the MMA vs Da Mean Streetz self defence chestnut

Apologies if this has been asked before, but couldn't find it when searching!

The main USP of the MMA guys when it comes to self protection, seems to be that even though certain techniques are illegal, you do get to practice a wide range of effective techniques against a fully resisting opponent. Therefore you can replicate these skills in "real life" when someone is trying to take your head off. This seems to make a great deal of sense. For those who do not go the MMA route, how do you get around this? What training do you do so that you can make stuff work against a fully resisting opponent? The SDF and Goshinkwai guys seem to be highly regarded, how do they build the attributes necessary to prevail against non compliant opponents?

On forums like TPI forum which is mainly military/police backgrounds its MMA or Jitz and crazy monkey boxing all the way, Mick Coup also says on his forum that MMA guys are very effective in "real life" and pioneers like Matt Thornton are always speaking to the "aliveness" necessary in any realistic training. Without doing MMA type sparring or similar, how can we build those skills?

We replicate reality in training and make it damn hard so that if you need it in reality you are prepared for it.

As a cop, and someone who has never trained MMA or BJJ a day in my life, I can honestly say the stuff I've been taught (Senshido training and principles) has been invaluable and very effective for the times I've needed to use force on the job.

MMA and BJJ are not the only way to do things.

for me, if you are training in way which allows you to give and take realistic energy from your opponents. (armed or unarmed I suppose)

If you are training solid core principles of conflict management, threat assessment and risk management.

If you're physically training so that there is realistic feedback through failure.

then it's all good. There's a lot more detail everyone could go into but for me I've seen good and bad training in lots of different places and "schools" so I take personally view every group or lesson without bias. Just because it's an MMA class I don't assume they have the physical stuff nailed (I've seen some terrible terrible clubs riding the MMA wave) and vice versa.

Mr Nobody wrote:We replicate reality in training and make it damn hard so that if you need it in reality you are prepared for it.

As a cop, and someone who has never trained MMA or BJJ a day in my life, I can honestly say the stuff I've been taught (Senshido training and principles) has been invaluable and very effective for the times I've needed to use force on the job.

MMA and BJJ are not the only way to do things.

Can I ask how you replicate reality in training? That is the essence of my question really.

Chris wrote:for me, if you are training in way which allows you to give and take realistic energy from your opponents.

how do the SDF for example train in a way that gives this feedback Chris? That's really what I am asking, we all know the MMA guys training methodology in terms of developing skills against resisting opponents, what are the other ways in your opinion? I perhaps should have added in the original post, do you agree with the "aliveness" principles touted by the MMA / BJJ crowd, perhaps best said by Matt Thornton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imjmLWj5WCU

Jake331 wrote:

Chris wrote:for me, if you are training in way which allows you to give and take realistic energy from your opponents.

how do the SDF for example train in a way that gives this feedback Chris? That's really what I am asking, we all know the MMA guys training methodology in terms of developing skills against resisting opponents, what are the other ways in your opinion? I perhaps should have added in the original post, do you agree with the "aliveness" principles touted by the MMA / BJJ crowd, perhaps best said by Matt Thornton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imjmLWj5WCU

Well each SDF club is different but the theme that runs through them all is pressure. The idea that training should be demanding and as close to a "real" encounter as possible. That can be via hard sparring, grappling/rolling, randori, padded assailant drills (which I am not as keen on but I think can have a place) and drills which have a price for failure.

You can't have a fight every night, and why would you want to? Even top line combat athletes don't smash each other to bits every session. You have to drill technique and that is best done without pressure in a relaxed environment. Then you place that technique under pressure.

I don't think you can really develop what you are looking for without resisting opposition and I agree with what Thornton says about aliveness (though he hasn't told me anything I didn't already know.)

Can't really be more specific than that without more specific questions but that's the gist of how I have always been taught (boxing, judo, CACC, SDF) and what Dave T in particular has always impressed upon me.

You'll forgive me for not having read all the posts here but I'm at work and rather busy but wanted to answer this as I have been mulling over this lately.

I wouldn't want to fight a good MMA man one to one, they're training is effective.

I'm doing a one day course soon and I'm using an MMA gym to host it so I'm aware that some MMA people may turn up and I don't want to stand there like I could tie them all in knots so I've been considering what combatives or self protection does that MMA doesn't provide.

For me the main things are awareness and avoidance and multiple opponents. MMA training doesn't teach stuff like that to my knowlege.. and I have to say its only to my knowlege since I've never really done mma, some places might.

For the technique and mentality side I think its completely there. I would fully expect any MMA fighter to master whatever technique I give them in secondsmy main focus would be telling them the additional things.. for instance to check for weapons, being aware of the number of assailants and so on.

Does that make any sense?

Training with Aliveness isn't anything new, it's why Nick touts the effectiveness of the traditional arts he trained in. To get the realistic training there should be a progression. Learn the technique, use in a "live" situation with little or no resistance and isolated e.g you're only doing the jab cross or crash to underhook (insert technique). At some point in the force continuum you should have a "full" on spar. Use appropriate protection etc. I think the idea Matt Thornton was rallying against is the idea that only "forms and patterns" were needed to be effective. Aliveness isn't about going at it all out all the time but it's more like the progression I mentioned. BTW the idea of that progression is from Thornton in one of the Functional JKD videos (IIRC I think he introduced the idea of "Aliveness" in FJKD1).
For other ideas on how the train as realistically as possible read stuff by Mick Coup and I think he has some youtube clips that briefly address this.

Jake331 wrote:

Mr Nobody wrote:We replicate reality in training and make it damn hard so that if you need it in reality you are prepared for it.

As a cop, and someone who has never trained MMA or BJJ a day in my life, I can honestly say the stuff I've been taught (Senshido training and principles) has been invaluable and very effective for the times I've needed to use force on the job.

MMA and BJJ are not the only way to do things.

Can I ask how you replicate reality in training? That is the essence of my question really.

Yep.

We focus on the behavioural, psychological and emotional side to real world violence and combine how that interferes with your physical response if a confrontation goes that far. We drill scenarios (including ones that I've been involved in for real or ones that robbery and assault victims have told me) and train how to verbally de-escalate, pre-emptive strike if appropriate, switch the predator/prey mentality, work the flinch response etc.

Physically, we focus on using the shredder as our close quarter tool but also other responses from various ranges along with working against multiple attackers, knives and other weapons, deceptive attacks, defending and dealing with a physical response if you've been king hit and are groggy (that's a fun drill!) and many other types of drills. We also train a good conditioning component too because it obviously helps to be fit.

I hope this helps mate.

First, I would ask. Do you know what "Da Mean Streetz" really means, what does it really look like. Also, if one is asking that question, who is the one answering it. What exactly qualifies them to know what real violence is. If we are talking about crime, there is nothing sporting about it. No weight classes. No rules. No time outs when someone accidentally gets poke in the eye or kicked in the groin. You may not even see the first blow because you get caught by surprise. Now you can say you train part of your time mma and part of your time doing realistic self defense, but the bottom line is what ever you train in the most will be what you default to in a fight/flight state. If the bad guy is thinking how quickly can I cripple or kill this guy and that guy is doing his mma thing, he is starting way behind the curve because the bad guy's first move is crippling or lethal and your first move is sport. Read some books by people who I believe saw and experienced the real thing and their training doesn't look like mma at all. Two or more people who are truly trying to hurt each other or someone else, that fight doesn't last very long. Getting in shape and acquiring real combative skill are two different things. Lastly, for just a regular guy like myself, seeing is also believing. This may be lame to some or most, but searching for videos of real violent or criminal confrontations was very illuminating. Besides the usually tedious search on youtube I found an interesting site called warriorspathredux. Helped me see the dark side of humanity in action. Take a look at the L.I.N.E combatives system created by Ron Donvito and used by the marines before the objectives changed from just killing your enemy. Take a guy spending a year doing mma and a guy doing the LINE system for a year. I'd run as fast away as possible from the latter.

Welcome to the site Warriorup. Have you written an introduction in the intro thread?

cheers
Chris

warriorup wrote:If the bad guy is thinking how quickly can I cripple or kill this guy and that guy is doing his mma thing, he is starting way behind the curve because the bad guy's first move is crippling or lethal and your first move is sport.

I would be interested to hear more about these lethal/crippling moves and how they might be used against a decent "sport fighter". The most effective "technique" I have ever seen in videos or in real life, is a heavy strike to the jaw/head, I would imagine MMA guys and boxers and kickboxers and Muay Thai guys etc are pretty good at that. What lethal moves would you recommend instead of a heavy strike to the head for self defense?

Chris wrote:

Jake331 wrote:

Chris wrote:for me, if you are training in way which allows you to give and take realistic energy from your opponents.

how do the SDF for example train in a way that gives this feedback Chris? That's really what I am asking, we all know the MMA guys training methodology in terms of developing skills against resisting opponents, what are the other ways in your opinion? I perhaps should have added in the original post, do you agree with the "aliveness" principles touted by the MMA / BJJ crowd, perhaps best said by Matt Thornton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imjmLWj5WCU

Well each SDF club is different but the theme that runs through them all is pressure. The idea that training should be demanding and as close to a "real" encounter as possible. That can be via hard sparring, grappling/rolling, randori, padded assailant drills (which I am not as keen on but I think can have a place) and drills which have a price for failure.

You can't have a fight every night, and why would you want to? Even top line combat athletes don't smash each other to bits every session. You have to drill technique and that is best done without pressure in a relaxed environment. Then you place that technique under pressure.

I don't think you can really develop what you are looking for without resisting opposition and I agree with what Thornton says about aliveness (though he hasn't told me anything I didn't already know.)

Can't really be more specific than that without more specific questions but that's the gist of how I have always been taught (boxing, judo, CACC, SDF) and what Dave T in particular has always impressed upon me.

Chris, it seems that, at least partly, the training methods you mention are pretty similar to MMA or their component combat sports (wrestling/judo/bjj/boxing etc), which makes sense, as I cant really see any other way to get proficient dealing with non-compliant individuals, except actually fighting them I suppose?

Hi Jake,

Conceptually there are some differences but when it comes to physical activity I am a 100% believer that to get better at doing a thing you have to do that thing. If you want to climb mountains you have to climb. If you want to swim well you have to swim, for running you have to run and to lift heavy things you need to lift lots of heavy things. (with the condition that there is always good and bad training methodology that can have an impact on performance)

So, if you want to be able to push a guy around you have to spend time trying to push guys around in the gym. If you want to become good at striking people then you have to strike people (or the closest applicable alternative i.e. heavy bag or impact kit)

There is a lot to be said for the MMA mentality, work ethic, conceptual framework but it's nothing new. Modern MMA is just the current incarnation.