No you're not. I gave my considered opinion, and that's from 20 years in private security, dealing with conflict on a regular basis, and you passed it off as an oversimplification.

There are certainly a great deal of elements to true self defence that are not covered by sport-fighting. Body language, de-escalation, maintaining an element of awareness regarding blind spots and peripheral environment etc, but then, non sport MA seldom cover that either, its something you either learn through experience, or seek out in your own time as a supplement to your MA training.

When it comes to the physical aspect of a fight, it doesnt matter if the punch your are dealing with is thrown out of drunken rage, or to KO you in a ring, the mechanics of negating it remain constant, because a punch is just a punch.
Its a simple philosophy, but its kept me pretty and breathing into my middle age

Right freakin on.

There are definitely people out there who teach this kind of thing, they are a minority but they are there. It seems like they come more from the 'RBSD' camp than anything else, but they certainly exist.

I actually agree about the physics being pretty much the same.



No, I said I agreed with most of it but thought you were oversimplifying a bit.

What kind of security did you do? I'm actually interested in hearing about that stuff, and I wasn't trying to be dismissive of that.

Stormdragon:

It may very well be that MMA is a quicker, more efficient path to learning to fight, I actually don't care. My main point is that "street" stuff cannot be divorced from the all the other stuff that isn't just physical skills...and if those aren't there too why should it be regarded as good training for "the street"?

I seriously am not interested in trying to answer your question about TMA, you already have the answer you want, so go with that.



PLease stop and read my posts. I never once posted anything about TMA being better than MMA. Most people who actually train combat sport train at a level most TMA people don't..that's indisputable, and it has a tangible effect. I never once tried to compare TMA vs. MMA, that has been done to death on here!

The part I am arguing about is the claim that this somehow makes them superior on "the street", because again, stuff that keeps you ok on the street is not limited to physical skills.

If the question asked was "if I wanna go win a streetfight, should I learn Kung Fu or MMA"..I would for sure say to learn MMA. But the thing is, you have to define what you consider to be useful for "street" first, do you want to win a streetfight, avoid one..what? To me there are things that take precedence above just physical skills, if you are realistically wanting to train for something like self defense.

And once again, this has nothing to do with TMA. I have done Karate at this point for a good portion of my life, a little Judo, a little grappling. If someone asked me where to go solely for "street self defense"..I would sooner recommend something like SPEAR or a Rory MIller seminar than I would any of the things i've done. My goal is martial arts training has put self defense as something secondary..so would I reccomend any of it to someone who simply wanted to quickly learn something relevant to 'the street'..probably not.

Started working doors in '91, and continued this as a supplemental income to my main profession till 1999. Then returned to it unofficialy at my in-laws pub (not in a great area of the city) from 2002-2009.

Outside of that, I moved from the fitness industry to full time security in 2003- working as a driver/collector on armoured cash transit vans.

Moved from that to my current job as a security officer for the University of Cambridge in 2004. We are essentialy a patrol and response unit for all university grounds and property,(over 400 buildings, plus grounds) dealing with all aspects of security, from theft prevention, through to dealing with animal rights activism, fire safety, CCTV and alarm monitoring, and student wellfare/protection. We are also principle liason in all VIP visits, including Royalty, and political figures, so that involves working with the specialist police teams assisting in pre-visit site search and clearance, handling bag and personal searches of event guests.

So really, we are to, all intent and purpose, a private police force of the university.

Never a dull moment

Nope not saying that.

Duane

Need a quick English translation=Please explain what a "squaddie" is.

English is my second language-American is my first.

Duane

Since the Brits aren't answering -- I spent some time in England, and squaddie means soldier. I heard it used in a way that meant "friend" or "guy belonging to the same group".

What I want to know is what a "budgie smuggler" is :-) Never heard that one, but my imagination is providing me with some pretty odd pictures...

squaddie - rank and file soldier. Definition used to describe them on leave from barracks, attending local town/city en masse for socialising/drinking/(inevitable)fighting.

Budgie smugglers - speedo's or any tight fitting lycra shorts that leave little to the imagination, ie, leave a gent looking like he is smuggling budgies in his pants. Women wearing tight tops while bra-less can be said to be 'smuggling peas' in the same fashion should nipples be clearly visible through material.

Hope this helps

Gee thanks, sorry I asked...

A question for you Cord -- You may have developed a taste for a fight from your job and long training. If so, has it made you less likely to de-escalate or choose non-physical responses over the years? Or does fighting only appear as your chosen option when other methods have been tried or are impossible? How does it work for you in practice?