Some Ideas For Sparring

Where are these lardballs? I've certainly never seen any, not at any comp I've been to or club I've trained at. Just to add that saying the fitness level of MMA is universally not very high, I'm sorry mate but you're on a different planet or have trained with some mickey mouse clubs.

You've not seen any lardballs at any MMA club? I've trained at a couple of fairly high level clubs and seen unfit people. I even know some fighters who get into shocking condition when they don't have a comp coming up.

Rob Mac wrote:Where are these lardballs? I've certainly never seen any, not at any comp I've been to or club I've trained at. Just to add that saying the fitness level of MMA is universally not very high, I'm sorry mate but you're on a different planet or have trained with some mickey mouse clubs.

I've trained with all kinds of MMA practitioners. From beginners up to pro and I've seen every level of fitness. Same as I have in every other MA club I have attended. Just cos you pull on a tufgear t-shirt doesn't mean you can handle five rounds or roll for twenty-five minutes.

Same in comps, I've been to every kind of comp imaginable up to and including the UFC and the levels of fitness varied drastically. Surely, you can't be saying that just because someone attends an MMA club that automatically gives them a level of physical fitness and prowess they didn't have before???

I didn't say that all MMA guys were unfit. I didn't say that all MMA guys were super-fit conditioned athletes either. I said that there were varying levels of fitness in MMA across the full spectrum... same as with any other physical endeavour. You've got the lardballs and you've got the guys who have great levels of personal fitness.

I live on the planet of hard work and task specific fitness training combined with attendance of the Mickey Mouse Martial Arts Academy where I get to kick Donald Duck in the Goofies and roll with Minne. AND I've got the t-shirt to prove it!

Nick Hughes wrote:Pullup...hope that makes sense.

Nick

Crystal Nick cheers!

Rob

Us lot animals !!!! never.
Well maybe some off the time, but I don't think thats a bad thing.
When are you coming to Primal mate.

Rob

Rob Dick, I meant that in the nicest possible way. There was a gaping hole between you lot and the rest of us. I put myself at a good level of fitness but I was fu.. knackered after that. More than the fatigue I was impressed with the excercises that built spirit, tenacity whatever you call it. I live in Spain so can't go to primal every week(and I'm scared), but want to go in a couple of weeks.
What I'm interested in Nick is your opinion on this kind of stuff and what you do to put you 'in that place', if indeed you find it important. I don't know if this stuff is even applicable to people who have to face danger/violence on a day to day/week to week basis. Cheers Rob

Just to try and clarify that! As I've said before there is stuff in MMA that is superflous(sp?) but it would be wrong to say that they wouldn't be able to handle themselves on the street.

Mate, my issue with it isn't that they can't fight...they obviously can but they miss a lot of the other stuff that's crucial to good self protection. I've mentioned this before but the acronym I use is SIVA. The S is for victim selection, the I is for isolation, V is for the verbal lead up and A is for the attack.

Martial arts, no matter what style, deal with the A only, in other words, the fight is on and this is what you do to win. MMA, because it's a sport, is not working on things like, local crime trends, what is the bad guy looking for in a victim, not becoming task fixated, verbal de-escalation drills, first aid etc.

When it comes to the fight part of the program, sure, they cover all the bases (which is what we were doing back in the seventies by the way )
but there's a lot they don't cover. How many fights do you see against multiple opponents in the Pride UFC events? How many do you see against opponents armed with weapons? How many with a huge disparity in size and weight (now that they had to change the rules to get the licences)

My other problem with it is - and I can only comment about over here - is they spend about sixty percent of the time training on their ground game and they voluntarily take people to the floor. My rule of thumb is I want to spend as much time training in a particular field as I expect to spend on that event in the real world. (with certain exceptions)

For example...why does the military typically spend so little time on hand to hand combat and the bulk of it on how to shoot? Because they know the bulk of the time their guys will be at war it will be a shooting war, and not a bout of fisticuffs.

I tend to work then about ninety percent of my time practicing to fight standing up because, my experience has led me to believe that ninety percent (actually a tad higher) of my fights are fought in that range.

My groundwork is entirely about how to get the guy off me so I can get to my feet, not, how do I shoot in and take someone to the floor, which, in the environments I've worked in would be tantamount to suicide on par with lemmings.

I've asked this before...would your training methodology differ if they changed the MMA comps to include 30 lager louts standing round the inside of the cage with instructions to kick in the head anyone on the ground? I would submit you guys wouldn't be doing any groundwork other than how do I get to my feet as fast as humanly possible.

Now, the above is not dissimilar to the places I worked in...would you still advise me to train the MMA way knowing that...or would you agree with my take on it which is taking from Judo and Ju-jutsu the methods of weight shifting and striking to enable me to get up?

Another point, that directly relates to the above, is the old problem of reacting the way we train to react. I'd submit if we didn't do that there is no real point in training right? Now, if you spend a lot of time taking people to the ground in training, your reactions outside are going to reflect this for obvious reasons. Is that wise in a street environment? I think not.

People say, oh, I wouldn't do that in the street, which is fine as long as you're consciously thinking...but the whole desired outcome of good training is reflexive action so fast, and so well ingrained, that it's automatic, not conscious.

This stuff isn't made up. There were officers here found after a gun fight (famous incident amongst police trainers here in the US) with empty shell casings in their pockets. At first the investigators couldn't figure it out and then finally they did...all during training, every time the cops were taught to shoot, they had to police their brass (bend down and pick up the empty shell casings so they didn't litter the range floor) They ended up doing this in the middle of a gun fight!!! and died as a result. Quite simply, they did, under stress, what they'd trained to do.

Not only because there are alot of useful techniques but also because of the intensity of the training, building that will to win. I saw that more than ever at the Steve Morris seminar at SENI, his guys are animals(in the nicest sense of the word) and all his stuff is geared up to develop a well rounded fighter and to create that agression and adreniline. Sparring is part of that 'tool' in MMA that brings out that tenacity, quite often it is as you've said probably not the most efficient, but for me it is important.

No argument with any of that except well rounded should be defined as "well rounded to fight a guy who weighs the same, who isn't armed and doesn't have his mates helping."

Let me use the military again to illustrate the above. If I took a group of soldiers and drilled them extensively in all sorts of exercises that helped them conquer the obstacle course I could say "I've created all these drills that make these guys well rounded." Yes, they'd be well rounded to tackle all the different obstacles on the course but soldiering is more than that.

The well rounded soldier in my opinion is one who can also shoot, parachute, scuba dive, plant explosives, gather intelligence, render first aid, operate a radio, et al. Do you see the difference?

I'm just interested as to how you would do this without these'tools' (mma)but still be relative to fighting, creating that mayhem of a fight. Or do you think that by drilling these 'high percentage' strikes till they are ingrained in your muscle memory that you don't actually need to do this?

I think there's some misunderstanding and maybe you're mixing me and Mick Coup up. (how could you man...I am handsome and Australian and he's not either of the above ) I'm a huge advocate of sparring and that includes on the ground.

On top of that we incorporate other stuff. I use hypnosis to a degree and I steal from the playbook of Mas Ayoob - owner of the Lethal Force Institute and one of the most respected firearms and self protection instructors in the US, if not the world - who says every aspect of training should be a competition. In other words, don't just go to the range to practice shooting, compete with your mate for either accuracy, or time constraints, or both and the loser buys dinner.

So, not only do my guys spar, and not only do I work with them on hypnosis, every single aspect of the class is competitive in nature. Slowest guy to do 100 pushups, gets 100 more...last one to finish throwing 50 knees, gets to do 50 divebombers etc.

Just another thing! Within mma the fitness level is extremely high, which you need if a real off goes on for any length of time. To me, to build up a decent fight fitness is to go further than you will ever realistically need to go, how do you deal with this in the SP world?

By going further than we realistically need to.

Not being glib mate...we do. It's a huge misnomer that anyone doing self protection is an overweight cammo wearing slob. If you can get a hold of one of my dvds (I'd send you one but I'm out right now) look at all my guys on the tape and try and find one carrying any excess weight.

My typical class is on par with the sort of training we did on the commando course in the Legion. Loads of calisthenics, cardio, aerobic and anaerobic training.

Hope that helps.

Nick

Rob,

I'm going to add this...I wrote about it back in Geoff Thompson's forum days and you might not have been round to see it. It's another analogy but I think it illustrates the difference perfectly between what I do, and what MMA guys do.

Lets take two trained drivers. One is a race car driver and the other is a Secret Service driver.

The race car driver's training is obviously going to be hugely different to the security guys. The former will be working on lightening fast gear changes, drifting, drafting, lines through corners, threshold breaking and so on.

The security guy on the other hand will be working on searching the car for explosives and tracking devices, running roadblocks, running cars off the road, J-turns, ramming other vehicles, bootlegger turns, driving with flat tyres, basic car maintenance, driving in a convoy and so on.

Now, do you see a huge benefit for the security guy to go study the way of the race car driver? Sure, there's some cross over stuff that would help but the race car driver isn't concerned with being followed, having someone plant a bomb in his car, someone pulling out of a sidestreet, running road blocks, and all the other stuff.

I am a trainer of the security driver. You are obviously impassioned with race cars and their training. They're different...as they should be.

The attitude I see with the race car drivers that I don't like - and this is a generalization and not directed at you or a great many of my mates who do MMA stuff - is "we can beat the security driver in our environment therefore their stuff is not valid." Really? That's because I'm not training to be a race driver doofus, I'm training to be a security driver.

I would submit that the race car driver would fall to pieces trying to drive a Humvee in downtown Bagdhad, and wouldn't have a clue when faced with a road block in Columbia South America, and would be blown to smithereens in Northern Ireland when the PIRA bombed his bosses' car.

Are they better prepared than the average motorist who's had no training in either field? Sure they are. Light years ahead...but still not where they need to be without specific training.

So, there's your question mate. You've been tasked with taking a businessman to Bogota Columbia in Sth America who's received death threats but has to go.

Are you going to go to the local racing track and learn how to drive a race car really fast in a sterile environment, or are you going to go to one of the security driving schools?

Nick

Wow, you can't argue with that!! It takes time but I finally understand. . The only thing I would say is that for those of us not on the front line i.e security business isn't alot of this a bit OTT,or do you have a street combat bit and the rest is for people in your industry? Do you also risk having students who get a bit obsessed in the pub/street/Denny's assesing situations etc rather than kicking back? I'm not being cheeky here I'm just wondering.
The racing car analogy made me laugh, I've a 10year old Daihatsu 4x4 top speed 100km!! downhill!
Cheers for the answer Nick.

p.s I have many nice thoughts about Columbia, none involve business men.

No mate...as I've pointed out before the simple things you do to maintain a level of awareness take seconds, not hours, and they become second nature.

I honestly can't say I've got a single student who runs around seeing bogeymen on every street corner...there's a huge difference between prepardness and paranoia.

But, if we don't maintain a certain degree of awareness it's all too easy to become a victim. The bad guys don't want a fight, they want someone they can overwhelm in seconds, so they look for people who have their heads up their arses. You can avoid doing that without going OTT.

Nick

PS: the other thing to keep in mind is yes, thousands of people get through their day without ever running into bad guys or incidents...BUT, the result of such an attack is usually so cataclysmic that to diminish the need to prepare for it because of it's rarity would be a mistake.

It's like saying I know millions of people who never drown, so why bother learning to swim?...

The Daihatsu has the Rolls Canardly engine in it doesn't it?

That's the one that rolls down hills and can hardly get up the other side..boom boom. (I'll just get my coat)

Nick

That sounds more like my training!

Nick do you ever get any TACKLEBERRY types with all the gear etc who really wanted to be soldiers?

Though I'm kind of with Nick on this, the spectre of paranoia is ever present in the "RBSD" world. Wandering around in combat pants, hiding knives in your undies...... merrily chatting about how you'd fish gut someone who appeared to be a tactical threat.

These types of eedjuts exist, and there are too many of them in our little world.

Rob,

No...simply because we train the real way. Those guys end up with a bunch of like minded twats at camps theorizing about how well they'd do in a war etc.

Anyone of that ilk, who's turned up to watch our training wouldn't want to be part of it.

I wrote about them once on my blog in a piece entitled "who's killing who?" about most of the gun toting guys here who waffle on about what calibre will drop a bad guy are usually chewing tobacco, drinking six packs, eating candy and are four hundred pounds overweight. They'll die of a self inflicted heart attack long before anyone ever mugs them.

Nick

HA, HA. I bet those guys do chew tobacco in 'them parts'. I bet that's no different than the fashion MMA guys who get all the gear, the haircut and the tatts but never train!

Yes, it's why I laugh when I hear people talking about RBSD as if we have a monopoly on "walter mitty" types. They're in ever single sport/pursuit I can think of that involves any risk. They want so badly to be part of the danger but can't bring themselves to do it for real so off in to la la land they go.

There are wanna be SEALs, SAS men, parachutists, rock climbers, scuba divers, bike riders, race car drivers, spies, coppers, firemen, doctors etc...take your pick.

Anyone remember Star Wars kid?

Nick

I've always said to anyone who comes looking for self protection (and I am only half joking)

Exercise regularly and stringently
Examine your diet
Stop smoking/drinking to excess
Drive carefully

and on and one.

All the way down the list.. somewhere below good locks on your doors and windows at home is

Learn how to hit efficienty and when to hit.

If you haven't got a healthy perspective about yourself and the life you are leading then there's something that needs to be addressed. Doesn't matter what lifestyle you choose to follow.. keep it real my homies.

Nick, I presume you've got favourite strikes, and I would think they would be simple and effective. What would be your equivalent for the ground and do you test them on Judokas/grapplers etc?

Rob,

Sorry mate...I'm not clear. What would be my equivalent simple and effective ground techniques or simple & effective striking techniques while on the ground?

Nick

Sorry Nick, I'm shite at explaining things! So I'll give you an example' at Mick Coup's seminar he advocates a palm heel strike. No messing around, just smack! I would jab, cross and hook or whatever. That's the way I train, that's the way I react. What is the the SP version of that(the palm heel direct approach), and what would be the nearest 'safe' version i.e a technique that's usable within rules and regs? Cheers Rob.

I give my guys a choice of punches or palm heels, entirely down to them and both of them are usable within rules and regs last time I looked.

We also practice hitting on the ground, using the standard knees, elbows punches etc...you'd be surprised how much power you can generate from what at first blush looks like a crap position for hitting from.

Groundwork wise I spend a lot of time with my guys on being underneath and working on weight shifting techniques to get out from under the guy pinning you.

Having done Judo/ju-jutsu for yonks I'm aware of all the tricks the guy on top can use to stay on top and the counter techniques to thwart him but I don't spend to much time on the intricacies for the simple fact you almost never come up against someone so trained in the street.

Hope that's what you were after.

Nick

Yep, thanks for that Nick.