Damage to Self Defence

[LAllan]

same reason that runners train with ankle weights. you build up your speed with high restistance giving you greater speed whe less resistance is applied.

if you only trained in short comfortable stances, then that is your limit. if you train in deep stances, you wll feel a lot lighter and relaxed when in the more comfortable stance.

So if you're just doing it for conditioning reasons, wouldn't it be best to leave the low stances for outside of class and keep training time restricted to the "real" stuff you're planning on being able to perform when under pressure?

Conditioning is all well and good, but it's just that - conditioning. Why waste time in class when you can stomp around in a low stance to your hearts content at home?

I agree that low squat and lunge positions are good exercise and can your benefit martial arts training, but personally I'd prefer to focus on techniques I might one day use, rather than a hybrid fitness focused technique, at training. If I wanted to do that I'd sign up to boxfit. Or zumba, which apparently is full of hot 24 year old brazilian women, from what I could see from the informercial I watched at 2am the other weekend.

And although it's an old, much argued point, I'm buggered if I can see how if you're constantly training in a low stance, you think you can suddenly fall naturally into a more appropriate fighting stance when you're attacked out of the blue by the two ars*holes who have followed you out of the bar. Won't happen, you'll either be standing in the low stance out of habit, which it seems is largely accepted to be a bit unrealistic for real fighting, or if you are more upright you'll be worrying about keeping the stance, as well as the fact that there are punches flying at you. Personally, trying to deal with the latter is more than enough to keep me occupied, I can do without the added problems of checking where my feet are placed.

[LAllan]

I just re read my post. It was a bit of a slam to Zorbasan.

It wasn't supposed to be - hard day at work when I typed it, and we can't put 'fire-truck in a post anymore without it being edited, so instead of just swearing a bit it forces more verbose complaining.

I actually think doing squats and lunges is a great way to improve leg power, and using low stances has the same effect, so it wasn't meant to be all negative.

[Zorbasan]

but training is just that, training. you cant spend the entire 1.5 hours doing stuff that is 100% realistic, and you cant just tell the students "low stances are good for your performance, so do them at home, buthere we arent going to worry about it"

training has to incorporate all facets of what you are doing, condiitoning included. if you dont do it in class, you cant be sure that it is being done at all.

[Millennia]

same reason that runners train with ankle weights. you build up your speed with high restistance giving you greater speed whe less resistance is applied.

not to be argumentative but this is entirely incorrect. As mentioned in a previous thread about punching with dumbbells, by increasing your weight whilst running you are actually training your body to be slower. The weights will train your nervous system to adjust to the slower running pace, and it will also play havoc with your gait - you won't be running with the same stride length and heel strike pattern as you would when running without the weights. Strength and Conditioning is heavily influenced by the rule of specifity - meaning you need to train how you want to perform

but training is just that, training. you cant spend the entire 1.5 hours doing stuff that is 100% realistic

why not? who says? why can't your Martial Arts drills be at a sufficient intensity to create a conditioning stimulus? I think you'll find the fighters in our competition team have particularly high levels of conditioning and I'm not smashing them with low stances and pushups on their knuckles - they're working their butts off with high intensity pad drills and rounds of sparring and wrestling..... all 100% applicable to their fighting skills.

I'm not saying this is the only way or even the best way to do it, just suggesting another way to look at things

[Katana]

I often wonder if the greatest damage to self defence is the adulteration of the fighting arts. By that, I mean

- the obsession with sporting participation and achievement

- forms which are practised without any understanding, either for the sake of learning something new or for competition purposes

- training exercises which have, of themselves, no legitimate SD application or purpose. Ko kutsu dachi in karate is a classic example: many people believe it is a leg conditioning drill which has no other use.

There are many other examples. Conventional wisdom in modern martial arts reflects some of the above posts-ie, you can't train realistic stuff 100% of the time. And perhaps, in the world in which we live, that is entirely correct. But perhaps it isn't.

Other sports are sports which have no ulterior point. Marathon runners don't ever expect to be asked to seek assistance from allies who happen to be 42 kilometres away. Hammer throwers generally don't go around looking for walls to bash down, just as pole vaulters don't try to vault over such walls. And so on.

But martial artists-whether from karate, TKD or whatever style- are expected to be able to fight realistically. Yet we don't train as such.............at least, not all the time.

I have no answers. I do like asking questions, though.

[Zorbasan]

same reason that runners train with ankle weights. you build up your speed with high restistance giving you greater speed whe less resistance is applied.

not to be argumentative but this is entirely incorrect. As mentioned in a previous thread about punching with dumbbells, by increasing your weight whilst running you are actually training your body to be slower. The weights will train your nervous system to adjust to the slower running pace, and it will also play havoc with your gait - you won't be running with the same stride length and heel strike pattern as you would when running without the weights. Strength and Conditioning is heavily influenced by the rule of specifity - meaning you need to train how you want to perform

well there you go, i always figured the idea of running with weights was to build the muscles allowing you to run faster without the weights.

but training is just that, training. you cant spend the entire 1.5 hours doing stuff that is 100% realistic

why not? who says? why can't your Martial Arts drills be at a sufficient intensity to create a conditioning stimulus? I think you'll find the fighters in our competition team have particularly high levels of conditioning and I'm not smashing them with low stances and pushups on their knuckles - they're working their butts off with high intensity pad drills and rounds of sparring and wrestling..... all 100% applicable to their fighting skills.

I'm not saying this is the only way or even the best way to do it, just suggesting another way to look at things

but you just said that was for you competition team. while MMA is the closest thing to street fighting there is, and requires a whole range of skills, its still not pure SD. pad drills etc are great for intensity training but still arent 100% interchangeable into self defence. infact the only thing that is is simulated attacks, ie someone attacks in method a and you defend it.

the point i was trying to make is that all training can be condusive to SD if you are taught how it applies to SD.

[Jinen Kym]

same reason that runners train with ankle weights. you build up your speed with high restistance giving you greater speed whe less resistance is applied.

not to be argumentative but this is entirely incorrect. As mentioned in a previous thread about punching with dumbbells, by increasing your weight whilst running you are actually training your body to be slower. The weights will train your nervous system to adjust to the slower running pace, and it will also play havoc with your gait - you won't be running with the same stride length and heel strike pattern as you would when running without the weights. Strength and Conditioning is heavily influenced by the rule of specifity - meaning you need to train how you want to perform

I've often seen runners dragging a truck tyre, swimmers with a drag shute behind them. Punching with weights tricks the body into instinctly power against resistance that is no longer there. Leg weights do the same. The conditioning of the natural expectation of a muscle group doesn't reduce speed. The morning before a comp or before sparring the use of weights definately helps to perform with longer, straighter punches and kicks that easily lift over the opponents guards and extend into them.
In regards to zenkutsu dachi, the mistaken belief is that all karate practicioners use the over extended excersise version, however all contact stylists I have seen use the stance often when fighting with no restriction to delivering strikes from either side. The worst damage to self defence is McDojo instructors seeing moves on TV and with no corrolation with their style and the lack of important principles opens up a Reality Based Martial Arts club and wastes the availability of a good venue while bringing down the standing of martial arts in the community.

[Millennia]

but you just said that was for you competition team. while MMA is the closest thing to street fighting there is, and requires a whole range of skills, its still not pure SD. pad drills etc are great for intensity training but still arent 100% interchangeable into self defence. infact the only thing that is is simulated attacks, ie someone attacks in method a and you defend it.

the point i was trying to make is that all training can be condusive to SD if you are taught how it applies to SD.

you've missed my point. It's got nothing to do with being SD or applying anything to SD, it's to do with specificity of training. By spending hours in low stances all you are doing is getting good at spending hours in low stances. I know this statement is going to start a storm of argument BUT the science is against you folks. Specificity governs everything you do in training. If you want to be light on your feet then train light on your feet, practice moving on the balls of your feet and drill fast transitions. Suggesting that doing one thing is going to make you better at something entirely unrelated makes zero sense.

If you want techniques that will be useful for SD and you want them to be available to you in SD situations then you need to train them in that manner. Solo training is not going to cut it. Likewise for our fighters, all their training on the mats is with an opponent because that's exactly how they wish to use them. Shadow sparring is the only solo training drill our guys use, however during shadow work they are throwing all their strikes exactly the same way they would in a fight, they are moving their feet in the same way they would in a fight and they are defending the same way...

Kata and solo training may provide conditioning benefits, but so does sparring, rolling and training with pads - but these methods are all highly specific to fighting (whether sport or self defence). This isn't an argument against Kata or other pre-arranged sequence training, because at the end of the day if you want to train this way then go for it, I don't really care one way or the other but the point I'm making is you CAN train 100% specific to your goals all the time

[Millennia]

I've often seen runners dragging a truck tyre, swimmers with a drag shute behind them. Punching with weights tricks the body into instinctly power against resistance that is no longer there. Leg weights do the same. The conditioning of the natural expectation of a muscle group doesn't reduce speed.

Kym - no offence intended but as a professional Exercise Coach and having studied Exercise Science at Uni I have to say this doesn't make any sense at all, and is not consistent with human physiology. These types of comments are purely guess work and are often carried over from beliefs from our coaches and our coaches coaches.... I'm telling you that punching with weights DOES NOT "trick the body". You "feel" like you're going faster after you put the weight down because you are BUT you are not going faster than you would if you didn't train with the weights. You can argue this all you like, but I do this stuff for a living and train professional athletes.

Basic rule of the nervous system - if you train slow you will become slow. Period

I covered this in massive detail in a previous thread, but here goes again.... the other problem with your theory is that when you are holding a dumbbell the weight wants to go DOWN with gravity. That is not the same plane of movement you are trying to train. The emphasis of the muscle groups being recruited is ENTIRELY different to the sequence you require to throw a punch. Chutes and Sleds provide resistance in the SAME plane of movement as the runner or swimmer.

If you absolutely positively HAVE to use resistance training to improve your punches then the best methods are punching with light resistance provided by a Cable Stack, or throwing light medicine balls. The weight should not be so significant that it changes your technique in any way and it shouldn't have a significant impact on your speed of movement

My final assignment in Applied Biomechanics was on punching and punch training, so this is an area I've looked into in a great deal

[Damo]

bjj self defence classes imho taking a street fight to the ground puts you in all sorts of danger from being kicked by opponents mates to ending up rolling around on broken glass depending on situation, that and almost all of the judo self defence kata most of it would end up with u gettin but kicked

Disagree with the BJJ line there mate. As someone who has been in his fair share of 'street fights', I reckon there's an 80% chance that either one, or both of the fighters will end up on the ground during the stoush.

Sure, you can train fighters to 'get up' as soon as they're knocked down, but if you can keep dominant position on the ground as well, then why not?

And I agree with most of the others ref - kata. Oh, and the karate kid stance

[freq]

wasnt saying when fight goes to the ground its a bad thing to know your way around the floor, was saying that articles you see in blitz and black belt etc proclaiming "reality based bjj" where your first move is to shoot the legs and take them to the ground is, in my mind not what you want to be doing especially since the majority of fights i see are either in or out front of night clubs where there is god knows what in the floor and since most people dont know how to break fall this gives a high chance of skull and spine injuries or even death . i even saw one "reality bjj club advocate eye gouging as a defence against a simple fist fight tech.

the other major damaging thing i have seen comes from american kenpo where they teach tech groups where one leads to another with no realism in what the human body does when struck in this way, have watched coaches advocate punching to the face then kicking to stomach and finishing off with another tech totaly failing to take into account that after the first blow your opponent would be back peddling no matter how slight this would then throw your sequence right out the window,

as for low stances teaching you to move light not a snow balls chance in hell its called muscle memory for a reason you teach your body to do something it does it you have to think about countering your self thus making you slower not faster teach your body to drop into low stance it drops into low stance

last point for this rant the lack of instructor education regarding reasonable application of force both for them selves and students

[dadams]

>I've often seen runners dragging a truck tyre, swimmers with a drag shute behind them. Punching with weights tricks the >body into instinctly power against resistance that is no longer there.

This is old school training. I don't see it much in "modern" training which is much more situational based.
It might be handy to bring in every now and then to break up the monotony and for a bit of fun, but your time is better spent practicing what you want to do, how you want to do it.
While I am not a sports scientist, but a medical/biological scientist I would have to agree with Millenia.

[Katana]

last point for this rant the lack of instructor education regarding reasonable application of force both for them selves and students

Interesting point. Who would be qualified to teach this?

[Damo]

... i even saw one "reality bjj club advocate eye gouging as a defence against a simple fist fight tech.

What's wrong with that? Fight dirty! Fight to win! I don't want to have a toe to toe boxing match with someone if they're trying to punch me in the face, I either want to talk my way out of it, run, or stand and deliver. Eye gouge, throat strike, groin kicks... They all work!

Do it once, do it hard, do it fast.

[freq]

might be a little hard to justify blinding someone for trying to punch you, i do however believe in dirty fighting but not over reacting, as for appropriate response training we have a lawyer who trains with us so we bounce ideas off him (as to appropriate levels of force) apart from that most licensed security training companies can give you an idea as they have to teach it to their crowd controllers and security staff

[Katana]

In my view-and I'm a lawyer with over 25 years experience, and I've done many self-defense trials up to and including murder charges- there aren't many people who can simply and comprehensibly explain what is, and what is not, an appropriate response to a given threat level. This is partly because the law is complex (and it varies significantly even within Australia) and partly because there are simply too many variables to consider.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered. It does mean that the person asking the question should ensure that he or she receives the best possible answer. And that will usually involve asking the right person.

I personally hold the view that de-escalation skills are a fundamental part of complete SD training. Apologise for whatever you are said to have done-even if you didn't do it. Replace the spilled drink. Agree that the band you are in "sucks" or that you can't play "for sh!t". Do almost anything to avoid violence.

[Damo]

Freq, how many news stories have you seen in the media where people have died, or turned into a vegetable from a 'one punch' scenario? In my eyes, if someone is shaping up to me and starts throwing punches, they're not there to 'play fair', and I'll use any resource available to me, to make sure I get home safe to my wife and kids.

Legally, Katana is pretty much spot on the money. It's a very grey area.

It's better to be tried by 12, than carried by six...

[unclefester]

Licensed security staff are limited as to what they can and can not do. Joe Bloggs in the street is not. In a self defence situation you do what you have to. Afterwards the key words to use are "I feared for my life"

[freq]

i guess the biggest form of damage to self defence is always gunna be overreacting and causing an unwanted escalation as previously stated talk first fight last, as for dirty fighting i think if you feel justified in blinding some knob whos had too much to drink and wants to have a go then that is up to you, i would like to think that most of us on here would not need to jump straight to causing someone permanent ocular damage for merely being stupid, especially when you can get the same or a more effective result by simply knocking them on their rear and walking away. i think if you genuinely fear for your life go for it break things ,blind them ,throw them on their head, just have to remember self defence doesnt mean once your out of danger you can continue on the offensive, once your out of immediate danger leave, dont hang around to get your shots in otherwise your no longer defending your offending

[Katana]

Licensed security staff are limited as to what they can and can not do. Joe Bloggs in the street is not.

Sorry to appear argumentative, but that just isn't correct. If an elderly woman approaches you in the street and asks for a dollar, and you shoot her, you WILL go to jail.

Equally, security staff have no greater powers than other citizens, but equally- and perhaps critically- they have no lesser rights.