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Old October 5, 2000, 12:58 AM   #12
Skorzeny
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 29, 1999
Posts: 1,938
tprT:

First of all, I don't believe that I ever wrote (typed) "hey stupid..I'm right and you're wrong." You are putting words into my mouth there. Aside from me pointing out your inexperience in grappling (which you admit), please try to point out where I was being impolite.

You seem to imply that I am somehow discouraging exchange of ideas. On the contrary, I am disagreeing with you based on your description of what "grappling" martial arts are like. You yourself pointed out that you don't have much experience in grappling arts. That seemed obvious to me when you purported to describe what use grappling has or does not have in actual "street" situations.

So, apparently, if I point out flaws of logic (of sorts) in your post, because your lack of experience in a certain area shows, suddenly I am discouraging exchange of ideas? It seems to me that you are the one who can't stand his ideas from being tested/challenged in an analytical fashion.

I think you ought to take things a little less personally if you want to be constructive. Just a suggestion...

As for some of the substantive issues, I will try to answer them, point-by-point (it's late, so bear with me):

1. Martial arts (or fighting system) and cars are not particularly good analogies or comparisons, but I'll go along with that line of thinking. In order for you to know whether or not a Beetle (or any Volkwagen) is good for a state trooper's duties, you would have to know quite a bit about a Beetle (first of all, what it is in the first place, how it drives, how big/sturdy it is, etc. etc.). This would be your "experience" with the Beetle, to enable you to judge whether or not it would work.

Likewise, before you can criticze the usefulness of a grappling art for self-defense, you would have to have the "experience" with one. To do otherwise would be equivalent to seeing a Car X on a magazine or TV and then closed-mindedly saying "oh, that won't work as a trooper's car, because I don't like the looks of it."

Also, when you say "get it?" I believe you are being condescending. I don't think that we need to go there? Don't you agree?

2. I called eye-gouges and such "dirty" techniques, because they are commonly known as such (hence the quotation marks). I am not implying that it is dirty to use them. Quite the contrary to what you may assume, I don't consider anything that saves one's life in a violent encounter "dirty." If you digested my previous post in its entirety, I think that is quite clear.

3. Actually, I have had quite a few violent encounters on the ground over the years. I survived quite a few of them on my own (others required outside intervention). I learned much from them. One of the thing I learned from them (and from experiences of others) is that if you are in an inferior position on the ground, it is MUCH MUCH easier for the person in the better position to use those "dirty" techniques with relative impunity. The foremost priority when on the ground should be to attain the superior position, which implies a position that gives you the control over the other (this may or may not involve joint-breaking techniques).
At that point, you can disengage and escape (which should be THE priority of the whole business - particularly for civilians) OR you can choose to remain to disable the attacker (something I do NOT recommend given unknown circumstances).

BTW, you ought to lessen your obsession with "submission holds" as being some sort of a priority in grappling arts. If you train in BJJ, for example, instructors will repeatedly tell you "position, postion, position." Beginners get fascinated with "holds," but anyone with any modicum of training soon realizes that position is what counts whether for sports or real-life.

4. Again, the fact that you do not understand the mechanism for dynamic training and submission holds shows that you have very, very little training in grappling. Let me explain this way:

Some Aikido style stand-up joint locks can ONLY be practiced statically (pre-arranged, slowy). Why? Because if you do it fast, you WILL immediately break the joint (not good for your training partner). If you practice it slowly however, you will never learn how a violent attacker may react to your technique. So, this is not very realistic training. If you do this slowy, by the way, even a five year old child will be able to escape, because only the target joint is controlled (wrist, elbow, etc.).

On the other hand, in grappling, joint-locks and other "finishing holds" require control of the opponent's body. For example, if I apply an arm-bar from the guard, one of my leg/knee is controlling my opponent's neck, while the other one is controlling his chest/stomach area. Even if I do not apply the armbar to break his arm, he cannot get away from the position. I can apply the armbar at leisure slowly if I choose, so as to allow him to "give up" (or "tap") before I break his elbow. No tap, broken elbow. That's what I mean by little difference between "submission" and actually breaking the arm. Yet, because it gives me a degree of control, I can allow my opponent to come at me at full-speed to "spar" with me, so that I can practice dealing with fully resistant opponent.

Whereas something you learned statically won't be effective at full-speed, something learned dynamically will be.

5. Actually, unlike striking arts, the beautiful thing about grappling arts is that the skill level, rather than weight, is the primary determinant of the outcome of the "fight." Every martial system claims that its practitioners can defeat opponents of bigger size/strength, but only a handful have proven those claims extensively. Grappling arts are among those handful. Why? Let's analyse this for a moment.

In boxing, no matter how skilled a 100lbs. woman can be, she will not beat a slower, less-skilled 250lbs. man. Why not? Because, she has to generate her own force (punches and kicks) to defeat him. No matter how efficient she is, he will never be able to close the gap. In grappling, however, leverage is used in most techniques.

My wife is (and I ask for my wife's forgiveness here for revealing this) 110lbs. and 5'4" (with about two years of training). She fought a 225lbs. bodybuilder with some martial arts training (Tae Kwon Do and little of this and that) with practically no rules, because he claimed that grappling was worthless to her face (this is after I submitted him in about one minute, but he was still unconvinced). He did tackle her down intially, but my wife reversed the position with the very technique (which is really basic in most grappling arts), mounted him, controlled his "bucking" around, and elbowed his face until he turtled, at which point she sank in the hooks (legs around the waist - control position) and choked him to complete uncounsciousness (takes about 2-3 seconds if you compress the carotid). I had to tear her off him. Physically, my wife is quite an ordinary person, but I made sure that her training was top-rate and it worked beautifully.

Don't get me wrong, weight and strength matter a great deal PARTICULARLY if other factors are equal or similar. Otherwise, appropriate skills are pre-dominant.

Another thing that she did really well (and made me extremely proud) was that she remained calm when she was tackled down. Why? Because she has been taken down and mounted numerous times during sparring. It didn't faze her or scare her PRECISELY BECAUSE she knew how to counter this and was certain of her ability to do so. This is another benefit of dynamic training (sparring).

6. You confuse someone's ability to bite down on his/her food reflexively as a five year-old with the ability to bite the appropriate area of an opponent's body WHILE protecting oneself from his attacks (which MAY include similar methods).

One of the foremost experts of "dirty" techniques is Paul Vunak who has trained numerous military, police and civilian personnel in Jeet Kune Do, Kali and Kina Mutai (Kina Mutai is a system devoted to biting, eye-gouging, etc. in the most effective fashion).

Vunak teaches you what and how to bite, gouge, scratch, grab WHILE protecting yourself from the same attacks as well as "conventional" punches, kicks and elbows. He has more experience in this (street fights AND "Dojo" time) than probably anybody else in the country. He emphasizes the importance of POSITION time and again (and again...). When someone has mounted you and punching your face away is NOT the right time to try to eye-gouge, bite, whatever. You will be too busy to cover your face. There are circumstances when such attacks are appropriate. There are other times when you need to learn how to reverse or shift positions. If you get a chance, learn from Vunak. He has earned high praises from FBI, the SEALs, Army Special Forces, DEA, etc. etc.

7. I am familiar with COL Cooper's maxims. I don't see how they are incompatible with learning useful and effective techniques, which will helped to cement those principles.

Lastly, regarding your response to pocat's post:

A. Most fights end up on the ground NOT because most people have wrestling experience as you put it. On the contrary, a vast majority of the populatin (even male population) have no formal wrestling training (I do not consider imitating WWF "wrestling" training).

The reason fights end up on the ground is BECAUSE fights progress to the "clinch" while standing at some point. The reason you get to the "clinch" is because of natural proclivity of human being to seek safety. When in a fight (exchanging blows), people do one of two things (in general) - they either back away (in which case it turns to flight) or they try to clinch so that they longer get punched/kicked etc. What do boxers do (even though they have absolutely no training in the "trapping" or "grappling" range) when they start getting hit? They either back away or clinch.

B. In your scenario, you do not "hold" the armbar. You break the elbow right away and try to disengage. Where do you get the notion of "holding" anything? In any case, fighting (on the ground) against multiple attackers whether you use armbars or biting is bad business. Chances are, one way or another, you may get a soccer kick in the head from the other attacker. This requires another big post, so I'll refrain from this for now...

But, let me just say that without a suitable WEAPON (an equalizer) and DISTANCE to deploy the weapon, it will be difficult to fight two or more people whatever technique (eye-gouging, armbar, whatever) or style of fighting you use. This is also from too many personal experiences...

BTW, I apologize to everyone for my long, long post.

Skorzeny

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For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence. Sun Tzu

[This message has been edited by Skorzeny (edited October 05, 2000).]
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