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Old 01-08-2007, 11:57 AM   #67
DonMagee
Location: Indiana
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1,311
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Re: So What Is a Fight Anyway?

Actually, I am still right, while 2 or more people are on the ground my 4 things are the only 4 things they can do. If another person is standing up and comes over and interjects himself into the conflict, it is not a ground fight. However, he can still only do a 1 of the 4 things. Get back up (or in this case disengage), knockout, sub, or kill. I fail to see how the new person could do anything else.

Lets use a scenario.

I get into a fight, I throw punches, and the guy clinches to avoid heavy blows to his skull. He pulls a small knife and while we fight over the knife we trip on a chair and fall to the ground.

At this point we just had a striking fight, where the distance was closed, a clinch happened, and a takedown occurred. The clinch was an escape due to strikes, the takedown was something neither of us wanted. Now, when we fell down the knife flew from his grasp and landed out of reach. I use my ground fighting to secure the mounted position.

I know have 4 choices.
1) submit my target
2) stand back up
3) knock out my target
4) kill him.

While i'm making up my mind my opponent has 2 choices.
1) attempt to reverse his situation
2) quit fighting.

If he reverses the situation, well then he has my 4 choices, I have his two choices.

To make this interesting, my friend see's what i'm doing and comes to stomp him. Same 4 choices. Now his two friends see what's happpening, and come to help him. one takes my friend out, and the other has 4 choices with me.
1) choose not to attack.
2) knock me out
3) submit me
4) kill me.

I still have my 4 choices
1) stand up
2) submit the guy i'm on
3) knock him out
4) kill him

I submit that standing back up and choosing to disengage or not to engage technically might not be the same thing, but in spirit they are. it doesn't' matter how many people, how many weapons, or how many anythings. You can choose to escape, kill, knockout, or submit. You may have other options before a fight happens, but once you are in a fight, these are your only options.

How do we make these options happen? By closing the distance. If needed clinch for a throw/takedown. Then if we end up on the ground, we submit our attacker with strikes/chokes/joint locks. Do we have to clinch/takedown/submit? No. But they are valid stages that happen, sometimes when we don't want them too.

But we still have not addressed what situations why you think that Kevin's stages of a fight are not universal. Your reasoning is they are not universal simply because MMA, judo and BJJ guys use these words?

Or is it deeper then that? If it's not aikido it's crap right?

What happens in a multiple person fight if not closing the distance, clinching, takedown, and a massive group beat down into submission/death? Multiple attackers really have no bearing on these terms because multiple attackers still have to close the distance, clinch, and takedown their target. Unless of course you are going to say these terms are not valid because aikido is ment to deal with a sword wielding attacker? That is usually the next argument. Well, that is why we train wrist grabs, because people did indeed clinch with sword wielding attackers. They grabbed them to prevent them from pulling their sword.

One last thing. Just because these area's are stages of a fight, does not mean you have to do them. it just means these are stages that happen in a fight. If I was fighting 4 guys. I would be trying to stop them from closing the distance and clinching, not clinching myself. Needless to say the clinch would play a major part of their strategy (unless they were wielding pipes or guns).

Last edited by DonMagee : 01-08-2007 at 12:00 PM.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
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