Tempest

Let me give another example. Groin strikes. I have, in non-sporting encounters, kicked people in the groin and had it work like a charm. I have also, when I was ready for it, had people hit me there and it just ticked me off. A lot of so called "dirty fighting" is about surprising your opponent and taking advantage of anatomical weak points and accurate technique to end it quickly. This is a fine thing. It DOES NOT get you out of the need to be able to fight skill-fully at all. A boxer can deliver an eye rake or a palm to the nose MUCH more effectively than someone who does not box because they have more practice at the gross body mechanics of hitting a target with a hand. As a Judo guy, I can use sneaky trips and small joint locks in a fight that people who have not grappled in earnest will not be able to make work due to balance disruption and adrenal stress. I will repeat to re-iterate my point: Dirty tricks are NOT a substitute for fighting skill, but if you HAVE fighting skill, they can be a great aid to ending a non-sporting encounter quickly.

Dirty tricks are not a substitute for fundamental fighting skill. That said, if you have a good grasp of timing, distance, body mechanics, aggression, adrenal management and most importantly situational awareness, then, and only then can you vastly multiply your effectiveness in a confrontation by understanding anatomical weak points and exploiting them viciously. There are a lot of things banned in sporting competition because they will injure someone too severely to continue, however, in order for you to DO any of these things reliably you need a good fundamental grasp of the skills that a sport-fighter possesses. No matter how nasty an eye-gouge is, or a finger lock, groin-strike, etc..., they do not work if you cannot deliver force to target against an intelligently resisting opponent under adrenal stress conditions while simultaneously defending what your opponent is doing.

I gotta say, the more I read, the more I am with Matsu on this one. My base art, Judo, requires you to be at least 16 to be a Shodan, and that is for a national medalist. 17 otherwise. No exceptions on that one. There is more to being a black belt than having a crisp looking punch. You get rank for knowledge, experience, and the ability to execute. Youth, while a great thing, is very much a bar to 2 of those things. No matter how pretty it looks, until someone has there full growth, they cannot execute certain techniques quite right under pressure. Even if they are a naturally gifted and hard working athlete, it just won't work. Additionally, experience is more than just time in the dojo. A certain degree of maturity is expected of a black belt, and no matter how talented they are or mature "for their age" that they are, a 12 year old is not likely to have such maturity. It can only come with time and experience.

Congratulations!

Ok, I can see 2 sides to this. On the one hand, children can be the heart of a small Dojo and, like it or not, they are the future. On the other hand, some things you just cannot due till you get your full size on you. With a few exceptions, mostly my family, I will not teach weapons to children. That being said, I encourage them to take Judo and Jiujitsu. I would make the complex argument that you do not have to "cater" to teach children, you simply have to moderate to accommodate what they can and cannot do.

A pell is simply a target usable for practicing strikes that roughly simulates a human target. Pell or pel, is from the Latin for Palus, Palos, Palorum, a pale or stake. Most pells are a stake driven in to the ground, similar to some types of maki wara. A variety of drills can be used, but my favorite for beginners is to first, get a wooden waster, that is what you would likely call a bokken. Cover the center of percussion of the blade, that is the part of the edge that you should be aiming to strike with, in thick tape. No where else should be covered with this tape. Then have the student strike the pell with you watching. The tape on the blade will allow them to feel the difference between a good hit and a poor one. Then have the student strike the pell with the numbered cuts, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, without footwork, that is just from a basic stance in range, until they can strike 10 of each cut in a row on the tape. Then, start adding foot work, then distance, then moving around the pell, then combinations etc. The key is, blows that do not land in the center of percussion of the blade do NOT count. Also note, no where did I mention adding speed. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Congrats man, excellent work sir.

Please do not mistake me, the student must do the work. If they don't, then all the teaching is wasted. If the student does not do the reps, then it is a waste of time. That being said, there are some very good tricks for saving a lot of time in that school of hard knocks. For example, pell work. Pell drills will develop the basics of range finding with a sword very quickly.

See, I don't think it is any less important, but there is a larger margin for error. You can be hit by a glancing blow from a fist, foot, knee or elbow, possible even a bo, and still be generally ok. A glancing blow from a longsword is not gonna have the same effect as a clean cut, but you will NOT be ok. I can't really agree entirely with this, because we manage to teach it all the time. The secret is in understanding range finders during the fight. Now, this MUST be refined by practice, but it also should be taught in the first place. A good example of what I mean is the concept of the forte, metza, and foible in italian fencing. A key component of ranging and safety is knowing that when your forte is above and against your opponents foible, it is safe to attack and you are likely in range. The various "guards" of swordsmanship are designed around the idea of disguising this range and safety from your opponent while allowing you to, hopefully, recognize it in your own situation. Once again, this MUST be refined through long practice, but it can be taught.

Ehh, not entirely. If that were true, you would see the grapplers advantage dwindle more with someone like a skilled boxer who is used to trading punches. But, unless that boxer is also trained in grappling, the advantage does not go away. The only thing that REALLY takes the advantage away is one super secret that most grapplers know: It is easier to defend than attack in grappling. Now, what does that mean? It means that, for example, someone who has say blue-purple belt BJJ, but can eat golden gloves champs for lunch on his feet, is going to be able to give even the best grapplers a VERY rough day. But the key is, you must have at least that fundamental grappling skill and practice it.

I am not sure I agree with this entirely. It seems to me that the main thing is to understand the physical dynamic of what happens in a fight. Now, like with all chaotic systems, there are very few hard and fast absolutes. That being said, if we limit ourselves from what is POSSIBLE in a fight to what is PROBABLE, then we start to see where the training methodologies, strategies, techniques and conditioning of solid grapplers give them an advantage. No, it is not new, and none of us think it is, but it has not always been explored in the same context and to the same depth.

See, I think we do share some very well aligned points, but I believe I would need to see some of the drills that your school is doing, and I cannot access facebook at this time, and more importantly to understand how you build them in to a complex whole that still effectively uses Karate techniques. I believe that it depends on where you are at in your understanding of the art. I mean no disrespect, but this is a complex subject and it is VERY easy to misunderstand and misinterpret things. Now, the plural of anecdote is not evidence, BUT I will share one relevant to this situation. I started learning Karate, first Goju, then Shotokan, when I was about 7. I did one steps a lot and drilled technique, then one day, when I was about 9, I lived in a rough neighborhood and my sister and I were attacked by some boys about my ager or slightly older on the way home from school. My training took over, I used Mae Geri to drop one attacker, had my sister run, and the second one tackled me. Thankfully, neither of us could ground fight so I was relatively safe and bystanders broke it up soon after, BUT, I was able to survive an encounter with multiple larger, stronger attackers. I may be wrong, but I credit one steps for helping me survive that encounter, so I am not so quick to dismiss them.

Excellent article. I think that this explores exactly one of the deepest problems with a LOT of Martial Arts training. There are actually instructors who will make exaggerated and unrealistic one-steps a part of the TESTING requirements. The equivalent would be if in Judo, we gauged a fighter based on his Uchikomis. That being said, I feel I must play the devils advocate here, or, to put it in more formal terms, to examine the counterfactual. What if there is a use for them and a way to develop them in to something useful? I would make the argument that one-step sparring is an early form of operant conditioning, that is training to cut out thought from response. And as to your assertion that Boxing and MMA schools don't use it, well, I would both agree and disagree. I agree it looks very different because the attacks they are training against look different, but simple stimulus/response drills are the KEY to high level strikers preparing a game plan for a fight. One steps, or Ippon Kumite, are about developing the reflexive response to a particular stimulus. Now, if you don't think that the stimuli that are being trained against in your school are very realistic and useful, then use different ones, but remember that speed, power, distance management, and other important considerations must be added in layers as the student progresses.

Not really. Look at police defensive tactics for an example. A great deal of that is standing grapples to move people in to positions you want them to be in. Grapplers TEND to take fights to the ground because it benefits us to do so. Or things just happen that way sometimes. Or we get knocked down, or taken down by surprise. Grappling, per se, is a skill set, not really even a style and it is a skill set that can be employed in a variety of contexts. If, for example, in some mythical ridiculous scenario, I HAD to fight multiple opponents, and I HAD to do it using only my hands, before I died or ran, it would probably not look that much different to a sort of brutal Aikido demo. The issue people tend to have with a lot, not all, but a lot of stand-up striking styles is the tendency to rely on this idea that they can "Jist hit 'em" or they rely on an unrealistic expectation of striking accuracy and power while you are moving and the target is moving. And what we have seen, over and over again, is that it just doesn't work that way consistently. Usually what happens is that first shot misses, and as a result, if the target is aggressive and moving toward you, grappling happens. What you do from there is up to you, but as I and others on here have recommended, if you REALLY want to have something you can do once grappling happens, you need to learn to grapple skillfully.

Congratulations!

Ok, my RECOMMENDED gear for practicing with Kendo sticks, would be a good set of Kendo armor. But, for the sake of argument, lets say that you don't have that. A pair of lacrosse gloves will work for hand protection. You need hard knee and elbow pads. No open toed shoes. No exposed skin, so you will want a jacket of some sort. A gorget to protect the throat and a cup for the groin are highly recommended. Lastly, but probably most importantly, a helmet or good HEMA style fencing mask with back of head protection. This is the gear I would recommend to avoid injury. Next, get some Kendo lessons, or if that is not an option, pick up a book on it and practice the moves and research using Youtube. I HIGHLY recommend drilling about 75-90% of the time you practice at first and I also recommend to NOT spar until you have at least MOST if not all of the safety gear I listed. You will get a lot of benefit out of just drilling that will come in handy when you DO spar.

Sigh... this is a difficult question to answer accurately, especially with the modern competition Judo rules.. *growl*. Let me start by saying that the line between what is Judo and what is BJJ is much thinner than some would like to believe. Most of the techniques used in BJJ are commonly taught in Judo as well. The biggest difference is in mindset and overall theory of an encounter. Typically, Judo is not taught with the idea that you will be defending against, for example, striking techniques, where as in BJJ, this is standard from the beginning. BJJ classes often, not always, but often start on the ground. Judo tends to start standing and really the focus is on the throw. In Judo, it is not enough to get the fight to the ground, it is also HOW you get there that matters. In competition, a Judo match ends with a good throw. BJJ matches tend to end in a submission or through points mostly gained through groundwork. In Judo, groundwork has to be EXPLOSIVE to avoid stalling penalties. In BJJ, groundwork should be methodical to avoid your opponent escaping a position and to allow you to continue to advance to the next position. These are some of the main differences, but overall there are more similarities than differences truthfully and you will find a number of athletes that do both for various reasons. Including me.

Barring any physical disability stopping them, work them, work them VERY hard. Get them in to sparring as soon as you are able. They need the contact to help with focus. What you will see, is that at first they will struggle, but if you push them to anaerobic failure, then they will find themselves able to focus more effectively the next time. Repeat, until they are able to focus sufficiently for your purposes. Please note that I am largely speaking from personal experience and anecdotal observation here. There may be more medically qualified people on here who could assist with this.

This is why I said that a fight was usually ended once it went to the ground, typically with the guy who fells death. Being on top in a fight is just better. I teach a historical european wrestling class as part of the HEMA that I do, and one of the key things is that most wrestling styles reflected this reality in that a forceful flat back landing is usually enough to score a victory, even in german ringen styles. But to illustrate the differences, there are few to no chokes in german wrestling or in any armored combat style because the gorget is a thing. Chokes, at least as practiced in Judo and BJJ, are very much a more recent addition based on some of the unarmored jujitsu skills, as well as Chinese chin-na.

Managing the distance, or measure as we tend to refer to it in fencing, is a very important aspect of any fight, but when weapons are involved it becomes the single most important thing keeping someone alive. Explicit and implicit understanding of measure is an integral part of everything we do where I train. How and how often does your school teach this important concept?

Sophisticated ground fighting doesn't REALLY enter jujitsu, with one notable exception, till you start to mix 2 very important things together. 1. A modern, unarmored and more likely to be unarmed context for most close combat encounters. Prior to the second half of the 20th century an unarmed and unarmored grapple between 2 adults of roughly equal size was just as likely to be play as anything else and certainly would not be given any kind of serious treatment as "self defense". 2. The very old sport of Wrestling, as practiced by first the Greeks, but then by pretty much everyone. We first see this when Jigoro Kano adds 2 very important pieces of wrestling to the Jujitsu he practiced in the creation of Judo. He added several throws which involve the grabbing of the legs, and he added sparring, which they called Randori. Como Maeda, the man who taught jujitsu to the Gracies, was a student of Kano. Prior to all of this coming together starting in the late 1870's to early 1880's, a jujitsu student would not have fared so well on the ground. But, a modern context allows ground fighting to be very relevant to a fight, and when you combine wrestling with the knowledge of anatomy and physiological weak points that was common in old jujitsu, you get a fighting system that we call Judo which eventually led to the development of BJJ, the re-popularization of catch wrestling, and post 1993, the "rediscovery" of supposedly sophisticated grappling methods in a wide variety of fighting systems.

Another thing to consider is the historical context. Unlike in a modern, mostly unarmed, and more importantly un ARMORED context, a medieval battlefield was populated with armor, weapons, and always multiple combatants. Grappling happened all the time, but ground fighting, such as the sophisticated guard game of BJJ, would be both ineffective and counter productive to good training. Most fights, in that context, ended when someone went to the ground, usually in that persons death. So, you have a number of methods of sending other people to the ground, a number of methods of finishing fights on the ground, but for most people, only a few simple methods of getting back to your feet once you are ON the ground. Partly because that is your only goal, and partly because when wearing armor there are only so many methods of getting up that work.

For the simple reason that jujitsu was originally a battlefield and prisoner handling art. A lot of what worked on a medieval battlefield won't work on a modern street, or, if it did, you would have to worry about going to prison. For example, in the old koryu, that is the original schools of martial arts that included jujitsu, they have a kata that involves serving tea to someone, then you pull out a knife and stab them. You can see where this is not REALLY self defense.

See, this sort of thing... Look, I know that a lot of people don't really understand this, but violence, even criminal violence is a form of communication. When that instructor asked his original question, all of the women gave the correct, common sense answer. It sounds like, instead of reinforcing this and guiding the discussion in to boundaries and WHEN use of force is acceptable to each student, the instructor questioned them until they began to doubt their own common sense. Now, I wasn't there, so I could be misinterpreting from what you said, but when teaching, especially self defense to people with little direct experience with violence, it is important to reinforce the things they are already doing correctly so they don't feel as much cognitive dissonance and as a result experience additional freezes during actual situations.

Pretty much all of this...Japanese Jujitsu is a great martial art, it is also not very common. There are very few people teaching it authentically and most of them are in Japan. Many people who claim to be teaching it are teaching poor quality Judo with other pieces bolted on to make it look like old pictures of Jujitsu.