tallgeese

No. Easy answer. While I have, on multiple occasions, studied multiple arts, I've never "kept them straight". Quite frankly, I've never tried. For the longest time, my sole goal with martial arts was combative efficiency, this means that stylistic boundaries are a distant secondary concern to building a working aggression response. Even now, when my primary focus is BJJ, my self defense response is a flow between my other arts and ground work. It's been highly beneficial, in that regard, to not strive to separate arts. But again, it depends on your goal. I've grown past the "there is only one reason to train" phase. Depending on what you're doing it for, that effort might make sense.

I'll second that. This last one just lumbered along. I thought there was some great character moments for sure. Darryl's search and talk with the mom was priceless. The 20 min or so of the crew trying to extricate the floater from the well was great. I mean, GREAT, especially the last bit where they taste success and have to suffer defeat again. It just summed up the feel of the show. That's the good. The bad was the other 40 min that felt like 2 hours. Are they seriously pulling that soap opera garbage on this show? If they go that route it had better be tied in to showing the difficulties of living in a zombie filled world or I'm calling foul....

Welcome to KF!

11/9 8 hour block of close quarters baton use. Some of it I liked, a larger portion I didn't, and some I was indifferent about. At the end of the day, it was still a full day of working with a weapon easily at my disposal.

The discussion is an important one on several levels. To look at it primarily thru the aspect of a combative martial is probably not done enough for most practitioners. We talk about being willing to hurt or take the life of an adversary, but not so much about possibly losing our own. Most accounts of Musashi's final dual, fought against Sasaki Kojiro, recount how Kojiro drew his blade and then threw the saya into the surf. Most writers attribute this to Kojiro's state of mind and willingness to die in his efforts to best Musashi. It speaks of a mindset willing to look at nothing but the mission before him. This speaks to modern warriors preparing for combat as well. (Before going on, it's also important to note that some writers have attributed this as a defect in Kojiro, stating that by no longer addressing the need for a scabbard after the battle he essentially prepared to lose- you can decide) For instance, in our modern example, I read a debrief of a SWAT operation not to long ago where one of the members of the assault element during a hostage rescue operation wrote out his will just before deploying into a potentially hostile environment. I don't want to be next to that guy. He needed to deal with his issues of morality, and post-incident reverberations for his family, well before the moment it came into question. That's why it needs discussed here, or at least for each individual before a life or death incident occurs. What does the frantic scribbling of a will (and perhaps a good-bye note) tell you about this operators mindset? It's not in the right place. If it's not focused on the mission, your more likely to fail in your efforts when it counts. If you want to win, you can't worry about losing. If you've never considered death, even an early and untimely end, then you are mentally allowing a road bump to creep into your self defense efforts. Acceptance of this possibility is a must for anyone studying martial arts for combative purposes.

Bummer about the knee. 11/8 Some specialized force on force training. For personal defense it probably best translates due to weapon handling, cqb, and shot placement.

11/7 Drilled flower sweep and triangle from flower sweep. Worked underhook control from stand up. 60 min free roll

11/4 Drilled takedowns. Spent time hitting doubles and singles and transitions to alternates. 30 min free roll.

Used as a feint I'm sure its worth it but for the most part all that movement gives the old dogs more transition to catch you in. IMO. Or, more practically, a moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one and as such it should be harder to catch one moving the target properly.

11/3 Drilled collar choke from mount. Then move to to rolling arm bar from counter choke. 60 min free roll. Round of eyes closed sensitivity roll, a couple of working top side and escape from bottom side. Rest of it free.

COngrats!

11/2 Shoot day. Fire and maneuver. Odd position shooting. Bounding overwatch. Plenty of rounds on speed and accuracy work.

I get the idea. For me, when we're talking combatives, I just wonder why go to a ready state in the first place. If the level of threat has risen with me striking this individual with the intent of disabling him, then why downshift until the threat is gone. Why strike and wait in readiness. Strike until the threat goes down, then go to ready. Why rely on a single to strike to do the job and see if it worked when I can strike in combination until the threat is neutralized, he physically goes down under my blows. Then there is no question and my readiness can be directed to the rest of the environment to check for threats?

My stand up lineage goes back thru a couple of generations to the Juko Kai organization and also to Oyata of Ryu Kyu kempo. I couldn't tell you past that. My BJJ heritage goes thru the Nova Uniao group and is listed in the jiu jitsu thread.

Welcome aboard KF! Glad to have you.

I think the answer is yes. I'd discuss it with a core group and dissect it. Here's the thing, don't just set around and tell "it was so cool" stories, or simply high five and congratulate one another. You really have to look at each incident as an incident debriefing. From preassault to clean up. Break it down to the minutia and each decision point that came along. Was there a reason that things happened as they did? Did you perceive the situation correctly? Was it a proper response? Could it have gone better? Why or why not? Where there other options? Could they have worked better? how can you make the same response better next time? You get the idea. It's a learning experience, even when it's for real.

Their foot work won't do you any good if you don't train it and then train to integrate it. Not a blanket won't work. It's an important distinction. That doesn't mean that you should or shouldn't put the time in. But I bet that an accomplished boxer v. the 5th dan could in fact do just fine. Because he's used and trained those tactics. As to the idea of striking once and going home, I have to respectfully disagree. I think the idea of mentally training that this will be the case is dangerous. It lends itself to mental freeze if the single strike does not end the confrontation. I'm not saying you should not train each strik in you arsenal like you want to kill someone with it, but that you can't get into your head that this will actually happen. It puts you behind in the OODA loop should your plan not work. This is bad in actual conflict. Again, I'm talking about this from an optimized street application standpoint. That's not the only one, just the one that it seems to be that we're leaning to the most in this thread. there are plenty of ways to look at ma's. Each is valid for those concerns. If we are talking about focusing one's mind like a moving meditation, you're looking at a good application of mindset. If we are talking about self defense however, my opinion is that this idea of a single strike and ending the conflict is a dangerous habit to get into.

Ok, I can get the zero to kill mentality. I think the question is always whether one should train to the assumption that one strike will kill. I've always doubted it and hence put my faith in combination striking. I get that people are into their arts. This is a good thing and no one should feel pressured to do anything that is not meeting their goals. I think that too many schools out there are teaching outside realistic goal setting for their people and are, hence, doing them a disservice. The most common trend for this that I see is self defense being preached and yet little in the way of combat preperation actually being done. A newer trend, and I think that kcs might agree with me, is the idea of all of these karate schools going into the "MMA" advertising because they get a wrestling program or a distant jiu jitsu affiliation. Or worse because they have a couple of different karate based arts out of the place and a wrestler who teaches grappling there. Major problem with the concept there just to cash in on the popularity of mma.

Which one? Because both are used quite a bit in boxing. Distance is important both offensively and defensively and dictates what you're going to pull out of the tool box to use. Stance work is also important, but not in the sense that most karate people will think of it. Stance in boxing goes hand in hand with distance and keeps one mobile. Additionally, it's critical in creating angles, which again, is important both offensively and defensively. The head motion, which started this tread, is a major component in boxing so I think that goes without saying. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that boxing is the ultimate art, just that they have a great grasp on the science of throwing hands, better than most karate users. I'm also willing to give on the fact that the large gloves do alter defensive paradigms, just bear in mind due to the lighter gloves used in competition, and the use of boxing guards we've seen in the UFC with minimal hand padding (let's face it, to prevent the fracture of hands not head trauma) it's still valuable. Like bushido man, I'm not familiar with the term "todome". I ran it thru an online translation service and it came back with "finishing blow". That leaves some room for interpretation given the conversation that led to it. Perhaps you could help us out with the connotations of the term before we comment.

Just my opinion, I doubt it ever worked that well. The best you're hoping for in any combat in this kind of arena is some sort of mutual wounding. Any sort of evasive tactic would have value. Thus, avoiding the one punch, heavily damaging blow from the un-gloved opponent. You probably saw a lot more unorthodox evasion than you'd expect when the stakes were that high.

11/1 After a three day lay off to family in town, I'm back at it. 75 min free roll. Focused on helping a friend pass the open guard, and work the open. Spent time on myself tightening my top position. GS, you got a link to Saulo's warm up routine? I'd like to see it.

Really, really solid episode. Probably one of my favorites to date. I think it showcased how quickly mankind will recede from his developed morality to effect survival (or at least how we'd be willing to sacrifice others outside our group for our groups survival). On an unrelated note, I did the hillbilly and any backstory on him and merle is good in my book..

In regard to the "keyboard warrior" stuff and qulifications to talk about these sorts of things, I think the same can be said of ps1 and myself. No one is questioning anyone credentials. I'm just saying that from my experience the bobbing is not half as bad as one would think v. front kicks and knees. I just haven't seen it. It doesn't change the body mechanics enough to produce a radical opening. Part of this probably goes to what different camps have spent time drilling to make work and neither of us are arguing for the kick of which you spoke. We're just saying that if applied properly, and drilled to a state of readiness, that particular tactic (bobbing as a defensive scheme) has been shown to work in my experience. Here's the bottom line that goes to the OP: You've got yourself the perfect laboratory. An MMA club with guys with varied backgrounds. Get together with them, do some focused sparring with you kicking and kneeing while the boxer works his defensive scheme. See how it works for yourself, evaluate it. Now, use your current defensive paradigm vs. a kicker and kneer. See how that goes. Then spend some time drilling boxing patterns of defensive movement and work it vs. the kicker and see how things go. You could have no clearer answer. Don't take my word, or someone else ever. Pressure test these things. Now, I understand that you may need time to train up to a certain level to adequately evaluate something. If it looks like it's worth doing consider it lab time and go to work. This kind of thing will give you and idea, while not perfect at the outset, of whether or not you thing that integrating those movement patterns will work FOR YOU. Then you can tailor your training to accommodate. Personally, this is something I encourage martial artist to do occasionally thru their entire career. Look at their goals (they will after all change), evaluate what their training is prepping them for (honestly, brutally honestly), and see if the two are on a course to meet. If something works for you, use it IF you've realistically tested it against your goal. If something doesn't, even if it is from the grand high-master of whatever art, don't use it. Each individual must make his innate traits work with what he's using tactically. This includes differences between us that are physical and psychological. Now factor in any number of goals and you can see why one's art should be a highly individualized structure. Go for it, make use of the lab you have access to and let us know how it goes towards meeting your goals. Good luck.

I have to say this has not been my experience. I'd also hazard a guess that statistically, it might not bear out, but I'm far too lazy to do the work to see. Also, and incrediablely unscientific, it isn't what I've personally, antedoctially, seen and experienced. Which again, personal application is something that ma's are all about. I'm assuming the tactic you're talking about is a front kick or knee. It's a threat to get caught with, yes. However, if you train boxing for a bit, you'll see that you'll rarely use this tactic when the opponants body weight is capable of producing a front leg tactic with any real power. Further, the tactic should have either moved you to, or already be applied, from deep withing punching distance. Making kicks much less thretening. If you're training with good boxers, you'll not the bobing occurs from the knee bend. Thus keeping the back straightish. This prevents the placement of the head from being bent over for presentation. It should also be preformed with the hands up, thus adding another level of defense. When used from iniside, and done proplerly, bobbing can nicely set up the double or single leg as well, furhter adding to its usefulness. Weaving, which is simply a flowing out of distance and angle of attack, might be more likley to leave one open to a counter that the bob. Still, I think we can all say that evasion that certainly allows one to avoid being hit, despite the fact that it does not remove one from all possibility of harm (we're talking about a fight after all) is a good thing. Another tool for the box if trainined properly. I often had the same arguments until I spent some detailed time working soley boxing. Then, and here is a sticking point, it takes some time to learn to do properly and then intergrate. However, it's been shown to be effective. You'll see alot of top level MMA atletes specifically training boxing now and using bobs and such (one only needs to look at the evoluting of so called "dirty boxing" aspects to see it's influence). This is in an arena where, for all the naysayers about rules, one can still front kick and knee while standing at any point. This should say something about the pressure testing of a tool for combat use where the rules match what can happen in the street. Again; however, ma's are, or should be, about what YOU can make work under duress. Not me, or your coach, or anyone else. Part of this is determined by your own level of comfort with a tactic (for the research on this reference Warrior Mindset by Asken). If one's made up their mind, then it's probably not a good tactic for you. That's fine. But blanket stating across the board that it's bad, for me, misinterperts the intended use and conduct of the tactic.

Part of the idea with the cross referenced workouts from everyone is that we can see what others are doing and have immediate access to ask them about drills we haven't seen or ask questions about how things are applied. Individualized training logs would be more organized,, granted. But I'm not sure we'd get as much interaction.