Fight Science! Did anyone watch this?

[T'ai Chi]

It looks like this thread dedicated to a specific topic has turned into a pissing and insult contest among people who absolutely know nothing about the topic of which they are debating.

Tis the outcome of many JREF threads.

One cannot help but point out the attempted wish at historical revisionism that fiends engage in when they make claims like 'Japanese jujitsu people cannot fight'.

No one could/can fight in Japan? Really?

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ken,

If they are not already moving fast, then wiping you hands off means that they can regain their balance, because you are no longer controlling them.

How the crap are they gonna "wipe" off an underhook, overhook or a bear hug?

I cited wiping as one way to escape certain types of holds, and my above comment was in direct response to your comment that if they do wipe the hold, they will fall faster. Are you honestly going to tell me that it is not possible to escape underhooks, overhooks, and bear hugs, without having to resort to advanced techniques?

The only way this would fail to work would be if they do not have time to regain their balance after wiping, which means that are already falling quickly, and are going to get hurt when they hit the pavement.

That's just wrong. If they manage to undo the hold, they end up falling faster. Hold someone upside down, then let go of the ankles and see how well they regain balance.

So now you've got them lifted up off the ground? And you still don't claim this is brute force?

Besides, I never said they don't fall faster. But the reality of the situation is that when people are falling, they try to regain their footing. People with good balance and reflexes can do that quite quickly.

And lest we forget that the whole issue that lead to this rather pointless exchange was the idea of taking somebody down without hurting them. So if they don't regain their balance after breaking your attempt to control, whe are right back where we started, with them slamming into the concrete and getting seriously hurt.

The obvious point here is that if you want to control somebody, as opposed to just beating them, throwing them, or manhandling them, then you need reliable techniques for maintaining that control. That is something which joint locks are very good for.

And yet people, even unskilled people, do it all the time.

No, they don't.

So you claim. I happen to know better.

Yeah, that will really save you when you are hitting concrete. Sure.

Yes, it can.

You're kidding yourself. You don't need to get slammed to get seriously hurt. People break bones all the time just by tripping on something or slipping on ice.

I already addressed this. You have to keep them off balance. You have to maintain your leverage. That's the whole point of using a joint lock for control.

Joint locks are not the only leverage tool in a grappling arsenal.

I never said they were. The two other tools for maintaining leverage are brute strength, and smoothly reacting to the other person's movements so as to maintain leverage without directly opposing their force. The latter is far more difficult to use in practive than a joint lock. So far I have yet to see you mention anything that doesn't amount to brute force.

And they are done after teaching basic falls to the students, and they are done on mats.

Not always. The mat also only helps to prevent cuts and bruises.

If you honestly think that the only difference between falling on a mat and falling on concrete is cuts and bruises, then you are sadly deluded. To borrow your phrase, it's something called physics.

Severe injury can be done if a person is slammed onto a mat.

I already said that.

A quick question to both Ken and Kevin. Do either of you think that this controlled throw of yours could be executed safely by somebody who is significantly smaller than the person being thrown?

Yes, it's done all of the time.

Really? I would like to see that. In my experience even simple throws and take downs require a great deal of skill and practice to actually make them work on somebody who is bigger and stronger than you. It seems to me that at the very least, this sort of "safe throw" would be much harder.

Could a 160lb man throw me (240lbs) in this way without me either easily regaining my balance, or hitting the ground fast and hard?

Yes.

Again, I would like to see that. I am extremely skeptical about that, given that the techniques you have described all seem to be very much dependant on strength.

You guys talk about things like the throwee not being able to break your grip, or being controled securely without a joint lock during the course of the fall, and even about somehow slowing the person's fall down from something initially very fast to something much slower. Don't you even recognize that what you are talking about here is relying on brute strength?

It's not about brute strength at all. It's about leverage.

It's all about maintaining that leverage. That requires either brute strength, or some mechanism for controlling the other person without brute strength. Leverage alone is only enough when the technique happens so fast that there is no time for you to lose that leverage.


By the way, this is digressing so far from the original point as to be ridiculous. Am I really supposed to believe that this amazing safe throw of yours is so easy and so reliable as to completely eliminate any usefulness being able to use a joint lock for control might have?

If not, then what is your point?


Dr. Stupid

 

[T'ai Chi]

You're kidding yourself. You don't need to get slammed to get seriously hurt. People break bones all the time just by tripping on something or slipping on ice.

Stimpy is obviously correct here. I went ice skating last night and saw several beginners (who weren't going fast at all) fall and hurt themselves because they didn't know how to fall properly. Other people fell and did not hurt themselves mainly because they fell properly.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Are you honestly going to tell me that it is not possible to escape underhooks, overhooks, and bear hugs, without having to resort to advanced techniques?

Not in the middle of being thrown, not without causing one's self to fall faster.

So now you've got them lifted up off the ground? And you still don't claim this is brute force?

I don't think you understood that my example was an analogy. A good throw utilizes technique and leverage, not necessarily strength.

But the reality of the situation is that when people are falling, they try to regain their footing. People with good balance and reflexes can do that quite quickly.

The reality is that if the footing isn't there, they will still fall, no matter how good their balance and/or reflexes are.

And lest we forget that the whole issue that lead to this rather pointless exchange was the idea of taking somebody down without hurting them. So if they don't regain their balance after breaking your attempt to control, whe are right back where we started, with them slamming into the concrete and getting seriously hurt.

Only if they do something really stupid to hurt themselves, like try and smack away the holds of the person throwing them after they are already being thrown.

The obvious point here is that if you want to control somebody, as opposed to just beating them, throwing them, or manhandling them, then you need reliable techniques for maintaining that control. That is something which joint locks are very good for.

There are many, many holds besides joint locks that do the job even more efficiently, as far as take-downs are concerned.

So you claim. I happen to know better.

You are just wrong.

You don't need to get slammed to get seriously hurt. People break bones all the time just by tripping on something or slipping on ice.

Maybe really weak and old people, sure. However, people are more resiliant than you seem to want to lead people to believe. Throwing someone on their back on concrete might stun them, but it's not going to do much damage...unless the throw is a slam.

The two other tools for maintaining leverage are brute strength, and smoothly reacting to the other person's movements so as to maintain leverage without directly opposing their force

Wrong. The human body consists of many, many levers and fulcrum. Using proper technique, one can overcome brute strength with leverage. It should be noted that Royce Gracie beat many, many stronger and bigger opponents with leverage of many types, and not just joint locks. The only joint lock he used was the submission.

I would like to see that. In my experience even simple throws and take downs require a great deal of skill and practice to actually make them work on somebody who is bigger and stronger than you. It seems to me that at the very least, this sort of "safe throw" would be much harder.

It doesn't take a day to learn a good double-leg, which doesn't take brute strenth. It can be done on an unwilling, beginner, safely without injury. Then again, maybe wrestling is something you consider "brute strength". If so, that only lends more evidence that you are simply ignorant on the subject of grappling.

Am I really supposed to believe that this amazing safe throw of yours is so easy and so reliable as to completely eliminate any usefulness being able to use a joint lock for control might have?

No. Even if there were no "safe throws" in the universe, the effectiveness of joint locks would still remain the same.

There are quite a few joint-locks that are useful and great to train. However, it is my opinion that they are best executed on the ground.

 

[thaiboxerken]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnvaBMlNpI

Notice how much bigger Pedro's opponent is. Pedro uses leveraging techniques to win, not just a joint lock.

Also, when pumping a well's lever, one doesn't have to use a joint lock to get water. One uses the leveraging technique of fulcrum and lever to pump the well.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So let me get this straight. You break their balance and start them falling very quickly, and then before they can hit the ground and hurt themselves, you slow them down, without at the same time giving them an opportunity to regain their balance? How? Where does the force stopping their momentum come from?

They are connected tightly to my upper body. If I want them to get slammed I drop my body weight so that they fall at something like free-fall speed and hopefully land with me on top of them. If I don't want that then I take some of their weight as they fall.

And now that they are moving slowing, again, what prevents them from wiping your hand and/or changing their footing? In the absense of a lock or brute force, it is only speed which prevents somebody from doing this. What do you do, if not using a lock or brute force, to prevent them from doing that once you have slowed them down?

By the time I'm slowing them down from either a twisting hip throw or a whizzer they are mostly horizontal. So footing is a total non-issue. They can't "wipe my hand" for the same reason they couldn't "wipe my hand" when they were standing up either.

Again, I am extremely skeptical of this claim. My suspicion is that you are just vastly underestimating how hard they hit the mat, which is easy to do when you train on mats.

Bully for you. If you don't believe the two people here who actually grapple full-contact, then got to that judo class I keep suggesting and explain your skepticism to them. Go wipe their hands and tell us how it works out.

You are jumping to conclusions again. Many of the people I train with have done full contact training, as I already told you. Anyway, that just verifies my point. When you do the throw slowly (even if it is only the end part which is slow), and aren't doing it with either a lock or or brute force to control the person, you essentially are doing it in a semi-contact way. You are doing what somebody would do if they were sparring semi-contact.

That doesn't verify your point in the least. The person being thrown is still resisting to the best of their ability, and still being thrown, which is the only bit that is important.

That is why I pointed it out to you. By all means, feel free to poke them. I understand they like that sort of thing. From what they have told me, they do quite a bit of "poking" themselves.

They're quite a distance from Australia, so they are safe from my poking for now. Your evidence, your job to find more than a mostly blank web page.

Exactly. But what constitutes a "proper hold". What makes it "proper"? A joint lock allows you to prevent them from regaining their balance, as does simply having a really strong and secure hold on them, but again, the latter is very dependant on strength and size.

If you're not a good grappler it is. If you are a decent grappler you use a thing called "technique" to get and maintain secure grips.

If they are not already moving fast, then wiping you hands off means that they can regain their balance, because you are no longer controlling them. The only way this would fail to work would be if they do not have time to regain their balance after wiping, which means that are already falling quickly, and are going to get hurt when they hit the pavement.

No.

A quick question to both Ken and Kevin. Do either of you think that this controlled throw of yours could be executed safely by somebody who is significantly smaller than the person being thrown? Could a 160lb man throw me (240lbs) in this way without me either easily regaining my balance, or hitting the ground fast and hard? You guys talk about things like the throwee not being able to break your grip, or being controled securely without a joint lock during the course of the fall, and even about somehow slowing the person's fall down from something initially very fast to something much slower. Don't you even recognize that what you are talking about here is relying on brute strength?

Sure, although with a 35kg weight difference it's not something a beginner would pull off and you'll hit the ground a lot harder than a 160lb opponent would. A 35kg weight advantage is a big problem for anyone in any full-contact sport. That's why we tend to have different divisions for lightweights and super-heavyweights.

Guaranteeing the other guy's safety is something you can do when you're better than they are, which can mean more skilled or just plain beefier. If the other guy is huge, or skilled, or whatever, then obviously there is less scope to do things the hard way and still make your techniques work. That applies to whizzers and wrist locks alike.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I like the claim that there are only three "leverage" techniques: joint locks, brute strength and redirection. I guess stimpy isn't quite the physics expert he claims to be, or maybe his physics knowledge goes out the window when it comes to the human body.

 

[thaiboxerken]

http://www.judoinfo.com/gokyo1.htm

Clicking on any of the pictures here shows the technique being demonstrated. Notice how the one being thrown doesn't die after being thrown. Somehow, Judoka must be impervious to the damage of being thrown, as it's obvious there is only one speed to throw a person according to Stimpy, and that's fast.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

http://www.judoinfo.com/gokyo1.htm

Clicking on any of the pictures here shows the technique being demonstrated. Notice how the one being thrown doesn't die after being thrown. Somehow, Judoka must be impervious to the damage of being thrown, as it's obvious there is only one speed to throw a person according to Stimpy, and that's fast.

Stimpy, could I get you to be specific on this particular issue? Does this 5th dan JJJ acquiantance of yours actually do full-contact grappling? If they happen to do pretend wrestling and the odd bit of real striking or weapons work that doesn't make them an expert on grappling. It just puts them in the same boat as you.

Because it strikes me as very strange that the two full-contact grapplers here both know that taking down a resisting opponent relatively gently is possible and in fact routine, but your supposed expert claims that it is impossible.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ken,

Are you honestly going to tell me that it is not possible to escape underhooks, overhooks, and bear hugs, without having to resort to advanced techniques?

Not in the middle of being thrown, not without causing one's self to fall faster.

Again, I never said anything about them not falling faster. If you are already falling very slowly, "faster" doesn't mean so much.

So now you've got them lifted up off the ground? And you still don't claim this is brute force?

I don't think you understood that my example was an analogy. A good throw utilizes technique and leverage, not necessarily strength.

You're analogy does not appear to be a very relevant one. And I agree that a good throw utilizes technique and leverage. That is the whole point.

But the reality of the situation is that when people are falling, they try to regain their footing. People with good balance and reflexes can do that quite quickly.

The reality is that if the footing isn't there, they will still fall, no matter how good their balance and/or reflexes are.

Again, I have already addressed this.

And lest we forget that the whole issue that lead to this rather pointless exchange was the idea of taking somebody down without hurting them. So if they don't regain their balance after breaking your attempt to control, whe are right back where we started, with them slamming into the concrete and getting seriously hurt.

Only if they do something really stupid to hurt themselves, like try and smack away the holds of the person throwing them after they are already being thrown.

We've already established their tendancy to do stupid things to hurt themselves. After all, we are talking about an untrained person attacking somebody on the street who is a skilled fighter. That sounds pretty stupid and reckless to me.

You don't need to get slammed to get seriously hurt. People break bones all the time just by tripping on something or slipping on ice.

Maybe really weak and old people, sure. However, people are more resiliant than you seem to want to lead people to believe. Throwing someone on their back on concrete might stun them, but it's not going to do much damage...unless the throw is a slam.

You appear to be a bit out of touch with reality here.

The two other tools for maintaining leverage are brute strength, and smoothly reacting to the other person's movements so as to maintain leverage without directly opposing their force

Wrong. The human body consists of many, many levers and fulcrum. Using proper technique, one can overcome brute strength with leverage.

That's what I just said. And you maintain that leverage by using either joint locks, or by smoothly reacting to the other person's movements so as to maintain leverage without directly opposing their force.

I would like to see that. In my experience even simple throws and take downs require a great deal of skill and practice to actually make them work on somebody who is bigger and stronger than you. It seems to me that at the very least, this sort of "safe throw" would be much harder.

It doesn't take a day to learn a good double-leg, which doesn't take brute strenth. It can be done on an unwilling, beginner, safely without injury. Then again, maybe wrestling is something you consider "brute strength". If so, that only lends more evidence that you are simply ignorant on the subject of grappling.

A day for who?

Anyway, this kind of declaration seems to me to flatly contradict your claim that training without full contact will not help you in a self-defense situation. If it is really like you say, then why can't people who practice these techniques without full-contact effectively use them to protect themselves?

Or did you mean one day of full contact training? If you, then you are obviously talking about one day for somebody who already has a lot of martial arts experience.

Am I really supposed to believe that this amazing safe throw of yours is so easy and so reliable as to completely eliminate any usefulness being able to use a joint lock for control might have?

No. Even if there were no "safe throws" in the universe, the effectiveness of joint locks would still remain the same.

There are quite a few joint-locks that are useful and great to train. However, it is my opinion that they are best executed on the ground.

Then what is your point in all of this? Is your point just that it is your opinion that joint locks aren't the ideal solution for controlling somebody you don't want to hurt? If so, how does that refute what I said about joint locks being useful for that purpose?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnvaBMlNpI

Notice how much bigger Pedro's opponent is. Pedro uses leveraging techniques to win, not just a joint lock.

Also, when pumping a well's lever, one doesn't have to use a joint lock to get water. One uses the leveraging technique of fulcrum and lever to pump the well.

He also goes down quite quickly with the other guy on top of him. If you really feel that this is something good to do on the street, you go right ahead and do it. I'll pass, thank you very much. I may not want to hurt the other guy, but I am not going to sacrifice myself to do it.

http://www.judoinfo.com/gokyo1.htm

Clicking on any of the pictures here shows the technique being demonstrated. Notice how the one being thrown doesn't die after being thrown. Somehow, Judoka must be impervious to the damage of being thrown, as it's obvious there is only one speed to throw a person according to Stimpy, and that's fast.

Wow. Way to totally misrepresent what I said. Apperantly you are not interested in actually having some sort of meaningful discussion. After all, you already know it all.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Kevin,

So let me get this straight. You break their balance and start them falling very quickly, and then before they can hit the ground and hurt themselves, you slow them down, without at the same time giving them an opportunity to regain their balance? How? Where does the force stopping their momentum come from?

They are connected tightly to my upper body. If I want them to get slammed I drop my body weight so that they fall at something like free-fall speed and hopefully land with me on top of them. If I don't want that then I take some of their weight as they fall.

So like I said, you are using your own strength to slow down their fall.

And now that they are moving slowing, again, what prevents them from wiping your hand and/or changing their footing? In the absense of a lock or brute force, it is only speed which prevents somebody from doing this. What do you do, if not using a lock or brute force, to prevent them from doing that once you have slowed them down?

By the time I'm slowing them down from either a twisting hip throw or a whizzer they are mostly horizontal. So footing is a total non-issue. They can't "wipe my hand" for the same reason they couldn't "wipe my hand" when they were standing up either.

That's what I figured. That means that you are using your body strength to counter their body weight.

Again, I am extremely skeptical of this claim. My suspicion is that you are just vastly underestimating how hard they hit the mat, which is easy to do when you train on mats.

Bully for you. If you don't believe the two people here who actually grapple full-contact, then got to that judo class I keep suggesting and explain your skepticism to them. Go wipe their hands and tell us how it works out

If you were the only full contact grapplers I know, or they all agreed with you, the situation might be different.

You are jumping to conclusions again. Many of the people I train with have done full contact training, as I already told you. Anyway, that just verifies my point. When you do the throw slowly (even if it is only the end part which is slow), and aren't doing it with either a lock or or brute force to control the person, you essentially are doing it in a semi-contact way. You are doing what somebody would do if they were sparring semi-contact.

That doesn't verify your point in the least. The person being thrown is still resisting to the best of their ability, and still being thrown, which is the only bit that is important.

The point is that if the person really is resisting to the best of their ability, semi-contact stuff like this tends to not work. If I recall, this is a point you made earlier in this thread. One of the things that makes semi-contact only "semi" is that the other person isn't resisting to the best of their ability.

That is why I pointed it out to you. By all means, feel free to poke them. I understand they like that sort of thing. From what they have told me, they do quite a bit of "poking" themselves.

They're quite a distance from Australia, so they are safe from my poking for now. Your evidence, your job to find more than a mostly blank web page.

For the second time, I did not present that link as "evidence" for anything. I've got nothing to prove here. I am still just contesting your claims about the uselessness of anything non-MMA.

Exactly. But what constitutes a "proper hold". What makes it "proper"? A joint lock allows you to prevent them from regaining their balance, as does simply having a really strong and secure hold on them, but again, the latter is very dependant on strength and size.

If you're not a good grappler it is. If you are a decent grappler you use a thing called "technique" to get and maintain secure grips.

And joint locks are examples of such techniques, which is the whole point. They are a tool for maintaining control when you don't want to simply slam the person down (or break them), and can't just use brute strength.

A quick question to both Ken and Kevin. Do either of you think that this controlled throw of yours could be executed safely by somebody who is significantly smaller than the person being thrown? Could a 160lb man throw me (240lbs) in this way without me either easily regaining my balance, or hitting the ground fast and hard? You guys talk about things like the throwee not being able to break your grip, or being controled securely without a joint lock during the course of the fall, and even about somehow slowing the person's fall down from something initially very fast to something much slower. Don't you even recognize that what you are talking about here is relying on brute strength?

Sure, although with a 35kg weight difference it's not something a beginner would pull off and you'll hit the ground a lot harder than a 160lb opponent would. A 35kg weight advantage is a big problem for anyone in any full-contact sport. That's why we tend to have different divisions for lightweights and super-heavyweights.

Yet another example for why it is silly to expect competition training to be ideal for non-competition situations.

Guaranteeing the other guy's safety is something you can do when you're better than they are, which can mean more skilled or just plain beefier. If the other guy is huge, or skilled, or whatever, then obviously there is less scope to do things the hard way and still make your techniques work. That applies to whizzers and wrist locks alike.

Exactly the point. It is harder. Joint locks are hard, but any solution for this type of situation is going to be hard.

Stimpy, could I get you to be specific on this particular issue? Does this 5th dan JJJ acquiantance of yours actually do full-contact grappling? If they happen to do pretend wrestling and the odd bit of real striking or weapons work that doesn't make them an expert on grappling. It just puts them in the same boat as you.

Full contact grappling and striking.

Because it strikes me as very strange that the two full-contact grapplers here both know that taking down a resisting opponent relatively gently is possible and in fact routine, but your supposed expert claims that it is impossible.

On the contrary, my whole point was citing joint locks (including wrist locks) as some of the tools you use to do exactly what you are now claiming I said was impossible.

Nor did I claim that they were the only way. I even cited two other ways.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So like I said, you are using your own strength to slow down their fall.

Stimpy, you're usually much more honest that this. You said we were using "brute strength", not "our own strength". Every technique uses our own strength. If you have to keep moving the goalposts it's a sign your argument is flawed.

That's what I figured. That means that you are using your body strength to counter their body weight.

Absolutely, the same body strength I use to do everything else.

If you were the only full contact grapplers I know, or they all agreed with you, the situation might be different.

This is such basic stuff I have serious doubts that any actual full-contact grappler said anything like the claim you have attributed to them.

What might have happened is that you said something loaded like "These two yahoos on the internet said it was easy to throw people in a street fight without hurting them" and they said "No, it's not easy at all" meaning you'd have to train for years to do something like that. That's a scenario I find a lot more plausible than a genuine full contact grappler saying "There is no such thing as a throw other than a joint lock or a brute strength move that you can use on a resisting opponent and still mitigate", because that statement is utter bollocks.

The point is that if the person really is resisting to the best of their ability, semi-contact stuff like this tends to not work. If I recall, this is a point you made earlier in this thread. One of the things that makes semi-contact only "semi" is that the other person isn't resisting to the best of their ability.

This seems like deliberate obtuseness to me.

When I have used these throws on resisting opponents and mitigated the effects, they were resisting to the best of their ability and it still worked.

What matters for the purposes of good training is that the subject is fully resisting and that the technique is executed anyway. If you can get it to work on a resisting opponent you have a fighting skill. If you can mitigate a grappling technique and still get it to work then you have an even better fighting skill.

A BJJ black belt can tie mortals like you and I in knots without ever doing a technique with the full speed and power they are capable of.

And joint locks are examples of such techniques, which is the whole point. They are a tool for maintaining control when you don't want to simply slam the person down (or break them), and can't just use brute strength.

We have already addressed at length the misconception that these are the only two available options.

Yet another example for why it is silly to expect competition training to be ideal for non-competition situations.

You've never been in a full contact sport class in your life, obviously. We train with whoever shows up, we just compete within weight categories (and skill categories) because otherwise the outcomes are not in a great deal of doubt.

Woowoos like Tai Chi love to pretend that BJJers and MMAers never do anything except fight someone of their own weight and skill for a six minute round with judges watching. Competitions are the exception rather than the rule. In class we wrestle people of whatever size, shape and skill level show up. Sometimes (gasp!) we even train moves that are not legal in competition.

Exactly the point. It is harder. Joint locks are hard, but any solution for this type of situation is going to be hard.

The point is a very slippery thing with you when it comes to this topic. I'm telling you yet again, a mitigated takedown is easier and safer for everyone than trying for a wrist lock if you are dealing with a drunk with a bottle.

Full contact grappling and striking.

That makes it easier. As stated before, I don't believe any full contact grappler ever made the claim you attributed to this person. My guess is that not knowing much about the topic you misunderstood whatever it was they said.

On the contrary, my whole point was citing joint locks (including wrist locks) as some of the tools you use to do exactly what you are now claiming I said was impossible.

Nor did I claim that they were the only way. I even cited two other ways.

Yes, but you also said what we do was impossible, yet Ken and I do it.

It's a puzzle, isn't it? Get to that judo class. Feel some evidence.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Kevin,

Stimpy, you're usually much more honest that this. You said we were using "brute strength", not "our own strength". Every technique uses our own strength. If you have to keep moving the goalposts it's a sign your argument is flawed.

No goal post has been moved. My point is that you are relying on being strong enough to stop their downward momentum before it can hurt them.

This is such basic stuff I have serious doubts that any actual full-contact grappler said anything like the claim you have attributed to them.

Exactly what do you think I have attributed to them?

What might have happened is that you said something loaded like "These two yahoos on the internet said it was easy to throw people in a street fight without hurting them" and they said "No, it's not easy at all" meaning you'd have to train for years to do something like that. That's a scenario I find a lot more plausible than a genuine full contact grappler saying "There is no such thing as a throw other than a joint lock or a brute strength move that you can use on a resisting opponent and still mitigate", because that statement is utter bollocks.

Nor is that the statement I have made, nor is it a statement I have attributed to anyone.

What matters for the purposes of good training is that the subject is fully resisting and that the technique is executed anyway. If you can get it to work on a resisting opponent you have a fighting skill. If you can mitigate a grappling technique and still get it to work then you have an even better fighting skill.

Oddly enough, you rejected this very idea when I mentioned that I had gotten the one-inch punch to work against a fully resisting opponent.

A BJJ black belt can tie mortals like you and I in knots without ever doing a technique with the full speed and power they are capable of.

I don't doubt it. What does this have to do with the efficacy or usefulness of joint locks to accomplish that purpose?

And joint locks are examples of such techniques, which is the whole point. They are a tool for maintaining control when you don't want to simply slam the person down (or break them), and can't just use brute strength.

We have already addressed at length the misconception that these are the only two available options.

I did not say that they were the only two options. On the contrary, I specifically mentioned a third.

Exactly the point. It is harder. Joint locks are hard, but any solution for this type of situation is going to be hard.

The point is a very slippery thing with you when it comes to this topic. I'm telling you yet again, a mitigated takedown is easier and safer for everyone than trying for a wrist lock if you are dealing with a drunk with a bottle.

And I suppose that is just supposed to resolve the disagreement?

Full contact grappling and striking.

That makes it easier. As stated before, I don't believe any full contact grappler ever made the claim you attributed to this person. My guess is that not knowing much about the topic you misunderstood whatever it was they said.

They did not make the claim you seem to think that I attributed to them, no.


I think it is about time I stopped participating in this nonsense. We have moved well beyond the original topic of this thread, and well beyond any issues of what there is and is not evidence for. At this point we are just debating relative usefulness and ease of specific techniques. What's the point?

Allow me to again reiterate my point. I do not think that your claims that MMA training is optimal for all fighting conditions, or that anything which you don't see in MMA competitions is useless, are justified, nor have you presented any evidence which could possibly support such claims. Even if my experiences, opinions, and knowledge about fighting are pure bunk, this does not change the above. The fact that you keep trying to derail the discussion away from this point, and instead to challenging my own martial arts experience, just demonstrates that you are not prepared to substantially defend those claims.

As for this never-ending debate about what does or does not work in situation X, and how difficult it is to do, this clearly is not going to get any of us anywhere. And it is completely beside the point.


Dr. Stupid

 

[T'ai Chi]

The human body consists of many, many levers and fulcrum. Using proper technique, one can overcome brute strength with leverage.

In theory yes. But then you'd have to ask yourself why in MMA competitions, and in many other competitions, there are age, gender, and weight classes.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

No goal post has been moved. My point is that you are relying on being strong enough to stop their downward momentum before it can hurt them.

So? I'm telling you that it does not require any special strength to do this.

Exactly what do you think I have attributed to them?

Nor is that the statement I have made, nor is it a statement I have attributed to anyone.

Since you have signed off I'll spare you the quotes where you did exactly that.

Oddly enough, you rejected this very idea when I mentioned that I had gotten the one-inch punch to work against a fully resisting opponent.

I wrote precisely what I meant. Being able to execute a grappling technique and mitigate it demonstrates greater skill than the unimitigated version. Giving someone a love-tap with a striking technique and then assuming it could have been a devastating blow demonstrates nothing in particular.

And I suppose that is just supposed to resolve the disagreement?

Add it to your collection of valued opinions from people who do this for real.

Allow me to again reiterate my point. I do not think that your claims that MMA training is optimal for all fighting conditions, or that anything which you don't see in MMA competitions is useless, are justified, nor have you presented any evidence which could possibly support such claims. Even if my experiences, opinions, and knowledge about fighting are pure bunk, this does not change the above. The fact that you keep trying to derail the discussion away from this point, and instead to challenging my own martial arts experience, just demonstrates that you are not prepared to substantially defend those claims.

Stimpy, we pinned you down until you admitted that in fact you had no idea what techniques might provide a counterexample, nor any idea where evidence of such a counterexample might be found. The people who claim that there is something better out there avoid recorded demonstrations against resisting opponents as if they were a tax audit.

Whereas there are masses of evidence that talented, determined people who will pinch any good technique or training method they see have not found anything better.

Once we've established that you have no claim except denial, and no prospect of ever producing any evidence, it's not derailing the discussion to put your idea in the trash and move on.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Kevin,

Stimpy, we pinned you down until you admitted that in fact you had no idea what techniques might provide a counterexample, nor any idea where evidence of such a counterexample might be found.

This is simply not true. I provided you with all sorts of counter-examples from my own area of expertice, and you dismissed them, instead insisting (for some reason whose relevance I can't imagine), that we limit ourselves strictly to specific subsets of combat which I already told you I am not an expert in.

My points about armed combat and multiple opponents are sufficient to refute your ridiculously overgeneralized claims. Demanding that I provide video examples of specific techniques (which are common to most martial arts styles) working in a real fight, and then going on about how much better you think your other grappling skills would be in those situations, completely avoids the point.

The people who claim that there is something better out there avoid recorded demonstrations against resisting opponents as if they were a tax audit.

It is not a question of avoidance. It just isn't stuff you see in sports competitions, which get recorded all the time. Dojo training is not typically recorded. Not even when they are doing full contact training. Neither are real fights. The fact that you have not seen such video evidence proves nothing, and indicates very little. Now if you are simply saying that you are not going to be convinced enough about the efficacy of a given technique until you have seen it work in full contact, that is perfectly reasonable. But to assert that any technique with real-world usefulness would necessarily be worthwhile using in sports competitions, is just plain silly. And you have provided absolutely no justification for such an assertion.

Whereas there are masses of evidence that talented, determined people who will pinch any good technique or training method they see have not found anything better.

Only evidence that they have not found anything better for their extremely narrowly defined sport.

Once we've established that you have no claim except denial, and no prospect of ever producing any evidence, it's not derailing the discussion to put your idea in the trash and move on.

What "idea"? The idea that I should question your ridiculous assertions, which you have presented without any relevant evidence whatsoever? Please present the evidence which supports your claims. The evidence you keep citing clearly does not do so.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Wudang]

Like Ken said, the human body works pretty much the same way in both cases. But if you have evidence something else works better than MMA, other than Stimpy's wistful theorising that surely something must work better "on the street" than MMA even if he doesn't know what it might be, please present that evidence.

Well the fact that you and Ken continually trot that matra out and ignore any psychological factors is one of the major problems.

No, people still punch to the head with the closed fist because it's what works. So it's not the lack of padding or having the hands open.

Specialist grapplers to sometimes have an extended guard, but the hitty people seem to use a guard that looks just like the boxing one, with the hands held high and close. So that's not it either.

Okay - thanks for that, interesting.

 

[T'ai Chi]

But if you have evidence something else works better than MMA, other than Stimpy's wistful theorising ..

Still waiting for the evidence of your attempt at historical revisionism that Japanese jujitsu people cannot fight. All throughout history? Really?

No, people still punch to the head with the closed fist because it's what works.

Especially MMA types in the ring in sport/entertainment settings because most likely with wrists taped and gloves padded they won't break anything with hard punching and haymakers they constantly display. In real life self defense situations on the other hand...

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

This is simply not true. I provided you with all sorts of counter-examples from my own area of expertice, and you dismissed them, instead insisting (for some reason whose relevance I can't imagine), that we limit ourselves strictly to specific subsets of combat which I already told you I am not an expert in.

My points about armed combat and multiple opponents are sufficient to refute your ridiculously overgeneralized claims. Demanding that I provide video examples of specific techniques (which are common to most martial arts styles) working in a real fight, and then going on about how much better you think your other grappling skills would be in those situations, completely avoids the point.

Stimpy, do you recall me saying specifically earlier that I did not think MMA provided us with any evidence about what works and does not work in armed combat? I said that the Dog Brothers and metal weapon re-enactment groups are the people to go to if you want to find out what works with weapons, if you recall.

Let me give you a handy list of straw men to avoid:

• 
  MMA is the last word in submarine warfare and anti-satellite weaponry.
  
  Standing wrist locks are impossible.
  
  You can throw an opponent without hurting them and without using any muscles at all.
  
  I can do things in semi-contact sparring and that proves something.

Here's another handy list of claims I am actually making.

• 
  MMAers have discarded techniques which are low-percentage.
  
  Techniques which are low-percentage are low-percentage on everyone, not just on people who can fight. Wrist locks don't magically become higher-percentage than a shoot against idiots.
  
  The specific ideas you have advanced about what grappling techniques work and how they work are based on a near total ignorance of full contact grappling.
  
  People who claim they can make these low-percentage techniques work and have been training them for decades assiduously avoid amateur MMA events where they could demonstrate their skills against people who have been doing MMA for (in some cases) less than a year. I take this as strong evidence that they know very well that their stuff just doesn't work.
  
  People who claim one thing works better than another against multiple opponents have a rich fantasy life. (Exception: People who work as bouncers and such, who seem to say what works against multiple opponents is hitting them really hard, preferably without warning).

 

[T'ai Chi]

Someone should write an article on how ground-n-pound looks to law enforcement if they come upon a scene and see it... who will they believe is the aggressor?