MMA is Not Self Defense!

[jwf89]

the dog brothers would take grapplers in mma but i doubt theyd be able to last against cung le or a.silva . cung would destroy them with a side kick or throw them on there heads and silva's punches would hurt them but his knee's would be identical to a baseball bat. i also think rampage would be pretty good in a street fight with brawler style boxing with high impact slams which would work very effectivley in a fight.


p.s.
when i say fight i mean self-defense

[Marksmarkou]

I think training for self defence or training for MMA (or any type of competition) is dependent on the individuals thinking. If you think that on the street your going to have time to get into a stance, stalk your opponent with jabs, shoot, take him down and submit him while fighting one on one, on a nice padded grass, without him having weapons then you may setting yourself up for a shock. But strikes used in competition, (elbows knees, punches, low kicks and stand up clinch/grappling) can all be applied for self defence. Its up to you to think about what your training for and what you may encounter on the street or in the ring/cage and modify your techniques appropriatly.

[TTEscrima]

I have to agree MMA does not teach self defense. It's fairly simple, no sport or TMA teaches self defense, nor do combatives, they give you suggestions and approximations of fighting, nothing more. To claim any sport or art teaches you how to fight is like saying masturbation teaches you how to make love.

[Bjjexpertise@be]

Originally Posted by TTEscrima

I have to agree MMA does not teach self defense. It's fairly simple, no sport or TMA teaches self defense, nor do combatives, they give you suggestions and approximations of fighting, nothing more. To claim any sport or art teaches you how to fight is like saying masturbation teaches you how to make love.

Well I wouldn't go that far. Masturbation has taught me many things about the ways of love and made me the pickup artist I am today .

[Michael Wright]

Originally Posted by TTEscrima

To claim any sport or art teaches you how to fight is like saying masturbation teaches you how to make love.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed your analogy, I disagree.

I have worked, and continue to work, on both sides of the fence - that being the Security/Police/Military an also Combat Athletics. In my opinion and personal experience there are far more fighters, and I'm talking about people I would want stood behind me if my family was in trouble, in Combat Athletics than there are in the "street" game.

Only a very small group in the "reality" people are very good, the rest are talkers who hide behind stories of beating up drunks. In the Boxing gyms, Thai Boxing Gyms, and MMA schools I have been to I have found ten times as many people who would, and have, given me real trouble.

All of the common excuses, used time and time again, about rules, gloves, rounds and sports are typically used by people who call themselves fighters but would never have the balls to step in the ring. They prefer to stand at the side and talk about how its not "real".

After 15 years of martial arts, my functional ability has grown more in the last two years of training in amateur boxing. If you think its just masturbation, then maybe you haven't really made love yet

[TTEscrima]

Originally Posted by Bjjexpertise@be

Well I wouldn't go that far. Masturbation has taught me many things about the ways of love and made me the pickup artist I am today .

So your masturbation technique makes you popular? Don't ask, don't tell is working out for you then I guess, I don't think the ladies are going to be nearly as impressed though. All joking aside, it takes quite a bit of adaptation to learn to fit the concepts to the real thing and nothing but experience at the real thing will ever make you good at it.

[Mike Brewer]

Although I know some folks take it very personally, I believe that anyone who wants to have an accurate opinion of what combative sports are good for ought to actually do them for a year or so.

They aren't the answer all by themselves (sports), but they are awesome, practical, useful supplements.

[TTEscrima]

Originally Posted by Michael Wright

After 15 years of martial arts, my functional ability has grown more in the last two years of training in amateur boxing. If you think its just masturbation, then maybe you haven't really made love yet

Man I bet you guys have some unhappy wives and girlfriends, or perhaps you're still in training for the "big event" because otherwise you would know that love making is quite different when the other person has their own gameplan and no two women are the same, yet the rules of the sport you practice are set in stone. You need to really do it with multiple people before it all comes together (wink wink). Not to mention boxing is one on one which doesn't prepare you for 2 on one situations at all.

[Michael Wright]

Cute, but if its all the same I'll trust my own experiences. I know all about multiple opponents, I just don't like hearing my own streetfighting stories.

And as for what his/their game plan is, I couldn't care a less. Thats the difference between the way a martial artist approaches a fight and the way a fighter approaches a fight. Its not about what they've got, what they can do, what they are, or who they know. Its about what you have got. Its about confidence, intent and the will to act.

If you don't believe that the person in front of you is about to be in serious trouble, then you aren't ready, and you need to get out of there. That assurance doesn't come from dancing around in pretend scenarios with motorbike helmets, sticks and knives, because I did that for over a decade. For me it comes from stepping in the ring or on the mat and going to war with someone who wants to tear your head off.

You can call it sport and thats fine, its more real than any dickhead I knocked out on the door of a bar. I'll take my own experiences for what they are.

[TTEscrima]

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

Although I know some folks take it very personally, I believe that anyone who wants to have an accurate opinion of what combative sports are good for ought to actually do them for a year or so.

They aren't the answer all by themselves (sports), but they are awesome, practical, useful supplements.

No doubt mutual masturbation (combat sports) better prepare you for the real thing than solo masturbation (Kata) but it's all still a poor substitute for the real thing.

[TTEscrima]

Originally Posted by Michael Wright

For me it comes from stepping in the ring or on the mat and going to war with someone who wants to tear your head off.

You can call it sport and thats fine, its more real than any dickhead I knocked out on the door of a bar. I'll take my own experiences for what they are.

I never said I didn't practice combat sports, I just said none of them are the same as the real thing. I've been hit in the ring and I've been seen combat and I assure you there is a world of difference in someone actually trying to kill you and your opponent in the ring "trying to tear your head off". Sorry I missed out on bouncing I was too busy as a Master-at-Arms in the Navy for the last 20 years.

I notice some very defensive attitudes about this subject whenever and wherever its broached people protest way too much whether they're MMA or TMA people.

[Michael Wright]

This is a forum of debate, "defensive attitudes" are just people expressing their point of view. Your posts could be classed as equally defensive as anyone elses, you are simply stating your side of the argument.

I'm not trying to get into a pissing contest about who's got the most experience. Your original statement, and I quote, was: "To claim any sport or art teaches you how to fight is like saying masturbation teaches you how to make love."

I refute that, in the fact that Combat Sports can teach you how to fight very well, in a range of arenas both in and outside of the ring. Would it prepare you for active service in the Military? I never said that it would, that is a whole different world, and one that has it's own specialist training.

But that is not the sole definition of "the real thing", thats just seems to be your definition of the real thing. And although I have faced death too, it is unlikely that the average civillian will, and therefore combat sports can be a very valid part of the preparation for what becomes their "real thing". I know it has for me.

[TTEscrima]

If it doesn't simulate or prepare you for combat then perhaps calling it a combat sport is misleading. The Gladiators of Rome practiced combat sports, people who practice arts with rules and who quit to avoid injury are not learning about combat, they're learning sports entertainment. People who go to Dojos are usually learning cultural dances, neither prepares you for something like this because trying to use a technique from either will land you in the morgue.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ibGyGG3X4PI

[Mike Brewer]

TT,
No offense, but almost everyone I've ever met that's been a street-oriented martial artist has benefitted by their own admission from combative sports training - boxing, wrestling, Judo, MMA. Whether it just makes them fitter and more athletic or whether it provides them a competitive forum for testing their basics in a controlled way, it can really be of great benefit. I have almost never heard anyone ever say "boxing and wrestling have really hurt my ability to defend myself." The ones that do (and I can only think of one I've ever talked to that said it did) usually have some kind of agenda.

I think the key is "supplement." Advocating sports training alone to prepare you for theeventualities of real fighting is not a great idea. It's as piss poor an idea, in fact, as it would be to advocate purely realistic training to a professional boxer. Either one alone will not prepare you for the other. The key, in my opinion, is a three-element idea:

1st:
Lots and lots of people participate in sports. Many, many folks are familiar with the basics of boxing and wrestling, and that's becomeing more predominant in the 20-something, easily provoked, can't-hold-their-liquor crowd that you're most likely to have problems with in your average every day life. I've never, ever had a fight or a scuffle with a trained Kung Fu master. I have, however, had a whole shitload of them with amped up UFC fans who've had too much to drink. Training in their sports gives you an insight into the most common tactics you're likely to face, and it does it far better than listening to bland assertions from someone who doesn't train in them tell you how "useless that stuff is." A smart, prepared warrior is willing to become intimately familiar with the enemies strategies and tactics. I hate to be the one to tell you, but MMA, boxing, wrestling, Judo, and kickboxing are some of the most common "toolboxes" out there. That means if you do run into someone who has some training, it's very likely going to be one of those disciplines. Good to know firsthand what to expect.

2nd:
All sparring - every bit of it - is a form of sport. You can do whatever sort of sparring you like, but if you're training against another person and you're not trying to actually kill each other, you're "playing." That's just the way it is. Sparring in some form is an essential part of developing fighting ability. That's also the way it is, like it or not. You will never, ever be as effective at fighting by training without resistance as you can be training against resistance. Hardly anyone in their right mind is willing to say that sparring has no place in martial arts, and yet many people are willing to utterly discount the highest level of one-on-one sparring methods out there - combat sports. The bottom line is, they do help sharpen the basic tools used in each respective sport, and they do it at a higher level of competitiveness than anything you'll ever find in your own gym. If used as a part of a larger, more comprehensive overall training method, combat sports can and will take you farther than training without them.

3rd:
It's a little bit dishonest to call other people "defensive" if you're going to call everything they're doing "mutual masturbation." If you're willing to sweep aside someone else's training methods with a vulgar generalization like that, you might expect a little give to go along with the take. All that aside, there's an important aspect to this that keeps getting overlooked: The people you're talking to (Michael Wright and myself, anyway) do both sport training and real-world combative training, and our focus is on the real world. Michael is currently focusing on boxing, so perhaps I'm only speaking for myself here, but when you say things like:

Not to mention boxing is one on one which doesn't prepare you for 2 on one situations at all.

My first response is..."Um, yeah. That's why I also train for multiple attackers. Multiple attacker training doesn't prepare you to deal with guns at all, either...so I also train with and against guns."

The point, at risk of beating the proverbially deceased equus, is that sport martial art training is one piece of a larger whole.

In light of the point of view that all this sportive, mutually agreed "play" is just so much jerking off, what would you recommend instead? How do you forego all the training and sparring and constantly train "the real thing" in a gym setting?

[TTEscrima]

In all the defensiveness you've all missed the point, I tried to equate it to something a few of you might have had experience with, sex. Apparently even that was too complicated to grasp. It's about the person and not the art. To see the flaw in the MMA concept you need to look no further than Frank Shamrock's loss to Cung Le, Cung Le used "flashy high kicks" and yet there are tons of MMA people and threads deriding them and claiming they don't work and yet when they were used on the Champion he was unable to adapt to something every MMA guy used to claim was a joke. It's obvious that defining what you can and will be attacked by causes you to build unrealistic expectations of what an actual opponent might try. If high kicks flustered him so badly imagine what a knife or two opponents would have done to his comfort zone. Finally I never said masturbation wouldn't help your love life I just said it built unrealistic expectations and whammo the insecurities jumped right out. Certainly any and all training can be helpful but like I originally said nothing except the real thing will ever truly prepare you for the event, until people can admit that they aren't being honest with themselves or their students.

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

TT,



My first response is..."Um, yeah. That's why I also train for multiple attackers. Multiple attacker training doesn't prepare you to deal with guns at all, either...so I also train with and against guns."

My first response is what the hell do multiple opponents or guns have to do with MMA? Not a damn thing except they're against the rules so you just agreed with me that MMA doesn't prepare you for them. And you can't deny they are a realistic expectation in a self defense situation. Thanks for backing me up Mike.