MMA Rules: More restrictive than people think?

[Tez3]

One of Dillman's black belts fought in the UFC at one point. Ryan Parker, UFC 7. He came it at 235, got tied up and pushed into the cage while trying for pressure points in the neck. Then got thrown and mounted. He kept up his pressure poitn attacks to the neck, armpit and ribs, then got pounded into hamburger before getting choked by a forearm across his throat.


Out of curiousity, does the original poster (or anyone) practice biting, eye gouging, groin striking, and all the other illegal UFC techniques while training full force? If so, how many training partners have you killed and maimed?

Yes, self defense is different from MMA competition. For SD I teach my students to eye gouge, groin strike, even bite if the situation calls for it, and teach them how to simulate those actions safely while sparring and drilling, but you can never go full speed on them.

MMA is a sport with a lot of benefits to realistic training practices, either watch it and enjoy it, watch it and learn from it, or don't watch it.

Exactly! You'd be a fool to attack someone who does MMA so if you do don't expect them to fight to MMA rules! I doubt boxers or MT fighters if attacked outside the ring would keep it strictly to the rules.
As I keep saying, MMA is a sport!! Veiled criticisms of it as a martial art or a self defence art are pointless. Imagine people rushing to defend karate if I posted up that point sparring is too restrictive for self defence or that Olympic TKD has too many rules in it for self defence?

 

[thetruth]

The same way you deal with any illegal move!

Impossible. If I were to strike someone on st5(jaw) or the gall bladder/liver plexus(ribs) with full force you could not deduct points for that. If however you were hitting the neck or back of the head in search of PP then it could be a deduction because those areas are illegal to strike anyway. Robbie Lawler's KO to the neck was an accident which is bound to happen now and again. Only when these areas become an intentional target can one be penalised.

Cheers
Sam:asian:

 

[DavidCC]

exactly... PPs are all over the body and many times are known to pros even if they don't know them to be "pressure points".

You'd make most body and head shots illegal if you rules out PP strikes, because you wouldn't have any way to know if the puncher was striking a PP or just punching to the body. This is almost too silly to even discuss LOL

 

[punisher73]

Just think where Bas Rutten would be without his famous LIVER SHOT!!!

PP's should be thought of as an added bonus. It I punch you full force because I have trained against a live moving target and the punch lands with full force I do damage, if I hit a point that does more damage..BONUS!

I didn't know Ryan Parker was a Dillman BB, I always had heard of him in reference to his "iron vest/shirt" abilities.

I agree with MMA being a sport and NOT self-defense. Yes, you can use the moves and training for your physical art but you still have to incorporate other methodologies (verbal skills, awareness, etc.) to the mix for SD. That being said, you need to do the same thing with a TMA before you can say it teaches SD as well.

 

[allenjp]

Last night while sparring at BJJ class a guy was trying to choke me, but instead just ended up put a ton of pressure on the side of my neck. I don't know if that is a pressure point or not, but it sure hurt like a b****!
I was tapping before he had a chance to adjust his hold, even though he wasn't choking me.

 

[Tez3]

Impossible. If I were to strike someone on st5(jaw) or the gall bladder/liver plexus(ribs) with full force you could not deduct points for that. If however you were hitting the neck or back of the head in search of PP then it could be a deduction because those areas are illegal to strike anyway. Robbie Lawler's KO to the neck was an accident which is bound to happen now and again. Only when these areas become an intentional target can one be penalised.

Cheers
Sam:asian:

The question was "how would you deal with it if it were illegal" therefore my answer is correct, the same way you deal with any illegal move. :wink1:

 

[DavidCC]

Last night while sparring at BJJ class a guy was trying to choke me, but instead just ended up put a ton of pressure on the side of my neck. I don't know if that is a pressure point or not, but it sure hurt like a b****!
I was tapping before he had a chance to adjust his hold, even though he wasn't choking me.

it's hard to say, could have been "just" misaligning your neck bones LOL very painful. But there are many pressure points above the shoulder line that he could have been on too.

When I started doing grappling I would tap becaue somehting hurt too much. Now I only tap if that pain is a warning that I am about to be injured. Which basically just means I suffer through the cross-faces now.

I probably would have tapped in your situation because necks injure easily.

 

[neoinarien]

Out of curiousity, does the original poster (or anyone) practice biting, eye gouging, groin striking, and all the other illegal UFC techniques while training full force? If so, how many training partners have you killed and maimed?

A pointless question intended to inflame/bait because you know the answer.

 

[Skpotamus]

Apologies for the "bait", the point of the rhetorical question was to point out that many of the things that are restricted we don't practice full force in training. We can't or we'd all be crippled instead of just half crippled like most martial artists
Is MMA a real fight? No, in a real fight you usually end up with multiple people, big weight differences, you not knowing the fight is going to happen until you've already been hit and weapons. Not to mention the biting, eye gouging and other nastiness.
The point is that the things that MMA doesn't allow are things that we don't allow to be used when we train either, at least not with any force behind them.

Again, it's a combat sport that lets you use more things than any other combat sport out there right now. Watch it and enjoy it, maybe even try to use it to help your own training by going more live in your training, or don't watch it.

 

[thetruth]

The question was "how would you deal with it if it were illegal" therefore my answer is correct, the same way you deal with any illegal move. :wink1:

Given the amount of pressure points on the body it would make the sport totally redundant if they tried to enforce it. I am not a PP advocate by any means (I am possibly more anti PP than pro PP) but have trained in them in the past and there are a number of very good targets that could be (and probably are) utilised by fighters in MMA. As I said it would be impossible to tell especially at the speed strikes occur in a fight.

Also on another note, Bas Rutten's liver strike wasn't necessarily a PP strike as it is incredibly painful to get hit over the organ regardless of PP

Cheers
Sam:asian:

 

[MahaKaal]

Pressure points on the face are hard to hit if youve got the gloves on, as the force is dissapated over the large surface area. The main points are on the sides of the nose, above the lips and under the lip, sides of the eyes, between the eyes etc. These would be hit with different hands/fists/knuckles and im not sure if these are allowed in MMA?

 

[DavidCC]

I've seen so many KOs on Stomach 5 (side of the jaw) in the UFC I can't even keep track of them. I met Chuck L, he said that's one of his favorite spots to get someone.

Funny thing is, most of the KOs here come not from crushing blows but from glancing shots or odd-angle hooks.

 

[allenjp]

I tend to think that the importance of full force sparring can sometimes be overestimated. No doubt it helps and I wouldn't want to be in a training program without it. That said when you are training in techniques that are designed to quickly and seriously injure or kill an opponent you obviously can't train full force because you don't want to injure you're training partner. I think a good example could be the military. Many of their techniques are very dangerous or lethal so obviously they can't spar full force with them. And when they do spar they use a lot of protective equipment. Does that mean that their techniques are ineffective in real situations? I think that most U.S. military that have been involved in H2H combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have ended up injuring or killing, or at least subduing their opponents (I just heard that on the radio, if anyone has stats on that I would be glad to see them). I think the trick is to make your training as realistic as possible without getting hurt. A technique is not necessarily ineffective in a real situation just because you've never applied it on a real resisting opponent before.

 

[D Dempsey]

allenjp,
Your guess about military H2H is actually pretty inaccurate. The Army's program is pretty heavily based of of BJJ, at least initially. Later you learn muay thai and some kali based material, but MMA stlyle training is practiced throughout. Learning it when I was in the Army is what got me in to BJJ.

 

[theletch1]

The old Marine Corps training (pre-MCMAP) ALL had an ending technique designed to kill your opponent. As the missions have changed so, too, have the techniques that are taught. However, this is quite a digression from the original topic of the thread. Soooo, back to your regularly scheduled thread programming.:uhyeah:

 

[Bodhisattva]

As I understand it the extent of rules in most MMA (UFC, etc) are:

No eye gouging
No groin shots
No biting
(in UFC, no kicking an opponent when down)

So why not more pressure point attacks, etc?

Are there any other rules/restrictions?

The rules are different from fight to fight, depending on what level the MMA competitors are at. I'm cornerman for a guy tomorrow and no elbows or knees to the head are allowed. Most MMA Fights allow elbows and knees to the head.

Regardless of whether there are restrictions or not, MMA is still the LEAST RESTRICTIVE ruleset to find out if your art works, or doesn't.

And, the truth is, most of us MMA guys know how to eye gouge, too. It is not exactly like it's brain surgery.

 

[D Dempsey]

The old Marine Corps training (pre-MCMAP) ALL had an ending technique designed to kill your opponent. As the missions have changed so, too, have the techniques that are taught. However, this is quite a digression from the original topic of the thread. Soooo, back to your regularly scheduled thread programming.:uhyeah:

The Marine Corp much like the Army dropped their old systems because no one trained in it. The lack of a competitive element meant that it was given no time to be trained. You can have the greatest system in the world but if no one practices said system, then it isn't worth much. Now everyone trains and there are unit as well as post competitions.

 

[thetruth]

I've seen so many KOs on Stomach 5 (side of the jaw) in the UFC I can't even keep track of them. I met Chuck L, he said that's one of his favorite spots to get someone.

Funny thing is, most of the KOs here come not from crushing blows but from glancing shots or odd-angle hooks.

Yes but he is still trying to take the guys head off so it must still be considered a classic strike because he never tries to glance an opponent it just turns out that way just as robbie lawlers stike to tiki's neck was.


Cheers
Sam:asian:

 

[DavidCC]

I can't imagine anyone foolish enough to intend to land a glancing blow. Or foolish enough to believe that some would so intend :/

 

[allenjp]

allenjp,
Your guess about military H2H is actually pretty inaccurate. The Army's program is pretty heavily based of of BJJ, at least initially. Later you learn muay thai and some kali based material, but MMA stlyle training is practiced throughout. Learning it when I was in the Army is what got me in to BJJ.

Interesting...but I found this link: http://www.livingvalues.com/theme2008.html

in which is shown a picture of a Bujinkan instructor teaching wrist locks to the Marines.

And also this:

which is a video of marines learing wrist lock take downs.

These are from the MCMAP system, not the old LINE system.

In other threads, wrist locks have been denounced as something that "doesn't work" kind of like PP's here. All I'm saying is that if these techniques such as wrist locks, PP's and the like don't work in real situations and have no hope of working because they are not practiced at full stregnth and speed against fully resisting opponents, why are they being taught to the military (at least the Marines) who have more need than anyone of learning techniques that work in REAL COMBAT situations? Could it perhaps be because someone may have actually used them in real combat before and found out they do work in the right situation?