THE PROBLEM WITH COMBAT SPORTS

I get annoyed by Self-Defense people over emphasizing the shit out of how different street fights are from sport fighting. Thing is there are differences, and they are big enough differences to have to change training approaches.

This blog post will focus on specific tactics that are bad for self-defense, but the overall focus is more going to be about general training approaches more big picture critiques.

I wish I could match the sheer ranting emotion of the post attacking Self-Defense schools, but I’m more sad these days than irritated.

So here is one pointing out issues with claims and beliefs by Combat Sports people.

PART 1: Specialized combat sport tactics.


BJJ:
It irritates me your random BJJ guy thinking he’ll fucking go to guard if someone takes him down in a fight, not realizing that get ups and sit outs from BJJ might benefit them more than constant attachment. Or a boxer that thinks he can jab someone’s face off when someone shoots on them. They forget we are creatures of habit. When under pressure we go to what’s most comfortable. I remember talking to a BJJ dude that said he only pulls guard in BJJ but in a street fight he would go for the take down. Thing is though, if you start on your knees or do guard pulls when threatened in competition and the gym, you’re probably going to do it when the pressure is on.

If you jump guard in a fight, you might do it without thinking in the street. And well, there is a catharsis of seeing guys get fouled for slamming BJJ players for jumping guard, and I support no slam rules in BJJ. But if you’re going to develop combatively bad habits by exploiting that rule, I have no sympathy for you. Guard pulling is great if you use it after a bad takedown, or if you get sprawled on. But not scooting around on your butt while someone else is standing. Guard jumping only is useful in a street fight if you blow a dudes knees out(which is common with guard Jumping) and even then there is a high probability you’ll still get slammed.

Ban slamming for safety by all means, but also ban guard pulling and jumping. Otherwise BJJ academies really shouldn’t say they teach self-defense.

Yet as much as I complain about bad habits, there are many good ones.

Thing is if BJJ players didn’t always start out on the knees and even had some distance management and footwork, it’s still very useful in a self-defense context. Pulling guard isn’t even bad if done in a way that steals balance. Hell you could screw up and end up on your back, why not pop the guys shoulder with an omoplata and get up? How else do you learn to get off or fight off your back? Wrestling is good for getting up, but often modified to MMA. Lots of them will turn the back to get up and get choked. It’s BJJ or Catch-wrestling that will teach getting up without someone sinking and RNC. Or sitting out after side control.

BJJ will always be an integral part not only in MMA but also even self-defense, because bad guys often are training, and BJJ is quickly becoming very commercial, resulting in many more people both good and bad getting familiar with grappling on the ground, people who may continue to fight or try to hold you down as their friends come.

Perhaps you’re fighting your drunk uncle, BJJ and wrestling will help pin him down without hurting him.


Problem is, while there are more good habits than bad habits, sometimes the specific bad habits are big ones.

This is my bias, but between BJJ, Judo, Wrestling, Catch Wrestling and Sambo, I think Catch and Sambo have the least bad habits to cross over to the street. BJJ, and Judo especially are going down a rabbit hole of being hyper specialized. Freestyle Wrestling is that nice little middle ground between them all. I certainly wouldn’t want to fuck with a freestyle wrestler.

Striking:

The striking equivalent is more subtle, though there are blatant onces such as touch contact sparring for karate, which teaches people not to follow up and throw out body mechanics that can damage someone in favour of very fast strikes that can touch, but often do little else, no grabbing or catching kicks. World Taekwondo Federation rules don’t score punching very high, so TKD practitioners often have no idea how to defend punches or even throw them, along with having so much protective equipment that renders throwing powerful strikes anywhere but the head as moot, and mostly only just kicks to the head, and once again no grabbing or catching kicks. All of these can develop just terrible habits.

And before you say it, yes I am aware the intercepting in and out punches and kicks of point karate are becoming more popular in MMA. But often karate fighters either have to unlearn years of bad habits as they pick up kickboxing for MMA, or they always did a form of fighting similar to kickboxing.

Good timing. But notice how if it wasn’t to a touch, she would still get hit even if she got there first? Notice the lack of hip torque? The lack of defense after the strike? All arm, and not even committed.

Full contact sport fighting isn’t without faults. In boxing for instance, people will block and cover relying on the gloves, making targeting very different, though many boxers would be harder to hit in a real fight with our without boxing gloves. Still, it’s a notable difference. Covering in MMA for instance involves more use of the elbows, much more rolling and parrying than boxing. Boxers tend to Philly shell, roll, slip, cover with globes more. MMA it’s more roll, parry, elbow block for a cover.

Both men don’t even try to generally cover to deal with a flurry.

Watch how he covers. Different.

Old boxing guards that are considered outdated or specialized are far more common in MMA with smaller gloves. Long guard/Mummy Guard is often used, Cross arm and even reverse cross arm. People will use the Philly Shell though in transitions.

Not nearly as common in boxing as it was in the older era of Foreman etc.

The bigger issue to me is protective equipment. Gloves, wraps, and tape mean someone can just pour on strikes and not worry about breaking your hand. If you look at boxing and Dutch Muay Thai, the general strategy is to constantly be pouring on strikes, which strategically is good, the person acting always is in a better advantage than someone reacting. But one reason they can get away with this is they know they can throw as much as they want as hard as they want because nothing will break. There is much less picking of shots or looking for openings.

Now Mike Tyson is someone you don’t want to ever fight, and every street fight he was in since learning boxing, he completely wrecked the guys with a single punch.

But Mike Tyson broke his hand every time, taking weeks and months to recover. Chances are even if you’re a power puncher, you won’t know if your punch will knock the guy out, and if your hand breaks while your opponent is still conscious, or you dropped one guy and have two others, you’re now in a bad situation with a broken hand.

Although the skill level is much lower in Bare Knuckle boxing promotions, the strategy they use is more conducive to how one would strike in a street fight. They pick their punches, pressure is very much more ‘real’ in the sense if they pour it on, they truly know they won’t break something. And this is knowing a single punch to a forehead could change the whole tune of the fight against them.

Thing is I actually greatly value the use of boxing gloves and shin pads. Boxing gloves not only let you let loose a little more so you don’t hurt your partner(let loose within reason) but boxing gloves also greatly force a person to do Sen no sen(Hit them while they hit you) and body motion and evasion without relying on parrys. They also allow you to learn to roll with punches without marking up your face.

Shin pads are great, allows you to really experiment with your kicks without hurting yourself or your partner. But shin pads can give you the habit to constantly kick, even if they are blocked or checked. Take the shin pads off, and suddenly kicking must be done more carefully. One checked kick can stop you from throwing another one, or even lower your ability to check a kick yourself. A person does not need to snap their shin like Anderson Silva to have the fight ruined.

Lastly it’s the habit of basically waiting for the Ref to break the clinch. This doesn’t apply to Muay thai, as they spend a great deal of time in the Clinch before it’s stopped. The only negative maybe that could be said about Muay thai clinches is no driving double or single leg take downs, but they are able to lift and dump. As a result Muay Thai has an awareness of close quarters fighting and some sense of take down defense.

But boxing and Kickboxing tends to have guys fight where clinches are broken up regardless of who or how it’s initiated. ANd a common tactic is to just sit there and wait for it to be broken up. Sometimes they try to take little shots from over under. In muay thai they would be guarding against dumps, trying to swim for position and take control or break it. In boxing they wait for the ref, especially modern boxing.

Imagine what would happen if he didn’t know how to clinch?

Just like grappling combat sports, striking ones largely have more good habits than bad habits. And I dare say unless you’re doing touch contact competitions and Olympic TKD, most of the good habits outweigh the bad. There isn’t anything big and glaring that has ‘get yourself killed’ vibes like never starting standing up or scooting around on the butt. There is a sense of range, and if you do Muay Thai or Sanda, Lethwei you can probably even clinch and do some basic standing grappling. But there are notable differences that could really cost you in an altercation, such as a broken hand, or a cover heavy style that won’t work with bare knuckle or even smaller gloves.

Problems with MMA

Remember what I said about habits? Well ground and pound is great in many situations. But I have two anecdotes that highlight a change in tactics.

I talked to one MMA fighter who came to a gym (the one where you lift weights) all fucked up. Asked him what happened. He said he got attacked by a bunch of guys. He took one down, started pounding the guy, but then got booted in the head and they swarmed him.

Happened to another guy I know who did BJJ. He did a take down but got kicked in the head.

There are many videos on youtube showing the same.

In MMA and lots of combat sports, people are expected to have constant attachment with the takedown of the core. They follow the guy, they are committed.

What I try to do and teach is for people to go to Knee ride and scan once they get a take down, usually holding a limb. If the coast is clear, it’s safe to commit. If it isn’t, hit the bastard as you disengage.

This is not a habit often taught in combat sports, which is to scan after every take down, to keep from getting entangled.

Stalling and USING THE CLOCK.

Both in striking and grappling competitions. There is always some who scores some points, then knowing they are ahead either hold someone in their guard until the timer runs out, or basically runs around lots with footwork until the clock runs out.

Here is the thing about both getting ambushed/counter assault and Monkey dances: If you have time to waste, you’re probably not really in a street fight.

The closest thing I can think of regarding someone stalling was a monkey dance encounter a friend online posted about. How basically a guy got mad and attacked him, and he just jumped around lots staying out of range of the guy, until eventually help arrived. But never heard of anything like that happening again.

Like firstly, you’re not in a fight. Not really.

Why the fuck are you staying there? Just run away if your feet move fast enough to make that distance. If you’re fighting a guy stepping up to you, you look like shit in that context too. Landing one more punch over the guy isn’t going to help.

For grappling, if you’re on the bottom and you’re stalling in a real fight, you’re going to get your face pounded in. Might take time, but gravity and position are against you. Less of an issue for a BJJ black belt, though if he sweeps or submits a big dude on top of him, he’s not stalling is he? He’s acting.

But holding them and that’s it? Shakeel O Niel got on top of BJJ black belts, no strikes allowed and he still mauled them because he’s fucking huge.

To be fair there are rules in many combat sports that punish stalling, though scoring points and just waiting out the clock in closed guard still happens in grappling.

And for striking, Floyd Mayweather is a thing. Not only does his tactic of letting people pound on his philly shell leave him badly open for take downs and low kicks(See above) but the fact is he loses a few rounds, stalls. Uses the clinch to get things reset. Doesn’t use a real grip in the clinch so he can feed shots until his opponent actually grabs him, which results in it getting broken up.

I’m not against someone with a disposition of being a counter striker or grappler, counter wrestler. But that isn’t stalling, that often is acting. People need energy to counter strike or grapple, and in ‘real’ fights energy is constant, you have what you need to act. If you don’t, then again I question if you are even really facing violence.

TUNNEL VISION:

Focussing exclusively on one person in front of you constantly. You tune out the crowds, you tune out everything but the opponent and maybe the referee. It’s natural, we humans use it when hunting. It’s one reason we have great coordination compared to apes, we can focus on something. Adrenaline can make us hyper-fixate.

Problem is a casual search on youtube shows dudes engaging in a fight, winning it. But then get cold clocked by the enemies friend they were not aware of or watched for.

This one can be very hard to avoid, since many people do martial arts through private lessons, or small schools with small class numbers. Even schools with many members have separate classes, different attendence or sometimes it might be a slow month.

It can be hard to teach and train multiple opponents. I certainly can’t play with it or work on it right now, I mostly teach private lessons and I teach an MMA class that isn’t focussed on multiple opponents. The people I have that want to learn self-defense don’t have the numbers, and the class with the numbers doesn’t want self-defense stuff.

So out of all points, this is the one is the most understandable. We naturally gain tunnel vision, and it only is through habit that we break it. But sometimes it’s hard to break that habit in a school, both sport and RBSD.

Dealing with the freeze.

You read news stories of woman who are police officers and security guards get abused by their husbands, partners etc. Or you sometimes talk to people in law enforcement and violent professions that in their professional life constantly fight but can be victimized when they are not working.

This applies to martial artists as well. Men and woman can be really good, really skilled, and if they are ‘on’ really tough. But when shit hits the fan they are useless.

If you saw the picture above, you know I’m talking about fight, flight, freeze. It’s natural like tunnel vision.

You can have perfect technique, you can be really strong. You can even probably take a shit load of pain.

But very few combat sport schools teach how to deal with freezing. Freezing can happen to anyone, though past trauma makes it worse. One thing is though, only training and familiarization of chaos and discomfort can make the freeze shorter, makes it easier to break it.

The reason male and female officers/soldiers/bouncers can act clear headed and without hesitation when facing sudden violence is because they are expecting it. From the moment they enter a police car, sit at the door of a bar, arrive on scene or even the moment they put on a uniform. They are not truly caught by surprise, they are in many ways waiting for it. But in civilian life they let their guard down. They are not used to surprise, because a good LEO or any similar professional should walk in expecting trouble.

The freeze can happen to anyone. But it isn’t an unbeatable power.

Now many RBSD schools don’t really teach it. They talk about it, but many don’t have drills for it.

But I was fortunate enough not to worry about that shit

My karate/self-defense teacher had great drills for this. They simulate getting sucker punched by delivering a shock to the system, and instead of freezing or cowering and running, you must fight. Almost everyone freezes in these drills for at least a few seconds, even if you know it’s coming.

But do it enough times and you gain good habits(Remember that word) such as acting immediately and using the strike or impact as information, a trigger.

The only thing we haven’t covered is a stab, the sensation of getting stabbed or shot as a trigger. But give us 800 bucks and some shock knives and we can figure it out.

Steve Morris apparently also has drills that deal with getting caught with a sucker punch of tackle, to train acting quick and decisively to condition out the freeze.

Thing is, in defense of typical RBSD they atleast have scenario training. The expectation in many RBSD schools is you don’t get surprised because you understand the signs of oncoming violence. But I’ll save the best for last.

More habits: Always executing violence within a range of rules.

Of all my critique of combat sports, this is by far the weakest. They say to learn to fight, go for targets and do things that are illegal.

Thing is though, eyes, throat, groin are often banned. But if someone is tough, even a kick to the gnards an eye pork or even a throat shot won’t reliably end an attack. Those tactics are great stacked with fundamental combat principles and a general sense of how to move is ingrained, but not by thesmelves. And even when someone who knows how to fight uses them, they sometimes can be ignored.

I was punched in the throat hard, it hurt for a month when I swallowed. But I finished the sparring round.

There was a fight between a savate fighter in Japan vs a catch wrestler. The savate fighter gauged the eye of the catch wrestler, to the point that after the fight, the catch wrestler went blind in that eye.

Yet despite the aftermath, he largely just took the pain and basically choked the savate guy out, then fought two more times, winning his next match to ultimately get defeated by Rickson fucking Gracie himself.

Yuki Nakai is one badass guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yko1xLF7AQU

BUUUUUT I wouldn’t bring this up if there wasn’t validity to this critique of combat sports. Sometimes the rules don’t exist for fighter safety. Frankly there are bad habits formed from rules.

Infact my above critiques of BJJ guard pulling/Jumping and striking styles and the clinch are purely based on rules.

Guard jumping relies on people not being allowed to slam, while breaking the clinch exists only to make fights more entertaining for spectators, nothing else.

Slamming is banned due to safety, and because it is easy to do in a fight. So slam.

Clinching, dirty boxing is very effective. So dirty box.

In Judo they are not allowed to touch the legs. Not because of safety, but because they wanted to distinguish themselves from wrestling, Judoka were using them too much.

Well guess what? IF it’s banned because it worked too fucking good, you probably should learn leg takedowns. In BJJ leg attacks can be dangerous but are high percentage. Learn how to leg lock.

Most notable is head butts.

People say head butts are banned due to safety. But if you get a concussion from a head butt or a fist, which one is worse? I don’t think your brain cares what body part caused it damage. Punches should be banned for the same reason.

But headbutts are very effective, and if you have any wrestling training, it should come easy.

Even boxing doesn’t allow headbutts, but notice where he places his head? It would be so easy. But for some cosmetic reason, it’s banned.

Here too a headbutt would be very easy, it would end the fight right there. But it’s illegal in MMA to throw a head butt.

And when headbutting is allowed, it changes how people clinch, how they strike, how they enter. ANd as you see in this GIF, it even changes hand fighting.

Don’t get me started on hitting the back of the head and brain stem. That shit is easy to hit and it’s ended peoples careers, put people in permanent wheelchairs.

Now as easy as it is to hit the back of the head, I totally agree with making it illegal to strike. No one should die because someone wanted to win a prize fight, no one should be crippled either.

This video below is sad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Gg5gbDBe0

Punching, kicking, grappling, knives, sticks and gun skills are all just a piece of a bigger pie.

This part here is the most important point on what MMA and combat sports schools are missing regarding ‘street’ violence.

Based on the RBSD people I have talked to and trained with, the mechanics of violence are not the main picture. Self-defense is much more than being able to win a fight.

The reason why Combat Sambo folks and competitive MMA fighters are so good at the physical act of fighting is because that’s all they do. It’s all about developing the tools and getting damn good at them.

Tools for combat and using tools is all they ever do. Of course they will do physical acts of violence better.

Traditional martial arts schools on the other hand are concerned with preservation of a system and a perfection of a specific way of moving than producing fighters, even if they SAY they want to teach people to fight and defend themselves.

RBSD tackles actually stopping people from being victimized, not just winning fights. Yes they neglect physical skills more than a Muay Thai or MMA gym, but they also deal with everything leading up to a violent encounter. Woman who are combat experts will face domestic abuse from husbands, because the relationship is the problem and there is the freeze(Remember that) which is not dealt with. The woman could be fucking Rhonda Rousey, but if her husband if Fedor, she won’t kick his ass, and probably doesn’t want to because the relationship is complicated. A woman going to a martial arts class for self-defense is better off learning how to set boundaries and learn to leave bad situations than a mean overhand right.

For men it’s not as bad, it’s often social for men. The whole ‘hey bro, what the fuck you looking at’ type thing. Verbal de-escalation skills are more important than fighting ones. Knowing what makes social violence work, knowing that posturing and looking strong can make social violence work but in ‘anti-social’ violence it is a deterrent. You might be an old man or a part of a hated demographic. You have to know it’s coming.

Dealing with an ambush is very good to know, learn to deal with worse case scenario. But what RBSD often focuses a great deal on is recognizing everything leading up to it. Knowing your victim profile, what would make you a victim. Why you may be selected. Or why someone would want to challenge you if you’re too damn alpha to be a victim.

It’s about recognizing pre-attack cues.

Hell even running away is a skill. People think running away is easy, that we know how to do it. I hear this both from TMA people or a combat sports athletes.

But if you do any pressure training that requires escaping to win, it takes surprisingly long just to know where the escape route is, or recognizing it without people blocking you.

Randy King has a great drill where he walks around with his hand up. Peope must finish the drill, or disengage from an attack, find randy among people running around, and then slap his hand. It simulates looking for an escape route.

Forget escaping properly, how many combat sport schools even have escaping as something they do? how many BJJ schools that have ‘LEARN TO PROTECT YOURSELF!” in advertising teaching sitting out and booking it?

None. It’s always about winning the fight, never leaving it. Running away is only given lip service, and that’s all.

And even that is directly related to situations.

So much of self-defense classes need to be about boundary setting and building healthy relationships, so people know you’re not going to be taken advantage of, or that you’re not easily isolated, that if you die people will be looking and asking questions. If you’re some meek drug addict in a corner who even homeless people don’t want to talk to, you’re an easy target, they know if you disappear there will be few questions. They know you may let them get close to you.

I know at least three RBSD schools that work on these non-combat skill related tiers. Randy King and Rory Miller are one of them, another is WPD, Wise Warrior Gym deals with it. So does some city funded RBSD here in my home town, I talked to them about their program and they state recognizing types of violence and much of what I stated.

None of the combat sports schools I have seen address any of these topics.

One thing I will give combat sports is the fact they teach resilience. To fight through pain. One reason kicking someone in the balls to end a fight isn’t always reliable is many criminals live violent or physical lives, they can push through pain and grind through discomfort. MMA, wrestling, BJJ and even some karate schools deal with pushing through discomfort. Building resilience, and resilience is an important part of personnel protection. We sometimes die because we ‘give up’ fighting. We fail to commit to a course of action when it gets messy.