Knowing the appropriate place of aspects of training.

[skribs]

Here is the issue. I could present a demo and everyone could wax lyrical about whether it works or not until the cows come home.

And works against who, in what setting? This goes back to what @Tony Dismukes said in his examples above. A drill that focuses on a relatively unrealistic sport or on a non-sport technique may be part of a larger system (whether it's inherent to the art or specific to the school) that does teach something useful.

And at what level does it reach success? If your bar is "must work in the UFC" and my bar is "must work against an untrained idiot that's trying to pick a fight", then we are arguing somewhere in between. And at that, most people who train BJJ or boxing or even MMA aren't going to make it work in the UFC.

You could also point to techniques that are done live, but only a handful of people could realistically pull them off in very specific situations. You might also find techniques that were relatively high-percentage, but get lower and lower percentage as new counters are developed (or at least, as the technique itself gets more popular and more exposure, and so known counters are trained by more folks).

I can find some compliant demoes for people to mock.

I really, really, really hate this behavior. I mean: really hate it. Outside of anything illegal (such as assault, abuse, or financially defrauding your students), this is probably the worst behavior a martial artist could take.

It is one thing to mock someone in the heat of an argument. It is something we should try not to do. Not because of the feelings of the other person (although that is one reason), but more because when you start mocking the person, your argument starts to crumble. It's seen as evidence that you don't have an argument, so you attack them instead.

It is another thing entirely to purposefully engage and encourage a group of likeminded individuals to publicly mock someone. It's more than bullying. It's a mob mentality. If someone asks for your advice and you tell them everything wrong with what they're doing, that's fine. If you come across something publicly posted and you disagree with it, it's fine to voice your disagreement. But to hunt for videos to bring to your friends to publicly mock? That's crossing a couple of lines.

Martial artists shouldn't be bullies. Martial artists shouldn't encourage bullying. This behavior does both.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

It is one thing to mock someone in the heat of an argument. It is something we should try not to do. Not because of the feelings of the other person (although that is one reason), but more because when you start mocking the person, your argument starts to crumble. It's seen as evidence that you don't have an argument, so you attack them instead.

It is another thing entirely to purposefully engage and encourage a group of likeminded individuals to publicly mock someone. It's more than bullying. It's a mob mentality. If someone asks for your advice and you tell them everything wrong with what they're doing, that's fine. If you come across something publicly posted and you disagree with it, it's fine to voice your disagreement. But to hunt for videos to bring to your friends to publicly mock? That's crossing a couple of lines.

My argument against the "pointing and mocking" of questionable videos is a little different.

The argument often made for such public shaming is that it is intended to discourage people from getting ineffective training from bad teachers which could give them a false sense of confidence and lead to them getting hurt if they ever have to defend themselves.

My first counter argument is that such an approach is ineffective and even counterproductive. Telling someone that their art and their teacher sucks doesn't generally lead them to say "Oh, okay, I'll come train your way then." The more likely response is for the person whose art is being criticized to become defensive and double down on justifying what they are doing. Maybe they would have come to realize the shortcomings of their training on their own, but attacks from the outside could actually delay that process. Leading by example rather than criticizing is generally more effective.

My second counter argument is that often you can find some hidden gems even in a substandard art or school. Maybe the overall training at a given school might be deeply flawed, but they might also have something really useful that I might notice and learn from and make functional in my own training. That will only happen if I keep my mind open and I'm not just focused on pointing and mocking.

Martial artists shouldn't be bullies. Martial artists shouldn't encourage bullying. This behavior does both.

I'd edit "martial artists" to just "people".

 

[skribs]

My second counter argument is that often you can find some hidden gems even in a substandard art or school. Maybe the overall training at a given school might be deeply flawed, but they might also have something really useful that I might notice and learn from and make functional in my own training. That will only happen if I keep my mind open and I'm not just focused on pointing and mocking.

To add on to this, you also don't know what the training is like at the school. You're getting a snapshot demonstration of a single drill. You're not seeing how details are refined in class, nor what else they train or how they spar.

I'd edit "martial artists" to just "people".

I'm not going to argue that people shouldn't be bullies. But one reason many, many people get into martial arts is to get the confidence to deal with bullies. They shouldn't have to experience that within the culture of martial arts itself. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard than the untrained. Especially because we have more influence over other martial artists than we do over people as a whole.

It's kind of like if your training is too rough. No point learning self-defense if you're regularly getting injured in class.

 

[drop bear]

My argument against the "pointing and mocking" of questionable videos is a little different.

The argument often made for such public shaming is that it is intended to discourage people from getting ineffective training from bad teachers which could give them a false sense of confidence and lead to them getting hurt if they ever have to defend themselves.

My first counter argument is that such an approach is ineffective and even counterproductive. Telling someone that their art and their teacher sucks doesn't generally lead them to say "Oh, okay, I'll come train your way then." The more likely response is for the person whose art is being criticized to become defensive and double down on justifying what they are doing. Maybe they would have come to realize the shortcomings of their training on their own, but attacks from the outside could actually delay that process. Leading by example rather than criticizing is generally more effective.

My second counter argument is that often you can find some hidden gems even in a substandard art or school. Maybe the overall training at a given school might be deeply flawed, but they might also have something really useful that I might notice and learn from and make functional in my own training. That will only happen if I keep my mind open and I'm not just focused on pointing and mocking.


I'd edit "martial artists" to just "people".

We also generally don't know what we are mocking when it comes to demo's. And how to properly mock it. Because it could be real or it could be garbage.

 

[drop bear]

And works against who, in what setting? This goes back to what @Tony Dismukes said in his examples above. A drill that focuses on a relatively unrealistic sport or on a non-sport technique may be part of a larger system (whether it's inherent to the art or specific to the school) that does teach something useful.

And at what level does it reach success? If your bar is "must work in the UFC" and my bar is "must work against an untrained idiot that's trying to pick a fight", then we are arguing somewhere in between. And at that, most people who train BJJ or boxing or even MMA aren't going to make it work in the UFC.

You could also point to techniques that are done live, but only a handful of people could realistically pull them off in very specific situations. You might also find techniques that were relatively high-percentage, but get lower and lower percentage as new counters are developed (or at least, as the technique itself gets more popular and more exposure, and so known counters are trained by more folks).

You can determine that by the type of live example that supports the argument.

You can't determine any of that if there is nothing that supports the argument.

A move that only works against an untrained guy is still on a better level than a move that can't be shown to work anywhere. Because it had more evidence to support that it works.

And you would know because you would see it used against an untrained guy.

It removes most of the ability for martial artists to engage in fantasy.

 

[drop bear]

I really, really, really hate this behavior. I mean: really hate it. Outside of anything illegal (such as assault, abuse, or financially defrauding your students), this is probably the worst behavior a martial artist could take.

It is one thing to mock someone in the heat of an argument. It is something we should try not to do. Not because of the feelings of the other person (although that is one reason), but more because when you start mocking the person, your argument starts to crumble. It's seen as evidence that you don't have an argument, so you attack them instead.

It is another thing entirely to purposefully engage and encourage a group of likeminded individuals to publicly mock someone. It's more than bullying. It's a mob mentality. If someone asks for your advice and you tell them everything wrong with what they're doing, that's fine. If you come across something publicly posted and you disagree with it, it's fine to voice your disagreement. But to hunt for videos to bring to your friends to publicly mock? That's crossing a couple of lines.

Martial artists shouldn't be bullies. Martial artists shouldn't encourage bullying. This behavior does both.

Yeah. People say that but then someone will put out a yellow bamboo or some dude that started his own style in a garage or us leaning from youtube and suddenly they are on that lower level. And everyone dogpiles the guy.

So generally everyone has a standard of mocking they just have an unwieldy one.

Because there is no way to know if garage black belts system works any better than we have been doing this for a hundred years system unless you see it work.

As I said with krav and bursting. You never see that in Krav sparring. I tried it and it is stupid hard to pull off. But it is their no 1 go to for self defence. It works in a demo but does not work live.

Conversely BJJ and a hip escape which is their No 1 go to. Is shown compliantly in demo's. You see it quite often in BJJ sparring and everyone can make it work.

It works in a demo and it works live.

As far as the ethics go. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. So I feel martial arts should be worth the money and time that people put in to it and not be disguised by lies and a protected by a sense of not offending people.

Placing a style with no integrity on the same level as a style that does is also mocking.

 

[Flying Crane]

Ah ... I see where we are talking at cross-purposes. You are using a very different definition of "non-compliant" training than I am. Also different from what most people in my circles would use.

You are using "non-compliant training" to mean a no rules, life or death fight. Under that definition, then I totally agree. It doesn't really exist, because under that definition it isn't training. Personally, I don't think that's a particularly useful definition for a couple of reasons: first because I don't think many people use it that way and secondly because it's an oxymoron. If you're going to define "non-compliant" that way, then you shouldn't call it training. But we can discuss semantics and try to find a different term if that's the definition you're going to put on it.

What I (and most people in my circles) mean by "non-compliant training" is some sort of training exercise where you have a goal you are trying to achieve and you have a training partner or partners who have contradictory goals. Within whatever parameters or rules are set for that particular exercise, you are trying to accomplish your objective and your partner(s) are trying their best to prevent you from doing so while also achieving their own goals.

Some random examples:

• Two partners spend a set period of time trying to punch each other and not get punched in return. There can be different rules set determining the level of contact, what protective gear is or isn't used, what targets are allowed, what additional techniques are allowed or not allowed. As long as both partners are trying their best to hit the other person without being hit themselves, it's non-compliant.
• Run away! One person has to get across the training hall to an exit. Three other people are trying to catch them and tackle them to the ground without letting them get to that exit. You can set different rules (grappling only/strikes allowed/stop when you're grabbed/stop when you're tackled to the ground with three people on top of you/etc). But as long as one person is trying to get away and the other people are trying to stop them, then it's non-compliant.
• Escaping mount: Partners start on the ground, one mounted on the other. The bottom person has to try escaping, while the top person tries to keep them down. You can specify various rules (strikes allowed or not/submissions allowed or not/bottom person has to get on top/bottom person has to recover guard/bottom person has to stand up/one partner starts with a training knife in their belt/etc). As long as the bottom person is trying their best to escape and the top person is trying their best to prevent that, it's non-compliant.

Obviously, not all non-compliant training is created equal. You can come up with non-compliant training which is so far removed from real-world application that it doesn't tell you much about what might work in a real fight or self-defense scenario. Even then, it's not necessarily useless. Sometimes those exercises can just be fun games that help to develop certain attributes which then turn out to be useful once you return to a more realistic scenario. You can't ever get 100% realism in training, because that's a real fight. But you can definitely get close enough to discover a lot about what works and what doesn't in certain situations.

Anyway, that's what I (and most people in the BJJ/Wrestling/Judo/Sumo/Muay Thai/Boxing/etc communities) mean by "non-compliant" training. If you don't like the term for whatever reason, then maybe I can call it something different when we're talking to each other. "Resisted", maybe?

The truth of the matter is, none of this is anything that I was confused about. But that actually brings me to the conclusion that there is really no reason for me to be in the middle of this discussion, so I bow out.

 

[skribs]

Because there is no way to know if garage black belts system works any better than we have been doing this for a hundred years system unless you see it work.

I think part of that depends on the reason they are a "garage black belt system". For example, I am doing self-defense in my house with my parents and folks from our neighborhood, with a curriculum I developed from techniques I've learned in various arts. Just rearranged into a learning path that makes more sense to me than the one I was taught.

I am of course biased in this assessment. However, I believe I am at least as valid as the arts I learned it from.

This is different than someone who decided they've done a few months of this and watched a few videos of that, and they've read a lot of articles in Black Belt Magazine, so they can probably teach.

As I said with krav and bursting. You never see that in Krav sparring. I tried it and it is stupid hard to pull off. But it is their no 1 go to for self defence. It works in a demo but does not work live.

Why is it stupid and hard to pull off? Is it:

• The concept is bad
• You were trying to force it in situations where it wouldn't work
• The people you're going against know the concept and are able to defend against it
• You are bad at bursting

I could say the same about the hip escapes. I've tried them in rolling and it's stupid hard to pull off. But then, I've only been training BJJ a month and some change.

As far as the ethics go. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. So I feel martial arts should be worth the money and time that people put in to it and not be disguised by lies and a protected by a sense of not offending people.

There's a lot of different ways you could come across a school that you wish to share your opinion of, and a lot of different ways you could share your opinion.

There's a sliding scale for how welcome your advice is:

• Friend asks for advice about a school he's thinking of joining OR the school comes to you for feedback on their program
• Someone is posting to a community you're a part of (such as Facebook group or Reddit page or MartialTalk forum)
• You happened across a public video (such as on Youtube or a video crossposted on Reddit)
• You sought out the video because you feel it is your duty to shame the inferior

There are then the factors of how you approach it.

• Do you make assumptions about what they do and don't do, or is all of your opinions contained to feedback on what is present? (For example, if it's a technique demo, do you say "they don't spar", which is unfair unless you know they don't spar).
• If giving advice to a friend with the attitude of "here's what you might get, here's what you might miss," or do you just want to point out all the mistakes?
• If providing feedback to a school, is it things that could improve the school, or just "lol you suck".
• Are you inciting a mob to raid the video and nuke it with negative comments, or are you providing your own opinion?

To put it into an example, there's a big difference between these two:

"Hey, I came across this video, and I have a few questions. How do you use this technique in sparring? I've never really seen it used in a live round, and I'd like to know if it can be used."

"Yo, r/martialarts, this video is trash! Everyone go comment on how garbage of an art it is!"

Placing a style with no integrity on the same level as a style that does is also mocking.

Who determines the level of integrity that an art has?

The simple answer is "The art I train is the best." You can then check the integrity of all of the other arts based on how closely they align to yours. Of course, this could mean anything from "All arts that have this feature are good" to "If you don't do every single thing exactly the way I do it in my school, you suck."

The other simple answer is "What works in UFC?" I will agree that MMA in general is the best simulation of a real fight that we can get. I will also argue that UFC is the highest level version of that simulation. However, there are things that the UFC misses that might apply in a real fight. I'm not just talking about the cliché (but in my opinion, correct) items of multiple opponents, weapons, and banned techniques. I'm also referring to the level of resolve and training in your assailant, the goals of both the attacker and defender, and other things like that, which self-defense arts tend to cover better than UFC.

Then there's the general concept of pressure testing itself. Experimenting with individual techniques can often be problematic. I'll give a few examples:

• Ramsay Dewey mythbusting a handgrab escape. He uses the same exact motion against the opposite grip. His conclusion: the technique doesn't work.
• Hard 2 Hurt and a few others trying to see how easy it is to kick someone in the groin. The ONLY techniques being used were groin shots. It's a lot easier to protect your groin when that's all you're defending, than when you're also defending against leg hits, body hits, head hits, and any grappling.
• A BJJ video dispelling the myth that you could bite someone's arm if they try and choke you, which was only tested if the choke was already set and locked. They didn't test while locking the choke or any other situation. Only when the head is completely immobilized already.

Then there's the question of if you could reliably create such a tier list of arts with and without integrity, are you judging them solely based on their ability to produce proficient fighters, or are you going to give them the "integrity" ranking if they openly admit their tier status?

For example, let's say an art is a C-Tier art. It's got some nice ideas, but doesn't really apply them well. But they openly admit "We're a C-Tier art." Are they with integrity? The funny thing is, by this standard, every art would lack integrity, because all schools think they teach the best art. The worst offender of this is probably BJJ (specifically looking at the Gracies), and how BJJ is a good art, but they make it sound like everything else is trash.

Then let's take it a step further. Would you condemn every school that teaches an art, or would you give allowances for schools that meet your standards? Why would they care what you say instead of what their parent organization or their lineage says?

I prefer to look at what you can get from an art, and how it can make me better, than try to act better than them.

 

[Buka]

I think part of that depends on the reason they are a "garage black belt system". For example, I am doing self-defense in my house with my parents and folks from our neighborhood, with a curriculum I developed from techniques I've learned in various arts. Just rearranged into a learning path that makes more sense to me than the one I was taught.

I am of course biased in this assessment. However, I believe I am at least as valid as the arts I learned it from.

This is different than someone who decided they've done a few months of this and watched a few videos of that, and they've read a lot of articles in Black Belt Magazine, so they can probably teach.

Why is it stupid and hard to pull off? Is it:

• The concept is bad
• You were trying to force it in situations where it wouldn't work
• The people you're going against know the concept and are able to defend against it
• You are bad at bursting

I could say the same about the hip escapes. I've tried them in rolling and it's stupid hard to pull off. But then, I've only been training BJJ a month and some change.

There's a lot of different ways you could come across a school that you wish to share your opinion of, and a lot of different ways you could share your opinion.

There's a sliding scale for how welcome your advice is:

• Friend asks for advice about a school he's thinking of joining OR the school comes to you for feedback on their program
• Someone is posting to a community you're a part of (such as Facebook group or Reddit page or MartialTalk forum)
• You happened across a public video (such as on Youtube or a video crossposted on Reddit)
• You sought out the video because you feel it is your duty to shame the inferior

There are then the factors of how you approach it.

• Do you make assumptions about what they do and don't do, or is all of your opinions contained to feedback on what is present? (For example, if it's a technique demo, do you say "they don't spar", which is unfair unless you know they don't spar).
• If giving advice to a friend with the attitude of "here's what you might get, here's what you might miss," or do you just want to point out all the mistakes?
• If providing feedback to a school, is it things that could improve the school, or just "lol you suck".
• Are you inciting a mob to raid the video and nuke it with negative comments, or are you providing your own opinion?

To put it into an example, there's a big difference between these two:

"Hey, I came across this video, and I have a few questions. How do you use this technique in sparring? I've never really seen it used in a live round, and I'd like to know if it can be used."

"Yo, r/martialarts, this video is trash! Everyone go comment on how garbage of an art it is!"

Who determines the level of integrity that an art has?

The simple answer is "The art I train is the best." You can then check the integrity of all of the other arts based on how closely they align to yours. Of course, this could mean anything from "All arts that have this feature are good" to "If you don't do every single thing exactly the way I do it in my school, you suck."

The other simple answer is "What works in UFC?" I will agree that MMA in general is the best simulation of a real fight that we can get. I will also argue that UFC is the highest level version of that simulation. However, there are things that the UFC misses that might apply in a real fight. I'm not just talking about the cliché (but in my opinion, correct) items of multiple opponents, weapons, and banned techniques. I'm also referring to the level of resolve and training in your assailant, the goals of both the attacker and defender, and other things like that, which self-defense arts tend to cover better than UFC.

Then there's the general concept of pressure testing itself. Experimenting with individual techniques can often be problematic. I'll give a few examples:

• Ramsay Dewey mythbusting a handgrab escape. He uses the same exact motion against the opposite grip. His conclusion: the technique doesn't work.
• Hard 2 Hurt and a few others trying to see how easy it is to kick someone in the groin. The ONLY techniques being used were groin shots. It's a lot easier to protect your groin when that's all you're defending, than when you're also defending against leg hits, body hits, head hits, and any grappling.
• A BJJ video dispelling the myth that you could bite someone's arm if they try and choke you, which was only tested if the choke was already set and locked. They didn't test while locking the choke or any other situation. Only when the head is completely immobilized already.

Then there's the question of if you could reliably create such a tier list of arts with and without integrity, are you judging them solely based on their ability to produce proficient fighters, or are you going to give them the "integrity" ranking if they openly admit their tier status?

For example, let's say an art is a C-Tier art. It's got some nice ideas, but doesn't really apply them well. But they openly admit "We're a C-Tier art." Are they with integrity? The funny thing is, by this standard, every art would lack integrity, because all schools think they teach the best art. The worst offender of this is probably BJJ (specifically looking at the Gracies), and how BJJ is a good art, but they make it sound like everything else is trash.

Then let's take it a step further. Would you condemn every school that teaches an art, or would you give allowances for schools that meet your standards? Why would they care what you say instead of what their parent organization or their lineage says?

I prefer to look at what you can get from an art, and how it can make me better, than try to act better than them.

Really nice post. But I have to cherry pick one item. As a Gracie aficionado, I honestly have never heard any of them say any other art was trash. Not once, not even a little, tiny bit.

 

[skribs]

Really nice post. But I have to cherry pick one item. As a Gracie aficionado, I honestly have never heard any of them say any other art was trash. Not once, not even a little, tiny bit.

Maybe not in those exact words. However, I know back in the early days of UFC and with the "Gracie challenges", there was a lot of hype being built about BJJ being better than everyone else.

And then there's this video:

At the linked time (around 2:20) he goes into a description of what you learn in other martial arts, which is to just stand there and throw punches until someone is KO'd. In this clip, he ignores:

• That most striking arts (except maybe Kyokushin karate) are not about just standing there and trading blows, but about striking without being struck back.
• That other grappling arts even exist.

Don't get me wrong. The concepts he's discussing are certainly valid. In fact, I really like his "green light, red light, green light" concept, and I've applied it into my Taekwondo curriculum. (Of course, I then I overcomplicate it, because we want to strike). But he's got this attitude like BJJ has a monopoly on these concepts.

 

[drop bear]

Really nice post. But I have to cherry pick one item. As a Gracie aficionado, I honestly have never heard any of them say any other art was trash. Not once, not even a little, tiny bit.

Didn't they used to walk in to other clubs and beat them up? In a kind of ultimate your style is trash gesture.

 

[skribs]

Didn't they used to walk in to other clubs and beat them up? In a kind of ultimate your style is trash gesture.

And from what I've heard, also stalk people and ambush them in the street.

 

[Buka]

And from what I've heard, also stalk people and ambush them in the street.

This is too easy, I'll take a pass.

 

[Buka]

Didn't they used to walk in to other clubs and beat them up? In a kind of ultimate your style is trash gesture.

With all due respect, what would you know about trashing other arts?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Bjj has wrist locks though. Bjj is about the only place you can see a wrist lock done live. Which is kind of the argument they are subverting.

I do wrist locks. I do them in rolling all the time.


I think they are creating a strawman. If people are suggesting krav (I think was one? )Does a lot of demo techniques that you never see live. You never see bursting done live in Krav. Not just by posters but by anyone.

They honestly don't even see the need to present these techniques in any other way than demoes.

Bursting? Could you explain or define that for me?

 

[drop bear]

Bursting? Could you explain or define that for me?

 

[skribs]

Oh, so it's the same principle as the shotgun jab or some of Lomachenko's footwork. It's the same principle behind a lot of the lunge punches. And I've tested on a StrikeMeter, they certainly do carry a lot of power.

 

[Rich Parsons]

I do similar techniques.
Question does it have to be faster than the opponent as demonstrated.
As in a burst of speed to get the delta V and Force or can it be done at the same rate / speed / velocity of the opponent?

 

[drop bear]

Oh, so it's the same principle as the shotgun jab or some of Lomachenko's footwork. It's the same principle behind a lot of the lunge punches. And I've tested on a StrikeMeter, they certainly do carry a lot of power.

Yeah. It seems to bethe business except krav guys can never do it live.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Yeah. It seems to bethe business except krav guys can never do it live.

No surprise there. I watched that video. Waiting…