elbows_and_knees

well if according to you assuming a correct stance for performing each particular technique is not a necessity and it just helps, then next time you practice your judo based throws , just stay in upright natural stance and use your hands and center of gravity, and do the throws and let us know how it works out.

if your hands are in seoinage and you throw from pulling in forward stance then it's not a seoinage anymore it is consider as a taiotoshi throw, the stance makes a difference that you are throwing from hip or hand/leg

which is what I stated the primary purpose of stance was - transition. Read my first post on this thread. The "stance" itself really is not necessary, just that you are transitioning in such a way to accomodate what you are trying to do. This is why a pure judoka (with no other training) will not know what a horse stance is, nor do they perform stance training - transitioning is just basic footwork. It's not the stance that even performs the throw - it's the kazushi and the kake. part of the kake of seionage is extending your legs from the bent position - taking you out of the "horse stance" the stance is part of tskuri - the transition between steps one and three. If you just stay in horse, you still will not complete the throw.

as for judo and jujutsu, when you talk about karate then throws are jujutsu based anyway doesn't matter what kind of karate. maybe there are some sports that use judo techniques but karate in general is not one of them.

see above comment on judo / jujutsu. Do you think the o soto gari you learn in a kata is any different in judo or jujutsu? No. JJJ does have some techniques that judo does not, but the effectiveness of the shared throws is the same. As for style of karate, i already commented on that - funakoshi and kano were friends. A natural, logical conclusion is that he included some of his judo experiences in his karate.

Schools that focus only on forms performance never

you can't revert to something you've never trained. They don't revert to kickboxing, they revert ro their basics - it just so happens that the basics of several styles are similar.

TSD was the original style. Just like any other MA, the korean MA were riddled with politics. Also, as some of you may know, korea and japan don't have the best history with eachother, and TSD was heavily influenced by japanese karate. Some thought that TSD was "too japanese", and wanted a more korean flavored alternative. The result was TKD.

dunno... he doesn't work down there - he was one of two patrons that had an altercation with eachother. When he came to, he was still dazed, and from what I hear ( I wasn't close enough to see) he had a huge knot on his head. I'm pretty sure he sustained a concussion at the least.

Most stances are directional - they are about projecting your mass in a given direction, in order to gain a better effect. If I want to drop someone I could use my arm strength, or I could use horse stance in which case my whole body weight is behind the technique.

you don't need stance for that. the term "sitting down on a punch" is used in boxing all the time, and they don't project their mass in a given direction -they stay centered.

she simply says that useing your body mass and assuming a correct body position (stance) helps your technique and you don't have to arm wrestle a guy over a take down, it had nothing to do with boxing and judo, one more thing , karate doesn't use judo base throws since it predates modern Judo, all throws in karate are simple jujitsu or chin-na techniques.

and notice I never said it doesn't help. But the way it was stated was that that stance is a necessity, and it's not, as I pointed out. As for judo based throws, shotokan does NOT predate judo, and its founder trained with jigoro kano. AngelaG trains shotokan. In addition, since judo stemmed from jujutsu, it's techniques technically ARE jujutsu techniques, though the purposes behind the two arts may differ.

But the fact remains that a boxer does not grab, grapple or throw!! So dropping their body weight is less of a necessity. I am talking about grabbing an opponent, pulling to hikite and using an arm to drop them The stance would be a big help, rather than relying on strength. This has NO relevance to boxing....

Moreover I am not in competition against other arts. I don't really care what a boxer does or a judoka, but what I am my students do is my concern, and we see what works and what doesn't and learn from that.

judoka grab. Heck, even from a karate standpoint, since you are still using judo base throws. kazushi is what achieves the throw. Now, once again, in that respect, dropping of the body CAN indeed achieve kazushi, but isn't NEEDED. that's my only point.

Last night at work I watched a guy get slammed head first into the concrete. He was unconscious for about 20 mins.

The best thing you can do is try to lift them and then slam them back into the ground.

That's what I would try. In a real fight, if they're trying to work a choke, I'd try grabbing the fingers and cracking a few.

Or reaching back and grabbing the groin.

from the position he's referring to (and most others) grabbing the groin either

1. isn't possible, or

2. isn't practical

In the first case, if his hip is pressed into your back, you can't access his groin region anyway - your own body is shielding you from it.

in the second case, you are not only leaving your face and head even more open for attack, you are giving him your arm so that he can lock it and break it.

If he's trying to work a choke, fingers are a bad idea too.

1. he may use a closed fist when he reaches around your neck

2. your best bet is to fight the choke, not worry about his fingers. If you reach for his fingers and miss, or find that his fist is closed, you may have just given him the time he needs to sink in the choke.

wrestling has a few good escapes from the position you are referring to.

The only you NEED in combat is what works at the time. Eg. There is no one thing you NEED, but there are plenty of things that will help!

I agree with that in a sense. I agree with the first part, but as far as the second, I don't actually believe that stance training would benefit a boxer, thai boxer, wrestler, etc. I would argue that it would hinder their progress, at least in the beginning. But that's off topic, so I digress.

Just to add to that according the the book Unante there are 14 different versions of Passai / Bassai Kata.

matsumura passai

passai dai

passai sho

bassai dai

bassai sho

tomari passai

i can't think of anything else, actually i am looking at this list ,i can only see 2 main kata Matsumura version and Tomari, i am sure TKD guys have their own version of Bassai too,

what do they call it?

I know some TKD schools use bassai dai as one of their forms, but I have never seen it or learned it.

As far as I know, it is still called Bassai Dai.

Some tsd schools use it too, but the korean styles have a heavy japanese influence anyway, so that doesn't surprise me.

Most stances are directional - they are about projecting your mass in a given direction, in order to gain a better effect. If I want to drop someone I could use my arm strength, or I could use horse stance in which case my whole body weight is behind the technique.

you don't need stance for that. the term "sitting down on a punch" is used in boxing all the time, and they don't project their mass in a given direction -they stay centered.

Who says you don't need stance for that? Just because the boxers don't do it while punching does not mean that it's right, and certainly when talking about things out of a boxer's remit, such as grappling and throws. And the mass is also centred, there is no off-balancing, the head stays over the hips, it's just that the body mass is dropped. This is particularly useful for westerners who tend to move from the upper body, as it lowers the COG more towards the hara.

EDIT: Also refer to the article linked to above.

obviously you don't NEED it if boxer's don't do it, and if judoka don't do formal stance training. a judoka won't know what a bow stance is if you ask him. I didn't say you CAN'T do it that way, but it's quite obviously not a necessity.

for a well trained person street fighting is easier than sparring.

No, it's not.

sparring won't help that much on the street.

yes, it will.

hard blocking works on the street

no, they don't - not very well, anyway. fights happen too fast to have time for a lot of blocking. evasion will serve you better. In all the encounters I've had as a bouncer, I've never once blocked -I evade. The guys I work with who have no formal training don't block either - they evade.

but it won't work that good for sparring, because there is no commitment in sparring.

yes, there is - unless you only do point sparring.

Front stance - pushing

Back stance - pulling

Middle stance - dropping

Rear stance - in and down.

you can't really say that in all cases, though. look at it from judo terms:

tai otoshi - forward stance - pulling.

seionage - middle stance - pulling AND dropping.

sumi gaeshi - rear stance - pulling and dropping.

I prefer the weight distribution analogies.

Horse stances and cat stances are transitional moves, and the names just make more sense than "stance where your legs are spread out slightly more than shoulder width and feet pointing straight ahead so that you can train just your arms", and "stance where one foot is kind of on its toes and your weight is 90/10".

Actually, in one school I trained, we used more contemporary names. The horse stance was a "straddle legged stance", the bow and arrow was a "forward stance" and the back stance was a "60 / 40" stance, for example.

Most stances are directional - they are about projecting your mass in a given direction, in order to gain a better effect. If I want to drop someone I could use my arm strength, or I could use horse stance in which case my whole body weight is behind the technique.

you don't need stance for that. the term "sitting down on a punch" is used in boxing all the time, and they don't project their mass in a given direction -they stay centered.

I've always been wondering what the point of having so many of the animal stances in many Martial Arts including some styles of Karate are. I've only learned the Horse stance thus far, and not to be ignorant, but i don't see how it would be useful in a fight. I've always been interested in the animal stances and i think they are pretty cool, but i don't know how they can be useful in a fight. How would you do some of the kicks and punches that you normally do in a free stance, when in a horse stance, or cat stance, tiger, etc... The whole stance of the legs and body is totally different.

stances aren't static - you don't hold them. you transition from one to the other while you are fighting. For example, someone throws a punch, I shift my weight back into a cat stance and block. I then step forward into a bow and arrow stance and lunge punch. He throws a roundhouse at my body and I shift into a back stance then block. He next kicks at my head and I lower into snake creeps down (longfist kung fu) and let it go over my head...transition. that's what stance is about.

As for grappling, after you throw tai otoshi, look at your body - you are in something resembling a bow and arrow stance. o goshi and ippon seionage will leave you in a horse stance. This is how stance has its use in grappling.

Can't martial artist and martial athlete be the same thing?

IMO, it IS the same thing. Nobody can tell me that because I train muay thai and judo that I'm less of an ma than someone who trains shotokan or kung fu.

More muscle compared to fat also makes one much faster, but you're right about the tenseness. My karate instructors always tell me that im too tense and that i need to be more response, and i ne'er asked them why, but now i know why.

that's a relaxation issue. I am a fairly big guy - tyson's size. I'm not tense at all. We had a new guy join class yesterday. He's big too - but he boxed for two years - so he's completely relaxed also.

haven't seen it. But, my school has a BTT black belt. We would bring him over from brazil to do seminars, and he liked it here so much that he moved here.

kung fu people can be very offensive. watch wc and clf guys. we were offensive in longfist and shuai chiao as well.

if you wanted to learn some flippy kicks in an MA, take up capoiera. before people say its not effective, if done right, i beleive it can be very effective. its done as a dance cos the slaves that developed it werent allowed to fight, but take it back to somplicity when required and some of those kicks could be deadly.

capoeira is actually very effective. I train and spar with capoeira guys on a regular basis. People buy into what they see on tv and video games...

Just a question, but do you think it would be beneficial to train both judo and BJJ at the same time, or train a year in one and then add the other, or would this just be a monotony? Just wondering, because I like the throws of judo, and the BJJ ground game looks good. I just didn't know if they both contain enough of the same stuff to warrant training in just one if both were available.

I would train both - that's what I was until I stopped bjj (work schedule). there is enough cross over that you will get to work what you are learning in both classes, which is extra practice for you. Also, it makes up for the gaps in each style. I would kill my fellow judoka at my first judo club on the ground, because i was the only one who trained bjj. They did a lot of ground work, but at the time, ground work was pretty much the only thing I was doing. The reverse was true in bjj. They had several good wrestling and bjj takedowns, but I could take most of them standing, except the ones who cross trained in judo.

If you train weights properly you won't become slower in fact you can become faster. There is an article in black belt magazine I believe its either the June or July Issue with Pride FC fighter Dan Hendoson on the cover. In the Article on him in Bleck Belt Magazine. He talks about his weight training routine. Were he does light weight and high reps. He said he would do leight weight and do one set of a 100 reps and then move on to the next excercise. This is one method were it helps with your muslce endurance to condition your muslces to keep going and not get fatigued.

training extremely heavy does something similar. The most explosive athletes on the planet are powerlifters. and you can powerlift without adding much size, if you don't want to add mass.

I do everything you said except for weight lifting, because i like to be skinny/muscle and fast.

why do people always assume a bigger guy is slower? if he were so slow he couldn't hit you, smaller guys would KO big guys and sports wouldn't need weight classes. I bet tyson in his prime punched faster than anyone on this forum - and he weighed 225 (same as me...)

Flexibility is also very important to training the muscles, and in martial arts im sure there is much more of that then in boxing.

a boxer's body is very supple. they stretch just as you do. Now, a kicking ma, like a thai boxer, kerateka, etc. will be more flexible in the lower regions because they kick. a boxer doesn't have to be as flexible in the legs.

Now answer one question... do you think Lewis(by the time he's 70 years old) would probably kick a martial artist's butt?

yeah, I do. Why?

1. he's got the fighting experience

2. he'll likely still have more power

assuming that the MA is also 70. If he is a young guy, then no. But I would put my money on a young ma over a 70 year old ma also. that's just what happens with age.

Elbows & Knees - I've read your other posts and you seem quite knowledgeable and experienced about fighting. I am thinking of taking up martial arts for self-defense. So I am looking to study something that is street effective. I only have time for one martial art and there arent a lot of schools in my area. So here's my question: Do you think Judo or BJJ is more street practical and effective? And could you explain why you believe one is better than the other?

I guess I am buying into much of the BJJ viewpoint that most fights will end up on the ground. That has been my experience when I was a child. But the judo guys say that a good judo man will not be taken to the ground so easily. Thanks for your thoughts, in advance.

Anyone else who wishes to reply to the post with their thoughts and reasoning are also very welcome!

first, check out the schools. some judo clubs are REALLY laid back. Others are very competition oriented and train extremely hard.

next, watch the content of the classes. take note of how much standup the bjj class teaches and how much groundwork the judo class does.

If all things are equal (both are competitive, both do stand up and ground regularly) then they are on fairly even ground. All else being equal, i personally would pick judo. Most fights will begin with both of you standing - judo will excel here. If it goes to the ground, judo will give you more than enough foundation to hold your own on the ground (provided they work groundwork regularly, as I stated earlier)

As for most fights going to the ground, those came from police stats that were used to promote bjj. Thinking about it, cops probably want to take a perp to the ground, as it will be easier for them to restrain the average guy there than it is to restrain him while standing. That said though, many fights do indeed go to the ground, as you have also noticed yourself. Both bjj and judo are invaluable in such a situation.