How realistic are MA style descriptions? How practical?

Xplo · 03-05-2008, 02:41 PM

Reading through the styles in Martial Arts, I notice a lot of them have notes like "Style A emphasizes Defensive Attacks and using Wait or Evaluate to feel out the enemy" and "Style Z practitioners fight aggressively, using Committed Attack or even All Out Attack to beat the opponent quickly".

All of this is great for flavor, don't get me wrong. It's one thing to assure the reader that two people fight differently and quite another to explain how in concrete terms. But do these descriptions accurately represent the various styles, or are they exaggerated, with realistic fighters normally opting for ordinary attacks and defenses and only emphasizing the character of the style when an opportunity presents itself? And if the styles are realistically described, has anyone noticed that variant tactics give the a significant advantage or disadvantage, or do the tradeoffs seem to balance out?

To put it another way, if we made Defense Guy, Offense Guy, Balanced Guy, and Sneaky Feint/Wait/Counterattack Guy fight a zillion battles in a gladitorial pit, assuming roughly equal skill levels, would the final scores be plausible, or would one or more styles clearly fail or dominate?

03-05-2008, 02:41 PM	#1
Xplo Join Date: Apr 2006	How realistic are MA style descriptions? How practical? Reading through the styles in Martial Arts, I notice a lot of them have notes like "Style A emphasizes Defensive Attacks and using Wait or Evaluate to feel out the enemy" and "Style Z practitioners fight aggressively, using Committed Attack or even All Out Attack to beat the opponent quickly". All of this is great for flavor, don't get me wrong. It's one thing to assure the reader that two people fight differently and quite another to explain how in concrete terms. But do these descriptions accurately represent the various styles, or are they exaggerated, with realistic fighters normally opting for ordinary attacks and defenses and only emphasizing the character of the style when an opportunity presents itself? And if the styles are realistically described, has anyone noticed that variant tactics give the a significant advantage or disadvantage, or do the tradeoffs seem to balance out? To put it another way, if we made Defense Guy, Offense Guy, Balanced Guy, and Sneaky Feint/Wait/Counterattack Guy fight a zillion battles in a gladitorial pit, assuming roughly equal skill levels, would the final scores be plausible, or would one or more styles clearly fail or dominate?