ive been lurking as a guest for some time now
and ive been wanting to learn how to defend myself
there are alot of strange people out there
and i am 5'11" @~ 130lbs
so im not built at all
or very intimidating at all

as the title suggest im looking for an art that keeps me on my feet
but mentally and physically breaks my opponents will to continue the conflict
i know that i dont have brute strength
so i was looking for something that uses the weakness of the human body
i.e: joints (elbows and knees) only rotate 180 degrees before stopping
if there is an art that would allow me to learn how to lock the elbow and then throw the opponent to the ground and using a pressure point in the hand/wrist keep them there until i am satisfied that they are going to leave me alone, for example is what im looking for
does anyone know of any art that is as close to that as possible?
or should i start to write my own book
thanks for any light that you can shed on this subject for this novice

mkay
people are looking but no one knows
cool

Hi disturbed


you could try your local Ju Jutsu (Japanese), Aikido, Kyoshu Jutsu, or even a Ninjutsu dojo you could also look at and the Chinese system of Chin Na. Any of these should provide you with a chunk or all of what you asked for.

Heres the thing tho', it is going to take you some time to be able to apply what you wrote in a real confrontation, this is true for most traditional Martial arts (and sporting), physically they can be very effective, but they require plenty of practice. they also rarely take into account the behavioural, emotional and cognitive aspects of violence which throws a big f**king hammer into the works. the BEC of violence is what turns the perfect Dojo Black Belt into fish food on the street.

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO BE ABLE TO CONTROL SOMEONE LEARN THE BEC OF REAL WORLD VIOLENCE.

My suggestion is to take a Reality Based Self Defence (RBSD) course) one that deals with the psychology (ie B,E,C) of violence as well as the physical stuff. then pursue your Traditional systems knowing you have a strong base of reliable defence.

But Hey I'm a REALIST.

if self protection isn't you primary concern then you will find many benefits from the TMA's.

heres the thing
if its self defense then i shouldnt be getting all worked up emotionally
it would be the attacker thats either pumped up on adrenalin or scared out of their mind (unlikely)
now if i start the confrontation then i deserve to get my butt kicked
but as long as i keep my head on my shoulders and aware of my surroundings i should be okay against an attacker that i did not provoke
which is self defense
but THANK YOU for answering my question
now i just need to take a look at TMA and see which i like the best



btw
i took a couple of years of karate back in the day
so i know the practice routine
its not so much as practice
as muscle memory
repeating the same movement over and over again your muscles remember how to do that without the conscious thought of your mind
so when you enter into a confrontation you really dont think 'okay i need to put my foot here, grab here and throw'
your muscles remember what to do and you then act on what can now be called an instinct
which is what it has become now

G'day Mate,

First of all let me tell you a little about myself, not to boast or infer i am better or superior to you (or anyone else), just so you can see where My thoughts come from.

I've been studying Martial arts, self defence and real world violence for just on 25 years now ( around 20 of them dedicated to real world application). I have studied and researched psychology both informally and at university level with a particular interest in the psychology of violence.

My articles have been published in Australia's largest martial arts magazine (Blitz) a number of times over the last few years.

I Have been personally involved in more then 100 violent encounters, this was due to the work I did at the time (and isn't that unusual of figure taking that into account), These are only the ones that had gone physical I have deescalated many times more potential situations.

The information I gained through my personal experience and research has been supported by the information given to me by some of the worlds leading Reality Based Self Defence (RBSD) Instructors, victims of violence and perpetrators of it.

like I said I provide this info not to boost my ego but to provide you with a little background on my thoughts



Yes you should, unless of course if your not human or have some damage to your hypothalamus or limbic area of your brain. In fact I would say if you had not emotional response to the threat then it would not be a threat and therefore not self defence.

In every one of my encounters (even the ones that didn't go physical) I had some kind of emotional response, usually it was a fear response such as Fight or Flight (which is an emotional response BTW)

From your statement I imagine that you have not had many real world violent encounters, this is a good thing. I don't walk around with a 100+ tattoo or anything, it may be impressive to some but they were all unfortunate in my eyes, although necessary.

the point being is that YOU WILL have an emotional response, it is human it is automatic and it is only partly under our control



I would pretty well bet that the attacker is feeling both of these things though they will probably perceive fear as anger ( which coincidently is a very similar emotion with similar physiological response to fear) either way they will be under an emotional response, if not why would they attack (think about this)



yes chances are you will do OK, awareness is king in self protection. but heres the question have you trained under the emotional stress that is involved in real world violence, have you trained or at least become familiar with the behavioural delivery systems that are used in the real world.

sparring can go a long way to familiarize yourself with adrenalin etc but it does so under conditions contra to real world violence. for eg street violence does not start from a fight stance, seriously look at all the cctv footage of street violence and you will not find many where the attacker shapes up before throwing the first punch (I've viewed 100's of hours of this type of stuff, I only wish I had of statistically recorded some of the info). there is no verbal attack and no ego-emotional attack coming from your sparring partner.

Sparring is a great tool for developing physical and mental qualities of fighting, but it lacks a lot the real world delivery systems. this could be said for most TMA (in relation to real world violence management)


No Probs my friend. please don't take my words as anti TMA, I still love it, but with my focus on real world violence, TMA needs to be adapted (same goes for spot MA) it is the lack of BEC that is it's greatest weakness (for the street)




yep I read that in your post, which tells me that you should have the patience to develop the system to a workable level (but how long will it take and what do you do in the mean time)



True, but it is a conditioned response, your muscles develop a memory of a response to a particular stimulus, after a while it becomes the conditioned response for that stimulus. simple eg you block a punch in a particular fashion.

To reflexively activate the muscle memory action you have to have learned it as a response to a stimulus under the same, or at least similar, conditions.

Take blinking for eg. Many fighters have conditioned their Blink reflex so that they don't blink (well at least blink less) during a fight. take that fighter out of the fighting context for eg at home with the kids and they will blink just like their 5yo does to any unexpected stimulus threatening the eye. the reason for this is because the conditioning of not blinking was learned under the conditions of a fight.

now because of the vastly different variations between the training conditions and the real world conditions (in particular the different delivery systems) the conditioned response may not be activated, it will use the default setting or it will become confused as to what to do. the greater the diference between the training and the realworld the greater the confusion as to whether to use the conditioned or instinctive response. simply put you brain has to ask the question "is this the same as that ?", then decide and act.

this is why it is so vitally important to train your responses under conditions that mimic it's intended application as close as possible regardless whether that application is in the ring on the street or in a kata comp.



I'm being a bit semantic but it's not instinct. Instinct is a NON-LEARNED automatic response, muscle memory and conditional responses are by definition learned responses. they may act in an instinct like manner but they will always be slower then true instinctual responses simply because they have to access the memory during the activation phase which instincts don't need to do. (I'm not talking great lengths of time here, but there is a difference)

Any way I could waffle on for ages about this stuff, and lets be honest I drifted off the original topic ages ago.

before I go I do want to wish you the best of luck with finding a martial art for you, I do recommend at least briefly looking into the theories and practice behind RBSD as a compliment to your TMA training. many see them as being opposite ends of a scale I just see them as complimentary to each other.

Good luck and choose peace

peace is the goal
but as with all real world conflicts
a dominant force may need to be applied to attain peace
not always
but it never killed anyone to be prepared


and i will look into it ALOT!
you have made some very good thoughts
im really looking to just learn and retain very few movements
but very effective in the sense that they put the attacker on the ground
the goal is not to injure
but to mentally break their will to continue the conflict
but again
thanks for all of the insight
i think ill start off looking at Akido, then some Judo, and then a little bit of BJJ
the throws, grapples, and opponent diminishing ego moves that allow me to stay on my feet.
on top, the top dog
as to say, you can go ahead and get up again. ill put you right back there if i have to
maybe even ninjitsu if possible

I hardly ever post anymore, but I just wanted to say that was good stuff Drew.

Thanks Zach, I really appreciate the positive feedback.