White Warlock

Corrected the link. Thanks SS.

Okay, henry, but you're really missing out. his actions in the movie, Meals on Wheels, as i said, is considered by many to be the best fight scene of 'any' jackie chan movie. And it was not loaded with a bunch of silly jumpkicks or high-flying manuevers. It was mostly strikes and elbows at excruciatingly close-range. Anyway, i have not kept up with his old competition videos, so i can't help you there.

Both wild and domesticated animals pose a threat to man on occasion. Granted, man poses a larger threat to wild animals, but as we encroach on their habitats, instances of attacks increase. Combine this with the onslaught of television shows posing humans playing cat and mouse games with rhinos, and you realize that our society really just doesn't have a clue about what makes animals attack. Martial arts practitioners generally focus on human-to-human confrontation, but i believe it is just as essential to study animal behavior and practice self-defense techniques against animals. Personally, i've been attacked by dogs on a few occasions, with one almost tearing my face off when i was a child, so i've come to respect the need to learn just how unpredictable and deadly those cute furry creatures can be. And here's a recent bear attack that should serve as a wake-up call to some of you that have dismissed such things - http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/09/06/news/8ddd9eb362d3a35087256f06007bb837.txt So, let's hear your encounter stories, animal self-defense training or similar. edit: corrected link

i would say that's a bad idea.

never heard of him.

Since i've been haunting these forums, i've tossed out a few of my personal stories on conflicts and resolutions. I would like to hear personal stories from others in this community. Whether it ended up being resolved without a strike being thrown, or whether death ensued, i'm interested in not merely the story... but the lessons learned and the hindsight insight. Thanks all, in advance, for contributing your personal stories to this thread. I will also add a few of mine that i have not yet posted, if people are interested. Good community, thanks for sharing.

Hmm... you're right... that was a horrible post you just made. In wrestling, i was never subjected to "what ifs" on striking. It was all about wrestling. In judo, strikes were dealt with as utilities for a throw. I.e., "thanks for the arm, i needed that." in san soo, strikes were a common, "what if." They were either avoided, blocked, parried, exploited (as in the judo approach), pre-empted, or ignored (post-empted). Granted, san soo only carries with it 'some' groundwork... so maybe this isn't a good one to toss as a response to your queries. Unless, of course, you're referring to 'grappling.' Because there is plenty of grappling (stand-up to takedown) in san soo. Then again, maybe i'm not quite understanding your question.

lol. Silly human My friend was a cab driver in San Diego. He was assaulted and stabbed for the 40 dollars in his wallet. The hospital report, which was provided to the media, indicated they located 49 stab wounds throughout his body, plus lacerations. The goal isn't to keep it from going to the ground. The goal is to survive, and preferably triumph against your assailant. Awhile back, a friend of mine, who loved to call me sensei (damn that was annoying), made a playful surprise assault on me while i was outside walking across the grass lawn. I had on a brand new pair of really nice lightly tanned pants, so when he attacked me, i didn't immediately drop to one knee and throw his silly butt. Instead, i pivoted and grappled with him until i eventually lifted him in the air and threatened to toss him in the pool. The thing was, i spent sooo much energy just trying to 'avoid' going to the ground, that when i walked back into my apartment, i collapsed in the kitchen. Had i just allowed my pants to get messed up, the 'play' fight would have been over in seconds. So really... if your goal is to keep from going to the ground, you're already putting yourself at a disadvantage. The goal, in no uncertain terms, should be to survive at all costs. And yes, that means if it were a real confronation instead of a play fight, my brand new pair of pants would have had to die that day, to save my life.

There are obviously going to be different takes on this, but let me give you mine. Sparring means different things to different people. To me, it means trading punches and following set guidelines to ensure you don't end up killing each other. Sparring exists for people to practice techniques in a quasi-real setting, without taking a life. Unfortunately, sparring, if overemphasized, can create bad habits, such as 'trading punches,' 'pacing to strategize,' 'limiting strike patterns,' and 'limiting strike targets.' The thing here is, you can't readily 'practice' for a real fight. You can practice the 'ideals,' but in order to prepare for a real fight, you have to be in a real fight... and each and every real fight can be fundamentally different. Different circumstances, different opponents, different conditions, different agenda, etc. So... i'm thinking your jujutsu instructor has just a tad too much ego running in his veins. He has a few points, but pushing it to an extreme falls short. By example, judo became a dominating martial art in Japan primarily because techniques could be practiced with full fury, and yet 'safely.' Due to this, judokas had a far firmer grasp of what works, and were able to train their muscles to be sensitive to changes during a high-tension, high energy conflict. When posed against other jujutsu practitioners that had merely undergone training drills at half-assembly and little to no sparring, judokans just ate them up.

Yes DA. In my case, i tend to have a set line-up of actions for a confrontation, which is of course modified based on circumstances. But it starts out with me distracting the assailant first, possibly by tossing coins in their face, then entering in immediately with strikes and grabs, circling behind them and either putting them in a sleeper hold as i drop to the ground, or throwing them, using my momentum, into whatever seems a viable article for pain. I've practiced this series of attacks plenty of times, so it's rather instinctual. Do note, it is also a combination of both strike and grapple, with one 'option' being to go to the ground. Well... i'm enjoying these tangents. How about you?

lol TDA. Yes, you're wierd.

You mean like underwears? Rebuking with the "word of God" very likely would not have had any impact on the assailant if he wasn't devoutly religious himself. Again, we bump into the confusion that arises when discussing 'head games' (external) vs 'mind games' (internal).

Although i agree on principle, i wouldn't necessarily call it a condition, as much as it is a choice that is often defined by lifestyle and culture. Is an object better than another object? A concept better than another? Only by application is one thing more valuable than another, but superior in a general sense... no. Steel is a far superior material for building bridges than say, water, but water is far superior for quenching thirst. Societies define right and wrong, based on the basic needs of subsistence, shelter, and security in a 'communal' environment. A bank robber would be considered a disruption to this community's cooperative endeavors, so his actions would be deemed wrong. But right and wrong cannot readily be defined as superior or inferior, except when comparing the effectiveness of one or another to accomplish a goal. Cute, but i see this as more of a fortune cookie statement than anything else. Truth is not the actual cause of judgement. Saying so... does not make it so. As to forgetting all you know... does truth come in the form of a Mack truck because you forgot to stop at a red light?

I know i'm being a pest here, but ... how do you know he was a black belt? Was he wearing it? Did he show you his Black Belt ID card?!?

not difficult. one practice i do is to one-strike the panels off of cardboard boxes. it's in the speed and the hooking of your punches. Good practice for adding some depth to your hooks and uppercuts.

if you do this, you'll get your * handed to you. Real fights rarely end up like sparring matches. Things get ugly fast, and spending time 'reviewing' your opponent is merely giving your opponent the opportunity to overwhelm you. The main problem here is... you're using your mind... thinking... instead of using your muscle memory... acting/reacting. The dependency on thought makes you 'slower' and more susceptible to 'non-standard' street fighting approaches. The fact is, in a street fight... predictable just doesn't fall into the equation.

In other words 7Star, he was being facetious when he posted that one-liner query. I must admit though, you're just a tad obsessive with the postings there 47Martial. At least occasionally you offer up something worthwhile... but to hunt and peck through a hundred one-liners a day from one person, for a scrap of content, it can get a bit tedious. 612 posts in 8 days equates to 77 posts a day!

*grumbles some more* (+1 post count)

Gad! I truly hate the way you two write within a quote. So friggin' hard to differentiate what is a quoted and what is responded. Especially when you make bold/italics mistakes, as both of you did with the above two posts. *grumble*

Hey, if you have fungus all over your feet, you're doing everyone else a favor by wearing soft-sole shoes until the fungus is treated. No need to share.

Thanks 47Martial, good info. I had suspected as much, but was not aware these instructors were being sponsored.

Once your center of balance is countered, you can fall backwards a good distance. This is mostly due to your efforts to 'stop' yourself from falling, with backstepping and torso twisting in an effort to regain balance. I would call it mostly a trick, an exploitation of someone's lack of confidence in falling or unwillingness to land on your butt (pride), and not so much a power technique. As far as causing someone to get off balance, via a push-strike, most people don't know how to center and are then subjected to being treated like a pendulum. When told to 'expect' a strike, they stand there ready to take on a punch and have almost all their focus set far too high (solar plexus level). This focus is accentuated by the striker using his 'eyes' to insinuate he will be striking at the solar plexus. But instead, he strikes around 3 inches above the solar plexus, using the body as a lever... and effecting centripetal force. The lower body is then subjected to a reactive counter-balancing centrifugal force and the human body instinctively attempts to counter the counter-balance... thus the stepping backwards. Tricks, not power.

I disagree wholeheartedly on the argument that chi/ki falls into the same category as God, Buddha, etc. One is argued to have a tangible, potentially measureable effect, while the other is faith based and immeasureable. The problem here is, we hear about 'personal' experiences of such things, but these so-called impressive displays of ki actually never present themselves when scientists are around to try and measure them. So... what are we to believe? That ki only works when nobody is around to measure the effects? Sort of like... when a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make any noise?

me too. hehe

I practice throwing knives whenever i'm bored, and for a lot less than $60. I grab a variety of kitchen knives, and a few forks, then start embedding them on the patio fence. It isn't the quality of the knives that matter, but the repetition of throws and the ability to instinctively adapt to the differentiations in each blade (handle, blade, balance, length, weight, curvature, etc). I also use coins instead of throwing stars. You lose or break a star, that's $3 to $6. You lose a penny... a penny you lose. The importance here is to practice with what you may eventually need to use, and that would be readily available to you. For example, although i own nunchakus, i cannot readily practice them wherever i want, nor would i ever find myself in a situation where i could use them (seeing as i can't carry them around, and the use of them would get me jailed). So, whenever i gain the opportunity, i practice with other weighted flexible weapons, such as jump ropes, key chains, pant belts, anything with a plug attached (blender?), computer mice (hehe), etc. Same with swords. I love 'em, but damn if i'm going to get caught swinging one around and decapitating idiots. So, i take most every reasonable opportunity to practice with common household flattened or edged objects such as long kitchen knives, metal or wooden yardsticks, and broom handles. Mild tangent.