Once I remember wondering how the ref and the other boxer were standing up. How do people stand on two legs? How are they standing there? Can't they feel this?

Such pain that you figure everyone is feeling it.

I agree with jbx that we should differentiate between martial arts, which are skills to kill and maim your fellows (and originally meant in Europe mostly blades and shooting), from self defence, which is using what you have available to keep yourself alive.

The problem in having a weapon with you is that you may use it when you should not. Turning yourself into a weapon means that you better learn a lot of self-discipline, or you may well end up in trouble. I do not know how it is in the States, but here if you are a qualified martial artist and hit someone, unless you can prove self-defence, it becomes assault with a weapon rather than simple assault.

Then, if you feel the need to have a weapon with you all the time, then I pity you because your life must be quite frightening. Needing sometimes a weapon I can understand, specially in certain locales or jobs, but all the time?

But if I feel I need one, I want to have the best one available, and we humans are toolmakers for the simple reason they enhance so much our own limited abilities.

That said, there are occupations, such as bouncer, where having as a tool certain martial arts improves your options. But it depends on the mindset, whether your aim is to get this over with as little damage as possible or if I want to frag that guy. The second one will not make a living as a bouncer, in my experience.

I have found that when people focus too much in the training, it actually narrows their options, such as fight or flee becomes fight or fight, and that muscle memory and instinctive reactions they have worked so hard to develop means that you end up dislocating a poor guy's arm by shoving you in the underground (happened to a friend of mine, fifth dan in Aikido, supposedly a "soft" martial art, but he was training a lot those days...).

quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:
Meh, what do I know? My true area of expertise is the marital arts.

And the pre-marital arts?

I was a big fan of the partial arts. Wasn't enough there to hold my interest.

quote:

Originally posted by Evilpenguin9000:
I'd talk about my martial arts experience, but the first rule of my club is that we can't talk about it.

yeah I didn't mean to start such a serious thread.

quote:

Originally posted by editengine:

quote:

Originally posted by Evilpenguin9000:
I'd talk about my martial arts experience, but the first rule of my club is that we can't talk about it.

yeah I didn't mean to start such a serious thread.

Internetz are Serious Business!

Here is a link to the UFC tournament rules:
http://www.completemartialarts.com/whoswho/ufc/ufcrules.htm

Consider that if you cannot do those things in competition then you've no reason to train in way to stop them.

On "the street" of course there are no rules, at least not on the part of those mysterious blackguards that will be assaulting the virtuous student of MA\SD.

Another aspect of MMA that doesn't relate well to "the street" is that...you can quit. Tap out. Ref stoppage. And that's it. It's over. They stop beating you.

I dunno what that might have to do with "the street" training, but it's certainly a thing to consider isn't it? If you get in a bad position (say they have your back with the hooks in and the RNC (Republican National Convention) fully applied) you can tap and start over.

I know a guy, Air Force, was deployed to Afghanistan. They had a Hummer on a roller. So you'd get in, they hit the switch, and the whole thing flips over. Then you extract yourself from the vehicle. This is to simulate the effects of an IED.

So they do this once. Twice. Then you have to extract your buddy as well. Then you are told that your right (or primary if you're a lefty) arm is disabled, so you have to do the same thing, but with only your weak arm.

In MMA training this is unlikely to be an issue, since it's sport training, with SD applications, rather than SD training.

If you get your elbow hyper extended in an MMA match, or training, you tap, and quit, and go sit down and hurt. In a "the street" fight...it just gets worse for you.

It's also interesting to me how many MMA fights "go the distance", that is, no KO's, no submissions. So how effective is that stuff really if it results in KOs and submissions in...half? a quarter? of the cases?

Certainly in a "the street" fight, using MMA techniques will be brutally effective in most scenarios. MMA is very good for mindset training. Most MA schools are terrible for mindset training. Being aggressive is half the battle. At least that's what I think. Given that most "fights" (as opposed to crimes, assassinations, muggings, group stompings, ambushes, etc) end when one person submits (either in the MMA "tap out" sense or the "showing your belly" "I give up" sense) the person who has greater aggression is likely to win that fight. Being able to take a shot or two, particularly to the face, having experienced significant pain in training, those are likely to back up the aggression. Allowing the MMA practitioner to win most confrontations.

WEC rules:
http://www.wec.tv/index.cfm?fa=Misc.aboutUs


Head butting in particular. It's hard to train. And thus, hard to train to defend, and thus...effective? Hard to say, because, who trains it? And when do they get to demonstrate it's use?

Most violence occurs between people that already know each other. It's almost always personal. Most of the remainder occurs between criminals. It's "professional" we might say.
It's a rare thing for interpersonal violence to occur between a criminal and a "normal". But when it does we're looking at a case of predatory victimization.

Thus we are looking at victim selection criteria on the part of the criminal. Right? Seems reasonable to me at least.

There's a fun game you can play while wandering about town. Try to pretend you are a mugger or rapist. The classic, "jump out of the bushes\dark alley", type. Where would you jump from? How close can you get to a person you think would make a good victim? Who do you think would make good victims?

I like to pick people with nice clothing, and if the clothing is "business" clothing, even better. I like to pick people who are smaller than me. I like to pick people who look lost in thought, are chatting on cell-phones, or who do not make eye contact with anybody (timid types).

Given those criteria, what MA should those folks train in to defend themselves against somebody like me?

That is, is MMA training well suited to use by smaller, weaker, less aggressive, less aware people against, bigger, stronger, more aggressive people who have selected them as victims based on their lack of awareness?

I don't know. Nobody really knows. Why? Because, again, violence is damn rare, and it's rarely a clear cut, repeatable scenario.

This is why many\most traditional MA places can delude themselves as to the effectiveness of their art. And they, for the most part, really are "arts". Not so much with the "martial".

When a MMA guy shoots for the double leg, they say, "Oh, I'd just knee him in the face", or when the MMA guy mounts and goes for the ground'n'pound, they say, "Oh, I'd just hit him in the throat\eyes".

And I say, "Interesting...how often do you practice that stuff at your school?".

And one more bit for fun, before I await the Villain's rebuttal.

From a Q&A with Brock Lesnar (large MMA dude. no neck.):

Also, why a “no-rules” U.F.C. wouldn’t provide the proper incentives:

The fighters need to live to fight another day; otherwise, you wouldn’t see the top guys in the world compete with each other. The risk would far outweigh the reward.

I had to rate this thread. I think jbx has written some pretty thought provoking responses. The Aikido I took was from a guy who was basically the #2 student of Steven Seagal. Sure his movies blow, he's a bit of an ass, he'll jump on most new age bandwagons for a buck, and he's let himself go a bit. But the guy can move fast and he demanded realism in his Aikido. It was sort of a counter movement to the flowers and peace Aikido that gets taught alot in California. Two female students in our dojo, who were first degree black belts were murdered in their apartments. This weighed heavily on the teacher as he felt that although we trained pretty realistically, it still took more than a black belt to be even remotely close to being able to defend yourself in a really dangerous situation.

rebuttal?
There is nothing to rebut. You and I aren't operating on the same wavelength here. You seem to be suggesting that people should train for any and every possible threat including pipe bombs or it isn't really self defense. You seem to want a system to offer complete coverage but life doesn't work that way.
I have trained for many years with the Carlson Gracie Jr. team in Chicago and Ralph Gracie's team in San Francisco and Berkeley. I don't generally train for tournaments, I train for Vale Tudo (Portuguese for "anything goes"). We don't train with biting, eye gouging, real knives, real loaded firearms, or fish hooking because we are friends and want to train, not spend all our time in the hospital. Frankly, I'm not sure what you point is.
Additionally, I have an enormous circumcised penis.

quote:

Originally posted by VillianGlib-sinBored:
rebuttal?
There is nothing to rebut. You and I aren't operating on the same wavelength here. You seem to be suggesting that people should train for any and every possible threat including pipe bombs or it isn't really self defense. You seem to want a system to offer complete coverage but life doesn't work that way.
I have trained for many years with the Carlson Gracie Jr. team in Chicago and Ralph Gracie's team in San Francisco and Berkeley. I don't generally train for tournaments, I train for Vale Tudo (Portuguese for "anything goes"). We don't train with biting, eye gouging, real knives, real loaded firearms, or fish hooking because we are friends and want to train, not spend all our time in the hospital. Frankly, I'm not sure what you point is.
Additionally, I have an enormous circumcised penis.

Dammit man! I can't argue with myself all the time! Where's the respect!

My point is that both martial arts and self defense are very broad subjects with many possible ways of looking at them, what they are good for, what they should be good for, what they include, etc.

It's what you say. We are not on the same wavelength. You've made the statement that you study a sport-based art to "fight and survive" on the street and further that a marginally trained MMA fighter can beat 99% of the world to a pulp.

I find those statements to lack truth by way of lacking finer distinctions surrounding things like "fight" "survive" and "the street".

I'm suggesting that "self defense" is indeed extremely broad and highly inclusive.

Dealing with emotionally manipulative assholes is self defense. Having emergency gear stored in your car is self defense. Checking your smoke detector batteries is self defense.

And, yes, learning to avoid fights, de-escalate (ie, talk down) fights, and even, God forbid, "win" fights, is also part of it.

It's certainly one of the more interesting parts (as opposed to say checking your smoke detector batteries) of it.

And then, aside from SD, there's "MA", which is hopelessly broad and vast itself, but in much less useful ways than SD.

To have a talk about martial arts and what they mean\are good for we have to define what it is we're talking about.

I thought Vale Tudo allowed headbutts at the very least, as well as elbows, strikes to the back of the head, etc. And...isn't it still pit fighting? Two dudes, rolling around and sweating on each other? (Having another dudes sweat roll in to your eyes and being unable to wipe it away (as my hands were busy trying to pin\mount\choke him) is an awesome experience in my opinion)

So I just want to create a very clear distinction between what MA is and what MA is not and what SD is and what SD is not, and, more germane to this thread, I want to make clear to folks who might not be clear on this, where MA training does not apply to SD scenarios.

Do you train with "drones" (training knives with no edges) or "red guns" (red plastic guns)? Do you train to strike, take down, disable an opponent and then run the hell away?

Because to me, to "fight" and survive, in "the street", those are the topics I'm concerned with.

I'm a big, tough dude, and if I didn't smile like a goofy idiot at everybody I make eye contact with, I might even be mean looking. I like to look around while I walk, I like to make eye contact with anybody I can.
In short, I am not likely to be targeted by a criminal.

But if I AM. What then? We square off, agree on no hair pulling, no small joint manipulation (is this allowed in Vale Tudo btw? Legit question, I really don't know, but I'm quite interested in it. I understand it's rather popular down in Brazil, figure you'll have knowledge to share with my novice ass about it) and then fight until one of us taps out?

This isn't so far fetched really. I understand that the Gracies have won many many "street fights" in Brazil using their stuff, but I also understand that Brazil has a certain macho\honorable culture. Such that if two dudes get in to it at a bar fight they can indeed punch and kick and roll around on the ground and nobody will jump in. Instead it's just part of the entertainment for the evening.

Certain parts of the US are like this as well. Somebody gives you the hairy eyeball in a bar, you maddog them a bit, you both go outside, punch it up some, then slap each other on the back, and go back inside and buy each other beers, better friends for it.

Of course in other parts of the US maddogging (this is aggressive eye contact btw) or mean-mugging (making faces, same thing, more or less) will get you straight up shot.

Anyway, back to my point.

Despite me being a poor target\victim let's say I do get assaulted\held up at gun point.

Thinking as a criminal, I don't want to fight, right? I want money. Or shoes, or drugs, or whatever.

So then I want to do anything I can to insure that my victim will not fight me. Like use a gun, or a knife. So then, for me, as the target\victim, for self-defense, what I need to primarily be concerned with is avoidance.

How can you tell if somebody is packing heat? Or if they have a knife? Where do crimes usually occur in your town? How can I tell if two guys are setting me up for an ambush?

Again, in SD, a fight that you DO NOT get in to counts as a win.

I think that in cases of "real" violence that MMA is half of a tool set. As I've said previous, I think it's a great training method in a lot of ways and for a lot of reasons. But I do not think it's a complete toolset for SD training. That is, I do not think MMA is well suited for "fighting" and "surviving" on "the street".

Maybe the fighting part tho.

Do you compete in Vale Tudo? What makes training for that different than training for tournaments? Don't they have VT tournaments?

I'm pretty sure I've seen ads in martial arts magazines for VT classes\videos as well as VT "world champions" and such.

My penis is so huge I've actually had it detached from my body and put on life support. I'm forced to move it about in a dump truck. It's not really worth the bill to buy up enough blood to get it erect unless it will be serviced by a team of 12 or more women. I do like watching it in action however.

It's a curse really, being so large.

Take it over to lpsg.org guys...

quote:

Originally posted by Fashionpolice:
Take it over to lpsg.org guys...

You see? This is the violence inherent in the system! Two guys can't even talk about wanting to get all sweating and roll around with each other without people assuming they are both gay!

It's not like we were comparing the sizes of our equipment or anyth....oh, wait.

Villain:

Do you like me?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No




PS: I do think the applications of SD are actually of Gibsonian topicality. The action sequences in his books hew much more closely to such things than they do MA. At least in my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by jbx:

quote:

Originally posted by Buell:

but in my opinion mma is as real as it gets if you wanna be able to defend yoself

I'm interested, what makes you think this is the case?

First let me say that I like BBJ, boxing, Muay Thai, and Judo, the general basic essentials of what is now called MMA.

But....self defense? Really?

Those clips that VillianGlib-sinBored posted seemed anything but.

you can train and train and spar. but. if your mind, spirit isn't set so that you're untouchable, you're going to bite the dust.

no one technique is superior to the other when two people (or more) go toe to toe. if you train mma, that is to say e.g. bjj, muay thai etc.. one gots tools in one's toolbox and redefined reflexes and SPIRIT to enjoy a good fight.
compris?

I think it's a bit like the old 'you don't have to outrun the lion, you only have to outrun the other members of the safari' thing. To avoid being a target, you don't have to look (or be) tougher than the aggressor, you just have to look tougher than the least tough-looking person in the joint. Being a beefy mofo is working pretty well for me so far, though I do tend to avoid closing bars as well... Of course, this is not a fully thought-through position, and I'm sure there are sometimes people who go out to test themselves against the biggest guy in the place... but I'm seldom that either.

no denying. i've had my share of violence. sorry if i come across preachy peachy..

but sometimes kicking ass is the omly option: for example; five skinheads surround you outside of the roadhouse: what do you do?

what i did; got the bridge of my nose and two ribs broken.

they could've killed me if they was in the mood.

but they didn't.

living is easy. killing is hard.

quote:

Originally posted by VillianGlib-sinBored:

quote:

Krav Maga

real Jews fight MMA.

Or maybe...

Yes, we will win.

For anyone interested in learning more about the many varieties of martial arts and what they really are all about I'd highly recommend searching YouTube for " Fight Quest". It is an excellent series on the Discovery Channel in America that is hosted by strong MMA professional fighter Jimmy Smith.

The episode on the art that has won my heart and soul, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu features Rickson Gracie the best BJJ fighter in the world today.

They travel to Israel to fight "no rules" Krav Maga with the Israeli army.

And there are many more episodes about Kung Fu, Kali, Karate, etc. A really excellent series and introduction to these different fighting systems.

Additionally, National Geographic produced a killer documentary series on the science behind the martial arts called Fight Science that if you can get your hands on is absolutely fascinating.

quote:

Originally posted by VillianGlib-sinBored:
Yes, we will win.

For anyone interested in learning more about the many varieties of martial arts and what they really are all about I'd highly recommend searching YouTube for " Fight Quest". It is an excellent series on the Discovery Channel in America that is hosted by strong MMA professional fighter Jimmy Smith.

The episode on the art that has won my heart and soul, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu features Rickson Gracie the best BJJ fighter in the world today.

They travel to Israel to fight "no rules" Krav Maga with the Israeli army.

And there are many more episodes about Kung Fu, Kali, Karate, etc. A really excellent series and introduction to these different fighting systems.

Additionally, National Geographic produced a killer documentary series on the science behind the martial arts called Fight Science that if you can get your hands on is absolutely fascinating.

I'll second this. Both great shows. I think they've got another one, or maybe it's the same, with some special forces guys undergoing hyperthermia, slapping of taser leads, that kind of fun stuff. That might be Fight Science tho.

quote:

Originally posted by Buell:
five skinheads surround you outside of the roadhouse: what do you do?

How'd that happen? I mean the surrounding you part?

Did you see them coming? Could you go back inside the bar? Why did they surround *you* (instead of some other dude)? How rapidly did that happen? Was there any verbal interaction?

Of course you can't take all these things in to account in all cases, hell, maybe you were drinking\drunk yourself, that'll fuck with awareness, martial arts skills, clear thinking.

And...they didn't kill you (thank goodness) but...did you fight back? Would that have helped or just pissed them off more?

It's always a case of "It depends". Always.