One of my friends e-mailed me to say he read my post, and that I was being an *** to Flying Crane, speaking down to him. First, let me apologize for that tone if it's coming accross that way; not my intent, and not what's in my head. I have great respect for Michaels reasoning, even when we don't agree, and have for several years now that we've been on the same boards.
Dave
Hey, don't worry 'bout that, no offense taken. :asian: As to my own admitted lack of experience in real life fighting, it's something I am pretty happy about. 23 years in the martial arts, never needed to use it for real. Got close a few times, but i'm a pretty good talker, and when that fails, my nike-jutsu is top notch.
One thing I've always felt about your contributions is that they are well thought out and clear, even when those of others are not, and esp. with the SL4 discussions I have certainly appreciated that.
Doc stated in the other thread, as well as in this one (page one, post #15) that the full nelson is impossible, and this implies that it is a complete waste of time to train for it.
But we have a couple people here who have expressed their personal experience in seeing it done, or having it done on them. That, to me, speaks pretty strongly that it is NOT impossible. Now, maybe that cop that Lawdog knows was lame and stupid for letting it happen to him in the bikerbar. Maybe KJJ3's experience with it was likewise lame and never should have happened. I don't know, I wasn't there, I'm certainly not going to pass judgement on it. But the fact is, IT HAPPENED. I think nobody here is in a position to dispute that. Whether or not these individuals should have been smart enough to prevent it from happening is immaterial.
And I think this illustrates the reality that combat is chaotic and unpredictable, and can change quickly and often. What we might think can NEVER HAPPEN, just might happen someday, and I personally wouldn't put that into the category of "planned failure". I think it's just recognizing that many things are out of our control, and we just have to deal with it and find a way to pull it into our control if we are forced to.
This unpredictability is also part of why I've made it a point to avoid fighting whenever possible. I had a scabby faced punk following me down the street, doing his best to pick a fight with me, even to the point of adopting a pseudo-muay thai stance and throwing a couple of ineffective roundhouse kicks at me. I outweighed him by probably 30-40 pounds, and towered over him by at least a couple inches. I'm only 5'10" or so, and I weigh all of 155, so that gives you an idea of his size. Something about the whole situation just smelled funky. I knew he had 4 or 5 friends, but they hung back a while and were about a half a block away. But I just couldn't shake the feeling that because he was so outmatched otherwise, he just HAD to have a knife or something in the mix, and he was waiting for his chance to stick it in. So I was in no hurry to engage him, even tho he was trying pretty hard. Then his friends came running up, I knew that if I got surrounded I was dead meat, so I showed them the quality of my nike-jutsu. My masculinity has never been threatened by that kind of thing. Fighting, in my opinion, is deadly serious business, and I freely admit that it scares the hell out of me.
Now, you yourself have admitted to having a little material to deal with the full nelson. For the sake of argument and discussion, maybe that 5 or 10 minutes is all it takes to give someone what they need to deal with this possibility. Maybe only an occasional revisitation is necessary, and maybe it doesn't need to be trained as much as other material. But I'd say it's 5 or 10 minutes well spent.
You feel that the formalized kenpo material that deals with the full nelson is untrustworthy. OK, I can certainly accept that evaluation. I have often questioned the value of many of our techs as well. Maybe that isn't the best solution. Maybe your 5-10 minute lesson is all you need. OK, there it is, you got what you need.
But I think the lesson from all this is that the full nelson, for right or wrong, is not impossible.