martial artists defeating muggers

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
81

Everyone in the UFC (or any serious MMA org) trains a mix of striking and grappling these days. At those early UFC’s when it was single-style vs. single-style, the BJJ guy (Royce Gracie) did win. (Royce of course had been training BJJ since childhood, so he’s not a great example of your point about overlooking experience.) Of course it helps that the strikers probably didn’t know what the heck a gi choke was, whereas Royce had surely seen a punch before.

Anyway, since that time there have been plenty of successful MMA fighters who were primarily strikers (Chuck Liddell, Mirko “Crocop” Filipovic, Maurice Smith, etc.), but they had to learn enough takedown defense to keep the fight standing where they could put their striking to good use. In general, the best fighter is the one who knows how to defend against his opponent’s techniques, which is why everyone in MMA trains a little of everything.

It’s true that Tae Kwon Do is far from the striking art of choice in modern MMA (most prefer Muay Thai, or a full-contact karate style like Kyokushin, as well as western boxing), but I think that has more to do with the fact that TKD practitioners don’t usually spend nearly as much time training full contact sparring, and have more restrictive rules compared to Muay Thai (no leg kicks, no knees or elbows, no clinch fighting, and for some organizations no punches to the head), which makes their training less relevant to MMA. (That said, there are quite a few MMA fighters who trained TKD in their youth before taking up a more full-contact oriented style.)

My point isn’t “TKD is as good for MMA as BJJ”, but rather “The smart fighter uses a hybrid of different styles, including striking and grappling arts.” Saying “Martial Art X is the best” makes no sense anymore, because the best guy in that style will still lose when he goes up against a modern fighter who trains a little of everything.

82

From what you wrote, we probably agree about martial arts. I’m not arguing that BJJ is the best style (I know it isn’t); rather I’m arguing against the people who think the style doesn’t matter. My point is that some styles produce more effective fighters than other styles, and in general the styles that train “live” (i.e., full-strength against resisting opponents, the so-called sport styles) are the styles that produce more effective fighters.

Basically, people get confused when they start talking about martial arts. No one would ever say that size and strength don’t matter if they were talking about football. You’d never hear anyone claim that the smaller, weaker nose guard is the better nose guard. Hell, they wouldn’t even say it about two boxers*. And no one would ever claim that style didn’t matter in the high-jump. But the second the topic turns to martial arts people’s sense and reason go out the window.

To be honest, when I read martial arts threads I feel like an atheist dropped into a room full of snake handlers. The inevitable ignorance makes my head hurt, and I blame Black-Belt theatre for it. You’d hope that televised MMA would shut up the stupids, but guess what, it hasn’t happened.

  • Boxing is a martial art, but the sort of people who say that size and strength don’t matter in a fight are also the sort of people who don’t realize that boxing is a martial art.
83

Wow, I’m glad I don’t train at wherever you train.

Although, I’m pretty sure if a school was throwing sand in faces, cutting open cheeks with keys, and gouging out eyes, I would have heard of it by now…

Oh wait, or is it JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE where the instructor says “And now here is where you gouge out the eyes…” and such?

Let us not be elitist. There’s no point.

84

I don’t see what’s elitist about it. Most kickboxers know the difference between the sport they are training for and an actual combat style.

I never trained with those nasty techniques, but I have had instructors who encourage you to think that way.

As my Kung Fu teacher said, “What four weapons does every room have?”, the answer being, “Walls”. The point is for combat you have to think of anything as a weapon that you can find, a powerful roundhouse is all well and good, but a martial art is teaching you how to hurt a person badly, not how to score in the ring.

I don’t see it as elitist at all. There’s just a difference between training to sport fight and training for real world combat.

85

The problem here is you are completely ignoring the fact that you are talking about fighting styles where it favors the bigger person. A person’s weight CAN be used against to them to put them at a disadvantage. Wasn’t it in this thread in particular where a video was posted of a Kenpo vs Sumo match and the Kenpo dude got the sumo guy flat on his stomach and pounded him into submission? There was a serious weight discrepancy there and the smaller guy won.

It doesn’t need to be relearned because you are making a point that’s trivial. Yes, all things being equal size is an advantage, but all things are not equal. Speed is also an advantage, and smaller people tend to be faster than large ones.

As for training in Judo, anyone who trains in Judo is probably also training in Jiu-Jitsu. Judo is a sport, Jiu-Jitsu is a combat style.

Boxing is definitely a straight up sport and not a combat style at all, considering most fights involve grappling it’s pretty easy to see the limitations of boxing. I wouldn’t want to get into a fight with a trained boxer, but the reality is his style is very limited. I’d put my money on a wrestler over a boxer any day.

Calling something a sport style isn’t derogatory, it’s just precise.

mangeorge A Jiu-Jitsu match is called ‘Judo’.

86

So what you are saying is that in a sports setting the sport styles win?

Fancy that.

87

I had a cheeseburger and ceasar salad in Jack Dempsey’s in NYC in 1965, I think it was. Both were excellent. Both were expensive. IIRC there was a cover charge, redeemable for drinks.
He gave me some shit about the tip, so I had to knock him out.

88

Evil Economist I want to be absolutely clear here. Me calling something a ‘sport’ style doesn’t mean I disrespect it. I have mad respect for a good Judo practitioner. I have mad respect for a good Boxer, I have mad respect for a good Kickboxer. And I agree 100% that training full speed helps you in a fight.

All that being said, I think that the Judo fighter who has also trained in Jiu Jitsu has an advantage over the Judo fighter who has just trained in Judo.

89

There’s a difference between being big and being grossly overweight (Really! The sumo fighter was grossly overweight even for a sumo, weighed 800 lbs at one point in his life, never competed in Japanese sumo, and was basically a circus freak brought in to lose. At 800 lbs the real miracle was that he could stand at all). The fighter who beat him lost to the BJJ practitioner in the very next fight, and the competition between the sumo wrestler and the kempo guy was a sporting competition! Basically, this fight proves nothing that you think it proves.

Speed may be an advantage, but strength and size is a bigger advantage, which is why every combat sport has weight classes. Skill can overcome some size and strength disadvantages, but between even closely matched competitors, size and strength will win out.

Ask youself why wrestlers cut weight. Why nose guards are so big, why there are weight classes in judo, why there are weight classes in boxing. Doesn’t reality impede even a little on your claims?

Judo is a sport that beat jiujitsu in combat, despite jiujitsu calling itself a combat style:

Calling something a sport isn’t derogatory because sports produce better fighters than combat martial arts. Combat martial arts practitioners are delusional role players who would be hurt if they ever tried to use their “skills” for real against anyone with a sport fighting background. This has been shown again and again and again, and people who refuse to recognize this must walk around with their eyes closed and their ears covered.

90

Not just a sports setting.

91

Judo IS Jiu-Jitsu, so I don’t really see your point.

Also, the idea of different weights and the idea of sports styles are two different concepts. I am not arguing a grand unified thesis of some kind, and I feel like you are addressing my posts as though I am. I’m not.

Yes of course size is an advantage. I never argued otherwise, it’s just not the overwhelming advantage many people think it is.

92

Judo was a departure from jiujitsu because Kano realized that it was better to know non-lethal techniques that could be practiced (realisticaly practiced at full speed and strength against resisting opponents) than to know lethal techniques that couldn’t be practiced. The bits that are in jiujitsu that aren’t in Judo were deliberately removed from judo because they didn’t make better fighters.

And if you really care about lethality, the number one cause from death in street fights is striking your head on the ground. I bet a judo player would have a better chance at throwing his opponent on his head than a jiujitsu practitioner.

If the jiujitsu method of learning (and the kung fu method of learning, and the… method of learning) is really the best method, then I expect we’ll see football teams practice tackling at half speed while the tacklee slow-motion pretends to be tackled. And the football teams will all be composed of 72-year-old chinese men, who are all 5 ft tall and 100 lbs, but have bucketloads of chi.

93

Judo is NOT jiujitsu. It’s different from jiujitsu in specific ways for a specific reason.

Size and strength are huge advantages, as everyone who’s competed in combat sports knows. Go train a combat sport (BJJ, Judo, Boxing, wrestling, any of them) and you will learn first-hand how important size and strength are. The only way not to know this is to never have competed in combat sport in your life, which I bet a lot of kung fu practitioners have in common.

94

My personal experience;
I had some training in boxing as a youngster and in high school. My handful of fights were schoolyard, and later “take it outside” fights. They all began with the other guy trying to windmill his way close enough to grab me and, as others have mentioned, take me to the ground. I wasn’t going for it. A step inside and a couple good hard jabs to the nose area and he’d put his hands where he hurt, then he was mine. Always. Except for one kid in my sophmore year.
I did finally, about 40 years ago, learn how not to fight. That was much better.

95

The following quote may be interesting to you:

96

As mentioned above, there are two types of martial arts. To keep it simple, let’s call them competitive/conditioning vs. combative. A combative art, such as Krav Maga, hard karate, etc. will greatly increase your odds of successful self defense. Cardio kickboxing and exhibition kung fu will not.

Unfortunately, there’s another issue that directly goes to the ability to be useful in self protection: What kind of studio you train in. If you go to a storefront “dojo” that trains only in forms and light contact sparring, you’ll learn to pull your punches and kicks by reflex. I understand these black belt mills don’t want to take on any additional liability by having a student potentially get hurt in the studio, but they’re significantly raising the odds they will be hurt if they have to ever actually use what they’ve learned. It all goes back to the OP’s statement on muscle memory. If you train to hit with light or no contact force, that’s what your body will get used to.

I’ve trained extensively in American Freestyle karate and to a lesser extent in Krav Maga. Both of these forms, when taught correctly, use appropriate safety gear but have students working full contact from very early on, if not the first day.

I’ve personally survived and come out ahead in several mugging attempts and other real world encounters over the years. I hold that is a direct result of real world martial arts training. Had I gone to a rival school in the next town over when I started, I might have ended up with better form, but I would have lost when I needed my skills the most.

That’s not to say I ever came out unscathed. I’ve broken fingers, had ribs broken and gotten lots of bruises. That’s what happens in the real world. It’s a cost/benefit/ROI equation. If you fight, you WILL be hurt, it’s just a lot more likely that the guy who picked you as a target will be hurt WORSE if you know what you’re doing.

Anyone looking for martial arts training should make certain to ask lots of questions when looking into a studio. High on the list should be, “Do your students train and spar full contact, and, if so, at what point in the training does full contact begin?” If the answers are no or at some point after three months of instruction, keep shopping.

97

Yes, I agree with you on both these points. How you train matters, especially whether you’re training full contact. And certainly size and strength make a difference. That was actually one thing that bothered me about the way the question in the column was asked: “has a skinny black belt ever beaten up a beefy weightlifter?” As if it didn’t even occur to the questioner that some of the martial artist’s training might include actually building some muscles.

98

Well you’re arguing a straw man. In a sport style size matters a whole lot. Because obviously weight matters in a combat sport, but less in a street fight where quick and dirty tactics are available. So it should be obvious to everyone that in a sport where dirty fighting is not allowed the advantage to the big guy is there.

As you pointed out in Kano’s Jujitsu they practiced the deadlier moves in Katas, so they DID practice them. So your argument isn’t so much Judo is better than Jujitstu, as much as it is that practicing full speed Jujitsu is better than practicing half speed Jujitsu.

99

Some of the soft forms like Judo and Aikido might work and probably Taiji after years of training. But that’s the point: it would have to be years of training to deflect attacks and use the off-balance strength against the attacker. Shaolin Kungfu is technically soft but I’ve seen videos of those blokes punching walls and hanging themselves to develop the neck muscles. We should consider too that the typical Oriental has a much more ‘feminine’ build than the typical Occidental, and a lot of MA concerns lining the skeleton up to provide rigidity instead of relying on musculature.

100

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I keep getting the idea that some of you deny that a big muscular person could, just as well as a little person, fight dirty. Believe me, that’s wrong. A stronger fighter can, with the same training, fight dirty harder than the little guy. Punch harder, kick harder, gouge harder, knee harder, choke harder, body slam harder, whatever harder. A big strong guy using the same, uh, weapons can hurt you more than a littler not so strong guy. The little guy’s only real chance is to hope he knows something the big guy doesn’t. We are talking about fighting, right?
I surely must be misuderstanding what you guys are saying.
Ley me add, if that mugger is bigger and stronger that you, and knows his stuff, he’s gonna kick your ass.