Ok, let's do this thing.
edit: apparently the quote feature is beyond my mortal abilities and I keep screwing it up. So Mz1's comments are in red
Mz1
"Show me where I said that I'd always assume someone on the street to automatically be an untrained slob. You completely made this up."
"Again? Show me where I said this, otherwise it's the second time that you made up lies."
Ok here's an example of why I don't think you understand how to effectively argue something. Originally you made some comment around the lines of "that might work against an untrained/drunken slob, but not someone trained."
Those of us who commented on it were basically saying, "we treat every opponent as competent and dangerous"; somehow that go turned around into you thinking we were accusing you of thinking you assume the attacker is incompetent. That's not what we were saying. We are saying (or at least I am anyway) that any skill we practice is meant to work against someone actively trying to hurt you and you always assume that person is competent. So no one is accusing you of saying anything about assuming the opposite. Not quite sure how you picked that out honestly.
Mz1
"How is trying to knock someone out in the cage/ring, not a real fight?"
"Real fight" may be a poor choice of words then. What I am talking about is a non-competitive fight, i.e. a fight where one does not try to just defeat their opponent but seriously hurt him or her.
 
Mz1
"You obviously have not fought anyone trained nor experienced then because your last sentence just tells me that you fought these untrained slobs that I was talking about. And it's not even correct. You just described one type of fighting style, counterfighting. Not all "Cagey Guys" are counterfighters."
Again my use of the term "Cagey" is meant to describe the mentality found in competitive fighting. It's a necessary mentality for the sport, but doesn't work well in most SD situations. The "Cagey" mentality is not ment to be inflammatory towards cage fighters; hell my brother is a cage fighter. The idea is that when you are competing, whether in the ring, cage, or a bar cause the person is too egocentric to just leave, a "cagey" fighter looks to gauge his opponent to provoke action he can counter. It's not a bad thing in competition, but SD doesn't really apply here because if the guy is bobbing and weaving then I'm leaving. If there is no attack and the guy is just waiting for you to come fight with him then it is not self-defense. There is a lack of intent to commit serious harm.
Mz1
"I've only trained in BJJ (by Japanese Judokas) and Danzan Ryu Jujutsu so how could I possibly know what "randori" means. And years of MA traditions doesn't automatically makes it effective. Some of it is for show, like a 540 degrees tornado kick or something. I'm sure it can hurt someone, but go ahead, try it in a real fight. This is the point."
If you know about randori, then you know TMA have methods for pressure testing their skills. Now, not all schools do this and I think it is a very serious component to training. It is necessary to actually know if you can do what you believe you are being trained to do.
And nothing I do is for show. The XMA type thing you are describing is not martial arts; it's a dance routine. No one arguing with you is involved with that nonsense as far as i know. Of course flashy techniques are unreliable, but no one is talking about flashy techniques. You have no actual point here because you are arguing against a strawman.
Mz1
"My point has always been that this technique is highly risky, yields less reward as opposed to elbowing or punching them in the temple at this position and therefore, a waste of time. This is what the early UFC showed us when it pitted TMA vs. TMA.Early UFC's weeded out all of these flashy ninja strikes and dispelled their validity in a real fight. And UFC 1-4 allowed all strikes including those to the groin, throat, eyes, etc. Only eye gouging, fish-hooking and biting were not allowed, but did NOT disqualify a fighter. They were only fined $1000 per incident....therefore could still win a fight through biting or such. The total purse was around $60,000 for that day, so that's at least 60 incidents of being able to use eye gouges or biting and break even."
In sparring and competition one takes less risks than they do in SD or a fight that potentially could lead to death. In a real SD situation where your well-being is threatened, proper action requires you to take a risk, not taking that risk for fear of injury or whatever results sloppy technique which results in failing the action attempted. I don't see how you feel the tactic I'm advocating is more risky than what you advocate here. It's quite the opposite actually, but I'll explain why down below.
Mz1
"The problem with your fighting theory is that it's just a theory. You've only practiced it through choreographed sparring and not when your opponent is trying to knock you out."
Where to begin with this? Ok first, the "choreographed sparring" is called kata in Japanese martial arts. Yes you know what is about to happen (most of the time), but the attacker really should be trying to hurt you during the drill. It's has to have intent. Now after that, you do randori training which I should not have to explain why that is applicable to actual non-competitive fighting due to all your experience with Japanese Brazillian Jujutsuka and what not.
Mz1
"You complain that the cage may be too big, thus giving the MMA room to make distance, thus, you have it all planned out in your mind that this is how it must happen, in a tight space or something."
Are you kidding me? Sport matches have wide spaces without hazardous objects to be aware of. Even if you had to resort to physical SD in a large area, say a parking lot, there is still a ton of stuff that you need to be aware of like curbs, cars, other people, glass on the ground, yadda, yadda, yadda. If you are out and about and someone wants to hurt you (not fight you, but hurt you), it's likely there will be crap everywhere you have to account for. If you are confronted in a wide open space you have room to escape.
Or brag about how awesome you are and get cracked over the head with a beer bottle by his friends around the corner, whatever you prefer.
Mz1
"Are you trying to tell me that knocking someone out or choking them unconscious doesn't immediately end the threat whether it be in the cage/ring, street, prison, deserted island, etc.?"
No. You've missed the point. The threat in competition is a different kind of threat than in a non-competitive fight. In competition, the threat is being hit, knocked out, choked out, submitted, and "losing". In non-competitive fights the threat is more severe so the mentality of the situation is different. In non-competitive fighting the threats are serious injury, risk of being maimed or killed, legal action, and ahost of other things one does not consider in competition.
Of course a competitive fighter could be maimed or seriously injured in a fight, but the point is that he or she does not expect it to be likely. Refs are involved to stop such things before they occur, so fighters don't enter the ring thinking they could be permanently disabled when they leave.
Mz1
"And the reason both fighters are going back and forth for 3-12 rounds, usually w/o anyone getting KO'ed or submitted and it goes to the judges' card is obviously because both opponents are trained fighters that are equally matched in both size and skill. These are 2 well tuned athletes (usually), not some SD guy vs. a loudmouth drunk at a bar. It's not easy to KO someone who's equally skilled."
The reason a sport fight last so long is because it is actually a string of multiple confrontations broken up throughout the match. Look at it, fighter's square off, size each other up, and bait for an opportunity to capitalize on. When someone sees a moment they quickly weigh the options of whether or not to go in. If they hesitate they have to wait for the next opportunity. If they go for it and it works they gain the upper hand until the other guy sees his chance to get out of it.
Now, stay with me here, cause this next part is crucial.
If the guy getting beaten on starts successfully defending a sport fighter will back off to avoid being countered and begin a new engagement. this is where the string of multple confrontations comes into play. they start the whole thing all over again.
BUT! In non-competitive fighting, if they person being beaten on starts successfully defending the fight, the aggressor will change his position and keep attacking anyway because he is committed to the attack. His goal is to hurt, injure, or kill and ceasing the attack is not an option for him if these are his goals. He does not think of idea that the guy will possibly counter, because as a rule people don't pick fights with other people who can beat them. Predators attack people who they believe are easy targets.
So in non-competitive fighting, the intial aggressor does not think of needing defense, or else he wouldn't have attacked in the first place.
Even if two people fighting in a non-competitive manner are both highly skilled the fight doesn't last long. To think that a fight between highly skilled opponenets would last more than a fight between a few undisciplined goons is pure movie nonsense. It's actually the opposite. The more skilled someone is the more likely he or she is to recognize the instant he or she can take the initiative to attack. In this kind of fight, both opponents must enter in the fight with a sense of abandonment, or else they will hesitate and be struck or thrown or stabbed by the other person. At best you could expect maybe one possible counter (if they are both aware of each other's training backgrounds). If a physical confrontation lasts more than a few seconds then it is about ego, or no one involved has a clue what they are doing.
 
Mz1
"Yet you think that you can just walk up to a trained sports fighter like Mike Tyson and poke him in the eyes?"
I know this is a tounge in cheek type of statement and meant to be rhetorical, but I'm goign to answer it anyway. So, honestly? It depends how I go about it. If he observes me as a threat then, no, I'm probably going to be eating my own teeth if I just up an try to gouge his eyes.
But if I could set it up properly, then sure. He may be a skilled boxer and I'd be a fool to meet him in a boxing ring, but invincible he aint. No one is unbeatable. The best warrior in the world could be felled by a bumbling idiot if the circumstances were right. Martial training is about stacking the odds as best you can in your favor. So, yes. i could do it if I approached it tactically.
I can't wait to see if you turn this into a misrepresentation of me thinking I could "beat up" Mike Tyson.
Mz1
"Put any toughguy on the streets into the cage/ring vs. a real fighter and it's usually going to be a bloodbath. UFC 1-4 already proved that TMA got destroyed pretty handily, which birthed the new generation of MMA."
I doubt it would be a bloodbath. Some blood? Sure, but no ref is going to let someone get majorly injured. You see, there are things called rules. Because of these rules, anyone not familiar with the competitive fighting scene is going to lose (as long as they play by those rules).
Now I'm not saying MMA guys can't break rules or don't break rules or can't win in a "no holds barred" type of thing. What I'm saying is that when you train for a particular environment, you tend to think in terms of that environment. You see, all martial training is designed with a particular environment. Most koryu don't have a lot of groundfighting, because they would sooner stab you to death once on the ground. Silat has a lot of really low postures, because the ground in their area is very slippery and rocky a lot of the time and they expect to fall at some point. MMA as it is now is the accumulation of what aspects of TMA work best within the confines of the rules. None of them are intrinsically better than the others, they aim to be applicable for the environement in which they were created.
 
Mz1
"Obviously you've never fought in the ring/cage, which is why you have no idea what it feels like. You just read this from some book or website and assume it's true."
I believe I mentioned above that my brother is a cage fighter. He loves MMA. Do you really think that as a martial artist i wouldn't be interested in testing things out with him or his gym mates? I've trained with a quite a few MMA fighters actually, so yeah, kind of blows your little theory out the window.
There is a major difference between competitive and non-cometitive fighting.
Mz1
"We get toughguys coming into our gym once in a while. They think they know how to fight. After a few months of training them proper techniques, we let them spar, supposedly at around 30-40% power. I go light but don't let them hit me, most of the time they can't even touch my face. They usually get frustrated and go crazy with full powered, haymaker swings, one after the other like in streetfights....full speed until they gas out....while all I do is play with them by jabbing and circling. It's like playing with a little kid."
Cool story. What is your point?
Mz1
"You may have been in 1-5 street fights or self defense situations in your life. But I'm going to bet 1-2. Yet you're going to base everything on just these few incidents w/o admitting to yourself that you were probably facing untrained street slobs who thought they were tough. While I train by punching & kicking guys almost 3-4x per week, religiously. Who do you think is going to be more calm & collected with more reflex, endurance, power, precision, etc...including being able to take a punch(es) to the face, during a streetfight?"
You are right that my personal experiences are not the alpha and omega of all things SD. What I do know is that my experiences with SD are like the experiences of others who had success, and those who face the experiences I'm talking about tend to agree with me.
One is never in a position to know if they are facing someone with training or experience. Sure you might pick up on few signals, but in the end it doesn't matter as the nature of the fight plays out the same. There is still a primary agressor who intiated the fight, and that person does not stop unless they get what the wanted or you make it too costly for them and they leave, or you put them down.
When it comes to be calm and collected during a fight, you really have no idea what I've had to do to earn my rank in my organization. Once you overcome the very real possibility of being seriously maimed or killed, stuff tends to not bother you as much anymore.
 
Mz1
"If you think of attacking you cannotdefend." -Himura Kenshin
"This is wrong. It's called points of defense being employed while attacking."
"If you thinking of defending you cannot attack." -Himura Kenshin
"Wrong again. What do you think a counter is?"
See the above about what goes on in the attackers mindset in a non-competitive fight. Properly trained martial artists do not think of defending when moving to attack. It is proper to do the action you want to do without concern of what the other person will do in response. This is 100% commitment to finishing the technique. It is necessary for victory; without this committment the technique fails. If the opponent responds by trying to attack at the same time or counter in some way, you shouldn't worry about it. If you are properly trained you will naturally respond to the change and adjust accordingly without being thrown off balance mentally because they did something unexpected. You don't move to attack while thinking about how you are going to react to the way he reacts to your reaction of him attacking you in the first place.
Likewise, if one thinks only of defense he or she cannot take the initiative to attack as that person will be preoccupied with what the attacker is doing. If you only think about how to respond to the attacker, then you are at serious risk of being baited into a worse position. It is always better to act than react.
Ideally one doesn't think too much of either attack or defense. The defensive movements should just happen if you train properly, and the attacking movements whould not be something intricate you've planned out but rather a guidline to what you hope to accomplish overall (example: knock him down and escape).
A counter is a long table-like structure you put a microwave and toaster over on. It may or may not have a sink or cabinets.
Wait. You meant counter attack right? As in the combative movement of attacking after you successfully defend? You don't think about the defending action here, you think about the attacking one. To successfully counter something you must instantly react appropriately to what is happening, therefore there is no time to think about it. Hence the statement "if you think about defending you cannot attack". If you focus on thinking about how to stop the guy from hitting or grabbing you, you do not take the initiative and will miss crucial moments where you could win the fight. Anytime anyone successfully counter attacks it is because they did not think about the action and instead just recognized the appropriate action the moment it presented itself because of training. If you are thinking during the fight, you are behind. It is the time to act, not think about it.
Mz1
"Your "real fights" are usually just 2 sloppy guys on the streets gassing out and then quitting. Somethings the guy winning doesn't allow you to leave and keeps pummeling you, what then?"
Most "real fights" are between untrained individuals. But a lack of training does not mean a lack of experience.
If the guy winning just wants to keep beating you, I'd hope you'd keep trying to defend yourself. If you aren't able to, you're screwed.
Mz1
"Yeah, it's much easier to beat up some untrained slob on the street, which is usually the case. I've had a giant buck knife pulled on me as well as guns. Is that good enough for you?"
Not really, because I think you're lying.
 
Mz1
"The last street fight I was in, it was just pure comedy. I wished someone got it on video. I was just playing with this guy using jabs, teeps and footwork while letting him throw all out crazy punches until he gassed out (plus I probably caught him in the solar plexus with that last teep). I didn't even want to hurt him. Most other street altercations was just screaming and cussing."
If you didn't want to hurt him, you should have left. The face you were able to keep him at bay with jabs proves he wasn't intent on causing you serious harm. If he was, he would have eaten the punch and continued forward anyway just to see you damaged. This is not SD and is an example of the "monkey dance" where two people try to show dominace over each other. Legally you were probably committing battery and would not have been viewed as justified in your actions. This just screams ego maniac.
Mz1
"So basically you're admitting that you really don't spar hard, maybe at all. This is nothing unusual. MA'ists do this often. At least those that are fighters. I'm not asking you to go rip off a school's sign, barge into their class and throw their school sign at the feet of the master and step on it....like in the movies."
How is my statement about the idiocy of challenging other dojo or gyms to a fight an admission of not training hard? This argument is not connected in anyway to what I actually said and is a blatant and rather desprate attempt by you to discredit me by strawmaning the argument.
For the record. I don't spar. Sparring is for competition. I pressure test. They would look kind of the same to you from your perspective I bet, but the purposes are really quite different as sparring is for sport purposes and pressure testing is non-competitive.
Mz1
"On the streets, it will be very well placed punches that are carefully picked. But I'm more of a jab spammer then knees and elbow guy."
This statement is more evidence that you've never been seriously threatened before and engage soley in the monkey dance.
Mz1
"Well it's a true statement. Hapikido guys aren't known for their hands just as Boxers aren't known for their kicks. Maybe you're way too sensitive"
Except for, ya know, all those joint manipulations they do. But as an expert, I'm sure you left that part out on purpose.
Mz1
"So an MMA fighter knocking their opponent out in the street or battelfield using his MMA skills.... isn't good enough for this MMA fighter to "survive, escape, arrest (nor) kill" his opponent?"
Read the damn comment correctly. What I said was that a competitive fighter CAN do those things if he adjusts what he learned in training to the new environment. He or she has the basic skills, if he or she can make the proper adjustmusts because fighting for your life is nothing like fighting for a title. Adjustments must be made.
Mz1
"I think you go through choreographed sparring and maybe light sparring but never hard sparring to test out your skills and what you think works.....so no one is really in danger of getting punched or kicked at 80-100% power in the face, body, legs, etc. If this is true, then I think that your training is highly unrealistic and doesn't prepare you for the streets nor the battlefield as well as MMA would."
It's a good thing it's not true then!
Pressure testing accounts for quite a bit of what I do and serious protective gear is required for it. It is a necessary part of training to make sure you can actually do what you think you can do.
Mz1
"I already told you, if you've managed to step to the side of your opponent, why not elbow them with an elbow to the temple rather than this n-strike to the elbow?"
So now I get to explain again why you don't understand the idea and jsut how off base you are about the purpose of the tactic.
First off, you don't step to the side. I said that already in a previous post. You move forward at 45 degrees. Moving this way toward the desired arm puts you a position for the opponent to try and hit or grab you with that arm as attacking with the other arm would require a turning movement to reorient them to your position.
You can't elbow them in the temple, because you wouldn't be close enough for that during the inital movement. You could hit them with your fist, but that's not the point of doing the movement.
The point of striking the elbow area is that it is a set up to your desired technique. When attempting this action there are a few likely scenarios that you account for. 1. The attacker punched and you are moving to evade the strike. 2. You move first, and the attacker strikes out with the limb because you entered his space. 3. You move first and the opponent hesitates and doesn't throw the punch.
Here is how, if you are trained properly in distance, timing, angling, and targeting you can do nearly the exact same action without worrying which action (or lack thereof) the opponent has chosen:
1. As the opponent punches you move forward 45 degrees and evade the hit while simultaniously striking the back his arm around the elbow area and punching through the arm in a manner that takes it across his body, causing him to twist his spine. You now have his back.
2. As you move forward, the opponent attacks out of a need to protect his space. You do the same thing as #1 and end up at his back.
3. As you move forward like above at the moment in time where you catch the opponent in a state of hesitation, you punch the area around the back of his elbow from it's resting position across his body. You now have his back.
I'm sure you don't think this will work, and nothing I say will change your narrow view of the world. I'm going to explain why it works though just in case anyone else is still reading my ramblings at this time.
Targeting the back of the elbow is a sound tactic for the purpose of moving to your opponent's back (or side if you prefer). The part of arm between the elbow and shoulder is what is being targeted. It can be struck accurately even in motion because it does not move much distance between its restng state and the extension from punching or grabbing. So with training, you can reliable judge where the target will be at any given time
You strike nerves yes, but pain and numbness are not the goal. Those are just bonuses. The goal is to punch through the arm moving it across the body and affect spinal alignment, which affects balance. If your opponent is fighting for balance he cannot fight you and this presents the opportunity for continued striking or grappling.
You don't just hit him in the head, because every idiot protects their head in a fight. Those that don't, don't fight for very long. People expect their head to be targeted in the middle of a fight, so they take actions to protect it such as blocking with the arm or bobbing and evasive manuvers. No one protects the elbow, because no one thinks their elbow is a target. So you attack it, draw their attention to it and use that as your set up for your desired technique whether that be a throw, choke, or another strike to a more vital area.
It's very simple, but requires dedicated practice. It's not something someone can do right away, but once you get the footwork and timing right, it's very reliable.
 
Sorry for such a long post everyone, but there has just been so much ignorance here.