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Old 05-24-2006, 07:13 PM   #51
statisticool
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote:
and I acknowledged that a few sentences above what you cut out. Please don't paraphrase me and not include the other salient facts.
Then I guess I don't see your point then. And I don't see any reason to believe the number in

Quote:
Why would you spend your time training something that is 70% inefficient as a delivery system?

A secret of internal strength?:
"Let your weight from the crotch area BE in his hands."
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Old 05-24-2006, 07:49 PM   #52
DonMagee
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

Combat effecitivness is easy to test. Really anything physical is easy to test. All we require is a large enough sample of people willing to fight. I know, you are going to say that fighting with rules is different they fighting on the street because of X thing. I'm not going to bother to attempt to sway your opinion. I will only suggest that you test yourself. If you are confident in your ablities, find a friendly enviroment and spar with someone. Allow strikes, takedowns, ground work etc. Make sure that person is a 3rd party (aka outside of your school and art). Try to find someone who trains in the manner described above. Boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, bjj, judo, etc. If you do well, then congrats, your training is working for you. If you do not do well, then maybe concider adding this kind of training to your current training. I belive that with a large enough sample of people doing this that the percentage of effective people with be greater on the 'alive' side then on the 'dead' side. Its a waste of time to say "Because X person was able to use aikido I will be able to use aikido when the time comes". There are exceptions to every rule, the question to ask is are the people who use kata only or 'dead' arts successfully the exception, or the rule. Its very obvious that the successful users of 'alive' arts are the rule.

I can buy into the whole non physical side of 'dead' arts. I simply belive its not the best way to learn the physical side of martial arts. I belive this though my own person exp on both sides of the fence. All that matters is what works for you, but dont lie to yourself, make sure it works for you. Providing you are concerned with being an effective fighter that is.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
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Old 05-25-2006, 12:53 PM   #53
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

Justin wrote:

Quote:
Then I guess I don't see your point then. And I don't see any reason to believe the number in
How long have you been studying martial arts? How much experience do you have in fully resistant training? Have you tried it to any great extent?

Also...do what Don said above.

That is all I can say about that at this time to help you understand where we are coming from.

If you haven't gone 100% all out, then it may be simply can't visualize or conceptualize what we are talking about.
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Old 05-25-2006, 02:13 PM   #54
Ron Tisdale
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

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Its very obvious that the successful users of 'alive' arts are the rule.
Uh, it's obvious under certain rules in a sporting environment. Not necessarily so outside of that environment.

I remember a pretty well known Thai boxer who had a gym in the states. He saw someone swipe his car, and ran after the fellow down the street, and caught up to him at a stop sign or stop light.

The Thai boxer was promptly shot dead.

No amount of competitive or non-competitive training was going to prepare him for that.

Best,
Ron (no ring, no rules, no problem [if you're packin'])

Ron Tisdale
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Old 05-25-2006, 02:29 PM   #55
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

very good point Ron!
That reason alone is why I have the following poster in our dojo.

"the winner of a hand to hand fight is the guy whose buddy shows up first with a gun".

Of course this is an Army thing....but I think it keeps things in the proper perspective.

I have been instructing basic combatives for about 4 hours a day all week to some visiting units. These guys have never done this stuff before.

I tell them that it is not really important that they learn how to do all the really technical stuff we are teaching them sweeps, various forms of guard, submissions etc....

What is important is that they train...and learn the basics and how to handle the stress of a combat situation. Really all they need to know is how to survive for a few seconds until there buddy can show up. That is all that is really going to happen.

I explain to them that it is not necessary to lay in the perfect Rear Naked Choke...but important that they can control and dominate there opponent enough to keep him from hurting him, and enough to escape or get assistance.

You don't have to be highly skilled to do these things. Just skilled enough to keep things in your favor..if the day is going somewhat your way.

I think we'd all really like to think that we can be like in the movies and do all that matrix stuff....but in reality...fighting is dirty, fast, and not much like how 99% of us train.

I can honestly say, I can produce an effective hand to hand fighter in about 30 to 60 days of solid training. That is about all that is really necessary to defend yourself and do what is necessary to win if things are meant to go your way.

everything else we do is simply to keep us in shape, entertain us, and maybe give us a slightly better edge...but the curve of diminishing return is very, very steep when you are talking self defense, survivability, and winning. Luck and situation play a bigger part than your overall training.

The only other reason to train is to keep your warrior spirit and the values of budo and to follow the DO.
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Old 05-25-2006, 02:30 PM   #56
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

Quote:
Ron Tisdale wrote:
Uh, it's obvious under certain rules in a sporting environment. Not necessarily so outside of that environment.

I remember a pretty well known Thai boxer who had a gym in the states. He saw someone swipe his car, and ran after the fellow down the street, and caught up to him at a stop sign or stop light.

The Thai boxer was promptly shot dead.

No amount of competitive or non-competitive training was going to prepare him for that.

Best,
Ron (no ring, no rules, no problem [if you're packin'])
That's so objective. I like said "but what about thing X". There are always exceptions. Of course I can't learn how to handle attack by a sucide bomber with aikido or a cruise missle with my bjj. I can however learn how to deal with un-armed attackers. Or maybe if i'm lucky I can learn to deal with attackers armed with knives or clubs. I might be able to learn how to escape unharmed from a mob. However I can actually test all these things in my sport enviroment. I can find out that I can actually do to defend myself against a single unarmed attacker by actually getting attacked by a single unarmed attacker. The same goes for multiple attackers. Its such a simple concept I dont know why people aruge about it so much.

Yes, I dont know if they guy has a knife, or a gun, or anthrax. Maybe he has 12 friends at the bar. But having actually had 'alive' training, I am accustom to getting hit, thrown, and attacked. I will have also presure tested my techniques and will have a better handle on what I can and can not do to the guy coming at me. I feel this gives me better odds then doing kata all day long.

Of course what your really saying is we should give up and no longer practice hand to hand combat because it is simply useless. You are also saying that you are 100% aware and no one will ever get the drop on you, you will never need to defend yourself hand to hand because you have a knife/gun/deadly eye gouge or leg pinch. Your attackers will always present themselves in a manner which will allow you time to draw your weapon and defend yourself. And you are trained to make sure you can never get that weapon used against you.

No method of self defense is perfect. Every single one has flaws. Stand up boxing? What about leg kicks, and takedowns? BJJ? What about lava and broken glass or multiple attackers? Guns? What if the guy gets the drop on you when your not looking? What if they attack you in your car? What if they attack you with a car? Aikido? What if they dont 'commit' their attacks? What if they have a gun? What if they guy is on meth and breaks his own arm to choke you?

We can ask questions like this all day. Any situation you can come up with I can tell you why it wont work. What you can do is pick a likley situtation and plan for it. I plan to do a lot of sport fighting. I can plan for it. Secondary to this I plan to defend myself from single attackers in clubs/bars (the only likley place for me to get attacked). My plan is to keep them at bay until bouncers come get them. If I am mugged, I'm giving up my wallet. If you break into my home I'm giving you a load of shotgun.

I think my point still stands. For hand to hand self defense I would bet on the 'alive' trained fighter (boxing, judo, bjj, etc) over any 'dead' trained art. If you can't do it against a fully resisting opponent in the ring why would you even dream you can do it against one on the street with even less rules? If you can't do it 50% of the time with a complaint partner how can you even dream it works in the street?

And for the record, no amount of spirtial training is gooing to prepare you to get shot in the face either.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
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Old 05-25-2006, 02:40 PM   #57
Ron Tisdale
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

Quote:
But having actually had 'alive' training, I am accustom to getting hit, thrown, and attacked.
I am acustomed to the same.
Quote:
I will have also presure tested my techniques and will have a better handle on what I can and can not do to the guy coming at me.
I have presure tested my technique as well...different tests for the most part though. But some were what you would recognize.
Quote:
I feel this gives me better odds then doing kata all day long.
No problems there. But the preaching...ow...
Quote:
Of course what your really saying is we should give up and no longer practice hand to hand combat because it is simply useless.
I'm not saying that at all. I am noting a historic fact...and making the point that what you said is obvious is not quite so.
Quote:
You are also saying that you are 100% aware and no one will ever get the drop on you, you will never need to defend yourself hand to hand because you have a knife/gun/deadly eye gouge or leg pinch. Your attackers will always present themselves in a manner which will allow you time to draw your weapon and defend yourself. And you are trained to make sure you can never get that weapon used against you.
I'm certainly not saying that. And I'm not really arguing with you either. Just presenting some additional information to the mix. Hey, you can preach what you like...why can't I have a say without you mis-characterizing what I think or say?

Best,
Ron

Last edited by Ron Tisdale : 05-25-2006 at 02:42 PM.

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Old 05-25-2006, 03:11 PM   #58
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

Don wrote:

Quote:
Of course what your really saying is we should give up and no longer practice hand to hand combat because it is simply useless. You are also saying that you are 100% aware and no one will ever get the drop on you, you will never need to defend yourself hand to hand because you have a knife/gun/deadly eye gouge or leg pinch. Your attackers will always present themselves in a manner which will allow you time to draw your weapon and defend yourself. And you are trained to make sure you can never get that weapon used against you.
No, "over training" is a good model to train against. Also the type of training you are doing is correct.

I would only caution not to use the word "dead" as opposed to "aliveness" it is not an opposite argument. Not sure if you agree with my previous post on the subject...but aikido is not dead training...not necessarily "complete" as a system to accomplish the goals of making a good "fighter", but also the skills are not "dead" or bogus.

assimilating training and habits learned in the methodical way of aikido can prove to be very effective if you do apply them in a fully resistive way...I do this all the time.

As you now from BJJ training...you learn in class and then you must develop your own "game". You can apply the principles learned in aikido in much the same matter.

I'd submit that many things we do in BJJ would be considered "dead" or a waste of time if you want to go down that path of saying things done in TMAs are 'dead". I do many things in BJJ that I would never use in a real situation...so by that definition...much of ANY art would be considered "dead".

I simply don't like using the word "dead" for that reason.
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Old 05-25-2006, 04:34 PM   #59
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

I do not discount any martial art as being worthless or useless. I think you can use aikido, kempo, ninjitsu, whatever. I just think adding this 'aliveness' training will improve any art. We don't have to use the word aliveness, we can use free vs static, or anything else. I do take everything and work at it with 'aliveness' even my aikido.

I think the main thing that I would like to stress is that you 'cut the fat'. If you use Matt's concept of 'aliveness' to build your game, there is no reason to train things you will never use in a real situation. Examine everything and understand why you are doing it (But I gather you already know this from reading your posts). An example would be a horse stance and reverse punch. What does this really teach you about throwing a punch? Besides making a fist you will never do that in a fight, its just a waste of time. Learn to move, keep your guard up and throw punches from positions you will actually punch from. This can be done with hand targets then sparing. At the same time you have to understand what is a conditioning drill and what is a skill building drill. Hitting a heavy bag is not training with aliveness, it is a conditioning skill. Doing an armbar drill with 30% resistance is a 'alive' drill. We all know good examples of aikido training that fit this bill. Aikido randori is very much alive. However many schools keep it at bay, they don't take it to a level that will allow it to be useful on a physical level. Which is ok as long as they understand that. If I only trained aikido the way I see it done it would take years upon years to be the basic movements and timing down when someone is actually trying to hurt me. But with constant drilling (or sparing) with 'aliveness', this can be cut down to months.

Yes I preach, but I only preach because I have yet to see proof that I'm wrong. I usually get answers like "On the street that sport stuff will be useless" with no answer as to why their training would not be useless if sport training is useless. A lot of people even do have aliveness training and don't understand that I am just suggesting they add more or more intense aliveness into their training.

I've been on both sides of the fence. I've done training where a guy throws a lunge punch then stands there while I punch, kick, throw, and lock him. Then I think we train hard because people are really getting hit. I've trained only kata and kata + point sparing. I've done the RBSD stuff where you drill super complex fight dances with multiple people. I've been throw and disarmed by my aikido instructor, and I've been choked, amrbared, punched, kicked, slammed, tripped, and thrown while attempting to do my worst to the guy standing on the other end of the mat. That doesn't mean I know what will work for you. But I can say that the most effective fighters I've met have all been guys who trained with 'aliveness' (judo, kyokushin karate , and bjj/mma guys). I want to suggest that people examine their training honestly. Just because you spent 15 years doing something and your teacher and teacher's teacher spent three times as long doing so doesn't make it worth while. It could of changed, just been wrong, or is no longer valid for todays world. Or it could be a very valuable and necessary part of your training. Just make sure you understand why. Otherwise we could all end up standing with one arm out while a guy dances around us for 30 seconds and then says, "I just hit you 200 times, you would now be dead".

One last thing before I go. Ron, what was the point you were trying to make? I want to address it, but I really don't know what your were trying to say. I assumed you were just making the old smart remarks most people make about sport not preparing you for the street like traditional arts will. My rant was just trying to show that neither sport nor traditional arts will prepare you for a gun.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
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Old 05-26-2006, 06:44 AM   #60
Ron Tisdale
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Re: Aliveness in Martial Arts Video Clip

Quote:
My rant was just trying to show that neither sport nor traditional arts will prepare you for a gun.
Ah, but I never said either would...now did I? Try this...either read the history of my posts here, and gain at least a somewhat accurate picture of my opinions, or don't jump to unfounded conclusions. I actually agree with parts of what you say...not to the same extreme though.

There is no doubt that being physically fit, comfortable in many ranges of sport combat, and used to resistive training will help you, not hurt you, in a real confrontation. Especially if it is a "pride" match between young males (these can be very real). Even if it's a life or death struggle.

I also have no doubt that the skills I learn from non-resistive training are also a benefit in those situations. And beyond those situations. In a sporting contest? Not so much. I'm ok with that. We simply have different measuring sticks.

Best,
Ron

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Old 08-10-2006, 09:28 PM   #61
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Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote:
Mathew are you talking about Jason Delucia? I value his opinion, but would not say he is "god like" around here. I don't believe anyone is for that matter.

Nikkyo, sankyo, yonkyo, gokyo are certainly valid submission techniques, that is not in debate. The problem I have had is getting to them in a fully resistive situation. I have landed nikkyo once in the last year, I use sankyo as a temporary controlling technique regularly. Yonkyo has proven to be useless and can't remember ever using gokyo. Ikkyo I have used the principles of everyday, not as applied in aikido though...in principle.

In a fully resistive environment, they always have options unless you control their balance or center (dominate). Even then it is difficult to submit someone with these techniques....at least in my experiences.

Does not invalidate them as a training methodology, and they do come more in to play with weapons. Weapons can change the dynamics some....however even with weapons, the best plans and technique end up in something other than what you practice in a controlled environment. (Matt makes this point clear).

When you are training from effectiveness, you train for a "70%" solution and isolate failure points to mitigate them. When you train for principle and perfection as in the DO arts, you do not concern yourself with these "points of possible failure", and train the whole spectrum of principle.

I think you have to be careful not to confuse effectiveness, with principle. Where Matt and I would differ is I don't think it is a necessarily a waste of time to train principle. However, I agree if you want to be effective, you don't necessarily need to waste your time studying principle oriented practices.
though there is a pain factor that causes people to submit , 1st 2nd 3rd 4th etc are not submissions .they are connective waza which aid in transition to entry .
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