Ground Fighting Against Knife

56 missions; in a time when many missions suffered 10% losses.
I just read that to my wife and kinda choked up.
Thanks for sharing about your dad.
 
Fish,

Sorry for your loss, your dad sounds like he was one of a vanishing breed, whose experience and guidance we could use with the recent events.


Ken,

Cool a fellow judoka.

RE: Principles and Techniques:

Agreed on the basic idea of principles and mindset being more important than technique

BUT

technique, done correctly, is principle applied, and that application provides for a test case of whether the principles do indeed work.

Many martial artists make the claim that, for instance, they would just apply the "principles" of their respective art (say Ba Gua Zhang, a Chinese art with no groundwork) in say, groundfighting, and that they would therefore prevail.

Not quite. Having done striking, standing grappling, and groundfighting arts, I see a lot of crossover in principle. That understanding would get me nowhere without actually practicing the TECHNIQUES of striking, standing grappling, and groundfighting.
 
In the movie THE MATRIX, Morpheus compliments Neo for his ability, during training, to improvise.

IMHO, one can only improvise, successfully, when he or she understands and can apply the principles.

I suppose one could learn just the principles and not the techinques, but it doesn't seem very likely.

Rather, we learn the techniques and practice them until one day we understand the principles without having learned them.
Perhaps in certain forms, such as Aikido or Ba Gua Zhang, one could both practice the techniques and study the related philosophy, and thereby accelerate his understanding of the principles.

My son and I watched Don Fry fight Tank Abbott.
In the beginning, it didn't go well for Don Fry.
Finally, though, Don gave Tank a perfectly timed and angled shove, with hardly any apparent effort, and Tank went down.
Don followed Tank to the ground and got a submission.

My son, who has eight years of judo, shouted "Judo!", referring to the shove (unbalancing) and not the submission technique.
I said, "I've never seen that technique."
My son said, "He improvised it."

When one fully understands the principles, the techniques materialize as needed.
Of course, I don't really know this.
I only believe it. :)
 
My son and I watched Don Fry fight Tank Abbott.
In the beginning, it didn't go well for Don Fry.
Finally, though, Don gave Tank a perfectly timed and angled shove, with hardly any apparent effort, and Tank went down.
Don followed Tank to the ground and got a submission.

My son, who has eight years of judo, shouted "Judo!", referring to the shove (unbalancing) and not the submission technique.
I said, "I've never seen that technique."
My son said, "He improvised it."

When one fully understands the principles, the techniques materialize as needed.
Of course, I don't really know this.
I only believe it.
excellent anecdote, and wisdom behind the words.
 
From the mouths of babes...

But Frye wouldn't have won it without knowing the submission technique !!! ;)
 
Groundfighting is an excellent exercice, very tiring, very strategic.
When speaking about street-fighting, there's always something to keep in mind regarding ground-fighting:

If your opponent may be several ones (if there are several agressors, or if there's only one but people aside who could be on his side and decide to strike you... globally if you're not 1 vs 1 strictly alone), then going to the ground is very dangerous because you expose all your body, and vital parts, to the kicks of the other guy standing.

Guillaume
 
Gillaume makes some good points.

In my son's Brazilian JuJitsu (BJJ) class, the teacher makes a clear distinction between fighting in competition and fighting in self defense.
In competition, he says, one can roll around on the floor all day; whereas in a self defense situation, one uses all of his skills to get back on his feet as quickly as possible.

Regarding the fatigue which ground-fighting produces, my son, who plays soccer and runs his paper route, has the shakes after two hours of BJJ.
He loves BJJ but it takes everything out of him.

-----

My son and I study Judo under Denis Point who, like Gillaume, comes from Paris, France.
Denis tells us Parisians take their martial arts much more seriously than do we Americans.
He says Parisians have more fun with their martial arts, too. :)
 
I have the Frye v Abbot bout on tape, it was more than a shove. It was the constant forward pressure (after an unsuccessful session of trading blows) and the good chance (for Frye) that Tank's shoe/sole caught on the mat. Frye got a good size mouse in the end and said Tank hit like a mule.

Re: France and martial arts. Two words for you, Dominic Valera.
 
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