ninjer

Because there's no point waving your hands in the air if your opponent is too far away to hit your head. And you discourage them from coming close enough to hit your head by hitting them if they do. Their guard tends to be mobile; the first instinct is to increase distance between yourself and your opponent to not allow them to hit you, then if they do manage to close the distance, you strike aggressively to drive them away and then try and guard your head as a last resort. Standing there with your hands in front of your face isn't a spectacularly good tactic - you're just inviting a boot to the ribs or a punch to the torso. It's easier to guard your head with distance. Its not a good tactic, its probably the best there is. Of course its easy to guard your head with distance, but in order to hit your opponent you're going to have to get close enough for him to hit you as well. With your hands down, you're not going to block any punches or any kicks. If you attempt to block a roundhouse kick with your forearm, its going to be broken. With your hands up, you can block and parry incoming punches to the face, dropping your elbows helps protect your body- tiip kicks are blocked utilizing your hands, and any other kicks to the body/legs are blocked by your shins.

When you're speculating and talking about theory, yes its going to be difficult to determine who is going to win- in theory, the TKD fighter is going to ko the grappler- in theory, the wrestler will take his opponent down- every style has their theory. The thing is that by now we have actually taken people from different styles of martial arts and put them against each other- we now have evidence that will help persuade our decisions. In theory, a TKD fighter is going to kick the wrestler in the head and ko him before he manages to move in and grab him, yet our empirical evidence shows otherwise- time after time again we've seen the wrestler grab ahold of the boxer, the karateka, the TKDer, or what have you, and throw him to the ground with great success. This will heavily influence our opinion of who will win a fight between the two styles based on previous evidence. The problem is that most people dont know what their styles were initially created to do- not all were designed for unarmed combat, and many are outdated by todays standards for what you would need to train in in order to learn how to fight. Lets take something like Ju Jitsu/ Judo and compare it to BJJ (for arguements sake, those are the styles I know most about). Old school Ju Jitsu rivalries in Japan led to many fights, and there were various ways to "win" a challenge match. One of these ways was by perfect throw (ippon) landing your opponent on his back. Judo adopted this rule and method of attaining victory. BJJ'ers thought it kinda odd that the fight stops in Judo the moment you get a perfect throw, since they know that someone is simply not going to stop fighting just because you were the one that happened to execute the takedown- as such they changed the rules and kept fighting on the ground. There were many challenge matches between BJJers and Judoka, and they often transitioned the same way- Judo guy throws BJJer, BJJer chokes out Judo guy on the ground- perhaps BJJ would be a better fighting method for modern day fighting Why did the old rules of ju jitsu dictate that a perfect throw wins a match? Well lets remember that the samurai wore armor and fought with knives, daggers, swords, and spears. Should you lose your primary weapon in an altercation with an opponent, you would quickly engaged in hand to hand fighting with your enemy. If you were able to throw your opponent to the ground, while maintaining yourself on the feet, this was ample time to draw your secondary weapon and proceed to kill your fallen enemy. Ground grappling would also not lend itself to well due to the fact of the amount of armor either party was wearing- --To go off on a tangent- armor also helps explain differences in fighting- one often sees a particular strike or serious of strikes in a martial art and wonders "why would you ever want to do that" or "how could that possibly be effective?" Many seemingly odd strikes and stances were adopted to attack at the chinks in an opponents armor. A right cross to the face seems much more plausible than say, a spear hand to the armpit, but when your opponent has an armored helmet protecting his face and no armor covering the underside of his arm, the second option becomes much more practical. The flaw of many of these styles was that they clinged to ancient ideas for no other reason than the fact they were ancient, and thats why time passed many martial arts by. If you're fighting in feudal Japan shielded with armor, knowing how to throw someone to the ground is going to be more beneficial to you than knowing how to finish someone on the ground, and utilizing a spinning jump kick is going to be more beneficial than western wrestling if you're a korean peasant trying to unhorse an invading horde of mounted samurai. When someone says a wrestler is going to soundly beat a boxer, they're in no way suggesting that the wrestler is better in all aspects of a fight or that hes a better puncher than a boxer- it simply means hes more likely to impose his will on his opponent and make him fight his game, and thats the definition of what it means to be a good fighter. This is true- a more correct way of putting it would be that the more efficient your style has proven to be in what it does and the more you actively train in it, the greater your chances of being successfull in an altercation. As I have shown, they were all developed and designed for different purposes and in the particular scenarios that were shown, each martial art was the best for what it was designed to do- learning how to throw someone is the best for an armored samurai who loses a mount and primary weapon, learning how to jump and kick is the best for a korean peasant fending off mounted samurai, learning how to wield a knife and stick effectively is great for a poor phillipino resisting occupation, and learning how to box/wrestle is the best for someone who wants to be able to fight in a modern day situation.

Are they doing point sparring? It looks like hes making contact with his strikes, but they constantly restart them in the middle of the fight.

Seminars are far and few inbetween. Fighting is a physical skill, just like any other physical activity. As such, you can not expect to teach someone intricate details of a fight if they're only doing one seminar a month. Thats being generous too- most officers that have any kind of supplemental training maybe do it once every 3 months. Lets assume best case scenario and they're doing it once a month, or once every two weeks- its still not often enough. As a result, they are taught simple techniques that often work because their attacker is also untrained as well. Military is an example of not having a qualified instructor. Most institutions of this sort hire some sort of physical combat expert (I hesitate to call them martial artist, and often times their credentials can be questionable). Someone in the platoon does a couple of classes and hes charged with teaching the rest of the platoon the same skills (and he'll often have only 8-12 weeks to do it). As such, they dont go into much detail- its short and sweet to avoid complication.

Sure there is-specific martial arts tend to have a much higher degree of success than others. To name one, Muay Thai is a style that holds quite a successfull record against virtually all striking martial arts and is, along with western boxing, regarded by many as the most effective striking style. Before this hits a nerve with certain people, allow to me to explain that the popular opinion of muay thai occured as a result of its great success, and not the other way around (in other words, those who judged it werent bias). This is a flawed logic. The differences between styles are often easily seen. Wrestling, for example, holds almost nothing in common with say, Tae Kwon Do. If you take someone who's trained in any particular standup style for, lets say 15 years, and we pit them in a fight against a submission grappler with, lets say 5 years, we have a good idea who is going to win the fight. This was one of the selling methods used by the Gracies when they used to allow challenge matches- someone would come in to their school (or the other way around) and the Gracies would often pair one of their beginning students (blue belts) against the advanced students of the other style and still win decisively. You're liberal in the way you approach your opinions, but let me put it into perspective. Imagine two people applying for a job as a business associate (or whatever else). One is from a classic Ivy League business school (lets say Yale or Harvard). The other went to a community college. By simply looking at the credentials you can not ultimately decide which one is going to do a better job, but you know that one particular school has a reputation for producing quality businessmen while the other has none. When all is said and done, however, you could still argue that the same classes are being taught at the community college as are at the University, but in reality the outcome is quite lopsided.

I am curious then as to who you think are the professionals. The people who do it professionally, of course. The kinds of people you see who are teaching close combatives in army boot camps, or teaching the new cadets techniques at the police academy are often nothing more than people who've themselves had a crash course in the very techniques they're showing. These are the kinds of people that various different credible martial artists get paid to teach.

Thanks for posting that so I didnt have to. Think about it for a minute- here are two people who cant be anymore striking oriented, and their natrual instinct is still to grab their opponent.

One on one altercations are more frequent than multiple opponent altercations. Regardless if you're trying to grapple or strike your opponent, multiple opponents represents the same risk to both parties- as you concentrate on trying to hit one attacker, the other attackers grab, hold, or hit you. Striking will not help you any more than grappling will. As far as taking anyone down on hard concrete, it doesnt hurt both parties- more often it hurts the one being taken down. I've done it multiple times and have come away unscathed. At the absolute worst, I've skinned my knees and elbows a little, but thats far better than dealing with a broken jaw or broken nose. Also take into account that the fight very often goes to the ground, regardless of whether you want it to or not. Whether by accident or design, fights will find themselves there Yes, people do disarm people, but at a far lesser degree than the knife defenses would have you belive. If you get a chance, look at anyone who carries a knife and takes interest in it- odds are they certainly take pride in keeping it sharp. Then theres the people that teach knife defense and you'll always hear them say "expect to get cut" as if getting sliced by a knife is a minor threat. Knives slice through flesh easily and open up arteries like butter. First off, police officers and soldiers are hardly the type of people to take unarmed combat advice from- they're not very good at it and know little much more than the average joe. Most of the people that instruct both military soldiers and police officers also have very little experience in what they're doing- they're amatuers, far from the technical expertise of professionals. Secondly, I never said that small joint manipulation doesnt work, but rather that it cant be relied on in a fight. The precursors of a fight generally include posturing, grabbing, or some combination of the two. This is when small joint manipulations work best- when your opponent doesnt have a surge of adrenaline going through his body. The moment that the fight starts and both parties are actively involved, the effectiveness of small joint manipulation is drastically decreased. People are not going to notice minor things such as a broken finger or broken wrist- breaking such bones often occurs while throwing punches, nevermind attempting finger/joint locks, and most people have no idea that its happened. Only after the fight is over and the adrenaline starts to wear off do you hear people speak of how their hand or wrist hurts them, only to find out that they've torn some cartilage or fractured the bone.

People didnt bother with the ground because they believed their strikes were so deadly that no one could get ahold of them. Samurai didnt go to the ground in the middle of a battlefield because they wore extensive armor. This doesnt mean they didnt train in grappling- one of the decisive ways to win in ju jitsu matches (which was adopted by Judo) was a clean throw that put your opponent on his back- this meant defeat because it was assumed that you were at this time able to draw your auxillary weapon and finish your opponent who was on the ground. Times have changed since then..... Only to those who are unfamiliar with it.... Such things are myths in attempts to discourage ground fighting- the world is not littered with broken bottles, syringes, and the like. Do you have any idea how many bottles need to be broken to litter a city block? Beyond that, if such scenarios did exist, they are of no consequence to the ground fighter. Im the one on top and Im the one thats throwing my opponent to his back on the concrete- its actually better for the striker/ untrained fighter to fight on mats than concrete, because hes the one thats going to get thrown on it. Almost all went down to the ground regardless of their intentions. If you dont train in grappling, you cant be expected to be anything other than a complete novice in it. The way to keep from being taken to the ground is to learn how to grapple. Lack of grappling experience= easy takedown. It wasnt that they were stupid- they just had no choice. UFC may not mimic a real fight, simply because rarely in a real fight will you have two professional athletes well trained in proven martial arts. As far as using it as a comparison of styles- theres really no better way to objectively compare one style against another. ....if you dont know how to fight there If you're not trained in groundfighting, the ground should be the first thing on your mind- if you go there you're severely handicapped. Self defense does not equal fighting. Most fights do not start ala UFC "Are you ready? Lets go" and the two fighters come out of their corners. As a result, most self defense is dealing with precursors to a fight, such as escaping or countering common grabs and holds. Somewhat applicable, Im not a fan of alot of self defense, even in BJJ 1: knife defenses are ridiculous- you're going to get sliced up pretty bad 2: fancy looking wristlocks are great for impressing novices and getting them to sign up, but are rarely to sometimes applicable in real life I try to divide self defense into 3 important aspects: 1: escaping headlocks 2: closing the distance properly 3: defending punches from the bottom Thats not to say thats only what I address, however.

Its actually quite easy to close the distance with people who are kickers, much moreso than you would think. That was one of the problems of martial arts prior to UFC- everyone thought that their strikes were so deadly that you couldnt close the distance without getting severely injured. This is a classic vid- Royce Gracie vs Jason Delucia in their first matchup http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjK0g-cDJI4&mode=related&search= Another against a karate school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-SltgKQHDU Its much more challenging to close the distance with someone who's a good puncher rather than a good kicker. Even then, its not difficult if you have a little bit of grappling experience (and assuming your opponent has none)

Thats where EVERY martial art breaks down- the only difference is that BJJ acknowledges it...

Agreed, but knowing how to fight on the ground also means you know how to get up from the ground in a safe manner. Also take into account that most people get tunnel vision when in a fight. As a result, you only notice that more people are entering the fight once they've already hit you.

Regardless of what you choose, what Im implying is that already having experience in a standup style, he would benefit more by crosstraining in a style that focuses on grappling rather than striking. As to which striking styles he should do, Im not fond of many, so I'll leave that discussion to be.

Even if you are comfortable fighting on the ground, how long do you want to be there if your opponent has some friends showing up to help him out? I would average my fights out to about 10 seconds between the time it takes me to take my opponents down and choke them unconcious. Pretty quick and effective and take into account the people I've fought had no jiu jitsu experience (or else their instructor should be fired....). So, to turn the question around, how long do you want to be duking it out with someone before his friends show up and sucker you from the side, grab you, or tackle you to the ground? Multiple opponents poses the same threat to someone whether they be on the feet or on the ground. When more than 1 person is fighting another, its not called a fight- its a beatdown. I have had to fight multiple people before, and my jiu jitsu training proved to be more usefull than any type of striking training could have.

San Shou doesnt grade all takedowns the same, and many could be considered slips. The difference between takedowns in San Shou and MMA is that getting taken down in the first doesnt have the same consequences as the other. In San Shou, you know you're going to return to your feet. In MMA, if you mess up you're not only going to get taken down, you're going to get pounded and hurt bad- especially considering that most of these guys arent proficient ground fighters- if they make a simple mistake like that it could cost them the entire fight, not just a takedown. Its kinda like comparing K-1 to MMA and arguing how effective head kicks are. You see alot more headkicks in K-1 because the consequence of slipping or messing up in K-1 is hardly as bad as it is in MMA. This is one reason why a good many of kickboxers that go from K-1 to MMA do not do well, or more correctly, have the same amount of success- as much as its the same its still very different. Sidekicks dont increase the odds of you getting taken down, it decreases your ability to defend a takedown plain and simple. If you dont mind getting taken down you can throw them as much as you'd like. Otherwise, thats the trade off for the technique.