Why most martial arts don't work in self defense.

[Gerry Seymour]

The self defense I have engaged in have have been slobber knocker matches. And so some training that vaguely reflects that gives me the best chance of being successful.

So the usual narrative is essentially inescapable.

Now people can sell self defense however they want but without the essential elements of training with real resistance. Your slobber knocker training, It just isn't going to be a very good product.

That is why when I ask for a video of whatever people's crazy idea they think will work. I get some kind of excuse. Because they haven't tested it. And are trying to hide that fact.

And that is why I am useful in a technical discussion. Because instead of talking about techniques and methods I haven't used and don't understand. Or about self defense situations that I have read or heard about.

I have real practical experience and am not trying to scam anyone or promote some system I am selling.

I can wrestle on standing arm bars against duds without breaking people's arms by the way. There is a trick to it.

Except for when you make uninformed claims about others, then try to make it their obligation to disprove them. Then your ability to contribute is severely limited by your tactics.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I have difficulty to understand your logic here. Your blocking can interrupt your opponent's 2nd punch (cross).

For example,

- A throws a right jab.
- B blocks on A's right elbow joint and cause A's right arm to rotate to A's left.
- A's "body rotate to the left" can interrupt A's left cross (body rotate to the right).

IMO, an effective blocking can cause your opponent's leading arm to jam his own back arm. If you use your other free hand to punch him at the same time, since his arms are jammed, your one free hand will have the advantage.

In the following picture, the person on the right, his left punch can't punch out.

Same strategy (leading arm jam back arm) apply here.

In my experience, compact punchers negate that principle much of the time. Untrained and inexperienced folks rarely do.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I thought this was why what you train doesn't work in MMA. Because your system relies so heavily on techniques that are banned in competition.

I would have described that as a linchpin.

I also think the argument is purposefully lying. Because to get those arm bars you need a good grasp of fundamental wrestling.

If you have a good grasp of wrestling fundamentals your system would work in MMA.

See it all ties together.

There’s a difference between something that can work in MMA, and an effective MMA training approach. Much of what I teach does work in MMA on a regular basis. But my training methods (my system) aren’t appropriate for training to that context. It has other goals that make it less efficient to that purpose.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Now without at least good fundamental wrestling concepts I don't see how you can get a standing arm bar to work.

Agreed 100%. And with those fundamentals, the arm bar becomes so much more than an arm bar.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

What do you guys think about these kind of comment?

- If you care about fighting, go buy yourself a gun.
- MA is much more than just fighting, MA can help you to achieve self-cultivation (can someone be able to explain what self-cultivation mean?), inner peace, culture enhancement, ...
- Doing Taiji a day, keep the fighting away.
- If you can achieve no-fighting, you don't need fighting.
- If you kill yourself, nobody can kill you.
- ...

1. I’m not a fan of any absolute statements. There are many reasons not to get a gun.
2,3,4. Yes. Part of the objective of MA training can be to avoid those situations via self-management.
5. Well...yes.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

But the fact you are hiding any support draws the conclusion you are not being honest.

This is a fairly weasely tactic. You are asserting a positive action (active hiding) which you know isn’t present. Failing to entertain your blind assertion isn’t the same as concealing information.

 

[Buka]

What do you guys think about these kind of comment?

- If you care about fighting, go buy yourself a gun.
- MA is much more than just fighting, MA can help you to achieve self-cultivation (can someone be able to explain what self-cultivation mean?), inner peace, culture enhancement, ...
- Doing Taiji a day, keep the fighting away.
- If you can achieve no-fighting, you don't need fighting.
- If you kill yourself, nobody can kill you.
- ...

Buy a gun has nothing to do with fighting, gun-fighting has everything to do with fighting.

I don't know what self-cultivation is. Is that like growing your own?

Doing Taiji a day, keep the fighting away.....I don't know what that means.

If you can achieve no fighting, you don't need fighting. True, I suppose, but you can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

If you kill yourself, nobody can kill you.
Ask a married man about that.

Martial Arts around here seems to have gone in a direction where people who don't care what the other guys is doing, care that the other guy should know that, and change that, to what they're doing so he can care in a different way?

People who don't talk to each other around here seem to talk more to each other in order to tell them they don't talk to them any more.

And why complicate fighting? It's really not that complicated. All you gotta' do is fight.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

And why complicate fighting? It's really not that complicated. All you gotta' do is fight.

Agree with you 100% on this.

I still remember the following discussion many years ago.

A: What's your MA style?
B: My MA style is the style that can beat the bad guy to the point that his own mother won't be able to recognize him.

 

[drop bear]

This is a fairly weasely tactic. You are asserting a positive action (active hiding) which you know isn’t present. Failing to entertain your blind assertion isn’t the same as concealing information.

Of course he is actively hiding and of course that is a weasely tactic. I mean seriously.

I asked to see something working.

He said no doesn't want to.

That is actively hiding.


If I sold you a product but refused to show a photo or let you look at it or know what is in it. And assumption that I am ripping you off is not unreasonable.

Or instead we can all make statements we don't have to back so I can say Skribs's arm bars don't work based on as much evidence as he is saying they do. And people can stop complaining about it.

But this inconsistent idea that one person can make any claim he wants and the other has to back up a claim is the unreasonable stance.

 

[drop bear]

There’s a difference between something that can work in MMA, and an effective MMA training approach. Much of what I teach does work in MMA on a regular basis. But my training methods (my system) aren’t appropriate for training to that context. It has other goals that make it less efficient to that purpose.

Much of what you teach works in MMA? or are we looking at similar techniques that other people teach.

But it doesn't matter if you train for MMA or not. Swimmers don't train for MMA. But there are ways to determine if swimming training works. We can put people in a pool make them swim and see who swims longer or faster or whatever.

You train to achieve something and there should be evidence that it is making people better at whatever that thing is.

Self defense for some insane reason doesn't seem to need that.

 

[drop bear]

You have no idea what fundamentals I do or don't have. You are so quick to point out where everyone else fails, or why nobody else is good enough. Get over yourself.

Who said this though?

"My big issue is that he gives people advice, and does it with the confidence of someone who knows what he's talking about. Someone like you or me can see right through it, but someone who is new to martial arts may actually believe him. And as others have pointed out, some of his ideas are dangerous."

 

[drop bear]

What do you guys think about these kind of comment?

- If you care about fighting, go buy yourself a gun.
- MA is much more than just fighting, MA can help you to achieve self-cultivation (can someone be able to explain what self-cultivation mean?), inner peace, culture enhancement, ...
- Doing Taiji a day, keep the fighting away.
- If you can achieve no-fighting, you don't need fighting.
- If you kill yourself, nobody can kill you.
- ...

The gun one is interesting. Technically a gun is the best form of self defence. Yet when we ask people how many fights they have been in to how many times they have shot a guy.

It is almost always more fights than shootings.

If you have shot nobody but been in ten fights then fighting was more useful than gun carrying.

 

[skribs]

Who said this though?

"My big issue is that he gives people advice, and does it with the confidence of someone who knows what he's talking about. Someone like you or me can see right through it, but someone who is new to martial arts may actually believe him. And as others have pointed out, some of his ideas are dangerous."

He doesn't train at all and refuses to train. Big difference.

Of course he is actively hiding and of course that is a weasely tactic. I mean seriously.

I'm not hiding. Whenever I've had this type of conversation with you, you reject everything that isn't MMA. If I say I have striking fundamentals from Taekwondo and Hapkido, you'll just say "no, you don't know anything because you don't take Muay Thai and wrestling." That's why I put you on ignore. Because you say things like that. You said I'll never know how to use a jab because I'm not boxer. You've said other people don't know how to do the same throws that are used in MMA if they learn them in other martial arts, because in your mind if you don't train it in MMA you don't actually know anything.

You started this with personal attacks against me. You have no proof that I don't have the foundations in striking or grappling. You have no reason to know what I do or don't know. You've never fought me. You've never seen me fight. Yet you make these accusations against me (which are uncalled for, because I haven't even been talking to you in this thread or the other). You specifically singled me out as the person who "couldn't do an armbar." How do you know I can't do an armbar? Because I don't take BJJ? Because I've never fought an MMA match? Because you've never seen me do an armbar?

You demanded I prove to you something you would not accept, all so you can have the excuse to call me out for no reason. You put me on the defensive right from the start, and demand I provide with information that you're never going to accept anyway. The only thing that come from this is that you personally feel vindicated, but you end up looking like a jerk.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Re: drop bear and anyone who engages him - sometimes the effort of combat is not worth the victory. Disengagement is sometimes the best strategy. There are better things to discuss on this forum, like zombies and corona virus

 

[skribs]

Re: drop bear and anyone who engages him - sometimes the effort of combat is not worth the victory. Disengagement is sometimes the best strategy. There are better things to discuss on this forum, like zombies and corona virus

I agree, which is why I put him on ignore and was trying to disengage. But he's calling me out in random threads that I'm not even talking to him in.

 

[Flying Crane]

I agree, which is why I put him on ignore and was trying to disengage. But he's calling me out in random threads that I'm not even talking to him in.

@skribs, put him on ignore and don’t ever take him off. Don’t look at his posts, ever, for any reason.

If you feel he is stalking you, report him. If his actions merit, he can be removed from these forums.

 

[drop bear]

He doesn't train at all and refuses to train. Big difference.



I'm not hiding. Whenever I've had this type of conversation with you, you reject everything that isn't MMA. If I say I have striking fundamentals from Taekwondo and Hapkido, you'll just say "no, you don't know anything because you don't take Muay Thai and wrestling." That's why I put you on ignore. Because you say things like that. You said I'll never know how to use a jab because I'm not boxer. You've said other people don't know how to do the same throws that are used in MMA if they learn them in other martial arts, because in your mind if you don't train it in MMA you don't actually know anything.

You started this with personal attacks against me. You have no proof that I don't have the foundations in striking or grappling. You have no reason to know what I do or don't know. You've never fought me. You've never seen me fight. Yet you make these accusations against me (which are uncalled for, because I haven't even been talking to you in this thread or the other). You specifically singled me out as the person who "couldn't do an armbar." How do you know I can't do an armbar? Because I don't take BJJ? Because I've never fought an MMA match? Because you've never seen me do an armbar?

You demanded I prove to you something you would not accept, all so you can have the excuse to call me out for no reason. You put me on the defensive right from the start, and demand I provide with information that you're never going to accept anyway. The only thing that come from this is that you personally feel vindicated, but you end up looking like a jerk.

So you want to make any claim you want without proof but I can't. Is that it?

And then use the fact you don't back up what you say as a shield against critique.

And then critique other posters for the same reason I critique you.

Ok this quote.
"I'm not hiding. Whenever I've had this type of conversation with you, you reject everything that isn't MMA. If I say I have striking fundamentals from Taekwondo and Hapkido, you'll just say "no, you don't know anything because you don't take Muay Thai and wrestling." That's why I put you on ignore. Because you say things like that. You said I'll never know how to use a jab because I'm not boxer. You've said other people don't know how to do the same throws"

Sorry but this is a lie that you have accused me of a few times. And i would like to address it.

To provide evidence that your arm bars or throws or whatever works you would need to show them performed against some sort of semi decent guy who is fighting back.

This could be boxing Or wrestling or MMA or it could be something else that doesn't look fake.

Striking fundamentals from TKD do work in MMA. There is like a dozen tkders in the UFC. And if i can see it I can accept it.

There is no excuse to make the label of self defence as valid as say pamistry or tarot cards. There really isn't. People pay good money and are expecting this to potentially save them from assult.

So when you are promoting systems that nobody can see and that are based on hope. You are creating an environment that leads to abuse.

Leave this dogma to the religious types. Make martial arts practical.

Then you would find the conversation changes and everyone wins.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Much of what you teach works in MMA? or are we looking at similar techniques that other people teach.

But it doesn't matter if you train for MMA or not. Swimmers don't train for MMA. But there are ways to determine if swimming training works. We can put people in a pool make them swim and see who swims longer or faster or whatever.

You train to achieve something and there should be evidence that it is making people better at whatever that thing is.

Self defense for some insane reason doesn't seem to need that.

For someone who doesn’t like the term “self defense” when others use it, you certainly like to use it to categorize others’ training without knowledge of that training. You stereotype in the worst way, then use confirmation bias and weasely “logic” to back up your claims.

Much of what I teach works in MMA, because it’s the same stuff that’s basic in a lot of places. Good basic grappling works, good basic striking works. You just don’t like the name of the system and the stated primary purpose of the training.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Re: drop bear and anyone who engages him - sometimes the effort of combat is not worth the victory. Disengagement is sometimes the best strategy. There are better things to discuss on this forum, like zombies and corona virus

While true, why miss the fun?

 

[Tez3]

So you want to make any claim you want without proof but I can't. Is that it?

That's correct and you'll be called a bully as well as insulted.