|
|
Post by LowKey on Dec 27, 2015 10:15:26 GMT
LINKHmm....I think they may have a point. As Yogi Berra once said, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." From the same site (in my opinion they're correct on these points)- UGLY TRUTHS ABOUT SELF-DEFENSE
• If you are NOT a cop, a soldier or a security professional and you get into a fight for any reason other than to defend your life or a loved one's from IMMINENT danger when you could have walked or run away, YOU are the problem (and a complete ass).
• Fighting to defend your "honor" from verbal assault makes you a criminal in the eye's of the law. Prepare to defend your honor in prison. The family that depends on you will really appreciate it.
• Learning self-defense to make you a "master street fighter," "dueler of death" or just a "bad-ass mo-fo" makes you a jerk.
• In the eyes of the law, unless you felt "you were going to die," you're as much a criminal as your attacker.
• If you use a knife on your attacker, in most states in the U.S. you are already a criminal.
• A knife in the hands of your attacker makes him an instant 50th degree Black Belt. Despite all the martial arts mythology and movie-making, there is no completely effective defense against a knife. You can improve your odds slightly but remember, unlike on TV, there's a million ways you can be hacked up with a knife.
• In real life, practically no one will ever attack you the way it's demonstrated in 99% of martial art schools.
• If you have to save your life, you'd better not grapple your attacker or engage in any other kind of sport-based nonsense. Every additional second you are connected to your attacker you are closer to dying...or becoming a criminal yourself.
• If you make the mistake of "fighting" some guy, you can be sure you'll be "fighting" his buddies also. Prepare to be stomped to death. Every additional second you "fight" exposes you to more assailants and potential weapons that you will not survive no matter how "badass" you think you are.
• If in the process of fighting your way free you maim or kill your attacker, you will have to live with that the rest of your life. This can potentially create in the prison of your mind a worse hell than anything you may face for real. PTSD is real and some of the toughest cops and soldiers suffer from it. It had better have been worth it. It helps if you've adopted a philosophy of avoiding violence as opposed to macho-posturing. Then, when you have to turn it loose...you really will. There'll be no moral ambiguity (but even then, don't expect the law to see it that way).
• Educate yourself about your rights as a victim, the law's view of "appropriate uses of force," and the ramifications of ignoring them.
Avoid all fights at all costs. Escape is always the #1 priority. Fight only if you think you're going to be killed that second. Not threatened or insulted. Then escape.Tangentially: Any thoughts on the VERY old school style of fighting espoused by W.E. Fairbairn back in the day?
|
|
|
|
Post by nxp on Dec 27, 2015 18:42:55 GMT
Personally, as much as it's not cool to think that way, I think the above is right. The moment YOU become the aggressor (which could feasibly happen 0.0004 sec into the encounter) you now are at fault, and YOU will need to deal with the law and all of it's traps.
Standing ground (unless cornered and guaranteed an ass whoopin') never ends well. Even in the event that you have no options, it's not going to be puppies and roses once the dust settles - everyone's going for a ride. Maybe you get out in a few hours/weekend, but you're still going for a ride on that hard plastic bench potentially with a new set of chrome bracelets. Or worse, the back of an ambulance.
The only "positives" I can think of in the whole ring/real life dept is: 1) you usually have a way out, 2) You have access to all kinds of real world items that will assist in defense/instituting an ass whooping. Everything is a weapon. Everything. It may not be super effective, but damn it use it.
I like the comment about PTSD. It's real, and I feel it's often overlooked over the grand scheme of things, especially if you're a person that doesn't want to fight or has come to grips with what will happen psychologically after the fact. I wonder how many of these folks are often forgotten about in the long run, or how many actively search out someone to talk with about it.
|
|
|
|
Post by dannusmaximus on Dec 27, 2015 19:40:41 GMT
That was a really long article, I skimmed it, didn't read the whole thing in detail. The author seems to be implying (at least on some level) that combat sport training is actually detrimental to being effective in a hand-to-hand fight. I don't buy that. At all. By that logic, attending a training course with your rifle or pistol would make you less likely to survive a gunfight, and I don't think any of us believe that, either. I've done some amateur boxing, and because of that I know how to throw a punch, evade a punch, absorb a punch (to some extent) and have some 'fight' conditioning. I simply don't believe that the fact that I wore boxing gloves and a mouthguard and followed basic ring rules makes me more of a liability in a fight than a person who has never boxed. My 'fight' training certainly doesn't make me a badass, but I don't think it makes me LESS effective, either.
ALSO, I can attest that the results of a street fight are generally gruesome as hell from an EMS standpoint, especially compared to a movie fight where the two antagonists go at it for 5 minutes absorbing dozens of face punches and kicks and only suffer a bloody lip. Teeth knocked out, tongues nearly bitten off, eyes ruptured. Awful stuff, and that's from fights that lasted only seconds. Thanks, but I'll gladly look like a bitch in front of some tough-talking punk as I hold up my hands, apologize for whatever real or percieved slight I committed, and slink away if at all possible. The 'winner' of a street fight is not always the toughest, or the best-trained, or the guy who totally did nothing wrong.
|
|
|
|
Post by LowKey on Dec 28, 2015 4:34:33 GMT
<snip> The author seems to be implying (at least on some level) that combat sport training is actually detrimental to being effective in a hand-to-hand fight.<snip>Hmmm...that's not quite how I read that, but I see where you could get that impression. I think he's takign the position that any of the "combat" sports are far more sport than they are "combat", and as such they aren't a substitute for training in actual hand to hand combat. I think a good analogy would be Olympic Fencing vs actual rapier combat*. No doubt the Olympic fencer would do better than someone who had never trained, but he'd get himself killed against an actual swordsman. Or a paintballer vs a trained and blooded soldier.
*Sliding us back a few centuries... |
|
|
|
Post by dannusmaximus on Dec 28, 2015 15:13:32 GMT
So I guess my issue is more how are you supposed to 'train for combat', then. An actual swordsman spars as part of his/her training . A 'trained and blooded' soldier likely had simulated combat in the form of unit exercises and sim or MILES training. Neither of those things are games, per se, but is that just calling a rose by another name? I'm sure when you tank yo-yos were doing exercises there were rules to observe, and probably a bit of healthy competition between units as far as scoring kills, marksmanship, how quickly your crew could replace a track versus another crew, etc. If you're keeping score and there are rules to follow, is it a game or is it training? Were you 'untrained' because you weren't actually firing HEAT rounds at each other?
Also, I've been thinking about the authors flat-out assertion that street fights essentially never go to the ground, so in essence if you're training for ground based fighting you're wrong and wasting your time. By that logic, since only a vanishingly small number of self-defense shootings would ever involve a magazine change, we're wasting our time training mag changes. Likewise, I have only had a bare handful of failures to fire on my G19 in thousands and thousands of rounds, so I'm wasting my time training to clear malfunctions because they hardly ever happen. I would argue that it's just as important (perhaps more so) to train for those rare occurences. I've never had an airpack fail on me in a fire, and airpack malfunction to my knowledge hasn't factored in a firefighter line of duty death since I've been on the job. But you can damn sure bet we train for that, far more than we need to based on mere statistics.
ALSO, there is not a doubt in my mind that the techniques these hard old bastards from WWII developed and used were lethal as hell. To my knowledge, they have been wholesale replaced in every modern military by different systems. The old skool stuff might be direct-line ancestors of the modern methods, but they have been supplanted nonetheless. MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) borrows heavily from mixed martial arts, and also trains joint locks, etc. Because, contrary to the beliefs of this author, the end result of every fight should not necessarily be the death of the person you are fighting. Proportional force and what not. Quoth Heinlein from Starship Troopers:
"If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?"
"Why . . . no, sir!"
"Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence."
Snapping a person's elbow or knee with a joint lock will almost 100% certainly end most street fights, which is the point. Not every fight requires you to tear out the offender's throat with your teeth and then jump up and down on their head until it's a crimson puddle, and in fact doing that will likely land you in legal trouble of some sort. |
|
|
|
Post by LowKey on Dec 28, 2015 18:12:09 GMT
So I guess my issue is more how are you supposed to 'train for combat', then. An actual swordsman spars as part of his/her training . A 'trained and blooded' soldier likely had simulated combat in the form of unit exercises and sim or MILES training. Neither of those things are games, per se, but is that just calling a rose by another name? I'm sure when you tank yo-yos were doing exercises there were rules to observe, and probably a bit of healthy competition between units as far as scoring kills, marksmanship, how quickly your crew could replace a track versus another crew, etc. If you're keeping score and there are rules to follow, is it a game or is it training? Were you 'untrained' because you weren't actually firing HEAT rounds at each other?
The only rules we had to observe were to not ram the tanks into each other and to not run over other vehicles, personnel, or through occupied structures. Beyond that...no rules.
I think that's the angle he is coming from, when you have too many arbitrary rules you end up with something that's more sport than combat. Here's a sort of real world example:
I used to do the SCA heavy fighter thing, sword on board. Under those rules and for reasons of safety, knees and below are off limits. Sounds reasonable right? Well, what happened over time is that fighters would lean backwards with their shield protecting only from their knees up....they'd lean forward to throw a blow, then rock back to protect everything north of the knees but leaving their <off limits> lower legs completely exposed. So while it's supposed to be "just like it would have been, sans live steel" it wasn't by a long shot. Lower legs were actually a choice target in period, and many swords were names "Leg biter" and so forth...robbing you r opponent of his mobility while he bleeds out was smart tactics back then; but due to the artificial rules not only did fighters not learn to exploit the lower leg, or to give attention to guarding it in a fight, but worse they learned to completely expose it. Were they ever to face someone with live steel most of them would have their legs chopped out from under them simply due to habit.
That's what I think he's talking about.
Also, I've been thinking about the authors flat-out assertion that street fights essentially never go to the ground, so in essence if you're training for ground based fighting you're wrong and wasting your time.
I don't think he says the never go to the ground. I believe he says it's a bad idea to let the fight get taken to the ground and if it happens to get the hell up as soon as possible. Back in the day my MA of choice was Aikido, so I'm not ground shy at all, but I can understand his point....it's a whole hell of a lot harder to disengage and back off if you're rolling around on the ground. It's also going to suck if the friends of the guy you're wrapped up with start in to kicking you in the back of the head. In my minfd I don't have a problem going to the ground momentarily, but I'm not going to stay there IRL. I'm not going to waste time with an arm bar. I'm breaking your arm, dislocating your shoulder....but only if I can do it on the flay...I'm not holding still to get that done. Why?
ALSO, there is not a doubt in my mind that the techniques these hard old bastards from WWII developed and used were lethal as hell. To my knowledge, they have been wholesale replaced in every modern military by different systems. The old skool stuff might be direct-line ancestors of the modern methods, but they have been supplanted nonetheless. MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) borrows heavily from mixed martial arts, and also trains joint locks, etc Just 'cause Uncle Sam has it published as doctrine doesn't mean it's good. Uncle Sam is quite often an idiot living on pipe dreams and pixie dust. Read any ROE lately?  When I start seeing reports of GI's and Jarheads successfully applying arm bars and submission holds when going house to house in 'Stan or Vs ISIS in IRQ/Syria I'll give that part of their training more credit.
Because, contrary to the beliefs of this author, the end result of every fight should not necessarily be the death of the person you are fighting. Proportional force and what not.
<snip a wonderful RAH quote>
Snapping a person's elbow or knee with a joint lock will almost 100% certainly end most street fights, which is the point. Not every fight requires you to tear out the offender's throat with your teeth and then jump up and down on their head until it's a crimson puddle, and in fact doing that will likely land you in legal trouble of some sort. I'm all for snapping those joints, but not by rolling around in the mud with Jethro while Cletus and Elmer kick me in the back of the head. I'll snap them while on standing on my own two feet and moving. As far as I can see, the reason I can see to learn ground fighting is to learn how to hurt 'em enough that you can get the fuck off the ground ASAP.
Frankly, if you get me stuck on the ground I'll not only be going for every delicate/fragile part of you body with an eye to mayhem and painful maiming, I'll also be ripping hunks out of you with my teeth....this last bit isn't exaggeration. There's a guy out there missing most of his lower lip and flesh over his chin from a fight I was in circa '88. Doesn't taste like chicken, tastes like salty shit.
|
|
|
|
Post by dannusmaximus on Dec 29, 2015 1:41:41 GMT
All your points are good ones, Lowkey. I still think the author is on some level gaming semantics and advocating for something which is simply not possible in most cases - - no rules training and vs. 'sport' rules training. I bet you had in and out of bounds areas during your tank exercises, right? Think an arbitrary line on a map would have stopped you from gaining the best possible terrain advantage over the Hessian Grenadiers you were facing (I did get that timeframe right, didn't I? ) in a no shit fight? No. That's rules and artificial limitations, however. Likewise rolling over some poor enemy mudfoot if he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or smashing through a wall if need be. You totally would have done that in a real fight, probably while grinning like an idiot and listening to Pantera on your Walkman, but the 'rules' prevented you from doing it in training. No swords to knees. Makes sense. How do you think the Spartans trained? Live metal, no holds barred? Possibly, but I doubt it. I suspect they had training rules as well when it came to swords, or used blunted swords or wooden replicas. Mostly for the same reason we didn't use live grenades and indirect fire assets when we were playing war at Pendleton or Lejeune - - getting a bunch of your grunts maimed or killed during training is not a force multiplier. In fact, there WERE rules during training and contests in the hand to hand system used by Greek Hoplites (Pankration) - - no biting and no eye-gouging. Doesn't mean the Spartans were not good at fighting because they by all accounts were. Are all the above rules 'arbitrary'? Dunno what the author would think. Omega can more readily address any hand to hand stuff that might have happened overseas and the relative usefulness (or non-usefulness) of current USMC CQC training. I suspect that most real world military hand to hand stuff pretty rapidly degenerates into trying to beat the other guy to death with your helmet or rifle butt, regardless of what system you were trained under. It's weird that you and I are kind of disagreeing on some of the author's points... |
|
|
|
Post by LowKey on Dec 29, 2015 11:40:32 GMT
Had a long response that my computer just ate.  |
|
|
|
Post by dannusmaximus on Dec 29, 2015 13:49:56 GMT
Had a long response that my computer just ate. I'll have to thank Nameless Stain for writing that virus and remote-loading it onto your hard drive...  |
|
|
|
Post by NamelessStain on Dec 29, 2015 14:01:03 GMT
Had a long response that my computer just ate. I'll have to thank Nameless Stain for writing that virus and femote-loading it onto your hard drive...  |
|
|
|
Post by omegaman on Dec 29, 2015 21:22:07 GMT
There are a lot of good points made here. I would reckon that 'Nam was the last time a grunt really had to worry about hand-to-hand engagements. In which case, being able to whoop ass with an e-tool, helmet, bayonet, or knife was a good skill. How much you can actually train for that? Dunno. My experience with martial arts in combat likely parallels law enforcement the most. Most hands-on engagements was detaining prisoners, making arm-bar takedowns and non-compliance joint manipulations the most often used. Kung-fu, not so much. Weapons retention would take a close second, especially around angry grabby mobs-wherein the muzzle thump is your friend.
The marine corps martial arts program can be intense, but mostly from a conditioning aspect. UFC fighting was really gaining popularity during my time and all the meatheads wanted to be the next Gracie. I never saw much point in that, personally. It's not like you would spar in full battle rattle, making the whole process fairly mute if attempting in real life when mobility is severely hampered. Most training was done by rote, sparring with compliant buddies who all just wanted to get it over with. Most of us focused on the deadly techniques, which would be ill-advised, if not unpractical, in a civilian self-defense scenario.
From a combat point-of-view, for H2H combat having a sneak knife or two that can be easily reached by either hand would be your best bet. I always wanted to try karambits for this. That said, I usually had a cold steel spike at the ready. The idea being a, "get the fuck off me" blade. However, in a civilian self-defense role, a pocket .380 would probably appear less menacing than a Strider karambit in the eyes of the law. That is pure speculation on my part, but worth considering.
The longer I have out of the military, the more I come to realize many of those techniques have little equivalency in civilian life. Running away almost always seems like the best option. God forbid anyone here needs to take a life. Killing someone, no matter how justified, takes a toll on you. If not, well, you might have other issues!
Fairborn and his associates probably were the closest on getting it right for battlefield whoop-ass. As always, though, paradigms and dogmas should be approached with the utmost scrutiny.
Dannus gets a zillion internet points for the Heinlein reference!
|
|
|
|
Post by scbrian on Dec 30, 2015 19:10:35 GMT
Cant find the video, but I saw a week or 2 ago, a video of a fight in a parking garage. Cant remember what started it, etc, but the smaller guy takes the bigger guy down in an MMA armbar style submission hold and holds him. The big guy, pulls a knife, rolls into him and stabs him multiple times in the abdomen. Moral of the story? If you use force, use it 100%, dont try to be the nice guy and not hurt someone. Probably a different outcome if he snapped the guys elbow, rolled out, and commenced to kicking or waited at that point to see if the fight was done...
|
|
|
|
Post by LowKey on Dec 30, 2015 19:19:50 GMT
I bet you had in and out of bounds areas during your tank exercises, right? Think an arbitrary line on a map would have stopped you from gaining the best possible terrain advantage over the Hessian Grenadiers you were facing (I did get that timeframe right, didn't I? ) in a no shit fight? Actually, they put out some serious tank barriers to keep up from rolling over those arbitrary lines. Why? 'cause we ignore those arbitrary lines even in training unless you make it physically impossible.
BTW, it was the Turks and Tartars at Vienna, you young pup.
Likewise rolling over some poor enemy mudfoot if he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or smashing through a wall if need be. You totally would have done that in a real fight, probably while grinning like an idiot and listening to Pantera on your Walkman, but the 'rules' prevented you from doing it in training.First, who told let you in on our secret play list? Secondly, What Walkman you bloody amateur. It was a Pioneer car stereo hardwired into the commo system. Third; the grunts were afraid to hit the ground anywhere near us (something about out referring to them as track grease), and the reason we don't drive through building walls is named "basements". Basements are bad mojo for tanks. Perimeter/stone fence type walls? Those I crashed all the time. We used to score maneuver damage costs by company, platoon., and individual tank.
How do you think the Spartans trained? Live metal, no holds barred? Pretty much the same way we did, with wooden swords (rattan in our case) and full force blows. Odds are that they allowed a whole lot more "coverage" than we did, but then they weren't having to worry about insurance underwriters. I think one of the issues is that we (modern Americans) are far too risk adverse. It's weird that you and I are kind of disagreeing on some of the author's points...
What? You and I have a debate? NEVER!! I'm Shocked!!!  |
|
|
|
Post by NamelessStain on Jan 26, 2016 13:27:04 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by kutter0311 on Jan 30, 2016 3:12:54 GMT
OK, now I feel cheated...
David Kahn, center, teaches U.S. Marine Corps Sgts. Enrique D. Watson, right, and Bernardo Leyva, left, Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, Krav Maga fighting techniques Oct. 28, 2009, at U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan. 
|
|
When I start seeing reports of GI's and Jarheads successfully applying arm bars and submission holds when going house to house in 'Stan or Vs ISIS in IRQ/Syria I'll give that part of their training more credit. 
