ninjer

North American Grappling Association.

Well, most of the time he did this was when his opponents were holding him closely and doing nothing (aside from stalling). Rib shots were his way of making his opponent react so he could take advantage of it.

In brazil they still have vale tudo events (anything goes) where the only rules were old school UFC rules (eye gouging and biting). Eye gouging and biting have been used in MMA events and were never successfull at winning the fight. Throat strikes are allowed in Pride, but they've yet to yield any usefull results. By tucking the chin to defend a punch, you're effectively protecting your throat. Breaking a neck= a submission move which means its legal in MMA tournaments. Breaking "anything" as you put it is also legal in MMA. Slapping ears is also legal (this is a preferred technique of Royce Gracie actually) All chokes are designed to kill- thats what happens when you apply them. The only difference is we stop the fight when someone passes out (since theres no argument that the fighter applying the choke could continue the move and kill his opponent). Theres also not much to "tear" or "rip" on the human body. There are no rules against "tearing" or "ripping" in MMA. So now, aside from the ruleset lets talk about what else is "real" about real fights vs MMA fights. "Real" fights dont have opponents who are equally trained professional fighters. No one goes out of their way to find two guys who are tearing it up and pit them against each other. In short, the baddest guy you're going to fight (assuming you're not unlucky enough to engage a professional fighter) is going to be a brawler who only fights with heart and no skill. Such people represent minimal danger to a trained fighter and will either get KO'ed within a minute or choked unconcious. One of my personal favorite examples of such a fight occurring is on Felony Fights. FF is a streetfights DvD/organization that puts together unlicensed bareknuckle fights with no rules. One showed a professional MMA fighter in Shad Smith vs a "brawler." http://www.sherdog.com/fightfinder/fightfinder.asp?FighterID=368 In short, Shad literally slapped his opponent around on the feet (knowing hed risk breaking his hand if he threw punches). When he tired of that, he took him to the ground and dropped a few elbows from the mounted position while his opponents head bounced off the concrete. I dont believe his opponent ever managed to hit him so much as once during the entire fight, even with "no rules." They wouldnt be that different, aside from people dying and all. It would present one hell of a problem to the promoters though as they tried to fill up their fight cards, only to find that those who were the big market names were dead because they lost their last fight. Aside from that, lets be honost here-everyone talks about how they're training for "real" fights and anything goes, but how many "real" fights are to the death?

Grapplers dont always shoot for a takedown and not everyone fights the same. Most people do not fight with a boxing stance- most people have no stance whatsoever because they have no idea what they're doing. Ring fighting is real fighting- theres no two ways about it. What you're referring to is "street fighting" and I've seen plenty of that. To be quite honost, its atrocious and hurts my eyes to watch people fight when they are so bad at it.

As was said, a sideways stance is what allows you to throw a sidekick, but a sideways stance doesnt allow you to sprawl, so it would leave you defenseless vs takedowns. A second reason is that side kicks (when there is any power in them) are often telegraphed and easily avoided or blocked. Alot of people tried sidekicks with very minimal success in early UFCs. Personally, I think something like the roundhouse is just such a better option.

Cross training with complimenting styles is great (i.e. JKD primarily teaches striking, so a grappling style will compliment well). I would say the minimum training per week for any style is twice a week for minimal results, so gauge that on how often you attend classes at these schools. As far as judo being mostly a sport and wondering if it has realistic self defense techniques, realise that the majority of the most effective martial arts are regarded as "sports."

Strictly speaking, yes anyone is allowed to enter a NAGA tournament. All you have to do is show up, sign in, pay the fee, choose your division, and off you go. Divisions are divided into gi and no gi, which are further divided into weight classes, age, and belt (or experience for no gi). If you've never competed in a jiu jitsu/submission wrestling tournament and you're looking for advice, then I strongly suggest against fighting in NAGA. Its a very poorly run tournament with bad referees and dangerous rulesets. Grapplers Quest runs a better, safer tournament and often gets better competitors as well.

Of course you can, but you have to remember that your opponent has his own agenda as well (and should be close to your skill level). To switch stances and follow up with a kick is going to take awhile (awhile= 2 or 3 seconds). Thats enough telegraphing that your opponent could see and counter with something quicker (say a teep). Assuming you were able to pull off such a move quickly, because of how greatly you'd be telegraphing (by switching your stances) you probably couldnt use it that often (i.e. it would be in your bag of tricks late in a match)

Side kicks are also often used when you're standing in a sideways stance (often seen in karate or TKD tournaments and such). Such a stance is not good for muay thai when leg kicks are allowed (since standing sideways wont allow you to check incoming leg kicks). Thats probably why you're not seeing any side kicks coming from many thai fighters.

Of course it is, but such altercations usually occur so quickly that you dont have time to think. If you're not thinking, you're not going to panic. When you have time (especially alot of it i.e. a pro fight 2 months away) you have all that time to ponder the results and the ifs. I've been in a few altercations where I'vewas fighting with everything I had- I didnt know my opponents intentions. Each and every one of these "real" altercations takes a far backseat in comparison to any of my professional matches. Im not going to argue knives, guns, or other weapons. Im only arguing from an unarmed perspective.

Sure they are- when someone taps out to a submission or to being pounded (or when the ref steps in) that would be the "end" of a confrontation. The moment you snap your opponents arm, or choke him unconcious, you have the option of killing him should you want to (since you've already won the altercation). The big difference between the MMA fighters and the military trainees are that the MMA fighters will test their skills under a stressfull environment (competition) while most of the military guys will not have. And yes, tournament competition and professional fights are more stressfull than real life encounters, simply because the anticipation of a fight is worse than the fight itself.

Any military special forces is not going to be able to teach their soldiers to be the same quality of those seem in professional mixed martial arts tournaments for a very simple reason: Hand to hand combat is not of great importance in modern warfare. With all the long ranges weaponry possessed by even the poorest of governments, hand to hand combat is extremely rare and therefore learning more important things during training take priority over learning hand to hand combat.

Its easy to test the full force of something when there arent other factors involved in a fight (i.e. adrenaline, your opponent defending/hitting back). Any kind of attack you can measure would be enough to "kill" somebody. In theory, Mike Tyson's right hook carries the equivalent of a 15lb sledgehammer traveling at 25mph. That surely will kill someone (in theory) but of all his fights, anyone has yet to die. Taking directly from that discovery channel show, they measured a muay thai fighters knee and found it to have generated forces seen in 35+mph car crashes. That will also surely kill someone in theory, but it has yet to happen in reality. So, in short, there is a great difference between theory and reality, hence the great difference in effective vs less effective martial arts.

Well for one, when engaging in a striking battle, you're more able to juke, bob, and weave from your opponent when he attempts to hit you. By missing and overextending himself, you're able to effectively counter attack. Counter attacking in grappling, however, is nothing like striking on the feet. For one, if you're in a poor position (i.e. bottom mount) theres nothing for you to counter attack with. You're pinned and have few options. The best example of counter attacking in grappling is being able to string your moves together. In that sense, everyone that does submission wrestling is a counter attacker. (i.e. you attempt a triangle, your opponent defends and you switch to an omoplata). In the true sense of being a counter "grappler" you're more likely to see this when people are wrestling off the feet. Often times, slower or older wrestlers will change from a more aggressive style to a more passive style (for obvious reasons). Counter attacks in the standup grappling aspect are much easier since both grapplers technically have a neutral position. An example would be someone who leaves his lead leg a little too far forward, so as to bait you for attacking with a single leg. Once you attack with a single leg, he's already kicking his leg through to the ground and countering with a solid hip throw attack.

Most people would say that sucker punches are cheap as well. That doesnt stop 99% of people who have gotten into fights from throwing them. Someone who tells you that kicking in a fight is cheap simply doesnt know how to fight (or more importantly, how to kick).

Ok I see-you were just being the neutral guy in the conversation. To show you a few things that Dillman does, heres a link to a video where one of his students (multiple degree black belt or whatever) is checked out by Fox news in Chicago about his "death touch" This second one is even more atrocious in my opinion: Listen to Dillmans explanation at the end. If he truely believed that what he was teaching was legit, I think a more forwarded response as to why his no touch KO didnt work would be "I dont know." Instead, he creates this ridiculous explaination in a (poor) attempt to save face. Hopefully now you'll understand why I dislike him so much.

What was more interesting was that he was only able to make such knockout touches work against his own students and was unable to duplicate the effects on other people- even when they stood still and allowed him to do it. Without trying to start a war, I have to ask- do you seriously support George Dillman or regard him as being a legitimate instructor in any way shape or form?

One is forced to ask where the evidence is for these particular moves. All this talk about how deadly particular moves are, but theres no proof behind it besides the age old mysticism. Even if such moves did exist, they'd be completely useless. Everyone who claims to know these deadly pressure points always says the same thing "I cant use it- its too dangerous" in which case if you get into a bar fight, you're doomed to be pummelled- but you can always say from your hospital bed "I could have killed him, but I was the bigger man" The fact that George Dillman is one of the leading "authorities" on pressure points doesnt help much either. His teachings have been well debunked several times. I dont understand how he still has students.

You could clinch up with them or take them to the ground. Grappling gives you the luxury of controlling your opponent without pounding on him. If you do find yourself getting into a fight, simply make sure you try your best to make quick work of the guy (i.e. knock him down) and get out of there before any cops or witnesses can finger you. It would also be wise to be sure that your friends dont try to explain to the others how "bad" you are. Dont let anyone know what it is that you know, do your thing, and then get out of there.

Luta Livre, in short, was the first form of mixed martial arts. Luta livre fighters train both grappling and standup aspects of a fight (generally with muay thai and submission wrestling) with the exception that they do not train with the gi on (for grappling). Its a good style that has produced solid fighters, but BJJ gives a fighter much more expertise on the ground and in grappling in general

It depends alot on your opponents skill level, his size, and strength advantage. So long as the American Kickboxing you're taking is actual boxing (i.e. are they showing you jabs, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts along with appropriate combinations) then that will take you far in a fight. The basic bum has no idea how to throw a punch and they telegraph an awful lot. Depends on how much experience we're talking here. Lets assume that each fighter has a solid two years of experience. As said, we're assuming that the american kickboxing you're taking is good and actual kickboxing, and not just karate without wearing the gi (no pun intended). Such a person would be able to hold their own on the feet in a striking battle. Should you end up on the ground however, thats going to be your glaring weakness that your opponent will be able to exploit. Im not a fan in the least of TSD, and yes I've trained in it with some rather qualified instructors in philly (which is supposed to have a good collection of schools). Besides, you dont need two striking arts (or three for that matter). About the only thing JJJ shares in common with BJJ is the name and the similarities end there. JJJ will not teach you to be as proficient on the ground as BJJ will- its predominantly a striking style with very limited groundwork. Of the JJJ black belts I have trained against, their average grappling skill level is that of an experienced white belt in BJJ, simply because they never had the instruction to promote their groundwork correctly- they are mostly standup. Is there one available in your area? Have you checked?

Initially such fighters didnt train in the same styles- whatever is listed in their style field is often considered their base style. Chuck Liddell may have started with kempo, and St Pierre with TKD, but they both do a combination of boxing/muay thai since their starts in MMA I do think that Royce was/is a world class BJJ fighter. However, I am not sure that his stand-up skills are. Hughes is great as well, although Royce is 40, isn't he? I think Royce can still be competitive. However, he will need to round out his other skills (striking). .Royce isnt a world class BJJ fighter now, and he wasnt 15 years ago. Hes a solid black belt- that already says alot, but to compare him to anyone whos in the competition game today, he just doesnt stand a chance. Royce's (and the Gracies) biggest concern was practical jiu jitsu (i.e. the jiu jitsu you're going to use in a fight). In this respect, Royce has great jiu jitsu. Hes great at closing the distance, protecting himself from strikes from the bottom, and manuevering himself to finish his opponent while sustaining minimal damage. All of this, of course, becomes a much different game once your opponent is also knowledgable of jiu jitsu, hence the reason why Royce doesnt do so well against todays fighters. As far as being well rounded, he needs some serious work on his takedowns and his striking skills.

Well, in short, mixed martial arts is the best thing thats going to teach you how to fight. Its not the perfect style because MMA is not a style.

I wouldnt exactly say so- just because you do a variety of martial arts wouldnt exactly qualify you as being a mixed martial arts trainer. Mixed martial arts is synonomous with events such as the UFC, Pride, King of the Cage, etc. To claim to teach mixed martial arts is to claim to teach people how to fight in those venues, working things like your striking skills (combinations and such) takedowns, and ground game. Its difficult to give you a straight out answer- it depends on your facility, what you teach, how you teach it, etc. Your apparent lack of ground skills would put you at a disadvantage in terms of being compared to a MMA gym, but theres no prerequsite for how good you have to be to teach MMA. My definition of a mixed martial arts teacher- teaching a full range of combat (standup striking, clinchwork, takedowns, and ground grappling) with practical and applicable techniques (i.e. no one strike one kill stuff, and no "too deadly" stuff) that can be practiced on a resisting opponent with success.

You'll get no argument from me about that topic. MMA has evolved to the point where its much more about the individuals skills than it is his style background, because all of the individuals train in the same styles, now that they know what the most effective ones are. Royce lost to Matt because Matt simply has better jiu jitsu, and is much more an athlete. I think that speaks volumes more for jiu jitsu than if Royce would have been able to submit Hughes. What Royce did 15 years ago still stands, and nothing will change that. What the majority of people found out the night Royce fought Hughes was that Royce's jiu jitsu was never really that great- that means that you dont have to be a world class jiu jitsu fighter like Ricardo Arona or BJ Penn in order for jiu jitsu to work for you in a fight against someone with a sizable weight advantage over you.