Do you grapple?

Am I capable of grappling? Probably. I have a varied martial arts background and am versed in weapon retention. Am I going to grapple?

If I am things have gone horribly wrong already. I am not a peace officer. I am not in a position to have to arrest anyone nor should I be attempting to. I am going to do everything I can to retreat from a situation. If I find the situation cannot be retreated from effectively I am going to do everything I can do avoid grappling - Kenpo emphasizes strikes aimed at joints - if I can step through an ankle and end my attackers willingness to continue the attack that is what it is going to take.

However I have a few simple rules about unarmed combat outside of an agreed upon sporting engagement:

1) Win at all costs
2) Arm yourself as effectively as reasonable
2A) If you did not bring a weapon find one - something
3) Use overwhelming force until your attacker no longer desires to continue the attack

There is no grappling involved in my philosophy. Might it end up that way? Perhaps but if it does i have done something wrong. I have also left myself incredibly open to a secondary threat. There is no escalation of force. If I am using force I am in a moral (and likely legal) position where the use of deadly force is justified and it is my intent to use as much force as I can bring to bear against my aggressor until his or her aggressive actions cease. Retreat if possible and engage only if necessary. If you must engage see the rules of combat above.
 
Ton said:
I've dabbled in different grappling and MMA styles (high school wrestling, bjj, krav maga, boxing). I maintain decent all around fitness in addition to doing heavy bag workouts once or twice a week.



That said, I'm nowhere near proficient in any of the above mentioned sports/fighting styles, but I'm experienced enough to know when I'm starting to tangle with somebody who is, and when it's time to try something else.



Your most effective weapon in any confrontation is your brain. If you stay aware, plan for a few of the more likely scenarios, and prepare accordingly, you will probably find you can avoid/deal with most of them much better with a little bit of planning.



Example: After pulling up to your grocery store and getting out of your car, somebody pulls up pissed because you unintentionally and unknowingly cut them off a half mile back. They hop out and start coming toward you because they want to rumble. It's much easier and safer (for everyone) for you to paint their face with a small can of pepper spray then get out of the way while they run around swinging blindly than it is for you to roll around in the parking lot trying to fight them while keeping your Glock 26 from popping out of your passive retention IWB holster, even if you are a proficient fighter.



But by nature we train and prepare for the worst case scenarios. If I was wanting to do alot of grappling training I would incorporate training guns and focus on weapon retention and escapes, as that will be your primary goal if you end up in a fist fight with your gun and aren't actively shooting somebody. If you can find training guns that have the trigger guards blocked out they will probably be safer. I've seen fingers broken during training sessions where people are wrestling over a fake gun and somebody sticks a finger in the trigger guard to try to get better control over it.
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Well my thing is that as a concealed holder we have a responsibility to avoid confrontation, and further still...we have a responsibility to avoid a lethal confrontation at all costs. I DO carry pepper gel in my truck (better than spray because if I'm in my truck it won't get all over me...though I bet it tastes good...I love spicy food). But take your incident...say it is some guy who doesn't give you a chance to grab the spray?

It is possible to end up in that physical confrontation even if you did everything right. Especially if you are dealing with a drunk or roid raging jerk hole. Being in good physical shape is great, but knowing the basics is probably more important. I'm not a great stand up fighter. I mentioned this in a previous post. But I know how to fight dirty and I will. I boxed a little. But my stand up is based around judo/jujitsu and taking someone off their feet of possible. Simple kicks, trips, and sweeps that require minimal effort.

Honestly? If I had the time? I would learn Kung Fu or Tai Chi. You would be amazed at how good it is for simply keeping yourself upright in a confrontation. But I digress. Knowing at least some minimal grapple knowledge is really important in the self defense repertoire.

Ps

I wouldn't laugh at a big guy who knows sumo. Or even a medium sized guy. Lyoto Machita was a sumo fighter. And it is essentially stand up only grappling Judo. But I was mainly thinking of keeping yourself from being in serious dookie if you got knocked on your butt.
 
Lohman446 said:
Am I capable of grappling? Probably. I have a varied martial arts background and am versed in weapon retention. Am I going to grapple?



If I am things have gone horribly wrong already. I am not a peace officer. I am not in a position to have to arrest anyone nor should I be attempting to. I am going to do everything I can to retreat from a situation. If I find the situation cannot be retreated from effectively I am going to do everything I can do avoid grappling - Kenpo emphasizes strikes aimed at joints - if I can step through an ankle and end my attackers willingness to continue the attack that is what it is going to take.



However I have a few simple rules about unarmed combat outside of an agreed upon sporting engagement:



1) Win at all costs

2) Arm yourself as effectively as reasonable

2A) If you did not bring a weapon find one - something

3) Use overwhelming force until your attacker no longer desires to continue the attack



There is no grappling involved in my philosophy. Might it end up that way? Perhaps but if it does i have done something wrong. I have also left myself incredibly open to a secondary threat. There is no escalation of force. If I am using force I am in a moral (and likely legal) position where the use of deadly force is justified and it is my intent to use as much force as I can bring to bear against my aggressor until his or her aggressive actions cease. Retreat if possible and engage only if necessary. If you must engage see the rules of combat above.
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To me...grappling is:

the art of knocking others down, how to get back up if you are knocked down, and how to win if you are on the ground. Nobody said you would have a choice in going to the ground. Sometimes you have no choice. I took a self defense class a while back and one thing they enjoyed about having me was that if they got overly ambitious I frequently threw someone to the ground. That is a good thing to know how to react too.

My entire principle of conflict is very stoic in nature. I'm going to avoid it. But that is no realistic. Nor is it realistic for me to believe I will keep a fight within the realm of my own expertise
 
I don't really call it "grappling" I call it fighting. I have experience and training in martial arts, ground fighting and wrestling. A career in LE I have been in hundreds of fights. I am 6' and 275 and work out regularly.

I see grappling as one component of fighting.
 
I don't really have any experience grappling and wouldn't be confidant in getting into a physical fight with a stranger. I compensate somewhat in that if a situation arose, I plan to maintain distance, change my position so that objects are in front of an aggressor if possible, and keep an eye out for any blunt weapons I/he can use, as well as being prepared to use my pistol if necessary.
 
Never really done much martial arts . Now in my 40s I've signed up for Dfence Lab classes , along with my 16 year old. And since me and him are only 2 in the class that are over 6' and 250lbs , we end up sparing together a lot. :). My kid has few inches and few pounds on me. Not sure it was such a good idea to tech him how to hit. :):):)
Our instructor in JJ master and incorporates some of it in DL. Long story short , I was hooked on it from day one. Great work out and finally learn little bit of some street fighting skills.
 
I don't really have any experience grappling and wouldn't be confidant in getting into a physical fight with a stranger.
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Admitting this is one of the first steps in learning how to fight (ie box, wrestle, bjj, etc). Too many guys believe they can fight because they can throw a haymaker, were in the military, are a cop, have watched fighting on TV, have been in a school yard fight, or have wrestled around with their friends. Some of them do know how to fight because they have really trained somewhere but most do not. Fighting is a skill just like anything else and not something you can learn in a week or a month. Most of those guys in the UFC/Bellator have been training their whole lives and there are guys out there that have been wrestling since they were 4 yrs old. If you train you will improve a lot and that will put you at an advantage were you to have to get physical against an untrained person. But you have an advantage in that you know what you can do and have a plan. One of the first things guys learn in brazilian jiu jitsu is to throw your ego out the door because everyone there is probably better than you and the more you show your ego the harder people are going to go against you and make you tap 20 times in 5 mins instead of going a bit easier and teaching you.

Additionally there are tons of martial arts out there that are BS. One way to learn this is if you cant practice a skill at 100% force, its probably BS. If they are telling you to kick them in the knee to take them out, poke eyes, train a lot of wrist locks etc its probably BS. If there are kid black belts, its BS. etc. Its pretty easy to spot. MMA/BJJ/Boxing/MuayThai are usually good choices because there is less of a chance that the school is a joke, however, even those are becoming common. The FBI and military have some great training programs but most people do not go through them. I get to train with tons of people from all branches of the gov so we get to talk about their training a lot. Some of it is top notch. In training I assume every new person can fight until I get to see them in action their first night.

Another thing to remember about grappling is that no one chooses to take a fight to the ground unless its to their advantage. If you dont know how to grapple then you probably also do not know how to prevent a fight from going to the ground either.
 
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Adam, some of what you say is true. Many arts have been watered down and degraded to the point of uselessness. You need to keep it in context. Some arts you do not practice full power on people because it is a hard style and you will seriously hurt someone. Some arts is where you learn it and from whom. BJJ is just as vulnerable to the money mill routine as anything. Go tell a ROK MP that his Tae Kwon Do is BS.

As with anything it is not always what you know, but how you apply what you know. How do you combine everything into a system that works for YOU? That is what is important.

I only tested one time, and that was because my daughter wanted me to test with her. A black belt means nothing to me, I was taking Tae Kwon Do for 30 years before I ever tested.
 
BJJ is just as vulnerable to the money mill routine as anything.
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Absolutely. In fact its happening a lot in BJJ/MMA right now. The BJJ/MMA police as they are called do try to call people out and have done a good job but its definitely happening. And arts like TKD, etc. can be awesome. Its just much easier to find a good MMA gym then a good TKD gym.
 
I think we have hit on a difference. In Kenpo you did not train full out because the medical bills would have been too high. While I respect that some of you are in positions where effective grappling must be used to control an individual without injuring said individual I am not. If I am employing physical force it is as a last resort. I am attempting to do enough physical or psychological damage to force my attacker to stop and / or create enough distance to safely employ a firearm. There is no intent or reason for me to subdue an aggressor with any hold or grapple.
 
Are there any specific disciplines that are recommended for this kind of fighting, in terms of effectiveness, not just in being able to find a good school?
Is there any way to decide what style of fighting to pursue other than just trying a bunch of them?
 
Are there any specific disciplines that are recommended for this kind of fighting, in terms of effectiveness, not just in being able to find a good school?
Is there any way to decide what style of fighting to pursue other than just trying a bunch of them?
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Yes. Train MMA, BJJ, Boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, or Wrestling or all of them. You will train all of these full force and learn to fight. Any art that doesn't spar 100% and has techniques that are too dangerous to use live are usually BS. For example, some arts teach to kick the attackers knee caps and they will fall or hit them in a certain part of the ribs, or hit them in xyz pressure point. They claim many of these techniques are too dangerous to practice live. Except we know from MMA that they are total BS. MMA proved tons of techniques to stop an attacker were BS, especially when you look at the early days of the UFC and Vale Tudo fights when there were no rules. You can find tons of videos online where these 'too dangerous to use arts/techniques' tried to challenge a BJJer/MMAer to a fight. The results are pretty funny and pathetic. Be sure that if a technique works well every MMA fighter out there is using it. There is a reason MMA fighters train boxing, wrestling, bjj, and muay thai exclusively.

Having said that all of that there are TKD, Tang soo do, etc schools out there that are still good but the majority are watered down soccer mom schools that have black belt birthdays. Why? Because they followed the money. BJJ schools lose about 90%+ of their beginners because it sucks to get beat up everyday. But you need to careful because fake bjj black belts are cropping up and every mcdojo now claims they teach mma even though the instructor has never been in a pro mma fight and doesnt know any grappling/wrestling.

There are also some schools that train stick fighting (dogg brothers) and knife fighting (krav maga) but you need to be careful the schools are good. Same goes with all arts but krav maga and 'self defense' schools dont usually practice live which means you are training techniques that you dont know will really work. Some do and are awesome but there are so many bad ones out there that krav gets a bad rap.

the best thing you can do is find a school that has a good instructor that you like, students you like, and trains in a realistic manner - as in practicing the techniques they teach you at 100% capacity against someone resisting 100%. Fake wrist lock throws that look cool dont really work in real life.
 
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If your attacker is highly trained in BJJ and you are grappling it is unlikely you are going to win. We all hope any attacker is not highly trained and competent. UFC is full of competent individuals and does not likely actually represent a likely attacker
 
Nanuk said:
I don't really call it "grappling" I call it fighting. I have experience and training in martial arts, ground fighting and wrestling. A career in LE I have been in hundreds of fights. I am 6' and 275 and work out regularly.



I see grappling as one component of fighting.
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True. And that is mainly why I started this thread. I wanted to see what people do in the aspect of training when dealing with grappling.
 
NateKirk said:
I don't really have any experience grappling and wouldn't be confidant in getting into a physical fight with a stranger. I compensate somewhat in that if a situation arose, I plan to maintain distance, change my position so that objects are in front of an aggressor if possible, and keep an eye out for any blunt weapons I/he can use, as well as being prepared to use my pistol if necessary.
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Me too. I have no idea what someone else is capable. I don't want to fight someone period. But knowing some minor things like shrimping may save you. You don't have to be submission wizard. But being an escape artist is a really good thing.
 
Valerko said:
Never really done much martial arts . Now in my 40s I've signed up for Dfence Lab classes , along with my 16 year old. And since me and him are only 2 in the class that are over 6' and 250lbs , we end up sparing together a lot. :). My kid has few inches and few pounds on me. Not sure it was such a good idea to tech him how to hit. :):):)

Our instructor in JJ master and incorporates some of it in DL. Long story short , I was hooked on it from day one. Great work out and finally learn little bit of some street fighting skills.
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I wish I could find a class I really liked that was stand up. I just haven't found anything that I really want to practice.
 
Lohman446 said:
I think we have hit on a difference. In Kenpo you did not train full out because the medical bills would have been too high. While I respect that some of you are in positions where effective grappling must be used to control an individual without injuring said individual I am not. If I am employing physical force it is as a last resort. I am attempting to do enough physical or psychological damage to force my attacker to stop and / or create enough distance to safely employ a firearm. There is no intent or reason for me to subdue an aggressor with any hold or grapple.
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Part of grappling is also knowing the escapes. The basics. I'm not a saying anyone should be a submission master. I really only use 5 or so submissions regularly (with variation). And a lot of time I use submissions to escape a bad position. If I get the submission, great, but I'd rather just not be on my back. But knowing how the submission works is good so you know how to escape it.

Prime example? There is a guy in my class who is really tall. Sometimes he will mash a forearm or shoulder into someone's throat from their guard. And people tap to that. I did once or twice. But not anymore. I know what he is doing and I know why It doesn't work. So I don't tap to it and I put up proper resistance in the right place and let him waste his energy while I work on escaping.
 
Honestly I do NOT want anyone that near me that means to do me harm.
I am not in any condition to be rolling around on the ground with an aggressor.
Awareness is my main defense and not going out to places of ill-repute.
Pipe dreaming maybe but it has worked so far.
 
Posted by PS Guy:
Honestly I do NOT want anyone that near me that means to do me harm.
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Nor should anyone else!

I am not in any condition to be rolling around on the ground with an aggressor.
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Those who think they are may be in for an awful surprise. A blade could end the affair, a gouge in the eye could have long term effects, and an infusion of diseased bodily fluids is to be avoided always.

Awareness is my main defense and not going out to places of ill-repute.
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Certainly a good start, and use the awareness to try to avoid getting within two arms length of anyone who may be dangerous.

I can no longer rely on speed, but my walking stick seems to deter, and could prove useful.
 
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