Martial arts discussion thread

[Bartrim]

Annoyed at myself tonight. Hit a real mental wall and couldn't "pull the trigger" in sparring. I was hoping to enter a semi contact event in 2 months... But my instructor won't let me with crummy efforts like tonight's

[GoktimusPrime]

Seems a tad unfair to disallow you just because you had one bad session. Everyone has their off days. If anything, there's a lot of benefits in continuing to train when you're feeling off, because it helps prepare you to defend yourself if someone does jump you when you're already feeling pretty crummy. It's not as if you can tell a real life attacker to come back another day when you're feeling better.

[Bartrim]

In hindsight I think he was trying to motivate me. I was just annoyed last night, more so at myself then anyone else.

[Bartrim]

Here is a man who has never listened to Gok

http://www.mmamania.com/2015/5/31/86...blivion-brazil

What the video doesn't show is Ryan Jimmo vomiting into a bucket for the next 3 minutes. They had to actually check if his cup broke too. Tough SOB got up and finished the fight. Lost by decision but still got through it.

[GoktimusPrime]

Heh, awesome video.
So let's have an analysis into what went so horribly wrong.

It all boils down to one thing: poor stance work. He's turned into what has got to be one of the worst attempts at a forward/front stance I've ever seen. Critical errors include:
* Leaving his body square onto his opponent, thus fully exposing himself.
* Not keeping his back straight, thus having a forward lean. This could get bad if he were fighting against a competent grappler, especially putting himself at increased risk of having his neck or upper spinal cord broken.
* Rear foot's heel is peeled up. Most likely to give his punch driving force in compensation for his poor stance (a proper forward stance doesn't need the heel peeled up, as force is generated from hip, waist and shoulder rotation (re: torsion)). This makes him poorly balanced forward, which again makes him more vulnerable to being grappled, thrown, or in this case, lunging his groin forward into a kick.

Unfortunately, poor stance training is all too common in a lot of schools. Here are some examples of the forward stance. The first two (Fig.A & B) are what I consider to be incorrect, and the third one (Fig.C) is what I would consider to be correct.

Bear in mind that I'm only using crude 2-dimensional MS Paint lines to try and represent a 3 dimensional model, so anything on the z axes are moving towards or away from the perpendicular (x axis).
Fig.A
Much like the person who got kicked in the video, this person has turned himself to be facing his opponent square on. This leaves his body more exposed. He is attempting to cover his groin by leaning his knee inwards, but it's still leaving a discernible gap.
Fig.B
Even worse than Fig.A, this person is also turned facing his opponent square on, but is also leaning forwards (whereas the person in Fig.A is at least keeping an erect posture).
Fig.C
The person on the left has rotated his waist so that his shoulders are side on. This significantly narrows the gaps in his defences, and also means that his body is no longer facing square onto his opponent. His angles of exposure are not aligned with his opponent's incoming attack angle. And note that it's angles -- plural. His groin, stomach and chest are all pointing and different directions, as his body is twisted like a corkscrew. This also gives him the added advantage of using torsion to drive more power behind his punch, thus he doesn't need to peel his heel off the ground nor lean forward into his punch. Okay, there is a slight lean, but this photo appears to be taken at actual speed whereas the first two appear to be static poses; despite this, I find the person who's executed the stance at full speed to be relatively better than the others who are doing it as poses (it should be the other way around). This person also doesn't need to buckle his front knee in to cover his groin.

Moral of the story: Ensure that your angles of exposure are not aligned with your opponent's angle of attack. Keep your shoulders aligned with your opponent's angle of attack. Lead with your shoulder forward, not your chest. This is still practised in modern warfare, as can be seen here:
http://static3.therichestimages.com/...ial-forces.jpg
http://images.fineartamerica.com/ima...-tom-weber.jpg
http://resources3.news.com.au/images...79dc9db4b9.jpg
Pretty much the only time a soldier stands front on is when they're showing respect, but certainly not in combat. They expose themselves as a sign of trust. Yes, this is a super basic concept that is taught to beginners in any good martial arts school. A person that has not grasped this concept shouldn't even be doing full contact sparring, let alone competing in a martial arts tournament.

[Zechariah]

Thank you TIGER Kim Myung Man for being so hard on me, you would be proud.

[Bartrim]

Had one of my pet hates happen last night. Had a spare a monster of a kid (23years old, 200cm tall, 120kg) Bouncing around the ring. Normal sparring back and forth. He has a lot of range on me so I have to change up my tactics. As he comes in I throw a pecking kick and hit him right on the thigh. My instructor compliments me on changing my tactics and timing. This Monster all of the sudden on the next exchange throws an overhand right and it connects WHAM!!!!!... I stagger back. What the hell dude? I try to reset and he bullies me into a corner BAM!!! left hook to the body CRACK!!!! Right cross to my face. I can take a punch but this dude is 40kgs heavier then me. Thankfully our instructor then jumped in the ring and told him to dial back the power. I was so annoyed. I hate when people spar and as soon as they get hit with a good technique they get cranky and attack all out. If you can't control yourself you shouldn't spar.

[GoktimusPrime]

IMO a person with violent, angry or thuglike tendencies/dispositions, should either have their training modified (e.g. not allowed to spar, only taught passive/defensive techniques etc.), or denied training. It really, really, really bugs me when I come across people like that who are giving martial arts training. The whole point of teaching martial arts should be to help people to protect themselves from thugs, and not to breed more of them.

In terms of tactically dealing with these kinds of opponents, you need to try to neutralise their advantage over you; e.g. additional reach, powerful hits etc.; this is where directly attacking the core comes into play. So long as you remain outside of his core, then he can still hit you. Close the gap. Use your BJJ training and grapple/wrestle the sucker down to the ground, heck, tackle him if you need to.

Let us consider range in 3 "zones":

Long range = punching/kicking distance


Mid range = elbowing/kneeing distance
Fig.A: Elbowing striker's zones, Fig.B Punching striker's zones, Fig.C Kneeing striker's zones


Close range = the body; including shoulders, waist and hips (opponents' zones highlighted)


Close range is what I would recommend that you aim for. In doing so, you are rendering your opponent's long and mid ranges irrelevant. As you can see in these examples, the defenders have either moved beyond the attacker's outer ranges, or they have immobilised them. They are all aiming to directly attack their opponent's core, swiftly delivering them to the ground. Little fuss, just nice and quick, finishing the fight in as few moves as possible; shouldn't take more than a few seconds from the moment of contact. I imagine that your Juujutsu training should prove useful for this. Perhaps you could practice with a more friendly sparring partner first before trying to spar with this person again.

You might also want to consider having words with your instructor about this person's attitude, as I'm sure the last thing anyone wants is for him to go out and use the skills that he's learnt at your school to hurt someone. Good luck.

[Bartrim]

The thing is this guy is generally a placid, nice guy. We get along well. We get along well and are friendly outside of training. We have sparred before and had no problems. For some reason the other night after I hit one good technique on him, he just decided to go nuts. I had a word with my instructor (as I am good friends with him outside of training) and he said he'd mention something to him. I'll see what happens next time. Maybe he just had a rush of blood. At the time it did frustrate me though.

[GoktimusPrime]

The thing is this guy is generally a placid, nice guy. We get along well. We get along well and are friendly outside of training. We have sparred before and had no problems. For some reason the other night after I hit one good technique on him, he just decided to go nuts. I had a word with my instructor (as I am good friends with him outside of training) and he said he'd mention something to him. I'll see what happens next time. Maybe he just had a rush of blood. At the time it did frustrate me though.

He may need more exercise in learning how to remain calm in a fight. Getting flustered isn't going to do him any favours, as he's more likely to either get hit by a superior attacker, or he might use excessive force in self defence and end up in legal strife. Does your school do any meditative exercises?

A colleague of mine has a son who joined the Australian Army this year. As part of his basic training, his unit was made to go through an obstacle course with a dummy rifle equipped with a bayonet. They had targets which would suddenly jump in front of them at random locations, and they had to immediately stick them with their bayonet. At first he kept on losing his cool and stuffing up, which meant that the entire unit was made to restart the obstacle course from the beginning. At any time, if so much as one person stuffed up, they had to restart. It quickly made everyone realise that they had to remain cool, calm and collected while defending themselves from frightening surprise attacks.

It reminded me of the 'sensory deprivation' activity that we used to do in Tai Chi. It involves 2-3 people. The defender closes his/her eyes standing in a natural and relaxed posture. S/he then closes his/her eyes and continues to relax; breathing slowly, thinking calm thoughts. The attacker(s) then positions a focus pad (or pads) at a random location near the body; only a few cm away from direct contact. The attacker(s) then look at the defender's eyes. After the defender has adequately calmed him/herself, s/he then must SNAP his/her eyes wide open and immediately react to wherever the focus pad(s) may be. The attacker(s), upon seeing the defender's eyes open, them immediately proceed to attack (i.e. make physical contact with the defender's body). This gives the defender only a fraction of a second to react to the threat, as well as simulating the element of awful surprise. The defender should get that sick feeling in his/her stomach when this happens to, because you've been caught off guard. We were told that if we didn't get this sick "OMFG!" feeling, then we weren't doing it right.