MMA is Not Self Defense!

[Guest]

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]

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.

[TTEscrima]

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.

[Guest]

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]

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]

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.

[Guest]

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

[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.

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.

[Garland]

Brewer....did you really just use "et al" in an arguement?


Kudos to THAT shit!
I don't ever see that except in citing multiple authors in APA. Jesus H. Christ. When you going to throw out ad hoc, a priori, quid pro quo and all the others?

[Garland]

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.

That made me think of something spooky. Maybe the uber-badasses we all commonly cite as being top tier teachers and fighters in their day were at one point in time easily provoked 20-somethings. Can you even imagine being a bouncer or just some poor schmuck in a bar trying to deal with an out of control Paul Vunak or Frank Cucci?...The people that post here would be scary as hell enough as they are to have a bad encounter with.

What about a Mike Brewer, Michael Wright, Demi Barbido, Ray Floro, Guro Raf...?

There would be no way to tell. It wouldn't be like some ego inflated boxer or MMAer you'd be able to tell on sight with an entourage, but just some average-joe. You guys are a bunch of wolves in sheep's clothing.

Is there any good way to tell if somebody is on that level, or is it like stepping into a bear trap. I want to know what cues YOU guys give off before a fight. This may be an interesting case study.

[TTEscrima]

Certainly you aren't suggesting that they go get in gun fights to learn about guns, knife fights to learn about knives, and mass brawls to learn about mass attack, are you?

Somehow I'm certain Ron Jeremy knows more about sex than every virgin on the planet no matter how many of Ron's films they've studied while fantasizing about what they'd do in a similar situation. So yes I'm saying the actual event is far superior than all the ways of attempting to simulate them. Does it help to have ridden a go cart around the track before driving a car for the first time? Sure, but it is still inferior to actually driving on the roads with other vehicles and drivers who have different capabilities and destinations. Even after training no one knows how they will react in an actual crisis until they have experienced it, there is a reason veterans don't trust new recruits until they've proven themselves under fire. All the live fire drills in the world don't prepare you for the realization that this time you get it right or die.
You can do PLF's off a tower all day but until you actually jump out of an aircraft you don't have any idea what it's really like. Training is great, even essential in some cases but it's never a substitute for the real thing. Think of practicing CPR, no matter how many times you've practiced on a dummy, put your wife on floor in distress and I assure you will wish you had actually done it for real before and would gladly get the hell out of the way if someone who had showed up, Training is great but NO art or sport can ever duplicate the emotion component that kicks in when death is the likely outcome if you fail. Self defense is the by product of all the work and experience you garner and you can't get that in a classroom or a ring or a dojo.

[TTEscrima]

Is there any good way to tell if somebody is on that level, or is it like stepping into a bear trap. I want to know what cues YOU guys give off before a fight. This may be an interesting case study.

You're trying to find the gray man, he won't be wearing his school shirt, he won't puff up or glare at you, he won't advertise at all, he will simply do what is needed to survive and leave as quietly as he arrived. It's the things they aren't doing that warn you of trouble.

[TTEscrima]

You still haven't suggested how you'd do it any different.

Never once did I bash any of the training from TMA or MMA as useless, I practice both, but MMA is NOT SD which was the thread title, I agreed and said neither are the TMA's. There is no perfect system, never was, never will be. I shot many a paper target, hunted live animals, used several types of sim ammo and participated in live fire drills, none of it prepared me for the first time I had live ammo and a live human in my sights. Keep in mind the British army was highly trained, had seen combat all over the world and was greatly feared when they met up with an untrained, under supplied and untested militia who used unfamiliar tactics to spank them. Thinking outside the box is superior to using the basics you're taught in any school, you have to make those concepts your own and that can't be taught it can only be learned from experience.

Wouldn't you say it was true that the tactics taught in school are never the ones used on the front lines because experience has taught the veterans the flaws in their schooling that will get you killed in the real world? In the Navy the saying goes, "that might be how they taught you to do it in school but that ain't the way it's done in the Fleet".

[TTEscrima]

Ahh! But that untrained, under supplied, untested militia was neither untested nor untrained!

They'd been tested (the leaders, anyway) as British officers, and they had been tested in the French and Indian War before the Revolution. Besides, they were falling apart and near decimation until? That's right! Until Von Steuben was brought in to...train them. In other words, it took a good foundation in discipline and drill before the Americans were an effective fighting force. Before that, all they had was, well, reality. Reality without training had resulted in near catastrophic losses and nearly knocked the Revolution down before it got going. So I guess what I'm trying to say is...thanks for proving my point.

Actually I ambushed you. The rifled barrel was the difference, it's what allowed the use of tactics that were unknown due to the silly idea of set rules in war. The British actually had to capture American fighters and take them to England to show their superiors that we could hit a squirrel while they couldn't hit a barn. It wasn't the old school training of any of the people you named it was ingenuity and will to survive that allowed us to defeat the British methods. Their set ways of training were their downfall. We had developed the rifled barrel for hunting small game to eat, our real world experience helped us defeat the far better trained army who trained for a specific type of conflict because they believed it was superior.

So while we are in 10000% agreement that MMA is not self-defense, I have to stand firmly behind the idea that it certainly can contribute to effective self-defense ability so long as one doesn't fall into the trap of believing it's the answer all by itself.

That I agree with.