This has been discussed before and one of the important points that I recall from another thread that I do not see in this thread is this:
You have to be able to take a punch. No matter what disipline you know, if you have a glass jaw, it isn’t worth all that much.
I know that some martial arts will teach you defense and that often times it isn’t that hard to avoid a punch from an untrained fighter…but none the less, There’s aren’t a lot of martial arts that practice full contact (muay thai may be an excpetion, I’m sure there are others I am not thinking of)). This is where boxers have the edge.
As others have said, I think a mixed approach is best. The best “real” fighters, in my opinion:
• know some striking techniques
• know some grappling
• can take a punch
• know some incapacitating holds/joint manipulations.
I’d reccomend Shaolin Kung fu. It’s good for basics and is adaptable to both striking and trhowing. After 5 years in it I’ve left and begun developing my own style. To be effective in a fight situation you need develop a style that is tailored to your body, strength, and aggression level. For example: I have weak knees from injury and can’t run far or kick well. This meant that I tossed all the kicks except for the two most basic and easy to execute ones and have concentrated on fast strikes and breaks; close up fighting. In this manner I can capitalize on my considerable upper-body strength and hopefully break several of the attacker’s bones before he/she/they manage to get me off my feet.
If you are the other way around and happen to be light on your feet, go for Wing-Chun or another art that depends on speed and develop from there.
Xavier, your buddy might find Thompson’s book Three-Second Fighter interesting to read. Thompson’s experience is from working the door at some (evidently) rough-and-tumble clubs in England where he learned that getting into fights isn’t a good idea. What he advocates is learning to tell the signs of when conflict is iminent (sp?), distract, throw a single sucker-punch, and then run like hell.
IIRC, even Thompson says that if a fight lasts longer than that, it is most likely going to go to the ground, so one wants to be familiar w/ that area.
It’s my understanding that he is also a big believer in judo. The idea being that you fight like you train, and judoka train for full-force interaction. He’s not the only one who advocates this view–evidently many police departments changed their handgun training methods when it was discovered that officers were getting shot in gunfights because they were stopping to collect their spend cartrige casings. Additionally, some arts teach eye-gouging, etc., but since they never practice that sort of thing full-bore, they might end up like those dead cops. They have the most dangerous weapons available, but can never train to do what they actually need to do. (Plus fine motor skills aren’t a strong point under stress.)
As far as technique goes, judo is like wrestling. Unlike wrestling, in judo one can win with standing throws, which means that one does not need to be tied up on the ground with an opponent. Additionally, throws on concrete can cause serious injury, especially against an untrained opponent. One must bridge the gap. In that regard, the argument is that a determined person can force a clinch, and that’s when the grappling game begins. One thing your friend will want to remember is to not turn on his stomach when he gets in trouble. In judo that’s a standard defensive technique, but it will be trouble when the mugger starts pounding him in the back of the head. (That is where bjj excels, it prepares you for the worst case scenario: fighting from your back w/ someone on top of you.)
As far as I know, judo favors no particular body type, except that all else equal, the stronger & more fit the better. That’s probably true for everything, though. There is a wide variety of throws suited for different people, and a good instructor will help you find what works. A short person might specialize in a two-arm shoulder throw that allows him to get “underneith” a taller opponent, whereas a tall person might specialize in a sweeping hip throw that allows him to make full use of body contact in creating leverage.
I don’t see why your friend is making a bad decision. Although, perhaps awareness & avoidance training would be helpful as well.
No, this is incorrect. Judo was developed (by Jigoro Kano, in 1882) as a martial way, or “do”, incorporating the techniques of jujitsu, which is a “jutsu” or “art” form, but concentrating on sport, physical and mental development, and self-defence, rather than battlefield application, as in the case of jujitsu.
As far as removing the practical applications, there was a major tournament held under the auspices of the Tokyo Police Department in 1886 between judo and jujitsu, because the Tokyo police wanted to choose a method of training in self-defense and close combat for their operatives. Of the fifteen matches held, judo won thirteen. Cite.
More recently, Brazilian ju-jitsu, which is technically almost identical to a style of judo known as “kosen”, cleaned up in a series of bare-knuckle, full-contact martial arts tournaments known as the Ultimate Fighting Championships, with one of its best known exponents, Royce Gracie, winning four of the first five tournaments held. Sport judo champions such as Yoshida and Nagoya have switched, and competed successfully, in the full-contact world of mixed martial arts.
As far as personal experience, judo worked just fine for me the only two times I have ever been called upon to use in on the street. It also was quite effective in some semi-friendly matches I was involved in against other martial arts styles.
This is also incorrect. A large percentage of judo training consists of practicing techniques against a resisting opponent. We call it “randori”, or free sparring.
The self-defense aspects of judo are formalized in the goshin-jitsu and kime-no-kata of judo forms training. Many instructors (in my experience) regularly include self-defense applications in judo training.
No one is invincible, but judo offers a flexible and complete system of training for hand-to-hand combat, including all aspects of fighting - strikes, kicking, throws, joint-locking, and ground work.
We don’t do the Delayed Death Touch or practice flying kicks, or beat up on wooden boards. But our stuff works.
Whilst this is more or less accurate, it is a pretty huge misrepresentation of the methods of one of the UK’s leading self defence experts. What Thompson advocates is to attempt to avoid the situation through verbal and physical methods (shouting, body language, ‘fencing’ with your hands to make sure they don’t get to close). If it becomes clear that they’ve made up their mind to hit you, hit them first and hit them hard. Mr. Thompson worked 10 years on the doors of some of the UK’s roughest clubs, had and won over 300 fights by ‘hitting hard, and hitting first’. A very large part of the training is to understand the things which happen to your body, and your attackers body, when in a violent confrontation.
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If the first punch doesn’t work, the chances of the fight becoming a grapple are very high. Mr. Thompson does advocate Judo as a very good grappling art for this reason; also Sombo and Greco Roman Wrestling from what I can recall - I’m sure there are others. As I said before though, the ‘awareness and avoidance’ training should be the priority for anybody serious about learning self-defence, and not just an interesting aside, which is how what you are saying is coming across.
I am a big believer in the usefulness of the grappling and groundfighting arts, if nothing else the experience of grappling with someone else takes you pretty close psychologically to a real situation and its certainly one of the best exercises for fitness! Taught properly it will stand anyone in good stead, should they be in the unfortunate position of having to fight at this range with someone. A good self defence pratitioner should of course have knowledge of one of the grappling/groundfighting arts.
I think if your friend is making a bad decision here it is simply that he is studying martial arts with the sole aim of learning self defence. Any martial art is tremendously useful in terms of confidence, fitness, focus etc etc, which impact on your day to day life. The fact that you learn some useful self defence techniques along the way is of course extremely significant, but hopfully not something you will be applying in your life on a day to day basis.
As an interesting aside, T’ai Chi is considered to be amongst the more deadly martial arts; it just takes a lot longer to be effective in it.
Lots of people say hit first. I’ve never heard anybody else mention that you have to distract the assailant or else you stand much better odds of being up shit’s creek. Even the Gracies have their own version of the fence (hand & body positioning that is fight effective, but unassuming or even passive, for pre-fight avoidance). It’s the misdirect that is news to me.
I wrestled in high school. I saw fights between wrestlers and “boxers”, etc. These were always “no contests”. One of my teammates was Japanese-American and trained in Judo early on. He fought like a wrestler. If you know how to grapple, you have an edge. Getting them on the ground is good. And so on.
BTW: Once you have them down, you don’t “pin” them. You use an “illegal hold” that you are taught not to use in a match. Once you’ve dislocated a guy’s arms, you can walk away at your leisure.
Fighting standing up with punches and kicks is a complete waste.
But: The Real Ugly Part has also to be handled. Does the other guy fight dirty, esp., will he gouge your eyes out? That changes things a lot. You then have to fight from the point of view of causing more damage then he will cause, but you will get hurt big time. If you are not going to accept getting such damage, hand over the wallet.
No, there isn’t a good reason. But when they trained at the range they would collect spent casings at the time of shooting instead of waiting until the exercises were all over to do it. Under stress, evidently, people start doing the movements they do in training. cite
Geoff Thompson, mentioned above, wrote about a pan-European karate tournament that, for some reason, dissovled into a riot. Nobody was seriously hurt even though these karate experts were fighting for real. His reasoning is that they train to pull their punches and that’s what they do when they fight. He also has anecdotal evidence of experts coming to him wondering why they couldn’t perform in a real fight–they pulled their punches automatically even though that was exactly the opposite of what they wanted to do.
Krav maga is, IMO, an explosive discipline – the aim is to do everything faster than reflex speed. It has no rules beyond “Get out alive, unharmed, and quickly.” It is brutal and dirty. It includes unarmed defenses against armed attackers.
It is a darn good workout. I strongly recommend that you be in decent shape before trying krav maga.
I’ve done quite a few martial arts, from sporty to combat. after much searching, I have found systema. Systema is a russian combat art, adapts to each individuals body type and mental makeup. anyways not many of these school in the us that I know of. here’s the link to my group in any interested in California and Arizona http://www.russiancombat.com
I have trained in many martial arts including Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, and most recently full contact mixed martial arts. I have military hand to hand training, have faught as an amatuer kick boxer, and received specialty training as a body guard which included police take downs and immobilization techniques. I am almost 30 years old, have been in innumerable real life fights for the past 25 years, have been arrested 3 times for assault (no convictions), and generally consider myself to be the most competent hand to hand fighter I know.
I agree with the three second rule, I have seen it applied in real life over and over again. What you want to do if you find yourself in a fight or flight situation is strike first, fast, and repeatedly, then get the hell out of there. All the bulls…t throws, joint locks, blocks etc mean absolutely nothing…NOTHING. Your best chance for success is to stun your opponent by hitting a pressure point (dont need to know all hte fancy stuff, the nose is a great target, or an ear, or an eye), if you connect your target will be momentarily stunned, the will see “stars”, this is the critical time, you need to keep hitting that point. They will pass out. I have been socked plenty, but the person who tagged me then stops, dont ever stop, landing a good punch means you won the fight, if you keep them coming, you pause half a second to see what yyour blow did, they regain control. We are talking about split seconds. I have used arm locks and choke holds to end fights, but I unfailingly open up by repeatedly punching targets on my opponents face, or kicking them in the testes.
I will tell you you are better off running for it than grappling, if you go down to the ground you will get f**ked up. (unless you have numerical superiority and your friends will keep others off you)
The best thing you can do is carry pepper spray. I have seen the toughest looking hombres drop to the ground and curl up in the fetal position. As a gang banging teenager we used the spray to fight and mug people, I have won a 2 on 7 fight with EASE (not a scratch on either using pepper spray. You spray them in the face, they cant see, they cant breath, you can either start pounding them or you can walk away.
I agree with Myzryl, in the strike first technique. A good headbutt to the nose followed up by a swift kick to the groin has worked well for me.
Being a firefighter and paramedic for Dallas, I’ve had the oppertunity to treat individuals that were pepper sprayed by the police. A man using pepper spray, in a fight, has an unfair advantage over his opponent.
However, when it comes to muggings, especially in the Dallas area, you should probably just hand your wallet over. All the muggers here carry nine millimeters.
That reminds me of a funny story. As a beginning student, my judo class was preparing to put on a demonstration, and we were practicing self defense techniques. One was how to disarm someone holding a gun. Of course, the gun user has to put it right up to you, which is a very dumb way to use a gun, but there you go.
We’re standing around with the wooden gun prop, and I point it at one of the experienced students (from about 5 feet away) and say “what technique would you use now?” He gets in position, slooooowly reaches to his back pocket, slooooowly removes his wallet and holds it out to me.
Seems the majority of informed opinions to the OP agree; grappling is very useful, but not a first resort - hit them first, hard, and repeatedly.
To ftg:
“Fighting standing up with punches and kicks is a complete waste.”
Is simply not true. Spend a little time researching the subject - there are many doormen who post on the message boards at the site I previously mentioned with a wealth of real life experience - and you’ll see that standing up with punches (maybe not kicks) is how most successful fighters fight in a violent confrontation.
I know almost nothing about any other art, but I’ve got over 30 years of Judo experience under my belt (pun intended). I’ve competed nationally and internationally, trained with (and had my ass kicked by) Olympic medalists, and now teach Judo as part of a city recreation program (but not as the head instructor). But with all that experience, I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN A STREET FIGHT. Could I use my skills on the street if I had to? I’m pretty sure I could. More importantly, though, it seems to me that my training helps me AVOID physical confrontations. My wife tells me that for a stumpy guy (I’m barely 5’7"), I can look pretty menacing when I want to. I also think that my training gives me a enough confidence that I can remain clear-headed to think my way out of confrontations.
Does this answer the OP? Not really…but then, yes, it does. In a real world fight situation, I’ve managed to avoid the fight. That’s more effective than any other technique I know.
Off on a bit of a tangent (more along the bar fight line than the mugging line), a few years ago there was some martial arts seminar/convention in the area. One of the highly regarded senseis was quoted as saying “Number one self-defense technique is shut your mouth.”
I’d argue with this a little bit. For one, if you can run, you’re better off running period. I consider my running the most important part of my martial arts training.
Knowing how to grapple is a good idea because it may not be your choice as to whether you grapple or not. The argument as to whether it’s better to strike or grapple is kinda like whether it’s better to move your knight or bishop in chess: it completely depends on the circumstances. If your opponent is a better striker or you’re a particularly good groundfighter, you may want to take him to the ground. If you’re outnumbered or are trying to get away, you need to know how to stay off the ground, which may include avoiding takedowns, staying out of bad positions, breaking holds, and getting back up asap.
That said, welcome to the boards, Myzryl!
The only way this could be funnier is if somebody put “Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting” on the sound system.
Wasn’t it Tank Abbot who once said “Martial Arts is a total joke”?
Anyways speaking as a former amateur boxer I never lost a street fight. Sure I didn’t have many (about 6) but I’ve never even came close to losing. Sure if you’re a good wrestler you can take me down and probably pin me and rape me and do what you want to do with me but you better believe you’re going to have to earn it. With a good standup fighter you better expect a broken nose or a busted ear drum before taking them down. But I never got in that position. What was my secret? Striking first, fast (very fast) and often. A three punch combo in the cafetaria in front of the school sure earned some respect. My patented move was to look left and right quickly right before you hit the person.
This would make him think and for a split second wonder what you were doing which would catch him completely off guard. 6 of 6 wasn’t bad. Though a 12-8 record wan’t that good in the ring. But from what I learned, I would bet my car that if Oscar De La Hoya got into a no weapon street fight with Ken Shamrock, he would win.
