Timidity has to rise to more than just avoiding the opponent’s strikes and takedowns, and is more on the level of refusing to fight altogether. A good fighter wanting to tire an overly aggressive opponent can stick and move, keep him back with push kicks, sprawl and do takedown defense, and a lot of other stuff short of just running around in circles. That’s a good strategy with Abbott – he comes out like a hurricane, tires out quickly, and then is vulnerable to submissions.
JKD instructor Paul Vunak’s first rule of unarmed combat is “get armed.”
UFC 15 had “The Smashing Machine” Mark Kerr (in his prime) against a US Army Ranger named Greg Stott, who was evidently a badass in Ranger school and unarmed combat contests.
The fight lasted 17 seconds - Stott charged in with his head down, Kerr threw an upward knee strike and Stott dropped like a sack of bricks. Thud. At the time Kerr was a monster to look at, bodybuilder and wrestler (and later he got tripped up abusing drugs). There’s a documentary about him which I’ve seen some of.
I don’t think that the military can spend too much time training unarmed combat - sure you have to do a bunch and you have to be able to defeat people in melee combat, but they must focus primarily on shooting your enemy - fists and knives are a last resort.
Tim Silvia got nailed using steroids. He’s back and I think that he’s clean now (read an interview with him a few months ago where he talks about what happened, he claims it was just to get a ripped “six pack” stomach but judge for yourself).
The Mark Kerr documentary shows him using drugs but I don’t recall what exactly. When you look at his earlier fights it’s difficult to believe he looked that way totally naturally.
Now that MMA is being governed by state athletic commissions (at least in the US - Nevada and California for example) I think that there will be closer oversight of steroid abuse.
Royce Gracie said that the reason he wore a gi in the UFC was that it encouraged people to grab him, and once they did that “it’s my game”. To someone who’s trained in it, a gi is a powerful offensive weapon.
FWIW, Cung Le put on a pretty impressive display of offensive kicks in his MMA debut last Friday at Strikeforce down in San Jose. He nailed his opponent with a series of kicks, including several high kicks to the head, then finished him with a spinning back kick to the chest and a quick punch. I’m not convinced as to the quality of the fellow he beat though, I’d like to see Cung Le fling those kicks against somebody with a proven track record.
Otto, I feel like I’m missing some joke by actually responding to this. Maybe I read more of the ‘fitness’ and ‘muscle’ …ahem “literature”. Here is a link to a story that actually made some headlines.
I’ve mentioned this before in other threads, but I have spent time training body builders, powerlifters and some folks who have championed the Muay Thai movement, and some who have moved onto UFC-type events.
The percentage of those caught is fairly low, as testing is not all inclusive; competitors time their 'roid cycles, and masking techniques are cat and mouse games with the docs…along with new designer roids that don’t pop up in all tests.
No, I wasn’t making a joke. I am a relatively new fan of any of the ultimate fighting and I know virtually nothing about its history. I do know that it’s sanctioned by a number of state athletic commissions, as Valgard noted, and my impression was that those sanctioning bodies are fairly stringent about drug testing, but again my knowledge base is pretty close to zero. I also didn’t know about your training background, and your post read to me kind of like you were throwing out the drug thing as a one-liner.
Shortened term for keikogi, which is Japanese for “practice clothes” more or less. Usually it means the (usually) white pyjama looking things karate practitioners wear, although in other arts like aikido and kendo the keikogis may be indigo dyed.
Gi is short for Keikogi which is a Japanese word for “uniform for training”. There are different gis for different martial arts. Royce Gracie, as a jiu jitsu fighter, would prefer to wear his gi since it is something that he is comfortable wearing in a fight.
Generically it’s the practice uniform that is worn for many styles of martial arts, however the judogi (used in judo and jiujitsu) is constructed differently than the gi used in styles that don’t focus on grappling and throwing as much (such as karate or goshinjitsu).
The judogi is built to stand up to constant grabbing, yanking, twisting, being used to throw a person and the considerable wear and tear of rolling around on the ground with other participants. The cloth is much heavier and stronger than in other uniforms and the collar of the jacket (which if you imagine a regular jacket runs up both sides where the zipper is and all the way around the collar) is very heavy - almost a belt.
A lot of techniques in judo and jiujitsu use the gi as a weapon - it’s much harder for an opponent to slip out of a rear naked choke, for example, when the chokers arms have fabric on them instead of bare (and sweaty) skin. Another example is what is called the “Ezekiel” choke in Brazilian jiujitsu which you grip your own sleeves to apply - here’s some pictures:
GSP hit world champ Matt Hughes with a solid spinning kick when they fought. It’s not impossible, even against the best in the world, you just have to be damn good.
I distinctly remember a K1 fight that featured a high kick. All that happened was that the fighters began moving towards each other, and one of the fighters simply kicked him in the head and knocked him out. The whole fight lasted about 3 seconds, quite hilarious if you ask me.
Well, as long as we’re fighting like Cro-Magnons, we may as well fight like grammatically correct Cro-Magnons.
'Course, most school fights consisted of a couple of guys swinging wildly at each other from four feet apart while the chorus of grunts watching bellowed “In-the-balls! In-the-balls!”. Happy days… :rolleyes:
Martial artist, bouncer and self-defense expert Geoff Thompson has written that high kicks and complicated kicks are generally useless, except for world class kickers. He described a friend of his who defied conventional wisdom by being able to high kick effectively in street fights, in restricted spaces, etc. But he was never able to do it himself, and he emphasised that it wasn’t just a matter of training - some exceptional people just have enough of a natural speed and flexibility advantage to make high kicks work for them.
