JohnnyS

I'd just be careful about the level of the MMA instructor. If the MMA instructor is highly ranked in BJJ then fine, but otherwise I'd worry about just what he could teach you. If his whole thing is ground 'n pound then how is that going to help you if you're on your back? To be highly ranked in BJJ you've got to have a well-rounded ground game which is what you want for both MMA and the street. We can't always control where we want to be so you need techniques, strategies and skills for being both on top and underneath.

Lazy Scholar, I agree. Too many people and too many arts ignore this aspect of fighting.

I'm not saying don't do MMA. I'm saying that BJJ will be better if you want to become a better grappler. Do BJJ first, then get into MMA.

I have a problem with people trying to learn grappling and throwing striking in at the same time. People need time to learn how to transition from one position to another, where to put their weight, how to use their weight properly, how to get good tight pressure. I don't believe you can learn those things properly if you're also worried about someone smacking you in the head. I think you need to learn good technique first, learn how to grapple properly, then add in strikes after you no longer need to "think" when you grapple. I've seen people who are strikers try to get into the MMA scene and learn bad grappling habits because they were adding in strikes from the very beginning. Consequently they didn't perform too well in competition. My advice is to go to the BJJ school. Learn to grapple first then jump into MMA when you're comfortable on the ground.

I'll add my 2 cents: Firstly, there is no such thing as "anti-grappling". You can NOT strike your way out of a grappling situation. You have to know how to grapple. Thinking otherwise will see you getting very hurt against someone who knows how to grapple. Secondly, what is a "head mount"? Could you please describe it. Thirdly, strikes are a good idea on the ground, although we teach not to punch to the head when we've got mount, but to use slaps or elbows to make the opponent turn over and give his back. However, since most people aren't going to be getting into fights every night of the week, if the worst that happens to you in a fight is hurting your hand from punching the guy then you're doing okay.

I was fighting in an event with Elvis Sinosic (we're on the same team). Anyway, Elvis fought this big Ninja guy (about 50 lb heavier than Elvis) and got him in a heel hook. The ninja guy didn't know what it was and kept fighting. Elvis eventually abandoned the heel hook after having the guys ankle turned nearly upside down, and finished the guy with an armbar. After the fight Elvis asked the guy why didn't he tap to the heel hook and the guy said he'd never seen it before. The guy had to have help walking out of the ring - his leg was a real mess. BTW, Heel hooks work on both the knee and ankle.

I think the biggest problem with kesa-katame is not someone getting the back after escaping, but getting it as the person moves to kesa-katame. Just keep an underhook and you're fine.

SevenStar, I only say that keza-katame is bad because I used to have Judo people train at my BJJ school and whenever they got past guard they would always try to go straight to keza-katame. In doing so, they would invariably give up their back and it was hard to break them of this habit.

I definately recommend doing Judo to compliment your BJJ, BUT: Start BJJ first, then go to Judo after six months. The reason I say this is that Judo newaza can create bad habits, however after six months of BJJ you should have your groundwork good enough so that you don't go for dumb things like keza-katame at every opportunity like some Judo schools teach.

Actually, I remember one of the Judo competitors (Saito I think) was very much out-weighed by his Ju-jitsu opponent who was much, much larger.

I've also found that kicking and punching the air, and trying to get the "snap" causes joint porblems. The head guy for TKD in my area had to get a hip replacement because of the stress the kicks placed on his body.

Treebranch, I agree with you on angles and lateral movement, just not that it will work against a shoot. I think angles will work well against someone trying to set up a shoot - keep them turning to face you so they can't get off the shot. It's the same as working angles with roundkicks so that the person moves with the rear leg and since the weight is on their front leg they can't lift it to leg-check. I just don't think the lateral movement or angle will work once the person has commenced their shot.

Treebranch, Lateral movement isn't quick enough to stop a shoot from arms-length, that's why it's not used against takedowns. I'm sure if worked better than sprawling that it would be used by wrestlers in competition.

Depends whose doing the takedowns. Double-leg, single-leg would be up there for wrestlers. Basic Hip throw, o-soto-gari for Judoka and ju-jitsu guys.

In what sport?

Can you see the difference though? If it's used for self-defence then fine, but that's completely different to saying it's "combat tested" or "combat proven" which suggests it's been used as a primary tool in wars. Undoubtedly there are people who have used their skills in a war environment however we don't have soldiers being trained to defeat their opponent's using BJJ, or karate or kung-fu etc. They are trained to use their weapons, and any spare time they have might be spent on a little bit of unarmed training, but no-one taught their soldiers karate and said "Now go get 'em".

Treebranch, I agree with what you're saying. However, I don't believe that if you want to train people to fight a guerilla war against your oppressors, that you would spend years teaching them karate. Just as the modern and ancient armed forces don't/didn't spend much time teaching unarmed combat, why would the Okinawans try to teach karate when thye could just teach some basic skills with weapons and get a much better cost/benefit ratio? I understand that weapons were banned in Okinawa at that time, but it still doesn't make sense to teach people karate to fight against samurai armed with swords, halberds etc. I just have a problem with people saying that karate, or kung-fu etc is combat tested, when the reality is that armies teach their soldiers to use weapons and try to teach them as much as they can in a short a time as possible.

I can't find any references to karate (or tode)actually being used in armed conflict, which is why I'm suspicious of the claim. It would make more sense to teach people rudimentary skills with weapons for guerilla fighting rather than a complex system of unarmed combat.

Can we get an official definition for the word "combat"? Does it mean "armed conflict"? Does it mean "streetfights"? Does it mean "bar-room brawls"? The reason I ask is because Treebranch says that Okinwan karate was used in combat, but what exactly does this mean. As far as I know it was never used against an invading force in an armed conflict was it ?

I'll add my 2 cents. I worked as a bouncer for seven years and used to find that the hammerlock and chicken wing would work standing, but generally found that a choke was much easier to apply. I could never apply a wristlock that would submit a drunk person due to people being too sweaty, resisting too much or being too drunk to feel the pain. The reason I found that hammerlocks worked was that because it was more of a controlling technique (controlling their posture), rather than a joint-lock. I found that pain compliance techniques were generally ineffective, especially since drunk or high people either just don't feel the pain or are too pissed off with you to care. I definately don't think that standing locks are as easy to apply as locks on the ground. Why? Because on the ground you've taken away one more plain i.e. the person can move in more directions standing that on the ground. Also, on the ground you can use more pressure to control your opponent and isolate the limb - this is much, much harder to do standing.

Treebranch, You're ranting and not making any sense. The reason that MMA has less injuries than other sports is probably due to less people doing it. More people would play soccer in Australia in one weekend than all the modern MMA competitors ever. Also, it doesn't mean that the fights aren't real because people don't get killed or more seriously injured - it means there are rules and rather than someone hitting their head on a curb after they're knocked out and dying, they hit their head on the mat or fence. Rather than one guy continuing to wail away at the other when he can no longer defend himself, the referee steps in. Rather than one guy destroying his opponent by out-classing him through size or skill, people fight in weight classes and everyone studies basically the same things

Treebranch, You keep saying "Remember Kimo and Gracie? If they had been in the environment we are talking about Gracie would have been destroyed. " This is not a fact, this is a guess on your part. Royce won the fight, case closed. BTW, what rank is your friend?

I already had a black belt in TKD and was training in Okinawan Goju Ryu but felt like there was something more out there that I ws missing out on. At the same time I was doing Goju, my black belt friends from TKD and other arts would get together in my backyard to train and exchange techniques. One of my mates Sean had bought Gracie In Action and said to Patrick "Pat, you're a good boxer. Put on these gloves. I want you to try and hit me, and keep going no matter what". Patrick thought it was a great idea, but Sean quickly took Patrick to the ground and applied a bad choke. We thought this was terrific and used to do it all the time: one person could punch, kick, knee etc as hard as he wanted and the other person could only grapple. The grappler always won, and we didn't even know what we were doing when it came to grappling. Later we went and trained with John Will (who was a BJJ blue belt at the time) and started learning BJJ. The thing I like about BJJ is it's okay to question your instructor. In fact, I encourage my students to ask me questions and I now know that if someone asks me a question they are ready to be given more information. I've also noticed that there seems to be less arrogance about BJJ than in some other arts. I've walked into some martial arts schools and as soon as you walk through the door you can feel people measuring you up. That doesn't happen in BJJ schools, everyone seems to be quite friendly. You can't get away with being arrogant in BJJ because someone is always going to tap you The other great thing is the problem solving - BJJ is just physical chess with counters, counters to counters etc. You set up your opponent so he only has two ways out of something, he goes one way you get him with this, he goes the other you get him with that. What's great about it is that everything becomes predicatable. Obviously it's not always like that, but you can map out a position and know all the responses from that position, and have all answers mapped out. That's the difference between say a black belt and a blue belt. The Black belt doesn't have to think ahead (a common misconception), because he knows his opponent only has a few options and knows how to take advantage of whatever option his opponent chooses.

And I'll ask again, what evidence do you require? Would you be saying the same thing if someone had made the Ferrari comment I posted?

So perhaps you could tell us what the evidence would be? How can we empirically define what awesome is, and what skills one would have to have to be called "awesome"? What evidence do you require? If someone made the statement "I knew Ferrari's were awesome but DAMN!" would you then point out that the person making the statement hadn't driven every possible Ferrari and would have no way of knowing that? Or would you think, "Hmmm, Ferrari's have a reputation for excellence so perhaps this person is right in their opinion?" Perhaps you should give up your silly word games because you're being boorish and sounding like a fool.