Steet fighting or Tournament fighting

This is a debate that has been raging in the martial arts community for quite some time now. Unfortunately, there are no simple answers to this conundrum. Martial arts, as originally envisaged, were meant strictly for self-defence. The rules were different then. There were no serious consequences for injury or even death. But as time passed and serious injury or death became a serious offence, people started to look to other ways to continue to practice their martial arts and also to schowcase it to others without having it to result in injury or death to one of the competitors. And that is where competitive martial arts started to take shape. Whether for good or bad is for the martial arts community to decide. Today, a plethora of martial arts schools have sprung up around the globe teaching the tens of different and wonderful styles that exist in the world today. But, as far as I am concerned, many of these schools are more concentrated on churning out black belts at the end of however many years it requires students  to get there. Fanciful uniforms attract parents to enroll their children in these schools. Now, I'm absolutely not knocking the absolute dedication and discipline that is required to achieve a Black Belt. But, as far as these students being genuinely able to defend themselves on the tough streets today, that is an entirely different prospect. And that, I believe, is where most of these schools are misleading their students into false confidence. And in the final analysis, that could prove deadly on the streets. To be continued...