In his heyday, CN did okay for a white man.

Unfortunately, he continued to make movies utilizing martial art skills that had degraded terribly.

Compared to real martial art experts, CN's lack of flexibility is down right embarrassing.

I have studied martial arts for several decades to include shorin ryu, jeet kune do, muayThai, and Tae-kwon do (which I have a black belt).

I have also lived in Taiwan and Thailand and have worked out with some amazing Asian martial artists.

Believe me, CN was mediocre at best on the world martial arts stage.

Anyone who has studied martial arts seriously, can see just how amateurish his moves are.


BH63

Well, I respectfully disagree. As a serious student of the martial arts for over 30 years, and a 2nd degree black sash in Shaolin Kung Fu, I really don’t see anything amateurish about his move. He was a real fighter, not a stage actor, although he made a pretty good living as one. Everything I’ve read, or heard from individuals that knew him before he was famous all agree that he was respected and feared as a fighter.
Don’t confuse ballet like move of Wushu with real fighting skills. I’ve been very fortunate over the last 30 years to work out, teach and generally hang out with a lot of martial artists. Some of which were as graceful, skilled and fluid as any ballet dancer, but couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. It’s like comparing a UFC fighter with someone that performs Kata’s for a living. Both have skills and should be celebrated for them, not compared to each other for their short comings.
By the way my favorite Chuck Norris fact is: When an episode of Walker Texas Ranger was aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris just to be on the safe side.

^
I guess it really is all in the eyes of the beholder.

Respectfully,

BH63

It always is.Personally I believe we are watching this for "entertainment".My ex liked to watch those horror shows;I did not. That is not entertainment for me.Give me a GOOD western or action movie,no matter how unrealistic,I'm happy.I'm 64,I know what I want to watch + what I don't.

As an addendum I have learned not to jump up in the theatre or living room shouting out loud that that gun was not circa to that time frame,etc.

^
lol

Yesterday I watched a couple episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger, just to see if I was missing something.

Although his martial arts sections, still seemed to be fairly amateurish (his sidekick looks like something a beginner would throw), there was one weird scene where he called for his horse to come over and use it's lips to untie a rope where he was staked out. Totally ridiculous!

But to each his own!

BH63

As the song goes "That's entertainment."

I have heard Chuck Norris is the real deal when it comes to M.A. I do not know, but one reason the scenes could look amateurish is they are slowed down and done best for the camera shot, not to make weight pivoting contact.

I figure if Bruce Lee uses you for stunts (not as Bruce Lee's stuntman just stunts) you have to be pretty good.

Just my thoughts

Back in the 60's when James Coburn was "In Like Flint" fame,he took martial arts classes.He told the instructor," I know that a lot of these other Hollywood types told you to never kick them in the face (their meal ticket)."I tell you now to try to do so because I will do my damndest to kick you in the face."Always respected him for that.

I wrestled for my country, boxed in the army and part of my contractor experiences in several countries was teaching physical training and some unarmed combat for NATO at one point.

Basically what anyone who actually fights a lot, be it street fighters, pro fighters, club security, prison guards, prisoners or cops will tell you is 99% of the dojo traditional arts don't work very well in real life. They get cleaned up in seconds by a decent MMA, boxer, kickboxer, BJJ, even Judo and wrestlers take karate clowns down in the first two seconds. And if I had a dollar for every kungfu or taekwondo guy who got cleaned up by a strong guy with no training at school/clubs/army bars etc , well Id have about 23 dollars. Which is still too much. After teaching a self-defence course, (which in most militaries is only designed to drill a few basic moves to the soldiers, more just to gain momentum over an enemy long enough to regain your primary or secondary weapons before he does) what we would advise a class if they really wanted to learn how to handle themselves was go and learn one of the realistic full contact sports styles in their own time.

The issue with traditional dojo styles while a lot were realistic in the day, they generally got watered down too much. The first stage was Bruce Lee hitting the big screen in the 60's. Bruce could probably fight, but he knew the flashy kicks and kungfu theatre moves sold, so thats what movies showed and thats what everyone wanted to learn. The main market being suburban slobs, not fighting types, corrupted them further into systems whereby colored belts were basically exchanged for membership fees.

They fail practically in several areas. Rarely training full contact, low power, no defence against full contact, too insular( all the full contact style openly encourage cross training with similar styles and wlecome challenges) and lack of emphasis on fitness, which is also a military precept for fighting. In fact its half the lesson in any real fighting style. Not only may you need it to fight continuously past the 10-15 minute mark, you also need it just to drill full contact moves correctly. A full contact move is vastly different from semi-contact as it engages the hips, feet, shoulders and core to generate power. They burn a lot of energy and until you have high levels of fitness you can't learn them properly, which is why any realistic style( boxing, wrestling, MMA) is in a big hurry to get you fit very quickly. You can almost consider fitness one of the checks the style is realistic. If its full of moms, pops and too many guts over waistbands and no one sweating, I wouldn't trust my life with it. I wouldn't trust anything that sensei has to teach on any subject to be honest.

I will admit where these styles are used full contact, are encouraged to train against other styles(another red flag is they are usually highly insular clubs, as they don't want to be exposed) and encourage high levels of fitness they can become useful, more or less returning to their original roots.The best practitioners of these styles can be quite athletic folks especially if they are the champions of a large pool of practitioners.


Getting back to chuck norris, being a semi-contact champion in a style which was still fledgling at that time( aka low numbers, small pool of fighters) means its doubtful he had the training, experience or huge numbers needed to claim he is an elite fighter. I would say he would take out the average guy but would get his ass handed to him by any city level champ in a decent sport, basically because his actual experience and numbers is similar or less than that level.

A few years after his time, some branches of the styles went real full contact and these became much more realistic. The practitioners began to able to spar and fight effectively with the hands against boxers which was a real turning point and they became the first american kickboxers, which was the actual styles name. They got their asses handed to them by muay thai(google the famous rick rufus cheatsongrit fight), but then adjusted and became one of the premier fighting styles outright.

I been in a couple donny brooks. Even for the lauded MMA fighters it’s a different ballgame. For starters, no rules. I don’t care what a guys professional fight record is, a Budweiser bottle to the temple will straighten you right up. Then the old saw “it’s not the size of the dog...”, really comes into it’s own.

quote:

Originally posted by tomahawker:
I been in a couple donny brooks. Even for the lauded MMA fighters it’s a different ballgame. For starters, no rules. I don’t care what a guys professional fight record is, a Budweiser bottle to the temple will straighten you right up. Then the old saw “it’s not the size of the dog...”, really comes into it’s own.

You are still better off having decent fight skills than not. Ive seen 99% more fights decided with punches than 'beerbottle-fu'.

Lol beer bottle-fu! Yes of course I agree.

Depends if it is light beer or not.n

Never cared for CAN BEER as it is really hard to hurt someone with a BEER CAN.
A bottle is MUCH better 1st hit it is a CLUB 2nd one it is a KNIFE