David Ross Comment on Self-Defense

[Frost]

when we do an eye strike, the fingers are slightly bent, not locked out, so there is no danger if you hit bone. You don't need to be able to thrust through boards or watermelons to squish an eyeball.

nope but if you miss the eye ball you are going to hit something hard and there is a danger of hurting your hand, and personally i would rather hit his face with my fist

[SoCo KungFu]

I've yet to see a kung fu school that practiced the proper way to get throw through a table, hit with a bottle or defend a curb stomp....just sayin....

[SoCo KungFu]

prostate anus balls

You pose a convincing argument. vulva ovum fundus

[YouKnowWho]

do people really train finger strikes to the eyes?

An open hand slide across the eyes will be better than finger poke into the eyes.

- 1st, you don't have your opponent's eye balls on your finger tips (It's hard to prove you are innocent in court).
- 2nd, you have 5 fingers on 2 eyes (5 x 2 = 10). The odd that any of your fingers that can get into either eye is much greater.
- 3rd, it's just a hook punch (without a fist) across your opponent's face. Nothing fancy about that.

[rogue]

nope but if you miss the eye ball you are going to hit something hard and there is a danger of hurting your hand, and personally i would rather hit his face with my fist

Hitting anything hard with any part of the hand will always have risk with it. Personally I try not to hit the head with a bare fist. Eye jabs are no big deal and just another technique for you tool box. They work when they land right, sometimes work when you miss and the other guy flinches and other times they just fail. Just like a lot of techniques.

[SevenStar]

Just on a very basic level, as I said above, getting if you square up on someone like you are in a ring you have committed a huge mistake in a street fight. IMO, as soon as you get in a stance/ on guard you let your opponent know that you know something and put yourself at greater risk to get stabbed or shot. Why would you let your opponent know that you are coming? This is a difference between a ring fight and a street fight. In the ring I have to display to the referee, judges, and on some level my opponent that I understand why I am there and that I am ready to defend myself. This is not the case in a street fight.

I wouldn't assume we would drop into a thai fighting stance any more than I would assume you would drop into a low 60 /40. I'm not sure why you would even say that...

If I never got into a stance and punched someone on the street I am much better off than squaring up. That would be self-defense 101 versus ring 101 which says to keep my hands up and appear to be making an intelligent attempt to defend myself.

LOL, your hands should be up - after the fight starts. If you are so close to me and have me so concerned that a you will strike, then I will likely strike pre empively anyway - why am I waiting on him to swing at me?

Beyond that, it is doing things like putting on eye protection and practicing a bil jee, role-playing various street-fighting scenarios. Discuss how to use the environment. Reminding people to look for weapons in the environment. Discuss how to hit people when your hands aren't taped.

I don't punch a bag with taped hands. I rarely use gloves. When training for a fight, you should do theses things so you are used to the feel, but beyond that, I don't do it. An MMA guy knows how to use the environment just as well as any. due to being in a cage, they are used to fighting in a confined space, know how to keep you in the area they want you, etc. There is more to environmental training than simply "I see a chair" Once again, you are making assumptions about an mma guys knowledge set.

Does your gym practice 2-1, 3-1, and so on? Sure you can kickbox your way out of all of that, but it might be better to consider some of these situations and what are some ways to get out of them without squaring up to each guy and fighting them one one one.

Many GJJ gyms will touch on this at some point, though it is not a focus of training. Royce actually has a decent grappling self defense book on the market. I got hm to autograph it last time I saw him.

In addition, I wouldn't really agree that TMA has any more advantage in these situations than an mma guy. I bounce in a popular night club. I fight multiple attackers all the time....choked out two guys in a multiple scenario this past saturday. I was able to RNC and he was a barrier between myself and the other guy. Once he passed out, I dropped him and took the next guy. There is no situation I've been in where I haven't been able to use my judo / muay thai / bjj, and that includes being attacked with knives and bottles. I had a gun pulled on me once, but he was like 30 feet away from me. No training in any style would've helped with that.

Please quit assuming that all a sport fighter wants to do is square up with someone. it sounds silly.

[SevenStar]

An old Chinese man once told me that during the Japanese occupation of China he was just 8 years old. At 8 years old he killed a japanese soldier by dropping a rock on his head.

The point of me saying this is that will power is the real issue here. If you will to do something it can be done. So I don't think the style of combat is really important, it is your mental ability to cope with the situation.

Since mma puts you in a difficult situation of competition with real pain, I think it is a good method of preparing the mind for actual combat. In the end you will probably never use the exact techniques you've trained anyway, you'll just improvise.

So Techniques in mma may be competition based rather than reality, but the mental training is probably more effective than most Ma.

agreed. good point.

[SevenStar]

All the time. JKDers love it. I have never seen any one get hurt.

I have taken jkd. at no point did we EVER train a full force eye gouge / finger jab. We would drill the technique, but never full force and contact.

[SevenStar]

I dont actually think the rules/enviroment matter that much, i think its the ability and willingness to win and do bodily harm that really matters.

Scariest thing i ever saw was a bunch of rugby players destroying some bouncers in a fight (some of the bouncers were left crippled for life) the rugby lads had had no formal training but were used to contact, had mean streaks and were used to doing what ever it takes to win

That is what I think some tma guys over look. I have spoken with guys IRL and on this forum who believe that just because they train X style that they have an advantage over any random untrained brute. Somebody with no training, but has intent to kill you is in many cases more dangerous than any trained ma, for the reason that in MA you are trained to care. How many times have you heard someone say they don't like to do this or that or dont fight because they know what they can do to a person. Those big rugby players don't have that inhibition. They just want to hurt you.

I used to work with a guy who trained in taiji, kempo and was a black belt in some other style of karate. He could talk the talk, he had sparred, but when he got into his first real fight, he found out that it was nothing like he thought and that this untrained guy shouldn't have been able to man handle him the way that he did. Notice that I said USED to work with. He quit shortly after that. He was almost killed.

[HumbleWCGuy]

I wouldn't assume we would drop into a thai fighting stance any more than I would assume you would drop into a low 60 /40. I'm not sure why you would even say that...

If the particulars aren't discussed of a given situation in a school then there is no reason to assume that exponents of a particular school will do the correct things in an unfamiliar situation.

For example if a school never spars at all it is a reasonable assumption that students from that school will make a larger number of sparring errors than a school that spars. Assuming that a strictly sport school will do something other than ring fighting when faced with a street situation is an assumption. If your school trains for street situations, that's good, but like I said, it isn't the norm.

[HumbleWCGuy]

I have taken jkd. at no point did we EVER train a full force eye gouge / finger jab. We would drill the technique, but never full force and contact.

Lots do. If you school had the appropriate equipment then I would be surprised if it did not train the technique.

[HumbleWCGuy]

I don't punch a bag with taped hands. I rarely use gloves. When training for a fight, you should do theses things so you are used to the feel, but beyond that, I don't do it. An MMA guy knows how to use the environment just as well as any. due to being in a cage, they are used to fighting in a confined space, know how to keep you in the area they want you, etc. There is more to environmental training than simply "I see a chair" Once again, you are making assumptions about an mma guys knowledge set.

It's more that just seeing a chair and hitting someone with it. It is about understanding the entire situation and knowing when you should go for the chair. It's about being ready for the second or 3rd guy who comes that you didn't initially size up. If you aren't spending time talking about these things with your instructors and dedicating class time to these things then you are probably not as prepared as you would like to believe. You should be going through a short curriculum of things that you need to consider that will include, strategy, techniques, legalities, conflict mediation, and awareness training.

[SevenStar]

If the particulars aren't discussed of a given situation in a school then there is no reason to assume that exponents of a particular school will do the correct things in an unfamiliar situation.

For example if a school never spars at all it is a reasonable assumption that students from that school will make a larger number of sparring errors than a school that spars. Assuming that a strictly sport school will do something other than ring fighting when faced with a street situation is an assumption. If your school trains for street situations, that's good, but like I said, it isn't the norm.

I work with a bunch of mma guys, several of whom don't train where I do. none of them get into fighting stances at work...

[SevenStar]

Lots do. If you school had the appropriate equipment then I would be surprised if it did not train the technique.

show me a clip of any person who takes eye gouges at full force as part of training. I can show you a clip of yuki nakai taking one in an mma match. He is now blind in his right eye, although he did win his fight.

[HumbleWCGuy]

I work with a bunch of mma guys, several of whom don't train where I do. none of them get into fighting stances at work...

As I said, are they learning this though on the job experience, talking with each other, did they pick some things up from a video, a karate class when they were a kid, or did their mma instructors talk with them about it? See my point?

Also, that is just one example of a greater point. It isn't they entire point.