goshinman

Segal has been making a lot of straight to video movies. Most of them suck. Van Damme has made a few STV as well. Suprisingly I have been seeing a lot of Westly Snipes movies going straight to video. What the heck happened to him? How do you go from the Blade trilogy, to straight to video in less then 3 years?

I hear what you're saying but...Using that logic you could say that practicing the martial arts for self defense is the same thing couldn't you? I mean just look at your profile. You have seven different martial arts listed as your styles, two of which are very dangerous arts (bjj, and combat hapkido). Why do you need to train in THAT many systems. Are you at risk of attack? I myself carry pepper spray, a kubotan (or a surefire e2d flashlight), and a knife almost everywhere I go. All are relatively small items and are not cumbersome in the least. Can I attribute that to paranoia? In some respects I suppose I can. Let's be honest here, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a small amount of paranoia when one begins carrying weapons and training in the self defense arts in the sense that we want to be able to defend ourselves or others If need be. But the paranoia is based on the fact that there is a very real possibility that you will need to defend yourself one day from an attacker(s). If a woman wants to carry pepper spray or a knife because she gets off of work late at night, who am I to tell her she is "Not confident within herself". I'm a bus driver and I deal with all types of people on a daily basis. Whats to say some mentally ill person, a drunk, or some jerk-off who is having a bad day won't put a knife in my back because he didn't like the way I was driving that day, or because I was late. I never know who is on my bus and what they are capable of, so I myself have to be capable. And believe me when I tell you that drivers get assaulted in Los Angeles county EVERY DAY! A lot of people on this forum talk about awareness as an essential part of the martial art that they train in. Part of being "AWARE" is observing and understanding reality. And in the real world violence happens. That is why I live by the saying; "I'd rather have it and not need it, then need it and not have it".

Interesting responses. Notice that I said only if the situation has gone well past the point of a stare down or just words. I am quite formidible in unarmed combat but I would actually rather use pepper spray to end a violent encounter then my hands and feet. The pepper spray is like a TKO. The opponent is likely to be incapacitated enough for the fight to stop and for me to make my escape. If some of you would rather use force by knocking someone out with kicks and punches or by choking someone out, be my guest. As one poster said earlier, to each his own. Just trying to give you some options.

We as martial artists spend a lifetime training to be prepared to protect ourselves should the need arise. Belive it or not, most martial artists will probably never use their skills in a real altercation. I mean lets face it, once you graduate from high school, most responsible adults won't end up in a fight unless they work in a high risk occupation such as law enforcement, bouncing, and other high risk vocations. I myself have only had two altercations since I graduated high school in 1997. One involved hand to hand and the other involved use of o.c. spray to resolve the conflict. I have since learned many things about self defense and offense. One lesson form my jujitsu instructor was called the barriers of personal protection. The barriers are basically intended for use in an actual conflict so they don't include fight avoidence advice and stuff like that. The barriers are basically three personal protection devices that you can deploy before having to resort to hand to hand combat. The first being o.c., mace, or pepper spray. Then a knife, and then a blount force object such as a kubotan or flashlight. And then finally, hand to hand combat. The theory goes as such. Let's say that a conflict has gone well past the point of argument or a stare down and is getting ready to get physical. The three personal protection devices serve as barriers or obsticals that your opponent has to overcome before they can get to you. He comes toward you, you warn him off in a stern voice and then hit him with your pepper spray. A good quality spray should give you about 10-15 ft. of distance to reach out and touch your opponent. The burning and stinging he is experiencing should give you enough time to bail out, but if for some crazy reason he isn't deterred, you can deploy your kubotan or flashlight to use as a blount force object and apply leverage techniques with them. If you are using a flashlight I recommend the Surefire e2d with the scalloped edges. That little beauty can really change someones attitude very quickly. And in a worst case scenario you can deploy your knife if it gets really crazy. Of corse you have the freedom to deploy any one of these devices in any order that the situation calls for. For example if I were getting jumped by 3 guy's I would probably go for the knife first. Ideally the only scenario in which hand to hand would come into play would be if I were ambushed or caught off guard somehow, or if by some crazy turn of events I was disarmed of all three PPD's. Alrighty, feel free to discuss and critique as you all wish.

I agree with tjs. If it's mma then the mount is the best because of the striking. I have Mike Van Arsdale dominate a match from side control but most mma guy's love the mount. As for grappling tournaments I guess the mount would be good. I know bjj guys who are very effective form that position. Judo guys usually are pretty strong from side control side control because it is usually where they try to end up after completing a throw.

I don't really see any good reason to think a Karateka would defeat a boxer.

Point well taken

St pierre Dominated Karo with his "OK" jiu jitsu skills. st pierres Wrestling an jiu jitsu is top notch and he did extremly well against hughes and actually took him down. He made a mistake and got caught, it happens. As far as Trigg submitting hughes..let me kick hughes in the nuts and I bet i can come close to catchign him in somethign too I have UFC 46 on tape and have watched it quite a few times. I never once saw St. Pierre DOMINATING Karo. I did however see St pierre get nice taakedowns and control the flow and I also saw him nearly get submitted quite a few times, but I missed the "DOMINATION". Can you show me where it happened because it's not on the dvd that I have.

Great analysis by all. Sambo really changed the way BJJ guys work from the guard because of the foot and leg attacks. You have got to know how to defend leg subs. Bjj teaches them but usually not until the higher belts. That brings up a funny point. Isn't it weird how Judo, BJJ, and Sambo all have the counter to each others weakness? I guess in a way this makes sense seeing as though one of the main founders of Sambo (V. Oshchepkov) was a 2nd dan in judo under Kano and took the judo training methods back to russia and combined them with russian arts to help form sambo, and of course Carlos And Helio being students of Maeda took the judo methods and worked them into Bjj. Funny how things work out. Kano, we all owe you one.

Go to the MMA school. Since TKD is your base art and what you are learning seems to be geared more towards self defense it will do you well to mix in some hardcore mma style training. Not only will this help you get into great shape but it will improve your TKD skills tremendously as you will know what it is like to go full speed/power and will have the proper timing to execute the techniques. I have always been an advocate of training in a good sport art to compliment your self defense art. For example if you train in TJJ then you will most likely not get to do full out randori. So to make up for this take up judo or bjj so that you will experience realtime movement. This will open up your eyes to the true function of your base art.

You think he has lost skill since then or what? anyone is vulnerable on the ground against someone with a better ground game...just like you are vulnurable standing against someone with better strikes. If anything Matt has improved his ground game...he has won his last two fights by submission on opponets that had never been submitted before. Hughes submitted St. Pierre, who has OK jiu jitsu and was nearly submitted by Trigg. Karo has a better ground game then those two guys. And from what I hear Karo is undergoing a wicked strength and conditioning program that will have him using hardcore weight training for the first time. He also is working extra hard fighting from his guard and on his throws and falling drills. He's been starting from his back and working on sweeps and escapes harder then ever. Normally I would go with Matt Hughes but knowing what I know, I'm going with Karo by ankle lock.

glockmeister, how about instead of just saying "wrong" you try to explain/prove your point? Let me try to explain it. Krav teaches ground techniques but with the emphasis on striking to get up from the ground, not to grapple for positions or submissions. It has people who come in and teach bjj and the like, but ideally they want to teach you to get up from the ground as opposed to engaging in a prolonged ground struggle.

You know, I think everyone is on to something here. Learning to fight in different enviornments and the proper attire for those enviornments is a seriously neglected portion of self defense training. That said, I think I'll be going to the dojo in a speedo tonight

Oh and by the way it works both ways. If Ricco gets his butt kicked on the street by an untrained attacker then maybe he should look into more effective methods of self protection.

Antwon wins. Problem is, that isn't the only scenario. How about if Ricco loses to Antwon, who is a highly trained martial artist, but beats the crap out of an untrained or semi-trained attacker on the streets? Does that take away from the validity of his chosen art? The answer of course is unequivocally NO!!! you see the truth is that MMA is not the gold standard of what is to be considered effective, the streets are. And if you can do it on the street then your cool with me.