TFL martial artists

Dave,

I don't think we are too far apart in our views and I DON'T take anything away from the UFC guys. Many of them are awesome in their conditioning, technique, and dedication to training. But I believe their training can handicap them in a real fight though not as badly as the training regimens of some other martial styles.

I've seen a man who had a medical history of five spinal cord tumors, fractured lumbar vertabrae,and a brain tumor, who at 120 lbs. was 60 lbs below his normal weight- totally dominate and beat the hell out of a 250 lb man in ten seconds. This man could not walk without holding on to something with both hands. He looked like he had recently been released from Auschwitz and had just that day gotten up from six months in the bed after a brutal spinal cord surgery. Strategy did it. It doesn't matter how strong you are if you can't breathe and your carotids are constricted to the point that no blood gets to your brain. This man simply reached out with his left hand and slid the middle two fingers behind the knot of his opponent's tie and gripped the knot with his entire hand and twisted it. He then pulled his opponent over the counter top separating them (incidentally hold himself up by the guy's throat and maintaining his balance) and proceeded to hammer the opponent in the face with his right fist.

This man (my father) knew strategy well but had something even more important-the heart of a warrior. He once said something to me that I would not believe from any other person I have ever known. After decades of constant pain that wouldn't allow him to sleep well even with constant use of narcotics he said to me one night,"Byron, I'd give up if I could...I've tried to give up... but I don't know how to give up." And he continued his fight for another 15 years.

Technique is good. Conditioning is good. Strength is good.
Speed is good. And all else being equal, they are winners.

These qualities have only one drawback: they inevitably degrade with advancing age.

Strategy does not degrade with advancing age...neither does spririt. I'll spend my time studying strategy and working on my spirit.
 
Uh, hey Spartacus!

Don't take this the wrong way, but where the heck are you livin' and what do you do that you have seen and participated in so many brutal fights?! Holy cats, man! Are you a prison guard or something? Heh, heh.

Seriously though, it does seem like you've seen a lot of action. Care to let us in on your situation?

Regards,
Matt
 
Spartacus has lived an um, interesting life, at times. Among other things, he repo'ed a lot of furniture in his younger days. Also stood up to a literal crowd of racists with a friend, a lot of attitude, a closed checkpoint (cars across road)...and twin HK 91's. :D (The crowd decided they really, really would prefer to just backtrack to the club and continue drinking.)
 
While I have a lot of respect for the UCF, I think
they are following the famliliar pattern of getting further
refined away from their roots.

Still, they are the best game in town, with better ta-ta's than Spanish television.

In the beginning, they laid down a clear challenge. Come out from the shadows of a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo and prove it in the open arena. That fundamentally changed my thinking.

Still,Ken Shamrock going WWF was like Bob Dylan going electric.
 
Matt,

I spent fifteen years repossessing and collecting for a furniture store. Most of our delinquent customers were in places like Sunset Homes and Telfair Manor in Augusta, Georgia. For some reason, some people get upset when you begin emptying their homes of the furnishings and appliances.

The fight I described that my father participated in occurred in our furniture store:)


There are also a lot of true Southern rednecks around here, who dearly love a good fight. Often they don't give you a choice about participation. Things have calmed down though in the last 13 years or so. Maybe I'm just getting old.
 
Matt,

Mentioning Telfair Manor brought another incident to mind. I had a customer who skipped out on me owing over two thousands dollars. I finally tracked him to an apartment in Telfair Manor. It wasn't until I walked in that I realized my customer had found a new career...he was running a crack house. My customer paid me in crisp one hundred dollar bills while all of his customers watched the transaction and damn near drooled. Then he smirked and said,"Let's see if you can get out of here with it." It was a FN Hipower moment. No shots were fired but the pucker factor was immense as I moved to the front door without taking my back from the wall.
 
-

Spartacus,

I think you said in one sentance, what I spent so many paragraphs to say.

Good strategy is like fine wine, it is refined by years. Strategy that relies upong strength, speed, or endurance, will dwindle with years.

Good advice, good thoughts.

I do disagree on one point. You added "techniques" to that list. I would venture to say that part of strategy is understanding "technique", so far as you understand the "strategy" of the human body. Balance and anatomical understanding can increase with age. Your father demonstrated his understanding of balance by using his opponent for a balance point. <laugh> That was a good story by the way. Anyways, thoughts on this?

Kind Regards,

Dave
 
Dave,

By technique, I meant the particular techniques as taught in the various styles. Our performance of these will invariably degrade as we age.


The point I am trying to make is about mindset. The mindset that our particular style and method of practice teaches us and how dangerous that mindset can be.

Two examples are karate and Brazilian jujutsu. Karate guys usually don't practice ground or grappling techniques. Their superior punching and kicking will prevent them ever going to the ground. On the other hand, the BJJ guys will never get hit or kicked and will invariably be able to take their opponent to the ground and gain the mount. I'm not knocking either style. There are practitioners of each that I don't want to face (but then I don't want to face anyone).


I believe that no matter what your method is...that you are crippling yourself if you don't study strategy...or if you confuse strategy and tactics.
 
Strategy

I agree. You need a strategy. Though it is a very important ingredient in the formula for success, strategy alone will not save you.

Success = Plan + Means to Carry Out Plan + Ability to Carry Out Plan

You're SOL if you're missing any part of that formula.

BTW, you have a lot of interesting war stories Spartacus. I'd be interested in hearing more of them if you're willing to share :)
 
SDForce,

I'll tell you of two of the incidents that led me to decide to change careers-for if I stayed in a business that included collections and repossessions, I was going to either get killed or go to prison. There were several other incidents similar to these in the last eighteen months or so that I worked in repossessions.

I was sitting at a redlight with a car in front of me. A car going the other way stopped beside me and the passenger leaned across the driver and screamed at me out the window,"You m*********, you garnished my wages, you just wait, I'm gonna f*** you up!" I looked at him and replied,"Why wait?" and drew my pistol but did not present it to their view. My former customer began scrabbling under his seat, I assume reaching for a handgun. Well, the driver was sitting there and you could see the wheels turning as he constructed a diagram of trajectories in his mind. Suddenly, it clicked, yep, he was about to be in the middle of a six foot gunfight between two maniacs. He floored the gas pedal and laid down a long streak of rubber getting out of there.

I was backing down a hallway carrying a sofa I was repossessing when the drunk son of my customer looked at me over the shoulder of my employee at the opposite end of the sofa. "I oughta get my gun,"he slurred, I immediately dropped my end of the sofa and told him to go get it. His mother was hopping from foot to foot, saying,"Don't tell him that, he'll do it, he'll do it." I said,"Mrs. Carter, I want him to do it, the undertaker will wipe his butt before the sun comes up." Woodrow Carter suddenly lost all interest in getting his gun. He could see himself on that slab with the undertaker working.

As you can see, the continued stress of being in these types of situations was affecting my judgement drastically. I didn't carry for several years after this. Needed to regain my balance.
 
Anti-gun MA's perplex me....

I started shooting and MA at a very young age. For me, the two went hand in hand. I guess I realized that in the real world, you can't rely on rules or civility in a fight. For me, martial arts and firearms are equalizers. I remember getting into a little flame war with an anti-gun guy who said people should just take things out with their fists. Then I mentioned people don't fight fair and take knives. he said, knives were unfair. I then said, "well, I know martial arts, is that fair?" He started spewing expletives, which just showed me we was unprepared and underarmed for a mental battle.

On to my point, MA's that dislike guns, I believe are just limiting themselves. I think they're just mad that all of their years of training and sparring can be instantly nullified by an untrained ruffian wielding a POS, saturday night special.

That's my take...
 
"Mrs. Carter, the undertaker will wipe his butt before the sun comes up".

I bet you could sell that line to Clint Eastwood.
 
Strategy is neccesary but only goes so far. I've seen Ken Shamrock and what he can do up close and personal, if you want to beat that guy in a street fight your strategy better involve a firearm of some type and an extra mag, period.
 
I don't think your idea of a "street fight" and mine are necessarily very close. Had a big bad bully chase me into a construction site when I was young. He was several years older, much stronger, meaner etc. There was a ladder leaning against a concrete block wall that was still under construction. I climbed it and the fool followed. I pulled the last block laid down in the top course. Bombs away. This guy was about twice my age, over twice my weight, twice my strength etc. It didn't matter once I used strategy to gain the tactical advantage.

And I'll take the same postition with Ken Shamrock. Put me on top of a wall with concrete blocks and any number of UFC fighters are welcome to come crawl up the ladder.

I'll say it again, people, proper use of strategy does not entail facing up square with someone who is bigger, stronger, faster, and better trained in close quarters combat and saying,"Better watch out, I know strategy." If you face up square to someone like that you're going to get pounded into pudding.
 
Or, more accurately, that the time to use strategy is not when you have no choice other than pure unarmed hand-to-hand, because then your strategy has already failed.
 
My grand strategy has failed if I am faced with a confrontation.

There are many assumptions in this thread. One is: What is victory? Is it beating your opponent into blood pudding?

Not necessarily. Victory for you is defined by your objectives. Victory for your opponent is defined by his objectives.

So consider this. My opponent's objective is to beat me into blood pudding. My objective is to remain in my original state. I run so fast he can't catch me. I both meet my objective for victory and deny my opponent's objective for victory. I win, he loses.

Or this scenario. For some reason, my family has been targeted for elimination by terrorists. An eight man team attacks during a picnic. I begin shooting terrorists. They begin shooting my family. End result. Eight dead terrorists...and all my family. I am unharmed. They won. I lost. They achieved their objective for victory while denying my achievement of my objective. Note that the objective for victory in this case did not include personal survival for either side.
 
kruger:
"11 years aikido (nidan)
6 years iaido (nidan... training in japan helps)
1 year judo (6th kyu)

Amongst the aiki-fruits there are plenty of gun control types,
while the more pragmatic aikidoka are gun neutral. The local iai
types are gun neutral, but the japanese swordsmen couldn't
understand my liking for firearms. The local judoka are pretty
neutral."

Hey, kruger, pretty impressive resume.
I've practiced aikido for a bit over 8 years, in four states, and I have to say the anti-gun trend seems to be a particularly left-coast phenomenon.

Not that I haven't seen it otherwise, but go to NY or D.C., or anywhere in the southeast, and lots and lots of aikidoka are shooters.

Over here (just moved to OR myself) these last three states seem to have a particularly socialist attitude in general, so it's understandable that the folks around here practicing ANYTHING would be largely anti.

(much of the aikido also seems to be somewhat "modified" for a certain ideology - though presumably not yours :-)

Aikido Schools of Ueshiba (of which I'm a member) is headed by Mitsugi Saotome Sensei, whose favorite and oft-cited quote "Good gun control... TWO HANDS!!" pretty much sums up his view.

He lived in D.C. for many years, where ALL handguns are illegal, so he's seen it up close.
(He's in FL these days. -wonder why.)

But then, his right-hand man (and my personal favorite teacher) happens to be quite against guns. Never was able to get very far talking with him about it, though.

--
As for the compatibility of empty-hand training and modern martial art (pistol/rifle craft), it always comes down to what you're calling training, and with whom you're doing it.

The closer you can get to real-time, the more you can push that psycho-emotional envelope, then the better your chance of keeping cool under fire.

Most popular martial arts (maybe aikido among the worse) do not go very far into reality.
But this is simply beacuse the popluace doesn't like being scared, and often just needs some exercise.

-that said, I find it hard to imagine that practicing relaxed thinking on your feet as people beat the **** out of you will NOT help you perform a smooth draw, assess and fire (if necessary.)

And this is beside the fact that you may actually find it easier and more efficient to break the BG's neck/back than to shoot.


youngun
 
I practice Parker's American Kenpo Karate and Doce Pares. I have also begun to study Brazillian Jiu-jitsu. This give me a good exposure to empty hand striking, some grappeling, and stick/knife training as well.
 
Firearms

Been practicing Krav Maga 2 1/2 years. Training with firearms in the military prior to Krav Maga.

Most of the people I train with practice Gun Fu on thier own.

However, we do have open basic firearms usage training seminar with trip to range, and it is Mandatory at our school for all black belts no matter what art to train in.

We also very much encourage people to at least try and go shooting too understand the principle of the firearms and how they work.

I hope this answersyour question.
 
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