# What am I supposed to say to Drop Bear?



## guy b (Oct 7, 2016)

Forum members:

I have been criticised for not going into enough detail and for giving flippant and sometimes patronising answers to people. I accept the criticism to an extent, but feel that there are two sides to every story and I didn't show up here with this posting style. Anyway, I will try to do better in future.

I have a problem though: please have a look at the post on chain punching featuring MMA fan drop bear. What am I supposed to say to a person who is definitely wrong, and definitely ignorant of VT while also being hostile to it for some reason I can't work out, but who fails to recognise their wrongness and continues arguing from a base of factual error? Short (if not flippant) answers seem about all I can do here?

Drop bear also feel free to add suggestions. What do you want from me, apart from an argument about nothing?


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## KPM (Oct 7, 2016)

At that point you simply "agree to disagree" and move on.  It doesn't have to turn into a long drawn-out argument.


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## guy b (Oct 7, 2016)

Good advice


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

You support your arguments with credable evidence.

But otherwise. You treat martial arts like a religion and I treat it like a science. So of course our approaches are going to clash.


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## wingchun100 (Oct 7, 2016)

I think everyone around here has been guilty of that at some time or another though. I mean if you say "I don't get that WC move...it would not work," and we say, "Well it would because the principle behind it is XYZ," and you come back and say, "Nope, still won't work..."

I mean, assuming that the WC person gave an example of how it WOULD work, and you are adhering to it not working...then where are we supposed to go from there? We can't go anywhere.

It always amuses me that, on boards like this where there is a wing chun section or on wing chun videos on YouTube, I ALWAYS see people from other styles posting things to bash it...yet I hardly ever see even 20% of this much bashing done on any other boards/videos of any other style. Maybe it is because wing chun is the only style where no one has entered a competition and really OWNED it, so there is no "proof" the style works.

Well, no proof in the eye of the public anyway. I've had to use it on a few occasions, so I know it does. You might wonder if these situations were against people who were trained in nothing. From what I saw of them, the answer is: yes, they seemed to have little or no training of their own...but then again, the majority of people in the world that you might fight on the street will NOT have training. Or if they do, they might be a hobbyist. Since I don't plan on competing in the ring anytime soon, that is not what I train for. However, if I wanted to, then I would step up my game to see how the other WC reps who entered MMA tournaments failed, and I would strive to not make the same mistakes.

Anyway, I don't know why I went on that rant.

To the OP: if you don't like what a member says, don't feel like a wimp for hitting the "ignore member" button. They created it to be used.


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

It is mostly a simple and clinical discussion that can then branch out to exceptions. But if you have access to the better rescourses and the better people you will wind up with a better product.

Australian soccer is not as good as European soccer. We don't have the same resources.

Same with martial arts.

sorry. Not a thing I can change.


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## wingchun100 (Oct 7, 2016)

I don't believe anyone asked you to.


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## guy b (Oct 7, 2016)

drop bear said:


> You support your arguments with credable evidence.
> 
> But otherwise. You treat martial arts like a religion and I treat it like a science. So of course our approaches are going to clash.



Making massive assumptions isn't scientific, it's political. If you would like to take an evidence based approach then when you lack evidence, you should remain undecided or without an opinion. When provided with information (a drill is not sparring) then you should modify your opinions accordingly.

I don't think I have any kind of religious approach to martial arts and I have changed system several times. The two I have settled on are BJJ and VT because they are compatible and complimentary. Evidence about VT is available to me that isn't available to you, and this is what I base my decisions on. If you wish to see such evidence then I suggest training VT


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## Steve (Oct 7, 2016)

I think if you answered questions instead of evading them, things would go better.  Also, threads like this are really lame, and possibly a violation of the TOS.   

Also, I recommend typing out drop bear.  DP means something naughty... at least in the USA.


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## wingchun100 (Oct 7, 2016)

Steve said:


> I think if you answered questions instead of evading them, things would go better.  Also, threads like this are really lame, and possibly a violation of the TOS.
> 
> Also, I recommend typing out drop bear.  DP means something naughty... at least in the USA.


 
And not for nothing, but wouldn't the proper abbreviation be DB anyway?


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 7, 2016)

Drop Bear likes to promote argument...end of story...you have to decide if he is worth wasting your time on....my recommendation is..... just let it go


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## guy b (Oct 7, 2016)

Xue Sheng said:


> Drop Bear likes to promote argument...end of story...you have to decide if he is worth wasting your time on....my recommendation is..... just let it go



I think you are correct. Basically it seems to boil down to a demand for videos and odd assumptions based on no info

I will avoid in future


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 7, 2016)

drop bear said:


> It is mostly a simple and clinical discussion that can then branch out to exceptions. But if you have access to the better rescourses and the better people you will wind up with a better product.
> 
> Australian soccer is not as good as European soccer. We don't have the same resources.
> 
> ...


The ongoing issue, Drop Bear, is that you only honor one type of evidence, so far as I can see: does it work against a highly-skilled person who has some familiarity with what you do (so, not a surprise technique to them) trying to stop you from doing that thing. There are many reasons that doesn't actually apply to some techniques and contexts. It's like taking evidence from lab mice and expecting them to apply directly to humans. It's usable evidence, but not always valid for the context.


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 7, 2016)

Steve said:


> .  DP means something naughty... at least in the USA.



It does!?

That is a new one on me


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## Marnetmar (Oct 7, 2016)

You could try not acting like a proverbial brick wall and wondering why people here get annoyed with you or try to push your buttons.


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## Danny T (Oct 7, 2016)

guy b said:


> Forum members:
> 
> I have been criticised for not going into enough detail and for giving flippant and sometimes patronising answers to people. I accept the criticism to an extent, but feel that there are two sides to every story and I didn't show up here with this posting style. Anyway, I will try to do better in future.
> 
> ...


How about simply agreeing to disagree and moving on to something else. There is always someone who will disagree on any subject manner. We all have different perspectives...it isn't a matter of being right but of discussing, giving your opinion/perspective and accepting someone else may well disagree. It is when one (whether correct or not) takes discussion into argument (the want to prove their opinion is correct and another's is wrong) that contention along with emotion takes hold. There numerous people here who like and will draw others into arguing rather than explaining with good intent for all. 
There are the often teasing/joking/sometimes snide remarks done in fun or jest that others take as insult and then there are the snide remarks done on purpose to insult rather than giving a good explanation of one's perspectives. All cause argumentative and unproductive discourse.

Give your opinion, answer questions in a manner to help others understand your perspective, accept others may or may not agree or understand, ask them questions with the purpose to gain more knowledge of their perspective and again accept that some may still disagree. 

As to myself I'm not here to prove my knowledge is the truth, is completely correct nor is it to prove that someone who doesn't have my perspective is wrong.

Something my Sifu often states; "there is no right or wrong, there is only the consequence".


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## realg7 (Oct 7, 2016)

guy b said:


> Forum members:
> 
> I have been criticised for not going into enough detail and for giving flippant and sometimes patronising answers to people. I accept the criticism to an extent, but feel that there are two sides to every story and I didn't show up here with this posting style. Anyway, I will try to do better in future.
> 
> ...


You guys should remember that this is the internet and that you are both here due to your hobbies and interests.

If this doesn't effect your ability to earn money then it probably doesn't matter that 2 brain egos are clashing on an online forum.

Both of you need to CHILL OUT....

This is a brotherhood of warriors, and in such a band of brothers fights are inevitable, so do what men do after a fight, shake virtual hands, have a virtual beer, give a virtual hug, and MOVE ON!

Love ya

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## Tez3 (Oct 7, 2016)

realg7 said:


> This is a brotherhood of warriors, and in such a* band of brothers* fights are inevitable, so do what *men* do after a fight, shake virtual hands, have a virtual beer, give a virtual hug, and MOVE ON!



Excuse me? Are women excluded from this site then?


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

guy b said:


> Making massive assumptions isn't scientific, it's political. If you would like to take an evidence based approach then when you lack evidence, you should remain undecided or without an opinion. When provided with information (a drill is not sparring) then you should modify your opinions accordingly.
> 
> I don't think I have any kind of religious approach to martial arts and I have changed system several times. The two I have settled on are BJJ and VT because they are compatible and complimentary. Evidence about VT is available to me that isn't available to you, and this is what I base my decisions on. If you wish to see such evidence then I suggest training VT



Funny thing about that.  I just saw a whole heap of evidence about VT myself. Validates everything i said. 

I Just can't show it to you. As you know they don't like that stuff promoted.


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> The ongoing issue, Drop Bear, is that you only honor one type of evidence, so far as I can see: does it work against a highly-skilled person who has some familiarity with what you do (so, not a surprise technique to them) trying to stop you from doing that thing. There are many reasons that doesn't actually apply to some techniques and contexts. It's like taking evidence from lab mice and expecting them to apply directly to humans. It's usable evidence, but not always valid for the context.



What else do you have?  Stories are easy.  I could do stories all day.


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## Steve (Oct 7, 2016)

drop bear said:


> What else do you have?  Stories are easy.  I could do stories all day.


In the military we used to mess with chronic one-uppers.  Just keep making more and more outlandish statements and see if they kept up.   We would also see if they were also one-downwrs and start saying negative things to see if they would say something more sad.  My puppy was hit by a car.  Yeah?   Me too, except it was two puppies and a bus full of kids.


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

Steve said:


> In the military we used to mess with chronic one-uppers.  Just keep making more and more outlandish statements and see if they kept up.   We would also see if they were also one-downwrs and start saying negative things to see if they would say something more sad.  My puppy was hit by a car.  Yeah?   Me too, except it was two puppies and a bus full of kids.



Same with security. Guys who could legitimately fight would also have to make stuff up. 

"never let the truth get in the way of a good story"

Chopper Reed


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## realg7 (Oct 7, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Excuse me? Are women excluded from this site then?


Sisterhood as well...lol. I knew it...right on time!

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## Kung Fu Wang (Oct 7, 2016)

drop bear said:


> But if you have access to the better rescourses and the better people you will wind up with a better product.


Agree!

Even if the "long fist" is my primary/foundation MA system, I still have to say that

- long fist roundhouse kick < MT roundhouse kick
- long fist hook punch < boxing hook punch.

There is always a better way to do thing.


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Agree!
> 
> Even if the "long fist" is my primary/foundation MA system, I still have to say that
> 
> ...



And look.  Australian boxing isnt as good as American.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 7, 2016)

drop bear said:


> What else do you have?  Stories are easy.  I could do stories all day.


You essentially assert that, absent the evidence you want, no other evidence is useful. There are plenty of good explanations why sport evidence isn't really good evidence for all contexts, but you don't seem to want to listen to reason on those points. You just want the evidence you want, and to pass off other evidence - like real-life experiences using an art for self-defense - as "stories".


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## Tez3 (Oct 7, 2016)

realg7 said:


> Sisterhood as well...lol. I knew it...right on time!
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk



No, not 'sisterhood' gender is irrelevant. Why post such mishegoss?


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## guy b (Oct 7, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Funny thing about that.  I just saw a whole heap of evidence about VT myself. Validates everything i said.
> 
> I Just can't show it to you. As you know they don't like that stuff promoted.



zzzzzzz


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## JowGaWolf (Oct 7, 2016)

guy b said:


> What am I supposed to say to a person who is definitely wrong,


If you know that you are right then what does it matter if someone else is wrong? 

I recently explained a technique in which Drop Bear thinks that the technique is not effective or that it can't break a knee.  I've been kicked with this technique and I've used this technique before so I know first hand the potential that it has at full power.  I've used this technique in free sparring so I know it's something that I can pull off in a real fight.  Drop bear believes otherwise so it's no big deal to me.  It just means that I know something that Drop Bear doesn't know and I should be comfortable with that.  All you can do is just state the facts and state what you believe so that other people can decide if they think you are right or if they think you are wrong.

The most that I do is try to post information that other people can read and learn.  In terms of techniques, if I have a video of me doing a technique successfully then I'll post that.  Beyond that I don't waste my time.


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## realg7 (Oct 7, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> No, not 'sisterhood' gender is irrelevant. Why post such mishegoss?


Because I'm a misogynistic jerk....lol

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## Tez3 (Oct 7, 2016)

realg7 said:


> Because I'm a misogynistic jerk....lol
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk



I think you're flattering yourself or trolling.


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## realg7 (Oct 7, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> I think you're flattering yourself or trolling.


I think your feminist views cause you to be hypersensitive to what everyone says, calm down I am not trolling but you were pushing your strong feminist perspectives on to me and that is not something I asked you to do. There is a Brotherhood and in that Brotherhood there exists a bunch of guys that do Warrior training and they call it a Brotherhood comma so for you to get upset that I said something about a Brotherhood is utterly ridiculous comma I completely respect any female that participates in the martial arts and would welcome them into the Brotherhood as a sister. But please it's always the same thing with you like you're arguing for women's rights or something come down please I am bored of your tactics LOL

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## wckf92 (Oct 7, 2016)

Danny T said:


> Something my Sifu often states; "there is no right or wrong, there is only the consequence".



Ha....love it! Thx Danny T.


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## wckf92 (Oct 7, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Excuse me? Are women excluded from this site then?


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## JR 137 (Oct 7, 2016)

In the words of a great king... Rodney King...

"Can't we all just get along?"


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## Hyoho (Oct 7, 2016)

I had a much more simple solution. I blocked drop bear some time ago who seems to disagree a lot about things they know nothing about.


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## Tez3 (Oct 7, 2016)

realg7 said:


> I think your feminist views cause you to be hypersensitive to what everyone says, calm down I am not trolling but you were pushing your strong feminist perspectives on to me and that is not something I asked you to do. There is a Brotherhood and in that Brotherhood there exists a bunch of guys that do Warrior training and they call it a Brotherhood comma so for you to get upset that I said something about a Brotherhood is utterly ridiculous comma I completely respect any female that participates in the martial arts and would welcome them into the Brotherhood as a sister. But please it's always the same thing with you like you're arguing for women's rights or something come down please I am bored of your tactics LOL
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk



If I were the 'feminist' you assume I am I wouldn't have pooh poohed your silly 'sisterhood' comment.
For the record I wasn't 'upset' so again you flatter yourself, I just call BS when I see it. You were making silly little comments about being chums together when people obviously have quite deep differences that you seem to think aren't worth discussing.  This has nothing to do with gender or didn't you notice?

I assume you have no or very little sense of humour because really you are being completely anal about this feminist v men thing, you probably should stop labelling people as well.

Well people, you see now how arguments happen on here, a comment is posted, another follows showing that the first posters comment was completely over reacted to, insults flow, assumptions pile up and pow, we have a class MT argument. Thank you realg for demonstrating how someone grabs the wrong end of the stick, ascribes motives, blusters and makes disparaging remarks because he didn't take the care to think about what he wrote. It is careless to assume for a start that the people he was talking to are actually men lol,  a simple remark would have sufficed instead of a quasi hail fellow well met platitude that was condescending to all.


Posts are read in the tone of 'voice' and the emotion of the reader, if the reader is angry, upset and dislikes the poster then that poster is ascribed the same emotions. so the reader, realg, being angry and upset assumes I am, he assumes because of *his not my* life experiences that I must be one of those rabid feminist he so hates, he assumes this too because I pointed out something in his posts, this made him angry. this leads him to think I'm the angry one, the person who is has an agenda to push feminism.

Long time posters here will tell you that I must have in the past ten years or so only mentioned anything to do with being female a couple of times, usually on the female section and more often than not about something as mundane as what sports top or chest protector is best. Even those you dislike me will have to admit I don't have a 'feminist' agenda, most don't know my gender. I say what I think, people don't agree, that's fine it would be a very boring place if we all agreed, ugh.

So, some people cannot be reasoned with, some people on here are tsutcherppenish, sent to try our patience but life is too short to worry about it. And the answer will always be....Gurkhas!


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## realg7 (Oct 7, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> If I were the 'feminist' you assume I am I wouldn't have pooh poohed your silly 'sisterhood' comment.
> For the record I wasn't 'upset' so again you flatter yourself, I just call BS when I see it. You were making silly little comments about being chums together when people obviously have quite deep differences that you seem to think aren't worth discussing.  This has nothing to do with gender or didn't you notice?
> 
> I assume you have no or very little sense of humour because really you are being completely anal about this feminist v men thing, you probably should stop labelling people as well.
> ...


You're right I APOLIGIZE... 

Can I please pay you to stop now...

Like the pic though...

WOW 

Throwing phone in the river now.

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## oaktree (Oct 7, 2016)

Dear OP, 
I first started on martial talk on 2005 and these days I rarely post or even read the forums, there is so much out there then wasting your time arguing with people about things for the most part martial talk is about people bashing each other with a few good ideas once in a while I would say focus more on your training, your family and friends then what people say on this site about things they dont know about.
For me I've remarried and having my second kid find something better to do then argue about petty things
Sincerely,
Me


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## Tez3 (Oct 7, 2016)

realg7 said:


> You're right I APOLIGIZE...
> 
> Can I please pay you to stop now...
> 
> ...



Keep your money and use it to pay for a Supporting Membership on MartialTalk. If you are going to insult it's posters you should at least help support the site.



oaktree said:


> For me I've remarried and having my second kid find something better to do then argue about petty things



Oh, that's absolutely brilliant! congratulations, it's wonderful news. 
Wait until you have been married as long as I have ( 41 years) and the kids have left home to have the petty arguments lol. We do miss you here though, so do pop in now and again, during the night feeds perhaps?  Keep well.


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> You essentially assert that, absent the evidence you want, no other evidence is useful. There are plenty of good explanations why sport evidence isn't really good evidence for all contexts, but you don't seem to want to listen to reason on those points. You just want the evidence you want, and to pass off other evidence - like real-life experiences using an art for self-defense - as "stories".



I can though.  I bashed dudes bouncing for 20 years.  I engaged in mabye thousands of fights.  Weapons, gangs dogs. I have eyegouged and head butted and bitten.  I saw a guy set on fire.  I could if i wanted, Beat posters around the head with my street experience and do it all day.  

I don't because it is not evidence.


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## Tez3 (Oct 7, 2016)

I have a giraffe, drop bear has the box to keep it in..................


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> I have a giraffe, drop bear has the box to keep it in..................



Now now conversation isn't sparring.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 7, 2016)

drop bear said:


> I can though.  I bashed dudes bouncing for 20 years.  I engaged in mabye thousands of fights.  Weapons, gangs dogs. I have eyegouged and head butted and bitten.  I saw a guy set on fire.  I could if i wanted, Beat posters around the head with my street experience and do it all day.
> 
> I don't because it is not evidence.


Actually, it is. It is strong evidence that you are effective. It is equivocal evidence that your training was effective (equivocal, because it's a single case, like any case study evidence). If we looked at others with similar training and found others succeeding with the techniques, methods, and strategies, then we can call that reasonable evidence that the training is effective. I have talked to, trained beside, and taught cops, security officers, and bouncers who have used on the job what I trained in. I've also talked to, trained beside, and taught people who used it to defend themselves.

Since I teach for self-defense, for use in the real world, I fail to see why real-world experience is not evidence. That's just being willfully blind to evidence that exists, because it's not the evidence you want to be the ONLY evidence. 

You used the term "clinical" earlier. You have repeatedly dismissed this kind of evidence in favor of sport evidence, which is like saying we'll ignore how a drug works on the few people who actually used it to treat a rare condition in their private lives and just look at the evidence from animal testing because it was tested on many more animals in a repeatable manner that everyone can see.


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## Steve (Oct 7, 2016)

Edit... just read the rest of the thread... wow... what a mess.   I would have thought a thread like this would be closed within a post or two...  surprised the moderators are letting it go.  What a crap fest.


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## drop bear (Oct 7, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Actually, it is. It is strong evidence that you are effective. It is equivocal evidence that your training was effective (equivocal, because it's a single case, like any case study evidence). If we looked at others with similar training and found others succeeding with the techniques, methods, and strategies, then we can call that reasonable evidence that the training is effective. I have talked to, trained beside, and taught cops, security officers, and bouncers who have used on the job what I trained in. I've also talked to, trained beside, and taught people who used it to defend themselves.
> 
> Since I teach for self-defense, for use in the real world, I fail to see why real-world experience is not evidence. That's just being willfully blind to evidence that exists, because it's not the evidence you want to be the ONLY evidence.
> 
> You used the term "clinical" earlier. You have repeatedly dismissed this kind of evidence in favor of sport evidence, which is like saying we'll ignore how a drug works on the few people who actually used it to treat a rare condition in their private lives and just look at the evidence from animal testing because it was tested on many more animals in a repeatable manner that everyone can see.



Because people make stuff up.  They often dont even know they are doing it. Confirmation bias. 

If you are suggesting this from a medical stand point.  You are engaging in the equivalent of the lemon diet.


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## hoshin1600 (Oct 7, 2016)

The Tibetan monks have a practice of debate. They believe if you can't provide a good argument about your practice then you don't know the subject well enough yet.  What ever your opinion is, you should be able to back it up with a logical argument. If you can't then you do not have a full understanding of the topic. That doesn't mean you win or lose the argument. Some people don't care about truth and it's not your job to change them.


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## realg7 (Oct 7, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Keep your money and use it to pay for a Supporting Membership on MartialTalk. If you are going to insult it's posters you should at least help support the site.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Will do maam. Wasn't trying to be insulting. I apologize. I must have misunderstood you. I'm sorry if I took out my own weakness on you. 

Peace 

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## Tez3 (Oct 8, 2016)

realg7 said:


> Will do maam. Wasn't trying to be insulting. I apologize. I must have misunderstood you. I'm sorry if I took out my own weakness on you.
> 
> Peace
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk



Just go to the QMs and sign out a sense of humour.


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## realg7 (Oct 8, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Just go to the QMs and sign out a sense of humour.


I'm on it. Thank you for the advice. Doing hubad....lol

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## Tez3 (Oct 8, 2016)

realg7 said:


> hubad



??


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## realg7 (Oct 8, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> ??


Kali 101 – Hubad

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## KPM (Oct 8, 2016)

Steve said:


> Edit... just read the rest of the thread... wow... what a mess.   I would have thought a thread like this would be closed within a post or two...  surprised the moderators are letting it go.  What a crap fest.



Uh oh!  You said a bad word!  NOW the mods might close the thread!


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 8, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Because people make stuff up.  They often dont even know they are doing it. Confirmation bias.
> 
> If you are suggesting this from a medical stand point.  You are engaging in the equivalent of the lemon diet.


Memories are not great. But people don't generally make up major details, and the fact that they have trained in something is, well, a fact. If they happen to remember any of the details of the encounter, that helps. And, yes, all of the feedback has to be taken with a healthy amount of skepticism. But that's not the same thing as simply rejecting it because it's not the kind of evidence you WISH it was. That's really the problem you have with it - you want it to be what it's not. I use it for what it is.

I'm sorry that self-defense doesn't handily happen in front of a camera on a regular basis for you. But it doesn't. If you choose to ignore what useful information there is regarding actual self-defense encounters, I can't fix that for you.


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## Buka (Oct 8, 2016)

Martial Artists disagreeing? Nah, say it ain't so! 
The posts of unknown people on the internet disagreeing and not getting along? Their words misunderstood? Taking offense even? Hell, no, never! Who ever heard of such a thing?

Hope springs eternal that our arts are taken as passionately as posts seem to be.


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## Tez3 (Oct 8, 2016)

I think the OP is a genuine question, its not insulting, it's not demeaning, it' simply asking what exactly can you say to someone who doesn't get what you are saying. Well, what do you say?
it's probably easy enough face to face, where you can judge, unless you have difficulties doing so, body language, tone of voice, facial expressions but when it's the written word it's so much more difficult. Many people as we've seen project their own feelings onto another, "wow they are really angry and/or upset", 'gosh this person is being really offensive" etc etc. The truth is much more prosaic, only the person writing knows the emotion the post is written with, so many posts start with the assumption that the other person is 'upset', this never bodes well for a civil conversation. Others start posts with the idea that they are right the other person is necessarily wrong, well often they are but they think they are right too. 

Then we get those posters who think something someone said is actually something else. I have a poster on here who thinks I said his kids were on drugs, he's never forgiven me for it and slates me every chance he gets, despite the fact I didn't know he had children and I didn't say they were on drugs ( this has gone on for a few years now lol) so people carrying grudges stir things up, goading others and making sure that things go downhill quickly. Rather spiteful I always think.

Another 'type' is those who tried something for a little while, didn't like it or it didn't work out _for them _so that they then post at every opportunity that this thing they can't do doesn't work, is rubbish and is all fairy tale stuff thus annoying those who manage to make it work fine quite annoyed. See all threads on kata.

Allied to the above is those who watch videos and think styles they've never tried are rubbish because videos are the gold standard of martial arts and if it doesn't look right on a video it's pants. it doesn't occur to them that the videos are made by numpties and even the people from their own style shake their heads at them. So again this annoys those who make those styles work perfectly well for obvious reasons.

We have too those who are keen to let us know how tough they are, they learnt everything on 'the street', they've been there, done it, got the t shirt and the brain damage to prove it, no-one in a fancy Gi is going to tell them that traditional styles actually work.

We do have traditionalists who argue among themselves of course as well as those who think they know better than a professional ie telling a police officer how the job is done. We have people who really think they have to disagree rather than ignore because saying nothing is the easy way out and letting a myth or misconception stand because it might upset someone is better than having a potential argument. See threads about domestic abuse for examples of this. Sometimes the truth isn't comfortable and does cause arguments but better people know what domestic abuse is and how to deal with it than let ignorance cause more victims.

I believe in being honest despite people thinking that honesty is just being argumentative, I will say what I think otherwise why bother? You would not survive long in Yorkshire if you mince your words, you'd be seen as mealy mouthed. 'I spek as I find' is the watch word here. it's a harsh living in this county and people don't have much time for those who babble or bluster, they call a spade a bloody shovel and if thee canna bide it, thee can allus shun mi.


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## drop bear (Oct 8, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Memories are not great. But people don't generally make up major details, and the fact that they have trained in something is, well, a fact. If they happen to remember any of the details of the encounter, that helps. And, yes, all of the feedback has to be taken with a healthy amount of skepticism. But that's not the same thing as simply rejecting it because it's not the kind of evidence you WISH it was. That's really the problem you have with it - you want it to be what it's not. I use it for what it is.
> 
> I'm sorry that self-defense doesn't handily happen in front of a camera on a regular basis for you. But it doesn't. If you choose to ignore what useful information there is regarding actual self-defense encounters, I can't fix that for you.



If that was how it works.  But it isn't. what we get is more of a collection of urban myths retold as fact.


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## Tez3 (Oct 8, 2016)

drop bear said:


> If that was how it works.  But it isn't. what we get is more of a collection of urban myths retold as fact.



Thank you for demonstrating I was correct in my summation of posters.


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## drop bear (Oct 8, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Thank you for demonstrating I was correct in my summation of posters.



Yeah not really. You don't give people enough credit.


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## Steve (Oct 8, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Memories are not great. But people don't generally make up major details, and the fact that they have trained in something is, well, a fact. If they happen to remember any of the details of the encounter, that helps. And, yes, all of the feedback has to be taken with a healthy amount of skepticism. But that's not the same thing as simply rejecting it because it's not the kind of evidence you WISH it was. That's really the problem you have with it - you want it to be what it's not. I use it for what it is.
> 
> I'm sorry that self-defense doesn't handily happen in front of a camera on a regular basis for you. But it doesn't. If you choose to ignore what useful information there is regarding actual self-defense encounters, I can't fix that for you.


Memories, particularly under stress, are typically pretty unreliable.   Aren't they?  I think cops or lawyers here would know better, but I've read and heard many times that eye witness accounts and people's memories of events can be wildly divergent.  Often considered unreliable in court.


It's the idea of probative value.  Video has high probative value.   Memories are less reliable.


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## Tez3 (Oct 8, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Yeah not really. You don't give people enough credit.



Credit? nay, lad never a borrower or lender be, I have no interest in credit.


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## Steve (Oct 8, 2016)

Well, if this is a mod endorsed true confessions thread, I enjoy every poster, without exception,   Even those with whom I tend to disagree,   

The single exception is a guy who I think was bullied as a kid and now enjoys bullying others online.  That guy is hopeless.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 8, 2016)

drop bear said:


> If that was how it works.  But it isn't. what we get is more of a collection of urban myths retold as fact.


Where, precisely are you thinking I'm getting this information from, that it includes so many urban myths?


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 8, 2016)

Steve said:


> Memories, particularly under stress, are typically pretty unreliable.   Aren't they?  I think cops or lawyers here would know better, but I've read and heard many times that eye witness accounts and people's memories of events can be wildly divergent.  Often considered unreliable in court.
> 
> 
> It's the idea of probative value.  Video has high probative value.   Memories are less reliable.


I agree, and I've made that same point, myself. At the same time, you don't discount the entire account simply because it's likely to have mistaken memories in it. You glean what you can. Someone who has been in many interactions is more likely to have an accurate memory (so, officers' memory is likely better than the average witness) because they are more accustomed to the stress interactions, and that acclimatization goes a long way to reducing part of the effect. Top that off with training, and we get more accurate accounts from some sources. So, we can put more credence in the reports from the LEO's. That doesn't mean we dismiss all evidence from bouncers and security officers - they may not have the same training for reporting, but many of them do have more interactions with that level of stress.

Nor should we dismiss out-of-hand those reports we can get first-hand from someone who defended themselves. We use it for what it is - a report from a reliable source (because why would we use input from an unreliable source) that likely has inaccuracies in it. They probably didn't imagine the entire incident, and the major details are likely to be more or less accurate, within a range. If they thought there were 6 people, there was probably more than one and fewer than 10. If they thought there were two, there were probably multiples (but not a given) and probably not more than 3 or 4. If they thought there was a knife, there was probably something (not a given, but most likely) in the person's hand.

Then, we add in what they were able to gather afterward. Did someone else verify to them that the object was a knife? That raises the odds that it was actually a knife. Did others say they never saw anything in the person's hand? That lowers the odds there was anything there.

We all know (at least those of us in this discussion, apparently) that first-person accounts aren't terribly accurate. But we still use them to glean what we can from them. The legal system doesn't dismiss them out-of-hand, either.


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## Steve (Oct 8, 2016)

Absolutely.  But when yiubglean what you can from memory, it should be with mucj skepticism, not used as a foundation for entire training models.


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## Paul_D (Oct 8, 2016)

guy b said:


> What am I supposed to say to a person who is definitely wrong, and definitely ignorant of VT


Nothing, it's not your job to be the Idiot Whisperer.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 8, 2016)

Steve said:


> Absolutely.  But when yiubglean what you can from memory, it should be with mucj skepticism, not used as a foundation for entire training models.


I never said it was the entire foundation. That's a straw man Drop Bear has attacked many times. My assertion was that this evidence was an essential component to developing an approach to self-defense. Sparring should be in there, scenario training should be in there, drills should be in there, and looking for evidence from both video and reliable first-person accounts should be tossed in, since none of the others can accurately represent a self-defense situation. Between resistive sparring, progressively aggressive scenario training, and what evidence you can glean from videos and first-person reports, there's a reasonable combination of validation methods. Better yet if you also toss in some review of what works in resistive sport settings (like BJJ competitions, MMA, etc.).

EDIT: Not for nothing, but when I first read your post, I thought I'd forgotten how to read.


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## Steve (Oct 8, 2016)

Posting on a phone and it autocorrect funny.


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## MaMaD (Oct 8, 2016)

i thought this is a game thread


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## Tez3 (Oct 8, 2016)

MaMaD said:


> i thought this is a game thread



No, not really because we have people who won't play fair.


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## drop bear (Oct 8, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Where, precisely are you thinking I'm getting this information from, that it includes so many urban myths?



It goes around the self defence scene a bit. You know 90% of fights go to the ground.  All fights occur at elbow range.  If you train submissions you will let go if the guy taps.  I think it was Guy B who was telling me you can't for some reason street fight with your guard up.

They are not based on anything not even actual observation. Just dogma.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 8, 2016)

drop bear said:


> It goes around the self defence scene a bit. You know 90% of fights go to the ground.  All fights occur at elbow range.  If you train submissions you will let go if the guy taps.  I think it was Guy B who was telling me you can't for some reason street fight with your guard up.
> 
> They are not based on anything not even actual observation. Just dogma.


I wasn't talking about any of that. I'm talking about taking information from people who actually were in an encounter. If someone says they ended up on the ground (or didn't), that's likely to be accurate - those aren't the sorts of things that are often lost in mis-remembrance. Of course there are bad "facts" out there - there are in every endeavor. Reviewing what actually happens - the accounts of people involved and video where available - is how we get past that foolishness.

This is what I find aggravating about this discussion. You used the word "dogma" there - yet you are the one who has been arguing this with me that the evidence I'm referring to is just "stories", then you come around to explaining that you're talking about just the crap that's NOT supported by actual accounts. If you quit trying to disagree, you'd actually make my point for me, but you've been too busy trying to find a way for me to be wrong.


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## drop bear (Oct 8, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> I wasn't talking about any of that. I'm talking about taking information from people who actually were in an encounter. If someone says they ended up on the ground (or didn't), that's likely to be accurate - those aren't the sorts of things that are often lost in mis-remembrance. Of course there are bad "facts" out there - there are in every endeavor. Reviewing what actually happens - the accounts of people involved and video where available - is how we get past that foolishness.
> 
> This is what I find aggravating about this discussion. You used the word "dogma" there - yet you are the one who has been arguing this with me that the evidence I'm referring to is just "stories", then you come around to explaining that you're talking about just the crap that's NOT supported by actual accounts. If you quit trying to disagree, you'd actually make my point for me, but you've been too busy trying to find a way for me to be wrong.



 supported by any actual accounts is a fairly fuzzy concept.

Hence my references to defeating people with lazer eyes.

I mean if your logic lets that sort of thing in.  Then there needs to be a change to how you adress your evidence.

Doesn't there?

Those same urban myths get passed off as legitimate accounts by the way.  It is how the system supports itself.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 8, 2016)

drop bear said:


> supported by any actual accounts is a fairly fuzzy concept.
> 
> Hence my references to defeating people with lazer eyes.
> 
> ...


You're just absolutely unwilling to admit that there's any valid information from people in defense encounters, aren't you? You'd like to think that sport evidence is good enough, even though the context is drastically different. You have so many good contributions, and yet on topics like this you obstinately cling to the idea that all first-hand accounts must be utter crap, so you dismiss them all.

If your logic lets you ignore accounts from people involved in actual incidents, there needs to be a change in how you address your evidence. (No "doesn't there", because I have no question about that statement.)


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## Steve (Oct 8, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> You're just absolutely unwilling to admit that there's any valid information from people in defense encounters, aren't you? You'd like to think that sport evidence is good enough, even though the context is drastically different. You have so many good contributions, and yet on topics like this you obstinately cling to the idea that all first-hand accounts must be utter crap, so you dismiss them all.
> 
> If your logic lets you ignore accounts from people involved in actual incidents, there needs to be a change in how you address your evidence. (No "doesn't there", because I have no question about that statement.)


Personally, I think the problem with a personal encounter is the inherent, self serving nature of the evidence.   There are four possibilities, and all are self serving:

1.  If you train martial arts and unsuccessfully defend yourself (are mugged or tragically are killed), then you didn't train long enough or it was just fate.

2.  If you train martial arts and you survive (by any measure, even if your life was never in danger), it is proof your training works, even if the training was immaterial to the defense.   

3.  If you don't train and are mugged or murdered, you should have trained.

4.  If you don't train and successfully defend yourself, you were lucky, and should still train.


Stats don't matter.   Facts don't matter.  Reality doesn't matter.  Style doesn't matter.


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## drop bear (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> You're just absolutely unwilling to admit that there's any valid information from people in defense encounters, aren't you? You'd like to think that sport evidence is good enough, even though the context is drastically different. You have so many good contributions, and yet on topics like this you obstinately cling to the idea that all first-hand accounts must be utter crap, so you dismiss them all.
> 
> If your logic lets you ignore accounts from people involved in actual incidents, there needs to be a change in how you address your evidence. (No "doesn't there", because I have no question about that statement.)



When have i ignored an actual incident though?

Most of the time i just get told the street.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

Steve said:


> Personally, I think the problem with a personal encounter is the inherent, self serving nature of the evidence.   There are four possibilities, and all are self serving:
> 
> 1.  If you train martial arts and unsuccessfully defend yourself (are mugged or tragically are killed), then you didn't train long enough or it was just fate.
> 
> ...


You're starting to sound like Drop Bear. I've literally never heard someone make statements that would fit those 4 statements you closed with, except where they were making outrageous claims. Perhaps you are getting this impression from forum posts - I would expect those kinds of problems more on a forum than having a 1-on-1 discussion with someone who has had to defend themselves and either succeeded or failed.

I've heard folks talk about the difficulty they had with a technique and try to dissect whether they were doing it wrong, it was the wrong technique to use, or the technique simply didn't work well enough. I've had people talk about changing styles because of a self-defense situation - even after one successful one where they felt like they survived by luck because they didn't have the tools for the situation. I've had people decide that what happened was good execution of things they'd practiced well and seemed to work more or less as expected. I've had people say, yes, that they simply hadn't trained long enough or hard enough - more of a revelation in the latter, and a valid observation that their approach to training had been pretty lazy. I've even had a couple of people say they don't think any level of physical skill training would have helped, because they never saw the attack coming, and they were trying to figure out if there was a way to have seen it in time (better awareness, reading cues, etc.).

Literally every time I've had a discussion like that - again, excepting those folks making outrageous claims that seem unlikely to be true - they were in analysis mode. Most came to one of two conclusions: what I knew worked pretty well and that was scary as hell so I want to train more and harder, or what I knew didn't work so well and I need to change/add to my training.  

So, will you also dismiss those people's accounts? Will you say they are acting entirely on bias? Will you claim there's no value in the account of someone who's not defending their art?


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

drop bear said:


> When have i ignored an actual incident though?
> 
> Most of the time i just get told the street.


When I talked about using personal reports of incidents, you passed it off as "stories" and not useful evidence. This has repeated in at least two separate threads now - and has been EXACTLY what I was talking about here, which you worked very hard to say was useless as evidence and was just "urban myths".

If you didn't meant to claim personal reports of an incident were not useful information, I'm not sure how we ended up in this rabbit hole.


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## Steve (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> You're starting to sound like Drop Bear. I've literally never heard someone make statements that would fit those 4 statements you closed with, except where they were making outrageous claims. Perhaps you are getting this impression from forum posts - I would expect those kinds of problems more on a forum than having a 1-on-1 discussion with someone who has had to defend themselves and either succeeded or failed.
> 
> I've heard folks talk about the difficulty they had with a technique and try to dissect whether they were doing it wrong, it was the wrong technique to use, or the technique simply didn't work well enough. I've had people talk about changing styles because of a self-defense situation - even after one successful one where they felt like they survived by luck because they didn't have the tools for the situation. I've had people decide that what happened was good execution of things they'd practiced well and seemed to work more or less as expected. I've had people say, yes, that they simply hadn't trained long enough or hard enough - more of a revelation in the latter, and a valid observation that their approach to training had been pretty lazy. I've even had a couple of people say they don't think any level of physical skill training would have helped, because they never saw the attack coming, and they were trying to figure out if there was a way to have seen it in time (better awareness, reading cues, etc.).
> 
> ...


Just read the threads around here.  Any time a real world example is shared, whether from a news article or anecdotally, it falls into one of the four categories above.

I shared a story about a woman who was training for American Ninja Warrior who was assaulted.   A guy held a knife to her throat, attempting to rape her.   She fought back and credits the confidence, strength and agility gained from training for saving her life.  So, according to the general line of reasoning, we should be able to conclude that parkour is effective for self defense.   The establishment suggested she was lucky.

Other threads have titles like "proof karate works for self defense" which are grounded in stories like the one above.   But in these cases, because there is a stake, it's actual evidence,   

Bottom line, I believe if you don't see how every self defense story falls into one of the categories above, it's because you're too close to it and in your blind spot.

I think there is a number 5, which is that micro level stories are unreliable, and to measure the efficacy of a self defense program, it must address a specified need and actually track progress against the measurable goal.  

Regarding the slam about sounding like drop bear, that's beneath you.  You're far too reasonable, I think, for that.   We may fundamentally disagree with some of the "experts" here, but I think martial arts, and self defense experts in general, can easily fall into a dangerously myopic view.  I think much of the kerfuffle around drop bear is from people who are used to saying things with authority and not being questioned.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

Steve said:


> Just read the threads around here.  Any time a real world example is shared, whether from a news article or anecdotally, it falls into one of the four categories above.
> 
> I shared a story about a woman who was training for American Ninja Warrior who was assaulted.   A guy held a knife to her throat, attempting to rape her.   She fought back and credits the confidence, strength and agility gained from training for saving her life.  So, according to the general line of reasoning, we should be able to conclude that parkour is effective for self defense.   The establishment suggested she was lucky.
> 
> ...


You are talking about the responses to the incident, rather than the value of the incident, itself.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

Steve said:


> Just read the threads around here.  Any time a real world example is shared, whether from a news article or anecdotally, it falls into one of the four categories above.
> 
> I shared a story about a woman who was training for American Ninja Warrior who was assaulted.   A guy held a knife to her throat, attempting to rape her.   She fought back and credits the confidence, strength and agility gained from training for saving her life.  So, according to the general line of reasoning, we should be able to conclude that parkour is effective for self defense.   The establishment suggested she was lucky.
> 
> ...


And, separately addressing the last part:

Okay, I'll accept that that comment sounded harsher than intended. My point was that your post literally sounded like one of Drop Bear's to me. I didn't feel like you were actually responding to what I was saying, but to what you'd experienced in other conversations, and that makes it very difficult to respond without being dragged off-point.


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## Steve (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> You are talking about the responses to the incident, rather than the value of the incident, itself.


I'm talking about the usefulness of the incident as evidence that a program works or doesn't work, unless that incident is a part of a statistically meaningful trend.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

Steve said:


> I'm talking about the usefulness of the incident as evidence that a program works or doesn't work, unless that incident is a part of a statistically meaningful trend.


Except that all the things you posted were people's reactions to the report. It is absolutely true that people can fail to use a report meaningfully and can get defensive, dismissive, etc. The report itself, however, has value if we care to approach it objectively. The same is true of video, as you referenced in your post. 

Let's say I post a video and person 1 says, "Well, she just got lucky" while person 2 says, "I think X is why she survived that encounter". Person 1 hasn't gained any useful information. Person 2 may have - they would have to dig deeper and look for input from similar kinds of incidents as well as experimenting in a controlled environment with what seemed to work in the incident. The same goes for incidents of failure to defend. We can use it for what it is - evidence that seems to support or contradict a point. By itself, it's not sufficient to draw conclusions, but if we pair it with other evidence - more incidents, trends (as you mentioned), what we can see in well-designed sport, and experimentation in a controlled environment - we can get useful information from them. It's why I like to hear input from folks who appear to have needed their physical skills more often than I have, like Drop Bear and Juany, as well as the folks I know who have acted in similar roles where those were put to a test.

It's a piece of information we can either use, mis-use, or ignore. The latter two seem irresponsible to me if we are discussing self-defense use. Heck, they'd be irresponsible in sport, too, because it would be like refusing to use the information from prior fights (incidents of sport usage).


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## Steve (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Except that all the things you posted were people's reactions to the report. It is absolutely true that people can fail to use a report meaningfully and can get defensive, dismissive, etc. The report itself, however, has value if we care to approach it objectively. The same is true of video, as you referenced in your post.
> 
> Let's say I post a video and person 1 says, "Well, she just got lucky" while person 2 says, "I think X is why she survived that encounter". Person 1 hasn't gained any useful information. Person 2 may have - they would have to dig deeper and look for input from similar kinds of incidents as well as experimenting in a controlled environment with what seemed to work in the incident. The same goes for incidents of failure to defend. We can use it for what it is - evidence that seems to support or contradict a point. By itself, it's not sufficient to draw conclusions, but if we pair it with other evidence - more incidents, trends (as you mentioned), what we can see in well-designed sport, and experimentation in a controlled environment - we can get useful information from them. It's why I like to hear input from folks who appear to have needed their physical skills more often than I have, like Drop Bear and Juany, as well as the folks I know who have acted in similar roles where those were put to a test.
> 
> It's a piece of information we can either use, mis-use, or ignore. The latter two seem irresponsible to me if we are discussing self-defense use. Heck, they'd be irresponsible in sport, too, because it would be like refusing to use the information from prior fights (incidents of sport usage).


I hear what you're saying, and disagree.   I don't think much useful information can come out of a single incident, unless it is in the context of a larger, statistically significant, measurable group of incidences which can establish a reliable trend.

Simply put, you can look at any incident and draw whatever conclusions you would like.  It's self serving because it is inherently subjective.   I think you're perspective is laudable, but misguided in that you believe you can objectively analyze an incident.

In sport, any conclusions drawn are supported by a body of feedback.   Not any one instance, but a history of instances along with feedback on the practical effect of any changes in technique made.  This is the advantage sport has over "street."   In sport arts, you can test your theories and find out if you are right or wrong.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

Steve said:


> I hear what you're saying, and disagree.   I don't think much useful information can come out of a single incident, unless it is in the context of a larger, statistically significant, measurable group of incidences which can establish a reliable trend.
> 
> Simply put, you can look at any incident and draw whatever conclusions you would like.  It's self serving because it is inherently subjective.   I think you're perspective is laudable, but misguided in that you believe you can objectively analyze an incident.
> 
> In sport, any conclusions drawn are supported by a body of feedback.   Not any one instance, but a history of instances along with feedback on the practical effect of any changes in technique made.  This is the advantage sport has over "street."   In sport arts, you can test your theories and find out if you are right or wrong.


Any body of feedback is made up of single incidents. When you watch fight video, you look at an incident that seems to indicate something (the fighter makes a mistake while passing guard), then look for other incidents that support that (does he make that same mistake often? are there similar errors in other situations that indicate he has a habitual flaw?). It all starts from a single incident. You are right that you can't use a single incident on its own - there are too many variables. But it is impossible to start without a single incident. If you're lucky, you don't have to pick it - you notice a trend after seeing a few fights with the same fighter, but that trend is something you recognized from a series of single incidents. That's my point.

I never said I drew conclusions from a single incident. I said there's information in it, and you combine that information with other sources (other incidents, and other types of sources) to see if there's a trend.

I think we're actually saying the same thing. Neither of us would trust a single incident to either prove or disprove (nor, normally, to provide significant support for) any theory. It's just a piece of data that goes into the mix of other data.

EDIT: To add one piece, "the street" isn't our training ground. It's what we prepare for when we train physical self-defense, but the proving ground is still in the dojo (and, for some, in sport settings). I can absolutely test changes I make. I do it all the time. Sometimes I test them against a skilled opponent doing everything they can to stop me. Sometimes I test them against a specific kind of feedback or resistance (when that's what I'm trying to adjust to). Sometimes I test them without telling the other person (no placebo effect from that side, anyway), and sometimes I tell them in advance so they can pay attention to the difference and give me more organized feedback. But to implement something without testing is just random swapping.


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## Tez3 (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> When you watch fight video, you look at an incident that seems to indicate something (the fighter makes a mistake while passing guard), then look for other incidents that support that (does he make that same mistake often? are there similar errors in other situations that indicate he has a habitual flaw?).



Exactly what a good coach looks at when researching their fighter's opponent before planning the tactics for the fight......


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## Steve (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Any body of feedback is made up of single incidents. *When you watch fight video, you look at an incident that seems to indicate something (the fighter makes a mistake while passing guard), then look for other incidents that support that (does he make that same mistake often? are there similar errors in other situations that indicate he has a habitual flaw?). It all starts from a single incident. *You are right that you can't use a single incident on its own - there are too many variables. But it is impossible to start without a single incident. If you're lucky, you don't have to pick it - you notice a trend after seeing a few fights with the same fighter, but that trend is something you recognized from a series of single incidents. That's my point.
> 
> I never said I drew conclusions from a single incident. I said there's information in it, and you combine that information with other sources (other incidents, and other types of sources) to see if there's a trend.
> 
> ...


first, not to sound like a broken record, but the very idea that there is film once again points to the functional advantage a competitive art has over others.  Having this body of evidence is foundational.   you can draw reasonable generalizations about which techniques and strategies work and which don't because there is a ton of objective feedback.  Not just anecdotal.

I highlighted where I think we are losing each other.   What yo suggest there is exactly the opposite of what I would suggest.   You say the fighter makes a mistake and you then look for that mistake in other film.   That is exactly what leads to confirmation bias.  

I would say, provided you are in solid ground and actually have objective evidence of what works in general, you start with a goal, not a problem.  And then work to achieve the goal.   For example, in the case of that fighter, the goal is to pass guard, and success would be measured accordingly.   It's a fine distinction, I realize, but I think it's an important one.   Focusing on finding support for a pre-determined position can lead one to wackiness.


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## drop bear (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> When I talked about using personal reports of incidents, you passed it off as "stories" and not useful evidence. This has repeated in at least two separate threads now - and has been EXACTLY what I was talking about here, which you worked very hard to say was useless as evidence and was just "urban myths".
> 
> If you didn't meant to claim personal reports of an incident were not useful information, I'm not sure how we ended up in this rabbit hole.



Personal reports or actual incidents?


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## drop bear (Oct 9, 2016)

Steve said:


> Just read the threads around here.  Any time a real world example is shared, whether from a news article or anecdotally, it falls into one of the four categories above.
> 
> I shared a story about a woman who was training for American Ninja Warrior who was assaulted.   A guy held a knife to her throat, attempting to rape her.   She fought back and credits the confidence, strength and agility gained from training for saving her life.  So, according to the general line of reasoning, we should be able to conclude that parkour is effective for self defense.   The establishment suggested she was lucky.
> 
> ...



The dogma that i reference so much.


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## drop bear (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Except that all the things you posted were people's reactions to the report. It is absolutely true that people can fail to use a report meaningfully and can get defensive, dismissive, etc. The report itself, however, has value if we care to approach it objectively. The same is true of video, as you referenced in your post.
> 
> Let's say I post a video and person 1 says, "Well, she just got lucky" while person 2 says, "I think X is why she survived that encounter". Person 1 hasn't gained any useful information. Person 2 may have - they would have to dig deeper and look for input from similar kinds of incidents as well as experimenting in a controlled environment with what seemed to work in the incident. The same goes for incidents of failure to defend. We can use it for what it is - evidence that seems to support or contradict a point. By itself, it's not sufficient to draw conclusions, but if we pair it with other evidence - more incidents, trends (as you mentioned), what we can see in well-designed sport, and experimentation in a controlled environment - we can get useful information from them. It's why I like to hear input from folks who appear to have needed their physical skills more often than I have, like Drop Bear and Juany, as well as the folks I know who have acted in similar roles where those were put to a test.
> 
> It's a piece of information we can either use, mis-use, or ignore. The latter two seem irresponsible to me if we are discussing self-defense use. Heck, they'd be irresponsible in sport, too, because it would be like refusing to use the information from prior fights (incidents of sport usage).



Look at how juany uses his personal experiences. It is specifically that sort of thing I try to avoid.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Any body of feedback is made up of single incidents. When you watch fight video, you look at an incident that seems to indicate something (the fighter makes a mistake while passing guard), then look for other incidents that support that (does he make that same mistake often? are there similar errors in other situations that indicate he has a habitual flaw?). It all starts from a single incident. You are right that you can't use a single incident on its own - there are too many variables. But it is impossible to start without a single incident. If you're lucky, you don't have to pick it - you notice a trend after seeing a few fights with the same fighter, but that trend is something you recognized from a series of single incidents. That's my point.
> 
> I never said I drew conclusions from a single incident. I said there's information in it, and you combine that information with other sources (other incidents, and other types of sources) to see if there's a trend.
> 
> I think we're actually saying the same thing. Neither of us would trust a single incident to either prove or disprove (nor, normally, to provide significant support for) any theory. It's just a piece of data that goes into the mix of other data.





Steve said:


> first, not to sound like a broken record, but the very idea that there is film once again points to the functional advantage a competitive art has over others.  Having this body of evidence is foundational.   you can draw reasonable generalizations about which techniques and strategies work and which don't because there is a ton of objective feedback.  Not just anecdotal.
> 
> I highlighted where I think we are losing each other.   What yo suggest there is exactly the opposite of what I would suggest.   You say the fighter makes a mistake and you then look for that mistake in other film.   That is exactly what leads to confirmation bias.
> 
> I would say, provided you are in solid ground and actually have objective evidence of what works in general, you start with a goal, not a problem.  And then work to achieve the goal.   For example, in the case of that fighter, the goal is to pass guard, and success would be measured accordingly.   It's a fine distinction, I realize, but I think it's an important one.   Focusing on finding support for a pre-determined position can lead one to wackiness.


Okay, I understand your difference in approach, I think, but I'd argue it comes down to the same thing, if you are careful about your conclusions. You go to look for a way to pass guard. At some point, you have to stop at a bit of information and say something like, "Hey, see how that guy passed his guard? I wonder if others have had success with that same move on him." And then you go looking for both evidence that it has worked and evidence that it hasn't. The latter is what I mean about being careful. Confirmation bias can be controlled by specifically seeking out contradictory information. This is precisely what scientists do when trying to establish  a theory - they look for information that would contradict the theory. Contradiction is more important than confirmation, for just the reason you point out.

If you don't start with a premise when planning an approach, then how do you start? I realize you set a goal - so do I. I might go looking at videos of street attacks looking for fights that start at a given distance. My goal might be to look for whether there are some attacks that are more common at those distances. After looking at a number of videos, I may have a working hypothesis (It looks like there are a lot of lunging punches from that distance), so I look for other evidence - perhaps by asking folks I know who are bouncers, to see if they have recollections that fit what I'm looking for. If they do, again, I'm looking for a contradiction with what I've already seen. If the attacks I'm looking at have something in common with sport arts, I'll take a look at those (understanding the context and combatants are not the same, but it's still some info to work with), again looking for contradictions. If I find no strong contradictions, then my hypothesis is strengthened, and if there's no more evidence to use, then it may be time for me to think about how that affects my defensive tactics.

How is that so very different from planning for sport? The major difference (as you point out) is that there's much more video available from the sport perspective. I do wish I had more to work with for defensive purposes, but that's not going to happen and wishing for it won't help. So, I make use of sport video where I can find analogous situations and similar techniques. It's not what I wish it was, but it's what there is. This is, by the way, not a weakness in self-defense oriented styles - it's a lack of evidence for self-defense that's common to ALL arts. We can all make use of what's available from the sport arena (more direct sport feedback is available, obviously, in schools that participate in sport), but none of us who wish to be effective at self-defense have the level of real-world input we would wish to have.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Personal reports or actual incidents?


Both. Personal reports are reports of actual incidents. We've already discussed the potential weaknesses in those reports, but those weaknesses do not entirely invalidate them.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Look at how juany uses his personal experiences. It is specifically that sort of thing I try to avoid.


He has as much personal experience using things in the real world as some fighters have using theirs in competition. Why should he not use that experience?


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 9, 2016)

Steve said:


> I'm talking about the usefulness of the incident as evidence that a program works or doesn't work, unless that incident is a part of a statistically meaningful trend.


Your post didn't address the actual report. It addressed the dogmatic responses to the report.


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## drop bear (Oct 10, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Any body of feedback is made up of single incidents. When you watch fight video, you look at an incident that seems to indicate something (the fighter makes a mistake while passing guard), then look for other incidents that support that (does he make that same mistake often? are there similar errors in other situations that indicate he has a habitual flaw?). It all starts from a single incident. You are right that you can't use a single incident on its own - there are too many variables. But it is impossible to start without a single incident. If you're lucky, you don't have to pick it - you notice a trend after seeing a few fights with the same fighter, but that trend is something you recognized from a series of single incidents. That's my point.
> 
> I never said I drew conclusions from a single incident. I said there's information in it, and you combine that information with other sources (other incidents, and other types of sources) to see if there's a trend.
> 
> ...



Training for the ring the dojo and the street is like training for the ring and the cage. There is a tactical difference but the core premis is still the same. 

The same sort of nuance when a mate of mine went from big gloves muay Thai to small gloves CMT. 

There is no major technical difference. There are minor clean ups.










The basic skills are what is utilized and in general are solid regardless of the environment. Training for the street is a tactical change far more often than a technical on. So when people do less technical sound technique and think that they are getting some sort of advantage in a street fight. Mostly they are fooling themselves.

What this means is when your partner is required to come at you with some sloppy schoolyard attack in order for your street defence to work. You are not really training in an efficient manner.

What you want to do is focus on the few moves that bridge the gap between dealing with an experienced fighter and an inexperienced fighter regardless. These are core basics.

The techniques that have really real evidence against quality oponants.

Then if you want to get fancy on top of that you can go buck wild. hypothesize. work off stories whatever. But it should relate back to what you can do. Not excuse what you cant do.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 10, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Training for the ring the dojo and the street is like training for the ring and the cage. There is a tactical difference but the core premis is still the same.
> 
> The same sort of nuance when a mate of mine went from big gloves muay Thai to small gloves CMT.
> 
> ...


I agree with most of this premise. The only place I would take exception is in the idea that sloppy schoolyard attacks aren't valid attacks. I've watched a lot of videos to get an idea of what attacks actually happen (so far as video has captured), and there are quite a few sloppy schoolyard attacks out there. And, interestingly, the physics they supply are different than those you'd get from a trained opponent. Why? Because they are sloppy. It turns out techniques have to be applied differently to these attacks (like tackles - what idiot would abandon all control and tackle in the ring?), so we have to train for them. There's little need to train for these idiotic attacks for sport, and the techniques of some styles (particularly striking styles) may require little adaptation - just a different defensive approach, perhaps. But for grapplers, that input is what we work with, so we practice even against sloppy attacks.


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## drop bear (Oct 10, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> He has as much personal experience using things in the real world as some fighters have using theirs in competition. Why should he not use that experience?



He makes insane logic links. So it is not just a personal anecdote that relates to a one time incident. It then justifies an entire belief system.

So i think it was this thread he mentioned evidence. well I said that he really is not going to be successful unarmed against a knife. Doesnt matter what system he does. His evidence was some sort of historical war in the Philippines that justified his ability to take knives of people.

I honestly did  not think he was serious. It was just such a left field justification. Then he rage quit. So I never really found out how that panned out.

Anyway. about here.
Full Head Control vs. Untrained


Now I have de weaponed guys a couple of times and still wouldn't rate myself as being able to do it successfully.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 10, 2016)

drop bear said:


> He makes insane logic links. So it is not just a personal anecdote that relates to a one time incident. It then justifies an entire belief system.
> 
> So i think it was this thread he mentioned evidence. well I said that he really is not going to be successful unarmed against a knife. Doesnt matter what system he does. His evidence was some sort of historical war in the Philippines that justified his ability to take knives of people.
> 
> ...


Okay, but again here, you're not talking about the evidence itself, but about how someone used it. That's a different debate. Any evidence can be mis-used. I've seen people mis-use evidence from fights (see - that guy got kicked in the head and knocked out, so the only kicks you practice should be to the head). That has nothing to do with whether it's an incident in "the street" or "the ring". Someone's use or misuse of evidence doesn't change the value of the evidence, itself.


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## drop bear (Oct 10, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> I agree with most of this premise. The only place I would take exception is in the idea that sloppy schoolyard attacks aren't valid attacks. I've watched a lot of videos to get an idea of what attacks actually happen (so far as video has captured), and there are quite a few sloppy schoolyard attacks out there. And, interestingly, the physics they supply are different than those you'd get from a trained opponent. Why? Because they are sloppy. It turns out techniques have to be applied differently to these attacks (like tackles - what idiot would abandon all control and tackle in the ring?), so we have to train for them. There's little need to train for these idiotic attacks for sport, and the techniques of some styles (particularly striking styles) may require little adaptation - just a different defensive approach, perhaps. But for grapplers, that input is what we work with, so we practice even against sloppy attacks.



Depends what you are training for. A defence against a good attack will stop a sloppy one. A defence against a sloppy attack probably wont stop a good attack.

Or.

I can do pretty much anything I want against noobs. But I would not do those same moves if the stakes were high.


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## drop bear (Oct 10, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Okay, but again here, you're not talking about the evidence itself, but about how someone used it. That's a different debate. Any evidence can be mis-used. I've seen people mis-use evidence from fights (see - that guy got kicked in the head and knocked out, so the only kicks you practice should be to the head). That has nothing to do with whether it's an incident in "the street" or "the ring". Someone's use or misuse of evidence doesn't change the value of the evidence, itself.



It does if the evidence has no verification. How do you know what is true and what isnt?


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 10, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Depends what you are training for. A defence against a good attack will stop a sloppy one. A defence against a sloppy attack probably wont stop a good attack.
> 
> Or.
> 
> I can do pretty much anything I want against noobs. But I would not do those same moves if the stakes were high.


Not entirely accurate. As I said, a sloppy attack can bring different physics. A throw has to take into account the input given, and the input can be vastly different from a sloppy attack. If I tried a nice, neat hip throw (something seen fairly often in Judo tournaments) against someone over-committing in a rush, I'll get knocked down. The throw has to be expanded to deal with that extra input - input which is very unlikely to occur with a skilled opponent.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 10, 2016)

drop bear said:


> It does if the evidence has no verification. How do you know what is true and what isnt?


Have you even bothered to read my other posts about evidence?


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## drop bear (Oct 10, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Have you even bothered to read my other posts about evidence?



I might have skimmed it.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 10, 2016)

drop bear said:


> I might have skimmed it.


Then you should know that the point of using incidents is to look for trends among them. You then match those trends with other evidence.

That's how you figure out what's true - or at least probably true.


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## wingchun100 (Oct 11, 2016)

realg7 said:


> I think your feminist views cause you to be hypersensitive to what everyone says, calm down I am not trolling but you were pushing your strong feminist perspectives on to me and that is not something I asked you to do. There is a Brotherhood and in that Brotherhood there exists a bunch of guys that do Warrior training and they call it a Brotherhood comma so for you to get upset that I said something about a Brotherhood is utterly ridiculous comma I completely respect any female that participates in the martial arts and would welcome them into the Brotherhood as a sister. But please it's always the same thing with you like you're arguing for women's rights or something come down please I am bored of your tactics LOL
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk


 
Wow. I think when she made the comment about gender being irrelevant, she was just joking around with you still. There was no need to go to this level. I mean, damn.


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## wingchun100 (Oct 11, 2016)

Steve said:


> Memories, particularly under stress, are typically pretty unreliable.   Aren't they?  I think cops or lawyers here would know better, but I've read and heard many times that eye witness accounts and people's memories of events can be wildly divergent.  Often considered unreliable in court.
> 
> 
> It's the idea of probative value.  Video has high probative value.   Memories are less reliable.


 
Right, but I think GP's point is that most of the self-defense situations in the world are not going to be caught on camera because they are spontaneous. So all we have to go by are the memories of those who fought.


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## wingchun100 (Oct 11, 2016)

How is training for the ring similar to training for the street?

In the ring, I cannot eye gouge or attack the groin or elbow to the back of the head.

You can't say, "Well, I might not train for it in the ring, but I know that option is available to me on the street, so I will use it there."

Do you want to know WHY you can't say that? Because you will fight the way you train. If you are not used to being able to hammer someone in the back of the head with an elbow, it won't come to you naturally. There are so many attacks you do on the street that you can't do in a tournament. Training for one is NOT like training for the other.

I mean, all you have to do is look at the fact that, in the ring, there is a referee to separate fighters. That alone proves training for the street versus the ring is not similar at all.


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## Tez3 (Oct 11, 2016)

wingchun100 said:


> Do you want to know WHY you can't say that? Because you will fight the way you train.



Well you'd think that but no, it doesn't make it necessarily so. Many MMA people I know are also doormen, police officers and others who face 'proper' violence many times yet they can easily switch from what they do in MMA and what they have to do 'outside' I've done it myself. It's actually easier than you think.



wingchun100 said:


> I mean, all you have to do is look at the fact that, in the ring, there is a referee to separate fighters. That alone proves training for the street versus the ring is not similar at all.



Training is different from fighting, you don't have a ref when you're training lol. Too many people assume you can't switch form competition rules to no rules, I suppose for those who don't face violence everyday it may be harder but for those that do it's much easier.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 11, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Well you'd think that but no, it doesn't make it necessarily so. Many MMA people I know are also doormen, police officers and others who face 'proper' violence many times yet they can easily switch from what they do in MMA and what they have to do 'outside' I've done it myself. It's actually easier than you think.
> 
> 
> 
> Training is different from fighting, you don't have a ref when you're training lol. Too many people assume you can't switch form competition rules to no rules, I suppose for those who don't face violence everyday it may be harder but for those that do it's much easier.


I think that's more true for the folks who actually face stuff on a regular basis (like the doormen and officers you mentioned). They take a practical personal view of their training, and I think that makes a huge difference. That's one reason I believe a school having a self-defense focus (even if they are going to compete, like BJJ schools) leads to better preparation for the street. When you add to that the fact that the SD-oriented school will also discuss how the ring is different from the street (both good and bad), and is likely to explore some scenarios that are unlikely in the ring, and you get an even better result.


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## wingchun100 (Oct 11, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Well you'd think that but no, it doesn't make it necessarily so. Many MMA people I know are also doormen, police officers and others who face 'proper' violence many times yet they can easily switch from what they do in MMA and what they have to do 'outside' I've done it myself. It's actually easier than you think.
> 
> 
> 
> Training is different from fighting, you don't have a ref when you're training lol. Too many people assume you can't switch form competition rules to no rules, I suppose for those who don't face violence everyday it may be harder but for those that do it's much easier.


 
But training is different from the street in that if you are winded, you can tell your partner you need a break. Can't say that on the street. LOL


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## Tez3 (Oct 11, 2016)

wingchun100 said:


> But training is different from the street in that if you are winded, you can tell your partner you need a break. Can't say that on the street. LOL



Well you can tell your partner you need a break but you won't get it in our gym. You'll be told to go away and get a cup of man up. Stamina is very important, and you'd actually need more for a comp than you would a street altercation which are unlikely to last as long frankly.
You cannot make a blanket statement and expect it to fit everyone.
If we take your premise that those training for sport can only do sport then we'd have to say that to train for 'street' confrontations we'd have to actually go out and indulge in 'street' confrontations because that's the only way we could train.
The 'street' is somewhat of a ridiculous name for training, it reeks of wannabe gangsters etc. Shall we just go with 'realistic self defence training' or something else that sensible rather than sounding like excitable teenagers?


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## wingchun100 (Oct 11, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Well you can tell your partner you need a break but you won't get it in our gym. You'll be told to go away and get a cup of man up. Stamina is very important, and you'd actually need more for a comp than you would a street altercation which are unlikely to last as long frankly.
> You cannot make a blanket statement and expect it to fit everyone.
> If we take your premise that those training for sport can only do sport then we'd have to say that to train for 'street' confrontations we'd have to actually go out and indulge in 'street' confrontations because that's the only way we could train.
> The 'street' is somewhat of a ridiculous name for training, it reeks of wannabe gangsters etc. Shall we just go with 'realistic self defence training' or something else that sensible rather than sounding like excitable teenagers?


 
I'm not the one who started calling it "the street." That is how it has been described throughout this thread. No one else raised that objection or thought it made us sound like "excitable teenagers." Maybe you are a bit too picky when it comes to semantics.

As for your statement about how they would be told to "man up" in your gym...that isn't every gym out there. Maybe some people don't have high stamina yet but are working toward it. Are you telling me that, in your gym, you would insult those who might not be at the same level as you? In that case, how would you ever expect them to get there? I know if I shelled out good money to go to a martial arts school and all they liked to do was berate me, then I would be asking for a refund...and if I didn't get it, I would make sure they never earned another penny from me again.


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## Tez3 (Oct 11, 2016)

wingchun100 said:


> In that case, how would you ever expect them to get there? I know if I shelled out good money to go to a martial arts school and all they liked to do was berate me, then I would be asking for a refund...and if I didn't get it, I would make sure they never earned another penny from me again.



You wouldn't get into our gym, we aren't a martial arts school, and we don't charge. We insult each other on a regular basis, we don't berate anyone by the way. If you have never worked with the British Forces you won't understand.
As for 'the street' you will find it's more than me that thinks it's a silly name for self defence training, try researching threads on the subject. A lot of people object to it, I just said it was silly.
Now, don't trip up getting off your high horse.


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## wingchun100 (Oct 11, 2016)

I don't know about anyone else, but I think someone posting here should feel free to use whatever terms they are comfortable with, as long as it does not violate TOS and isn't completely off the mark. You have my word, friends: I will NEVER come down on you for saying something like "training for the streets" versus "training for realistic self-defense." You come here for thought-provoking conversations about martial arts...not to get bashed over the head by the Semantics Police.

Rant over.


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## Tez3 (Oct 11, 2016)

wingchun100 said:


> I don't know about anyone else, but I think someone posting here should feel free to use whatever terms they are comfortable with, as long as it does not violate TOS and isn't completely off the mark. You have my word, friends: I will NEVER come down on you for saying something like "training for the streets" versus "training for realistic self-defense." You come here for thought-provoking conversations about martial arts...not to get bashed over the head by the Semantics Police.
> 
> Rant over.



Do you over react a lot? Is it cold up there on your high horse?
Are you telling us that 'the street' is a good description for self defence? How do you think that goes down with women looking for self defence against abusers/attackers/randy friends who want to grab her genitals? 'Oh look we train for the street?' How do you think that appeals to normal people looking for self defence?
You can think it's semantics, I could agree with you but then we'd both be wrong.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 11, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> Well you can tell your partner you need a break but you won't get it in our gym. You'll be told to go away and get a cup of man up. Stamina is very important, and you'd actually need more for a comp than you would a street altercation which are unlikely to last as long frankly.
> You cannot make a blanket statement and expect it to fit everyone.
> If we take your premise that those training for sport can only do sport then we'd have to say that to train for 'street' confrontations we'd have to actually go out and indulge in 'street' confrontations because that's the only way we could train.
> The 'street' is somewhat of a ridiculous name for training, it reeks of wannabe gangsters etc. Shall we just go with 'realistic self defence training' or something else that sensible rather than sounding like excitable teenagers?


I only use "the street" because "real world" sounds demeaning to sport, in my ears. The same could possibly be said for "realistic self-defense training". Normally, I just refer to "self-defense" as opposed to "sport" or "competition" as the application of the training. Some train for self-defense, some for sport, and there's a lot of overlap between the two so some folks combine them.


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## Tez3 (Oct 11, 2016)

Self defence ( spelt the proper way lol... I'm teasing!) does for me, it doesn't really need anything else.
Anyway, I'm off, just eaten last meal until after Yom Kippur. See you all in a couple of days. ( I only added that because I don't want people to think I was posting and running. I just have something more important on)


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## Paul_D (Oct 11, 2016)

This has made an interesting read.  Whilst I agree with Wingchun that training for the ring isn’t training for the street, Tez’s point is also valid that if you face real violence regularly you will find it easier to switch between the two.  Of course those people are in the minority.

So I agree with both of you


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## Deleted member 34973 (Oct 11, 2016)

I am curious, how many people commenting here, have actually been in a fight.

Not bouncing, not police work.

But standing there with another person, who's intent is to take your life?

Just curious and a simple yes or no please.

And, how many times?


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 11, 2016)

Guthrie said:


> I am curious, how many people commenting here, have actually been in a fight.
> 
> Not bouncing, not police work.
> 
> ...


That's not a yes or no question. You put up two different questions, and they aren't the same - they seem to imply a third, so I'll answer all three. I've been attacked twice. I've never been in a fight. And it's unlikely either of them was trying to kill me.


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## Steve (Oct 11, 2016)

i like the term "streets".   I like it even more if it's "da streets."   

Just to add to some previous notes, and at risk of repitition, competitions give plenty of like examples from which to conclude there is a trend, along with plenty of individual feedback which can be used to for comparison.  In other words, I can look at video of me, and video of others and say, "they do that and it works.   I do this and it doesn't.   I should try to do that."   And then I can practice in context.

"Da Street" arts can't do this.   The best a "street" art can do (and should do, IMO) is to look at statistics, formulate a plan and assess success or failure based on measurable improvements in that specific area.   For example, a statistical need would be homeless people in an encampment, or young women living on a college campus.  The plan would be a self defense program targeting these people, which may or may not include how to kick some ***.   Results would be measurable based upon crime stats.

Stories and anecdotes are unreliable not just due to memory issues.  It's also a matter of context.    In that the context of one self defense situation is different from another.  It's so subjective, reliable trends are impossible.  

Heres a quick question.   If a woman is on a bus and a guy grabs her butt, is that a self defense situation?   I'm interested to know if the answer is Unanimous


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## wingchun100 (Oct 11, 2016)

Paul_D said:


> This has made an interesting read.  Whilst I agree with Wingchun that training for the ring isn’t training for the street, Tez’s point is also valid that if you face real violence regularly you will find it easier to switch between the two.  Of course those people are in the minority.
> 
> So I agree with both of you


 

And you also agree that calling it "the street" does not make a poster seem like an "Excitable teen," or you would have changed the terminology.


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## Deleted member 34973 (Oct 11, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> That's not a yes or no question. You put up two different questions, and they aren't the same - they seem to imply a third, so I'll answer all three. I've been attacked twice. I've never been in a fight. And it's unlikely either of them was trying to kill me.


No would have sufficed


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## Deleted member 34973 (Oct 11, 2016)

I am a stickler for actual definitions so,

fight
fīt/
_verb_

*1*.
take part in a violent struggle involving the exchange of physical blows or the use of weapons.
"the men were fighting"
synonyms: brawl, exchange blows,attack each other, assault each other, hit each other,punch each other; More

_noun_

*1*.
a violent confrontation or struggle.
"we'll get into a fight and wind up with bloody noses"
synonyms: brawl, fracas, melee, rumpus,skirmish, sparring match,struggle, scuffle, altercation,clash, disturbance;
This is to insure other peoples idea of the definition...is not used.


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## Deleted member 34973 (Oct 11, 2016)

Not that I am trying to be coy, as I understand that there is a fundamental difference between a fight and self-defense. 

But, I am talking about when the idea of avoiding the conflict, doesn't work and a FIGHT ensues.


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## Deleted member 34973 (Oct 11, 2016)

Chirp, chirp..


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## Steve (Oct 11, 2016)

I've been in a lot of fights, but not since I was in the military.   I don't know how many were trying to kill me.   At least One, but honestly that might be it.   I'm with gpseymour that most fights aren't life threatening,      

I got into fights daily as a kid.  Less often in high school, but the dozen or so I was involved with were all pretty brutal.   The militarymfights were mostly alcohol related, alpha male BS.

the one that comes to mind was when I got into a fight with a guy in high school, and when I started making him look bad, he pulled out a knife.   I am pretty sure he was going to try and kill me.


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## Steve (Oct 11, 2016)

How many times have you been attacked by someone trying to kill you, Guthrie?  And also, how many fights have you been in?


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 11, 2016)

Guthrie said:


> No would have sufficed


As would a clearer question.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 11, 2016)

Guthrie said:


> I am a stickler for actual definitions so,
> 
> fight
> fīt/
> ...


Then, yes to the first question you asked, and no to the second.


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## Deleted member 34973 (Oct 11, 2016)

Steve said:


> How many times have you been attacked by someone trying to kill you, Guthrie?  And also, how many fights have you been in?


I grew up in a pretty rough town, small town with a big city gang problem.

My first knife fight was over a bike part, stabbed in the hand(imagine my surprise at 11)

Fights though, entirely to many to count. But, life and death, at least ten.

My first fight using martial arts was at eighteen against a coke head, finally, after 10 min, he hobbled away. (I idn't know he was on coke at the time)

I have been stabbed, hit with 2×4's and even fought off a couple of Samoans with panga's, trying gut someone over a joint.

Not once though have I ever started a fight, not once.

The reason why ask is a simple one, there are some who say that Karate doesn't work in real life scenerios and that is simple horse ****. 

The use of Karate, saved my life many times and I hear a lot of people on MT who say it doesn't work.

I want to seperate the dojo ninjas from the actual artist, especially when the ninjas are giving advice concerning self defense, yet have never even used their skills outside of competition.

The street is a brutal reality, youtube kid brawls and drunken fights, don't even come close to the reality.

Descalation does work, but the type of animals that you will possibly face, dont give a damn about what is coming out of your mouth.

There seems to be a lot of people here giving advice on life and death situations, that clearly have not been involved in any real conflict and I believe that is the single most dangerous practice, giving advice on self defense and fighting, when said person has not ever experienced it.

How can you teach one to defend their lives, if you have never even experienced a situation, that requires you to do so.

Therefore, I would like to know and I am curious.


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## drop bear (Oct 11, 2016)

wingchun100 said:


> How is training for the ring similar to training for the street?
> 
> In the ring, I cannot eye gouge or attack the groin or elbow to the back of the head.
> 
> ...



You cant eyegouge groin kick or elbow to the back of the head in self defence training either. you can pretend to.  I can pretend to do that training for the ring if for some reason I want to. the issue is that i will be getting punched,kneed, and kicked. And that is not pretend. Which makes me want to use those techniques.

And a person who is better at punching is automatically better at eyegouging. They are not really sepparate skills.

I mean if i can drop a guy while fighting with rules. It should be easier to drop a guy when I can cheat.


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## drop bear (Oct 11, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> Then you should know that the point of using incidents is to look for trends among them. You then match those trends with other evidence.
> 
> That's how you figure out what's true - or at least probably true.



Provided I trust your ability to do that. Which there have been glaring examples of martial artist who have got that wrong.

The 90% of fights go to the ground is a great example.


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## drop bear (Oct 11, 2016)

Guthrie said:


> I grew up in a pretty rough town, small town with a big city gang problem.
> 
> My first knife fight was over a bike part, stabbed in the hand(imagine my surprise at 11)
> 
> ...



Not really outside bouncing. There were some that were technically not bouncing. So If I was drinking in a pub I might get asked to chip in if the bouncers were outnumbered.


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## Steve (Oct 11, 2016)

For what it's worth, fighting skill didn't make a difference when dude pulled a knife on me.   Running out into traffic and keeping a metro bus between us is what did the trick.


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 11, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Provided I trust your ability to do that. Which there have been glaring examples of martial artist who have got that wrong.
> 
> The 90% of fights go to the ground is a great example.


So, because people don't use it correctly, we should just ignore the only actual evidence we have for what happens in an actual attack? That's ridiculous.


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## drop bear (Oct 11, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> So, because people don't use it correctly, we should just ignore the only actual evidence we have for what happens in an actual attack? That's ridiculous.



No. You should use it correctly.

But there is actual street defence evidence.  That exists outside war stories.

self defence schools like BJJ use it all the time. those gracie breakdowns for example.

Street Fight Video Featuring Great Jiu-Jitsu Defense – Gracie Breakdown | WATCH BJJ

I have these guys on facebook. They do plenty of real street fighting examples.
ADCC | Facebook


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## Gerry Seymour (Oct 12, 2016)

drop bear said:


> No. You should use it correctly.
> 
> But there is actual street defence evidence.  That exists outside war stories.
> 
> ...


You keep using terms like "war stories" that imply we're using only extreme examples. I'm talking about getting input from someone like you, who has worked the door and can speak to what kinds of attacks they have and haven't seen. I'm talking about hearing first-hand reports from people like the pharmacist who restrained a drug addict trying to rob the pharmacy. I'm talking about information from emergency medical technicians (EMT - the guys in the ambulance) about injuries they've seen and attacks they've actually experienced.

Those aren't "war stories", they are first-hand accounts of the incidents and their results. Would I prefer video? I've said as much before. But so much doesn't make it to video, and it would be foolish to simply ignore that evidence. Did fighters simply not bother to learn from one fight to the next before video existed?


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## drop bear (Oct 12, 2016)

gpseymour said:


> You keep using terms like "war stories" that imply we're using only extreme examples. I'm talking about getting input from someone like you, who has worked the door and can speak to what kinds of attacks they have and haven't seen. I'm talking about hearing first-hand reports from people like the pharmacist who restrained a drug addict trying to rob the pharmacy. I'm talking about information from emergency medical technicians (EMT - the guys in the ambulance) about injuries they've seen and attacks they've actually experienced.
> 
> Those aren't "war stories", they are first-hand accounts of the incidents and their results. Would I prefer video? I've said as much before. But so much doesn't make it to video, and it would be foolish to simply ignore that evidence. Did fighters simply not bother to learn from one fight to the next before video existed?



If you are suggesting that there can be some best case scenarios where anecdotal evidence is appropriate.

Then i agree with you.


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