too old to enlist even if I wanted to (which, honestly, I don't). I am a student of military history, but that ain't the same thing.
I took karate lessons for several months about 20 years ago. I quit after the third time I failed the yellow belt test. [Kata and ballroom dancing-- two things I tried with all my heart, but just can't seem to learn.]
A former long-time player in my group served in the US Army for two years back in the mid-90s. (She quit my game a few months ago because she didn't like the horror themes in "Rise of the Runelords.")
One of my current players has been studying tae kwon do for many years, and I think he's some level of black belt, but he doesn't talk about it much. (And, he refuses to play a monk on principle.)
I don't think that any of my other players have any military or martial arts experience.