Cutting options off (re:knives/multiple attackers)

I'd disagree. multiples aside i've always found it easier then trying to out strike someone. its so easy to out maneaver them and you'd be amazed how many bigger fellows can't get up that easy once down. as for taking them down its again relatively easy especially if you have knowledge of what your doing and they don't. I have many friends bigger then myself who consistently get brought down by osoto-ari. hell Kano was as small as they come yet consistently took down big people

I suppose it comes down to what your more skilled at though. Judging by many of your posts i assume your more of striker to begin with.

Seeing as i made that poll about a month ago that showed over 65% more people prefer to strike it out over grapple, and many kept reasoning a lot of it being due to just not having much experience grappling. striking arts are still what many people consider to be the first choice when it comes to martial arts though of course grappling is gaining much popularity.

I don't want to have to try and get into a striking battle with someone much stronger then me. usually in thai and boxing your paired with someone relatively the same, however im used to having to fight guys much bigger then me when we do randori or roll. Personally its because i've always been told i don't hit very hard.

too me taking someone grappling with someone allows you to make it less about force and more about skill and leverage. not to mention much less people can grapple well as oppose to strike well.

:topic: are any striking primarily stylists worried about ever breaking there hands or causing impact injuries when they fight?

 

Not fair. Kano was master level. And once you get a sufficiently bigger opponent they have a huge amount of leverage on you which is very difficult to overcome.

It takes a lot less force to knock a big guy down than it does to throw/wrestle him down. Defferences in strength are larger compared with the differences in the amount of force the brains of different people can withstand.

When you learn to strike with proper technique at the appropriate time you greatly reduce the risk of that. If someone really was afraid of that they could keep a pair of carbon fiber knuckle gloves handy.
I've seen many more people injure their hands, particularly fingers and thumbs, in grappling than I ever have seen in striking. The damage to one fellow's thumb in jujitsu was almost irreparable. He was very close to having a non-functional thumb.

 

Somewhere I think some people forgot that striking includes sticks and knives.

If the questions was, "would you rather have a weapon such as a tire iron, baton, or asp... or would you rather be unarmed" What would the answer be?

Buying time to get a weapon is a valid concern. When on the ground you can buy time to deploy a utility knife or grab a nearby makeshift weapon; however, when standing it may be easier to buy time to deploy a number of weapons.

A concern for anyone carrying a firearm or weapon, in addition, is the enemy using your weapon against you. Law enforcement have to take care not to allow their own duty knife or firearms from being used against them... a concern always, but especially in ground fighting.

Almost the opposite for military. Ground fighting would be more likely due to being weighed down with gear and having to keep out of line of fire. In fact bottom position is better in some cases because the one in mount can be exposed into a line of fire.

After all, it isn't the type of martial art, it is whether or not it is practical application for you.

 

Usually you don't have to get into h2h. You can hit the with the butt of your rifle, shoot them with your pistol, stab them with your knife.... ya get me?

 

Considering I was actually referring to roninmaster's post with my post but your post popped in between my post and his, I'm not sure I get you. Were you thinking I was talking about your post?

Maybe your last post was just reactionary. Otherwise, what are you talking about with hand-to-hand because hitting them with the butt of your rifle or stabbing them with a knife is h2h combat?

 

h2h = unarmed combat. Hence hand to hand or being referred to as empty handed fighting years ago.
When you add in weapons it is no longer hand to hand.

Hitting them is rifle to head combat, stabbing them is knife to body combat.

 

I've always found it considerably easier to wrestle with big un-trained guys than spar with big un-trained guys.

Good grappling tends to allow you to nullify a lot of your opponents brute strength through greater leverage, timing and direction.

Just throwing it out there.

 

h2h = close combat

but since you mean unarmed, then that was exactly the point I was making that ground training is more common for the military because of the nature of combat with rifles. You are already likely to be against a wall or near the ground to begin with. If you are attacked then ground combat fundamentals apply (e.g. ground and against a wall are pretty much the same fundamentals).

 

And there's always a 'punchers chance' (and it is hard to deal with someone swinging at you like a combine harvester, without hurting him too much (cause we're sparring)).

In straight up grappling, even if you make a mistake, you can generally recover.

 

My long time karate instructor basically said that he had two tactics for fighting larger opponents. The first was to take the use of their legs away, the second was to wear them down and tire them out.

Not only was he a karateka but he had been a wrestler, so he flatly told me to take the larger person to the ground.

However, it is a bit different in karate. He did not mean to tackle the person, he meant first to get the bigger person to chase him around, to tire him out. He also meant to kick the legs out of the larger person and hit them to soften them up. All of this was before going to the ground.

When the opponent is winded and their legs are gone, the wrestler will have a big advantage on the ground basically.

 

When I mention grappling, I'm specifically referring to ground fighting. Takedowns, trips, and sweeps are a different story.

Ground fighting in general should be a last resort for me, specifically because I want to minimize any chances of my opponent disarming me and using my firearm against me. That's why distance is my main defense. Also, the two times I've actually had to roll around on the ground with someone, I quickly realized it sucks an awful lot to be landing on and rolling around your duty belt. Despite what that mythical 90% number might sound like, of all the tussles I've been involved in very, very few involved ground fighting of any kind. They've ranged from simple grabs to takedowns to strikes to less than lethal weapons for the most part. The officers I am friends with who also train in MA in various systems also agree with this sentiment.

 

I've just had a thought...isn't a good maxim "blow before throw"?
So even if you are opting to take someone down to fight them on the floor you should still be giving them some softeners before you get there?
Another reason why striking is generally the self defence tactic of choice most of the time.
If it works, it works. If it doesn't it makes what you're going to try next more likely to work?

 

The way i understand Judo Atemi is that its supposed to be used as part of the throw.
i read an interesting post on another forum and it described why judo atemi involved a lot of uppercuts and elbows - they're used as part of the throw or a lead up to the throw as part of the unbalancing.

i remember Koyo said something similar about aikido striking - its seems to be a running theme in Japanese grappling MAs.

 

Yeah in addition to being distraction and just plain hitting them to off-balance them Ueshiba Sensei said himself that fighting is 90% striking... meaning grapling is only ever a supplementary to striking.
Oddly enough I'd say that percentage is fairly well reflected in current MMA if you include all the striking on the ground and in the clinch.

 

I was not aware of you being a cop. I believe the gracies just released a series specifically for police personal. in it they make the distinction from there approach for police, to those who are everyday citizens.

here it is:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rgiqXBX5LU&feature=channel_video_title"]Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Modified for Law Enforcement & Military Professionals - YouTube[/ame]

im not an officer, and too young to concile. My idea of grappling is not just limited to ground fighting. while i love it its crazy to believe that you should want to do it in all situations. ( P.S. that 90% statistic was only for arrests not fights)

i ment purely striking as opposed to purely grappling, i find it easier to defeat someone with grappling then striking because its easier to neutralize there force when you have better technique as opposed to your strength.
but this is prob due to more competence in one then the other.

 

Our main DT instructor is actually a terrific grappler in his own right, training with high level BJJ guys and competing semi-regularly.

The problem is, our academy only allocates 44 hours of DT training total for the entire stay at the academy. Most officers do not train outside of that basic DT course, and like most departments mine doesn't offer any in-service training to keep it sharp. Even if all you did was grappling during that time, you'd have the same experience as a white belt who's been in the gym 3x a week every week for 4 months. In a case such as this, sophisticated grappling and striking systems aren't going to be as useful.

As far as the 90% of arrests going to the ground, I'd even contest that.

 

Side note... this scene from Oldboy is probably the best multiple attacker fight I have ever seen in a movie.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufss5ot_vGE&feature=player_embedded"]Oldboy Epic Fight - YouTube[/ame]

 

I think a few posts have alluded to the notion that whether or not you want to grapple with a bigger person has, in part, to do with your relative skill level. I regularly grapple opponents who outweigh me and the ability to scramble is something I've developed pretty well. Even if they ended up on top it wouldn't be for long, unless they had some training. But I can understand how not everyone would share that confidence. I think for total self defense one should be capable of either striking or grappling with an opponent regardless of size, but I'd never recommend someone attempt something "live" that they hadn't developed a comfort level with in training. The chance of hesitating would be too hight.

I'd like to note that ages ago, I watched the first ten or so UFC events and took notes on the matches. One pattern I noticed is that when a smaller man beat a bigger man, if he beat him by striking him, the winner ended the match sooner and look less damage in the process. Of course, I think (although I didn't note it specifically at the time) that most of the winners were larger than the losers. Food for thought.

 

Actually it was about 50:50 big:small and the small guys pretty much all won by striking but that may say more about the types of people they let into the competition. I was always surprised that there were no judoka in UFC 1.

 

No, but there were in subsequent UFC's. Specifically I remember comparing matches with large weight deficites for the winner, like Kimo-Gracie, Severn-Gracie, Hackney-Yarborough, and Hall-Kitao. We've seen in Pride, K-1 MMA, and other open-weight MMA events that when a larger opponent gets beaten by grappling, it tends to take a while (Sudo-Butterbean) but when they're beaten by strikes, it's over fairly quickly (Fedor-Zuluzinho).

Of course I'd like to note that the guys who were beaten by striking were so large they were barely mobile. It's easier to punch a guy like that in the grill rather than risk having him crush you in a grappling contest.