I thought these days were over :(

I dunno. If you're watching loads of grappling tutorials you'd get a feel for the atmosphere quickly I would assume.

 

I think it's two things if I'm honest,
One is a hang over from the old traditional thing of the more scarce somethingthe better it is, we are all drawn to the esoteric and mysterious.
The second thing is some people only.pay lip service to wanting to be a white belt again, f

If they are running their club and want to introduce grappling it's much easier to learn from dvds or an online course than go to a good club, become a white belt again and spend months being beaten by people with only a few months total training time compared to their decades in arts.

Much easier to watch on line, best their own students with moves neither of them actually know and pretend they are learning grappling

 

I know next-to-nothing about BJJ, and even I know they don't compete in a cage!

 

Not compete no....but plenty of bjj places gave cages or are affiliated with mma gyms.
One of my abiding memories of bjj was getting tapped by Conor McGregor's coach while in a cage.

 

There a few pro submission matches taking place now in cages, before MMA matches in the states.

But its not usual.....

 

Yep it's not normal
And we aren't really talking about peoples perceptions of bjj and grappling who never grapple

I'm more talking about people who add grappling to their existing training so know what it is, but for some unknown reason chose to be video, dvd, Youtube or long distance trained rather than actually find a decent instructor close to them.

It's akin to claiming to be a boxing coach and listing a bunch of impressive names but never actually spending any time with those names, never sparring in a real gym .or competing.

 

I don't think it's all about feeling superior. I think a lot of it comes from a place of wanting to help people by not wasting their time learning in an ineffectual manner. A lot of that comes from these people having wasted their own time thinking they were learning something effective, and have a certain degree of animosity toward teachers making money from dishonest training.

There is also the fact that there is only so much you can write about technique, or show in video. Martial arts need to be felt. So I think it's also a case of being limited by the format to what can be meaningfully discussed.

You say that there are plenty of resources out there to inform people of their decisions - well this is one of them. So if you have people who actually grapple saying not to trust instructors lifting techniques from grappling systems without doing the hard work and actually having a base in those systems or rule sets, then maybe that will inform someone reading this to seek out bona fide instruction.

There is a distinction between this criticism and the "point-fighting karate is rubbish", or "TKD is rubbish", because people who teach those things are not claiming to be teaching anything other than karate or TKD. You take it or leave it.

If I came out and said that I'd added a BJJ component to the Marbo syllabus, because my mate who's a blue belt showed me a couple of moves and I've been trying out techniques cribbed from youtube, I would expect to be called out on it and my students told to seek out a legit BJJ gym if that is what they want to learn.

 

Well, I can tell you that BOTH law enforcement AND corrections believe there is a point to a short course in basic combatives. Having been through both academies (and worked in both fields), I can say I found their "Defensive Tactics" training to be more of an introductory and over view (or preview) compared to the places I pay to train at. They realize this, too, because they encourage cadets to seek out further training. But (1) I did take something away from it (2) It did get folks, who had zero training, to a spot a little better than where they started.

I know some folks will point out that, in LE, you have several force multipliers at your disposal (tazer, spray, pistol) but remember - in corrections, often, you have NONE so empty handed tactics are of great importance. During the corrections academy, two weeks were spent on defensive tactics. I think THAT is about as short as a "quick n ready" course can be and still have some value.

 

Just curious--how many hours total is that? 8 per day, 40 per week? (Maybe 25-30 if you take out lunch and other breaks?)
So something like 50-60 hours of instruction on defensive tactics?

 

Nah I think they get a combative course like once a year or something like that.

 

Yep I'm.not saying look I'm better than you because you are video trained.

I'm saying why on earth would you only be video/ long distanced trained in this day and age and then have the nerve to teach it as good material to unsuspecting students who have put their trust in you.

Why would you be so deluded?
Andl leadyour students on?
Odds are if they don't train elsewhere they won't know any difference because the coach will know just enough to be better than them, even though his stuff will be bad.

We are a resource for new students as much as any other website and as such I would say to them ask the following questions of any grappling coach

1 what are your credentials (easily in gi than no gi)
2 Where have you trained and who with directly and for how long?
( many can say I trained with so and so and it sound impressive until you dig deeper and it turns out to have been a3 hour seminar, or my stuff comes from this guy and it turns out to be from a DVD series)
3) where have you competed and where have your students competed (especially relevant for those who do no gi and don't have recognised grades)

If the answers to the above are none, can't say and nowhere respectively walk away please no matter how good their sales pitch or how easily they roll.you into a pretzel.

 

Oh I was asking specifically about this bit:

Specifically, trying to figure out how many hours that two week course spent on actual combat training (vs lunch time/breaks/etc), translating that to Black Wolf's feeling on 'X hours is about as short as quick n ready can be to still have some value'.

 

Unfortunately, NO, there was no annual requal or any refresher. So.... the rough tally I'm about to try to come up with was ALL there was. Unless you trained on your own time/dime, this is what ya got -

L.E. academy was way too long ago (I'm no youngin) so THIS is for the corrections academy. During the academy, we worked four 10 hour days. Lunches were long, down time was plenty. Also, a whole bunch of time was spent on exercise which I do not disagree with them, on that, because (1) I believe being physically fit makes a HUGE difference in fighting (3) C.O.'s are typically out of shape. So, actual time on the mat, drilling techniques, 3 - 4 hours per day and NOT every day because you have to figure in test day and physical evaluation day. My best guesstimate would be 20 solid hours of training combatives.