you obviously have absolutely no understanding of MMA, let alone grappling. you make yourself out to be an ignorant and uneducated MAist with statements like that.
Some of the drills we do are like mentioned before. -one person in the middle of a ring of people - the people forming the ring each have a number (not in order) and the instructor calls out a number. The person in the middle has to defend against which ever attack comes at them. I think this helps with a sense of awareness and you have to turn quickly and react. -other techniques we practise from a casual position - i.e. the defender just stands without guard position and square to the attacker. We practise specific counters from this postion to the attacker. -sparring. even though it's been mentioned before, I think is a good pressure testing method - as you need to do techniques under pressure. Yes you can't do all the locks or hand strikes you may want to do when you have gloves on, but you still have to learn how to use something. Compeitition or grading sparring puts you under more pressure as there are more people watching and you are aiming for a goal. Also in competition you may not have fought the opponent before so haven't learnt their favorite techniques -moving pad work. helps with your aim and keeps you alert when the pad holder comes at you also. -2 man forms/pressure testing forms. You get tested throughout the form so that the blocks work, and your stances work against someone with resistance. Also teaches you relaxed pushing much like in pushy hands or sticky hands. -self defense techniques - counters/defenses to generic confrontational situations i.e. pushing, grabbing your t-shirt, 1/2 hand throat grab. After you've learnt to do the defense successfully you need to follow it up with whatever seems necessary (before running ) including knife defense, progressing to the attacker trying various knife attacks at random.
BKG, Thanks for the follow up. And I think it's great that we got to this because your instructor's statement serves as an awesome mediation point for points that both sides have been raising about efficacy. It demonstrates that, in cases where schools don't attend competitions, that instructors don't simply advocate "high risk" techniques as a panacea. His suggestion that an eye strike may need to be... followed by something else and the "buried" notion that it isn't necessarily the best response is proof that we're not necessarily just looking for "magic bullets." That coupled with a clearly articulatable methodology for resistance training can help demonstrate overall efficacy of a school's approach. And likewise, we need to think about specific techniques with MMA in the same fashion. That an arm bar for example can help end a fight, but in competition, since the ultimate goal is the submission (be it verbal or physical) of your opponent, any technique that doesn't end the match must be followed by something else. I'm not suggesting that we didn't already know this. But perhaps we weren't seeing either's side clearly enough. - Matt
A tad off topic, but your last statement, "But perhaps we weren't seeing either's side clearly enough" is very much true. Not just for MMA/TMA discussions, but even discussions within our own styles. For example, the eye gouge is not the be-all-end all of attacks. An experienced fighter can shrug it off, if you're not fast enough it misses, etc. It's a great instinct, but it will only end the fight in SOME cases. To generalize that it always works or never works, comletely counterproductive. What we should be discussing, since we cannot prepare students for everything, is how to prepare them for ANYTHING. This thread certainly turned out better than I had hoped, And I hope than more people will get their butts over here to share training philosophies a bit.
Next time people start talking about how effective there art is we should maybe refer them to this thread.
I think a psychological element also plays a big part. No matter that your training is, NHB, UFC, MMA, full contact, point sparring etc, you know that the other person isn’t really trying to hurt you and you will going home afterwards. In an actual fight, the attacker is attempting to hurt you or worse. No training (in my eyes), truly matches that of a real fight. MMA/UFC type training, for example physically may be very similar (in that you are actually hitting), but mentally it’s so far apart. The enviroment also play a big part. There a rules in MMA and none in real fighting. You have gloves, relatively soft ring, a ref, judges, rounds. It quite diffrent. Maybe it would be good to replicate the appropriate environment - harder floors, no time limits in sparring (you either loose, win or quit), by standers who could join the sparring, armed-unarmed sparring etc. I think that would be a better way to test you training. The impression i get is that if someone looses in the ring/cage, their art is uneffective, but if Wing Chun guy for example looses to MMA guy in a cage, doesn’t mean WC guy cant defent him self in a no-ruled situation, then again, it dosnt mean he can. I say defend yourself numerous times – then say it works. Also, remember, in a real fight, you cant tap out.
He suggested a better way. But it's mean to test your readiness: If I go in a ring with someone with a sword, I might lose, but might be the better fighter. So I'll go in to learn how badly I defend against swords, but not to admit defeat in the sense of 'he's a better fighter than me. BTW, Ikken, wouldn't you like to practice sparring against multiple attackers periodically, so that if you are attacked by three robbers, not only are the central techniques (i.e. punches and kicks) pressure tested, but the means you would use to lessen the advantage, such as getting on the opposite side of one opponent to where his two buddies are, would also be pressure tested? I would expect you to principally train from the ring, from what I've seen, and if you're a pro or competitive I could see that as being the main goal, but I would think that since your art would give you more ability in street situations you'd want to leverage that ability by training, occaisionally, for street and random situations
I have little interest in training for the street- I have had one fight in my 19 years on this planet (well actual fight, not counting school yard rough ups) and I am quite confident of my ability to defend myself either by fighting, using my tongue, or by using my legs. having said that we occasionally do things which would help in a multiple attacker situation- we will have one guy in the ring with two guys hitting and he has to throw punches as if he were shadowboxing while both the other guys hit him. idea being that you learn to keep your guard up while punching, and to follow through with a punch even if you get hit. we also do a kind of sparring where one guy is attacked by one person for 15 seconds, then a different person, then the first person, so on and so forth. But like I said, these arent really designed to make you any kind of multiple opponent expert.
I kind of agree with ikken, I'm alot more interested in fighting in the cage than on the street, and once again, if you think that just becasue there are a few rules in MMA, that makes my training worthless, you really need get a CT scan. would you want to be in a dark alley with an MMA fghter or MT fighter, or a boxer? well they have rules so what good would they be right? again, for the hundreth time, if you can find a more effective way to pressure test, short of attacking a random potentially armed thug punk on the street (TM) then please direct me to it so that i can stop wasting my time in the cage.
But a lot of the guys here do have an interest in it, I think this is where the crux of the arguement lies.
And still no one suggests a better method of learning to defend yourself than cage fighting to learn SD and I have to ask Homer if hes ever stepped into a cage for a fight or for that matter if he has ever done any form of full contact sparring?
Its difficult to kick when you can feel the remains of your lunch sloshing about in your pants. No amount of training is going to prepare you properly for a confrontation with a dangerous person who would happily kill you. You will be scared, you will feel a sense of panic and you will be fighting in an environment that you are not comfortable in. Martial arts can do a lot to enhance your fighting skill, and will give you a much better chance if you have learned your art well enough to respond automatically. But you really, really, really shouldn't feel confident. There are some people out there who are much more dangerous than you are able to imagine, and there's a lot more of them than you think.
Ok, I'm gonna relpy. Psin, what are you thinking? We "really, really, shouldn't feel confident"?!? Substitue "arrogant" for confident, and I'd agree with you. One of the first things you learn about self-defense: Appear confident, be confident. Thugs generally prey on the weak.
And therefore your methods of resistance training should be optimized for that type of performance. Which, btw, is what Ikken stated... oh about two pages ago and we all agreed. Ummm... ok, have you checked the past few pages? There are alternative resistance training methods as noted in quite some detail in this thread. Competition isn't the end all or be all. Realisitically training, under increasing pressure is (note that competition can fall under this rubric). Ahh.. but the key issue in the above case is the notion of HOW you train. You are correct in suggesting that in the end, there is no exact way of simulating the street (or what ever euphamisim you wish to use). But there are ways of getting close. All rely upon ideas of working with resisting opponents at various levels of contact. The goal is in part to trigger physiological/biological reactions that help simulate fight or flight situations. And ring fighting is one way of doing this. Anyone who has engaged in any form of full contact sparring/fighting/resistance training can talk about experiencing the often talked about "adrenal dump." And this is critical to preparing for real world efficacy. Will it tell you everything? No. But it will provided a lot more feedback than "empty" (non resistive training). Does that mean that someone who trains in a non-resistive fashion will necessarily not be able to access their skills. No. But, when push comes to shove I'd rather have someone whose hit and been hit at my back (regardless of whether that happened in the ring or on the floor of a school) than someone who hasn't. And that right there is the value of resistance training. BKG's point is a good one, there's a difference between confidence and arrogance. I'd be careful to mistake the two. Honestly, if Ikken trains in the fashion that he describes, I don't think he'll have problems handling himself (and I'm happy to add him to the list of people who'd I'd dig as a wing man) and I'd say the same of BKG based on what he's written in this thread as well. I see both as developing confidence through restiance training. To sum all of this up: I think the "you can't simulate the street" is a cop out response (as I have posted numerous times). Creative and resisting training can greatly shift the odds. You can't predict results, but you can do everything within your power to ensure that you've got as many advantages as possible. - Matt
wow thanks for that sherlock. because I have never experienced fear before. man, lucky you are here to warn me! No you are right, no amount of training will COMPLETELY prepare me. But the ability to get hit and not be dissuaded is a big plus. of course, being a wing chun master of almost a year, I must bow to your superior knowledge. I shouldn't be confident? My mum was a psych nurse for twenty years (funny though, she doesn't brag about it as much as some people do) and in a discussion she had with a serial killer he said he picked his victims by how they walked. He said the ones who hurried along, head down, glancing around- the nervous ones- were his targets. and that he would never pick on the people who appeared confident. Oh, and notice that I said I was confident of my ability to talk (which I have used a lot of times before) and run (3rd place for 3km cross country in the north island in my younger days) of course, you just glossed that bit over right.
