Dog Brothers Public Forum

I have a couple of questions so rather than multiple topics/threads I have loaded them up here.

1. Do you feel there is a difference between the skills taught for the ring/octagon versus the skills needed to survive a real attack on the street?  If so, how do you focus on teaching these skills?

2. As I look around at the various MMA schools in the Phoenix area, all I see are sport based/rules based versions of combat, which will be catastrophic in a life or death scenario, which every street fight should be considered.  They never focus on the mental tactics of self defense and the "Survive at all Costs" mentality needed when faced with a real attack on the street, in a home or while shopping with your family.  I don't see a focus on other critical survival skills like bites, gouges, finger breaks, ear rip, etc when faced with a clinch on the street.  Nor do I see skills taught about how to survey your environment, develop a plan of attack/escape, how to have the right amount of aggression, survive a weapons attack, etc.  They just seem to focus on specific offensive skills like chokes, locks, sweeps, punches, etc.

Understanding environment, specifically temperature, surroundings and ground surface, has a direct relevance when considering your options.  Your not going to go to the ground on concrete in Phoenix when you are wearing shorts and it is 115 degrees outside, or when there is more than one opponent, or if you are in a crowded bar. How do you address these things in the context of combat rather than "systems based dogma"?  I am looking for less systems speak and more for skills that just work. I think people fall in love with the art and lose sight of survival. Thoughts?

3. I have been researching a lot of FMA "masters" from Pekiti Tirsia, Serrada, Doce Pares, and DBMA in order to round out my impact and edged skills.  However, all of the videos I see, with the exception of the DBMA, show these masters demonstrating skills against "compliant attackers" in "non-combat" time.  My question is, why do people continue to teach multi-step skills that they are not able to execute in a high-stress situation in combat time?  Also, why aren't they putting on some protective gear and banging to see if the skill will work in combat time.

Specifically, I see people continuing to teach sinawali's in very close proximity with no concern on the real range they are in.  I don't believe anyone is going to be that cavalier when faced with an armed opponent, especially a knife.  When in the adrenal state, people also lose fine motor skills and the idea of complex trapping or precise multi-step striking is not realistic.  Why hasn't there been a revolution in FMA similar to JKD or Gracie JJ?

I have broken things down into a couple of categories.

    * Primary Skills - Things that you should always be able to do; core skills: straight lead, cross, primary kicks, primary defense, footwork, primary knife and stick attacks
    * Secondary Skills - Less efficient or less reliable skills like abaniko, ocho-ocho, hubud-lubud or other complicated multi-step skills, which require a preset amount of events to happen in order to be effective.  In my experience multi-step skills are less than desirable and a detriment to actually being able to defend yourself.  I put a lot of trapping skills, disarms and joint locks into this category. See below for the requirements with which I judge the effectiveness of these skills.
    * Specialty skills - Hooks, Elbows, knees, tactics like progressive indirect attacks or attack by drawing, throws, etc.  These have limited yet valuable benefits.

By using this categorization process, I am able to focus on things that really work.  It is one thing to use a secondary skill or specialty skill in "close to combat time", when you are in class learning that skill.  However, if you can not effectively execute the skill during sparring, even after a lot of "classroom" learning, then one must question the validity of the skill.  Again, as I look on line at the videos, you see a willing participant with the instructor performing at less than combat speed a lot of multi-step "fancy" skills.

Also, I feel that when people evaluate the effectiveness of their skills using the below categories, an operator can determine how effective they will be when a real "go-time" situation occurs.

    * Margin for error - How likely is the skill going to work if I don't execute properly?  What happens if I only execute, 90%, 80%, 70% or even 50%?  Does it still work?
    * Combat time - Can I execute the skill in combat time, when both people are operating under real stress of injury?
    * Unwilling opponent - Can I execute the skill against an unwilling opponent in combat time?  How effective can I be executing this skill? The example is using a straight lead rather than a hook or cross.

Would love to hear feedback and your thoughts.

Warm Regards,

GW