The sad fact of the matter is that most folks who consider themselves martial artists would do a very poor job of defending themselves in a actual fight. This is not because they aren't good students or the art that they practice isn't viable (though that can certainly be true). They can't fight or even defend themselves because proficiency requires a robust and practical training method and most martial arts, mired in the traditions of the East, do not possess them.
Kishore Mahbubani, the former Ambassador to the UN and current Dean of the Lew Kew Yuan School of Public Policy, wrote a book a few years back titled, "Can Asians Think?" Quite a controversial topic I thought though the book never got the attention it deserved. Imagine if it was titled "Can Africans Think?" or "Can Latinos Think?" Anyway, the book asked a very provacative question. Why is it, that given the tremendous advantage of the oldest coherent civilization, all the Asian countries, except Japan, were well behind Western nations is pretty much every category pertaining to standard of living? That's a damned good question. His answer, and one I well agree with, is that Asian countries place too much emphasis on tradtion, stifling growth and advancement. This is true across the board. A friend of mine when to China to study Chinese and he found the pedagogy at the finest Chinese University alarmingly backwards. In conversations he had with his youngers teachers, he heard them lament about the situation. The younger professors knew that there was a better way to do thing but they couldn't change anything because the texts were written by older professors and to criticize them in any way was simply verbotten.
Let me use aikido as an example. My friend, The Aikidoist, said in the comment section of a previous post that the lethality of aikido was on par with the lethality of harder arts, Muay Thai for example. He said that the skills of a fully competent aikidoka were just as effective as anything else. I can certainly see why he would think this. A properly performed shiho-nage will certainly do more overall damage than my best punch to the face. Throwing someone forcefully onto concrete beats any single striking weapon in my arsenal, hands down. The problem is, I've never seen a fully competent aikidoka. Every single person that I've seen and trained with, who had a chance of using aikido effectively in a real fight all had skills from other arts. I haven't met or even heard of anybody who only practiced aikido fight well. That certainly says something.
I understand why this is. If you look at the development of aikido, all its major proponents all had high levels of proficiency in other arts before they came to aikido. They all could punch, kick and throw properly before finding aikido. But because of that, there is no punching in the aikido curriculum. That's a huge problem. Look at the way kote-gaeshi is often practiced. The uke telegraphs something reasonable facsimile of a punch to the mid-section of the nage who uses tenkan to spin out of the way, grab the wrist and perform the technique. The fact of the matter is that if I crack a jab at an aikidoka's mid-section, he will simply not have enough time to do all that. I will pick him apart before he can practice any technique.
Once, while training with Ikeda sensei, we got into it somewhat. Ikeda Sensei is without a doubt the single most proficient practitioner of the art I've come in contact with. He's amazing and has performed feats bordering on the unreal. In this particular instance, he had me punch at his face and I mean really try to punch him. I never hit him and once he adjusted to me, he was able to knock me down everytime he hit me without seriously injuring me. He must have knocked me down more than a dozen times and I only had a bloody lip. That's amazing. I've never been knocked down in the ring. I can take a considerable amount of damage and stay on my feet. How was he doing that? I have some vague idea. He's a master at disrupting balance but it's interesting to note that he didn't use an 'aikido' technique per se. He hit me. I was simply moving too fast and adjusting too quickly for any traditional aikido technique to work. He paired it down to a punch but it was a punch done in an "aiki" way. That's why it knocked me down. He can do that and make that adjustment because he already had effective punches in his repetoire. If he didn't and only had traditional aikido techniques to use on me, I daresay he wouldn't have done so well.
Also, even after personally feeling the efficacy of his technique, I still do not know how an actual fight between us would actually look. I would never just rush in and throw my best punch at somebody like Ikeda Sensei. I would try to pick him apart with jabs and gradually wear him down. If I could slow him down enough with leg kicks (something traditional aikido has no defense for) then I could eventually beat him I believe. I know exactly what a fight between Master Toddy and me would look like. We'd square off and he'd launch a barrage I couldn't endure. Or he'd counter punch me to bits. You get the idea. The pedagogy of aikido doesn't allow me to glove up and see what my instructor would do if I actually tried to fight him as I would in reality. Even at the highest levels, I never saw anybody train like that. It was always that same uke/nage structure that is too limiting for modern self-defense.
When it comes right down to it, it's all about training methods, Take an art like Krav Maga. Developed by the IDF, it's popular with folks who worship all things Israeli. It certainly does possess some interesting things. But simply adding a gun disarm to what basically looks like a Japanese art doesn't do much for its efficacy. As interesting as some of their interpretations are, they are still practiced in that Japanese uke/nage one-step style. Fights just don't unfold like that in any situation. The Japanese training method only works if your opponent is telegraphing his one attack in which he marshalls all his strength, and only him. It doesn't work against a sneakier fighter.
For the East Asian arts to stay relevant, they have to advance. And some do. Look at Kyokushinkai Karate. The training methods have advanced because it's practitioners have gotten into the ring and really fought. If you take competition out of the training method, there is no standard by which to judge technique. It's true that some techniques do too much damage to practice at combat speed. But what's more valuable, a less lethal technique that you own or a massively lethal technique you kind of know and have only pulled off in controlled conditions? Martial arts have already advanced with the introduction of cross-training. Now we just have to advance the training methods and our arts will stay relevant and not become some relic of the past.
