Anti-grappling.

[Steve]

You can say anything you want about anti grappling but at least they have 'stepped up' and posted videos of themselves to prove their claims (however successfully), which is more than I can say about you.

The videos referenced are commercially made and sold DVDs. The goal for these videos is profit.

I've said before, the bar for teachers and school owners SHOULD be much higher than for non-teachers and non-school owners. Like myself, Hanzou is not a school owner or a teacher. It would serve little purpose, if any, for him to post videos of himself in the context of a thread discussing concerns regarding some specific videos and claims by well established WC guys on the topic of anti-grappling.

My impression is that the guys who posted these videos, and who are trying to sell these DVDs on anti-grappling are well established, well known WC instructors. People, clearly, take their word for it if they say technique is sound. If the technique is NOT sound, can't we all agree that's a bad thing?

The conversation gets so emotional. I get that to an extent. But, it all really boils down to the specific techniques shared. And if these are on the "highlight reel" trying to sell the DVDs, we can construe that the rest of the DVD contains the same.

Once again, the issue isn't the philosophy and the theory. It's in the specific application demonstrated in the videos. As long as we remain theoretical and abstract, there's room for everyone to get emotional. But I believe that if we get specific, we can actually make some progress.

For example, I would characterize the videos posted in another thread to be concerning, for reasons I outlined in that thread. The video posted by Drop Bear is what I would call solid "anti-grappling." While I don't know if it's good WC, I can say that it appears to be somewhat legit technique for defending the take down and remaining on your feet when a competent wrestler clinches with you.

If there's one thing I've learned recently, it's that you CMA guys think fundamentally differently than I. We just flat out don't see things the same way. This is a good thing, IMO. But it's only made it more clear to me that I cannot replicate your thought processes on my own, and vice versa. A bunch of CMA'ists just flat out cannot sit around and think like grapplers, developing "anti-grappling" in a vacuum.

The call to action on the part of the grappling contingent here has been pretty consistent, simply build the technique with grapplers. That doesn't mean train BJJ (although not a bad idea, IMO). It doesn't mean borrow techniques from folk wrestling, sambo, CaCC wrestling, Judo or BJJ (although again, could be okay if done wisely). It DOES mean working out the techniques outside of the clinical laboratory of like minded MA'ists. The video Drop Bear posted was a technique developed in cooperation with competent grappling. The techniques being defended were applied realistically and the grapplers reactions were consistent with what a grappler might actually do. And so, if trained well, there is a good chance that the technique will help and not hurt.

I can't say the same for many of the techniques shown in the various "anti-grappling" threads. What I've seen are techniques that will likely just make your situation worse and not better. It's not my ego saying that. It's actual grappling experience, seeing in these techniques things that would actually help me and hurt you.

 

[Steve]

And some good old fashioned skepticism is fine. What I think people are perceiving from you though is cynicism.

What's the saying? "A cynic knows that price of everything and the value of nothing".

I'm not a student of those guys so I can't speak for them. I have had the opportunity to train some with sifu Yannis about 16 years ago at one of Emin's fighter camps, him I can speak for. He's one tough SOB, as is Emin. Their stuff works.

I will give you this. WC does not demo well. it comes across rather weak and even kind of silly looking. And with anything, there is both good and bad and everything in between. Don't rely on what you see on youtube to make an informed decision about WC.
You really need to find someone who is decent at their craft and give it a go.
You may be quite surprised at what you find.

Were egos left off the mats, this could be REALLY fun and informative. Based upon what I've seen around here recently, ego is an issue on all sides of the debate.

 

[Steve]

You use your hips and drop your body weight and you do it before he gets in that far.

Not if you drop him first.

And you know that from your vast knowledge of one step self defense do you?

Something just occurred to me. Isn't self defense training a worst case scenario type thing? I just read this exchange and it seemed as though the two roles were reversed. I would expect the RBSD guy to be asking the what ifs and the non-self defense guy answering.

RTKDCMB: what if you couldn't drop your hips because the shot was too deep? What if you didn't "drop him?" What if you're now on your back and his hips are in front of yours (ie, you are bottom under mount), the mount is very high, limiting use of your arms and putting a tremendous amount of pressure directly on your diaphragm making it difficult to breathe, and he is using his forearm and elbow to strike your face?

 

[Punchy]

Were egos left off the mats, this could be REALLY fun and informative. Based upon what I've seen around here recently, ego is an issue on all sides of the debate.

It's been said that sports do not build character, they reveal it. How much more true is that of MA?

 

[Punchy]

If there's one thing I've learned recently, it's that you CMA guys think fundamentally differently than I. We just flat out don't see things the same way. This is a good thing, IMO. But it's only made it more clear to me that I cannot replicate your thought processes on my own, and vice versa. A bunch of CMA'ists just flat out cannot sit around and think like grapplers, developing "anti-grappling" in a vacuum.

We are a different breed, that's for sure. CMAs tend to attract a lot of people who want to train in the fancy, fantasized version of MA, but we're not all like that.
Emin is Turk. He grew up learning Turkish wrestling. His sifu, K Kernspecht had a wrestling background, I think Greco-Roman, not sure. The anti-grappling was borne out of their knowledge and experience in that.

I was not a grappler. But learning from someone who was and gleaming knowledge from them is kind of the whole teacher-student paradigm is it not? But even with that, EB always encouraged us to go out and see for ourselves and try what we had learned against others who were trained in grappling.

 

[drop bear]

A clinch is much more useful in a sporting competition, where you know you will not get head butted than in self defense.

If you are worried about getting headbutted. Clinching can actually prevent that. Because you deny them room to wind up. Just work on good head position.

If they have the better head position. Generally they have the better clinch. And can headbutt your face off. The Thai clinch does not have that head involvement as much as say double under hooks.

 

[Hanzou]

And some good old fashioned skepticism is fine. What I think people are perceiving from you though is cynicism.

What's the saying? "A cynic knows that price of everything and the value of nothing".

I'm not a student of those guys so I can't speak for them. I have had the opportunity to train some with sifu Yannis about 16 years ago at one of Emin's fighter camps, him I can speak for. He's one tough SOB, as is Emin. Their stuff works.

I will give you this. WC does not demo well. it comes across rather weak and even kind of silly looking. And with anything, there is both good and bad and everything in between. Don't rely on what you see on youtube to make an informed decision about WC.
You really need to find someone who is decent at their craft and give it a go.
You may be quite surprised at what you find.

Well keep in mind, that opinion wasn't about WC, it was about anti-grappling. I view WC as a fine martial art. I feel that when certain exponents make wild claims like some of the anti-grappling videos have, then there's a problem.

That said, I'll be in northern Ohio and Southern Michigan until January. Are there any WC schools you recommend I visit?

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Isn't a good takedown defense?

It's a good counter for "single leg". If you can apply a counter like this, you are already a good grappler yourself.

For the interest of discussion, that counter does have one weakness. When your opponent

- puts your leading leg between his legs,
- locks both of his legs, and
- uses his body weight to press down on your upper leg,

you will have no place to go but to go down.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

A clinch is much more useful in a sporting competition, where you know you will not get head butted than in self defense.

The "head butt" is a 2 ways street in clinch.

This is why it's always a good idea to control your opponent's head during the clinch.

 

[RTKDCMB]

The videos referenced are commercially made and sold DVDs. The goal for these videos is profit.

Not all of the videos posted on threads like this are for profit, some are just videos of people who want to share what they think is useful.

I've said before, the bar for teachers and school owners SHOULD be much higher than for non-teachers and non-school owners. Like myself, Hanzou is not a school owner or a teacher. It would serve little purpose, if any, for him to post videos of himself in the context of a thread discussing concerns regarding some specific videos and claims by well established WC guys on the topic of anti-grappling.

The real issue I was attempting to address with my post was that both of them seem to think YouTube videos are incontrovertible evidence that grappling/MMA?BJJ/boxing or whatever are superior to everything else. They then post videos that they think proves their case and then bash them to death and claim that they are some sort of authority on things and when people disagree with them they say "show us a video and prove your claims". Personally I would like to see the same evidence (a video of them) that they are qualified to judge others in the manner in which they do.

My impression is that the guys who posted these videos, and who are trying to sell these DVDs on anti-grappling are well established, well known WC instructors. People, clearly, take their word for it if they say technique is sound. If the technique is NOT sound, can't we all agree that's a bad thing?

The conversation gets so emotional. I get that to an extent. But, it all really boils down to the specific techniques shared. And if these are on the "highlight reel" trying to sell the DVDs, we can construe that the rest of the DVD contains the same.

Once again, the issue isn't the philosophy and the theory. It's in the specific application demonstrated in the videos. As long as we remain theoretical and abstract, there's room for everyone to get emotional. But I believe that if we get specific, we can actually make some progress.

For example, I would characterize the videos posted in another thread to be concerning, for reasons I outlined in that thread. The video posted by Drop Bear is what I would call solid "anti-grappling." While I don't know if it's good WC, I can say that it appears to be somewhat legit technique for defending the take down and remaining on your feet when a competent wrestler clinches with you.

If there's one thing I've learned recently, it's that you CMA guys think fundamentally differently than I. We just flat out don't see things the same way. This is a good thing, IMO. But it's only made it more clear to me that I cannot replicate your thought processes on my own, and vice versa. A bunch of CMA'ists just flat out cannot sit around and think like grapplers, developing "anti-grappling" in a vacuum.

The call to action on the part of the grappling contingent here has been pretty consistent, simply build the technique with grapplers. That doesn't mean train BJJ (although not a bad idea, IMO). It doesn't mean borrow techniques from folk wrestling, sambo, CaCC wrestling, Judo or BJJ (although again, could be okay if done wisely). It DOES mean working out the techniques outside of the clinical laboratory of like minded MA'ists. The video Drop Bear posted was a technique developed in cooperation with competent grappling. The techniques being defended were applied realistically and the grapplers reactions were consistent with what a grappler might actually do. And so, if trained well, there is a good chance that the technique will help and not hurt.

I can't say the same for many of the techniques shown in the various "anti-grappling" threads. What I've seen are techniques that will likely just make your situation worse and not better. It's not my ego saying that. It's actual grappling experience, seeing in these techniques things that would actually help me and hurt you.

I can't argue with that.

 

[RTKDCMB]

Something just occurred to me. Isn't self defense training a worst case scenario type thing?

The worse case scenario would be being unsuccessful in the self defense.

RTKDCMB: what if you couldn't drop your hips because the shot was too deep? What if you didn't "drop him?" What if you're now on your back and his hips are in front of yours (ie, you are bottom under mount), the mount is very high, limiting use of your arms and putting a tremendous amount of pressure directly on your diaphragm making it difficult to breathe, and he is using his forearm and elbow to strike your face?

Like any defense against anything, if first you don't succeed, do something else.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Well keep in mind, that opinion wasn't about WC, it was about anti-grappling.

I have tried to point this out in one of my posts. If someone says that the long fist system (my primary system) doesn't have good "anti-grappling" strategy, I will say that I have to agree with him. The reason is simple. If you think you can knock your opponent down before he can take you down, you don't need to have any grappling knowledge.

In another thread, I have also suggested the following:

If you are a striker, try to have 20 rounds sparring with your grappler opponent daily.

- If you can knock him down 1st, you win that round.
- If your opponent can take you down 1st, he win that round.

Try this for the next 3 months, collect the final record after your 600 rounds sparring, and share your final result here. Because different opponents, the final result may be different. If we can combine 10 or even 20 different final results, we may be able to draw some meaningful conclusion here.

 

[RTKDCMB]

If you are worried about getting headbutted. Clinching can actually prevent that. Because you deny them room to wind up. Just work on good head position.

If they have the better head position. Generally they have the better clinch. And can headbutt your face off. The Thai clinch does not have that head involvement as much as say double under hooks.

The hard part is getting to that point without getting head butted, its not a fits all situation but if you are going to clinch on the street it is something to be concerned about. With double underhooks you are vulnerable to a double palm slap to the ears.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I haven't found any "boxing anti-grappling" clip yet, but the following clips make no sense to me.

1. wrestling anti-grappling:

2. MMA anti-grappling:

 

[Punchy]

Well keep in mind, that opinion wasn't about WC, it was about anti-grappling. I view WC as a fine martial art. I feel that when certain exponents make wild claims like some of the anti-grappling videos have, then there's a problem.

That said, I'll be in northern Ohio and Southern Michigan until January. Are there any WC schools you recommend I visit?

Sorry, don't know of any in that area. I used to know a guy in Detroit but that was over a decade ago and I'm not even sure if he's still there.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I haven't found any "boxing anti-grappling" clip yet, but the following clips make no sense to me.

1. wrestling anti-grappling:

2. MMA anti-grappling:

What doesn't make sense to you in those clips? They look mostly pretty reasonable to me.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

What doesn't make sense to you in those clips? They look mostly pretty reasonable to me.

The wrestling is grappling. The MMA also includes grappling.

Does the following make sense?

- Judo anti-grappling,
- BJJ anti-grappling,
- boxing anti-striking,
- Christian ant-Christ,
- communist anti-communist,
- ...

 

[Tony Dismukes]

...hats off to WC who have looked at it, concluded that they still don't want to be on the ground from choice, but that some grappler might take them to the ground. Hence the need to develop strategies to combat a grappler. Rather than diss WC for using their system to develop strategies to combat a grappler using WC principles, I think WC should be commended.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for those WC practitioners who have spent time working with legitimate skilled grapplers to develop and test methods for making their art work against grappling. Some of the WC exponents on this board, such as yak sao, say they have put in that time. Kudos to them! Some WC folks on YouTube, such as Mr. Izzo and Mr. Young, have clearly done the same. Kudos to them as well.

Where I can not offer commendations is for those practitioners of WC (or any other art) who have elected to offer instruction on fighting against grappling which is clearly based on armchair theorizing and has not been tested with actual grapplers. I don't get as riled up about it as Hanzou does, because I understand that Sturgeons Law certainly applies to martial arts and it's not my job to police the 90%.

Suppose the countryside was being ravaged by roaming gangs of rogue Wing Chun practitioners and so I felt compelled to develop a specific "Anti-WC" curriculum. I might have some ideas about tactics and techniques to try based on my (minimal) live exposure to WC, my experiences sparring with other types of striking styles, and various videos of WC practitioners fighting other people. Possibly some of those ideas might even be valid. If I started offering instruction based on those untested ideas, I would be a fool. Before I started presenting myself as an expert on the subject, I would need to find a bunch of skilled WC practitioners to work with, preferably from different lineages, and spend some serious time testing and refining my approach to the topic.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The wrestling is grappling. The MMA also includes grappling.

Does the following make sense?

- Judo anti-grappling,
- BJJ anti-grappling,
- boxing anti-striking,
- Christian ant-Christ,
- communist anti-communist,
- ...

Sure. The point of "anti-grappling" is to prevent a grappler from using his grappling skills to control you, take you down, or submit you and thereby maintain a range where you can win using your strikes. Both clips do a decent job of showing techniques that someone who preferred striking could use to negate the clinch and the takedown in order to keep the fight in the striking range.

You are correct that these techniques are part of grappling. "Anti-grappling" is a subset of grappling.

 

[K-man]

A clinch is much more useful in a sporting competition, where you know you will not get head butted than in self defense.

I think it depends on the situation and the training you do. Clinching with a bigger guy is more complicated but getting inside someone's defences and driving the knees into the groin, abdomen, chest and ultimately head is a big part of Krav. Also the position of your arm on the near side of the neck and the pressure of the neck makes a head butt unlikely. Against a weapon, again we train to immobilise his weapon arm which is basically a clinch. Head butts might seem to be an issue but when the speed picks up they become less of an issue, a little like locks and holds where it looks like you might get punched. In reality the punch doesn't arrive.

Of course, it also depends on whether you attacker had ever trained to head butt. Not that it requires any great skill but I'm not sure it's top of mind of someone who has tried to attack you and is suddenly grabbed instead. All of a sudden the attacker is the attacked.
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