proficient styles in a street/bar fight

Posted by: Ravaan

proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 03:24 PM

I hope this isn't taking the wrong way, i know there are rules against asking things like "i get beat up at high school, what can I learn to beat them up". I havent been in high school for a LONG time lol.

this is not one of those post. I just wanted the opinions on this forum on a question.

what do you think are the most useful or proficient styles in a street/bar fight ... where there are no rules and no boundries.
Posted by: butterfly

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 03:40 PM

To not be in the bar in the first place.
Posted by: cxt

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 03:47 PM

Ravaan

The one you know and can apply best.

Actually not really kidding---some hypothetical "best" style does you little good if your no good WITH IT--or if your get caught off guard.

Besides, if your really in a "no rules and no bounderies" kinda of thing---then I would hope that you can get to your opponent before they can get to their firearm, knife or something they can use as a weapon.
Posted by: hedkikr

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 04:21 PM

This question keeps coming up in various forms but the answer is always the same, "it's the fighter, not the style".

You need to choose a style that suits you best thus allowing you to utilize the full range of techniques inherent in that system.

It's like finding your perfect occupation. It doesn't matter that being an entertainment agent sounds glamerous if you're not good w/ people & negotiation. But maybe you'd be a super auditor.
Posted by: Joss

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 04:26 PM

I'd say the best are those listed as individual topics on the main menu of this forum.

http://www.fightingarts.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/Cat/0/C/2

The list starts with Sword Arts and is followed by Judo/Ju Jitsu and finishes with Filipino/SE Asian Arts. If you pick from these you should be in good shape.
Posted by: MattJ

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 05:01 PM

Ravaan -

It is less about the style and more about how the school in question trains. Look for a school that offers a lot of resistant drills and sparring in all ranges. This will be the fastest way to gain proficiency with fighting fundamentals.

Pointless for us to recommend a style that is not available in your area, anyway. Check around for yourself.
Posted by: everyone

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 05:44 PM

If your training for a bar fight, consider a style that doesn’t use a lot of complicated technique. Chances are you will have a few brews in you and your coordination will be affected. Also, bars are generally crowded, so pick a style that is close range. Don’t worry too much about offense because the bouncer will be there within two swings anyway. For a bar fight, I would recommend boxing, krav, or a southern style of kung fu. Ground fighting would also be ok because help will be on its way soon. I would stay away from long-range styles or styles that emphasize high kicks, such as TKD or timing and coordination like Aikido.

A street fight is different. Chances are the bad guys will outnumber you, have weapons, and there will be no-one coming to your rescue. How to prepare? Pick a style to train in and good luck.
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 06:02 PM

There are many roads to the moutain top, no matter what the road you take, if your heart is true you one day will arrive.

Translation, syle matters little when compared to intent.
Posted by: budobrubbie

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 06:18 PM

Quote:

what do you think are the most useful or proficient styles in a street/bar fight ... where there are no rules and no boundries.




Before the fisticuffs commence, offer to buy a round for your assailant and his friends.
Posted by: JohnL

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 06:38 PM

Quote:

Ground fighting would also be ok because help will be on its way soon.




Congratulations on one of the most stupid suggestions I've heard in a long time.
Posted by: everyone

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/30/07 11:43 PM

I am not a big fan of going to the ground unless forced or it's a controlled environment. I consider a bar fight to be a relatively controlled environment. Fights are broken up within seconds of starting and most brawlers aren't skilled and tend to be intoxicated. Going for a ground fight wouldn't be my first choice but it would be ok in this situation if that's your thing. That said, please explain why going to the ground is such a stupid idea. Let's keep this a discussion board, not a blind insult board.
Posted by: jujitsueJoe

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 01:20 AM

if there are multiple attackers which there probbly will be in bars.(a persons friends) If you go to the ground your bassicly going to get kicked and hit from the people who are standing.
Posted by: Cord

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 06:46 AM

Quote:


what do you think are the most useful or proficient styles in a street/bar fight ... where there are no rules and no boundries.




Stick a bottle in someones face seems to sort things out quickly. also, ensure you drink with a lrge group of friends you know will back you up. Being tight with the bar owner/doorstaff doesnt hurt. Oh yeah, and be nice. Drink, laugh and be merry. dont act like a d1ck and stick to well run establishments and the chances of encountering violence are relatively slim.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 07:02 AM

Personally speaking, I think its not just "style" that you're looking for but rather, SKILLSETS that you want to have in place.

Thus the skillets that I would want to have are based on the following:

*Having a tight defensive structure based on a western boxing-like delivery system.

*Having the ability to throw solid, "straight" punching attacks out of that structure (good jab and cross combinations).

*Having ability in extreme close range based on a muay Thai clinch and perhaps even more importantly, a Greco-Roman delivery system. Controlling someone from close range (to keep them from attacking you) while hitting them / throwing them on their head, is good for you, bad for them. Out of this clinch ability, you can control your opponent, strike (knees strikes, punching, elbows, head butting, foot stomps) as well as throw him or drop him to the ground while preventing HIM from doing those things to you.

*Lastly, having ability in grappling on the ground is critical as well. You get beat by what you don’t know. Thus if you have no ground game (based on a Brazilian jiu-jitsu-like delivery system), that is where you will take your beating. Same is true with any OTHER skill-set however.

So three things really; having a tight, economical standing game. Having a solid clinch game and having a solid ground game are ALL important. In that regard, it doesn’t matter as much “where” you obtain those skill-sets (what “styles” you study).

Keeping that in mind, some styles in my opinion develop those skill-sets better than some others. This is however totally dependent on how any particular group or school trains.

From what I’ve found, boxing, muay Thai and savate tend to address the stand-up aspect better than many other styles. Greco-Roman is practically superior to any other close-range/clinch style than anything I’ve ever experienced. Muay Thai is good for this as well. Adding the two is your best bet. Thus, Greco-Roman with elbows and knees, lol. Watch someone like Randy Couture for a clinic in this type of game.

As for the ground, Brazilian jiu-jitsu covers this quite well. Train both gi and no gi. There are other styles as well. Catch-as-catch-can, some judo schools work ground fighting more, some sombo schools do so.

In short, if you could find a good MMA school that has its bearings, you would be able to train all of those important skill-sets under the same roof.

Just my opinions.



-John
Posted by: Ironfoot

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 08:40 AM

Quote:

Quote:

Ground fighting would also be ok because help will be on its way soon.




Congratulations on one of the most stupid suggestions I've heard in a long time.





Agreed. Who would they come to help? You or your opponent?
Back in '71 I just missed a bar fight in Taiwan. A local martial artist kicked the crap out of some Americans, but got cocky and stood up on the bar to kick heads easier. The GIs regrouped and fired a salvo of beer bottles at him, knocking him down where they jumped on him. So I'll go with common sense. THAT's what I'd recommend!
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 11:53 AM

Quote:

In short, if you could find a good MMA school that has its bearings, you would be able to train all of those important skill-sets under the same roof.

Just my opinions.





John,

Those are great suggestions, if you want to make sure the opponent has every opportunity to fight back.

Every art you named has a sports fighting core, and what you want in a bar or any street encounter is a SD fighting core.

I know there is plenty of cross over in both styles of training, but lets be honest MMA schools train to fight UFC style battles, period. They assume SD will take care of itself. And I'll admit to a degree it does how could it not.

But if SD is your goal in training, MMA should not be your first choice. I think that should be obvious.

OK while the smoke flows from your ears, I'll be at the Lake for the holiday, check back in Monday or Tuesday.

Cheers!
Posted by: butterfly

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 12:07 PM

Kimo,

But why is that obvious? I may not agree with John all the time, but how would anyone exactly handle themselves differently in technique outside of intent?

I mean your goals for taking down or stopping an opponent might vary from a sport centric focus, but it still doesn't change the dynamics of what you use. Where is the difference from a right cross done for self defense or in a sporting environment (if the sporting environment allows for full contact)?

Technique and applications of technique don't change...reasons for their use do.
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 12:30 PM

Quote:

Where is the difference from a right cross done for self defense or in a sporting environment (if the sporting environment allows for full contact)?





There are tons of differences, sport arts like John's train for a single opponent prepared and ready standing across the ring from you. Rarely the case in a SD scenario.

Also numerous techniques are stripped out due to the rules in place for fighters safety in combat sports.

You think an MMA guy is suddenly going to remember he can spear the throat stomp the ankle and fish hook the head and drive the guy into the bar rail?

No he is going to try and jab and cross, which might work fine, but is hardly the full arsenol he would have at his disposal.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 12:43 PM

Kimo -


You're welcome to your opinions. However, you're operating off a faulty premise and your argument is nothing but a straw man.



-John
Posted by: MattJ

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 12:47 PM

Quote:

You think an MMA guy is suddenly going to remember he can spear the throat stomp the ankle and fish hook the head and drive the guy into the bar rail?

No he is going to try and jab and cross, which might work fine, but is hardly the full arsenol he would have at his disposal.




Pretty brazen assumption, Kimo. Why would you think that they wouldn't? And what does it matter if a jab/cross isn't the "full arsenol", if it worked? I see no correlation between number of techniques and effectiveness.

Re: the "numerous techniques" thing, please check the first 5 or so UFC's. There were hardly any foul techniques, and the comparitively limited repetoire of BJJ did very well.
Posted by: butterfly

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 12:52 PM

Kimo,

I guess this is where we'll have to agree to disagree.

First, I am not sure how you train sparring in your system, but generally I betcha one-on-one is the norm for most places, most of the time. Where I train, we occasionally spar multiple attackers. I have actually been injured in one of those training sessions badly enough to have to seek emergency medical attention. But, in all these cases, you are still limiting the "complete arsenal" or attenuating them so that you are not intentionally harming another person with full force techniques, despite knowing what these techniques "might" be able to do. No one that I know practices full force spear hands to the throat against his or her training partners.

Further, who is to really know how any particular person trains unless you are there to participate. Are you so sure that some of the MMAists are not being exposed to the down and dirty stuff that other styles profess to show as SD techniques?

Finally, given the randomness and variable laden quality of any "real" altercation, perhaps simplifying things to realiable delivery systems that function in harsher sporting environments might be a pragmatic way to proceed. But hey, I am just a karate guy.

-B
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 01:13 PM

Quote:

Why would you think that they wouldn't?




We fight like we train? I thought that was something we all agreed on?

Quote:

And what does it matter if a jab/cross isn't the "full arsenol", if it worked? I see no correlation between number of techniques and effectiveness.





As I said, those techniques are effective sure, but they are also base techniques that almost every male on the planet has at least some understanding, so why chose that as your first line defense?

You mention BJJ, but WHY is it so effective? Because most people have no idea how to defend it and they are lost. BJJ would be great for SD except for the fact that being tied up with one guy leave you wide open for a pounding by everyone else.

The reason MA works, is not because you are a faster puncher or better kicker (although that doesn't hurt) it's because you know something and can execute a techinque that your opponent is not prepared for and doesn't know how to handle.

It's better to be old and treacherous then young and fast.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 01:24 PM

Kimo -

I will repeat myself. You're operating off a faulty premise and your argument is a straw man.



-John
Posted by: MattJ

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 01:43 PM

Quote:

You mention BJJ, but WHY is it so effective? Because most people have no idea how to defend it and they are lost.




Quote:

The reason MA works, is not because you are a faster puncher or better kicker (although that doesn't hurt) it's because you know something and can execute a techinque that your opponent is not prepared for and doesn't know how to handle.




I'm not sure I get your point. You seem to be implying that the "only" reason that BJJ would be effective is that no one else knows it. But then you say that ALL martial arts training relies on the same thing. So wouldn't karate, kung-fu, etc, all only be effective because the other guy doesn't know as much as you?
Posted by: matxtx

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 01:44 PM

Someone once said, ''If I can beat you within the rules,just think what I could do to you if there were not any''.
For me that briefly sums it up.

Learning to fight against a skilled ,multi-dimensional fighter that can do virtualy anything back to you is surely the best way to train? (besides going out and having life or death fights in bars every night.Mmm who is up for that?).Makes perfect sense.And thats what MMA/NHB is.
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 01:57 PM

Quote:

Are you so sure that some of the MMAists are not being exposed to the down and dirty stuff that other styles profess to show as SD techniques?





Well I can only speak to the MMA guys I have met, a lot of them in fact are not TMA's at all except maybe some BJJ. But I can tell you that if you meet a guy who is training seriously in SD technique outside of the MMA rule set, he is the exception not the rule.

To go even further, many of them see TMA as a waste of time.

Of course that is not 100% true but I will go out on a limb and say it's true more often then not.

Quote:

perhaps simplifying things to realiable delivery systems that function in harsher sporting environments might be a pragmatic way to proceed. But hey, I am just a karate guy.





What is pragmatic is what you can reproduce without thinking or analyzing so that is simply a matter of what you are doing in training, and creating the muscle memory to do it before you think about it.

So to add on the MMA guy, even if he is being exposed to techniques, rarely are they training them enough to reach the point where they are simple and pragmatic.

Bottom line to my POV is the question was what is the best training for a bar fight, John posted about arts that focus on sport combat, I posted that MA's that focus on SD are a better fit to the scenario of a bar fight.

Not to say the arts John mentioned are not effective arts, of course they are, but the point of those swords is the ring, not the bar.

It's like saying if you want to be a great football player go train in wrestling, sure it helps the conditioning the contact, the leverage, but it's not on point.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 01:57 PM

Great points by MattJ & matxtx.

matxtx, you are spot-on.



-John
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 01:59 PM

Quote:

I will repeat myself. You're operating off a faulty premise and your argument is a straw man.





Yea Yea I heard you the first time.

I am a big fan of the straw man, maybe it's all the right wing radio I have been choking on for the past 15 years.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:02 PM

Quote:


Bottom line to my POV is the question was what is the best training for a bar fight, John posted about arts that focus on sport combat




That's a straw man argument.


Quote:


Not to say the arts John mentioned are not effective arts, of course they are, but the point of those swords is the ring, not the bar.





That's ANOTHER straw man argument. So far, nothing but faulty premises and straw man arguments.


-John
Posted by: MattJ

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:07 PM

Quote:

It's like saying if you want to be a great football player go train in wrestling, sure it helps the conditioning the contact, the leverage, but it's not on point.




As Brad noted, if you have a reliable delivery system, then ANY technique is easy to add in. And legally speaking, would you neccesarily want to open the confrontation by maiming or killing the guy, when something less damaging may do the job?
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:09 PM

Quote:

You seem to be implying that the "only" reason that BJJ would be effective is that no one else knows it




I said why it is SO effective, look at the UFC today, BJJ is not the monster it once was because all/most of the players know it and are ready to combat it.

In all arts surprise is a base element. How do you slow a fast man down? You make him think, you confuse him.

Thats exactly how Gracie beat all those guys in the first UFC's.
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:13 PM

Quote:

then ANY technique is easy to add in




Not if you have to think about it.
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:23 PM

Quote:

Someone once said, ''If I can beat you within the rules,just think what I could do to you if there were not any''.
For me that briefly sums it up.

Learning to fight against a skilled ,multi-dimensional fighter that can do virtualy anything back to you is surely the best way to train? (besides going out and having life or death fights in bars every night.Mmm who is up for that?).Makes perfect sense.And thats what MMA/NHB is.




No that is not what MMA/NHB is, MMA/NHB is 2 warriors in a cage, prepared warmed up and readt to fight just each other. The only time SD takes that form is ego fights in the parking lot, and that to me is not self defense.

There is so much left out of the equation it could be it's own thread.

Here is the point, I am not going to fight some MMA guy on his terms, if I have to fight him I am going to fight him on my terms. I don't want to know how to fight like him, I want to know how to beat him.

If you want to defeat a tank, you don't fight it head on, you exploit it's weaknesses, thats Martial Arts.

What are you going to do when you are an old man? You can't fight a 20 something Kid head on, he'd kill you!

Yet in his 80's Funakoshi beat up a mugger....do you think he did with MMA combat skill? Or did he use old age and treachery?

Now don't take this to mean I think MMA guys can't fight, of course they can, just take it to mean there is a lot more to MA then jabs and crosses.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:25 PM

Great point again Matt. I've said this for years. If you have a great delivery system, it's easy to add "foul tactics". NOT the other way around however.

I mean, if you can't fight, you can't fight. You either develop function or you don't.


-John
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:28 PM

John,

You call the arguments strawman, and that might because you don't train that way personally fair enough.

But you have said in the past that SD is a byproduct of how you train, I am saying training for SD is an art seperate and different then training for sport.

No strawman there, just a difference in approach.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:31 PM

Quote:


I said why it is SO effective, look at the UFC today, BJJ is not the monster it once was because all/most of the players know it and are ready to combat it.





Duh! Now imagine that you are without that skillset for a moment. How easy are you then? Put another way, without that skillset, imagine the tremendous hole in your defenses that you WILL have.

There is a REASON why everyone trains BJJ Kimo. THINK about it.

Quote:

[
In all arts surprise is a base element. How do you slow a fast man down? You make him think, you confuse him.

Thats exactly how Gracie beat all those guys in the first UFC's.





So what?



-John
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:36 PM

Kimo-

A common question (and a stupid one) is; "do you train for sport or street?"

My answer to this is, "I train for PERFORMANCE".

Do you understand what this means?



-John
Posted by: MattJ

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:36 PM

Quote:

Not if you have to think about it.




Fair enough, but what would cause me to 'think about it'? If someone attempted to use a "foul" on me, I would "think about it" pretty much immediately, huh?

Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 02:38 PM

Matt -

His point there is yet ANOTHER straw man. He insinuates that "every" person who trains MMA for sport would "have to think about it." BS to that.


-John
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 03:00 PM

Quote:

Duh! Now imagine that you are without that skillset for a moment. How easy are you then? Put another way, without that skillset, imagine the tremendous hole in your defenses that you WILL have.





Who ever said not to train in BJJ? Why would I say don't worry about those holes in your defenses because you SD training will negate that?

Who is making the strawman argument now?
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 03:01 PM

Quote:

He insinuates that "every" person who trains MMA for sport would "have to think about it." BS to that.






Do I? Even when I expressly stated this was NOT 100% of people?
Posted by: Kimo2007

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 03:09 PM

Quote:

My answer to this is, "I train for PERFORMANCE.

Do you understand what this means?





You train without focus?.....jk.

Ok as much fun as all this has been I have a bunch of college girls on a Lake waiting for me to gawk at like a dirty old man.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 03:28 PM

Quote:


Who ever said not to train in BJJ?





I said, "imagine" not training it. I personally don't know WHERE you stand on that issue.


Quote:


Why would I say don't worry about those holes in your defenses because you SD training will negate that?





I'm not following your point here. Could you clarify?


Quote:


Who is making the strawman argument now?





YOU are the only one here doing that.


-John
Posted by: Joss

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 04:41 PM

Seeing something you don't understand makes you think about it. Thinking means not reacting reflexively. It means being slower because you have to think rather than just flow. If you flow and I think, I probably lose.

It doesn't have to mean a sporting "foul". That might work though. If a person is thoroughly trained in a sporting style and receives a non-sporting ding, there's going to be a part of his brain that is occupied by that. That's good for me and bad for him.

Just a Kimo said, it can be something like showing up at a NHB event with BJJ in your bag, when no one has seen it before. It's bringing the first machinegun to the battlefield when the other side is still using Napoleanic formations. It's showing up at a dogfight with a synchronized through-prop machine gun when the other guy is shooting a pistol from the cockpit. It's the first tank on the battle field. It's the first use of horses, the first A-bomb. You get the picture.

But in a generation, everyone adapts to it and the race is on for the next "breakthrough" tactic or weapon.

Whatever is new will cause havoc among the unprepared. That might be BJJ in relation to a tunnel visioned TMA striker. It might be ANY MA at all to an untrained person.

"There is a REASON why everyone trains BJJ Kimo. THINK about it."

The reason is that the environments of many competitions favor it. People train for the environment of the event. If you take the comfort of going to the ground out of the event then BJJ's attractiveness might change dramatically.

Suppose new rules left only standing events and a new gimmick was introduced to penalize going to the ground. Maybe the ref just breaks it up and they have to get back up. This actually replicates self defense in an uncertain location much more than a big mat.

WOW. I think I just invented Muay Thai.
Posted by: MattJ

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 05:08 PM

LOL @ Joss.

I see your point, but I don't think that I agree. There is actually little difference between most 'foul' techniques and 'sport' techniques. An eyepoke and a punch to the nose are fundamentally similar movements. Someone versed in receiving punches to the nose will understand the mechanics of an eyepoke immediately. They may not *think* of it as a primary offensive move, but should one be attempted on them - and remember that they are used to defending against the same motion - they will be able to respond pretty easily.
Posted by: matxtx

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 05:35 PM

I disagree.
When two people who train in MMA/NHB get into the cage to fight,thats just how they choose to apply their training.
Many train MMA/NHB and dont fight in competitions.

If there were steps to test martial arts,a real life death fight would be at the top..

The next step below real life is something like PRIDE or UFC.No one says its a real fight,its the next best thing.Its the next best representation.

Self defence is fighting back.If attacked people fight back.They are now in a fight to survive.So self defence is fighting.The ego fight just differs in the way it starts.The actual physical activity of fighting back is the same.

What treachery?I dont get it.If a skilled MMA fighter can fight in stand up,clinch and ground situations you have nothing else to surprise them with.Except weapons though thats going off into other areas,lol.

An 80 could beat a younger guy,though unlikely, with the right tactics and skillset trained through dealing with multi-dimensional fighters.Its not just about certain techniques.
Though its unlikely any 80 year old trained in anything would beat a younger man.Unless the 20 something was a 'no one' and not skilled.
Posted by: Joss

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 06:06 PM

"There is actually little difference between most 'foul' techniques and 'sport' techniques. An eyepoke and a punch to the nose are fundamentally similar movements."

Matt,

Kimo's point is simply that we will fight like we train. If our training is constricted by sport rules, our fighting will be too. What comes out under stress is only what we practice the most. What we DON'T practice is simply not "there".

Mechanically, a punch to the nose and an eye strike are similar. Mentally, I see a big difference in using them. If I spend all of my time in an environment where the eye-attack is forbidden, eventually I get to the point that I will not even see the eyes as targets. They will have been so negated by my stringent avoidance in training, that they may as well not exist. Same with all rule-forbidden techniques.

Look at it another way. If we can just "cut loose" from all rule restraints like turning off a restriction switch, wouldn't it means that no one needs to train for that? That implies the "real" SD techniques are just stored away in all of us somewhere.

How many of you grapplers found that your grappling techniques were just stored away? Did you not need to have training in them because they just came out when you needed them... sort of like x-ray vision does for Superman?

I've not found that to be true (in my limited experience) with grappling. Nor with striking techniques. Nor have I found it to be true about specific SD techniques. I have, instead, found that learning all of these take me time and practice and none of it was just.... "natural".

If you see the logic of needing to train for your own specific art, can you not see the possibility that you may also need to train for extending it past the rule restrictions you practice under?

How about if I came back and said that, even though I don't practice BJJ, I know I could just "turn it loose" if I really needed it?
Posted by: Cord

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 06:49 PM

oh boy, personaly I think this whole thread was contrived to cause further flogging of a dead horse that i thought was buried a long time ago, hence my initial response, but seeing as how the pointless can of worms is being kicked around properly, I may as well chime in.

What JK is talking about is not 'MMA is all you need for SD', what he is talking about is real world techniques that can be trained in a real world fashion, and can be applied in a cage or in a car park. Anyone like to argue that being able to control stand up, clinch and ground is in no way necessary or integral to staying in one piece if attacked?
An art, or range of arts that make one comfortable in any range, or at least not leave you clueless in any range, is essential.
Outside of the physical nuts and bolts of a confrontation lie all the 'SD specific' skills- these are not gouging, and throat chops and eye popping, these are learning to read body language, understanding the triggers for de-escalation, being able to spot potential trouble and avoid it. That sort of stuff. Frankly there are plenty of behavioural psycholgists and anthropologists who could tell you more about this stuff than your average SD instructor. There are a hell of a lot of guys out there who have read a Geoff Thompson book and think they are teaching from authority with no personal experience whatsoever. Like any TMA, RSBD is only as good as the instructor.

Back to the nuts and bolts. Now, if you are cuaght by suprise by an unprovoked attack- a suckerpunch or similar, then your first most vital instinctive response should be to guard effectively and sustain minimal further damage. Boxing will teach you that (not to mention how to take a punch). OK, you have covered up and the guy is on you like smell on a fart. Now, this is a punch up, in a bar- its not Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris in a colliseum. Do you really want to kill this guy? are you going to seriously try and take out his windpipe, blind him for life, or break his kneck? Or do you think that knocking him sparko might be a more sensible plan legally, moraly and realisticaly?
oh, ok, all bets are off and you want to kill him. Fair enough. how are you going to get into range, control him, and set him up for the deadly kill? How about a few punches?, clinch maybe?, I know, how about a sweep to the ground. Sounds like you need your 'cage skillz' after all.

If you really want to kill someone in a bar, then bottle them in the face then stamp on their head- its Brit-fu and requires no training whatsoever. If you want to keep yourself in one piece when attacked, then forget the pointy finger of doom and the kirk-karate chop, cover up and then smack em hard in the face, or tie them up and wait for the bouncers to eject you both, then run away.

The multiple attacker situation is becoming more common, but, certainly in Britain, one on one drunken violence is as much a part of our weekend culture as it ever was, the only other person that seems universaly present is the screeching girlfriend

In my time, the best doorstaff I ever worked with came from Judo and boxing backgrounds. Their training didnt have to be 'reality based' because they integrated their skillsets in the reality they lived.

Give me a choice between teh dedly throwt strike and a left hook, and i will use the left hook on two grounds of thought- 1. I know that my left hook will work, and 2. If you throw the throat strike wrong, you are fu*ked, but then, if you throw it right, you have killed the guy, and your still fu*ked.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 07:36 PM

Quote:


What JK is talking about is not 'MMA is all you need for SD', what he is talking about is real world techniques that can be trained in a real world fashion, and can be applied in a cage or in a car park.





Thanks Cord. It's amazing how easily you see the truth in what I'm saying. You also no doubt realize that it's just plain common sense - which as we're all aware now, is not all that common.

But you're dead on Cord. I am in no way talking about competition strategies here. I'm talking about skill-sets folks, as I mentioned in my first post. How anyone can argue with those points is beyond me.


Quote:


Anyone like to argue that being able to control stand up, clinch and ground is in no way necessary or integral to staying in one piece if attacked?





Oh hell yes they do! People love to refute good sense, logic and rationale all the time. You KNOW it!


Quote:


An art, or range of arts that make one comfortable in any range, or at least not leave you clueless in any range, is essential.





Absolutely essential! Not only that, a realistic way of training them is essential as well. For me that means, no choreographed training. Amazing how people take issue with that!

Excellent points in your post overall Cord.



-John
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 07:40 PM

Quote:


Kimo's point is simply that we will fight like we train. If our training is constricted by sport rules, our fighting will be too.





Joss, what people often miss by making this point is that there are ALWAYS rules in training. I don't care WHERE you go....people always follow rules of one form or another.

But please explain how breaking someone's arm is somehow, "within the rules", "fair play" or "sportive"? How is knocking someone unconscious, kneeing them in the face, elbowing them in the face, choking them unconscious, breaking an arm, breaking a shoulder, slamming someone on their head, pounding them into smithereens on the ground, breaking a leg/knee or foot, "sportive"?

Just curious to see how you read these things?


-John
Posted by: shoveldog

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 09:15 PM

Jkogas is right about the many straw man arguments at issue here, but the one that really jumps out at me is the claim, many posts ago, that all the arts John initially mentioned have a "sports fighting core." Really? In the case of BJJ/Gracie jiu-jitsu, anybody who knows anything at all about the history of that art knows that it is first and foremost based on self defense. Yeah, we release an armbar in training or competition when the other guy taps, but that doesn't mean it's a sport technique. In a bar fight, you just break the arm. We don't complete the techniques in training or competition, but they're not sport fighting techniques. As John says, there's nothing much sportive about a broken arm. On the other hand, a broken arm will often pretty much bring an end a bar fight.
Posted by: Joss

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 09:22 PM

Cord, I can't find anything you said that I disagree with. That includes:

"Outside of the physical nuts and bolts of a confrontation lie all the 'SD specific' skills- these are not gouging, and throat chops and eye popping, these are learning to read body language, understanding the triggers for de-escalation, being able to spot potential trouble and avoid it. That sort of stuff."

This is stuff that's badly lacking many MA regimens.

John,

I understand that there are restrictions (aka rules) on all training situations. All training is a compromise. It generally either leaves you free to attack non-injuring parts of the body vigorously (competition).... or specifically vulnerable parts of the body in very restricted ways.... or there's some combination of the two.

In the grand sceme of things I suggest the combination approach. Too much of either single approach leaves too much not done.

But your last paragraph puzzles me:

".... please explain how breaking someone's arm is somehow, "within the rules", "fair play" or "sportive"? How is knocking someone unconscious, kneeing them in the face, elbowing them in the face, choking them unconscious, breaking an arm, breaking a shoulder, slamming someone on their head, pounding them into smithereens on the ground, breaking a leg/knee or foot, "sportive"?"

That pretty well describes my two years in motorcycle racing: head, hand collar bone, shoulder, head#2, foot, elbow. I wasn't much good at it... but I was a good sport.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 08/31/07 10:47 PM

Joss, using that logic, street fighting could be considered a sport as well. Just a sport without rules if you see my point?

The whole point about rules is odd to me anyway. When we're training, no one has ONCE jumped up and complained that something we did was "illegal". Funny, that!

Shoveldog, that was an great post. You mentioned how it was brought up that all the arts that I practiced were "sport" arts. It's funny how I never think of them as sport arts when I'm training... I about fell over laughing when I read that. Amazing how these notions get conjured up isn't it?

What is weird is how the folks that spew that kind of faulty logic never realize that those arts can be competed as sports only because the arts are functional and not choreographed in a way where the energy in training is "compliant".

Weird indeed.


-John
Posted by: MattJ

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 09/01/07 10:00 AM

Quote by Joss -

Quote:

Look at it another way. If we can just "cut loose" from all rule restraints like turning off a restriction switch, wouldn't it means that no one needs to train for that? That implies the "real" SD techniques are just stored away in all of us somewhere.




No sir, that is not what I meant. I am saying that because "limited rules" sparring incorporates many moves that are mechanically similar to "no rules" techniques, the adjustment period would be practically instantaneous. Ie; the defense against an eyepoke and a jab to the nose is the same thing. Works the other way, too - if I can jab reliably at your nose, I can now eyepoke as well, if I feel the need. The ferocity of the situation will dictate my response.

Quote:

I've not found that to be true (in my limited experience) with grappling. Nor with striking techniques. Nor have I found it to be true about specific SD techniques. I have, instead, found that learning all of these take me time and practice and none of it was just.... "natural".




Not disagreeing with you there. And hell, me coming from a striking background, I can tell you with authority that groundfighting training violates several stand-up paradigms, and takes some adjustment to get used to.

But once you understand the delivery system (method), the individual technique becomes very easy to inter-change.

Quote:

If you see the logic of needing to train for your own specific art, can you not see the possibility that you may also need to train for extending it past the rule restrictions you practice under?




I do see that, and think that is very good advice.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: proficient styles in a street/bar fight - 09/01/07 10:19 AM

By the way, much ado has been made over my comment about straight punching (jab/cross). Couple of things:

* I'm not limiting anyone to just that. That is where you START. A straight punching attack is fundamental folks.

* The reason I start with that is because it's the safest punching combination that doesn't open your body. Once you start bringing the elbow away from the body, you risk being controlled in the clinch and/or taken down.

* What is the shortest distance between two points? A straight line.

* As was mentioned, once the elbows move away from the body, you're vulnerable. Always. Straight line shots however, are the safest. They are quicker out and back.

* Want to stay upright on your feet so you won't receive a beatdown on the ground??? Straight punching attacks will help in protecting your core. But folks, don't take MY word for that. Try it yourself. Spar with a wrestler who has a great double leg. Try to punch him and see how long you can remain on your feet. With your arms away from your center in a punching attack (or an eye jabbing attack, lol), you'll be minus 3 of the 4 lines of defense to takedowns.

Thus my suggestions were aimed at those without wrestling experience who want to know how to protect themselves in a bar fight. My whole idea was to explain what I thought was needed in terms of the various skill-sets that would provide such protection.

Through experience on this and other forums, it becomes fairly clear that a lot of people exist who underestimate the combative potential of wrestling. That's probably because they've not really experienced it at a high level. They don't understand that they can be off their feet and on their backs in the BLINK of an eye. All I try and do is expand people's awareness of this. So many folks honestly don't often understand how simple it is to take a person down.

If they aren't training in a grappling art, it's like taking candy from a baby. Really folks, it's that easy.



-John