Thoughts on the "what martial art should I take for self-defense" question

[Martial D]

It has been tested and failed, but with a few caveats:

• It has been tested and failed in the specific rules of MMA
• It has been tested and failed against someone who has a pretty good idea of what you're going to do
• It has not been proven the technique is bad, only that the person trying it failed to execute

The first point is a non starter. Anyone that believes their style would work 'if only they could go for the eyes and the crotch' just doesn't understand the requisite skills involved - do you really think the guy that can out punch you, out kick you, out grapple you and has a better understanding of distance and timing than you can't also out eyegouge and nutshot you? This is a fantasy.

The second I see as a cop out honestly. I mean, if something only works on someone with no idea how to defend it, does it really work?

The third I agree with, as I stated previously; the failure of a martial artist doesn't always mean the failure of the technique. But sometimes, it does.

 

[skribs]

The first point is a non starter. Anyone that believes their style would work 'if only they could go for the eyes and the crotch' just doesn't understand the requisite skills involved - do you really think the guy that can out punch you, out kick you, out grapple you and has a better understanding of distance and timing than you can't also out eyegouge and nutshot you? This is a fantasy.

The second I see as a cop out honestly. I mean, if something only works on someone with no idea how to defend it, does it really work?

The third I agree with, as I stated previously; the failure of a martial artist doesn't always mean the failure of the technique. But sometimes, it does.

1. On the one hand, something like an eye gouge can work in situations were a punch wouldn't. If you're in the clinch, you can easily poke someone's eye in a situation where you wouldn't be able to throw a punch. On the other hand, there is a much wider net of techniques that don't work in the UFC, that would work in a real situation. Standing armbars (where you're standing over someone and pull their elbow against your shin) would work very well if fully executed to break an arm, but would be easy to roll out of in UFC.
2. It depends. A lot of arts are fairly 1-dimensional. If you know someone is a good boxer and has no other skills, it would be easy to beat him with kicks or to take him down. This is actually what happened a lot in the early days of UFC. If you fight someone who trains Aikido, you know to avoid wrist locks. Aikido doesn't have much success in UFC, or even pressure-tested against MMA fighters. However, the techniques are very useful for cops who apprehend suspects, and there's been news stories of guys disarming folks with their aikido training. But it fails in MMA, which means that it must not work. If the test doesn't line up with real world data, then it's proof the test isn't perfect.

 

[Parzival]

From what I've heard Aikido is pretty good for street practicality. It was made by an old man, so you don't have to worry about being strong for it.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

This question has been around forever and it will probably be around forever.

I would dispute and say the answer has always been, carry a weapon.

we are discussing mental toughness, the quality of refusing to be beaten until you have expounded every last bit of effort your body will allow, you get that from running as much as you do from boxing, though its better if threes a pain barrier to go through, as there is with some types of running

the absolute toughest people ive ever met are rugby players, they would take most people on here out with out breaking sweat , but then fell runners are pretty dam tough as well, but you can see the quality with some thing as unathletic as snooker, you just know they wont go down with out a fight, coz thats there personality type, whether they can muster much of a fight is another matter

fair enough then.

 

[Parzival]

I would dispute and say the answer has always been, carry a weapon.

Brah, I'd get arrested if I carried a scredriver

 

[Martial D]

1. On the one hand, something like an eye gouge can work in situations were a punch wouldn't. If you're in the clinch, you can easily poke someone's eye in a situation where you wouldn't be able to throw a punch. On the other hand, there is a much wider net of techniques that don't work in the UFC, that would work in a real situation. Standing armbars (where you're standing over someone and pull their elbow against your shin) would work very well if fully executed to break an arm, but would be easy to roll out of in UFC.
2. It depends. A lot of arts are fairly 1-dimensional. If you know someone is a good boxer and has no other skills, it would be easy to beat him with kicks or to take him down. This is actually what happened a lot in the early days of UFC. If you fight someone who trains Aikido, you know to avoid wrist locks. Aikido doesn't have much success in UFC, or even pressure-tested against MMA fighters. However, the techniques are very useful for cops who apprehend suspects, and there's been news stories of guys disarming folks with their aikido training. But it fails in MMA, which means that it must not work. If the test doesn't line up with real world data, then it's proof the test isn't perfect.

1: I already answered the bit about eyepokes and such. If you think guys that do live training can't do it better then guys that don't you are simply, demonstrably, wrong.

The last bit though has me puzzled. So a standing armbar can be easily escaped in a cage, but not so in the street. At which point does the physics change?

Or is it back to the quality of the opponent again? I mean, anything will work on an old lady or a child, and I guess if that's the standard you want to measure with, then sure. Or maybe we bring it up to the level of drunk guy, or weak guy, or guy that randomly charges in and holds out his arm for a few moments to give you some time to get off a three beat throw on him, like in the demos. But why settle for a weak standard? I measure by what works against guys that know what they are doing, and thus works against anyone.

2: LOL

 

[drop bear]

yes competition is good for '' mental toughness'' but it doesnt have to be fighting competition any competition works , even completely against your own previous best

once youve developed a competition mentality you can apply that to anything

Yeah. But if you are doing martial arts you may as well make it fighting. It would probably be simpler.

 

[drop bear]

Not at all, competition is important for mental toughness, as is sparring, but they are not the only methods, my only quarm with competition is when its under very very strict rules, and someone scores a point for tapping the ear, or striking to the head is not allowed rule, and someone only participate in play sparring and vever pressure test themselves. Is this a continuance of a conversation we had a little while back?

The thread was basically prefaced with the "do MMA" concept.

Which people pick because of the rule set that allows more flexibility.

 

[drop bear]

This question has been around forever and it will probably be around forever. The correct answer is always "it depends," followed by an interrogatory that seldom varies. Different people will find different answers based on traversing that decision tree.

Unfortunately, newcomers tend not to do two things.

First, they fail to look to see if the question has been asked/answered before.

Second, assuming they do find such threads, they seem not to believe them and feel the need to ask anew.

The question itself is so generic as to demand followup questions, as have been mentioned in this thread and by the OP.

1) What do you mean by 'self-defense'?
2) What is available in your area?
3) Are you willing to train?

As simple as these questions sound, answers still tend to vary.

I ask the first question because people live in different areas of the world, and face different kinds of threats. If one lives in a war-torn area with bombs going off and roaming armed bands of warlords, I suspect that 'self-defense' means something different than it means to a person living in a suburban zone of a modern first-world city that has a fairly low crime rate and 'self-defense' is more often going to involve random drunken barroom fisticuffs of the voluntary sort.

I ask the second question because there's no point in setting one's hopes on a style or type of training that simply isn't available where one lives. I am setting aside distance learning via book and video because that's garbage and doesn't work for initial training (sorry, facts hurt).

I ask the third question because it seems many fantasize about magic arts that give results without serious and continuing effort. The best way to learn to take a punch is...to get punched. A lot. The best way to learn to deliver a punch is to punch. A lot.

As to the art - meh. Horses for courses. I like mine, you like yours, and we can go around and around about that - there is no way to resolve that question to everyone's satisfaction.

But to cut to the chase; Isshinryu is best. You're welcome.

And then people complain when I say self defense is a weasel word.

 

[skribs]

1: I already answered the bit about eyepokes and such. If you think guys that do live training can't do it better then guys that don't you are simply, demonstrably, wrong.

It's still a different technique. A boxer may not defend against an eye poke, because his training is that a punch that only travels a couple of inches isn't a threat for a knockout blow.

Regardless, it's something you can't test in MMA, because it isn't allowed. (And when it does happen, almost invariably the fight stops because the victim is completely defenseless). And because it isn't allowed, an MMA fighter isn't going to prepare to defend it.

The last bit though has me puzzled. So a standing armbar can be easily escaped in a cage, but not so in the street. At which point does the physics change?

The physics "change" when you pause to allow the person to tap. The submissions that work in the UFC work because the person is pinned down and can't escape. It allows you to apply even pressure until they tap out. If you were to yank and armbar as hard as you could and break their elbow, you'd hopefully face a serious penalty for doing so.

The standing armbar works to break an arm. It doesn't work as well to pin someone in place as compared to when your legs are across their body to pin them down. And it is easily defeated if you see it coming, but someone who has practiced it thousands of times will be able to read that resistance and transition into another technique (just like any seasoned grappler would with any of their techniques).

 

[Buka]

we are discussing mental toughness, the quality of refusing to be beaten until you have expounded every last bit of effort your body will allow, you get that from running as much as you do from boxing, though its better if threes a pain barrier to go through, as there is with some types of running

the absolute toughest people ive ever met are rugby players, they would take most people on here out with out breaking sweat , but then fell runners are pretty dam tough as well, but you can see the quality with some thing as unathletic as snooker, you just know they wont go down with out a fight, coz thats there personality type, whether they can muster much of a fight is another matter

Me too. Rugby players are the toughest athletes I've ever met.

 

[Buka]

IMO, in my experience, trying to get a standing armbar in a MMA context is nearly impossible.
Way easier in the street if you practice it in the dojo with resistance, with the old push/shove pre fight bs as a way of learning it's application. I've found it easy to hold someone on the ground with one - but in a lot of dojos I've seen very important details are usually left out - which sets it up for failure in application against resistance.

As for beating a boxer with kicks. Okay, sure, but only if you first have good, long experience in the boxing ring with boxers and trainers. And THEN only if you actually train kicks against a boxer in the boxing ring. Otherwise, buyer beware.

As for eye gouges...I think they're one of the most over rated techniques in the arts. They work great as a distraction if you can get one in. But as a long time fighter, I'll tell you what, you go for a persons eyes you just changed the level of what you are doing big time. Getting eye stuck makes a fighter want to kill you.

 

[skribs]

As for eye gouges...I think they're one of the most over rated techniques in the arts. They work great as a distraction if you can get one in. But as a long time fighter, I'll tell you what, you go for a persons eyes you just changed the level of what you are doing big time. Getting eye stuck makes a fighter want to kill you.

I mean, that's definitely a possibility. But when they were brought up last time, I found a youtube video of pokes that landed in UFC fights (wasn't hard, "MMA eye poke" brought it as the first result) and nearly every one when the poke hit the victim immediately dropped their guard, collapsed their structure, and their awareness went to 0.

 

[Cynik75]

1. Illegal in MMA/other sport matches techniques like eyepokeing or kicking the groin works very well and it has been proven in many MMA/other sport matches. MMA/other sport fighters use them accidentally and intentionally all time. An hundreds of times referees broke fights because of temporary inability to fight caused them.
2. It is proven than MMA/other sport fighters can successfully use those techniques in a fight, without training them 24/7. Changing very very small detail in sport technique makes it "deadly street only" one. Million times more important than learning how to poke the eye is to learn how to understand, create or find and use the right tactical situation and positional advantage (angles and distance control in boxing, position in bjj etc). Everything in live, quickly changing situation under stress with high adrenaline bump and tunel vision. Learnig this is possibly only by sparring or full contact competition.
3. There is no evidence that those "street" techniques work provided by TMA/RBSD side from non-sport frays (rooftop-beimo-leitai-old school master-death only-no rules fights). Maybe because so called TMArtist and RBSDist do not fight or fight 8766766574 times less than sportsmen.
4. 1:1 duel is one of many fight scenarios but it's quite common and being able to deal with one unarmed attacker should be the real base of self defence
5. **** happens, so "street" fighters should be able to survive scenarios with many attackers or armed attacker. But this is not a problem of proper technique but proper tactic and goal
6. Go to MMA learn how to fight at all then go to RBSD to learn right tactic and awareness
7. Sorry for my english.

 

[dvcochran]

we are discussing mental toughness, the quality of refusing to be beaten until you have expounded every last bit of effort your body will allow, you get that from running as much as you do from boxing, though its better if threes a pain barrier to go through, as there is with some types of running

the absolute toughest people ive ever met are rugby players, they would take most people on here out with out breaking sweat , but then fell runners are pretty dam tough as well, but you can see the quality with some thing as unathletic as snooker, you just know they wont go down with out a fight, coz thats there personality type, whether they can muster much of a fight is another matter

I like the post but, to be fair, the mental toughness this thread is talking about would never apply to playing snooker. When the physical component is removed from the equation nearly everything changes. Determination, calculation, and craftiness in snooker? Sure. Being mentally tough (driven) enough to endure what some athletes go through is a whole different thing. It is worth noting that the mental toughness can be there but physical 'accomplishment' will be different from person to person. Otherwise everyone would be an Olympic gold medalist.
Some of the hardest working athletes out there are "D" league players. They have all the drive (some more) than the starters, they just do not have the body, mechanics, or maybe some other mental ability.

 

[Martial D]

It's still a different technique. A boxer may not defend against an eye poke, because his training is that a punch that only travels a couple of inches isn't a threat for a knockout blow.

Regardless, it's something you can't test in MMA, because it isn't allowed. (And when it does happen, almost invariably the fight stops because the victim is completely defenseless). And because it isn't allowed, an MMA fighter isn't going to prepare to defend it.



The physics "change" when you pause to allow the person to tap. The submissions that work in the UFC work because the person is pinned down and can't escape. It allows you to apply even pressure until they tap out. If you were to yank and armbar as hard as you could and break their elbow, you'd hopefully face a serious penalty for doing so.

The standing armbar works to break an arm. It doesn't work as well to pin someone in place as compared to when your legs are across their body to pin them down. And it is easily defeated if you see it coming, but someone who has practiced it thousands of times will be able to read that resistance and transition into another technique (just like any seasoned grappler would with any of their techniques).

Ok I'll reiterate it again for you in different words - if two guys fight, one has experience with live action, understands range and distance, and has been hit/delivered hits against people that are fully fighting back, and knows how to grapple..and this is how this guy trains day in and day out...

And the other does katas, breaks boards, and does cooperative sequence training that involve poking the eyes..

And eyepoking is allowed..

The first guy still wins 100/100 times.

As for your standing armbar..

If they worked to end fights at any sort of reasonable percentage, you would see them in competition. The reason you don't is that they are next to impossible to get against someone that resists even a little bit. Do you really think there is some unspoken gentleman's agreement not to do that even though it's totally legal? This is a terrible example.

Unless and until you train against real resistance, you won't understand just how off the mark you are here.

 

[skribs]

Ok I'll reiterate it again for you in different words - if two guys fight, one has experience with live action, understands range and distance, and has been hit/delivered hits against people that are fully fighting back, and knows how to grapple..and this is how this guy trains day in and day out...

And the other does katas, breaks boards, and does cooperative sequence training that involve poking the eyes..

And eyepoking is allowed..

The first guy still wins 100/100 times.

You picked the two sides of the argument. I didn't make any claim that matches either side.

If they worked to end fights at any sort of reasonable percentage, you would see them in competition. The reason you don't is that they are next to impossible to get against someone that resists even a little bit. Do you really think there is some unspoken gentleman's agreement not to do that even though it's totally legal? This is a terrible example.

Unless and until you train against real resistance, you won't understand just how off the mark you are here.

It's a perfect example. It's a technique that works against resistance (and yes, we do train against resistance), but is low percentage in the ring. The fact you don't think it works is because you're too stubborn to think outside the box of what works in MMA. The fact you don't understand it isn't a fault of the technique.

 

[skribs]

1. Illegal in MMA/other sport matches techniques like eyepokeing or kicking the groin works very well and it has been proven in many MMA/other sport matches. MMA/other sport fighters use them accidentally and intentionally all time. An hundreds of times referees broke fights because of temporary inability to fight caused them.
2. It is proven than MMA/other sport fighters can successfully use those techniques in a fight, without training them 24/7. Changing very very small detail in sport technique makes it "deadly street only" one. Million times more important than learning how to poke the eye is to learn how to understand, create or find and use the right tactical situation and positional advantage (angles and distance control in boxing, position in bjj etc). Everything in live, quickly changing situation under stress with high adrenaline bump and tunel vision. Learnig this is possibly only by sparring or full contact competition.
3. There is no evidence that those "street" techniques work provided by TMA/RBSD side from non-sport frays (rooftop-beimo-leitai-old school master-death only-no rules fights). Maybe because so called TMArtist and RBSDist do not fight or fight 8766766574 times less than sportsmen.
4. 1:1 duel is one of many fight scenarios but it's quite common and being able to deal with one unarmed attacker should be the real base of self defence
5. **** happens, so "street" fighters should be able to survive scenarios with many attackers or armed attacker. But this is not a problem of proper technique but proper tactic and goal
6. Go to MMA learn how to fight at all then go to RBSD to learn right tactic and awareness
7. Sorry for my english.

What you have to understand (because I've had this argument before), is that these people we're arguing with have a narrow field of vision. Only that which happens in the UFC, and is in the rules of UFC, is worth discussing (according to them). If it doesn't work in UFC, you can provide all the evidence in the world, but they have excuse after excuse to throw it out.

 

[jobo]

I like the post but, to be fair, the mental toughness this thread is talking about would never apply to playing snooker. When the physical component is removed from the equation nearly everything changes. Determination, calculation, and craftiness in snooker? Sure. Being mentally tough (driven) enough to endure what some athletes go through is a whole different thing. It is worth noting that the mental toughness can be there but physical 'accomplishment' will be different from person to person. Otherwise everyone would be an Olympic gold medalist.
Some of the hardest working athletes out there are "D" league players. They have all the drive (some more) than the starters, they just do not have the body, mechanics, or maybe some other mental ability.

snooker demands a fairly high level of fitness, in particular significant hand eye coordination and concentration and agility and perhaps most importantly andenialin control. there was a dopping scancdal a few decades ago where snooker players were taking beta blockers to slow their heart rate.

those are the same key eliments as most sports require, getting good aerobic capacity is quite straight forward. getting superb hand eye coordination and emotion control is not, you wouldnt dismiss a baseball pitcher as not an athelete coz they dont run much would you ?

i can tell you from experiance that playing even an hour of match snooker leaves you both physicaly and mentaly exausted, far far more than say a five hour hike, its no coincidence that profesional snooker players are over the hill by the time they turn 40, they cant cope with it physicaly much after that

 

[Gweilo]

What you have to understand (because I've had this argument before), is that these people we're arguing with have a narrow field of vision. Only that which happens in the UFC, and is in the rules of UFC, is worth discussing (according to them). If it doesn't work in UFC, you can provide all the evidence in the world, but they have excuse after excuse to throw it out.

I would have given 2 agree ticks if I could of.