starryeyedvoyager wrote:
Maybe we have a different definition of self-defence. Grappling is great if you are pitted in a 1 on 1 situation. It becomes next to useless if you face multiple opponents, or if someone has a bladed kind of weaponry. Without making this a style war, but BJJ did not defeat any style. It was a human who beat another human. You cannot pit a style against another style, only a human against a human. UFC has nothing to do with a real self-defence situation, it is a sport. While I agree that many schools that teach grappling styles tend to focus on competition aspects more than on self defence, it is because it is more a sport than a self-defence art. As for Kyokushin, I totally agree, it lacks defense against high punches, and it is something you have to make up for yourself. I recommended Karate in the first place because it does not involve too much phsyical contact. That said, you can only go so far simulating that. Putting gloves on your hands, whole different situation. You could go back to bare-knuckle boxing, but I guess you would not have that much fun simulating realistic situations.
If you really want to be able to defend yourself, you need to practice multiple styles, anyway. If you wanna bring UFC into it, there is a reason to it why almost all contestants train both striking and grappling. You can count me in on the people that feel that their self-defence capabilities has improved by training BJJ, no question, but just as an addition to what I already knew, not standalone. I am sure that grappling expertise helped you when working as a bouncer. I never did, but owed to the nature of our hobby, I know alot of people who do work in law enforcement or security, and the same holds true for almost any style. If you gathered enough expertise, it will empower you.
I don't know why people keep saying that grappling is useless against multiple opponents. A high level judoka I used to work with immobilised two people attacking him by hip throwing one of them and pinning him with his knee, while reverse headlocking the second one. Furthermore, there's a video out there of a former UFC fighter slamming a couple of security guards to the pavement, ending the fight instantly with just grappling.
As for defending against knives... no martial art can teach you that. Tomiki Aikido (full contact Aikido) fighters practice this day in and day out with color markers, and they end up looking like candy wrappers at the end of a training session. From what I've seen, the only thing that somewhat works is overhooking the arm with the knife and taking down your opponent, or grabbing the wrist while pulling back your opponent and hyperextending his arm across you chest. Incidently, these are grappling solutions. Getting into a fistfight with a knife wielding attacker is just far too risky.
The UFC may be a sport (MMA would be the sport, actually), but surely you don't doubt that UFC fighters are more than capable of defending themselves against anyone who would be foolish enough to try anything? Why can't you pit styles against each other? If the technique from one style continuously beats the techniques of those from another style, it's safe to say that style is better. BJJers win their fights against other styles with a variety of chokes and submissions. That would suggest the BJJ style is very effective. On the other hand, Boxing's curriculum for example, punching, seems far less effective against BJJs moveset than the other way around. Pure style matchups such as Royce Gracie vs Art Jimmerson have proven this. Royce was a skinny BJJ guy beating a far bigger, far more athletic WBC top 15 ranked boxer in a no-rules contest. Had they both been untrained, Jimmerson would have crushed Gracie. The style is what won it for him. He'll tell you that himself.
People tend to make a big deal of the rules in MMA, but they aren't that influential in the outcome of the fight. So called 'dirty tricks' like eye gouging and biting hurt, but they don't incapacitate the opponent. A classic example of this is the fight in a Japanese tournament between Yukie Nakai and Gerard Gordeau. Gordeau eye gouged Nakai to the point where Nakai was permanently blinded in one eye, but he still won the fight because he had a superior positional advantage and made Gordeau tap out. Gordeau also bit Royce Gracie in their fight in the very first UFC, but he got choked out anyway. Again, superior positioning by the other fighter.
Lastly, I disagree that any style will make you a better fighter. Six years of Shotokan Karate have done absolutely nothing for me. It will build confidence for those who don't question the lacking training methods, but that is just false confidence. In fact, bad styles can make you lose fights you would have won if you were untrained. Example: you might try to apply a fancy wrist lock on a non-compliant opponent who then knocks you out, whereas if you'd just swung for the fences you might've knocked him out instead.
I feel like this post is probably wasted on the people reading it, as those who agree will already know all of the above and those who disagree will not be swayed anyway. Therefor I will now politely bow out of this discussion.
30 Jun 2011, 12:09 pm
