Sport And TMA....Again

[Hanzou]

How about;

How about posting some quotes from this thread instead of posting quotes out of context from a different thread?

 

[K-man]

How about posting some quotes from this thread instead of posting quotes out of context from a different thread?

Because you asked to be shown where you had bagged any other styles! Whether you have in this thread or not is irrelevant. Your attitude to other MAs has been deplorable and those quotes were not out of context. I made sure of that before I posted them.

 

[K-man]

You mean other than traditional MAs teaching Bjj techniques for ground fighting?

Not to say that cross training is not a good thing to do but in most of the situations shown there were other options rather than learning sport based technique. I encourage cross training but the question that has to be asked is, "how will the cross training supplement my training?" The TKD guys may have been training for an MMA competition. There was nothing there that made me want to include it in my training.

The take down in the final video we used to do back in the 60s messing about. Absolutely nothing to do with BJJ.

The videos above prove it. The examples above are of schools that went outside their art to learn ground fighting. I'm willing to bet that the majority of TMA schools aren't going outside of their arts to learn it or teach it, since it isn't their focus.

So why do you think they should learn it if it is outside their focus? If I offered to teach you application from kata it is outside your focus.

A takedown defense at the end of a kata sequence doesn't mean your art has ground fighting.

Again bulls#1t! There are takedowns right the way through the kata, not just at the end. Many finish in chokes or arm bars. The ones that go to the floor would normally go to a side mount.

Why do you keep posting uninformed comment about things that you don't understand?

 

[Aiki Lee]

Himura Kenshin(awesome anime by the way) IF you want proof, look not to the UFC which is were hanzou I failing his argument. Look to the Hundreds of Gracie challenge matches that took place before the first UFC. They are all on Youtube, every single one of them, plus you can get the DVD. It shows them walking into ANY dojo they can find that would accept the challenge, to a NO RULES fight to see who wins. Many of the schools were top notch schools. Im sure your going to bring up the controversy regaring Judo Gene Lebell and I agree that stank but, doesn't change the outcome of the hundreds of other challenge matches.

Your correct, the UFC was not the best example to use.. The Gracie challenge matches, all of which exist on youtube, hundreds of them, make the point far better then the UFC ever did.

I will have to look up these things before I can base any kind of opinion on this.

 

[Hanzou]

The take down in the final video we used to do back in the 60s messing about. Absolutely nothing to do with BJJ.

Did you also call it "Jumping Guard" back in the 60s like the Ninjas in that video did?

http://youtu.be/AgZfab7LVX8

So why do you think they should learn it if it is outside their focus? If I offered to teach you application from kata it is outside your focus.

Because its training in an important fight phase that their main art lacks.

Again bulls#1t! There are takedowns right the way through the kata, not just at the end. Many finish in chokes or arm bars. The ones that go to the floor would normally go to a side mount.

Okay.

 

[Aiki Lee]

I looked for a few videos about Gracie challenges and these are some of the best examples I could find. if others have more feel free to share them. Here are my observations.

Obviously the Gracies spent a considerable amount of time training and developing their approach and they do a bang up job. Their opponents don't seem that good though; i mean it's hard to judge skill based off just one example but they seem to lack some very serious fundamentals. Also while I see some things that would be considered against modern rules, the duels definitely have sort of pre-agreed upon rule set, and that is where BJJ in general really shines is in competition, which is what it was developed for.

 

[K-man]

Did you also call it Jumping Guard back in the 60s like the Ninjas in that video did?

http://youtu.be/AgZfab7LVX8

No, that was in the days before I had even heard of judo. We just called it wrestling as a genetic term that pretty much covered everything except boxing.

Because its training in an important fight phase that their main art lacks.

It is only important if you want to fight on the ground. If your focus is to get off the ground ASAP then the focus of your training is different.

Okay.

Can I give you a bit of history. I studied the Japanese form of Goju. That was pretty much where MAs Oyama got his grounding before starting Kyokushin. My Sensei and his sister who also trained with us back then were members of the Australian karate team. We had a big emphasis on competition. If I had been 20 years younger and had the inclination to go down the competition path I would have absolutely no need to train BJJ. All I needed was in my own dojo. My Sensei's teacher was the Australian coach. For you to say I needed to train BJJ is as nonsensical as saying that Mohamed Ali needed to learn BJJ.

Fast forward twenty years and I started to look at karate in a totally different way. In my early 50s I had no desire to compete in competition although we still did a lot of that type of sparring. Up until then I had thought of kata as pretty much a waste of time, just like your understanding. We 'learned' a new kata every so often and obviously the more kata you 'knew' the better you were.

What I actually found was I knew nothing. I knew how to fight in a tournament and I could handle someone on the street and I had some reasonable skills on the ground, but in fact I knew jacks*** about karate. I started looking at other styles and I started cross training. Eventually I found it necessary to change to the Okinawan style because virtually everything I was learning elsewhere was contained in the kata if you knew where to look and how to interpret it. Now, because I understand more of my own system I can teach it to my students. Do they need to cross train? Hopefully they don't feel the need but I would encourage them to cross train anything they want. Do I need ground skills? Sure. Do I need to go to BJJ to learn those skills? No, I don't need that depth of training to do what I do.
:asian:

 

[RTKDCMB]

Can we PLEASE stop using YouTube to "prove" stuff?

 

[RTKDCMB]

Where did I say that the founder of Goju Ryu never studied Judo? I'm saying that by 1993 most martial arts had largely ignored ground fighting for decades, and that included Judo.

I had 2 lessons of Judo in the early 1980's, I distinctly remember wrestling around on the floor with other students. Doesn't sound like ignored ground fighting to me.

 

[Hanzou]

No, that was in the days before I had even heard of judo. We just called it wrestling as a genetic term that pretty much covered everything except boxing.

Well that branch of Ninjutsu uses Bjj to supplement their fighting skills. They don't even bother to change the name.

It is only important if you want to fight on the ground. If your focus is to get off the ground ASAP then the focus of your training is different.

Controlling the ground makes it a lot easier to get off the ground ASAP.

Thank you for sharing your history. It was very interesting. :asian:

 

[Hanzou]

I had 2 lessons of Judo in the early 1980's, I distinctly remember wrestling around on the floor with other students. Doesn't sound like ignored ground fighting to me.

That isn't to say they never taught it, it wasn't the focus of their training. This is why Bjj was able to carve a large niche for itself and flourish as a different martial art.

Here's Ronda Rousey talking about this exact thing;

Luke Thomas: Talk to me about newaza in judo. I think a lot of people have poor conception of what it actually entails both in terms of newaza training and newaza as a function of competition in judo. How does it work? How much training is involved in submissions in judo and how much of it matters in competition?

Ronda Rousey:'Training in newaza in judo is not mandatory. You can get away with not knowing any ground and just knowing how to defend and stay standing. I just happen to come from a background where my mom, she tore her knees out when she was like 17 so all of her fights, she won on the ground and then when I was 16, I tore my knee out and I spent that entire year only doing ground work and when I moved away from home, I went to [Jimmy] Pedro's. They're known as mostly a very ground based judo school so the difference I think between a judo and jiu-jitsu ground game is in judo, you only have sometimes only three seconds, even less than that to make something work so it pushes the transition and the pace on the ground to be faster than any other grappling sport.

Luke Thomas: Is that the key to the game? It seems like once you get that rush in, the two on one and then the trip, it's just a matter of seconds at that point. Do you think the jiu-jitsu guys don't have the same sense of urgency in their submission application?

Ronda Rousey: Yeah, they don't have any sense of urgency and they don't have as much need to be able to transition between the stand-up and the ground as quickly as a judo player does because we don't have an undisclosed amount of time to work on the ground and so I think that's a big advantage. A lot of judo players like I said neglect learning any kind of ground game at all. It's kind of like some judo players I think have an amazing ground game that transfers better to MMA than any style but some judo players are just completely useless on the ground. It's kind of random.

http://www.mmafighting.com/strikefo...a-rousey-miesha-tate-unorthodox-judo-mma-news

Here's a good article that discusses Judo's struggles to maintain its popularity in the face of the rising popularity of Bjj. This gentleman here proposed a newaza league for Judo (pretty genius actually), but that proposal was largely ignored. Its important to note that many Bjj schools offer Judo instruction for those that are interested. Bjj rules don't negatively impact throwing, whereas Judo rules negatively impact ground fighting quite a bit.

http://theselfdefenceexpert.com/the-judo-newaza-league/#

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Bjj rules don't negatively impact throwing, ...

Strongly disagree on this. If "pull guard" can achieve the same ground game result, why would anybody want to train "leg lift throw (Uchi Mata)"? You can learn "pull guard" in 1 month. How long does it take you to learn "leg lift throw (Uchi Mata)"? Not only you need to have good single leg balance, you also need to have leg flexibility.

http://imageshack.us/a/img832/7585/changleglifting.jpg

http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/uchimata.htm

 

[ballen0351]

You mean other than traditional MAs teaching Bjj techniques for ground fighting?

The videos above prove it. The examples above are of schools that went outside their art to learn ground fighting. I'm willing to bet that the majority of TMA schools aren't going outside of their arts to learn it or teach it, since it isn't their focus.



A takedown defense at the end of a kata sequence doesn't mean your art has ground fighting.

That doesn't prove people were not training ground techniques prior to UFC1. That proves people are cross training today. Which is smart to do. I cross train. Goju with Judo and I go to a BJJ class like once a month. Bjj is a poor choice for police work so I don't put a lot of time in but its cool yo learn so I go every now and then.

 

[MJS]

There's a lot to discuss here. I'm going to leave aside the issue of defense against weapons for the moment because that's a whole big topic in itself that I could easily get sidetracked on.

Oh by all means, please feel free to talk about weapons.

One thing to consider is the type of sporting competition you are talking about. A MMA practitioner certainly has tools in his kit to handle pretty much any type of unarmed attack. On the other hand, a BJJer who trains exclusively for IBJJF competition is in a similar position to a TKD practitioner who only trains for Olympic style competition. Both can be dangerous because they are tough athletes with the tools to cause serious harm. Both are potentially vulnerable because they are training for rules which don't allow the most common real world attacks and encourage some bad habits for street self-defense. Of course, just because someone trains for competition doesn't mean they can't also train for self-defense. Both BJJ and TKD have techniques to deal with the sorts of attacks which are not included in competition. I teach a BJJ fundamentals class and my primary focus is on making sure my students can use their skills in a self-defense context first and foremost. Tournament techniques can come later.

Oh I have no doubt that a trained MMA fighter could handle himself in an unarmed confrontation. I'm also sure that in some schools, SD is covered more in-depth, however the majority of schools in may area are geared more towards competition.

There are other dangers to focusing too much on a competition mindset. It encourages a dueling mentality where two players are facing each other, having agreed to fight and having agreed on the rules, waging a symmetric fight to overcome the other's defenses. There are good lessons to be learned from that sort of exercise, but it is rather different from the realities of self-defense. To balance that out I would recommend scenario-based training and asymmetric drills where the participants have different rules and objectives.

Agreed.

The bit about "preset techniques vs pure fighting skill" is somewhat irrelevant. Whether you're training for competition or for the street you need both. For competition you need to spend more time training counters for sophisticated martial arts techniques which are mostly irrelevant for a street fight.

Agreed.

 

[MJS]

I've read that many martial arts schools are actually in decline in the US while MMA schools are on the upswing. Karate for example declined by 26% in the last few years.

I'll see if I can dig up the article.

That's news to me. If you can find the article, I'd be interested in seeing it. Of course, it could be, as I said, that people tend to flock to the 'flavor of the month'.

 

[MJS]

K man you say TMA don't need to change. Why is that? Do you think that run of the mill karate training will prepare someone to deal with a thug mma artist? Which is common despite you not thinking they are. I met all kinds of them during my stint in mma. About the only modern art with out the thuggery is BJJ, of course I could be wrong.

It may be style bashing but I don't understand this head in the sand attitude that most tma have. This refusal to address the new threats and how to effectively deal with them.

Thugs and other social miscreants are drawn to MMA. MMA is very effective at takeing down TMA arts. If your art can not deal with and defeat even a mma with 1 year of experience then it has failed. There are not nice people in mma. Karate does not draw in those types. The threat has changed, why hasn't TMA?

The more I train, the more I watch, the more I read, the more I see one sided martial arts as dinosaurs. Why am I the only one that can see the threat they pose.

I used to long to do karate/tkd. To emulate my father.. Then reality hit me.. My father is one of a kind born out through countless hours of self study and sparring with his wrestle/boxer twin. This epiphany has lead me to become quite disillusioned with Traditional arts as of late. Some time ago, I even walked into a KKW tkd dojang. I was ready to sign up. Guy taught traditional as well as the Olympic. Was a judo black belt, with several other arts. He brought up the question of dealing with the ground. He never taught any of the many valid judo syllabus on Newaza to his students. His only statement was we don't go to the ground, I teach to avoid it. (ya, how? What specific technique)

Knowing full well he could teach good ground, and refused, and then this BS statement I hear many tma make, I knew then Id never be satisfied and would feel only like half a martial artist.

So ya, maybe I shouldn't style bash. That does not change, my feelings that, traditional martial artists need to be realistic with themselves. They need to take a deep hard look at how they train and ask if they are realistically prepared to deal with emerging threats.

Why shouldn't tma change. There is no reason why a art like karate should take 5-6 years before you can understand it enough to actually use it in a fight or situation.. Ill put it to you the way my coach put it. (he had lots of years in karate as well as catch wrestling and bjj) "I don't judge a martial art by their black belts, I judge them based on how well there white belts can defend them selves."

Actually, I agree with what you've said here. Sure, competitions existed for years, but we really didn't hear a lot about BJJ until the UFC began. So, that said, when I joined this forum, I went to the Kenpo section and was talking about the need for Kenposits to learn some ground work. I took so much **** for saying that, it wasn't funny. If we look at Jeff Speakman, and his Kenpo 5.0, he's done just that...taken his Kenpo to the next level, and has added ground work and made his empty hand techs more oriented to what you'd commonly see on the street.

Hey, I'm not the martial arts police, nor do I care to be. I offer suggestions, that's all. People can take 'em or leave 'em. For myself though, I want to stay with the times. Now, in my Kyokushin classes, after 2yrs., I've yet to see anything to address a takedown or escape from the mount. Personally, it's not really my position to tell my teacher what he should be teaching. For myself, if I want something, if I want to improve on something, I'll seek it out on my own.

 

[MJS]

I happen to believe that TMA taught properly is every bit as effective as MMA or BJJ. Sure we don't spend as much time rolling as those guys but we do train to escape from the ground. I would agree that one year of karate training is not going to give you a lot of protection on the street but if that is what someone wants I would teach them Krav or Systema. But here again, Krav and Systema took there techniques from other MAs like Aikido, Muay Thai and Karate. Almost every technique in Aikido is identifiable in our karate kata so I teach all those. The softness of Systema and the isolation of various body parts in moving kicking and striking is very close to what you find in aikido and Goju karate. Krav is simple, brutal and effective. Once again you see the similarities to karate when you train these styles.

I agree with this! However, the problem, IMO anyways, is finding someone to do what you said...properly teach the art! Oh, I'm not saying that every teacher out there is a joke, but when it comes to really understanding something, well, IMHO, those are what I call the rare gems. They're out there, but you really have to look hard, very hard sometimes, to find them.

 

[MJS]

And again you assume ground fighting wasn't already a part of the TMAs arsenal. It may not have been taught at the time or maybe it was. Maybe the type of guy that was entering these fight comps had a mind set that they didn't need ground fighting because they can "kick peoples butts" and won't end up on the ground. That does not mean it wasn't in the "old dust books" of the styles. Most people do train in ground fighting now where do you think these skills came from?

Also you keep mixing sport fights vs real life which are totally different.

You know, back when I was making those comments in the Kenpo section, I heard people say that ground fighting was done. The goal, which makes sense, was to do what you had to do to get back up, rather than prolong your time on the ground. Oddly enough, when I asked why we no longer see any of this in Kenpo schools today, I couldn't get an answer. Furthermore, there is a clip of a high ranking Kenpoist doing a tech from the mount. Needless to say, it looked poor at best.

This isn't to say that it's not out there, taught, etc., but if it was, you'd figure it'd be more visible.

 

[ballen0351]

You know, back when I was making those comments in the Kenpo section, I heard people say that ground fighting was done. The goal, which makes sense, was to do what you had to do to get back up, rather than prolong your time on the ground. Oddly enough, when I asked why we no longer see any of this in Kenpo schools today, I couldn't get an answer. Furthermore, there is a clip of a high ranking Kenpoist doing a tech from the mount. Needless to say, it looked poor at best.

This isn't to say that it's not out there, taught, etc., but if it was, you'd figure it'd be more visible.

Ground fighting doesnt need to be both people on the ground rolling around. If Im standing up but keeping you on the ground with a standing arm bar or wrist lock is that ground fighting? To me it is. Its controlling a person on the ground Im just not there with him. Mounting someone and bashing their skull in with hammer fists, or putting someone in a triangle or Arm bar is not the only way to fight the ground.

 

[MJS]

As a youth I thought what made a martial art different from another martial art was the variety of techniques it had compared to others. It wasn't until much later that I learned that it is the principles and specific strategies and tactics that make an art unique and effective. Using preset techniques to teach these lessons and principles will improve skill and help a student understand why something works and how to properly apply that technique or a similar one with similar principles. To view preset techniques as something along the lines of "this is my hook punch defense" or "this is my not getting stabbed in the face defense" is rather limiting I believe. I don't see how someone could access the correct folder in his brain to pull out the correct technique under pressure.

Using techniques as examples to teach specific skills are the way to go.

I agree. Interestingly enough, I was shocked at the number of people that I used to teach, that seemed to crumble under pressure, when the 'preset' tech that they were doing, suddenly didn't work, because the attacker did something else, or they couldn't reach the specific target because of height differences, etc. My reply was fairly simple...who cares if you can't reach the face. Are there no other targets available? See, the problem was, was that others would make the students feel so bound by the technique at hand, that they had to do it verbatim, no matter what. I call BS on that. Oh, so you're 5'6 and your attacker is 6'2. Oh, you can't reach his face? Hmm...can you change the face shot to a strike to the chest instead? Can you kick the guy in the balls to make him bend over? Oh you can, good, then do it! That is why I'd preach the use of the basics so much. Adapt on the fly.