I understand the conflict between everyone here, but what no one has mentioned yet is the fact that the “system” you train with, whether it be aikido, jujitsu, or a compilation of different martial arts, does not matter nearly as much as the INDIVIDUAL. Because at the end of the day, martial arts are not all about self defense, they are about more than that, but the level at which you are proficient enough to defend yourself on the strett depends on YOU. There is no magical or special art which grants you powers to defeat anyone. You only have yourself and your training. I have been in martial arts my entire life and thoughout that experience I have seen white belts beat black belts. Blacks belts who simply bought their belts, because Mr kaine is right when he says that martial arts have become a business. unfortunately that is the world we live in, but that doesn’t mean you can’t train and condition yourself to be mentally and physically prepared for an altercation. You have to commit yourself and take your art, whatever it may be, seriously. “trust the quality of what you know, not the quantity”. If you would like to email me regarding this issue or you need claification just email me at bharri22@kent.edu.

safety and peace,

Ben

Charles

It is true, some guys are selling B.S. martial art techniques and pipe dreams but if you think you are going to win by flying into a blind rage you might be surprised someday. True, you might be fooling yourself if you think your are going to develop skills by watching a krav maga dvd but if you train hard and develop solid basic skills in a fight, once in a while, you might execute something that looks like the fancy techniques some martial arts experts sell. The higher the level of the fighter the more often you might see an amazing move. Let me stress ‘once in a while.’ It is the fighter’s basic skills not the knowledge of a special technique that is going to determine the outcome of a fight.

If you think rage-attack-attack is going to work I can tell you one thing. I have seen large athletic guys come into the practice room and try to bull rush and get soundly beaten by the 140lber.

Rage-attack-attack is a short time tactic. Muscles have about 14 seconds of 100% exertion time. After that they are very limited in their usefulness in a fight. A lot of fighters get put away once they are exhausted. A good fighter can fight hard for two minutes if he doesn’t blow everything he has on a wasted move. A great fighter can fight for ten minutes. The pros train for twenty plus minutes.

Groin and eye pokes are powerful techniques. But in a fight on the street they might not have the same effect as in the practice room. When pissed off I have continued to fight after be struck in the groin and in the eye. I have had this happen in a fight and a particularly intense match. The thing is if you are intense enough you can keep going. Your are in for the shock of a lifetime when you stop, then you feel all that pain at once. In his fight with Chuck Lidel, Couture was poked in the eye. Instead of calling time he got mad and went after Chuck and Chuck knocked him out. Couture lost that fight because he lost control of his temper but the eye poke did not stop him it pissed him off. Some people are not stopped after being struck by large a caliber bullet. I believe the .45 auto single shot stoppage percentage is 90%. I really don’t think an eye poke or knee to the groin is going to stop the most determined attacker especially if it is a glancing blow.

People do tend to act differently when they practice as opposed to the way they act when it is a real fight. It is a mental state! Some guys on this site are saying people are going to be basket cases in a fight because they are nervous! I don’t know many people that are such losers. Most people I know put their best foot forward in adversity. I have never seen my tiny mother back down from a fight, ever. Many people I have trained with fought better when the chips were down than they did when they had everything going their way.

To the guy who tried to teach his female dance students to fight by attacking them. You are lucky you did not get sued! I am not sure, did you just attack them out of the blue? You could have seriously injured them. I have trained 100% all out full contact. I do not do it all the time and when I do I am damn careful. Do you understand how easily someone could get seriously hurt? Let me say that I find your intentions admirable, however I would not recommend you do that again unless you have a very good lawyer.

On the topic of training females. Lets imagine what a fight between a top fly weight and the top heavyweight would be like. We are talking about a trained man of about 120lbs vs a man of about 280lbs. If they were pound for pound equal the smaller man could go on the defensive and hold the larger man off for a while. It does not happen often but sometimes in the workout room the light weight will work out with the heavy weight and it is as comical as it is inevitable. Light weights have beaten top heavy weights when they are vastly superior fighters. I heard stories of Dan Gable, a middle weight college wrestler pounding every heavy weight he wrestled. A very small female should rely on pepper spray or some thing else. If she is close in weight it is doable. Two years ago I coached a female wrestler who had a winning record on varsity and she started all year at 119lbs.

Ok, I admit it. I exaggerated the number of fist fights I had with my brother. It was more like 150 than 500. I did send him to the ER once for stitches. Don’t worry, he paid me back. He bashed me over the head with a pipe.

The reason I had an unusual number of violent altercations was because I had poor social skills. But where I grew up, you were going to get into at least one.

About all this stuff we are talking about on this site, if you train for a psychotic situation you are going to be psychotic yourself. What I did for the sport I did because I enjoyed it. I do like the skills I have. The fact that I experienced so many violent situations in my life is just unfortunate. If I walk down a dark street in a bad neighborhood that is my choice, I can avoid that situation and most others. I know I cant win every fight and even if I could not fight at all, I would not worry. I would not let the possibility of any violence ruin my life.

Peace

Charles

Thanks.

Charles Prosper

I have no black belt

Because of my size almost everyone I ever fought was bigger and stronger than me. I beat most of them by being better than they were.

If I were to count the number of actual fights I had I would run out of fingers and toes.

The first time I ever knocked a guy unconscious was in an after school fight when I was 14.

The first time I was threatened with a knife I was in kindergarten.

The first time I knocked a persons tooth out was in the second grade

I probably had over 500 fist fights with my brother

I am a college level grappler and I trained with three veterans of the UFC