Martial arts discussion thread

[GoktimusPrime]

It works well in the ring because it is illegal to attack (and especially illegal to break/severe) the neck and upper spine. Aside from laws, there are also referees, judges and the audience (re: witnesses!) who would greatly disuade your attacker from pulling an illegal move like that. In a street fight, you don't have these conditions.

Although the law does restrict what we can do in a fight - mainly in regard to using equal or lesser force - you cannot automatically assume that your opponent is going to be totally law-abiding. I mean, in a self-defence situation, if the other person started the fight, they've already broken the law by assaulting you, so it's not as if they've established a good reputation with you for being a nice law-abiding citizen! It's for this same reason that I've often been critical against people who expose their genitals in a fight. Works fine in the ring where attacking the genitals is disallowed, but not in a real fight.

if someone if punching widly, i'm sure they just want to hit something and not aiming properly

In other words, assuming that your opponent is inferior. That's a dangerous assumption to make in a fight. In a fight you should always assume that your opponent is superior to you. They may not be, but you ought to assume that they are stronger, faster and better skilled than you are. And that's another gripe I have with a lot of martial arts schools/instructors. :/

The one thing to keep in mind in a real fight is Murphy's Law: anything that can go wrong will. Always have a Plan B in case Plan A screws up and a Plan C in case Plan B screws up too and so on and so on - it becomes a connective cyclical flow that changes according to how the situation changes. This is visually represented in the Yin Yang and Ba Gua hexagrams (King Wen)which actually forms a 64-bit algorithm as it's all based on a series of sequential logic gates.

The Ba Gua Hexagrams: 8 across x 8 down = 64b (bits) = 8B (bytes)


It is also the nature of the Art of War. You must be able to constantly adapt and change to outmaneouvre your opponent. You don't need martial arts training to fight an inferior foe... the real art of war is defeating someone who's better than you are!

[Saintly]

that hexagram just waaaaay over my head!

just fight already :P

[i_amtrunks]

You forgot to mention another good attack when your opponent ducks under a punch...

Knee to the face or sternum...

[GoktimusPrime]

It's binary logic - 00010011110100001010011101010001110010

0 = yin, 1 = yang



It's all about what technique to use when, and the timing is often dependent on the situation, which is constantly in flux. So Yin Yang often represents two extreme techniques in fighting...
e.g.:
0 = soft, 1 = hard
0 = high, 1 = low
0 = retreat, 1 = advance
0 = grapple, 1 = strike
0 = close range, 1 = long range
0 = circular, 1 = linear

When should you be 0, when should you be 1? It depends on what the opponent is doing. And another thing that the Yin Yang symbol points out is that in each extreme there is an element of the other. You can be hard with some element of softness (e.g.: Okinawan Goujuu), and soft with some element of hardness (e.g.: qigong).

Quick example, one mistake that a lot of newbs make when they're grappled and/or placed into submission holds is that they hardened/seize up their body and try to flee by moving/pulling away from the grappler... and usually all that does is allow the grappler to tighten their lock! They're often surprised when you show them that counter-grappling usually involves relaxing and softening your body and moving into the grappler rather than away from them.

You forgot to mention another good attack when your opponent ducks under a punch...

Knee to the face or sternum...

That would work too, but dropping onto the vertebrae is easier IMO and harder to counter. If you were to try to knee someone in the face or sternum while they were bobbing under your punch it's not that hard for them to block it - blocking a downward strike to your back while you're leaning forward - I don't see how that's even possible. You'd be better off just tackling/charging the other guy rather than trying to block.

[i_amtrunks]

That would work too, but dropping onto the vertebrae is easier IMO and harder to counter. If you were to try to knee someone in the face or sternum while they were bobbing under your punch it's not that hard for them to block it - blocking a downward strike to your back while you're leaning forward - I don't see how that's even possible. You'd be better off just tackling/charging the other guy rather than trying to block.

Yeah kneeing is easier to block, but you really have to be focused to block it since you are trying to move almost all your body at once in reaction to another person.

Blocking your neck when under a person is nigh impossible, and even if it's only a hyper-active 6 year old, if they get an elbow your neck it really hurts!

Hell go for the win, knee to the sternum and a blow to the neck simultaneously!

[GoktimusPrime]

that would be difficult to effectively execute because kneeing and downward striking require different weight distributions in your stances. I would say go for one or the other. If he blocks your knee, that's still fine because you've still successfully thwarted his attempt to weave around you.

[GoktimusPrime]

So many martial arts and self-defence demonstrations make the common mistake of portraying the opponent as less competent/incompetent - in short, continuing along the dangerous assumption that your opponent is not better than you, and often assuming that they're inferior.

Check out this so-called defence against a bear-hug. (original URL)


"The grab from the rear: mid to high around the defender’s upper arms"


"The defender drives his elbows out to the side (to loosen the initial hold), while he sinks downward under it."
Okay, at this stage the defender must be aware that his opponent has begun to counter his hold and would be working to either abort the hold or execute a counter-counter technique to maintain his hold.


The defender drives his elbow backward into the opponent’s lower ribs.
wtf... why is the attacker still trying to bear hug him when it's clearly no longer working?! Is he retarded??

"In this defense the response must be immediate and hard. If you are able to slip away there are many counter attack options in addition to elbow strike shown here. You can then escape."

If, however, you are well versed in jujutsu or aikido you may elect to control the opponent. If the opponent’s arms are still around you or near your side you could elect to do an arm control technique (called sankyo in aikido). Here your arms move from an elbow strike to grasp your opponent’s right hand.
...and why isn't the attacker thumping this guy with his left arm, legs, shoulders, elbows, hips, head etc?? The defender has just casually waltzed into the attacker's "inside" which is very dangerous because he has instantly exposed himself to the rest of the attacker's body. It would have been wiser for him to step to the "outside." Stepping into the inside requires you to step much closer than what this guy's doing. What he's doing here is a relatively simple grappling technique from a distance which you just wouldn't do when you're standing on the opponent's inside because it's just to easy for him to start pummelling the crap out of you with the rest of his body.


"You then move back under the opponent’s arm (while changing your grasp)" - and what? The attacker just idly lets you do this how?!? - and turning with your whole body to the left toward your opponent, lift and twist the opponent’s arm up (his elbow pointed upward) and to his back (the full details of this technique are left for another article). (3) This can be very painful."

The end result of this technique with that arm lock is fine - it's just the way that they got there that I find difficult to accept. (-_-)

The article does include a disclaimer that they've presumed that the attacker is "non-trained" - thus admitting that they're presuming that the attacker is inferior. *sigh*

It's hard to find demonstrations that don't make this silly presumption...

[tron07]

Goktimus, are you into any type of martial arts??