Sport vs. Street

[drop bear]

I think there's an inherent disconnect when cops confuse what they do and the realities they encounter as a part of their jobs, with self defense.

Can the experience that a LEO has inform civilian self defense? Of course. Is it the same? No.

Self defense is contextual. One size doesn't fit all. It's like a single person driving a passenger van to work every day "just in case" they need to take 9 people from point A to point B. Is it possible that this could happen? Well, maybe... but it's highly unlikely. Unless the context changes. Maybe that person is an Uber driver. And if he is, fine. But most people aren't.

Women on a college campus absolutely should learn some self defense. But that self defense isn't going to be cop self defense. It's a different context. And if you live in a dangerous part of town, sure. Self defense might be very appropriate. But that self defense isn't the same as for a college coed or a cop. It's different.

Exept you can jump on google and watch a cop fight and without any police training pretty much work out what they are trying to do.

And whether or not they are doing it right or wrong.

And this is because they are not doing anything very specialized.

 

[Buka]

Sure did. Kind of chuckley though. But I don't think everyone realizes the consequences of their posts.

You just ain't supposed to talk about Fight Club.

 

[jobo]

Exept you can jump on google and watch a cop fight and without any police training pretty much work out what they are trying to do.

And whether or not they are doing it right or wrong.

And this is because they are not doing anything very specialized.

its still a different angle, a cop is trying to detain the guy, and can only use such force as is a reasonable to do so, someone defending themself want to guy to go away and can use such force as he believes is necessary, ( UK law)

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I see the whole street / ring/dojo argument. Some what differently than most. Maybe id see it differently if guns were freely available in my country. There seems to be a bogeyman street fighter than has great skill/ strength and is utterly ruthlessly. These people possibly exist but they make up a very small % of the population, so small that its pointless worrying about them, like being hit by lightning perhaps. Not only have you got to meet them, you have to annoy them to the point of wanting to badly hurt you. Where as they are probably busy being an enforcer for the local loan shark or some such.
the reality is most people can't fight, even those that do a lot. They have the same skills they learn at 8 ,slightly refined perhaps. But not at all based on in depth body mechanics and most important people arnt very fit. In fact most arnt fit at all, based on the info someone posted on fitness standards in the states
if you combine these factors you come to the conclusion that having both developed skills and good fitness, puts you in quite a small % of the population and you might be someone else's bogey man. The fact there are no rules is to your advantage as you can finally try out that killer throat punch you have been practising.

uneven surfaces favour people with the best balance and that should be you and improvised weapons are available to all. However if you are seriously out numbered you have most probably lost and that is just a fact of life

I agree with most of the points here, Jobo. The key, IMO, is that it's possible to leverage some of those points in training. In training specifically for sport (assuming said sport occurs on predictable mats, etc.), there's not much reason to train for variable surfaces. Training for self-defense, there's a reason to have some portion of the practice that is designed to help build adaptability to variable surfaces. The same goes for improvised weapons. The person who has actually spent some time training weapons, then practiced those principles with adapted/improvised weapons, will have an advantage over the person who hasn't.

For me, when I differentiate between "sport" and "self-defense" training, it's with the understanding that some who train for sport, also include self-defense principles in their training. So some person who trains for MMA competitions, for instance, can also add into their training some bits specifically to address some of the problems, advantages, and variations that don't happen in an MMA competition. That may be the best of both worlds for them.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

If you want to talk about flaws, let's talk about how you PRETEND FIGHT with your SD training. You tap each other. You pretend to poke at your partners' eyes. You pretend to punch at the throat...maybe a tap. Do you use real, sharp knives or rubber and aluminum ones? You choreograph your training. You force one guy to stab with a rubber knife in one manner in order to do your choreographed moves. How is this realistic? Would you allow me to stab and slash whatever way that I want with that rubber knife? I bet I can hurt someone really bad with one and I'm not even going to go for the eye balls. This wouldn't even be close to realism b/c it's still a rubber knife. But way more realistic than what you currently do.

I find this annoying, and it's said a lot. Every kind of MA training I've ever seen does some portion of their training this way. A new person can't learn BJJ by having someone jump on top of them and use all they've got to stop them from escaping. They are given a very specific "attack", with very specific parameters, for which they've been taught a very specific defense, and they repeat the exact same movements many times until they are doing it kind of right. Then the attack is changed a little bit, and they repeat the process.

So, yes, sometimes the "attacker" is told to stab a very specific way. That's done so a specific technique can be practiced. Later, the "attacker" gets to choose the attack without telling the defender. The same progression as going from practicing a specific mount escape to rolling. And with some of the same kinds of results (they'll fail a lot early on, and get better over time). Eventually, you mix it all together, and they have to defend whatever comes, as best they can. And part of that ends up being basic sparring, etc.

Of course we don't use real knives. You need people to be able to fail. I've seen places that practice with real knives, and their "attacks" are so very slow and cautious they will never fail to defend, which is a good thing since they are using a live knife. The point of a practice knife is that we get to go hard enough that the defender can safely fail (which, with knife defense, they are going to do pretty regularly).

 

[CB Jones]

Of course we don't use real knives. You need people to be able to fail.

Well there is that old saying of:

There are those that can and do

And

There are those who can't and bleed out.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I agree with Jobo on this. Your head gets weaker and more susceptible to being concussed easier with more hard blows to it throughout the years. I don't think that you'd build resistance to it....just getting more used to head shots. I would def. get good headgear (so none of that cheap Karate foam joints at $20)..something around $100-130 is good). But it's still not a clear cut answer about headgear being the best idea neither, but in the beginning at medium power only, I'd say wear them.

The jaw will KO you much easier. When I get hit in the jaw with a good shot from even a 15 year old girl that's going full power, it sends a throbbing pain up the top of my head and the pain stays there. The jawline is probably the best area to cause a KO, with the best being under or around the chin. The temples are good too, but that needs more force.

So while I tout that sparring hard is the highest level of training, it's still a high risk for such skillset and that these skills may never even needed using in a decent area of civilized society. But many of us still take these risks to our heads, b/c we enjoy fighting. Just like dudes going around play fighting while shooting off live rounds at paper targets.....high risks, but mostly due to the risks of accidentally getting fatally shot by the other larpers.

Agreed. I'll just point out that there's some reasonable evidence that headgear actually may lead to more significant long-term damage, since some people tend to be more accepting of headshots with gear on. I prefer its use either to protect the face (so people can get punched "in the nose" without being all bruised the next day at work for the big presentation) and more importantly to protect glasses and contacts. If I'm not going hard, I prefer to keep the headgear off (and work without my glasses - blurry boxing).

 

[jobo]

I agree with most of the points here, Jobo. The key, IMO, is that it's possible to leverage some of those points in training. In training specifically for sport (assuming said sport occurs on predictable mats, etc.), there's not much reason to train for variable surfaces. Training for self-defense, there's a reason to have some portion of the practice that is designed to help build adaptability to variable surfaces. The same goes for improvised weapons. The person who has actually spent some time training weapons, then practiced those principles with adapted/improvised weapons, will have an advantage over the person who hasn't.

For me, when I differentiate between "sport" and "self-defense" training, it's with the understanding that some who train for sport, also include self-defense principles in their training. So some person who trains for MMA competitions, for instance, can also add into their training some bits specifically to address some of the problems, advantages, and variations that don't happen in an MMA competition. That may be the best of both worlds for them.

can't argue with any of that, some real world speed and exertion would do a lot of the more theoretical types some good and some reality experience would give the sports types a more balanced skill set

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Exept you can jump on google and watch a cop fight and without any police training pretty much work out what they are trying to do.

And whether or not they are doing it right or wrong.

And this is because they are not doing anything very specialized.

I think that's where Steve is saying there's overlap. In a SD situation, I'm unlikely to need to cuff someone. I have locks that a cop might use to get to cuffing, but I'm going to use them differently, since I don't need to detain the guy...unless it's a nice way to let them cool off, and I'm certain there's nobody close enough to intervene on their behalf.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Nice video. But I still don't agree with your argument that your tactic is that good. I didn't say it wouldn't work.

The only way that my tactics would work is that they fight as a unit and not 1 vs 1. Fighting as a unit means more than just taking your own man out. There's coordination and communication among the fighters. There's an understanding before the fight, that if you teammate engages your guy, then you not only have to look for opportunities to beat up your guy, but you also have to watch whoever was targeting your team mate. At the 40 second mark yellow knocks his guy down but fails to realize that Red has his back to him. He missed an opportunity to take Red's back.

Think of it like this. Football and basketball players working as a unit vs working as 1 vs 1. Fighting 5 vs 5 should be able to make use of the same skill sets of team work and strategy. In terms of awareness and non verbal communication, I would have to say that basketball players are king. Things like no look passes not only requires you to be aware, but it requires your teammate to be aware as well. When those players decide to go 1 vs 1 then they don't become aware of people who are open. And guess how many people are on a basketball team.

 

[Buka]

Oh boy I have a feeling this could be a very long thread

Headhunter for the win!

He called it well over four hundred posts ago.

 

[Headhunter]

Headhunter for the win!

He called it well over four hundred posts ago.

Haha I hadn't even bothered reading it until just now and just taken a quick skim read and it turned into exactly what I thought it would

 

[Steve]

Exept you can jump on google and watch a cop fight and without any police training pretty much work out what they are trying to do.

And whether or not they are doing it right or wrong.

And this is because they are not doing anything very specialized.

I think that's where Steve is saying there's overlap. In a SD situation, I'm unlikely to need to cuff someone. I have locks that a cop might use to get to cuffing, but I'm going to use them differently, since I don't need to detain the guy...unless it's a nice way to let them cool off, and I'm certain there's nobody close enough to intervene on their behalf.

sort of. Two quick points. I'm on an iPad, so I'll be brief.

One, cops are in a violent trade. They look for violence and they engage in violence. It's not self defense. At least. It's not self defense in the way a civilian encounters self defense.

Two, because of one above, cops are both more likely to be proficient in violent encounters, and also way more likely to have a skewed impression about actual risk.

Point is, a cop sees a lot of bad guys. His/her job is to interact with, often violently, bad guys. I work with a lot of criminals. I know that it's possible I will be attacked. But it's not likely. I move within feet of dangerous people all the time. But, the chances of being attacked remain very, very low. Not like a cop, who goes looking for trouble as a core job duty.

And the chances of my learning what a cop knows to the point it will actually help me is zero... unless maybe I work in another professionally violent trade. As a civilian, I'm much better off learning things I know I can apply and understanding what I don't know. I see red flags when a cop leads non cops to believe they can do things they really can't.

I may not be explaining this well. I hope so.

 

[jobo]

sort of. Two quick points. I'm on an iPad, so I'll be brief.

One, cops are in a violent trade. They look for violence and they engage in violence. It's not self defense. At least. It's not self defense in the way a civilian encounters self defense.

Two, because of one above, cops are both more likely to be proficient in violent encounters, and also way more likely to have a skewed impression about actual risk.

Point is, a cop sees a lot of bad guys. His/her job is to interact with, often violently, bad guys. I work with a lot of criminals. I know that it's possible I will be attacked. But it's not likely. I move within feet of dangerous people all the time. But, the chances of being attacked remain very, very low. Not like a cop, who goes looking for trouble as a core job duty.

And the chances of my learning what a cop knows to the point it will actually help me is zero... unless maybe I work in another professionally violent trade. As a civilian, I'm much better off learning things I know I can apply and understanding what I don't know. I see red flags when a cop leads non cops to believe they can do things they really can't.

I may not be explaining this well. I hope so.

cops also tend to have a gang of mates on the way

 

[CB Jones]

I see red flags when a cop leads non cops to believe they can do things they really can't.

Agree with what you are saying and I am interested in what you are referring to with this statement

 

[KenpoMaster805]

i wouldnt even go to this fight thing this is stupid

 

[CB Jones]

17 years in Law Enforcement

My take on SD from an undercover perspective

#1 stay calm and with a clear head always try and diffuse a situation (escalation should be last option)

#2 once there is a clear threat and you are in eminent danger act swiftly and decisively to stop that threat.

#3 your actions should be based solely on what is needed to protect yourself not what witnesses will say or how the court will see it. Worry with that once you are safe.

#4 once the threat is stopped now de-escalate. Sometimes it can be hard with adrenaline flowing. But we don't want to go from legitimate SD to an actual criminal assault.

I think this works for both LEO and civilians.

 

[Steve]

Agree with what you are saying and I am interested in what you are referring to with this statement

Hey. I'm sticking with, "agree."

Seriously, though, there are a few areas. From tactics to practical skills.

 

[drop bear]

I think that's where Steve is saying there's overlap. In a SD situation, I'm unlikely to need to cuff someone. I have locks that a cop might use to get to cuffing, but I'm going to use them differently, since I don't need to detain the guy...unless it's a nice way to let them cool off, and I'm certain there's nobody close enough to intervene on their behalf.

Yeah for me. This is was bruce lee was banging on about when he said people are looking at you finger and not the universe it is pointing to.

The lock is the smallest part of that equation. The trick is getting to the point where you can apply any lock you want.

True with striking as well by the way.

Or position before submission.

 

[drop bear]

sort of. Two quick points. I'm on an iPad, so I'll be brief.

One, cops are in a violent trade. They look for violence and they engage in violence. It's not self defense. At least. It's not self defense in the way a civilian encounters self defense.

Two, because of one above, cops are both more likely to be proficient in violent encounters, and also way more likely to have a skewed impression about actual risk.

Point is, a cop sees a lot of bad guys. His/her job is to interact with, often violently, bad guys. I work with a lot of criminals. I know that it's possible I will be attacked. But it's not likely. I move within feet of dangerous people all the time. But, the chances of being attacked remain very, very low. Not like a cop, who goes looking for trouble as a core job duty.

And the chances of my learning what a cop knows to the point it will actually help me is zero... unless maybe I work in another professionally violent trade. As a civilian, I'm much better off learning things I know I can apply and understanding what I don't know. I see red flags when a cop leads non cops to believe they can do things they really can't.

I may not be explaining this well. I hope so.

A cop is almost anti self defence as they are quite often setting the trap.