"Martial Arts Don't Work"

Many times I've read, heard, and seen people insist that martial arts are completely uneffective, not real, and/or they are actually detrimental to the practicioner in that martial artists begin to think that the highly stylized attacks are actually how people really fight and/or assault eachother. The most popular complaint I've run into is that the methods of training used in East Asian martial arts are not realistic. I believe that it IS good to be somewhat skeptical of things, but there is a concept that most of these nay-sayers are missing.
You see, martial arts training is alot like math class. In a math lesson you are given a problem to solve in the form of an equation. The equation is written out for you in the easiest possible manner for you to understand. This numerical problem is an idea, and it's in its cleanest, most ideal form. For all intensive purposes it seems like the equation is useless because it isn't applied to anything. This is why alot of students get frustrated and say "When are we ever going to use this"? When the teacher finally gives a real world situation, like finding the amount of current it takes to light a flourescing light bulb.Then people can understand it's real world use.
Martial arts is alot like this. The techniques used and attacks used are ideas that are not connected to actual situations. They are in thier most perfect form (The ideal situation). This is so students can fully understand the concepts and physics behind the techniques. Of course no one actually attacks like that, and the movements in the technique are all exagerated. But this is so you can see what is going on. Once a good grasp of the concept in its most perfect form is understood then can a student try to apply it to a more real world situation. The exaggerated technique is compacted and applied at high speed. It is then thrown into the chaos of a realistic barrage of attacks. Though it is much more effective when done this way it is practically impossible to discern from the other defenses and is therefore useless as far as teaching is concerned (accept for maybe showing what a technique looks like in a realistic fight vs. a controlled training). As a word problem is to math, sparring is to martial arts. As an equation is to math, a basic two person, slow motion self defense kata (form) is to martial arts. Sparring is not real combat, but it is about as close as you can get to actual combat without getting seriously injured.

I encourage my students to try these techniques at a faster speed, from different attacks, and during sparring sessions. The more they use the technique the more likely they are to actually be able to apply it if attacked. The more variety they have during training with each technique, the better they will be able to adapt. So, do martial arts work? That is completely up to the practicioner. It's the man who makes the art, not the art who makes the man.