The Shredder

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A. The Shredder has yet to fail in real fights.

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I'm sure it is a useful addition to an arsenal (although, most MAs and particularly combatives teach a certain amount of eye gouging, fish hooking etc.). But it will, and has failed. That's why cavemen and animals aren't unstoppable killing machines.

And as for him saying that you didn't need to train for it, but then telling people to buy the pack, go to seminars, get classes etc.... *cough* gimmick

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I sometimes wonder whether people realise that a lot of grapplers and clinch fighters train to prevent other people from using biting/eye gouging/hair pulling on them.

Any groundfighter worth his/her salt would never let someone's mouth get infront of their body.

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That said, this training could be useful and is probably more effective than having no training at all.

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Greetings all. I am a member of Big Rob's trainig group, and rob as usual gave as complete a post as usual regarding the shredder concept. Begging Rich's pardon, here is a paste of Rich dimitri re: the shredder concept. I think you will agree that the passion rich puts into the post says that he is more than about the $$$, rich really cares about saving lives. He comes from a self protection standpoint first and foremost and isn't knocking MMA folks:

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BJJ and grappling in general aren't necessary for self defense, if one is proficient in these things, then great and it will definitely help them but for pure self defense situations, they can actually hinder an individual who isn't well versed, not to mention it takes too much time to learn and perfect in terms of useability. Now keep in mind I am referring to general population here, not the young red blooded male or the jock athelete, those who are victimized, those who are perceived vulnerable i.e. the elderly, women children, the less than gifted male, etc. the probabilities these people have in making BJJ or grappling work in a real world altercation are slim to none.

Once again folks, take a look at every single rape survivor who fought back and successfully defended themselves in the news, papers etc. You'll never hear "she used a rear naked choke, or ground and pound or any kind of lock", you won't even hear that they used a jab cross elbow or headbutt, it's always things like "she gouged his eyes out, she bit his tongue off, she bit his privates, she just went berserk etc. etc. there's a reason for that.

When in extreme close quarter, clinch or grappling range, your best bet is the Shredder, this has been proven time and time again and frankly, we haven't seen anything that even comes close to making someone proficient in such short a time.

I just returned from a seminar I taught in Florida a few weekends go, the seminar took place at a Royce Gracie BJJ satelite school, one of the instructors there who is a black belt (I can only assume or maybe he was brown, Ryan can clarify as he was there and it was a friend of his) and is 6'2" and over 200lbs looked skeptical as I was teaching. I invited him up to attack me fulll force, as hard and as fast as he can any way he wants. Now this was in front of a few of his students as well so you know he came in hard and fast. Within seconds he was tapping out from a simulated Shred. Still not convinced he tried again, same result. He was a really cool guy though and as he got up he basically turned to his students and told them that this was the real deal and that he couldn't do anything against the Shred, he also declined on being called out to demo on again.

Case in point, every single person who attended my seminar in CT this past weekend can honestly say that they are able to use everything they learned at that seminar immediately... in contrast to that, one would have to study BJJ for a certain number of years before they could evermake it work in a real time/real speed all out violent confrontation.

And [censored] please don't anyone come on here and start bringing up people like Couture, Ortiz or any other world class athlete because I don't give a [censored] how long someone like my 60 old mother who is all of 5 feet tall and has minor arthritis will ever be able to use grappling or BJJ against a violent criminal but I can promise you that she could Shred her way out of it with no problem and relative ease.

So if you want to train in BJJ and grappling to enhance your game then by all means it can only help especially if one has the time, energy and know how on to properly integrate it into ones training but most as it seems don't know how to do that on a proficient level, especially not for general population looking to enahnce their survivability.

Practice, practice practice isn't an option for many people, it isn't an option for people like my mother, like Adrienne here, if it requires so much practice then it isn't the most efficient form of self defense now is it? As I stated, in contrast to that, there have been several women who had no previous training or post training after taking only 1 five hour seminar with me and some months while others years later were attacked, some by weapon weilding attackers no less and they successfully defended themselves using what they learned in my seminars... that's 5 hours of training only... you guys do the math Wink

Very simply stated, here is a link to an article on this forum titled "Guys, is this art good for self defense?" Read it, if the art in question does not address these issues proficiently and thuroughly then it simply is NOT self defense, period. Not to say that certain individuals couldn't make certain arts work for them but on a general level, most people simply could not. One has to know his clients needs, who the student is, what they are capable of what they are not and will never be capable of etc.

http://senshido.savi.ca/viewtopic.php?t=1119

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....Please feel free to post any questions you have on the senshido forum .AWESOME collection of smileys you guys have BTW !and happy 4th vacation!

hello dude ,

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I haven't gotten around to it simply because I've not thought it absolutely necessary since we work so much clinch work. I mean, you don't NEED the shredder if you dominate position in the clinch. I think I'd much rather spend time on fundamentals.

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It is dangerous to post alive drills in text since you don't have the visiual , but I assume you have enough grapppling experience to do a drill that will show you what the shredder lovel 1( to be used on your drunk friend making an ass of himslef at a party, then shove him into a locked closet

It's called acquire the mark drill and the mark is your partner's face.Pick the dude who shreds and the dude who is teh shreddee. The shredder's goal is to plant his hand onto his partner's face and vigoursly rub it or do a facial crush and hold it for 3 seconds. A vitla part of shredding is to have an anchor/trap so the shreddee can't break awy and backpedal, so trap his free limb, neck, ear eetc. as you shred. Shreddee's goal, to do everything in his power not to let the shredder's hand plant and energectic ly rub/ crush his face for a full 3 seconds.

Try it any skeptical dudes and post your findings as I have zero grappling esperience, but just using the a low level shredder against grapplling aquiantences, it short circuits their brains,so intimatre and invasave such a tool it is

good god I love your smillies

BTW, does anyone live in the NYC area and want to train defence against real world attacks????? That includes you too ronnie . I don't wqant to be an old man to train RBSD again . Big Rob is very busy and needs his space for somoe big changes eh Rob

le W

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and regardless of your clinching skills, the technical clinch aspect is negated by the fact that as soon as your hands are on your opponent, they are inflicting damage and pain to keep the assailant from applying anything technical because he'll be too busy disengaging as fast as he can.

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I hate to sound like such a fan boy but the fact of the matter is that I've dismantled more opponents in training and one in reality "shredding" than I have doing anything else...and regardless of your clinching skills, the technical clinch aspect is negated by the fact that as soon as your hands are on your opponent, they are inflicting damage and pain to keep the assailant from applying anything technical because he'll be too busy disengaging as fast as he can.

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Maybe it is the missing link in MA.

I like the Lee Morrison article, because it puts it in its proper perspective. It doesn't negate all of MA, it just becomes a part of the arsenal that allows for the REST of the arsenal to be more effective-- especially in a "fight" situation (which can and does happen in the world of men). It can be a "set up" for a finish, or THE finish after say kicking and punching range to gain entry/clinch and then shred. And obviously it seems just as effective on the ground.

I've been looking at the idea of combining its application and integration with Keysi techniques. Unfortunately, both Keysi and Senshido aren't in Nashville yet!

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Pardon my curiosity BUT, how are you able to “shred” when your arms are tied up, your opponent has dominant head position, and, has also established pressure along with control of the primary attack zone?

Thanks

-John

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Pardon my curiosity BUT, how are you able to “shred” when your arms are tied up, your opponent has dominant head position, and, has also established pressure along with control of the primary attack zone?

Thanks


-John

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Must admit my clinch game isn't in the same league as a wrestler but I do work very well from a very tight guard moving into a thai style clinch. We work very hard on having a very offensive style close guard presenting very little targets to strike or shred working through an onslaught.

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The thing I've noticed about a lot of RBSD guys is that the lack proper grounding and usually have a very high center of gravity which as long as your entering game is up to scratch they can usually be uprooted out of their feet and dropped to the floor or into a wall.

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I like and fully support the retraining of the flinch response but I think there are better ways of training it in the long run.

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I prefer to neutralize, break the persons structure and then finish.

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Although I can see how this has become a very popular tool, it's quick to learn and teach and requires very little skill.

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I think addresses a large part of the mindset required to successfully defend yourself, but isn't foolproof against experienced fighters. I can see flaws in the theory from a strikers point of view and I think John presented a good case from the grapplers... would be very interesting to have a play with a skilled shredder one day! So, like John I see a place for the tool, just don't see it as a substitute for other skills though.

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Kogas you grappling fiend... I can't believe we're actually agreeing! I humbly apologise to all my stand up brothers... I promise not to make it a habbit!

I think we're pretty much agreed from a non-shredder point of view that its a fantastic tactic for quickly bringing someone up to speed but seems to have holes against experienced properly trained fighters. Could an experienced shredder give some perspective?

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2. No matter what way you tie my arms up, I can still do damage using my other body parts.

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A clinch means his vitals, his body, is right next to mine.

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If you clinch me and control my arms, so what...I can still scream in your ears

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spit, maybe headbutt, bite your f--in ears/nose/cheek off,

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all depending onthe positioning and available targets.

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As for the wrestlers... When was the last time you heard of a women who was raped while in a tight clinch.

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When people are angry and ready to fight they do not resort to their refined sport skills. This is not a Sport based tool.

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All valid poinst about being in a tight clinch from a real strong wrestler, but there are a few things one must consider.

1. Most people will never, ever be attacked by an Olympic wrestler, and if they are, they won't be raped/mugged/assasinated by his use of underhooks and hip tosses. He will attack aggressively with anger and rage being his driving weapon, not his technical skill.

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2. From a physical perspective, you start to shred at the instant there is aggressive movement or attacking from your assailant. If I wait to shred until he has a tight clinch with good positioning, I completely agree that I am setting my ability to reach targets back a lot. However, hes gotta get that clinch on me.

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And as he comes in, you must train to acquire the face and throat instantly, and honestly its really easy to do that on a grappler.

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I only have to get at his face and throat for an instant because thats all it takes to gouge, rip, or tear and start the defensive disengagement in my opponent. It takes time and energy from him to clinch me effectively and while hes trying to set that up, itll be like hugging a cat while you're dunking it in water.....

Honestly, JKogas, or anybody for that matter, I can type about it all I want, but you're not gonna see "get" it unless you see the tapes at the very least, and to really get it and be able to apply it well (and really, have it applied to you so you can understand what your opponent will feel like when being shredded) you have to train with either Rich, one of his instructors, or a serious student of his.

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If anyone is ever in the DC metro area, feel free to look me up and we can meet and I'll shred when you try whatever you want. I mean that in the friendliest way, I think its a great tool and I like meeting and exchanging ideas with people.

Hope everybody enjoys their day - Nick

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I can tell you that there is a DAMN good chance that a rape will at least START from a clinch. I suppose it comes down to how you are defining the term.

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I find it pretty difficult to imagine that grappling doesn't happen during rapes or that clinch skills in that situation aren't useful. Most folks would agree that know anything about grappling. And by that I mean, real grappling applicable to fighting. If a grappler can't apply his skill in the street, he simply doesn't have any decent level of skill.

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And clinch wrestling has absolutely ZERO to do with "sport". To understand this, you have to understand the difference between a delivery system and rules-based training paradigm. I'm not sure that you do.

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… more the point I was attempting to illustrate is that we utilize the shredder from a behavioral stand point. The example of being raped is defining why you are where you are. If you are being raped you are not going to clinch with the attacker and wrestle, you are going to comply and make them feel in control then you will lash out with a massive and unbridled attack to the attackers vital targets.

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I agree with you here as well, but in the majority of situations where you will be forced to defend yourself, if you are utilizing a behavioral delivery system then an advanced knowledge of grappling or clinching is often not required, as a matter of fact an advanced knowledge of any physical technique is often not required as defined above.

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Don’t get me wrong gaining knowledge in the right context can only help to enhance your survivability however it is not required.

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That maybe so, please explain to me how they are different?

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I don’t know about that. What you’re selling me is something nearly “foolproof” and which, “works every time”. The Plan A is so good that you don’t need a plan B. Plan B would be “knowledge” in the context of what you are referring to. And I have to completely disagree with that notion altogether, for obvious reasons I believe.

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A delivery system has nothing to do with rules.

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DELIVERY SYSTEMS
Mon Jun 07, 2004

There’s much talk about delivery systems. A proper delivery system is critical and in order to develop a proper one, it is integral to train with resistance and energy. This we all know. However, there are 2 distinct delivery systems. One is physical while the other and most often neglected and misunderstood, is behavioral.

In a sporting type situation like a MMA fight and sparring, the predominant delivery system is physical. One absolutely needs a striking arsenal, a clinching arsenal as well as a grappling arsenal, no 2 ways about that. The sporting event also has 3 elements a real violent confrontation doesn’t: Awareness, consent and preparation. These 3 elements eliminate several things such as fear (for ones life that is and not a fear of losing or looking bad), emotional inertia, the fight or flight response, the triggering of adrenal stress (although a NHB fight will trigger adrenaline, the context in which the mind perceives the threat is very different) and the rage in which the attack is delivered. In a sporting event, your opponent although trying to knock you out or submit you, isn’t trying to maim, cripple or kill you; this alone creates a completely different state of mind than a complete stranger hell bent on finishing you off. The very fact that you can tap out whenever you feel you’ve had too much or that the ref can stop the fight or your corner can throw in the towel also creates a different state of mind not congruous to that of a real violent confrontation.

The real threats are the rapists, the muggers, gang bangers, the random bullies and ego jocks, the road rage incidents, the potential murderers, spousal & parental abuse etc.

There is a certain certainty that comes with sports training that doesn’t exist outside of that avenue and that is the unknown. It’s been said ad-nauseam, but weapons, multiples, environment, people accompanying you etc. ads the stress of the unknown. It changes things and dictates different strategic implementations, tactical responses, etc. The arena is different therefore the tools need to differ and so does the delivery system. What is reality? Go to your nearest 'hard reputed' club, pub or bar on a Friday or Saturday night and simply observe the behavior, the initiation, the escalation and the treacherous development of a few fights. See if any of the participants "spar", stand at 4 or 5 feet away from each other first and square off. Check it out and compare it to the training that you do.

With that in mind, a real attack on your person primarily deals with an attack on the mind which triggers a very different physiological response. Let’s examine this very hypothetical scenario for a moment: A top NHB fighter goes bad and decides to rape a woman. How will he approach her? Will he be gloved up, wearing a mouthpiece after warming up for the last 20 minutes or will he most probably be dressed in his every day clothes and approach her with dialogue as a set up? Is he in any way, shape or form expecting her to fight back, and if so, how easily does he believe he can submit her and keep her under control and have his way with her? Is his guard up or down? Is his ego up or down? Will his primary attack be a jab/cross combo followed by a clinch to take down, a mount and a ground and pound or will he most likely grab her by her hair threatening her anticipating and receiving a victim’s response of passive/submissive behavior? Does she not have the element of surprise as an advantage if she decided to fight back? And if she did fight back, would her primary attack be a clinch followed by an HKE combo or would she not attack vitals first considering the position and mind set of both predator and prey in such a situation?

When Mike Tyson allegedly raped Desiree Washington, did it look anything like his match against Donovan Roddock that same year? Did he knock her out with a hook prior to forcing himself on her?

Out of every successful rape escape incident we’ve all heard about in the last 20 years on the news where a woman successfully defended herself against a violent rapist and criminal, never, not once did the report ever mention her using a rear naked choke, a clinch, a boxing combination or any other sort of ‘martial arts techniques’. As a matter of fact, every time it was mentioned that a woman had some form of martial training, the result ended in rape.

In the next example, when a woman attempted a martial arts technique, her attacker threatened to kill her, she only survived when she went primal and instinctively fought back. For example:

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"After going to sleep, I was in the dead of sleep, I woke up with a man on top of me," Mira said on Good Morning America. I immediately just had the reaction to get him off of me at that point he told me he had a gun and I felt it against my left chest. He was restraining me with both of his hands and the gun was across my chest and I just took my left hand and I started just pushing it away from me."

Mira started trying to push him off with her hands and feet, using some martial arts and self-defense techniques that she had learned years before.

"Do you want to die?" he asked. At that point, something snapped and she sprung into action, Mira said. In what she described as something like "a dream state," she wrestled the .38-caliber revolver away from her 170-pound attacker and rolled him onto the floor. She fired three shots at the man, striking him twice in the upper torso. "Mira," is a single mom and bookkeeper in her early 30s who said she acted only on instinct, and was driven by the desire to survive.”

ABC NEWS.COM GOOD MORNING AMERICA

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Contrarily though, every successful rape attempts were done by primal defensive tactics such as gouging, ripping, biting or the presence of a firearm as the example above.

For example:

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“Fri May 7, 8:47 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo!

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A woman bit off the lower lip of a fugitive man she said attacked her outside her house in the South African town of Tzaneen, police said on Friday. They said the man -- who was already wanted on charges of burglary and rape -- waited outside the woman's house for her to return from an errand and then tried to drag her inside.

"This woman managed to grab the lower lip of the man with her teeth and bit it off," police Captain Moatshe Ngoepe told Reuters. The man was arrested when he sought treatment at a nearby hospital. He is due to appear at magistrates’ court on Friday.”

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Another example:

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“A rapist was left speechless when his intended victim bit off his tongue as he tried to force it into her mouth. The 30-year-old woman from Harry squatter camp in Wadeville on the East Rand then ran off, tongue in mouth, to the nearest police station a kilometer away. Police were shocked when she produced the bitten-off tongue. Moments later, the suspect also arrived in agony, with blood pouring from his mouth, hoping to get medical help. He was immediately arrested.

The woman was in a state of shock and had clearly been in a struggle with the suspect, said Superintendent Sam Maredi of the Actonville police station.

"She displayed all the emotional signs of a rape victim and was given counseling," he said. The woman had, however, managed to turn the tables on her attacker.

Maredi added that the woman had been attacked as she made her way home at about 6pm on Saturday.

"The culprit attacked her and then tried to put his tongue in her mouth. When he did this the fast-thinking woman bit it off," said Maredi. The suspect appeared briefly in the Benoni magistrate's court on Sunday.

The Star Published on the Web by IOL on 2000-10-09 21:25:07

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Or how about this one:

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“My friend Lynn was walking in the park one afternoon and saw a woman in the initial stages of an assault. Lynn (maybe 5'5") went into rampage mode and attacked the assailant. The two women were able to drive the attacker away while drawing attention to the situation by yelling the whole time. Lynn's action was selfless and unrestrained. The intended victim later told police that Lynn's direct and physical intervention broke the assailant's concentration and his resolve to do her harm.

Assault Prevention Information Network, September 1st 1996.

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Outside of the ring, the delivery system is behavioral. The attacker isn’t squaring off with you unless your response is ego based (I.e. shoves, face offs, mouthing off etc.) Your attacker perceives you as being his victim, which is why he chose you. That is to be used to your advantage. Since your attacker sees you as being week and compliant, sticking with that in mind prior to retaliation enhances your retaliation. This will lower his guard and raise his ego making him the perfect candidate for a brutal and completely unexpected physical retaliation. That is the ideal time to strike if necessary and that preemptive strike most likely won’t be a jab, hook or Thai kick, or at least, shouldn’t considering the objective is to maim and not just hurt. The shot you don’t see coming is the one that hurts the most because your mind and body were not prepared for the assault. In a sporting event, the mind and body are fully prepared and aware of the retaliation therefore the nature of that attack process and response time is completely and critically different.

So stating that root skills in a sporting delivery system is an absolute necessity and that without it you are doomed is a fallacy. Although these skills can do nothing but improve and enhance your survivability and health for that matter, they are not necessarily the end all and be all for far more people have successfully defended themselves against certain odds with absolutely no training whatsoever then there have been martial artists who have used what they learned to successfully defend themselves.

A behavioral delivery system is critical, much more so than a physical one in terms of personal protection. This is what loads the dice in the favor of the intended victim because seldom will an attacker pick someone whom he thinks or believes will hurt or maim them as a victim. The attacker will predominantly and primarily make an attack on the mind prior to an attack on the body, hence posturing, instigation through intimidation, cursing, threats, explicit anger, etc. The range will also be close quarter but the aggression will not be sport related at all, it will be very different such as lapel grabs, strangulations, weapon deployments, tackles, shoves, hair pulls, and sucker punches from natural / non sport combative stances, incorporating aggressive dialogue, threats, etc.

If the attacker doesn’t suspect a violent retaliation targeting vitals such as eyes, throat and facial features (not using the standard punching or JKD finger jabs either), his reaction will be very different than if he was squaring off with an opponent who was trying to do the same… in one instant, it is seemingly out of nowhere, in the other, there was awareness, consent and preparation. It is the state of mind and behavioral delivery system that makes such attacks successful not the ‘technique’ or tool itself. The problem is in fixating on the tool (the eye gouge for instance) and claiming “anyone can do that”, yes, it is true; anyone can do that, however, how many real fights that you've seen or heard of ended with one of the opponent's having their eyes gouged out? Point being, although anyone can do it, most people don’t and don’t even consider it or train for it for that matter. So yes, anyone 'can' do it, but rarely does anyone 'do' do it. Just because you played badminton all your life doesn’t automatically make you a good tennis player.

This of course doesn’t mean you don’t need a good physical delivery system. We’ve always and continue to advocate the necessity of both a behavioral and physical delivery system. If anything, we highly recommend actively training in an alive combative discipline. However, some people unfortunately don’t have the time, energy, or desire for that matter to train 3 or 4 times per week to enhance their combative skills. Does this mean they cannot learn to effectively defend themselves? Does this mean that they don’t have the right to defend themselves? Absolutely not. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be alive as a species today since people have been effectively defending themselves since the dawn of man and before MMA arts or NHB ever existed. So how did they do it? How does a woman defeat a crazed rapist without any prior training at all? Luck? I think not. There’s much to be said about attitude, mind set and belief systems. The behavioral and psychological arsenals fine tunes our already existing survival instinct. The key is in getting people back in touch with it, we already posses the tools and instinct, we just need to re-awaken them and stay true to the physiological rules that govern our minds and body.

Richard Dimitri

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Here's one:

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There is a certain certainty that comes with sports training that doesn’t exist outside of that avenue and that is the unknown.

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Right THERE crystallizes the entire problem I have with this article!

There is a underlying suggestion that there is a "better" way of training which can be found with the shredder and senshido.

My counter argument to that is that ANY AND ALL training is just that – training!

There will ALWAYS be a “certain certainty” to ANY training, unless you are deliberately attempting to KILL YOUR TRAINING PARTNERS! I just find this argument to be completely absurd.

I'm looking further over the article now. But I could stop with that one sentence there and go no further. It does enough alone to deflate many of the points in the article.

ALL of training is ultimately "pretend", unless you're really attempting to injure or kill your partners. If it's anything less than that, it's going to be no different than anything else. Aliveness is the bottom line. If training is alive, it's alive. Thus it will reflect the nature of MMA.

Yet, HERE is an article suggesting that MMA style training is somehow counter-productive. To which I disagree.

Let me add that I completely respect Richard Dimitri and all of you who embrace his philosophy. I am not in disagreement for the sake of being disrespectful in any way. I just disagree with a few points in the article being discussed. To each his own.

That said, I would enjoy continuing this debate, in as respectful a way as possible.

-John

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1. Is this scenario-type training the backbone of RBSD training?

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I’m not sure if I would use the word backbone, however it is absolutely critical for testing your skill level in an environment as close to reality as possible.

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