yes i know that and I studied with DanInosanto also and Erik. What I meant by that is that even an experienced grappler like him would know when to switch to something that is more suited for that scenario. And truly Kali will be effective only if you are training to deal with "multiples". A lot of times its taught as a one on one deal.... that wont cut it.
Good. Putting quotation marks around something doesn't mean I actually said it... I never said such things don't exist what I said was "I'm not denying bad situations happen I just think your 'potential situations' list was completely over the top". I was and am disagreeing with the frequency and likelihood of them occuring. Where do you live now if you don't mind me asking? And again Im trying to point out that your argument that training in combat orientated martial arts would not help in such situations is ignoring important points such as: - Being strong and fit is good for self defence. - Knowing what its like to be hit hard or choked or whatever is good for self defence. - Being able to knee/punch/elbow/throw a resisting person is good for self defence. - Being fit enough to run fast is good for self defence. - If you are capable of knocking someone out when they are trained to stop you, you stand a good chance of doing it in a self defence scenario. - Training in a sports orientated martial art does not prevent you from also training self defence. - All training in martial arts is artificial... its skills you learn from the training that would help in a real life situation. The effectivenes of the training is probably of much more significance to self defence than the content i.e. learning bad knife defence is worse for self defence purposes than learning good punching (not saying that you can't learn good knife defence BTW). I am again not mantianing that MMA or sports orientated martial arts are the only way nor am I arguing that they are perfect for all self defence scenarios I am merely trying to highlight that the outright dismissal of their benefit for self defence is silly. Because you've made some points I don't agree with. Thats the general reason. Plus you talked about how MMA types are generally unintelligent and then said something along the lines of 'anyone notice how all us silat people are really smart?'. Now I'm not a MMA guy (I do Thai Boxing and I just started Bazilian Jiu Jitsu but I take them seperately and don't want to compete in MMA) so Im not personally insulted or anything but when someone says something like that it gives such a bad impression that its hard to ignore. I dont have much experience with silat and was wondering if such views are common hence why I asked the other silat people if your views were representative or not. So there we go... Really? You should go tell all those poor deluded fools who think that on the street they are going to have a one on one fight with no interference, a referee and intervals between rounds. Good luck finding anyone that doesn't already know a ring fight is different from a street fight. Its also worth noting where 'BRAZIL-ian Jiu Jitsu' originated... I personally don't think BJJ training on it's own would be that useful for self defence because of the lack of striking. I'd say a striking art like Thai Boxing (or maybe silat?) would be much more useful for general self defence purpose. Reasonable points like that I'm not disagreeing with... nor am I disagreeing that familarity with weapons could be beneficial if trained appropriately. All I am disagreeing with is the supposed divide between anything useful for self defence and sports orientated martial arts. AGAIN PLEASE NOTE: I am not saying Silat is not useful for self defence. Im not interested in getting into that debate and dont have enough experience of silat to offer an informed opinion. Just disagreeing with the black and white distinction people are proposing between self defence and being a good fighter!
That's good, then you're just disagreeing with Thornton and his ilk, and you're agreeing with me. Glad you cleared that up.
Yah, see, nobody ever said that BJJ and muay thai and MMA aren't great for self defense. In fact I think most people I've seen posting here would agree that they're formidable for what they are and they're very good to have. But what people like Thornton seem to be forgetting is that they're just a piece of the puzzle. I have no idea what he's saying about silat being unrealistic. It's strange, yes. Unrealistic and unworkable no. As an aside, I think that cape knife video would be a good illustration of this. Has that been posted on Youtube yet?
Well that one wont fly I have seen Gracie's teach "Knife" application and guess what what they where showing wouldn't work. They may not be the "creators of the BJJ" But they are certainly considered one of the best. And their weaponry is not as lets say refined as Silat Or Kali for the street.
Matt Thornton had this to say: He also had this to say: Paul Vunak, Dan Inosanto, Richard Bustillo, Ted LucayLucay, Steve Plinck, Paul de Thouars, Chris Kent, BUrton Richardson!??? Every one of those people are qualified as silat instructors. Vunak, Richard Bustillo, Burton Richardson, Chris Kent all teach kali/silat. Steve Plinck and Paul de Thouars have over a hundred years of silat between them. Dan Inosanto has his own silat system, maphilindo. And that's aside from the fact that Kali itself is silat-derived. I'm wondering if Thornton mentioned to Pa Dethouars how his silat is a pile of crap. That I would pay $100 to see. This is a serious question and not so much intended as a slam: Is Matt Thornton kinda dumb, just a little maybe? Or is he being misquoted and taken out of context? My bet is a little bit toward the latter...
I can say with complete confidence that Matt never had any measurable training with Guru Plinck. And I would bet three months' mortgage payments that he had even less with Pendekar de Thoaurs. I can not speak to the rest except to note that his Kali/JKD certifications were not from the Inosanto Academy the last time I checked.
That, as they say in the defensive firearms world, is The Decision. If you can honestly answer "Yes, I would be willing to take a life to preserve that of myself or a loved one" then your perspective on self defense will go one way. If the answer is "No, I wouldn't be able to do it" it will go by other less effective routes. Before you make that decision it is best to consider a few things very carefully. There are no objectively right or wrong answers here. Considering the questions deeply is what is important, preferably at night when everyone else is asleep and you're alone with your thoughts. Is the life of a violent criminal worth more to you than your own? Do you think you're skilled enough to disarm and subdue a strong man experienced in violence without hurting him or getting hurt yourself? Be honest If you ask for help from friends or the police do you bear any responsibility for violence they use on your behalf? Much as we'd like to be independent almost nobody is. Our friends, families, spouses, lovers, communities and employers all own a piece of us. How much hardship, pain and money are you willing to cost them through being dead or crippled? If you would not injure or kill to protect yourself would you do it to protect another? Your spouse? Your child? Your best friend? If the answers are different, ask why. We know a fair amount about the traumas that come after defensive use of deadly force. Some people are deeply hurt by the incident. More are changed but get their lives back on track eventually. Many come to see it as unfortunate but necessary and gain strength from having seen it through and surviving. For clear-cut "They were going to kill/rob/rape/kidnap me" self defense guilt isn't usually that much of a problem. It depends in part on your own beliefs and partly on whether your friends are real or "lightweight a-holes" to quote Mr. Ayoob. Police sometimes have it worse. They have a great support network, but many of their shoots are split-second judgements where not everything is obvious. Prison? It's bad. But in this era of overcrowding even murderers get out in ten years for a first offense. And if you know what you were doing, why you did it, and understand the law on the subject there is a very good chance it will only cost you (a lot of) money. The whole point of self defense law is that the alternatives are worse. Maiming, death, becoming a mindless breathing corpse, watching someone burn down your house with innocent people in it or being raped and possibly dying of a terrible incurable disease are all worse than a chance of spending some years in an unpleasant place. A prisoner can look forward to freedom some day. A corpse or a vegetable has no such hope.
Hey Tellner, Well said. Just so you know, your old site with the Poser graphics was the reason for my getting into silat. Still it's one of the most informative sites on it that I can remember. I wish you'd continued with that.
Can't address the rest of it because it's pretty subjective, except for this: "Not a chance, but i reckon after say 5 more years of kyokushin and some basic groundfighting, i reckon i could avoid getting seriously hurt and subdue the attacker (not without hurting him, but its a fight)" What makes you think you could disarm a weapon-wielding attacker without getting seriously hurt? You do non-weapon styles. You have apparently (from the above) not had basic groundfighting. You are trying to debate people who do weapon styles and have had basic to advanced groundfighting. I think you reckon wrong. Sometime between now and the next five years I think you'll pick up on it though. And you'll still have kyokushinkai which is a pretty nasty karate from what I've seen of it. Even tai chi is nasty, extremely nasty, once you get your mind right. And I think your mind is getting right.
May I ask if anyone here has had to kill anyone yet in self defence? Or are we dealing in hypotheticals... I mean as has been pointed out there are many, many years of experience here. So let's use that experience- anyone here found it necessary to kill someone in self defence? If Yes... please give detail. If No... does that maybe suggest that defending yourself without killing the attacker is not only possible but likely? Playing devil's advocate here.
What is your point? That's relevant to the discussion how? Ask the guys in Iraq and Afghanistan who are involved in urban warfare if it's ever been necessary for them to kill anyone. By your logic it hasn't and isn't. I'll put it this way: I've been in situations where it's blind luck that neither I nor he died. I've made someone cry blood and that's what was needed to stop him from killing me. At this point I'm having difficulty believing that you're really that naive and I think you're being flippant and disingenuous as is so common for college martial arts kids. I know, I teach them and I've taught them. Start your own school of self defense while you still know everything! Quick! It all changes once you move out on your own.
It's the kind of question that you aren't likely to get an honest "yes" to from a complete stranger in a public forum. I haven't killed anyone. I have drawn on people twice and deterred a night-time burglary to my home. G-d willing that is as far as it will ever go. In at least two of those cases the bad guy made a decision that whatever he wanted from me was not getting shot over. Acquaintances have not been so lucky and have had to take that final irrevocable step either in the line of duty or everyday self defense. They all say that there were repercussions but that it was better than dying or watching a loved one die or worse.
I Sit Corrected I'm sorry your friend was killed. Truly. My point was not that he was a MMA guy but that he was a "ring champion," which is what I said, though I could have made that clearer. Mea culpa. What it has to do with Thornton's comment is that it doesn't really matter if it was MMA or muay thai or BJJ -- that you rule in the ring does not mean you automatically win every fight. Gong was probably able to handle himself pretty well one-on-one barehanded. The guy who murdered him had no skills as a fighter at all, but he did have a gun. No, silat doesn't make you bulletproof, either. But it does offer a familarity with what is one of the most likely weapons you could face in a real attack -- the knife. (More people are killed with guns than knives in the U.S., but on the rest of the planet, that varies from place to place.) MMA training may speak a bit to knives, but it is not the main focus, is it? Rhetorical question. The main focus is fighting to win matches in the ring. Anything after that is extra. For anybody to assert that there is only one system or style that is valid and everything else is worthless (or silly) is not simply insulting, it's patently wrong. People have been using old-style martial arts to save their behinds for many hundreds of years before MMA sportfighting came into vogue. Not to say these guys can't fight, because surely they can, but it was one of them making the assertation that what many of us, if not most of us, who post to this board do was silly and unworkable. And then a couple more guys chimed in to say "Right on! If it doesn't work under MMA rules in the ring, it won't work on the street." Spare me. What they are full of I can't say out loud here, but we all know what that is. It is brown. It stinks.
