So, when the SD crowed says that sport is not SD, they are correct, but yes, there is overlap.
What "SD crowd"? Who are they? What qualifies someone to be in the "SD crowd"?
Let me put it to you this way. It would seem we belong to different "SD crowds". The "SD guys" I've trained with would never make a statement like Terry's, and disagree with much of what he, and you say.
This is not because there is a difference between training for sport and self-defense, but because
the difference between training for sport and self defense really doesn't matter all that much. The arguments that insist on there being a difference rely on fallacies, strawmen, and false dichotomies.
The area where the difference matters is strategy, not in tactics, techniques, or training methodology. Hand-to-hand combat,
FIGHTING, is a segment of that overall strategy. So, there is no difference between sport methodology and self-defense. Sport methodology is a method used in training for unarmed combat, which is a part of self-defense.
The most preferrable one is simply to avoid fights via awareness, which is completely opposed to sport, where one seeks out fights.
This is absolutely irrelevant and false. Sports fighters do not seek out fights. They compete. They don't walk into bars are start brawls.
Once an attack begins, the most preferrable option is to escape quickly, which is not an option in a fight; if you quit the fight you lose, whereas if you escape alive in SD, you do not lose. Note: the vast majority of schools teaching practical self defense focus on this rout. For this reason, their students are likely ill prepared to step into the ring and fight in competition unless they are training for sport/competition in addition.
Remember, fighting is a part of self-defense.
If your hand-to-hand training cannot prepare you for a fair fight against a matched opponent of equal skill and weight, under rules, with a referee to keep you from getting bottled over the head from behind, it cannot prepare you for a no rules fight.
In sport, a tapping opponent signals the end of the fight. In SD, if you let the guy loose when he is in pain, he could pull a knife and kill you.
Incorrect, this is also completely irrelevant to the argument against utilizing sport methodology to train for self-defense.
Tapping does not signal the end of the fight. It signals that you have forced your opponent into submission. A submission is a chokehold or a joint lock that you have merely not exerted to the fullest degree. If I have you in an armbar, it doesn't mean I just hold you there. It means I have the capability to snap your elbow and cause catastrophic damage to your arm, likely removing you as a threat.
Training in class, I won't. I'll let you go when you tap, because you're my training partner and I want to practice with you again tomorrow. If I break you, then I can't train.
On the street, if I armbar you, I am going to snap you, I'm not going to let you go.
Specific attacks that would be useful in SD, particularly for a smaller person against a larger attacker, such as eye gouges, strikes to the groin, etc. are illegal moves in sport.
I have been a bouncer for over a decade. These moves are not dependable at all.
First off, and this is where most so-called self-defense training fails,
THESE ARE NOT TECHNIQUES.
They are barely even tactics.
The technique is a front kick. You can aim it at the groin, you can aim it at the solar plexus, you can aim it at the face. The fact that I trained and competed does not mean I can't kick someone in the crotch. In fact, I am very sure of my ability to kick someone in the crotch. I am sure of my ability to front kick anyone at whatever target presents itself. How do you train for kicks to the baby maker? The same way you train for every other kick. I can't throw a stomp kick to someone's knee in the ring, but I've been able to do it just fine when I've had to, because of how I trained my side kicks on the mat.
An eye gouge is not a technique. A jab is. If you cannot throw a jab to someone's face, a large target, in a match, where the head is a moving target that is being defended, how are you going to score with a finger jab to something as small as someone's eye?
Strategy, tactics, technique.
Strategy will change your tactics, but it won't change how you train your technique.
Certainly, if one determines that the only way to survive is to kill or disable their assailant, they can attempt to do so in SD (possible legal consequences may result, but that is after the fact), whereas in sport, your goal is not to kill or permanently disable your opponent.
Irrelevant as well. A rear naked choke is a "killing technique". Just because I didn't kill you with it in a match doesn't mean I won't on the street. Truthfully, aside from a blade or a firearm, it's the only reliable "killing technique" I would recommend.
Lastly, gamesmanship can be used in sport to secure a victory. By gamesmanship, I mean using the rules to gain an advantage that one would not normally have in a fight. Obviously, that is not an option in SD.
Actually, it is completely possible. The rules are just different. Human behavior and interaction just determine them, rather than a sporting body. "Gamesmanship" in a street fight is a sucker punch.
That punch though? Who's going to be better at it, an untrained fighter, or someone who knows how to throw a jab, cross, or hook?
It is more likely that an SD guy would fare poorly in the ring, as one cannot just step into a rule set and environment for which they have not trained and simply excel, prodigies not withstanding.
A SD teacher who cannot win a fair fight is not someone who should be teaching people how to survive unfair ones.
Explains a lot eh! - just joking my friend!
