I follow a left leaning MMA and martial arts group. They are too far left to me, and even among people far left they have some extreme views. But they do a very good job at documenting the history of unsavory crap many martial arts organizations and fighters do and have done which is not publicly talked about. For that reason I follow them.
Due to their rather extreme views, they often post things that rub me the wrong way, but rarely on the topic of martial arts itself.
But recently they made one post that kind of stuck out to me, motivating me to make this blog post.
They had a post up saying that most people who teach self-defense assume most violence can be solved by simply being polite and walking away, but ethnic, political and sexual minorities are often targeted and the violence is sudden, fast, and often they can’t run away since they are being hunted, not sized up. This simply is not true, the leading voices and leaders of combatives and self-defense often categorize violence and talk about victim profiles.
That isn’t to say this approach isn’t around, I remember talking to a guy who runs self-defense classes for the city. He said violence men face often can be dealt with verbally and is solved by walking away, but woman it’s more sudden violence. He noticed a difference in the types of violence men and woman face, but purely attributed them to gender. When in truth there is violence that is a disagreement, looking for status. What the Violence dynamics people call a monkey dance, popular among men yes, but woman can experience a form of it. And then there is sudden violence toward men, as men often get mugged, jumped, or targetted for perceived weakness.
But as much as I can rant and rave about bullshit people say about self-defense, including stuff people offering classes for it say or do, this is not a valid critique because it’s very common for them to talk about sudden violence. Sometimes discussing the inability to walk away or run away is mostly an excuse to keep fighting, because in the funnest parts in a dojo, gym, or training facility usually is all the fighting. It’s fun to punch people until they give up or are knocked out(Consensually) it’s fun to grapple and control folks with them trying to escape and do the same to you, it’s fun to hit people with sticks or poke them with false knives. It’s just fun, and running away and backing out of a fight is boring to practice to most people.
Yet regardless of motive, the fact many forms of violence involve not being able to back out is the norm. ALmost every martial arts gym says “What if you can’t run away?” because running away or de-escalation is almost always brought up by people saying “What’s the point in even learning martial arts?”
The reason this left wing martial arts organization mentioned that self-defense doesn’t mention the inability to run away is because they want to highlight the unique problems of minorities. They assume this because they rightfully notice RBSD culture is super politically conservative, and the furthest left they often are is just libertarian or Jordan Peterson types. This isn’t a wrong observation, but these seem libertarian and ancap martial arts are not stupid, even if their politics could be seen as wrong. They know their clientele, and ancap or not, they don’t look at traumatized woman or a gay man coming through their door and think “Man I just won’t research her problems” when they very often do. I agree with the leftist argument that most racism, sexism and homophobia isn’t “i hate black people/gays/trans/woman but rather little subtle things. But while I agree with this statement, even most conservatives libertarians admit people are often picked off due to identities they have. They know hate crimes are a thing, unless they really drink the Kool-aid.
You’re more likely to hear talk ignoring victim profiles in MMA/combat sport gyms than places specializing in self-defense and RBSD. Combat sports schools will often advertise self-defense. ANd while they will teach lots of useful stuff, they really do a terrible job with victim profiles a great deal. There is little talk on how to intellectualize and organize violence.
For instance, violence happens in either close range or moments of spaces. It’s constantly shifting, controlling range helps but it’s far more likely to change than in a duel. You’re not going to control the distance for a long period of time and peck away. If you’re at a distance, you will end them or they will end you, or you’re going to get in close and maul them, or you will maul you. There is no addressing the nature of what these attacks will be. And an ambush will not be like a kickboxing, or MMA match. On the ground it could be like BJJ, but you sure as hell would not butt scoot or have anyone pull guard on you.
They absolutely think you’re either walking away or dueling.
But my intention isn’t to slam combat sports, more so to defend them.
Now the misconception about combat sports that bother me were not triggered by anything specific, just trends I noticed.
The main one is the fact everyone goes full contact all the time in combat sports gyms. Once upon a time this was true, back when MMA was more niche and the sport science was much less studied. But today? Sparring can involves actually landing with good commitment in the strikes, much more than touch contact karate or TKD. But otherwise no one wants to cause concussions when doing any form of striking in boxing, kickboxing or MMA. It’s usually only fighters that go hard, and even then when guys are going hard to prepare for an upcoming fight, a sparring partner getting punched in the head hard enough to stun them usually stops the action. The sparring stops and is adjusted. If a guy gets hit hard more than once without defending, they stop it and check exactly what the hell is going on. They don’t continue that kind of fighting, not in most gyms.
There are exceptions, some gyms still spar hard all the time, TJ Dillashaw spars hard all the time, even when he’s not sucker punching partners and ruining their prospects for a fight(Yeah he’s a dick)
But most are not idiots. Muay thai is one of the most brutal sports, but even preparing for a fight they spar very controlled.
THe grappling equivalent is BJJ. No slamming is allowed, and the culture greatly dissaudes putting on submissions at rapid speed.
Wrestlers will still grapple hard, but even they are starting to learn the wisdom of flow and slow rolling when not preparing for a competition.
Watch how Usman and Chandler are rolling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccMGZt5Ri3Q
Another misconception is that the rules exist because outlawed tactics and techniques are fight enders. Lots of people think some kung-fu guy could beat a thai boxer because of groin kicks and eye pokes, something the thai boxer would be open to since it’s not allowed.
Thing is these things are not fight enders. Personally if someone kicked me in the balls, there is a chance that woudl stop me. I hope not, but it’s possible. I’ve never been hit there full force since puberty. But I know others who have been kicked hard in the balls, and they could keep fighting. Randy King had a great tweet where he said anyone who lived a physical life accustomed to pain can fight through it. And thai boxers? They know how to work through pain and discomfort. An eye poke or gauge can again end a fight if the person is not accostomed to a life style of pain and discomfort, and it can also cause permanent damage. Don’t let people damage your eyes. But once again, if someone lived a ‘physical’ or violent life, they can ignore that and end the fight.
Yuki Nakai got his eye gouged, ultimately going blind in that eye. But he beat the crap out of the guy that blinded him on one side, then won three more fights after that. It was long term damage, but it didn’t stop him in the moment.
Throat shots can fucking kill a person, so never mind the legality of it in court, but once again it often doesn’t always work, and it takes time for the throat to swell up enough for someone to die. You can literally get stabbed to death or knocked out before the opponents wind pipe swells and he suffocates.
Shit i’ve been punched in the throat, and it hurt for a month. But I finished the sparring session. If my big fat brown pussy ass can take it, a seasoned criminal probably could.
Other than the brain stem, most targets effective in finishing fights quickly are legal in combat sports. The chin, sides of the neck, liver, stomp to the knee.
I would even argue that an art like Muay Thai hits strategic targets more than most Kung-fu, karate and RBSD schools. WHen they train sensitive targets like eyes, throat, groin, it’s often very mechanical, very rote, the energy is dead. Reason is to avoid injury. Even ‘street’ martial arts schools don’t target eyes and throat when doing any kind of dynamic training like sparring or alive drilling, they don’t want to risk injury. Most of them tend to basically hit the same target as MMA gyms would.
My karate school had some drills where we had pressure and broken timing where it’s safe to attack throat, groin and eyes, but usually with people we really trust, the progression is careful. I have not seen many martial arts schools try that.
Fact is, if you can’t hit someone in the face with a gigantic sixteen ounce glove, you’re probably not going to hit their eyes. People who can dodge giant ass big mitts coming at their faces can dodge a badly practiced eye poke. ANd it probably will be badly practiced, because it’s hard to train it against a live opponent.
Hell Jon jones and Daniel Cormier probably have more experience aiming for peoples eyes under pressure than most traditional martial artist.
The reason it’s so easy for his cheating ass to do this, is because he already has the timing to land strikes on the face with his fist, he knows how to post off the head with his hands when people close on him. He can touch your head with big easy to see mitts.
Notice the pattern Jon Jones uses to poke the eyes is either a post of the arm as taught in Muay thai(and Uechi) or it’s similar to a jab. It’s literally using the fundamentals of striking rather than anything significantly different.
He has good fundamental martial arts principles and habits, which thus makes it much much much easier to poke people in the eyes.
When I learned how to attack the eyes and throat, it was working on how to express with the fingers, and often you could get people in the eyes when they came in on you.
During my years learning fundamental martial arts, I learned to land open hand strikes and fists to the face, and my teacher then simply built off that skill to attack the throat and eyes.
And combat sports athletes have these base skills.
Rules do affect how combat sports athletes fight in real life violence or crossing over to other sports. But not ‘vulnerable’ points of attack.
Now that brain stem though, that stuff is dangerous and can destroy a persons life.
What's the deal with Adeel? 