Self Defence or Murder .. a fine line.

[Steve]

So let's make it clear. Your definition of grappling had nothing to do with grappling in an MMA sense. That is what is confusing the is due.

My definition of grappling is the definition of grappling. I'm not in the habit of changing the definitions of words arbitrarily.

But saying it has nothing to do with grappling in an MMA sense is irrelevant. Grappling in an MMA sense is grappling. So is you putting your hands on me and tossing me to the ground on my head. They are both grappling.

I'm usually perfectly happy to accept full responsiblity for a misunderstanding, but this one isn't on me. As I just said, I used, defined, clarified, re-defined and supported my use of the term. I am satisfied that I've done everything I could.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

So let's make it clear. Your definition of grappling had nothing to do with grappling in an MMA sense. That is what is confusing the is due.

I'm with Steve on this one. "Grappling" is a generic term for any kind of struggle which involves grabbing, shoving, pulling, holding, tripping, etcetera. Trained grappling is a subset of grappling. MMA-style grappling is a subset of trained grappling. Why would you assume Steve was referring to a particular subset of a subset of the category in this context?

 

[K-man]

I know that this question was directed to Steve, but I'm going to answer because internet.

Lots of arts have grappling incorporated into them, but grappling is grappling and can be done outside of the context of being trained in a particular system. Grappling encompasses everything from wristlocks to armbars to throwing to groundwork.

An untrained person can (and in this situation, apparently did) grapple. Some untrained people are just good at it to, either through intuitive getting it or through years of trial and error (having siblings can be helpful in that process).

"Using his arm to hook the deceased under his armpits and flip him upside down" is grappling. The fact that it was not in an MMA context or even an MA context does not alter that.

I agree totally. Just that in other threads my 'grappling' is not grappling because I am not rolling on the ground. To me it is grappling from the very first grab.
:asian:

 

[Mephisto]

It had been stated many times on this forum that people would rather be tried by twelve than carried by six. Here is a guy that shouldn't have even been involved ending up charged with murder. According to you it is "pretty clearly murder" so I suppose there is no reason to even have a trial. I would suggest that the charge is murder because of this state's crackdown on sucker punches. By the time it comes to trial it may well be a lesser charge.

Why the anti-grappling thread? Purely because it was there and it was an instance where the guy on the ground was attacked by a second person with devastating consequences. The ground is not a good place to be.

The ground is not the best place to be, you realize the guy in this incident was put on the ground against his will. If anything this proves that fights can go to the ground. It is a valuable skill to be able to gain a dominant position once on the ground. Once you're down anti grappling goes out the window and you have to play the ground game, if you're untraned this means you'll be flailing and panicking because you're in unfamiliar territory. It's ignorant to ignore the value of ground fighting skills. It's equally as ignorant to have the "better tried by 12 than carried by 6 mentality". It's not better to spend your life in prison than to die. Many might consider death better than prison. Neither would be the best option and the best way to do that is to know law and have a skillet that offers a less than lethal option. This is why the "deadly" systems that hate on sport are missing out. Not every physical altercation justifies killing or maiming a man. If you've got no base in non lethal options you just might end up in prison. That's why I advocate trainibg both methods, a base in an alive training system and some combative skill as well.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I agree totally. Just that in other threads my 'grappling' is not grappling because I am not rolling on the ground. To me it is grappling from the very first grab.
:asian:

Just curious - in the other threads, who denied that your grappling was grappling? Aikido is primarily a grappling art and Goju Ryu contains grappling. They aren't ground grappling - but that's just another subset of the category.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

...Neither would be the best option and the best way to do that is to know law and have a skillet that offers a less than lethal option. ...

Good comment, but it took a moment to parse the typo and realize that you meant skillset. I was trying to figure out how hitting someone with a frying pan was the less lethal option.

 

[K-man]

Just curious - in the other threads, who denied that your grappling was grappling? Aikido is primarily a grappling art and Goju Ryu contains grappling. They aren't ground grappling - but that's just another subset of the category.

The same person who claimed none of my training was effective.

 

[K-man]

The ground is not the best place to be, you realize the guy in this incident was put on the ground against his will. If anything this proves that fights can go to the ground. It is a valuable skill to be able to gain a dominant position once on the ground. Once you're down anti grappling goes out the window and you have to play the ground game, if you're untraned this means you'll be flailing and panicking because you're in unfamiliar territory. It's ignorant to ignore the value of ground fighting skills. It's equally as ignorant to have the "better tried by 12 than carried by 6 mentality". It's not better to spend your life in prison than to die. Many might consider death better than prison. Neither would be the best option and the best way to do that is to know law and have a skillet that offers a less than lethal option. This is why the "deadly" systems that hate on sport are missing out. Not every physical altercation justifies killing or maiming a man. If you've got no base in non lethal options you just might end up in prison. That's why I advocate trainibg both methods, a base in an alive training system and some combative skill as well.

There is nothing in the article that says anyone had any martial art background and in this instance the fight did not, by any account, go to the ground. One person, was 'flipped' to the ground and then was kicked to the head and stomped. Now what I teach is exactly for this scenario which is when you are on the ground and your opponent is standing or worse still kicking. That is not 'ground game', at least not for me. Ground game for me is when both are on the ground.

Reality based systems don't 'hate on sport'. That is rubbish. Sport MA is as valid as any other MA. Some of us are saying that sport based sparring has little if any value in our training. That is not anti-sport and we are not missing out on anything. I have three principal styles. Karate, Krav and Aikido. In each of those styles you have a full range of techniques from the fence where you don't want to engage, to the locks and holds which are restraints, to joint destruction and finally lethal technique. Your statement, "Not every physical altercation justifies killing or maiming a man", is quite correct but totally out of context. You don't need to train a sport based system to have non-lethal techniques. I would suggest my training is both alive and combative and quite capable of a wide range of applications.
:asian:

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Now what I teach is exactly for this scenario which is when you are on the ground and your opponent is standing or worse still kicking. That is not 'ground game', at least not for me. Ground game for me is when both are on the ground.

For what it's worth, a lot of time in BJJ competition is spent with one player standing and the other on the ground. If that doesn't count as the ground game, then I guess sport BJJ players have a greater repertoire than they are often given credit for.

 

[K-man]

For what it's worth, a lot of time in BJJ competition is spent with one player standing and the other on the ground. If that doesn't count as the ground game, then I guess sport BJJ players have a greater repertoire than they are often given credit for.

As most people would know, my knowledge of BJJ could be written on the back of a postage stamp. I have unashamedly pinched different things from BJJ to add to my repertoire. I was just differentiating between one on the ground and both on the ground. I know that BJJ has a huge repertoire, absolutely no arguement there.
:asian:

 

[tshadowchaser]

in the OP it was stated the person killed had way to much to drink. What makes anyone think he could have defended himself if he had training he was drunk. Had he ever practiced drunk?
How long after he hit the ground befor he was kicked and was the kick from an angle he could see it coming?
All this debate on BJJ , ground fighting, etc. is useless in the case stated unless we know more about the case. lets not use a tragic event that we do not know all the facts about to promote our side of the ground fighting, vs anything

 

[K-man]

in the OP it was stated the person killed had way to much to drink. What makes anyone think he could have defended himself if he had training he was drunk. Had he ever practiced drunk?
How long after he hit the ground befor he was kicked and was the kick from an angle he could see it coming?
All this debate on BJJ , ground fighting, etc. is useless in the case stated unless we know more about the case. lets not use a tragic event that we do not know all the facts about to promote our side of the ground fighting, vs anything

Exactly right. The important thing to note is that there is nothing anywhere to suggest that any of the people involved had any martial art training, so it is nothing about practising drunk. It's not about practising at all.

In my OP I was actually alluding to the stomp when I named the thread. To me the stomp is a legitimate technique in self defence. Stomping on someone's ankle can be temporarily debilitating and to my mind is appropriate in most SD scenarios. Stomping on someone's head may be appropriate in certain situations but is likely to cause serious injury, hence the title "a fine line". One side is self defence, the other side is murder.
:asian:

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

in this instance the fight did not, by any account, go to the ground.

I must respectfully disagree with you, and your next sentence is why:

One person, was 'flipped' to the ground and then was kicked to the head and stomped.

It is at this point that the fight went to the ground. Even if the opponent remained standing, at this point, the victim was on the ground and in a position where, for him, he was fighting on the ground.

 

[Steve]

I agree totally. Just that in other threads my 'grappling' is not grappling because I am not rolling on the ground. To me it is grappling from the very first grab.
:asian:

I've never used the term grappling to mean only rolling on the ground and I don't think hanzou has either. Could be wrong on that last, but I really don't think so.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[K-man]

I must respectfully disagree with you, and your next sentence is why:

It is at this point that the fight went to the ground. Even if the opponent remained standing, at this point, the victim was on the ground and in a position where, for him, he was fighting on the ground.

I know it's semantics but there is nothing to indicate that the guy on the ground was fighting at all.
:asian:

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I agree totally. Just that in other threads my 'grappling' is not grappling because I am not rolling on the ground. To me it is grappling from the very first grab.
:asian:

Because through the whole discussion, we don't have enough wrestlers, Judoka, Aikido guys, ... in those discussion. It's quite amazing that after 30 pages of "anti-grappling", nobody has ever mentioned about how to anti "hip throw" (the mother of all throws) yet.

To me, the grappling starts from the first grab too.

I know it's semantics but there is nothing to indicate that the guy on the ground was fighting at all.
:asian:

I'll call this the guy on the ground is still fighting.

 

[K-man]

I've never used the term grappling to mean only rolling on the ground and I don't think hanzou has either. Could be wrong on that last, but I really don't think so.

I don't want to derail the thread but the difference arose in the sparring, non-sparring posts. I wanted sparring defined because sparring to me includes everything from the initial facing off to rolling on the ground. We do that in our training. Sparring to a lot of people is the multitudinous videos that have been posted of karate point sparring which we don't do. That then developed to where my training was said to be ineffective because I did not grapple (on the ground) when in fact I spend a huge amount of time grappling on my feet.
:asian:

 

[Tez3]

Tez, I have to say, it's like you're trying to be intentionally offensive. It's becoming harder and harder to presume good intent from you on this.

First, it's my basic understanding of what grappling is or isn't. Then it's my reading comprehension. After I pointed out EXACTLY where the article says what happens in enough detail to fully support my statements, you suggest I just can't speak English because I'm American and we talk funny??? Come on. Stop busting my balls.

I'm not a witness. I'm also not in a courtroom. I'm casually discussing the topic at hand with a diverse group of martial artists all with different professional and personal backgrounds. I used a term. I defined the term. I clarified my meaning. And I supported my statements with a quote directly from the article that is contrary to what you said. I'm doing my best to be clear.

For what it's worth, "grapple" is also a verb:

Definition of grapple (v)

Bing Dictionary

• grap·ple
• [ grápp'l ]
• 
  

• struggle with somebody: to struggle with somebody in a close hand-to-hand fight
• struggle to deal with something: to struggle to deal with or comprehend something
• grab somebody: to grab hold of somebody

Steve, I never understand why you think I'm trying to be offensive, you read into what I say nothing I mean when I write it. If you are determined to be offended I can't stop you.

There is a report in a newspaper about a crime, I don't read it as a martial arts issue at all, it's a legal and police article. You see it as something all about the grappling and I understand that however you refuse to see where I'm coming from and chose to see it as my being rude, well I'm not.

K man is correct by the way on what is being meant by grapple here.

 

[Steve]

Because through the whole discussion, we don't have enough wrestlers, Judoka, Aikido guys, ... in those discussion. It's quite amazing that after 30 pages of "anti-grappling", nobody has mentioned about how to anti "hip throw" (the mother of all throws) yet.

To me, the grappling starts from the first grab too.

I think to most people, this is true. I'm sure I've seen Hanzou and others echo this very same thought.

In the anti-grappling thread, I think it's more the nature of "Anti-Grappling" that pigeonholes the conversation. Anti-grappling in WC seems to really be Anti-BJJ techniques. Or, at the least, the unwise, poorly conceived videos shown and the techniques discussed are specifically "anti-bjj." Or being as generous as possible, anti-MMA if you consider wrestling takedowns different from BJJ.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I know it's semantics but there is nothing to indicate that the guy on the ground was fighting at all.
:asian:

No, there wasn't. And most likely, he had no 'fight' left in him at that point. But for him, the fight went to the ground, and for him, it ended on the ground.