Lessons from UFC 159 for the self-defense minded

So having watched UFC 159 live in-house -thanks to my wonderful love, scoring me some tickets- I had the luxury of witnessing 3 martial arts myths exposed, for all the world to see.

This is for those who believe that MMA-style training, is tangential, yet inefficient for self defense purposes, because it lacks all of the vital, dangerous, sport-illegal, dirty fighting that is contained in >insert whatever martial art you do<. That in a REAL fight, you would never be standing toe-to-toe with someone, slugging it out or rolling around on the ground. You'd just eye gouge them, kick them in the groin, or break one of their fingers, and be on your way. If you don't feel this way, none of these realities will come as any surprise to you..


Jon Jones vs Chael Sonnen
This fight puts on perfect display the flaw of believing that you can rely on small joint breaks or manipulation to overcome an opponent. I often hear said, "MMA training doesn't teach you to attack small joints, in a REAL fight there are no rules," as an excuse to avoid sport-style live training that bars such practices.

Jon Jones dished out a beating to Chael, who was at a loss to counter Jones' superior takedowns and ground striking. After winning, and celebrating by running around the ring, it was pointed out to him that his big toe had completely broken somewhere during the fight, as pictured here (http://cdn0.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/12335405/1.0_standard_709.0.jpg). Only after the adrenaline had worn off, did Jones even acknowledge the supposedly "fight ending" joint break, and even then he managed to laugh it off.

He is not the first however. Randy Couture broke his hand in round 1 of a 5 round fight against Tim Sylvia, where he proceeded to beat Sylvia with his broken hand to a victory. Tim Sylvia to his credit broke a larger joint in his arm during a match, that was only stopped by a ref, not because Sylvia had lost his will to fight. And for those who would say, "well those guys are professional badasses, and the average person could not withstand that kind of pain," I will use myself as an example, where in a non-adrenaline environment I tore a ligament in my hand during pure grappling training, that was not noticed till long after class had ended, and resulted in a trip to the ER.

Moral of the story? Relying on grabbing fingers, and breaking toes to incapacitate your opponent is wishful thinking at best, and dangerously delusional at worst. The last thing you want to do is just make someone trying to hurt you even madder. A better idea is to learn how to actually fight better than them, and overcome them with proven high percentage technique.



Sara McMann vs Sheila Gaff
Female fights are a new commodity for the UFC, and I cannot support it enough. For too long have women been told by smarmy Martial Arts instructors that they are weaker, smaller, and less capable than men at fighting, and must learn to train and fight differently than them to surmount these shortcomings. Advice such as groin kicking, pinching, biting, and even pepper spray are all standard fare for these frauds. All of these supposed shortcuts to victory, women are no more capable of performing than any male they may be fighting, nor are they any more capable of performing them than someone completely untrained.

In this fight, Sara puts her olympic level wrestling on display going for a quick takedown where she eventually won via ground-n-pound in a mounted crucifix position. Here we have a young girl, who very well could have found herself training in one of these strip mall Karate schools where she would be taught that she is nothing but a step away from becoming a victim due to her gender. Instead she learned to wrestle, then she learned to fight, and now she along with many female fighters are more than capable of defeating males far larger than her, some who perhaps even train and fight themselves. A quick look at the last season of The Ultimate Fighter, we see Ronda Rousey, the current female champ who weighs in at a whopping 135lbs, repeatedly submitting fellow male fighter Uriah Hall who competes at 185lbs. These individuals didn't do anything but train hard. They are no different than any other female out there, with the exception that they didn't make excuses for themselves, and they didn't decide to train at poor quality schools.

Why pay someone for classes every month, if you aren't getting any better, and he has nothing to teach you but Nonsense that you are inferior.



Michael Bisping vs Alan Belcher
In this fight, Alan Belcher went down to nothing more than an accidental eye poke. During a punch, Bisping's hand opened, and jammed in deep cutting Belcher's eye. So here it is right? Undeniable proof that eye gouging works right!? Not quite.

The only way Bisping was able to land that eye jab -freak accident mind you- was because he was out-striking Belcher the entire fight, constantly holding the upper hand in exchanges. Were he like you, pretending to jab eyes in front of a mirror, instead of working on his boxing with live opponents, Belcher would have destroyed him with punches and kicks before Bisping could even get close enough to poke at his eye. You cannot build a combative skillset without a foundation any more than you can build a house without a foundation. Everything else is fluff and furnishings. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of crap. Sometimes they even believe their own Nonsense, but that doesn't mean it isn't still Nonsense

 

Also, hi MAP! It's been awhile

 

IMO every scenerio will be very different depending on the person. An MMA fighter or any pro combat athlete goes through pain all the time and they become used to it. Jones is quite pain tolerant after having his arm hyperextended in one of his last few fights. People who go through pain all of the time sparring and such are not necessarily the same as your average wannabe tough guy on the street.

As someone who takes combat hapkido, which centers around joint locks, pressure points and joint manipulations, it is preached to us, not only by Grand Master Pellegrini as well as my instructors that you don't just stop at the joint lock, you give them the chance to comply in which case if they don't, a hard strike will follow it up if you are wanting to take it to the next level.

One last thing... while I am not doubting the use of "MMA" style fighting in a street situations... not all of these guys are masters of actual joint manipulations either.

Just all my opinion of course.

 

On the subject of women... Cris Cyborg was one of those women who people were saying the same things about... lol and then she was popped for roids, and those who believe that most pro athletes aren't on some sort of steroid, HGH, etc are wearing a blindfold.

This by no means is me saying that women are "inferior". Women are actually quite vicious in combat situations in real world fights.

 

Did you hear that thing flying over your head a second ago?
It was the point he was making an you missed it.

 

Nice post KempoFist, but I have to say that from my perspective you're demolishing three straw men. I know quite a few martial artists who spout such myths - but none of the SD instructors I know do.

 

This is true to a point; however a few pints inside you can make your pain responses null. Streetfight aftermaths tend to have smashed hands, "bite fight", lacerations et al and most don't get noticed until after the fight. Add the adrenal rush to that mix and the odds of small manipulations working go from slim to none

They don't work against the committed or motivated unfortunatley. Pressure points are even worse. Tactically speaking small joint locks and manipulations are set ups to give a half-beat for a transition. Techniques that rely on pain are always risky - the focus should be on control.

This is not semantics; a COMPLIANCE hold can be fought through because the pain threshold varies from person to person...a CONTROL hold does not need or require you to comply - it just stops you moving

They don't need to be - the moves are low percentage and the MMA fighters have more efficient options for control and finishing.

Now that said, it is absolutely possible to deploy such moves against MMA fighters PROVIDED you have an MMA style base to launch them from....which is point (3) above about the eye jab on Belcher

I repeat this often, but if you cannot fight "clean" you have no business fighting "dirty"

 

Fixed for you - I know of a few that do!

 

what is the point of this thread? also, how do some people get away with putting swearing into their posts when trying to emphasise the strength of feeling in their argument and others don't?

I hadn't noticed until this fight how frequent eye pokes are in MMA

 

UFC 159 was an unusual event with lots of talking points. This is one angle that you can consider them from.

 

It's one of those subjects that SHOULDN'T need addressing but does...."street vs sport" SHOULD be a dead horse...but it isn't

Plus compared to sone of the crappy threads we end up getting stuck in this one is golden!

I am actually suprised we don't see more of them given the nature of both the gloves and the ruleset

 

Mods can only deal with things they notice. Give the opening post some more time on MAP and it'll get mentioned I'm sure.
It's pretty agregious.

 

Hannibal, i'm curious as to which skills you would considerer best for self defense... striking? Which types? Joint locks? Which ones, punches?

What i'm asking is that as much as keeping things simple is what has been preached, what is your own opinion of this? If you had to compile a short list of kicks, punches, etc, you would pick _______?

 

Headbutts, knees and elbows close in are my "go to" moves, principally because they flow so well.

Outside? Boxing - simple, direct effective. I favour the left hook, but the right cross has a lot of value too.

Joint locks and restraints are something i use only professionally. I favour chokes and cranks because they are fight enders.

 

So, your thing would be getting in close, perhaps, headbutt, clinch, use the knees and then possibly elbows if the opponent were to put his head back up?

 

and if you were to pick one style only that would lean more on the side of SD, it would be what? and why? It seems like muay thai or boxing no?

 

I'll assume we all know that you need awareness (of yourself, your attacker and you're environment) so will go straight to the physical.
The Gracie's aside the vast majority of SD instructors that know their beans stress striking (pre-emptively if possible) as the foundational physcial skill for SD (and even the Gracie's aknowledge what a good strike can do).
Gross motor powerful strikes with the hands to the head and neck.
What you are aiming to do is hit hard and accurate enough to give you a period where your attacker is stunned and you can escape to safety.
Everything else tends to support that. If a window presents itself.
You do a breakway or grip release so you can continue hitting. You joint lock to break balance (or control) so you can hit him some more.
Joint locks are complex and very low on the things of stuff to try in SD. Most SD people (who again know their stuff) won't even touch on them because developing a strong strike is far easier to do.

 

I didn't qualify as while I'm aware of some poor quality SP instruction out there, I only know good SD instructors.

 

There's a problem though if you have a system that requires you to attain mastery of it before you can effectively employ it.

If joe blogs student can't apply things consistently then I'd say there's something off in the system as a whole. Depending of course on what the goals of the system might be.

Joint manipulation has its place but its not the be all and end all of dealing with someone.

For me anyway its less about joint locks/manipulation and more about body manipulation.


If you look at the old school stuff from some countries you'll see joint attacks are often attacks to the body as a whole, just going up the chain from where the contact is.

 

I know I'm not him and he's answered but you always seem fixed on the hard skills.

Do you do much soft skill training?