Treebranch

Self Defense against what kinds of attacks. One on one, multiple attackers, knife attack, baseball bat or crobar? Really think about what kind of self defense your seeking for yourself.

Sounds useful for it's designed purpose which is the case for most fighting systems.

Oh yeah I forgot those, thanks. Yeah, but biased based on some pretty dam effective training.

You can also Judo throw someone on to their head, which is the Jujutsu way.

Good evasion skills, strikes are aways to vital areas, joint locks, bone breaking and throws. Destroy.

I second San Soo if you want to learn to destroy. Man I wish more people knew about this art, it's fricken mean.

TJS that's actually the way you can get out of countless number of holds and locks. The other way is to quickly walk one of your legs behind his opposite leg. For example, walk your left leg around his right. First drop your hips to create space then walk around getting your hips under you and below his. You have taken his space and his balance will be compromised. Now just straighten up grabbing his right leg and toss over your left leg. You can also do this as a sacrifice throw landing very hard on his rib cage and he will let go. I've used this one for rear chokes, head locks, bear hugs quite a bit. Try it slow first. You can thank me later.

Why can't people just see that certain arts have different purposes and just repect it? A football tackle or soccer kick to the shins are effective as well. All sports have combat parents, your right.

Or you guys talking about a leg triangle choke? My bad.

We train outdoors at night certain days of the week and it helps, but I wouldn't take it that seriously.

Try throwing both hand up towards there face while moving when have just evaded and found an opening. They will flinch back and let them have a stomp kick to the upper thigh. It will drop them on their rump. Make sure your hands are extended far enough in front of not to be open for an uppercut or straight punch. Your arms should slightly bent to shield you from hooks. It's very effective, but don't use it too much.

Angry Matt what's the name of your school for Budo Taijutsu. We have a guy that was in wrestling and somehow found us. If you get the choke while standing take the balance to his heel and drop straight down, pinning his head with your chest. You end up behind, squat and they are pretty much screwed cause it's extremely hard to move from there. It's also pretty easy to pull off.

See you keep talking about mindset and keeping your head as being the key. I agree, that is the key. If you fully trust your technique and skill, it will work for you. I agree that full contact sparring and competition will help you with this more than merely running through katas. I'm trying to find a place where I can go and freestyle full contact spar with people from other styles. I would love it, but I haven't found a place like that yet. If you know of any near me let me know. I'm not a virgin to full contact nor to real fights. Usually after the first punch is thrown, I'm not nervous anymore. I'd loved to be shown a few things as well show others few things. That's what it's about, right. To realize we all don't know everything, but have the willingness to learn?

Context, context, context Mr. Gumbi that's what you have to understand.

I'm going to elaborate on a statement I made earlier in this post. I said, "There are things you can only understand by experiencing them." What I meant by that is you have to have the techniques we are learning done to you to really see that they are effective. Unfortunatly you will probably never know unless you seek it out. We ground fight but it is not the focus of our art. Our arts purpose is to control your balance, to take you where you are weakest whether you are standing, kneeling, or on the ground. We have strikes and kicks that are very effective, but most of all we take your balance so we can hurt you and you can't fight back. When you control someone's balance you control them. We rely on a fully commited attack, not a tag and punch match or anything of the sort. We rely on the fact that you have full intent on really doing us harm. We don't feel it's necessary to fight for pride, even if we are insulted. We only fight if our life or the life of our loved one's is threatened and there is nothing fair about the way we fight. We attack your mind and your body. These are the type of things you have to experience to know or to understand. If this sounds foriegn or strange to you, I apologize. This is the essence of a MA designed to protect life, not to display skill. There's a difference in the two and I am simply pointed it out. Thanks.

Gumbi: I know BJJ is incomplete- no style will ever be complete. If I focus 100% of my time on the ground, clearly I'll be better on the ground than someone who focuses 30% on the feet, 30% takedowns, and 30% on the ground. Yes I'd rather get incredibly proficient at one part of combat before being all around (notice I said before, as in I am cross training) ironically, this is the same strategy that many modern MMA fighters adapt as well. You assume no style is complete because you don't know of any. If someone is 100% effective on the ground they rely on that aspect, real combat is unpredictable which means it's better to be rounded. How about being incredibly proficient at all aspects of fighting and combat? But if your goal is competition than you are doing what's best for competition. That's great I hope to see one of your fights one day and I will cheer you on. But please know that there are many things that cannot be understood unless you experience them.

Gumbi are saying the painters and sculptors of today better than the one's of the past. Can you find a more prolific artist today than Michelangelo. In the old days people lived their art out of survival, we do it for fun and pleasure. When you do something for a living it's alot different don't you think. Newer Arts are not better than older Arts in most cases. You don't seem to understand that in the old days "Warring States Period" Japan fighting was a way of life, not a sporting event. There were people with true life and death experience that have passed down their knowledge for those to learn from. BJJ didn't improve TJJ, they made a simpler version that serves it's purpose as a ring sport just like Kano did with Judo. I think we've hit on the same old argument about "Training Methods" which BJJ's training methods are good for it's specific context. The "Context" of TJJ is not for sports, so in turn they do not teach that way. I agree they should have "Randori" we do at my school. I hope you understand no one is bashing BJJ we are simply pointing out the fact that it is not a complete art, because it only covers one aspect of Combat.

AngryMatt I appreciate you bringing up those points. You know what it's better for us that they don't know what we are talking about.

Well said JeetKuneDo. This out with the old in with the new talk makes me laugh. People forget where they came from. They also forget how every technique they do that works for them came from a Traditional MA. Since they made some small tweaks and threw away all the other techniques they didn't have the patience to master, they've renamed it, slapped a snappy logo on it and now it's the best MA in the world. Laughable.

Gumbi said: First off, the whole idea of fighting someone on the ground is the idea of taking your opponent to his weakest point of the fight, while at the same time the place that you happen to be strong at (which in most cases is the ground). Weakest point when the attacker might be hiding a knife in one hand? Weakest point when his buddy decides to stomp your face in? Weakest point is assuming your attacker is alone and unarmed? Weakest point is assuming the ground is like your padded dojo? Beyond that, give me practical reasons why the ground should be avoided, and I'll give a BJJ'ers insight as best I can. Now as far as the guys being more combat efficient due to it depending on their life, thats a pretty bold statement to make- according to this reasoning, a marine or any armed serviceman would defeat an experienced MMA fighter. No one ever said "gee, I guess I'll just give up right now" in an MMA fight and decided he would be pounded into oblivion. Do you think Scott Morris didnt think he taking on serious bodily harm when Pat Smith lowered elbow after elbow to his head? Think Zane Frazier wasnt worried when he was getting stomped in the head by Kevin Rozier? O.K. not once did I mention a marine or any such armed serviceman defeated a MMA fighter. I'm not even talking about a MMA fighter, I'm talking about you the practitioner, not the pro.

I'll check out your Brazilian street fight videos. Do they show you the guys who lost using BJJ in the street fights as well? Probably wouldn't be good to further promote the art. So Gumbi you are saying that BJJ is the perfect Combat fighting MA? Your saying you know the "real way"? I'm not claiming that JJJ is the ultimate fighting art, I'm just saying it's way more rounded than BJJ. Look if you want to believe the hype feel free. I applaud BJJ and the Gracies for their Marketing Genius. So where's the link with the actual street fights in Brazil? Please don't worry about me getting hurt, but that's the chances you take when you fight. Besides I only fight if I'm attacked which rarely happens to me.

Gumbi wrote: You're WAY off base here- BJJ was NOT developed as a sport. It was created by fighting on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. You realize some of the techniques are similar, but its mostly the training methods and methodology that set the two apart. BJJ has PROVEN itself in fights, both on and off the street and I have documented recorded proof of it- FAR more than Budo Taijitsu. Where are the recorded street fights and how long have people been using it for Combat. Your being silly. BJJ is a great Groundfighting Art not a Combat Art live with it.

Why fight at all? If you are attacked and they commit to the attack and are really trying to hurt you, take them out as fast as you can. You don't have to kill them to take them out. If someone is jumping around jabbing and sticking they don't want to get hurt nor are they trying to seriously do you harm. They are displaying their manhood and showing off to everyone how tough they are. Take your belt off and whip them like a dog and tie him up with the belt.

I totally agree TJS, your right. Gumbi you are very wrong with your analogy, it's a bad one. You don't understand the simple fact that shooting a gun is a long range weapon and a projectile. A sword, stick or knife is not. You have to absolutely know how to fight, move and use your body to use weapons. Are you forgetting that if in fact they were fighting with weapons, both sides had weapons and were trained. Also the fact that you had to "kill" more than one person in a given battle. I don't know any weapons master who is not a master of hand to hand. You can't separate the two, it just doesn't work when it takes your body to wield a sword or spear for that matter. But I'll assume that you have never had weapons training or you would already understand this. Don't you think your skill doesn't have to be higher when you and your opponent both have 3 foot razors in your hands and you are probably going to die? Ridiculous, there's absolutely no comparison. Now I'll give you one thing, there are probably very few people today that have fought this way in real life, but that doesn't mean the MA that they are learning is invalid or won't work. BJJ has been more successful than TJJ from what we've seen in competition, yes. But that also has to do with the practitioner, the rules and the context. NHB doesn't mean "DEATH MATCH", don't you think the fight would be very different from what it is now if this were the case? You don't seem to understand the difference between a contest and a real situation. I'm not talking about the situation where there is some smack talking and pushing that turns into a fight. I'm talking about someone attacks you with the full intent on ending your life. That kind of dynamic is not taught in BJJ, because if it was they would tell you the ground should be avoided at all costs. You can't run when you are on your back. You'll be very surprise with what we know.

First of all if you are pre-planning what kind of techniques you would use in a real fight, you know nothing about fighting.