WCK and Ground Fighting

[Vajramusti]

This thread is silly.

Still, in essence, this video is just a bunch of randoS finishing moves strung together. From my perspective, there are no particularly interesting questions asked and none answered. Ultimately, it's just another unremarkable video. But, is it valueless? This question calls for yet more "what if" speculation. It may be interesting to some, but, for me, I don't need more ideas on how to assault someone already defenseless.

However, if you instead see someone trying to fight back, that's your prerogative. I suppose, if you weren't asking me to offer conjecture on your speculation, I might, hypothetically, agree with you, but that's merely supposition on my part.

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Yup -both you and Warfarin must have time on tour hands.

Thread- sill? Aren't most of them?

[Robinhood]

If that's what happened to you last time you competed, then I guess I can see where this morbid dread of it comes from.

Let's look at a short list of MA competitors whose lives have been impoverished, skill diminished and careers and reputations ruined by the foolishness of competing in martial arts or similar competition:

Huo Yuanjia (per Fearless)
Moshe Feldenkrais
Bruce Lee
Wong Shun Leung
Chuck Norris
Richard Norton
Benny Urquidez
Muhammad Ali
The Rock
Jesse Ventura
Gene Lebell
Gracie family
Machado family
Dan Gable
John Smith
Randy Couture
Marcelo Garcia
Robert Drysdale
Kazushi Sakuraba
Genki Sudo
Cung Le
Ronda Rousey
Alan Orr and his students
Rick Spain and his students
Phil Redmond
Joe Sayah
Many others

Yeah, In ten years or so I'll be so glad I aspired to be like and took the advice of robinhood, an anonymous poster on KFO who allegedly trains with and admires phenomenal but secret masters who almost certainly don't exist, rather than follow the examples and obvious road to perdition of those mentioned above. Hahaha.

Demonstrably, you are out of touch with reality and are talking out of your a$$. Anyone who heeds your advice would have to be a moron.

What are you listing, people who became popular and who's abilities are left in the past. Sure you become popular and then wash out because of your age, only to be has beens. , that is just what I was talking about. But if you want to sacrifice your body and health for money and fame, go ahead.

[Wayfaring]

This thread is silly. There's a lot of platitudes, but not much actual discussion of the type for which you feigned you wanted. What the heck, I'm bored today. So, I'll bite:

Thx for the response and the thought behind it. I do like this type of discussion better but threads go where threads go.

He's not really being choked. Regardless of how easy it was to do in the demonstration, I observe him tucking his chin into the crook of the attacker's elbow and shrugging his shoulders. He has a few more moments to try something because of this.

And the problem with his defense is he's missing things, and the missing things will get someone he is teaching finished quickly in a real situation. He teaches the proper side to avoid in the choke, and tucking the chin. However, the top hand position MUST be removed quickly (well, maybe not with the poor choking technique done against him), and the top hand position on a good choke will be not near the top of the head, but directly behind the neck, with head pressure assisting the choke.

If the choke was done properly, Randy would be out before he got anywhere near the second or third steps in the demo or the seio otoshi.

Anyway, setting aside further dissection of the mechanics involved in the actual counter of the choke and the throw displayed, what I am curious of is the unbalancing. In the sequence of what is being demonstrated, I see the throw as too late: the attacker has already broken down the defender's balance by kicking out the supporting leg(s) and stepping slightly backward. Without the defender either regaining balance (what the attacker actually lets happen for no obvious reason), or possessing much better mechanics of the throw than what is shown, the throw will most likely fail no matter how the attacker reacts to the attempt. He could probably just stand there and do nothing to avoid being thrown.

you correctly observe the missing topic of kuzushi (judo's concept of unbalancing as part of a throw) throughout the sequence. and that topic can make or break the technique.

As for the mechanics of what is shown, the throw is, in essence, seoi otoshi - a bad one, but that's what it is. In addition to finding better demonstrations of this throw, you can also find video examples of people being tossed off in a similar fashion while back mounting someone in turtle while hooks are already in. It is just as valid to speculate that, under this much quicker standup timing scenario with no hooks and with proper mechanics behind the throw, your suggestion of a counter will likely also fail. He couldn't probably do anything meaningful to stop being thrown.

The larger strokes Randy is teaching are proper, and probably learned from a BJJ black belt if I had to guess. I mean the basic idea of dumping someone over your head from back mount is very sound, and just proven out by Ronda Rousey in her first UFC fight. Actually, that fight is a great contrast between fundamental details of grappling and missing a couple details.

However, because Randy has not developed the fundamentals himself, his teaching of the techniques lack the fundamentals necessary to make what he is teaching effective. This is where you will notice significant departure in the instruction of true ground specialists and teachers.

Without proper detail of seoi otoshi, it's not too difficult to grip the neck and roll through the throw keeping grips ending up retaining back mount, which is now a worse position. Or inserting hooks right prior to the attempt and breaking down his posture or turtle (Galvao calls this "smashing the chicken").

Frankly, the "what if... what if... what if you try this and I try that" speculation game is tedious and boring, anyway. I'd prefer not to play it. How is balance realistically reestablished before attempting the throw? Why did the attacker step back in instead of taking another step backward?

Yes this is not online chess where we can Q-B4 check. But we can discuss fundamentals on the ground and be accurate about them so that people with less exposure can start to learn the difference between good fundamentals and lacking fundamentals. Your questions are valid from that perspective.

Personally, I'd let the lack of top control slide: it's just a demonstration. There are more than a few examples of top caliber people demonstrating various things while leaving top control out. The ride makes it somewhat harder to exaggerate what someone really wants to show for the sake of a clearer demonstration. To me, establishing momentary control for any technique to work beautifully in any situation is implied. There's no particular reason to hold this video to an arbitrarily higher explicit standard to show this.

Actually IMO the lack of top control illustrates exactly the point I'm making - missing fundamentals in the ground game and how dangerous it is to try and do self-defense in a real scenario with missing fundamentals. And pairing this with ineffective strikes from the top.

People that have ground fundamentals will see what's missing. People that don't probably will not. So to the trained it's obvious and doesn't need explaining. However, we're talking ground fundamentals on a WCK board, so the vast majority on this forum do not have trained good ground fundamentals. The ones that do are commenting on this thread, along with many others.

Still, in essence, this video is just a bunch of random finishing moves strung together. From my perspective, there are no particularly interesting questions asked and none answered. Ultimately, it's just another unremarkable video. But, is it valueless? This question calls for yet more "what if" speculation. It may be interesting to some, but, for me, I don't need more ideas on how to assault someone already defenseless.

The problem with this is that it assumes what you have done to that point will render an attacker defenseless so that you can finish them with no resistance. I saw no such moves up to that point that would do anything to disable a real attacker. Quite the contrary, all the space left from the top would make it SIMPLE to just stand up from the turtle position and take down your opponent or to start smashing from very close range.
It's dangerous not to have or teach proper fundamentals.

However, if you instead see someone trying to fight back, that's your prerogative. I suppose, if you weren't asking me to offer conjecture on such a speculation, I might, hypothetically, agree with you, but that's merely supposition on my part.

In this case I care much more about fundamentals than I do about the live nature of the resistance. If fundamentals are correct, then live energy will not do anything to the drill, it will look the same. If they are wrong, live energy will completely disrupt the sequence. It's a great way to test it though.

Anyway, just my .02 and conversation.

[anerlich]

What are you listing, people who became popular and who's abilities are left in the past.

After enough years, everyone's abilities get left in the past. Unless your training can reverse ageing and prevent death.

Sure you become popular and then wash out because of your age, only to be has beens. ,

I guess you'd prefer to never achieve anything, and become an ain't-never-been. It must be awful to have someone say "that old guy was really good in his prime, he achieved a lot" about you, rather than "that old guy can't do much now .... but he couldn't do much when he was young either."

that is just what I was talking about.

OK. You sounded really dumb.

But if you want to sacrifice your body and health for money and fame, go ahead.

Gee, thanks for your permission.

I'm 58 and still training 4-6 days a week. Hoping to do even more when I retire from full time work.

I went to my high school reunion last year ... and I'm in much better shape than the majority of my peers.

Still waiting for this "sacrifice" to kick in ... reckon I'll be waiting quite a few years yet. I'm betting the advantages of my training philosophy to longevity and vitality therein far outweigh your alleged "sacrifices".

[Tom Kagan]

Ha Ha, he's not a real grappler. FAIL!

Anyway, just my .02 and conversation.

Fixed.

As I mentioned before, those videos are a snapshot of one moment in time and are more or less unremarkable. I don't know Randy Williams. I've never sparred with him. In fact, I've never met him. I don't know what he can and cannot realistically do in this or any other context. However I feel regarding the level of his abilities is irrelevant and more of a reflection of my own biases and predilections at this point. Also, I have not seen enough video of him (or the right kind) to personally reach an enlightened opinion one way or the other.

Still, unless your critique of his abilities relies on evidence of Randy William's actual grappling skill, your assumptions are speculative and so is your conclusion. (This is in spite of your critique of what is shown in the videos.) Repeating your request for me to offer conjecture on your speculation doesn't change anything. But, who knows? Maybe you've seen a lot more of his stuff than me. If you have proof not yet discussed, I'd be interested.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending these videos at all. To cut through this thread's noise and get to what I think is the point of what you are trying to say, I agree he is going about things in a backward fashion. He needs to first establish credentials before doing such demonstrations. If you want entertain conjecture, why hasn't this happened? Did he sell the information contained in the videos? What other clips can be found from that moment in time? Now, the "what if" game could get interesting and amusing, regardless of the videos' inability to be either.

And, yeah: objectively, the demonstrations could be a lot better. If you asked Randy Williams himself, there isn't a lot presented here to believe he wouldn't agree. However, by the same token, you could objectively document and/or critique your list of assumptions required to reach your "ha ha" conclusion much better, also. Regardless of the level of probability of the items contained on such a list, if your assumptions were truly fleshed out in such a fashion, the sh!tstorm you were looking to start in this thread would be hilarious instead of kinda boring.

[Wayfaring]

I don't have a "haha" conclusion I'm shooting for. Way to be an @$$. If you read the thread I praise Randy for even dealing with the ground. That is more than almost any other WCK teacher out there. And he has it on video for critique. All good.

I am trying to raise the levels of ground fundamental understanding so that WCK people aren't sounding so moronic when discussing it (like on a lot of this thread). That's the purpose of the discussion at least for me. I'm sure others get other things from it. We've already been through this with the influx of CRCA posters and signups on the thread. My purpose is not mud slinging.

As far as "evidence of grappling skill", I mean come on, there's plenty of that evidence on the clip. That IS "evidence of grappling skill". Your critique of my posting seems to be ignoring that evidence.

But for other evidence, look to his instructional series:
http://www.shopwingchun.com/review-r...d-fighting-1-2

Here by his own admission he has "reverse engineered other systems" and "found ways of using Wing Chun to achieve the same results". His resulting grappling "system" he calls "Biu-Jitsu". While I admire the energy to do this, and have similar thought patterns, I still see missing fundamentals in the grappling he teaches.

I mean this is not rocket science.

1. Learn good ground fundamentals
2. THEN reverse engineer.
3. Refine, rinse, repeat.

And kagan, you're PMSing.