[kanchouska]

Its funny you should mention the "toolbox" approach to martial arts, as I was just thinking of that this morning.

I've been in martial arts that advocate such an approach, and I've also watched demos of groups more recently that advertise such things. I never say this directly to them, but I no longer believe this is a very good way of approaching martial arts training, particularly in a "self-preservation" senario.

The way that I was taught in these martial arts systems was to have the attitude of "well if technique A doesn't work, move to technique B, then to technique C, then to technique D", and then do some sort of crippling technique while their down and run away. Philosophical consequences aside, it seemed reasonable enough at the time, and I went away thing "wow I know a lot", and the idea that I would overwhelm them with my "knowledge of waza".

After doing kendo for longer now, I am pretty sure I don't believe its a good idea, based on the premise that if your opponent (and not your "partner") is actively resisting and is also attacking, you have to consider two additional factors.

Simply from a stastistical point of view, each technique executed has some probability of success or failure against an actively resisting and attacking opponent. If you also take into consideration that every technique you do also provides openings and vunerabilities for attack by your opponent, one can easily arrive at a point in a chain of waza where the probability of successful execution of your waza is very small and the vulnerability towards your opponent is very very high.

I think its one of the reasons why in kendo, oji-waza are quite difficult to execute, and most oji-waza or even shikake-waza that are combinations are normally only in the range of 2-3 waza. In my experience, the more combinations and the more complicated the waza I do, it is less likely that I will be sucessful and more likely that my opponent will be.