Realistic Training

[Scott R. Brown]

Xindu,

What are you doing writing the same question in all the different sections of this BB? You asked this same question under a different title in the “Related Arts” section!!

Below was my response on that thread! Why don’t respond to it and I will be happy to discuss it further with you. The point is everything has its limits! And no matter how well prepared you think you are, there is always someone, somewhere, sometime who can do you in!!


I agree there is a certain amount of fantasy involved with many who practice martial arts. One of the fantasies is the efficacy of mixed martial arts. It is predicated upon an assumption of how we “think” a “real life” encounter will occur. The marketing of mixed martial arts is predicated upon a narrow set of circumstances and ignores many possible scenarios just like any other art preceding the 90’s. It may account for a wider variety of circumstances, but it is still limited. It is one thing to have to fight one person, and another to have to fight many, and another to have to fight many with baseball bats and yet another to have to fight someone who has just come up behind you and brained you with a claw hammer! Or a home invasion with a shot gun.

The only true test of any MA is when our life is on the line. Anything else is a limited circumstance. Even NHB competitions have rules. No biting, eye gouging, finger breaking, groin kicking!! One of the first things I would do in a real life or death encounter is drive my # 2 pencil or Papermate pen into my assailants eye or throat. Now I have just neutralized his 10 or 15 years of mixed marital arts training!!! If he wants to take me down? I will be happy to drive my # 2 pencil or my pocket knife blade into his cervical spine or his kidney, or maybe I will just slit his throat. There goes his 15-20 years of mixed marital arts training!! His advanced training has just provided me with the opportunity I needed. He fell into my trap! Which was, “Please take me down!!! I don’t know what I am doing!!!” I merely prepared for the weakness in his attack and it didn’t take me 10-20 years of learning fancy moves to defeat him. I learned it just this second when I thought it up!!

It isn’t always who has the most training in real life. It is who is willing to be the most brutal first!!!

Years ago I went to high school with a guy who did just that. He crashed a high school party in a neighboring town. He was called out into the front yard by some big football player. While the footballer was busy posturing, pushing and mouthing off, the guy took out a straight razor and slit the footballer’s throat. Now he is dead!!! He is dead because he was messing with a guy who was willing to be more brutal than he was and didn’t care what the consequences were!!!

I have a friend who is a master of combat shooting! He is ranked a master in internationally sanctioned competition!! He can draw and shoot me dead before I can get close enough to him to do anything!! There is pepper spray and tasers, and baseball bat-fu and the well proven O.J. Simpson-Fu (Hide in the bushes with a big knife!!!)!! Everything has a weakness! If a person is training to be invincible he is chasing moonbeams! Choose your method of training and have fun and be as well rounded as you want to be, but don’t confuse yourself into thinking that you can take anyone. A smart person, who wants to take you out, only needs to discover what you know and devise a way around it. That is all it takes!! It is called strategy and tactics!!! The best method is to just sneak up behind you and club you to death!! Surprise from behind is more effective than the most highly trained person. If you are not expecting it you are as good as dead. So train in your NHB, but know you are training for a duel, not real combat!!

[Liddel]

Scott you freaky dude, you just reached into my mind and said what i was thinking.
Nice post !
If Anyone's ever spoken to a cop they would agree with what you just said.

Drugs is the big problem in my country, My sparring partner told me about a call out one night with a dude on pure methamphetamine, when it got to the crunch he kicked the guy in the balls with steel cap boots and what do you know it just ****ed him off, sprayed him with pepper spray and smashed him in the legs with his batton, what do you know, just ****ed him off...hmmm where do we go from here ?
Ahh central...im gunna need backup !
The fact is there is every possible senario and you never know what can happen or what everyday object you may come across like scott and his pencil !

Further to the TMA thing that was mentioned.... does anyone remember "Big Daddy's" first UFC fight.
On the fight card his style was " Kuk Soon Woo"...who ever heard of that ?
but 10 seconds (at the most into the fight) the grappler took him to the ground and bam between 8 and 9 elbows to the head....the poor guy was knocked out on the first one (probably a good thing that he didnt feel each proceding elbow until he awoke)

At the end of the day Xindu the people on the board you mention and this one even, represent a small amount of people world wide that practise a fighting art.
So dont let the view of the few, represent in your eyes the view of the many.

[Knifefighter]

One of the first things I would do in a real life or death encounter
is drive my # 2 pencil or Papermate pen into my assailants eye or throat. Now I have just neutralized his 10 or 15 years of
mixed marital arts training!!! If he wants to take me down? I will be happy to drive my # 2 pencil or my pocket knife blade into
his cervical spine or his kidney, or maybe I will just slit his throat.

One of the great things about MMA training is its ease of transfer to fighting in other scenarios such as the street where weapons or multiple opponents may be involved. A MMA fighter with some basic weapons training will understand that a simple clinch with double underhooks to a body slam or suplex to mount will make it virtually impossible for you to get that deadly #2 pencil from your pocket protector

[Scott R. Brown]

Hi Knifefighter,

Your solution to the dilemma presumes certain things:

1) I am not prepared in anyway!
2) My pencil is in a pocket protector and not in my hand.
3) I am going to be standing in a manner that will allow for a simple or easy takedown.
4) I don’t know how to respond to a simple takedown.
5) I will not react when I perceive danger.
6) Takedowns, especially simple, ones are not simple to counter!!! THEY ARE!!!

We can change any scenario around in our minds to accommodate our fantasies. So I am happy to play. While you are taking me down with your simple clinch into a double pirouette flip, one of my friends, who is even more brutal than I am, comes up behind you and hamstrings you with a machete!! He is hiding in the bushes ready with it in his hand! And while your army of ninja MMA friends begin their attack my NAVY SEAL team with .50 caliber machine guns mows them down!!!

You have completely missed the points of my post! They are:

1) Unexpected things can and do happen!
2) Simple solutions are often better and quicker than complicated moves!
3) It is the individual who is willing to be the most brutal first that has the advantage!
4) Good strategy and tactics surpass fancy moves!!!

Guess how much training in the MA the guy with the straight razor had??? NONE!!!! Go head and clinch someone with a straight razor in his hand HIDDEN BEHIND HIS BACK!!!!! He will be turning you into jerky while you are playing pro wrestler with him!!

[Knifefighter]

Takedowns, especially simple, ones are not simple to counter!!! THEY ARE!!!

Simple takedowns are the hardest to counter when they have good set-ups.

Simple solutions are often better and quicker than complicated moves!

There’s not much simpler than a clinch with double underhooks to a takedown to a mount.

It is the individual who is willing to be the most brutal first that has the advantage!

The person who has the advantage is the one who gets ahead in the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act loop. You can be as brutal as you want, but if I’m already ahead of you in this loop you can’t bring your brutality into play.

Go head and clinch someone with a straight razor in his hand HIDDEN BEHIND HIS BACK

Clinching someone with a bladed weapon already drawn is not a good idea.. That’s when your own blade should come into play.

You are assuming that the majority of MMA fighters are only concerned with and only train for the ring and are not concerned with the contingencies that occur on the street. That’s a huge underestimation.

[Scott R. Brown]

Hi Knifefighter,

Your arguments makes some good points however, they only prove my point! They do not demonstrate them to be flawed. I can come up with responses to anything you suggest and you can come up with responses to mine!

It is over confidence that is the danger here! My thesis is that it is the unprepared for response or attack that will be the deadly one.

I am happy to keep going though just for the fun of it:

“Simple takedowns are the hardest to counter when they have good set-ups”

This presumes time and opportunity for a set-up and demonstrates over confidence in the efficiency of simple takedowns!

“There’s not much simpler than a clinch with double underhooks to a takedown to a mount.”

This presumes one can close and execute this more efficiently then other forms of attack: i.e. my acquaintances straight razor to the throat, a claw hammer to the back of the head, a stunner like pepper spray to the eyes followed immediately by a knife to the gut or throat or other vital area, shotgun blast to the knees…….etc!!!!!!

“The person who has the advantage is the one who gets ahead in the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act loop. You can be as brutal as you want, but if I’m already ahead of you in this loop you can’t bring your brutality into play.”

This presumes foreknowledge an attack is imminent!! If it is my purpose to take someone out I will not attack when he is prepared for it. It is called deception! Not all altercations start out with verbal and physical posturing.

“Clinching someone with a bladed weapon already drawn is not a good idea.. That’s when your own blade should come into play.”

This presumes you know he has a bladed weapon! Your pseudonym indicates you know something about knife fighting. If this is the case you know that a REAL knife fighter will cut you before you know he has the weapon. (Refer once again to my acquaintance from high school.) Thus you will not be able to use your weapon, unless you choose to be the first to go into the brutal zone and use your knife first!!

”You are assuming that the majority of MMA fighters are only concerned with and only train for the ring and are not concerned with the contingencies that occur on the street. That’s a huge underestimation.”

Your presumption of my assumption is incorrect!! And it is not my intention to poo poo MMA. It is to demonstrate that ALL fixed forms of fighting have limitations and the presumptions on which MMA are based make them just as flawed as every other form of fighting!! There are always flaws for which others will find a weakness! No form of fighting will render one invincible. Some are better under certain specific circumstances than others, but all can be circumvented and defeated. This whole idea of taking down your adversary can be very effective for one-on-one duels, but very dangerous when fighting more than one person or another experienced grappler. I know you will assert you would not take someone down under these circumstances, and of course this is good thinking, however there are scenarios where one might take down the adversary not anticipating the participation of onlookers. It is the over confidence of these individuals and the thought they cannot be suckered by deception that is one of the major flaws.

I am not intending to be a jerk or offend you or anyone else. My purpose is two fold: to have a little fun with the line of this discussion: and to bring up some important points of caution.

[negativecr33p]

Xindu,

What are you doing writing the same question in all the different sections of this BB? You asked this same question under a different title in the “Related Arts” section!!

Below was my response on that thread! Why don’t respond to it and I will be happy to discuss it further with you. The point is everything has its limits! And no matter how well prepared you think you are, there is always someone, somewhere, sometime who can do you in!!


I agree there is a certain amount of fantasy involved with many who practice martial arts. One of the fantasies is the efficacy of mixed martial arts. It is predicated upon an assumption of how we “think” a “real life” encounter will occur. The marketing of mixed martial arts is predicated upon a narrow set of circumstances and ignores many possible scenarios just like any other art preceding the 90’s. It may account for a wider variety of circumstances, but it is still limited. It is one thing to have to fight one person, and another to have to fight many, and another to have to fight many with baseball bats and yet another to have to fight someone who has just come up behind you and brained you with a claw hammer! Or a home invasion with a shot gun.

The only true test of any MA is when our life is on the line. Anything else is a limited circumstance. Even NHB competitions have rules. No biting, eye gouging, finger breaking, groin kicking!! One of the first things I would do in a real life or death encounter is drive my # 2 pencil or Papermate pen into my assailants eye or throat. Now I have just neutralized his 10 or 15 years of mixed marital arts training!!! If he wants to take me down? I will be happy to drive my # 2 pencil or my pocket knife blade into his cervical spine or his kidney, or maybe I will just slit his throat. There goes his 15-20 years of mixed marital arts training!! His advanced training has just provided me with the opportunity I needed. He fell into my trap! Which was, “Please take me down!!! I don’t know what I am doing!!!” I merely prepared for the weakness in his attack and it didn’t take me 10-20 years of learning fancy moves to defeat him. I learned it just this second when I thought it up!!

It isn’t always who has the most training in real life. It is who is willing to be the most brutal first!!!

Years ago I went to high school with a guy who did just that. He crashed a high school party in a neighboring town. He was called out into the front yard by some big football player. While the footballer was busy posturing, pushing and mouthing off, the guy took out a straight razor and slit the footballer’s throat. Now he is dead!!! He is dead because he was messing with a guy who was willing to be more brutal than he was and didn’t care what the consequences were!!!

I have a friend who is a master of combat shooting! He is ranked a master in internationally sanctioned competition!! He can draw and shoot me dead before I can get close enough to him to do anything!! There is pepper spray and tasers, and baseball bat-fu and the well proven O.J. Simpson-Fu (Hide in the bushes with a big knife!!!)!! Everything has a weakness! If a person is training to be invincible he is chasing moonbeams! Choose your method of training and have fun and be as well rounded as you want to be, but don’t confuse yourself into thinking that you can take anyone. A smart person, who wants to take you out, only needs to discover what you know and devise a way around it. That is all it takes!! It is called strategy and tactics!!! The best method is to just sneak up behind you and club you to death!! Surprise from behind is more effective than the most highly trained person. If you are not expecting it you are as good as dead. So train in your NHB, but know you are training for a duel, not real combat!!

Rigggght. You train to fight many people with baseball bats. And you actually believe you might be able to fight even two people with baseball bats? Sorry, no....not if they're anywhere near your size and have any kind of instincts. Don't even need brains, ****. And what in the hell makes you think, if you could fight off multiple assailants with baseball bats, that an MMA isn't going to be able to stop a ****ing #2 pencil?!?!?! Sure, it's got a chance of getting through. Just like a jab would. Maybe 50/50? And then you got to factor in, by turning his head a mere half an inch, you've completely missed his eye altogether, even if it did get through. People who defend training without full resistance i.e. atleast close to full contact, are just dumb, ignorant, or delusional. Next someone will say a trained standup fighter could beat an experienced BJJ guy. lol

[negativecr33p]

Ooops. I think it was already eluded to. Simple takedowns are easy to counter. Yeah, whatever. And your chain punch is gonna knock someone out in 1 hit.

[Scott R. Brown]

Hi negativecr33p,

Try reading my posts more carefully and completely!!

As with Knifefighter, you have missed the point!!! You are talking about very specific situations and injecting standard responses to those situations! Not all fights involve a period of posturing and mouthing off in which to prepare for or initiate an attack. Some occur the second you step out a door when you are unprepared for it, or occur as with my high school acquaintance and the footballer, when one intends to posture and the other intends to KILL!!!!!

I am speaking about extraordinary circumstances for which one has no expectation or trained ability to circumvent!!! I am talking about over confidence in ones training style!!!!! I am speaking about unrealistic expectations of any kind of MA including MMA!!!!!

If you think you can defend against a surprise and unexpected attack then you are in danger of just that because your over confidence is exaggerating your true ability. If you think you can defend yourself against multiple baseball bat wielding assailants or multiple machete wielding assailants you are in for a rude awakening! THAT was my point, NOT that that is what I DO!!!!! Pay closer attention!!!!

I never made the claim that I train against multiple baseball bat wielding assailants! I cautioned that just because one can take someone to the ground and grapple DOES NOT mean they are prepared for every kind of fighting circumstance. These are specific circumstances that DO occur, but most of them are a duel and do not represent a REAL life and death circumstance!!!

There are many delusional individuals who seem to think the MMA is the end all and be all of fighting and I am trying to inject a bit a reality into their limited views. EVERY style of fighting works to a certain extent within specific parameters, but ALL have their weaknesses. MMA practitioners like to go around and talk big about the superiority of their style of training, but do not see the errors and limitations! Their arrogance will get them hurt if they decide to mess with the wrong kind of person. This kind of person is likely to be less well trained, but more brutal and underhanded then is expected!!

REAL criminals don’t want a stand up fight, they want to WIN and that means doing anything it takes to load the dice in their favor!!!! You may not know any REAL criminals, but I have worked with REAL criminals in the California Dept. of Corrections for 12 years!!! I know guys that have been beat, stabbed, shot, peppersprayed, tasered, run over by cars, thrown off buildings, hit with machetes, baseball bats….you name it!!!! They love over confident arrogant MA who think they know everything!! They will just wait until you are alone in the dark outside your house and teach you the meaning of fear, and not just you, your wife, kids, your dog, your cat and your horse and their dead bodies!!! Most people have no idea how the mind of a REAL criminal thinks and that is the weakness of civilized and semi-civilized individuals!!

REAL bad guys are not going to mess around with pansy grappling!! They are going to CHEAT in some manner that gives them an advantage LIKE multiple baseball bat wielders, or multiple machete wielders like they do in the Philippines, or shoot your legs off with a shotgun, or drive by your house and shoot anyone who happens to be standing around!! Or rape you, your wife, your dog and the dead body of your daughter and son!! I know guys that have done just that and do you think they care about your MMA training? This is the REAL world of fighting to WIN and it is unnecessary to have any knowledge of MMA to WIN. All one needs is to think strategically and tactically and attack when the victim is unawares and that INCLUDES, but is not limited to a pencil to your eye!!!!

[Scott R. Brown]

negativecr33p,

How about quieting your pseudo-expert know nothing novice attitude and listen to someone people with REAL world experience!!!

Here is another story for all those who like to pretend they know something: like it is impossible to knock someone out with one punch!!

I knew a REAL criminal who was legendary in the prison system for knocking out individuals half his age! He was never beaten in a fight and rarely threw more than one punch and ALWAYS knocked out his assailant!!! He was in his mid-fifties. It can happen and it does happen!!!

As far as takedowns are concerned I have had wrestlers, judoka and grapplers take me down many times or I should say TRY to take me down. One wrestler was a California champion!! Once you know the secret it is easy to avoid most of the time!!!

Go ahead and live in your fantasy world. Good luck!! I hope don’t have to come up against a REAL fighter and not one of these individuals who just like to play at being tough!!!

[Nick Forrer]

As far as takedowns are concerned I have had wrestlers, judoka and grapplers take me down many times or I should say TRY to take me down. One wrestler was a California champion!! Once you know the secret it is easy to avoid most of the time!!!

Hi Scott

I am not trolling here. Im genuinely curious what you think the secret to avoiding takedowns is. Is there a specific move that you use like a level change or sprawl?
Do you use a move/posture from tai chi? Some footwork perhaps? IYO Is there a difference to countering takedowns from the clinch and takedowns from the shoot?

Thanks for any info

[Fajing]

A MMA fighter with some basic weapons training will understand that a simple clinch with double underhooks to a body slam or suplex to mount will make it virtually impossible for you to get that deadly #2 pencil from your pocket protector

Hmm, have to disagree with this. It takes me all of a tenth of a second to have my Strider custom out and slashing furiously. You just have to train for it. I have learned numerous ways to disarm a knife from an attacker, but I have to say my favorite is still turn and run. I have still never seen any empty hand style that could compete with an armed knife fighter, OR ARE WE LITERALLY ONLY TALKING ABOUT PENCILS HERE?

[Liddel]

Knifefighter and negativecr33p

I think if you guys squared off ( not even recognising Scotts - getting you from behind approach, which is stupid to argue with because he has the element of surprise) and one of you was the attacker with a thick black marker, even if the defender took the attacker down and choked him out, at some point you would recieve a very big black line on your body.

Have you tried this drill, Not just used rubber knives... ?
Can you perform a takedown and not get cut ?

This is a very effective drill and very easy to see improvement over time as your white t-shirt gets less and less black marks, but there is always ONE !
Unless its a very unique situation, and im only talking about face to face fighting... a duel where both parties intentions are known, not even entertaining the element of surprise mentioned by Scott that you contend......

[Ultimatewingchun]

It seems to me that the whole essence of this thread is being overlooked (especially since Scott jumped into it)...at which point the thread took a definite turn into something somewhere.

But anyway...it's not about MMA trained guys being overconfident; and it's not about what style best fits what circumstances; or how simple and effective it is to underhook into a takedown and mount; and it's not about how fast somebody can get his knife out of his pocket...or anything else along these lines.

Whether you're a trained martial artist or just a street thug...

The winner is invariably (ie.- almost always) the guy who wants it the most...and is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

So Scott makes some very good points along these lines (especially about the criminal/psychopathic/desperate mind) - but my point is that MMA trained guys (or whoever else) aren't disqualified from being in the "He who wants it the most will win" group.

Whether you've been training or not...it's the Will-to-Prevail that almost always decides the outcome.

[XINDU]

It seems to me that the whole essence of this thread is being overlooked (especially since Scott jumped into it)...at which point the thread took a definite turn into something somewhere.

But anyway...it's not about MMA trained guys being overconfident; and it's not about what style best fits what circumstances; or how simple and effective it is to underhook into a takedown and mount; and it's not about how fast somebody can get his knife out of his pocket...or anything else along these lines.

Whether you're a trained martial artist or just a street thug...

The winner is invariably (ie.- almost always) the guy who wants it the most...and is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

So Scott makes some very good points along these lines (especially about the criminal/psychopathic/desperate mind) - but my point is that MMA trained guys (or whoever else) aren't disqualified from being in the "He who wants it the most will win" group.

Whether you've been training or not...it's the Will-to-Prevail that almost always decides the outcome.

Well he who hesitates hits the concrete, The streets are like the wild west we can both have weapons its who uses their's first . No matter how determined you are to win. It comes down to first strike.
All fighting is by deception