One Aikido perspective on reality fighting and BJJ

[YongChun]

http://aikinews.com/articles/_article.asp?ArticleID=768

[Tydive]

Very interesting reading. He identified exactly why I stopped training at the Dojo and just bought a good book on Aikido (Aikidio and the Dynamic Sphere). I found that training the physical moves of Aikido with my Kenpo and Hawrang Do buddies was a much more effective method of learning.

On the other hand, I found the mind set in Aikido helped me overcome my tendancy to get into fights. The simple acts of being at peace and being aware of the emotions around me have made my life vastly more enjoyable.

[anerlich]

"Even the marvelous skills displayed by Rickson Gracie provide no clue as to how he would handle a "real" situation against multiple attackers who are more than likely to be armed."

The article doesn't state how its writer would deal with that situation either.

Rickson reputedly owns and is skilled with handguns. That may give the writer a clue.

I recommend the book "Angry White Pyjamas" By Robert Twigger for anyone who thinks Aikido is an art for wimps.

[t_niehoff]

"Even the marvelous skills displayed by Rickson Gracie provide no clue as to how he would handle a "real" situation against multiple attackers who are more than likely to be armed."

Rickson has repeatedly said that *no one* can defeat competant multiple attackers. While there are many stories of "masters" that claim to be able to, they are like ghosts -- no one can seem to pin one down to demonstrate this marvelous ability. Sure folks sometime do get away with fighting multiple attackers, but these situations rarely involve actual defeats (more usual being able to escape) and then never involve competant fighters (having skill and knowing the basic multiple attacker strategy). Moreover, when Rickson is asked how he would handle an armed attacker, he always replies "I'd run!". As a genuine fighter he knows that our odds when facing either multiple attackers or armed attackers are extremely low.

[Miles Teg]

There is probably as much opportunity to beat 2 or more oponents standing up than on the ground anyway. If you think about the skill and speed at which these guys can break a limb or choke someone out. If they can pull one of these moves off it means that one oponent is completely out of the game. Where as with strikes the oponent will keep coming back.

What I envisage is a situation where a BJJ guy is wrestling one guy on the ground while another is perhaps kicking or punching from a standing position. In this case a BJJ may be able to take out your average thug quickly while taking a few hits to his back. If he is in the guard for example, it might be difficult for a second person to get a good hit in without hitting his mate. In the meantime, while the standing striker wouldnt have any clue, the BJJ guy could have a good grip on the color of the guy on top twisting it around and be blocking the circulation to his head. As demonstrated on me at Judo the other day, it doesnt take long before you are in serious trouble with this move. And it is also something that the other guy probably wouldnt notice

Of course coming out on top in an encounter with mulitple attackers is unlikely - with weopens next to none. Im just trying to illustrate how it could be possible from the ground (providing they arent using weapons).

I dont think you are much more likely to "beat" you oponents standing up. The real advantage of being on your feet is the ability to make a run for it and come out alive.

[anerlich]

While we're going offtopic a bit, I have seen a brown belt submit two blue belts at once - in a mat situation. Unlikely on the street.

There's a number of stories in "The Gracie Way" about Rickson and friends and family taking on gangs. Most of them have Rickson choking out the main guy that dissed him with Royler or whomever trying to stop the others kicking and punching Rickson, with varying degrees of success and failure.

I've heard of BJJ practitioners bouncing who survived melee and brawl situations basically pulling guys into their guard and choking them in series, using their bodies as shields, doing their bit and coming out at the end in better shape than their colleagues who stayed on their feet trading blows.

John Danaher makes the point in "Mastering Ju Jitsu" that many of the other martial artists in the early UFC's decried the weakness of BJJ against multiple opponents ... but the naysayers often proved unable to vanquish even one opponent in the ring.

BJJ is not good against multiple opponents ... but realistically few other arts are much better. Running and dropping obstacles and hurling missiles are probably the best for nearly all of us.

[YongChun]

Originally posted by anerlich
"Even the marvelous skills displayed by Rickson Gracie provide no clue as to how he would handle a "real" situation against multiple attackers who are more than likely to be armed."

The article doesn't state how its writer would deal with that situation either.

Rickson reputedly owns and is skilled with handguns. That may give the writer a clue.

I recommend the book "Angry White Pyjamas" By Robert Twigger for anyone who thinks Aikido is an art for wimps.

I liked that book too. Sensei Robert Mustard in that book is a friend of mine. We trained in the same Hung style club together in the early 70's. Then he got interested in Aikido and went to Japan. He said he got thrown by the best of the best until nothing scared him anymore. He made it to 6th degree black belt (one of the top) and now he runs a good Yoshinkan Aikido club in Vancouver. He was open minded enough to have another Hung style classmate give a seminar about Hung style to his Aikido students. It was very well received. Aikido definitely has some good fighters too as does Tai Chi.

Ray

[YongChun]

Originally posted by t_niehoff
[B
Rickson has repeatedly said that *no one* can defeat competant multiple attackers. While there are many stories of "masters" that claim to be able to, they are like ghosts -- no one can seem to pin one down to demonstrate this marvelous ability. Sure folks sometime do get away with fighting multiple attackers, but these situations rarely involve actual defeats (more usual being able to escape) and then never involve competant fighters (having skill and knowing the basic multiple attacker strategy). Moreover, when Rickson is asked how he would handle an armed attacker, he always replies "I'd run!". As a genuine fighter he knows that our odds when facing either multiple attackers or armed attackers are extremely low. [/B]

I think the stories are usually not multiple COMPETENT attackers so I agree but incompetent multiple attackers are possible to handle as in the following stories: Some styles of Kung Fu are designed with multiple opponents in mind. Hung style and Choy Li Fut style are two such styles.

I know no one believes anyone's stories unless they see it first hand but here are three anyway. My Hung style teacher who is now in his 80's said in Toronto one year the best Hung style guy that ever came to Canada was involved in a fight with 26 people. The Toronto police came in to break up the disturbance but when they got there they were very surpised that this one guy could fight that many people. Of course they got into each other's way and didn't attack simulataneouly I assume.

Then the head of the police daprtment here also worked in Torono. He said once the president of Korea visited Toronto and went to some drinking establishment. Someone lured the presidents top bodyguard into an alley just outside the door of the drinking place because they figured he was carrying the money. The police came withing minutes when it was reported that a fight was going on. The police chief I was talking to said when they got there there were 9 people fighting the body guard. He said it was just amazing to watch this guy subdue all of them. He said he saw a lot of kicks and when they connected to the skulls of some of these people the sound was the same as if a baseball bat had hit them.

I met a guy by the name of Roland Wong who used to work for an Asian big shot in Hong Kong. He taught Wing Chun in Victoria in the 70's. For his demonstration he asked 6 people to attack him simultaneously if they could inside of a large restaurant kitchen. He managed to throw these people everywhere into fridges and stoves and thus convinced them that Wing Chun was pretty good. This started the first Wing Chun club in this city. Roland said in Hong Kong he would have to bring a client down the stairs and for one test of his skills they would have several guys rushing up the stairs and he had to handle it. He said multiple opponent fights were not that uncommon.

One of my Hung style teachers masters worked up North a long time ago. His master died at age 97. When the guy was 72 years old 16 youths decided to burn the town down. This Hung style guy was a specialist in Butterfly knife and staff. So he went downtown with his bamboo staff and put all 16 youths into the hospital thus saving the town.

Master Wong Shun Leung told me that once a large group of people were beating up his friend. These people were armed with knives but he decided he needed to save his friend so he went in and saved him but getting cut and scarred in the process. He showed my where he got cut.

Ray

[sihing]

My own Father back in the late 50's was a Ontario Provincial Police Officer, stationed in a northern Ontario town by himself. The only way in and out was by train. Allot of french Lumberjacks were living in the town at that time. My Dad said that for about the first 6 months he was fighting every week. On one occasion he was in the process of arresting one guy that failed to pay a bill at the local store. In the process of the arrest, 4 of this guys friends attacked him. To make a long story short, in the end Dad ended up arresting 3 of them, the other two ran away. As a matter of fact he got in sh!t from the judge when he brought them into court for the condition they were in. He told the judge that since he was not a boxer(my father had a little bit of judo training, no belt though, but was in good shape) he was unable to pick his shots, and basically was fighting for his life. Although these guys were untrained, it still reflects the fact that it is possible to defeat multiple attackers.

My Sifu has also had many occasions where he has had more than 3 or 4 guys against him, all came out in his favor.

James

[t_niehoff]

YongChun wrote:

I think the stories are usually not multiple COMPETENT attackers so I agree but incompetent mutiple attackers are possible to handle

**I don't place any more stock in 'martial art stories' than a do fishing stories. But sure there are lots of examples where folks have gotten away from mobs or beat a couple of no-skill dumbsh1ts. Even I can defeat a couple of midgets. ;)

Some styles of Kung Fu are designed with multiple opponents in mind.

**It seems silly to me to have a style "designed" to defeat multiple unskilled folks since it isn't too difficult to defeat knuckleheads in the first place but is difficult to defeat skilled fighters. I'd prefer a method that would permit me to defeat someone good, then anything less would be a cakewalk. IMO these "stories" about arts designed for multiple opponents are just marketing fluff. If they can do it, then why can't they prove it on demand?

**One of the problems with MAs is all the "stories" we hear (and the movies we watch) which give us an unrealistic view of fighting. If someone claims the ability to defeat skilled, multiple opponents let them step up and prove it. It will only make them famous and get them lots of students. Interestingly, the people who make these claims are the ones that won't fight single skilled opponents. That ought to tell you a lot.

[YongChun]

What I mean by that is take Fencing for example. It is designed for one on one fighting against a skillful opponent. Of course a good fencer can stab a few less competent opponents.

When you look at Samurai sword use and Chinese spear use, it is designed more for multiple opponents. You never swing a fencing foil behind you or spin in a circle to slash the stomachs or necks of people around you. The slashing weapons can take out several opponent quickly. There are various eye witness accounts of the Famous Ghurka people doing that to some Germans in World war two.

Some of the flailing arts are designed to fight against multiple people by keeping them at bay. Such tactics are totally dumb against a skilled boxer.

A handful of lumberjacks or a gang of teenage thugs who are unskilled are still no easy thing to handle if they really want to kill you. It doesn't matter that these people don't train martial arts or have an official skill. They are no push overs.

Wing Chun's answer is to be mobile rather than to take low stances and furthermore to not waste time with multiple pretty combinations.

[YongChun]

Originally posted by t_niehoff
YongChun wrote:


**One of the problems with MAs is all the "stories" we hear (and the movies we watch) which give us an unrealistic view of fighting. If someone claims the ability to defeat skilled, multiple opponents let them step up and prove it. It will only make them famous and get them lots of students. Interestingly, the people who make these claims are the ones that won't fight single skilled opponents. That ought to tell you a lot.

One of my stories was from Wong Shun Leung. He fought against a group of people who were armed and survived with cuts. He apparently did fight skilled single opponents in his day but no doubt wouldn't last in Pride/Ultimate/K1 etc. nor would Yip Man. Furthermore Wong Shun Leung doesn't claim to be able to handle multiple opponents on a regular basis. No one can claim that but people have done it. But movies of killing lots of fighters of course is mostly unrealistic unless armed with the right kind of weapons.

We can't only use our experience of what we have seen and discount everyone's stories. There are very good fighters in every country that none of us have ever heard of.

Who has every heard of Olaf Simon, Jack Chin, James Lore, Raymond Chung, Winston Wan, Roland Wong, Dom Lopez, Sonny Upad, James Keating, Fook Young, etc. etc. I have met all of these people except Fook Young. All these people are well known good fighters but most people have never heard of them. You know how many fighters China has or India? I am sure there are a lot of good ones all with their own fighting stories. Of course we never know about these people. Indonesia is full of good Silat fighters as well as good fighters in Iron Palm, White Crane, Preying Mantis. The Phillipines have 10,000 islands each with their own kind of stick fighting. Of course we never see these guys.

On this forum we havn't even met each other or the teachers we learned from. Most of out teachers have never touched hands with each other and so just evaluate based on I don't know what?

I think it is obvious that Emin Boztepe, a skilled fighter, can't handle a dozen copies of himself let alone two.

I think any realistic combat system has to consider the multiple opponent case. Army combat old or new always had this in mind.

[t_niehoff]

**Ray, I combined my repsonses to your two posts since they seem to overlap . . .

**Weapons is a whole different enchilada than empty hands -- so let's not talk apples when the discussion is about oranges.

A handful of lumberjacks or a gang of teenage thugs who are unskilled are still no easy thing to handle if they really want to kill you. It doesn't matter that these people don't train martial arts or have an official skill. They are no push overs.

**Of course not. And even two competant fighters can beat the best.

Wing Chun's answer is to be mobile rather than to take low stances and furthermore to not waste time with multiple pretty combinations.

I think any realistic combat system has to consider the multiple opponent case. Army combat old or new always had this in mind.

**I don't think WCK has "an answer" (nor do I agree with your characterization of WCK) to multiple opponents since there really is no correct answer. What anyone does -- Gracies, WSL, Sum Nung, or anyone -- is use whatever fighting skills they have and hope that it works out for them. Jack Dempsey knocked two assailants out when he was 70 years old. That's not an advertisement for "Boxing is an art that allows old men to defeat multiple attackers!" He wouldn't have done that to two competant fighters, let alone defeat one well-skilled fighter. For anyone who thinks they have a "realistic combat system" that deals with multiple attackers I say "fine, step up and show us." These things are easy to claim, easy to become deluded into believing, but somehow we never see any proof. Without proof, it is all empty fluff.

**W/r/t stories. I discount everyone's stories unless I see it for myself. And when folks say they have been able to do something, I ask them to repeat it -- prove it. Sure there are lots of good fighters everywhere. And it's relatively easy to separate the sheep from the goats -- they fight as part of their training against other good fighters. Stories and theories I don't find personally relevant since I'm interested in results.

[YongChun]

Originally posted by t_niehoff
[B
**W/r/t stories. I discount everyone's stories unless I see it for myself. And when folks say they have been able to do something, I ask them to repeat it -- prove it. Sure there are lots of good fighters everywhere. And it's relatively easy to separate the sheep from the goats -- they fight as part of their training against other good fighters. Stories and theories I don't find personally relevant since I'm interested in results. [/B]

I don't think you can see too many good people they call masters unless you go and travel and look for them. They don't usually produce videos nor do they show the fights on the evening news.

Historical figures are dead so we just have the stories left. Most people joined Wing Chun because of what they heard about it as opposed to having seen some Wing Chun guy knock out some good fighters. The stories in the Hong Kong newspapers by Wang Kiu about the weekly challenge matches caused a surge in Wing Chun enrollment in Hong Kong.

All of Wing Chun is just a theory that needs testing. That's why they had those challenge matches in Hong Kong to test this Wing Chun theory. Any good fighting method has a theory. If a Thai boxer beats you then you develop a theory like maybe needing to do more tree kicking, pushups, getting fitter, not dropping your hands in the fight, being more aggressive or whatever. The boxing champions all had a theory first about how to beat the world champ. You beat the other team or other person in sports starting with some idea of how to win and then you train like mad and give it a shot. That's where the theory fits in. Cho Lee Fut has a theory about the weakness of Wing Chun. So they train like mad and then test the theory. That's what it's all about.

Now true testing on the street is rather dangerous to one's life. We aren't training for Ring competition but for the street. So training in the sports way is second best but that may also give a false sense of something.

This whole forum is also just a bunch of theory and stories which also shouldn't be relevant. Locally everyone has seen some results of their martial art. If students can't beat up the seniors in their own club, then they have something to learn. Most clubs have people who can fight and who may have a variety of fighting experience that can offer some challenge such that you don't need to go looking to all the other fighting clubs for this.

If realistic fighting is multiple opponents and knives then why is everyone wasting their time talking about and training BJJ and Thai boxing?

Wing Chun the art should be complete with empty hands and weapons training. Weapons training doesn't have to mean sticking to the long pole and butterfly knife. You just take what is useful from Wing Chun theory and train it with weapons. Knife and stick fighting is a good way to enhance empty hand skill so it's definitely not irrelevant to empty hand fighting discussions.