Standing Grappling & Throws

Discussion in 'Ninjutsu' started by Newcastle Martial Artist 76, Aug 14, 2020.

  1. Crucio

    Crucio Valued Member

    Ask me that in private and we talk; here, it has nothing to do with the topic. Your like or dislike of the art, what you think makes good fighters or not, is meaningless.
     
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  2. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    It's not what I think, it's what is statistically proven.

    Some people would rather exist in a comforting fantasy, that's understandable, but it really does mean nothing outside of that fantasy.
     
  3. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    To echo Deadpool I have seen a number of people who were terrible fighters in TMAs one of whom was told he didnt not have the coordination or ability to be a fighter become proficient due to changing to a combat sport.

    Note I said proficient lives not fair and it's not a karate kid film there are always others better skilled with better abilities but the correct training methods can improve nearly anyone to a position where they can become proficient.

    It's sad that the evidence of what works and what are the best methods to use to produce a good athlete in any sporting endeavour is available in abundance but for some reason people like to believe that when it comes to fighting suddenly the rules change
     
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  4. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member


    Wow Dead_Pool is renegade Bujinkan. I wouldn't have guessed. Mind you the Avatar was probably a giveaway..

    To reply Op's question: I think standing locks have their limitations. When I studied Chen Taijiquan I was shown quite a few standing locks which do work... sort of. If you want a good primer on joint locks I suggest Rory Miller's DVD ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joint-Locks-by-Rory-Miller/dp/B00HQJ847Y) on them where he goes through all the basic concepts and principles that allow you to manufacture joint locks on the fly without getting lost in endless variations. More importantly he even goes through the limitations of joint locks and in whats situations he wasn't fond of them or at least the long winded methodology of teaching them in classical systems, and this was from an experienced corrections officer with a Japanese Jiujitsu background.

    The biggy I think that he emphasised, is that a person needs to be 'Based' against a surface, which is why police or other law enforcement usually base a person against a wall/pavement/bonnet of a car etc. Without a person being a based a determined opponent may be able to find the 'hole' to wiggle out of the lock or get ahead of the direction of force, with the testosterone/drink/drugs allowing them to ignore the hypertension of the lock enough to overcome the pain-compliance. That being said I've seen come along being used in real life by bouncers or police, though its often used against people who have had the fight pummelled out of them or are too inebriated/disorientated that the pain compliance actually works.

    Now having skirted round Ninjutsu for years I think Bujinkan comes from a slightly different place than some modern gendai arts and even modern combat scenario, weather self defence/law enforcement or military.

    The standing locks in Bujinkan were developed by a lineage with a Samurai background that moonlighted as subterfuge agents infiltrators. In short their requirements were two-fold

    1) Joint locks/reversals against a person in armour on a battlefield usually armed with a blade or polearm
    2) Joint locks/reversals against a guard who is trying to apprehend an infiltrator spy, usually in a low light enviroment.

    In (1) the first you really don't want to go down and base the opponent on a battlefield because a) his war buddies will stab you while you are wrestling with him on the floor. b) he will usually have a tanto on him and congratulations you are now on the floor against a person that has knife trying stab you in the armour joints. Many of those wrist/elbow locks and shoulder locks that look useless in unarmed combat take a whole different meaning when used against a person with a extended-locked/extending or with a weapon that can be isolated or neuralised, and its no surprise that old HEMA manuals are replete with these techniques.

    In (2) as a shinobi your mission (usually returning valuable information to your lord) is everything. You are not there to get into a martial art match with a guard who has spotted you. You must escape with your info - quickly and without being recognised. A lot of Gyokko ryu and Togakure ryu emphasise joint locks while incapacitating or diverting a persons senses. In the Togakure Ryu Santo Tonko Gata are lot of the techniques are escaping a wrist grab or back of neck grab kicking them in the crotch and then flinging blinding powder so that you can run away at night without being recognised. Throwing them and making even more of a noise and alerting more guards? Not really an option.

    (Seeing as Dead_Pool was so kind to reveal his interest in Bujikan, my interest was piqued in McBanes The Expert Sword-Man's Companion (1728) where the Scottish Pimp/sergeant/fencing master claims its best to keep dust in your pocket in non gentlemanly affrays with the local clients...Mcbane was often outnumbered . I searched around for a system that claimed to know how to systemically employ blinding powder....then the rabbit hole that is ninjutsu)

    sorry.. tangent...

    What I'm getting at is the reason the template techniques in Bujinkan are/look different is that they come from a different place to aikido hapkido judo etc... or at least tries to preserve techniques that made sense in japan 300+ years ago but not necessarily today. Despite hysterical headlines of British tabloids in the 80's not everyone walks around the street with a katana. The question then is were people too harsh on SKH for attempting to modernise the system for the modern day using his own methodology? I know the refrain from the Bujinkan is that its more than a martial art, its a way of looking at the world and the Kata are templates which you then break ...But like Tai Chi I think it takes too long. Self Defence/Law enforcement/Squaddies people need stuff that works the next day not in six months times after learning to adapt Japanese 15th century Warrior/Infiltrator techniques for the modern environment.

    I think Op needs a more practical initial training devoid of the classical learning that is very plug and play. Then if he is still interested in joint locks or feel they personally work for him he can approach aikido/hapkido/bujikan etc... to refine and deepen his knowledge.
     
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  5. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    Moving on another tangent . Could Dunc or anyone else comment on modified BJJ such as Gracie Survival Tactics (GST) or other systems?. It seems that BJJ recognises that people in law enforcement have different requirements from people who are training for self defence, such as cuffing, weapon retention etc...Surely those practitioners who have experience in the field would have an outside view on which standing joint locks have a high working percentage.... or is basing and going to the ground their only odus operandi?
     
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  6. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Re: Rory miller, I really like his first two books, and then I saw some of his videos and they look awfull:



    Are there any clips online you think are good?
     
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  7. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    Oddly enough no:

    or rather to be more specific: His books such as meditations on violence on how to spot and classify violence are pretty much solid. Not perfect but Maslow tied to violence dynamics would always be a strange fit but its better than most stuff out there. His seminar dvd in how criminals approach and view violence is in my opinion very good.

    His physical stuff... its a bit meh. I’ve never been convinced with his one step stuff. I have a suspicion that he’s a better writer than visual performer and he looks uncomfortable and laboured on film. His speciality is close quarter stand up, I'm not sure i like his ground stuff but there again I'm in no position to make a judgement.Before His Japanese Jiujitsu he studied Judo which he values a lot as he competed in his varsity team. In the time he spent as s corrections officer he must have learnt something of what works, but i suspect that by the time he found fame with his books his teaching became more risk averse, that and a knee brace which makes more and more appearance in his videos which suggests the years and injuries have caught up with him. What i do like his his principles breakdown in easy digestable chunks.In his joint locks dvd he sounds deeply sceptical of the whole thing but there again i haven’t come across another DVD where the concept is broken down and explained clearer, On his close range combat dvd he is more at ease. Furthermore he doesn’t rag on any one system. His opinion is that it all sort of works but syllabus style training is counter productive to teaching a physical skill, so he prefers principle led instruction and the concept of playing with skills with a heafty overlay of awareness training and pre incident and post incident dynamics. The stuff of his that would be really cool to see is scenario training which he doesn't really show much of because he believes its too easy to train badly.
     
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  8. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Thanks, that's almost exactly what I thought too, just better structured with better wordyness.. and with less exposure to his material then you.

    He did a round table with Sam Harris (who I dislike) and Matt Thornton (who's got his own issues) which was actually really really good, I'll see if I can find it, if you haven't seen it!

    Wow, it was 2013, I'm too old!

    Self-Defense and the Law | Sam Harris
     
  9. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    They don't look awful they are awful so bad it would make me question anything else he posts.

    The only standing lock which seems to work as a control or break is the kimura but even then with out a wall you tend to use it as a take down.

    With regards to standing locks for LEO all you have to do is to look at any police reality show to see just how hard it is for multiple officers to control a single truly resisting opponent to understand just how low percentage these moves are unless your suspect is wearing cumbersome armour lol
     
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  10. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    Mr Miller is more well known as a writer on awareness training for martial artists than an optimal performance coach. Even by his admission he's not out create olympic athletes or MMA dominance machines. His take was that he had to train his corrections team to spot the early signs/cues of violence and to give them robust skills without the long induction period he had in Judo and Jiujitsu so that when they left a training session the had at least 'something' that was workable.

    I admit that I was more of a fanboy years ago. I was doing boxing and taijiquan and while with boxing i could see the immediate practicality, with taijiquan I was very much
    'ok I can see how this would work in theory.... but against a dynamic resisting opponent that is blasting away with his fists?"

    So I searched around for material that would explain how it was even remotely possible to pull off a joint lock against violent opposition with some degree of success. I looked around at various materials and Rory's was the only stuff the sounded plausible, even if much of the DVD had a paint by numbers feel.

    What I always amusing his how even the intro to the DVD was slightly dismissive of joint-locks - I paraphrase here for the thread:

    "They are also regarded as one of the more difficult martial arts skills to implement in real life... Joint locks are not primary self defence techniques. If you are in a position that require self defence you are justified and likely need a higher level of force."

    A DVD that admitted from the outset "this is plan B, maybe even C but I guess you really want low percentage stuff to work so here goes."

    It always sounded very much like that for him Joint locks were secondary auxiliary skills, nice to have, but that you better have a more mainstream Plan A striking or grappling (which I think his preference was modified Judo and short range strikes- but this is only my impression)

    Incidentally OP - if you do check the material out please take Rory's oft repeated advice. You can't learn joint locks from a DVD you have to practice with someone. In my Taijiquan class they wouldn't allow that kind of free flowing joint lock training so I used my Brother in law as a martial lab rat for a week to test out the principles, both those on the DVD and the Taijiquan applications i was introduced to. I felt I gained more insight into that week contorting my brother in law and playing about with principles than I learnt in my Taijiquan classes.

    For my part I still think joint locks are still low percentage against a fully resisting opponent. So for me my TCC joint locks are secondary auxilliary skills, (Not that that I think I could pull them off, I think I've forgotten about 70% of them)

    Which nicely leads to the question I originally put out. whats the take of Modified LEO BJJ on standing joint locks? If there is are emerging systems that may have some new insight Police officer BJJ stuff must be at cutting edge: Matt sport techniques tested to destruction in a real life enviroment.
     
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  11. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Interestingly his "koryu Jujutsu" training was actually under someone who wasn't qualified, and had just copied some old training films.

    I think the over focus on it in modern schools, it's partially because back in the day, everyone did sumai (sumo's precursor) so the Jujutsu ryuha were more of a finishing school, then the place where you learnt everything about fighting, and most modern schools are just poor quality copies of the old schools at best.

    I know theres a small amount of standing locks in the old school SD material in BJJ, but they are mostly incidental to the main Move, and they're not always the best thing to train anyway.

    From the little I've seen of the Gracie academy work with police, there's no standing locks.
     
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  12. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    Yeah I followed that car crash thread on where he got his mokuroku licence and who gave it. It seemed as if there was a lot of politics in the background. Not sure what the disgruntled beef of the original poster of that thread actually was but I suspect ulterior motives. For Rory's part he rarely ever brought up his Jiujitsu training and decided during his Corrections career that whatever he had learnt beforehand had value but had to be severely modified to fit his experience of the reality he was being confronted with. I had quite a hard time initially trying to find out what his martial background was. Interesting fact: He not only had varsity Judo but also Varsity fencing. I don't know which discipline for sure, but I suspect Sabre from some of his some of his blog posts when discussing eskrima.

    PS Damn you Dead_Pool!, its near midnight and I'm now going to hunt that thread that I read about 5 years ago. There was some strange stuff on that thread that never made sense,,,
     
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  13. Dunc

    Dunc Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    I think the Gracie Survival Tactics etc are a really good development from BJJ
    The basic principle is to change your distancing vs BJJ (sport) to cater for strikes, increased focus on wrist control and weapon retention whilst learning how to escape and/or control someone safely on the ground

    In terms of standing joint locks: Really all that’s survived in BJJ is kimura and some flying arm bars. I believe that’s because strikes were removed from Judo Which seriously limited the number of standing locks that were applicable. There are some variations on musodori that survived in Judo, but didn’t make it into BJJ
    Then most people who tried standing locks took them from Aikido which isn’t the most practical source of material and once again excludes the striking necessary to set the arm up for a lock
    Also worth noting that most effective standing locks are characterised by you applying a lot of force suddenly to a compromised joint as opposed to a more controlling kind of technique
    They are good to get a reaction to create space etc, but that’s a different thing
     
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  14. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award



    Here's Rickson doing some of the SD material,

    Re Musha Dori, my old judo coach used to use it regularly and finish with a foot sweep, it's in the SD BJJ material too, but really it's been replaced by wizzer type wrestling attacks in the modern game.
     
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  15. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Is that Singh of JKD Athletics Association with him?
     
  16. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    I don't think it is, I'm not too familiar with him, but this chap looks quite different.
     
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  17. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Yeah, I saw him from another angle in another one of those videos and I think you're right. It was the hairstyle and lack of eyebrows that had me wondering.
     
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  18. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    I've never noticed Singh not having eyebrows, does he suffer from alopecia?
     
  19. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Answer yes, yes he does.....

    From a Google:

    "
    "The highest level of evolution has to be adaptability." - Sifu Harinder Singh

    Rewatch Black Belt Magazine x COMBAT GO's exclusive interview with him where we chat about the Jeet Kune Do Athletic Association, growing up with alopecia areata, and the street fight that changed his life.
    "
     
  20. Dunc

    Dunc Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    Yeah - It works pretty well with a foot sweep, strikes to the opposite side as you drop down &/or securing it in the lapel as part of a takedown

    There is a misconception in the xkans that the techniques of kihon happo are practical techniques. They are not (They are core elements that are used in practical techniques)
    This leads to people trying to do the locks in isolation and finding them easily countered by anyone who’s aware/expecting it
    But, if you look in the techniques from the Ryu you’ll see that they are always part of a much broader technique and never done in isolation
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2020
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