Mixed Martial Arts, One of the oldest forms of fighting.

[jubaji]

As an atheist...

I don't believe in atheists.

[Garland]

I don't believe in atheists.

har har har. No, seriously...I believe everything ends with the end of your subjective experience, after that complete and utter nihil.

I'm not one of those bullshit, tree-hugger, pretentious ass psuedo-athiests who believe "our energy goes on and we go on and we become like...blades of grass and shit."

No man...life ends when you stop breathing, your heart stops pumping blood, and you brain shuts all the way down never to come up again. At which point you become a slab of flesh, bone, and meat, and although the physical component of you is still around (as a mere paper weight) what made you a sentient and living thing is gone, and gone for good.

This is it, folks...and then...nada. Eternal nada.

[jubaji]

har har har. No, seriously...

No, seriously. I don't.

[Garland]

No, seriously. I don't.

And I seriously don't believe in an after-life and/or some higher power or working and planned/orchestrated order in the universe.

Shit is...then it isn't. Like my faith. It was there...now it isn't.

[jubaji]

And I seriously don't believe in .

Yeah, that's great...you're a real advanced thinker alright...move along, its boring...

[Garland]

Yeah, that's great...you're a real advanced thinker alright...move along, its boring...

Listen man...I'm not patronizing you for believing in shit, don't patronize me for not believing in shit. We're just on different ends of the belief spectrum. It's flavors man.

[gabbah]

Mike and Uke, I've read your discussion and I'm a bit confused.
Uke, in your SD training, don't you train with sparringgloves and try to hit eachother in the face? As a part of the SD training? Or do you only train weapons training?
And don't you train on the ground, and how to avoid getting hammered on the ground and how to get up on your feet?

For me, MMA is boxing, and wrestling, and juijutsu... I don't get it, don't you (Uke) use any of that in your SD?
You don't have to call it boxing or juijutsu.. but what I'm asking is if you train (for the empty hand SD part) with gloves and try to punch eachother, really punch each other in the face so as to greate a stress moment for the trainees? I mean I would call that boxing, which would be a part of MMA, right?

I assume you do... I can't image you guys training with weapons a lot, then when someone asks "um, what do we do if none of us have weapons?", you just say "oh, that's the easy part. You just hit him on the jaw and such" and then not train that in a live fashion.
And that's where I get a bit confused. Aren't you guys (Mike and Uke) advocating the same thing without you guys knowing it, just calling it something else?
Where is the DIFFERANCE in the actual TRAINING Mike and Uke? That's what I would like to know, because that is not clear to me.

And Uke, the way you have phrased it several times you make it sounds as if you really believe that Mike promotes MMA as the whole solution for SD, which he has clearly stated several times is not the case. So please clearify if you still believe this is the case.

Now Uke, I understand that PURE MMA is not satisfactoy for SD, but that MMA needs to be tweaked to fit more into SD, like adding groin attacks and such things?
I'm trying to understand this whole discussion. Uke and Mike, what is MMA to you? Perhaps it's just a missunderstanding of the term and what it includes in the context of SD?


And my final question is what are two grown men doing trying to WIN a discussion on the internet? WIN it. As if there is an internet judge handing out points and awarding a WINNER? Come on guys. The mentality of WINNING an argument is the wrong one IMHO. The right one should be to seek to UNDERSTAND the counterpart out of CURIOUSITY. This winning mentality is what leads to defensive attitudes and personal attacks.
You both have been degrading towards your counterpart at one time or another, the same tactics used by politicians trying to WIN an election... and both sides end up looking bad as it just gets dirtier and dirtier.

To illustrate this point here is a made up and pretty extreme example that involves the typical verbally agressive forum poster and one that has had training in conflict handling or whatever, hehe:

A: We train SD like this, and bla bla bla...
B: wow your training is so bad A, it sucks.. and what do you know about SD anyway you bum!?
A: Hi B.. why do you feel my training sucks? I'm really curious now, perhaps I can improve it! How do you guys train SD B? I'm not sure why you called me a bum, since that's not how I view myself. I've been learning and training about SD for about 10 years, I'm very interested in this subject. What is your own experince with SD?

I know that's a silly example. But if you look at it and compare it to you guys, none of you has had the will power to "stay civil" when the other one didn't (who started it is not the issue).
In any case, who would a reader take more serious, the one doing personal attacks or the one not doing them?
Mike, I fairly certain you will say that you have kept from making personal attacks. That may be technically true, but your intentions still shine through, when you say stuff like "oh I crushed you on that one, I really hope you have something better to come back with, that was way too easy, har har har..". That is what I READ in my mind, even though you don't phrase it that way.
Same goes for the discrediting attacks from Uke... All this stuff guys.. it should so be beneath you.
I enjoy reading the forums, but this kind of stuff brings it down, when not even the experts who know how to express themselves can keep from lowering the level down to the WINNING mentality instead of keeping it up in the "let's exchange ideas/experiences in a friendly manner" level.

If only all posters (at least those above a certain age or maturity level) could have this ability to "turn the other cheek" (It's a good expression) and not get sucked into pissing contests... maybe then we would still have very knowledgeable posters like boar actually sharing their view. I must admit I got curious about what he knows, but I know there is no point in asking him now because of the mentality on the forums.

Well I could go on and on about this, so I'll stop my rant now for this time beeing.
Anyway, my advice is always assume the replies you get are well meant, written in a HAPPY STATE, and treat them as such EVEN if they are not! Answer them as if your writing to a friend on the other end! That may very well get the conversation going in a positive, constructive direction instead of a pissing contest. Just try it.

Thanks to Mike and Uke for your efforts! It's very interesting to read, even though I feel the winning mentality get's in the way and makes the communication way less effective. :P

[Ardith]

This thread is a pile of garbage.

I can't believe there are martial artist's touting systems that they teach that are designed to cause serious harm, or potentially kill someone. Haven't we all learned lessons from such classic cases as Bernie Goetz?

I certainly do not think there is any merit to using this sort of force, unless you are a soldier in the military. And soldiers don't win fights by using hand-to-hand combat, so teaching people hand-to-hand combat is a moot point.

I think it is rather irresponsible to teach people techniques that can cripple, paralyze, or kill others and then go with that mentality of brutality out on the street. Once you begin teaching that you are no longer teaching "self-defense." You're not training murderers and assassins. And we're obviously not fighting a war against our own people.

Morality and better discretion obviously aren't classes being taught in these schools.

Why not instead of wasting our time with learning hand-to-hand combat just give everybody knives and guns and teach them how to kill the average man before he has a chance to scream?

Face it, we don't live in an age of biker barbarians where only the strongest survive and you have to kill every single opponent to continue to survive.

[gabbah]

Ardith, what is your suggestion to a self defense system that can be used by average folks, to survive a situation with mulitple attackers, where it's hard to simply run from them, or they are faster than you?
I think most people go to SD classes to learn to DEFEND themselves. The class itself will very unlikely MAKE them into killing machines or murderers imho, even if they are they are thaught how to attack eyes, throat and groin, as well as how to defend against knives and such. People still keep their senses. What do you think?

[Ardith]

I'm commenting versus arguments that suggest that you need to be brutal and study techniques that can kill your opponent. And that that is the only way that you are going to survive in a street encounter.

That's a ridiculous argument. I've witnessed quite a few street encounters personally and the level of brutality generally does not match what you are actually taught in classes.

Sure, there's going to be that guy that's got all of his screws loose and is going to try to kill you, but we need to be cognizant of the consequences of utilizing a technique that is even going to cripple a person, let alone kill them.

It's ridiculous to even think about using such things to "defend" yourself.

The average person isn't going to have much trouble defending themselves if their classes actually focus on utilizing tactics and actually testing them out to see if they work. The average attacker is untrained, and it shows. We don't have to be lethal to defend ourselves. This isn't feudal Japan, China, or Mongolia. Alexander isn't driving his cavalry and phalanx across Europe and the middle east.

I'm pretty sure that the only time you really need to use deadly force is if someone walks up to you with a look of extreme hatred in their eyes and screams out "derka derka muhammed jihad!"

Outside of that...

[DickHardman]

i understand what you are saying ardith. i am a 23 year old kid who works at an electronics store, not a warrior or a soldier. i am not going to be fighting my way out of life and death situations at every turn. i am going to need to know how to restrain/stop people properly without severely injuring them probably more than i need to know how to kill/main them..

[JustaFighter]

i understand what you are saying ardith. i am a 23 year old kid who works at an electronics store, not a warrior or a soldier. i am not going to be fighting my way out of life and death situations at every turn. i am going to need to know how to restrain/stop people properly without severely injuring them probably more than i need to know how to kill/main them..

Why not train for both scenarios? Restraining people and survive a violent situation. Yeah learning how to cripple, maim, or kill someone is socially unsettling, however in the context of unavoidable violence I want to at least be on an even playing field with my attacker(s) so that I have a chance to survive the situation.

But that's just my moral outlook on it. If I need to simply control my brother in-law who had a few to many or I just so happen to look at a crazy on the street the wrong way and he lunges at me. I wouldn't mind being able to handle the situations with a correctly proportioned response.

[gabbah]

Ardith, you make good points, but I think you also need to consider the different scenarios different techniques are intended for. There are SELF DEFENSE situations, where your life might be at stake. This is probably muggins or VERY ill intended attacks of pride...
And then there are - which is MUCH more common - "ordinary fights", where the fight happens because you talked to someones girlfriend too much, or a guy who's simply looking to vent some aggression when he's drunk.

Those situations are clearly different. In the ordinary fight you should not use crippling techniques nor such intent. When you're the selected *victim* of a (or several) criminal(s) then you have to do everything to survive.

But that just is what I personally think, and I'm only interested in SD... so this is by no means an experts view or anything, I could be very wrong.

But what do you think about those two scenarios and what level of contra violence is accepted?

[WildWest.]

I understand what you mean Gabbah.

Better to know the "lethal" techniques and not need them than to not know them and need them.....

But Ardith is certainly correct when saying we don't live in fuedal times, most fights we get into (if at all) will not be life and death and we will most likely be up against unskilled/untrained opponents......they are still dangerous though.

[jubaji]

I understand what you mean Gabbah.

Better to know the "lethal" techniques and not need them than to not know them and need them.....

But Ardith is certainly correct when saying we don't live in fuedal times, most fights we get into (if at all) will not be life and death and we will most likely be up against unskilled/untrained opponents......they are still dangerous though.

Both are correct, of course. Saying that you'll never need to use a weapon might leave you shit out of luck when it turns out that you do. On the other hand, nutjobs who profess to never so much as taking a crap without 12 knives, 2 guns, and a bazooka nearby (one headcase around here has said more than once that he won't take a shower without a gun) is paranoid lunacy and more often than not is just excuse-making for people who won't or can't train the physical skills needed for practical but not apocalyptic confrontations.