glockmeister

Great job, Sounds like you got some good experience.

This is just from my personal experiences and observations, so it is possible that some may disagree with me on some of these things bit I have come across many Myths in the real of self defense especially involving martial artists. Myth #1: "Bad guys don't train" Reality: What is a "bad guy?" To me it is anyone who is standing in front of you wishing you to do you harm first of all, and that can be someone who is either trained or untrained. Who is to say that a person wanting to rob/rape or murder you is not a trained boxer, wrestler or Karateka? Working in the Dept. of Corrections, one would be surprised at how many inmates who come through the gates who were ex military, ex-boxers, Karate black belts, ex wrestlers, and so on. Now obviously, they must have done something "bad" to get into prison, yet some are also trained fighters. One must never assume that the "bad guys" don't train. Myth#2 " Most muggers and other criminals are generally not in good shape and therefore, wouldn't be much of a challenge against a trained Martial Artist" Reality: People often get criminals mixed up with the hot head who thinks you just stole his parking space mixed up. Sure, both may be an adversary at some point in your life. However, Criminals, by their very lifestyle tend to be in better shape than the average joe and in some cases more than the average martial artist. If you have ever visited a prison yard, chances are you will see huge inmates pumping massive amounts of Iron, they are bench pressing more than the average karate student will ever hope to and have ripped muscles and have the ability to probably pull your arms out of your sockets. Myth #3 "Self defense situations are usually over with quickly, therefore you don't need to concern yourself with conditioning and endurance much" Reality: Self defense is more than just punching someone in the mouth. When I think of self defense or better yet, self protection, I often think of not only a would be mugger, but maybe the idea that you may have to drag or carry an unconscious family member out of a burning house, run away from a potential threat, Even pushing your car to the side of the road to avoid getting it rammed and yes, in some cases, if you have to fight and the fight goes the distance. I agree that most SD situations may be over quickly, although in the case of stamina/endurance, it for is is along the lines of "better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it." Myth#4 "It is unlikely that a Martial Artist would have to worry about getting into a fight with another martial artist, since we generally do not get into street fights." Reality: Hogwash! Martial Artists are human beings, and being such suffer from and are affected by the same emotions as non-MA's such as envy, greed, wrath, etc. therefore, there is no way to come to the conclusion that MA's are less likely to get into a fight or lose there temper than anyone else. Myth#5 " Any training is better than no training." Reality: That's only true if you are getting good, quality training. Poor and ineffective training can actually do you more harm than good by giving you a false sense of security and having you armed with shoddy techniques that can make a physical situation go from bad to worse. Myth#6: BJJ, boxing, Judo, MT, and (fill in the blank) are not real effective and were invented for sport, therefore haven't much value in unarmed combat. Reality: All these "sports" were designed with combat in mind. Let a Judo practitioner use one of his "sport" throws on you on a solid ground and see if it feels real or not. BJJ was designed as a street fighting art. the whole reason for the point system was to reinforce good habits in attaining better positioning during an actual fight, with top and back mount being highest since in a ground fight, those are two of the strongest positions to be in. Boxing was one of the fighting styles taught to the ancient Greek soldier as well as Wrestling and Pankration. While they may not have as many "deadly moves," Both are quite functional. Myth#7: "(fill in the blank) style wouldn't be effective because you don't see people using (fill in the blank) style in Pride or UFC" Reality: While MMA is definitely a good test of overall fighting skill, it has in some ways distorted some people perceptions about " effectiveness" Yes, it has helped open people's eyes to the effectiveness of grappling and has shown to be a good test of skill, the thing to remember is that these fighters are modern day gladiators really. They sometimes spend 8 hours a day, 7 days a week training. People like to take styles that the MMA fighters take in an attempt to be "more effective" without realizing that it is not the style itself that makes some of these fighters, but the level of fitness and amount of training. While in some ways, MMA has definitely shown the advantages of some styles like Muay Thai and BJJ, It doesn't, by default mean all other styles would be ineffective in a self defense situation. Myth#8 "(fill in the blank) % of fights go to the ground" Reality:There is no scientific data to support what percent of street fights go where. Period. Myth#9 "(fill in the blank) style beats (fill in the blank style i.e. Stand up versus ground) XYZ% of the time. Reality: See answer to myth #8 Myth#10 "The ground is a bad place to be in a street fight anyway, so training to fight on the ground would be a waste of time." Reality: The fact that in a lot of cases it is a bad place to be is the exact reason one should train it in the event that they find themselves there. There are also situations where it may be a better place to be such as if you are a trained ground fighter and your adversary is obviously better stand up fighter than you and it is a one on one weaponless fight with no chance of you running away. Myth#11 " Size doesn't matter." Reality: Everything matters! His skill, your skill his strength and yours, his mindset experience or lack thereof, if either of you are intoxicated, etc.. Even if you are much more skilled than your opponent, if he outweighs you by 100 lbs of solid muscle, it force you to change your strategy. What techniques work on someone your size or smaller may well not work on someone who is a great deal larger than you. Also a 275 lbs power lifter may lack technique, but may not need much of it if he manages to seperate your head from your body or pick you up and throw you against a wall or body slam you into the pavement. Myth#12: Martial artist have a great advantage over a " street fighter." Reality: the term "street fighter" is a generic term That covers too broad of a spectrum for that to hold much truth. While some so-called street fighters may be nothing more than hot-headed punks who have trouble backing down and lack real skill, there are others who have spent years growing up in the roughest areas of town, have done time in state prisons and know from first hand experience how to fight with knives, guns and bare hands. They may never have stepped into a dojo, but they have learned from fighting for their lives in the mean streets and the prison cells, they are great at using improvised weapons, using violence to get what they want and are used to hitting and getting hit, something not all MA's are used to. Such an individual can be a terrifying opponent in the street. While being a trained boxer or MT fighter may definitely give you an advantage, one must not be to over confident when confronted with any opponent. As I have said in the beginning of this post, there are obviously differences in other people's "reality" From my experience as well as observation, this has been my reality. Feel free to add. I would like to get feedback from others on the board. _________________

Seems if you hurt that area doing barbell curls, I would say you are using too much weight and bringing your back more into the workout instead of your arms. Your back should remain straight and while to some degree the shoulders are also stabilizing, It's hard to see how the shoulder blades could get hurt except if there is too much weight/improper form. Just take some ibuprofen and give it a few days. soak in a tub of warm water with epsom salt should help as well.

Well, saw a picture of him. They were reporting on him the other week on the O'reilly Factor and a pic was shown of him smoking and looking very thin. Didn't look good.

Also, consider working overtime when possible. I always did do most of my grocery shopping at thrift stores and don't always have to have the brand name stuff.

It's a toss up between Judo and BJJ. Both are great for throws, submissions and grappling. BJJ is more submission oriented and I think Judo is stronger on throws. Just my 0.02

Sure there's hope, you run like heck in a zig zag pattern. Hitting a rapidly moving target is extremely difficult even when the gun is in the hands of a highly trained shooter. Even more difficult when the shooter is one of the wanna be gangster types who think you should shoot holding the pistol sideways.

Now, its "The face" by Dean Koontz

Bringing a notebook is always a good idea. It's sometimes hard to remember details a few days later. I also bring a camera and film my matches. I show them to my instructor and he points out my mistakes (which are always plenty). Yeah, i took a notebook with me, wrote down my strategy beforehand. It started out going exactly to plan but I just let the match slip. I was watching a recording of my match and saw a few obvious mistakes I made.

Yeah that site is my homepage. Great techniques and forum there.

Don't try this on a skilled grappler. You'll be swept and mounted. It's not good to do while in the guard. Not trying to be overyly negative, the Ezekiel is a good choke. Just not from inside the guard of someone who knows how to grapple well. Once you have it locked in, it doesn't matter if he rolls you over, you can still get the tap, even if he rolls you over. Best thing to do is when you lock it on, give yourself a wide base. This choke doesn't take long to get a tap.

One that is very effective. and I use it often, it is the Ezekiel choke although it must be done with a gi. You wrap one arm around the back of his head while you are in his closed guard, you grab the inside of your opposite hand's sleave, 4 fingers in grip, while holding that with say, your right hand, you take the left hand and cross over the front of the person's throat and now grab the inside of you right hand's sleave, and pull them both tight while turning your forearms in against the throat. very nasty choke.

It's Happened. We have had instructors promote people who were like 2nd degree black belts in Judo and have done MMA and give them blue belts when they entered a competition. Why Not? It wouldn't be fair to ahve them enter a BJJ competition at Novice level when in fact, they aren't novices. This leads to sandbagging at competitions

It may be, but since as of yet I haven't been able to ask my dog whether it's one or the other I guess it's up to speculation. The next time I run the vacum and he runs upstairs, I'll try and get the answer out of him. "is it fear, or survival instinct?" J/K

The instructor would probably immediately promote them to a higher rank based on their prior experience.

What is fear? Other than a natural survival instinct? Fear is something that keeps us and all things alive. If people who said they had no fear whatsoever of death, chances are they wouldn't be with us today. It is the fear of death and/or bodily injury that makes us look both ways before we cross a street, check our blind spots before we pass on the highway, makes us run from a dangerous situation such as a mugger armed with a knife or a home fire. Call it fear, call it survival instinct, call it whatever you like.

Yeah man, don't sweat it. I have had bikers give me attitude too and I just shook my head and drove off. I remember however when I was younger, I chased some dude and his girlfriend who walked right out in front of my car in the middle of town and then stopped and held out his hands as if to say "what you gonna do about it?" He ran off before i could show him lol.

For one, I need to work more on top pressure. Twice I had my opponent in North/south and he managed get over by gator rolling. It was funny because we gator rolled each other like 4 times in a row back and forth just reversing each other My Cross training in Judo has definitely helped my stand up game and it came through for me since i managed to throw him early and gain side control right away. My main problem was using top pressure since even though we were in the same weight class. (middleweight) he seemed much smaller than me and was slippery and difficult to keep down.

Saturday, I attended NAGA for the first time in Newark, NJ. It was an exciting and high scoring match, but I lost on points I still feel I walked away a winner because i gained experience and got to represent myself and my school there. Look forward to going again.

I don't think Couture would be able to do much with him.

Exactly, even a fly will take off if you get too close to it so obviously, it has a concept of danger and therefore at least to some degree, a concept of death and/or injury. Every creature has a sense of self preservation and a natural fear of danger. It is nature's defense mechanism. Without it, there would be no way for the species to continue to survive. So a better statement may be: Mankind is the only species who ever tries to claim LACK of fear of death. Personally, I believe everyone has some fear of death. If they didn't they wouldn't look both ways before crossing a street, leave a burning building, refrain from activities which could lead to poor health and why they would run from an armed felon.

Absolute Fear by Lisa Jackson.

I think it would be quite difficult for a person being victimized by a rapist to try and figure out in her head where that 10% lies. As far as I know. Rape constitutes the use of deadly force.

How do you know that?

Fedor is one of my favorite fighters. Any match he is in is usually exciting.