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IOMDave:
Check your e-mail, please.
Rico
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That may be the case however I thought that the majority of sexual assaults aren’t the stereotypical serial rapist who jumps out of nowhere and beats the hell out of the victim, it’s much more likely to be “acquaintance rape” where the guy just starts escalating physical behavior and won’t stop?
Similarly with many of the random physical assaults - it’s not a gang jumping somebody from an alley, it’s basically a bully who starts pushing somebody around and things tend to escalate from there.
(This is recollection of what I’ve been told by various LE folks, other MA instructors and so on)
So in those cases you aren’t quite in the situation of having a big tough SOB come at you by surprise, all guns blazing and trying to cripple you. Like a playground bully they are looking for an easy victim, and somebody who fights back hard will often make them think twice. Knowing how to fight even a little bit doesn’t mean you are safe against all attackers, and it sure doesn’t mean you can fight off anyone who outweighs you by 50%, but you may make them think “Not an easy mark, this is going to be too much work”, or poking them in the eye may give you enough time to run like hell.
Wrestling around with female friends, where I have a substantial size and strength advantage, I’ve had them suddenly get a little serious and throw an elbow or something and thought “Ouch! That really hurt!” It made me step back and if I was some random fool in a bar who started to get too frisky I might have realized this wasn’t going to be fun.
One of my first randori sessions in judo years ago pitted me, at about 5’ 10" 200lbs, against a very small Japanese woman, about 100lbs soaking wet. She pinned me down and kept me there for 4-5 minutes and I was simply unable to muscle my way out (knowing very little about technique, but that’s kind of the point). After a few minutes of trying I was totally winded. Sure in a real fight I might have tried grabbing her hair or going for her eyes (I was in no position to punch or kick effectively) but she could have easily responded by biting the hell out of my hand or other dirty tricks.
So I agree that you can’t foolproof yourself but everyone can up the odds in their favor, certainly for what the majority of assaults entail. Maybe it won’t help so much when some huge brawler decides he is going to kill you at all costs, but that’s not most fights.
Valgard makes an excellent and oft overlooked point: both sides can play dirty. Dirty tricks are easy, and so available on both sides. What isn’t available easily is the ability that comes with extensive training in a decent system.
See, folks? This is why Batman studies multiple disciplines.
It’s easier to suckerpunch or blindside somebody who knows you and trusts you to some extent. You are the only one who said anything about jumping out of alleys. Surprise attack takes many forms. None of the rapists with whom I had contact were in the habit of telephoning in advance that they were going to come over and rape somebody. YMMV.
Sorry, you said “They like to attack from ambush” which brings to mind the stereotypical stranger hiding in an alley or whatever who leaps out all of a sudden. What I was told is that the majority of rapes involve someone that the victim knows (and thus probably feels more comfortable around), take place in a familiar setting (their dorm room as opposed to a deserted street at night) and for lack of a better term don’t go from zero to getting beaten to hell in one second. The victim is undoubtedly surprised but (again, this is my recollection) it’s not generally because some monster hits them with a haymaker out of nowhere - their “buddy” starts getting more physical, then refuses to take no for an answer and things begin to get much worse quickly.
Knowing how to fight isn’t going to be a huge help if someone much stronger than you cold-cocks you from ambush, but it might help when a guy goes from a kiss goodnight to trying to shove a girl into his room and onto the floor, that was more my point. Likewise my limited knowledge of judo and BJJ won’t do me a lot of good if someone busts a chair over my head from behind, but if someone gets belligerent with me outside of a bar, won’t back off and then grabs me, I think that my odds are better than if I knew nothing about grappling.
Meh, I disagree, sorta. Sure that shit like in the video linked above(the $5000 challenge) is bullshit, but a lot of it is simply a mystical explanation for a process that simply wasn’t understood by the people developing it. Here’s an example of what I mean. Suppose I learn that striking an opponent in one specific place can disable him or do some other nasty thing. Clothahump might say that it’s a perfect example of a strike to the common peroneal pressure point, a person trained using traditional nomenclature might claim that it was a strike to spleen 11 (or whatever, Im not sure what PP corresponds to the common peroneal one). Clothahump can tell me in detail why the strike is effective based upon a modern knowledge of anatomy, the other guy might explain it in terms of lines of force from various organs. Personally, it makes no difference to me, I just know that it works, and I’ll incorporate it into my arsenal. (Personally I’m going to go with the anatomical explanation, but I’m not going to poo poo the traditional one. If that’s the way someone who has mastered it wants to teach it, I’ll learn it with full respect for their beliefs. Doesn’t mean I’ll think of it that way though) Or you could take a Chi example. If someone grabs your wrist, and you want to break that hold in order to escape or to lock him in return, it is much easier to do so if you splay the fingers of your hand wide (think showing someone the number 5) than it is to do it with a closed fist. Now, is this because “live hands” change your chi flow in a way that’s beneficial to you, or does it merely rearrange the parts of the wrist (bones, tendons, muscles, etc…) into a position where they can work more effectively together? I dunno. The later, I suppose, but I also DON’T CARE. I’m going to use what works, and if someone wants to describe it in mystical terms, well, good for them. I see lots of people dismissing stuff that works simply because it’s couched in terms that aren’t “scientific”. Personally, I think that’s foolish.
I think it’s foolish and a waste of time to include exercises designed to “focus/cultivate chi” into martial arts training, which is what prompted the post you quoted.
Belief systems have no place in learning how to fight; fighting should be approached scientifically. You say dismissing the weird and wonderful explanations that some people hold is foolish - I say that it’s a crying shame that so many get suckered into this line of thinking. I’ve lost track of how many martial arts students I’ve seen that really want the real stuff, really work hard to get there, but can’t because their instructor is teaching nonsense; more often than not based on some kind of faith in some kind of Eastern Mystic Mojo. This is nothing short of criminal, as the students will not only end up out of pocket, but also possessed of a false sense of security which is potentially more dangerous than not knowing anything at all. Not all of these cases fall into the “silly beliefs” category - some are just bad martial arts full stop - but the majority are.
It’s almost painful to see what the average martial arts student is willing to accept because some guy in pyjamas and a black belt tells them so.
Start giving credit to “chi” when trying to explain why a technique works doesn’t do anyone any favours. Simple body mechanics and a knowledge of where the nerves are clustered and near the surface explains just about everything that chi does. But you already have an appreciation for this, as you discuss in your post. I agree with your point; if it works, use it.
Here’s an aside; how many martial artists in here have seen an instructor admit ignorance on a subject? It seems to be a rare happening in my experience. The look of shock on my student’s faces last night when I responded to the question “what do you do if the guy has a knife?” was priceless when my opening comment was “I really don’t know what I’m talking about BUT…”. It seems to me that instructors feel this immense pressure to be an expert on all things fighty and that does lead to them spouting total crap every now and then.
Dude, you need to relax. I have never expressed any doubt that statistically the bigger guy will beat the smaller guy. Or that a person better prepared with varying styles wouldn’t succeed against an opponent with a more focused approach. By offering my personal experience (or single data point), I was expressing my surprise that technique can bridge the gap in size and strength. Teaching women kickboxing to prevent rape is laughable, but that 110 lb. woman could break your wrist with Aikido so you’re wrong to say Aikido is ‘simply not an effective fighting method’.
There is no doubt that some of the techniques of Aikido can be quite effective, once applied. The problem seems to be that these techniques are much harder to apply, against an opponent intent on mayhem in a real fight, than they are against a partner in the dojo, where a spirit of cooperation and harmony prevails.
Not necessarily, considering I used a technique similar to aikido to keep a guy from sticking the pointy end of a knife in me. There’s not much wrong with the actual techniques of aikido, just the training methods in most dojo. For the record, I didn’t break his wrist, though it can’t have been too pleasant for him. The knife came out of his hand during the throw and basically ended the fight since I was able to pick it up and get the hell out of there after giving him some encouragement to stay on the ground.
:smack:
There’s so much wrong with this quote that I’m actually finding it difficult to muster the willpower to argue it. Maybe later…
I will, however, quote myself with regards to successfully using Aikido in the real world:
“There’s always someone who chimes in with how they used their Aikido (or other impractical “fighting style”) to defend themselves this one time. Great for you, you got very lucky indeed. You’d better hope you don’t need to again though, because the statistics say you’re unlikely to get lucky twice.”
Works a hell of a lot better than trading punches with a guy holding a weapon. That was not the only time I’ve been in a fight, and it’s not the only time someone was doing something that could have killed me if I fucked up.
The contributions of mixed martial arts competitions to the martial arts community as a whole are, in general, positive. It has shaken out a lot of bullshit that propagated. Like you said earlier, you need a solid grounding in the basics, which is something that many forget in their training.
But that kind of fighting is not the end-all and be-all. It’s a sport, and like any other sport certain concessions have been made for safety and entertainment value. That has an influence on what techniques people use. Certain target areas are off limits, small joint manipulation is off limits, your opportunities for trickery are nil. MMA doesn’t address weapons, or multiple opponents, or the use of environment, or escapes.
As someone earlier in the thread stated, it’s great if you’re one of those top 1% or 2% of athletes who have the size and power to go toe to toe with one of those guys. Regular people would get eaten alive by one of them, even by one of the weaker fighters.
I’m about 176 cm and 80 kg, in good shape but in a lower level of conditioning than most MMA fighters. If I tried to fight the way they do the round would be over in about 45 seconds and I’d be lucky if I got out of it without being crippled. Fighting my way, I’d have a halfway decent chance of at least having company on the way to the hospital. Notice I don’t say that I’d win, just that I’d give a lot better showing than I would if I fought on their turf with their rules.
From looking at what you’ve written in this thread, we are more in agreement than not, but I cannot agree that “let’s put it in the ring and test it out” is the answer to everything. Unless you’re willing allow stuff that has a good chance of killing, maiming, or breaking bones, it’s not like fighting in real life. Those are the stakes you’re facing every single time you get into an altercation outside the ring, where people live their lives.
In real life, the other guy isn’t going to be fighting by any rules, and you could die if you think that all you need to do is take a few punches, get him on the ground, mount him and beat him until he gives up. That first punch could be from a fist holding a blade, in which case, oops, you’re cut before you have a chance to take him to the ground. I have EMT friends who said they’ve seen people bleed out from knife wounds in scant minutes. It’s not just knives; any weapon affects things. Even a roll of quarters in a fist will change the game.
The locks and throws in aikido, and the things abandoned by sport judo that are often retained in jujutsu or aikijujutsu are meant for dealing with knives, sticks, swords, and can be adapted for dealing with other weapons. They’re not useless, they can be lifesaving.
The kind of people who do MMA are a specific crowd. They like fighting, they don’t mind getting hurt, but they’re not really good at the whole patience thing. It doesn’t take a lifetime to learn something akin to akido, but it does take some time, patience, and attention. You don’t see aikidoka or the practitioners of harder, more practical cousin arts in the MMA because they don’t get their rocks off on getting hurt and hurting people. So those who know it are very unlikely to ever even try using it in an MMA match, and the guys who do MMA are unlikely to put enough time and energy into learning it well enough to make it work.
The same used to be true of judo. No one wanted to learn anything related to that when wrestling and punching were doing so well. That is no one was interested until the Gracies came along and started throwing guys and choking them out. All of a sudden, that Jap/Brazilian stuff started looking pretty good. I have serious doubts that any counterparts to them will emerge to do the same for joint-locking arts though, for the reasons I outlined above.
Again, the things you’re talking about with MMA are good. Testing techniques to see if they work against an uncooperative opponent is absolutely essential. The grounding in the basics that MMA has is extremely valuable. Crosstraining is very, very helpful. Discarding mystical talk as mostly worthless is good, unless you can pick something solid out of the mess by using it to point you to a real-world tool you can use. All of those are things I’ve been blabbing about to people who show any interest since I started doing martial arts years and years ago.
But you’ve got a real blind spot in your supposedly objective “test everything” outlook if you write off wrist-locks and throws as crap. You blithely say that you don’t deal with weapons, but you have some guesses as to what works. Well, some martial arts do deal with weapons. They’ve got techniques that kept people from getting killed in the past.
That is, after all, how most of those martial arts traditions got started. Guys got in fights, they learned stuff, and when they thought they could hack it, they started a school. Sure, the present day is far removed from those times, but the core techniques are there for the taking. A clever guy who is prone to picking out the good stuff from various martial arts should be able to separate the wheat from the chaff without too much trouble. Writing it off as worthless because sport fighters don’t use it is just as self-limiting and short-sighted as the guy who talks about how his superior ki keeps his balls from squishing to goo when someone knees him in the 'nads.
These types of posts are retarded and do nothing but stifle healthy debate. These are popping up much more frequently lately than they used to. I wonder why that is?
I already agree with you completely I think with regards to the skepticism and general misunderstanding of chi, most teachings and concepts of “chi” out there are crystal-rubbing incense-sniffing snake-oil bull.
I know this pisses off traditionalists, but there is simply no such thing as “chi energy”.
However, when understood from an analogical viewpoint during training, it is a very useful catch-all conceptual term that can be used to describe things like:
–efficient breathing
–correct timing
–maximizing leverage
–strength and conditioning
When teaching a student, it can be more efficient and easier for learning if you can roll concepts into an overall “chi” training umbrella. In training, it is often easier for the instructor to tell a student to train their horse stance to “build chi”, instead of spending hours micro analyzing breath, muscle, tendons, rooting, leverage, etc when all the instructor really needs them to do is just get in the damn stance already 
Less talky, more socky! Especially when most instructors only know what they themselves were trained, but don’t also hold degrees in anatomy, physiology, or physics.
So in my post, and it was just a habitual misusage for me because I’ve used the term non-traditionally for so long, “chi development” just means “practice practice practice”.
There is also a good lesson here. The most effective rape prevention is “be prepared”.
IMO the finest martial-arts book ever written, and one which doesn’t have a single actual martial technique, is The Gift of Fear. It is a must read for anyone, male or female, as the foundation for self-defense.
First off, thank you for your well written and interesting post. You make a lot of good points and I would like to address some of them.
I think I have managed to misrepresent the basis of my opinions on what does and does not constitute effective fighting styles. I picked on MMA as something which is internationally recognised and highly visible in many of my examples, because I wanted everyone to be able to appreciate the points I was making. However, although I really do see many similarities, this is not where I get my opinions. I get my opinions from training with and studying the works of Geoff Thompson and Peter Consterdine. If you haven’t heard of them, I strongly recommend Geoff’s publications in particular. He is very highly qualified in multiple disciplines, having trained with the best in the world whenever possible. During his time as a doorman in Coventry, UK, he was involved in over 300 “real” fights in all sorts of circumstances; trained and untrained opponents, multiple opponents, weapons…etc etc etc. All of this sounds a bit over the top perhaps - but I’m just trying to give the background. Peter Consterdine is a legend in his own lifetime, at least in the UK and again an authority on the use of martial arts in the real world. Geoff and Peter run the British Combat Association who’s figurehead is Dan Inosanto.
I say all this because it is the work of these gentlemen that has lead so many practitioners to the “good stuff”. Geoff used to run something called “Animal Day” in which participants could use anything they liked to try and win a fight; the aim was to approximate real life encounters as closely as possible. Injury rates were high and the sessions eventually ceased. During the time that they ran though, a lot of data was collected in terms of what works and what doesn’t. The terminology of “percentage techniques” was introduced; a properly delivered slap to the jawline of an opponent is a “high percentage technique” because it works most of the time for most people against most people in most situations. A flying side kick is a “low percentage technique” because the converse is true. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a time, place, practitioner and opponent for which flying side kicks aren’t suited - just that you aren’t likely to find this combination very often!
So if it is possible to identify “high percentage techniques” then a martial arts education aimed at effective self defence skills should include them. And in the interests of getting good at them, should leave by the wayside te low percentage stuff. It was the findings of this group that small joint manipulation falls squarely into the low percentage camp, having tried it out for real. Not competition, for real. It is also my understanding that weapons scenarios were examined to a certain extent.
When I “blithely” said that I don’t work on weapons training - for one thing, that’s certainly not the only interpretation of what I wrote, and definitely not the most direct - let me be clear. I have never faced a weapon IRL, so I am not qualified to discuss the physiological reaction of the body to that kind of life threatening situation. I have trained with a guy called Karl Tanswell however, who has and dedicated a significant amount of work to what is rather aptly named the “STAB” programme dealing with knife self defence. The STAB programme teaches responses that have a lot more to do with wrestling than the rather optomistic approaches focussing on small joint manipulation. Karl nearly lost his life to a knife attack and dedicated a lot of time to putting together a high percentage system to help people avoid what he went through; small joint manip got ruled out as not as effective as other measures. Incidentally, the STAB programme isn’t about trading punches either.
I hope that this information clears up my references a bit. I didn’t go into all this earlier because most of these guys are relatively unknown in th USA and I don’t want to sound like a name dropper.
To address certain other issues in your post:
MMA and environment: there’s a whole strategy about using the walls of the ring/cage to your advantage and vice versa. This translates directly into the real world.
MMA and killing/maiming/breaking bones: submission holds are designed to break bones! Fighters tap out before they do. Chokes and strangles are fatal if held for long enough after the guy passes out (taps out in the ring of course). Not to mention neck cranks.
Roll of coins: will break your own fist. Sure you may hurt the other guy more, but you’ll break your own fist. Don’t believe me? Try it! I’ve got real life accounts from people who’ve had it tried on them.
“The kind of people who do MMA are a specific crowd. They like fighting, they don’t mind getting hurt, but they’re not really good at the whole patience thing. It doesn’t take a lifetime to learn something akin to akido, but it does take some time, patience, and attention. You don’t see aikidoka or the practitioners of harder, more practical cousin arts in the MMA because they don’t get their rocks off on getting hurt and hurting people. So those who know it are very unlikely to ever even try using it in an MMA match, and the guys who do MMA are unlikely to put enough time and energy into learning it well enough to make it work.”
Not only did I anticipate the “no Aikido in MMA competition” excuse a few posts back, but you really should meet some MMA guys in real life. They work very hard, putting in gratuitous time and energy into learning how to be great fighters. If Aikido were part of that, then they’d put in the same diligence to learning how to apply that. I have the utmost respect for their work ethic. Not only that, but the guys I know are nice, well adjusted people. Time, patience and attention? You don’t know who you’re talking about mate.
I’m glad that you have managed to successfully get out of some life-threatening situations in the past. As someone who has been there, you would find what Geoff Thompson has to say on the subject very interesting, and I strongly encourage you to read his work - he’s also a very good writer. As I said before, I base my opinions on the real world, not on what works in the sporting arena. I apologise for the misunderstanding.
All the best,
David
Like I said before, we’re more in agreement than not. However, while this:
is based on your personal experience, it makes some assumptions about me that aren’t warranted. It’s not an “excuse,” it’s an observation. Ken Shamrock came by the first dojo I trained with in the early 90s to see if we did anything he was interested in, and I met a couple of the guys he was working with at the time. They were, by and large, not interested in learning anything that took more than a few sessions to a couple of weeks to master. Not get decent at, master. It was a pretty valuable exchange for us since it shook us out of some complacency, but even though we demonstrated the effectiveness of some of our techniques against their approach (let me tell you, those guys were intimidating to deal with too) they wrote it off as too complicated or time consuming to learn, so the value mostly went one-way.
There’s an element of self selection in any kind of roughhouse testing like what you described. There really aren’t all that many people who learn joint locks to a decent degree of skill who would be interested in participating, and if you’re not good at it, of course it’s not going to work well. Speaking from personal experience, if you get a good lock on someone, it is nasty as hell. You can easily dislocate joints, tear connective tissue, or break bones if you’re not careful in training.
Your observation that if you approach training as a strictly time-limited endeavor you’d be better off learning those high percentage techniques is pretty much right on. I can’t argue with that very much because, well, that’s what we did in my dojo too. But frankly, punching, kicking, and basic grappling is low-lying fruit. I could probably teach a decent athlete how to have basic competence with a striking and grappling style pretty easily in a few weeks or months. After that you just work to keep sharp and in shape. The problem with taking a power approach to fighting is that there’s always somebody bigger, stronger, and meaner than you. If you approach fighting that way, you’re going to get hurt or killed when you meet him.
Looking at fighting as a study of biomechanics and psychology along with the more ballistic stuff takes longer, but has a better future payoff. That is what some of those guys who do joint locks do; figure out what positions are good for the defender and bad for the attacker, figure out where they need to move to make it harder to be attacked effectively, figure out when to use strikes and where, and when to apply locks.
On the other hand, I totally agree with you that mainstream aikido is usually taught in a very unrealistic and idealistic manner. Where we disagree is in the utility of the underlying techniques and methods. A lot of what I first learned was superficially very similar to aikido. We actually had a couple of aikidoka come to train with us every once in a while, so I got to see the difference in our training styles. Aikido doesn’t teach effective strikes, so they weren’t used to someone trying to hit while doing the lock. We were. They didn’t have good positions for making attempted strikes difficult or painful while applying a lock. We did. Aikido has few throws like judo or jujustu, so they couldn’t deal with it when we used the throws we trained with. The matters of application and approach were different, even though the goal was the same. If I hadn’t already had experience with effective joint locks, I would probably have concluded that all similar techniques were a waste of time. I think that might be where you’re coming from.
I appreciate the fact that while you have a strong opinion on the subject, you are mostly respectful and courteous. Thank you for the references. Most of the people I’ve heard of who are doing similar things to Consterdine and Thompson are in the US, so I hadn’t heard of them before. Besides which, as you can tell from my location, I’m not exactly in the position of being able to keep up very well with the practical martial arts movement in person. Reading about it, yes. Actual training, no. Frustrating. Anyway, thank you for clarifying where you are coming from a little bit more.
Oh, and I should mention that living and training in Japan has if anything lowered my opinion of traditional martial arts teaching. Japanese martial arts are taught far more effectively outside Japan than they are inside Japan, with the rare exception of a few really old traditional schools who still do things like beat on each other with wooden swords and minimal padding to teach sword work, or who still do the nasty techniques that Kano stripped out of judo when he created the curriculum of the modern sport. Just to make it clear that I’m not a Japaniphile who blindly thinks that all things Japanese are superior and worthy of devotion.
Thanks for the reply. It may well be possible that you have been exposed to effective Aikido training - that’s something I’d like to see one day! I fear though that you are in the minority; all the Aikido I’ve ever been exposed to has been wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst.
“There’s an element of self selection in any kind of roughhouse testing like what you described. There really aren’t all that many people who learn joint locks to a decent degree of skill who would be interested in participating, and if you’re not good at it, of course it’s not going to work well.”
That’s one hell of an assumption mate. While yo’re certainly correct about the “self selection” aspect, animal day was attended by men and women from a variety of backgrounds who wanted to put their training to the test, including Aikido. Incidentally, Aikido was Geoff T’s first martial art.
I strongly disagree with your assertion that “…a power approach to fighting…will get your hurt or killed…against a bigger, stronger, meaner opponent”. Just about anything will be tough to apply against a bigger, stronger, meaner opponent! You do not do the striking and grappling arts enough credit my friend. Biomechanics is integral to all martial arts, not just small joint manip. An understanding of how to throw a decent punch is proof enough of that, never mind the principles of leverage involved in the throws of Judo and Wrestling.
You talk about Aikido taking patience, time and dedication. Let me tell you, I have met some of the world’s most dedicated martial arts practitioners, people who have literally dedicated their lives to finding the best and most effective methods, people who have had a solid go at everything there is out there; not only that but they sought out the top instructors and practitioners to train with. These guys get up at 4am to train for a solid 3-4 hours before breakfast, go and make a living and then keep on training in the evening, every day of the week. If it were down to time, patience and dedication, they’d all be candidates, but they choose to spend their time on other methods. Food for thought!
Incidentally, while I’m on the subject, I’ve never met a nicer bunch of people. MMA guys come in all flavours, certainly (competition mindset will do that to you), but by and large the self defence oriented people I’ve had the pleasure to meet have been friendly, intelligent, decent human beings who simply want to be the best and pass it on, usually because of the dangers of their line of work, some kind of personal experience or, now that we’re onto the second generation of self defence instructors under this mentality, because they want to pass the good stuff on to the next bunch of people.
Quite frankly, it’s easy to get distracted from the point in all this “yeah but” debate. If you have the correct mindset to violent confrontation - whether from personal experience or through your training - that is the most important weapon in your arsenal. Only if you’ve learned to ride the adrenaline dump, to overcome your inner opponent and cope with the situation in front of you can you even think about using your training. And the best way to do that is to get yourself to a school where you have a chance to deal with these factors in a controlled environment. If your Aikido school does that for you, then that’s great.