Aikido in an Mma gym

It is an example of the culture differences. Where bjj for example is all about critical thinking and testing ideas.

And other arts rely on authority.

You can actually notice the difference in conversation as well.

He did a BJJ version but different culture.
Rokas Leonavičius
I don't think that true, it's certainly not in the art I study, were we are encouraged to challenge and improve techniques to fit our own attributes
 
I don't think that true, it's certainly not in the art I study, were we are encouraged to challenge and improve techniques to fit our own attributes

It is not directly defined in to TMA and PMA styles. Because there is nothing stopping people training like anything. But if you listen to a guy like Danaher. He never really talks in absolutes. There is all this meta going on.


Compared to the "You can't block in a street fight"set.
 
It is not directly defined in to TMA and PMA styles. Because there is nothing stopping people training like anything. But if you listen to a guy like Danaher. He never really talks in absolutes. There is all this meta going on.


Compared to the "You can't block in a street fight"set.
yea but you said ALL, I'm sure there are clubs/ classes that are very???? autocratic and won't have their technique altered, but there are also the practical schools, were the techniques are just a learnng framework to be modified to suit your attributes, my instructor oft says to me, " very good jo but it's not really karate", but that the end of it, if it works it works
 
yea but you said ALL, I'm sure there are clubs/ classes that are very???? autocratic and won't have their technique altered, but there are also the practical schools, were the techniques are just a learnng framework to be modified to suit your attributes, my instructor oft says to me, " very good jo but it's not really karate", but that the end of it, if it works it works

BJJ is all about critical thinking meaning that they focus on that aspect. Their structure revolves around that idea.

They rely on scientific method.

Other arts can do the same.
 
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BJJ is all about critical thinking meaning that they focus on that aspect. Their structure revolves around that idea.

Other arts can do the same.
, inin
BJJ is all about critical thinking meaning that they focus on that aspect. Their structure revolves around that idea.

Other arts can do the same.
I know,! other arts do do the same, at least some in some location do,
you spoke in absolutes, which ironically is what your accusing them of
 
Yep had he just started with the follow up video, I would have been fine. From there we would be able to discuss what's not working, why it's not working. Is it not working because the other guy knows about it focus on preventing the technique from being used vs trying to focus on hitting the person. Is the technique being used against the wrong punch? It would be like working a puzzle. There are 10,000 ways to do a technique the wrong way. Start identifying the wrong ways to do it, and eventually you 'll end up with the correct way to do it.
And (and here's where folks who don't like certain techniques are helpful to me) if you find enough ways not to do it, you can decide it's not useful enough for the focus. It then becomes a play-area for me - something I tinker with to work on principles, rather than trying to make it useful. I spend more time on what I find most useful, and let the rest become drills for adapting, essentially.
 
This is why it's not good to take people's word to mean much. You can see what 'works' by watching a lot of fights, where stuff is working. Everyone seems to have ten pages of theory, so the commodity value of theory is low to me. I'm only interested in reproducible results.
Agreed. That's a point I tried to make earlier. There is value to what people say, because we can use that to drive questions. But not as much value as what we can people do. What people say becomes somewhat more useful when you have a technique you understand and can deploy (and know the weaknesses of).
 
Agreed. That's a point I tried to make earlier. There is value to what people say, because we can use that to drive questions. But not as much value as what we can people do. What people say becomes somewhat more useful when you have a technique you understand and can deploy (and know the weaknesses of).

It was a test.
He was employing scientific method to explore a theory.
 
It is not directly defined in to TMA and PMA styles. Because there is nothing stopping people training like anything. But if you listen to a guy like Danaher. He never really talks in absolutes. There is all this meta going on.


Compared to the "You can't block in a street fight"set.
and as above, people are putting out you tube Vids with titles and content designed to provoke hits rather than Han be useful, not just in ma, but in all sorts of areas, but particularly fitness.
 
and as above, people are putting out you tube Vids with titles and content designed to provoke hits rather than Han be useful, not just in ma, but in all sorts of areas, but particularly fitness.

Fitness and martial arts have some interesting parallels. Except fitness does have an academic background.

But you still get the David wolfe types selling any old thing.
 
It is an example of the culture differences. Where bjj for example is all about critical thinking and testing ideas.

And other arts rely on authority.

You can actually notice the difference in conversation as well.

He did a BJJ version but different culture.
Rokas Leonavičius
Every art has a bit of reliance upon authority, in a sense. BJJ just does a better job of it than most. If someone who is known to be good at BJJ puts up a video of something that they've started using and found useful, people don't doubt it unless and until they can't repeat what the person said would work. They take a positive skepticism to it ("you've shown you have good stuff, so we'll start with a working assumption this is also good stuff").

The difference in some systems is that they don't have that built-in caveat of needing to see that someone's stuff is workable in general before applying that working assumption. They often base it, instead, on the rank.

As I type all that I think maybe the key differentiator is that in BJJ, the culture is that the assumption is based on past evidence of having good stuff for combat (MMA or BJJ competition), whereas in some systems it's based upon the ability to teach that system (regardless of whether there's evidence of it working in any combat).
 
Fitness and martial arts have some interesting parallels. Except fitness does have an academic background.

But you still get the David wolfe types selling any old thing.
you tube is full of them, the non existent science, claim ed in fitness Vids is ouragious, oil up, show your muscles and people believe you, but who cares when the cheque arrives?

did you see that systema vid before it was taken down, it was bordering on the comic, he felled an attacker by throwing his cap at him, yet people buy into it
 
And (and here's where folks who don't like certain techniques are helpful to me) if you find enough ways not to do it, you can decide it's not useful enough for the focus.
When it gets to this point, take a step back and take a break from it. This usually happens because you are still looking at it from the same perspective. It's like traveling the same road in the same direction but in different lanes. What you really have to to is get off that road that doesn't lead you to success.

I'm not sure if this will work for you, but for me when I can't figure something out, I will stop doing it and then train something else that has a similar movement, but not the same technique. Working on a different technique forces me to "get off that road" and change my perspective. What usually happens 90% of the time, is that somewhere during that training (days or months later), I'll get a glimpse of the missing piece that I needed to understand for another technique.

It turns out that when I train similar movements, my subconscious is working out the answer for the other technique that was giving me problems. The other thing that helps me is to just watch other systems for a hint of the same technique that I'm trying to learn. Usually that system will have an approach that I didn't think of.

I may have the real answer to the that Aikido technique. The position of the grab is similar to one of the techniques in Jow Ga that "catches a punch." For many years, just by looking at the form, I was thinking there's no way that Jow Ga technique can catch a punch. The reality is that if you are looking at it from the perspective of "catching a punch" then you are getting it wrong.

My thoughts on this is that the technique grabs the punching arm at 3 different locations.
  1. It grabs the guard - If your technique is early then it grabs the guard
  2. It grabs and slows a punch - If your technique arrives as the punch is leaving, Without writing a book friction slows the punch (what I often refer to as shaving a punch)
  3. It grabs flows with a punch - If your technique is late then it flows with the punch, which means instead of stopping the punch you are just trying to stay connected to the punch to either grab the punch at the end or grab the punch as it's returning to it's owner. This greatly increases the time that you have to grab a punch. Instead of trying to grab a punch at one specific place and time, you are attempting to grab the punch from the time it leaves to the time it returns.
For the lock that is used, your aren't using stopping force to twist the arm, you are using redirecting force. So when I grab an arm in that manner I don't want to stop the punch and then apply the twisting of the wrist. I want to twist the wrist as the opponent is committed to pushing or pulling motion. It's physically impossible to pull back and resist twisting left or right in a circular motion at the same time. I can't go straight and turn right at the same time. I can't go backwards and turn right at the same time.

For those who need scientific proof of this. Get a piece of paper . Draw Point A at the top and Point B at the bottom of the paper directly below Point A. A straight line will allow you to travel from Point A to Point B. When you put energy to go left or right, then you are not longer going straight. If your punch goes to a target on my face and then back to your guard position (Point A to B) then you are not putting any energy into resisting someone twisting your arm. If you put all of your energy to resisting the twist then your arm is no longer returning to Point B.

We actually see this in the Hoax Aikido video where the guy gets a successful grab for a split second which forced his opponent to stop pulling and to address the twisting. This is why he falls off balance in the video. Everything that I explained above isn't Aikido for me. It's the principle that I believe to work for a grab in Jow Ga Kung Fu. I won't be 100 percent sure until I get a chance to spar with it.

What I am sure of are numbers 1 - 3. I have done this in sparring multiple times. The only thing I didn't do was grab the arm. At the time I was only focused on punching the target.
 
When it gets to this point, take a step back and take a break from it. This usually happens because you are still looking at it from the same perspective. It's like traveling the same road in the same direction but in different lanes. What you really have to to is get off that road that doesn't lead you to success.

I'm not sure if this will work for you, but for me when I can't figure something out, I will stop doing it and then train something else that has a similar movement, but not the same technique. Working on a different technique forces me to "get off that road" and change my perspective. What usually happens 90% of the time, is that somewhere during that training (days or months later), I'll get a glimpse of the missing piece that I needed to understand for another technique.

It turns out that when I train similar movements, my subconscious is working out the answer for the other technique that was giving me problems. The other thing that helps me is to just watch other systems for a hint of the same technique that I'm trying to learn. Usually that system will have an approach that I didn't think of.

I may have the real answer to the that Aikido technique. The position of the grab is similar to one of the techniques in Jow Ga that "catches a punch." For many years, just by looking at the form, I was thinking there's no way that Jow Ga technique can catch a punch. The reality is that if you are looking at it from the perspective of "catching a punch" then you are getting it wrong.

My thoughts on this is that the technique grabs the punching arm at 3 different locations.
  1. It grabs the guard - If your technique is early then it grabs the guard
  2. It grabs and slows a punch - If your technique arrives as the punch is leaving, Without writing a book friction slows the punch (what I often refer to as shaving a punch)
  3. It grabs flows with a punch - If your technique is late then it flows with the punch, which means instead of stopping the punch you are just trying to stay connected to the punch to either grab the punch at the end or grab the punch as it's returning to it's owner. This greatly increases the time that you have to grab a punch. Instead of trying to grab a punch at one specific place and time, you are attempting to grab the punch from the time it leaves to the time it returns.
For the lock that is used, your aren't using stopping force to twist the arm, you are using redirecting force. So when I grab an arm in that manner I don't want to stop the punch and then apply the twisting of the wrist. I want to twist the wrist as the opponent is committed to pushing or pulling motion. It's physically impossible to pull back and resist twisting left or right in a circular motion at the same time. I can't go straight and turn right at the same time. I can't go backwards and turn right at the same time.

For those who need scientific proof of this. Get a piece of paper . Draw Point A at the top and Point B at the bottom of the paper directly below Point A. A straight line will allow you to travel from Point A to Point B. When you put energy to go left or right, then you are not longer going straight. If your punch goes to a target on my face and then back to your guard position (Point A to B) then you are not putting any energy into resisting someone twisting your arm. If you put all of your energy to resisting the twist then your arm is no longer returning to Point B.

We actually see this in the Hoax Aikido video where the guy gets a successful grab for a split second which forced his opponent to stop pulling and to address the twisting. This is why he falls off balance in the video. Everything that I explained above isn't Aikido for me. It's the principle that I believe to work for a grab in Jow Ga Kung Fu. I won't be 100 percent sure until I get a chance to spar with it.

What I am sure of are numbers 1 - 3. I have done this in sparring multiple times. The only thing I didn't do was grab the arm. At the time I was only focused on punching the target.
The ones I'm talking about actually aren't good for direct application. They teach principles that can be useful, but not the actual full technique. It's possible to find a direct application - and instructors have - but they end up being far-fetched, and have to bypass many better answers.
 
but they end up being far-fetched, and have to bypass many better answers.
Oh ok.. I don't deal in those. I don't like techniques that required the planets to be aligned on the right day and month at the right time to work. My opinion is that a technique should always have some wiggle room for effectiveness. By nature I make a decent amount of mistakes, which is why I can't be surgeon. I enjoy learning by mistakes and see mistakes as natural. So if I do a technique, then that technique needs to have a good range of effectiveness.

I don't get into all of the pressure point stuff for the same reason. I like the comfort that I can be off 2-5 inches and still be effective.
 
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