Style bashing

ShortBridge

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I see your point and I agree to an extent, but only to the point that it might improve your fitness or flexibility.(which definitely falls more to the boon side of things)

I'd also say my wording may have been a bit harsh, I don't think every person teaching combat without combat is intentionally deceiving people as per what they are selling, Many if not most probably believe it themselves too.

I can say with earnest that I've yet to meet anyone that has been trained this way that has been able to use it when it counts, in a way that works.

I see that you missed this thread, which contains exactly the type of evidence that you say you are lacking.

Self Defense from rape

It is a real story about a real person who's training was tested in a potentially life and death circumstance this year a few miles from my house. Not that I expect it will change your worldview one bit. You believe in what you do, you're surrounded by people and postings that confirm that belief and you look down upon the poor, misguided rest of the world, including the lady in this article, who if we're all honest wouldn't last one round in the octagon with Chuck Liddell.

If you are interested in getting out of your echo chamber of confirmation bias on the very complex problem of personal safety, there are other examples to be found, this one just happened to be local to me, so I didn't have to go looking for it.

There are some other good sources of advice, complete with some "evidence" that an interested party might want to check out. The book "Strong on Defense" by Sanford Strong, for example. My copy is loaned out right now, but used copies can be found on eBay. If you were teaching people to follow your training path to personal saftey and didn't want to be (un)intentionally deceiving them, you might also check out "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker. Those two books and NO TRAINING, in my opinion, may well make certain people safer than 5 days a week of sparring.

Or stick to the same argument and keep assuming that you know the one truth and everyone else is delusional. You'll get some likes from your people and might even influence a few others, while pissing off the rest of us, but what difference does that make, we're all brain washed snake oil salesman anyway, right?
 

Steve

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As long as we leave room in "expert" for someone who is okay, but not great. I'd take BJJ classes from a blue belt in a second, if they are good at teaching. I might not even need them to be a blue belt - just need them to be able to improve on my ability.


Probably. I think we share a concept, though we have a standing disagreement within it.
Like competence, expertise is a spectrum. Provided the blue belt is not misrepresenting the skills and sticks with what he/she knows, great. And is teaching you something he or she is competent to teach. The key is that the blue belt is teaching what he or she actually knows and can do. If that blue belt also happens to have 20 years experience working as a bouncer, maybe he or she has more to offer you with regards to self defense than BJJ fundamentals.

@ShortBridge , I couldn't agree more. But knowing what will make people actually more safe is something that requires data. For civilians, in every instance I have seen, fighting skills are among the least critical skills to learn.

That said, there is still a huge disconnect between what self defense programs teach and what we understand will actually help people be safe. The miscommunication that often arises in threads like this is not malicious (I don't think). It's the result of seeing what self defense programs tend to spend a lot of time teaching, and not a lot of time teaching things that will actually help people be safer. So, when you see a martial arts program that purports to teach people "self defense," but focuses on dubious fighting skills, there is an understandable skepticism that results.

I see your comments and martial D's as approaching the same disconnect but from completely different directions.
 

ShortBridge

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...
@ShortBridge , I couldn't agree more. But knowing what will make people actually more safe is something that requires data. For civilians, in every instance I have seen, fighting skills are among the least critical skills to learn.

I agree! And the books I referenced make those same points as well. MMA gyms don't teach "self defense" either and sparring isn't about personal safety, it's about controlled hand to hand combat. I freely admit that teaching people forms or blade hand strikes to the neck don't make them action heros. But, that's neither how I represent those things nor the limits of what we do. I think it's fascinating that people who "spar" in submission wrestling every week say that "classical training" is a scam and should be exposed and at the same time equate the training they do with personal safety from violent crime in 2017. No one can see past their own blinders.

That said, there is still a huge disconnect between what self defense programs teach and what we understand will actually help people be safe. The miscommunication that often arises in threads like this is not malicious (I don't think). It's the result of seeing what self defense programs tend to spend a lot of time teaching, and not a lot of time teaching things that will actually help people be safer. So, when you see a martial arts program that purports to teach people "self defense," but focuses on dubious fighting skills, there is an understandable skepticism that results.

I see your comments and martial D's as approaching the same disconnect but from completely different directions.

The other thing that makes me want to unplug from these discussions entirely is that NONE OF YOU, know how or who I teach, but guys like our friend here assume that they do and openly disapprove.To them, unless it conforms to their worldview, it is invalid. That's not going to change and I don't need for it to, so I shouldn't even be getting involved in these stupid arguments, but then we have the "where are all of the CMA guys? Why isn't there more discussion with them?"
 
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drop bear

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Like competence, expertise is a spectrum. Provided the blue belt is not misrepresenting the skills and sticks with what he/she knows, great. And is teaching you something he or she is competent to teach. The key is that the blue belt is teaching what he or she actually knows and can do. If that blue belt also happens to have 20 years experience working as a bouncer, maybe he or she has more to offer you with regards to self defense than BJJ fundamentals.

@ShortBridge , I couldn't agree more. But knowing what will make people actually more safe is something that requires data. For civilians, in every instance I have seen, fighting skills are among the least critical skills to learn.

That said, there is still a huge disconnect between what self defense programs teach and what we understand will actually help people be safe. The miscommunication that often arises in threads like this is not malicious (I don't think). It's the result of seeing what self defense programs tend to spend a lot of time teaching, and not a lot of time teaching things that will actually help people be safer. So, when you see a martial arts program that purports to teach people "self defense," but focuses on dubious fighting skills, there is an understandable skepticism that results.

I see your comments and martial D's as approaching the same disconnect but from completely different directions.

Provided we approach that with the same intrest in evidence based training.

Unfortunately it is the area most likley to be hodo magic make stuff up as we go along.

Who are the experts in these fields? And what makes them experts?

I mean imagine if we took the method of deescalation and trained it as comprehensively as these guys do pick up techniques.

Mystery Method - The Easiest Way To Pick-up
 

pgsmith

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If this to you seems harsh -

My point of view - it is harmful and fraudulent to instill in people a false sense of confidence based on nonfunctional BS that will and has gotten many people hurt or killed. It is my duty as a martial artist to dispel these myths wherever I find them.
.

I just thought this was so funny that it bore repeating for the giggle factor. :)

You seem to have a tremendous false sense of confidence about your own ability to know what is useful and what isn't. You also seem to have a false sense of confidence in your knowledge of what gets people hurt or killed, as you keep repeating that line with no facts to back it up.

I just see someone trying desperately to boost their own ego.

I couldn't agree more. But knowing what will make people actually more safe is something that requires data. For civilians, in every instance I have seen, fighting skills are among the least critical skills to learn

I agree wholeheartedly, based upon my personal experiences. Both self defense and "combat" as the OP keeps saying, have very little to do with personal fighting skills.
 

drop bear

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I just thought this was so funny that it bore repeating for the giggle factor. :)

You seem to have a tremendous false sense of confidence about your own ability to know what is useful and what isn't. You also seem to have a false sense of confidence in your knowledge of what gets people hurt or killed, as you keep repeating that line with no facts to back it up.

I just see someone trying desperately to boost their own ego.

So we are back to this idea of how do you know there is no Santa clause. Have you met him?
 
OP
Martial D

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I just thought this was so funny that it bore repeating for the giggle factor. :)

You seem to have a tremendous false sense of confidence about your own ability to know what is useful and what isn't. You also seem to have a false sense of confidence in your knowledge of what gets people hurt or killed, as you keep repeating that line with no facts to back it up.

I just see someone trying desperately to boost their own ego.
Eisegesis


I agree wholeheartedly, based upon my personal experiences. Both self defense and "combat" as the OP keeps saying, have very little to do with personal fighting skills.
Combat (fighting)has little to do with fighting skills eh? Well I guess that says it all.
 
OP
Martial D

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I see that you missed this thread, which contains exactly the type of evidence that you say you are lacking.

Self Defense from rape

It is a real story about a real person who's training was tested in a potentially life and death circumstance this year a few miles from my house. Not that I expect it will change your worldview one bit. You believe in what you do, you're surrounded by people and postings that confirm that belief and you look down upon the poor, misguided rest of the world, including the lady in this article, who if we're all honest wouldn't last one round in the octagon with Chuck Liddell.

If you are interested in getting out of your echo chamber of confirmation bias on the very complex problem of personal safety, there are other examples to be found, this one just happened to be local to me, so I didn't have to go looking for it.

There are some other good sources of advice, complete with some "evidence" that an interested party might want to check out. The book "Strong on Defense" by Sanford Strong, for example. My copy is loaned out right now, but used copies can be found on eBay. If you were teaching people to follow your training path to personal saftey and didn't want to be (un)intentionally deceiving them, you might also check out "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker. Those two books and NO TRAINING, in my opinion, may well make certain people safer than 5 days a week of sparring.

Or stick to the same argument and keep assuming that you know the one truth and everyone else is delusional. You'll get some likes from your people and might even influence a few others, while pissing off the rest of us, but what difference does that make, we're all brain washed snake oil salesman anyway, right?
That was a swell rant, but didn't in any way address what I actually said.
 

Paul_D

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Yet none of you have the wherewithal to address the points made,
And you have yet, 14 pages in, have not yet had the wherewithal to address the points made by others on page one:-

What are your qualifications for deciding what works and what doesn't?

What if someone looking at you and what you do decides you are wrong and you are misleading students etc?

Is an instructor who genuinely believes what he was taught works and so teaches his students a fraud then?

How do you prove what others teach doesn't work?


your talking in absolutes again, and that automatically makes it untrue.

any physical improvement will make you more able to defend yourself
Says absolutes are automatically wrong, then makes a statement that's an absolute


Reading what has gone on while have been away, I am disappointed (if not surprised) that the cumulative IQ of the forum continues to be dragged down by the same 4-5 posters.

maybe I'l try again in the new year ........ or 2019.

Get well soon MT, wishing you a speedy recovery. :(
 

jobo

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I agree! And the books I referenced make those same points as well. MMA gyms don't teach "self defense" either and sparring isn't about personal safety, it's about controlled hand to hand combat. I freely admit that teaching people forms or blade hand strikes to the neck don't make them action heros. But, that's neither how I represent those things nor the limits of what we do. I think it's fascinating that people who "spar" in submission wrestling every week say that "classical training" is a scam and should be exposed and at the same time equate the training they do with personal safety from violent crime in 2017. No one can see past their own blinders.



The other thing that makes me want to unplug from these discussions entirely is that NONE OF YOU, know how or who I teach, but guys like our friend here assume that they do and openly disapprove.To them, unless it conforms to their worldview, it is invalid. That's not going to change and I don't need for it to, so I shouldn't even be getting involved in these stupid arguments, but then we have the "where are all of the CMA guys? Why isn't there more discussion with them?"
but you are as involved in absolutes as the guy you are criticizesing .

this same polarized self defence/ personal safety argument gets done again and again.
of course mma s about self defence, those very same,skills will give you a marked advantage in any attack, plus and its a big plus there is a very good chance that you are,fitter than your attacker. That doesn't make you unbeatable but does move the odds in your,favour. The same should be true of any ma, perhaps less so, but it should still improve your odds or reduce the % of the population that can just over power you

part of the reason for doing ma, must be to remove or,at least reduce the fear factor, if as it seems to often happen it increases it, then its counter productive or you are doing it wrong
 

ShortBridge

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I have not spoken in absolutes and I don't think in absolutes.

Training for fighting, regardless of what type of training or what label you put on it should improve your chances of success at fighting. I have no issue with MMA training, I admire it. I did it, in fact, for years roughly 1/2 my life ago. I'm not against it or sparring or anything else, but I don't see them as the panacea (how's that for some forum IQ?) that I keep reading that they are.

But, while fighting and personal safety are related, they are different things. The OP started out by saying, essentially, the anyone who didn't teach the way he trains is actually making their students less safe. Sorry, but that's ********. It's short sighted and it shows a broad lack of understanding of what makes people safe and what might make them more likely to get hurt in the actual real world.

There is also very little consideration in these discussion about WHO you teach. Context matters and anyone who teaches any subject knows that what one person needs can be quite different than what another person needs. One size fits all solutions sell well, but also come and go as people realize that they aren't magic.
 
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Martial D

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I have not spoken in absolutes and I don't think in absolutes.

Training for fighting, regardless of what type of training or what label you put on it should improve your chances of success at fighting. I have no issue with MMA training, I admire it. I did it, in fact, for years roughly 1/2 my life ago. I'm not against it or sparring or anything else, but I don't see them as the panacea (how's that for some forum IQ?) that I keep reading that they are.

But, while fighting and personal safety are related, they are different things. The OP started out by saying, essentially, the anyone who didn't teach the way he trains is actually making their students less safe. Sorry, but that's ********. It's short sighted and it shows a broad lack of understanding of what makes people safe and what might make them more likely to get hurt in the actual real world.

There is also very little consideration in these discussion about WHO you teach. Context matters and anyone who teaches any subject knows that what one person needs can be quite different than what another person needs. One size fits all solutions sell well, but also come and go as people realize that they aren't magic.
I understand perfectly well there is far more to self defense than fighting skills, and it's quite disingenuous for you to assert or assume otherwise. Quote me saying otherwise.

What I am saying, yet again, is that if you are selling a product and labelling it 'fighting skills', yet you don't train anything approaching fighting, you are selling dreams, and are knowingly, or unknowingly, a fraud.
 

ShortBridge

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Yeah, okay, but I'm not selling anything and you have no idea what our training looks like, so I guess I should look away because you aren't talking to me, right?

Good luck on your crusade to expose all of the charlatans and rid the world of martial arts that don't meet your standards. I predict that you'll be wildly successful and statues will be erected in your image.

But, wait, didn't you rage-quit last night after insulting all of our IQs? Why are you still here?
 
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Martial D

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Yeah, okay, but I'm not selling anything and you have no idea what our training looks like, so I guess I should look away because you aren't talking to me, right?

Good luck on your crusade to expose all of the charlatans and rid the world of martial arts that don't meet your standards. I predict that you'll be wildly successful and statues will be erected in your image.

But, wait, didn't you rage-quit last night after insulting all of our IQs? Why are you still here?
If you feel like I am talking directly to you, that's something for you to look at. As for your bit about rage quitting and personal insults, I have no idea what you are talking about. The only one I see here trying to make this personal and getting upset is you.
I don't know you from Adam.
 

ShortBridge

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If you feel like I am talking directly to you, that's something for you to look at. As for your bit about rage quitting and personal insults, I have no idea what you are talking about. The only one I see here trying to make this personal and getting upset is you.
I don't know you from Adam.


Sorry, looking back, Paul D rage quit. Maybe I was just being hopeful. I don't know Paul, maybe he's a loss, driven away about bad conversation, that is a thing that happens in forums.

If you feel like I am talking directly to you, that's something for you to look at.

No, it isn't.

I don't know you from Adam.

You're right, you don't.
 
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Martial D

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Sorry, looking back, Paul D rage quit. Maybe I was just being hopeful. I don't know Paul, maybe he's a loss, driven away about bad conversation, that is a thing that happens in forums.

Don't worry about Paul, he'll be ok.



No, it isn't.
Well I guess neither one of us care then. So why'd you bring it up?

You're right, you don't.
Likewise.
 

jobo

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I have not spoken in absolutes and I don't think in absolutes.

Training for fighting, regardless of what type of training or what label you put on it should improve your chances of success at fighting. I have no issue with MMA training, I admire it. I did it, in fact, for years roughly 1/2 my life ago. I'm not against it or sparring or anything else, but I don't see them as the panacea (how's that for some forum IQ?) that I keep reading that they are.

But, while fighting and personal safety are related, they are different things. The OP started out by saying, essentially, the anyone who didn't teach the way he trains is actually making their students less safe. Sorry, but that's ********. It's short sighted and it shows a broad lack of understanding of what makes people safe and what might make them more likely to get hurt in the actual real world.

There is also very little consideration in these discussion about WHO you teach. Context matters and anyone who teaches any subject knows that what one person needs can be quite different than what another person needs. One size fits all solutions sell well, but also come and go as people realize that they aren't magic.
his point that i don't necessarily agree with is that encouraging people in to believing they are better than they are may cause them to put themselves in danger , where as th fact seems to be, that the more people are exposed to ma, the less safe they feel

but you have brought in the old self defence self preservation argument, i see them as opposite ends of a spectrum, the more you have of one, the less you need of the other
 

ballen0351

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Good Thing we got rid of Political Talk to keep the forums civilized lol................
 

pgsmith

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Combat (fighting)has little to do with fighting skills eh? Well I guess that says it all.
What it says is that I have actually been in combat. Have you? Combat is about fields of fire, awareness of the enemy, and coordinated movements with your squad-mates. If you are forced to engage in hand to hand, you've seriously screwed up.
Judging by the tenor of your posts, I would hazard a guess that you have never been in the military, so your idea of "combat" is probably closer to a drunken bar fight. Drunken bar fights are nowhere near actual combat. :)

While it's been fun laughing at your ridiculous arguments, you obviously have very little knowledge, and even less desire to gain any knowledge. Therefore, I will withdraw as most others have. :)

Have fun with your ego stroking!
 

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