Angry Johnny

[gzregorz]

I don't think anyone is saying that on this thread or even on this forum. Personally I like learning both self defense and martial sports, I believe they compliment each other much more than they conflict with each other.

For example, learning a throw on a cooperating partner is relatively easy. But doing a throw on a strong 200 pound man who is resisting isn't. This is where I believe the sport aspect has its place. The rules and equipment are there to simply ensure that people can go to work the next day.

[Bhassler]

Given this, I am consistently bemused why certain forum members decline to take even a basic course in groundfighting to round out their skillsets. From comments here, I get the impression that some martial artists of long training have never - not even ONCE - sampled this important skillset.

That's a pretty big assumption.

[Wanderingdragon]

Just curious, what kind of work is done on spacial orientation , on your way down, as part of jujitsu basic skills development?

[gzregorz]

Just curious, what kind of work is done on spacial orientation , on your way down, as part of jujitsu basic skills development?

Unfortunately there's no real standard for that. Some schools work on takedowns and throws more than others, but some do very little.

I know that originally takedowns and throws played a bigger part in bjj training and I hear back in the day people didn't jump guard. In fact some tournaments don't allow people to jump guard because they say it's not realistic of a fight. Yet most schools will just drill takedowns/throws because the chances for injuries is high. I suppose it can be compared to MT gyms where they only do elbows and knees on a heavy bag but not in the ring. The fact is most people don't want to risk injury because they have to go to work the next day.

Although I wish that weren't the case, I'm currently recovering from a sprained ankle in judo that was the result of a foot sweep attempt from a lady half my size. Naturally I wasn't resisting much and we weren't even moving fast but sure enough it happens. But I'll be back, yet I imagine most wouldn't and I can't blame them, if I get injured badly I won't be able to do my job (which is why I won't compete, because I know some competitors don't care what happens to you and I've been there done that with those types in the past and had to sit out for a couple of years) but my original goal was self-defense throws/takedowns are a big part of that.

This is part of the reason for this t-shirt. Because in comparison to other wrestling styles bjj is easier and more natural on the body because you aren't getting slammed. But then again every style has its specialty and I don't take these things seriously I just like to train and have a laugh once in awhile.



Getting back to the topic. Whether it's standing up or on the ground Bones Jones is a super athlete with mad skills and I'll always enjoy watching him. I hear his two brothers are in the NFL! Damn!

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

Greg,

Well, of course throws and take downs were more common in the old days! BJJ came from judo. The sad thing is that *both* judo and bjj have departed so far from what they were (and for sport's sake). Judo (competition under the IJF) no longer allows leg touching, cross grips at all, leg locks of any sort, etc...BJJ experts are not necessarily great at takedowns.

Bjj, at least, has the excuse to be specializing on the ground. Judo, on the other hand, is being run into the ground (technically) for the sake of TV popularity (as an American, that baffles me). A real shame!

[fuga]

Ian,

Watch the recent European IBJJF finals match between Cornelius and Miyao and you'll see that the playing of the rules is pushing sport BJJ into places that just make you scratch your head. Four minutes of footsie? People are too concerned with playing to safe so they can win by points, rather than old school take down, pass, mount, finish.

-pete

[Wanderingdragon]

Thanks guys, The reason I ask is because the ground game in fighting is, IMO, predicated on your inability to get up not on your ability to go down, so again IMO, an emphasis should be placed on knowing where you're going when your going down would have a great impact on who gets up first, rather than play precursor to a wrestling match. It is why you see most ground work in IMA begins with rolling out, reverse throws and breakfalls, before working on actual ground technique. Much of which is missed by those who don't take the time to learn the art they study, and then go on to "teach".

[bailewen]

Thanks guys, The reason I ask is because the ground game in fighting is, IMO, predicated on your inability to get up not on your ability to go down, so again IMO, an emphasis should be placed on knowing where you're going when your going down would have a great impact on who gets up first, rather than play precursor to a wrestling match. It is why you see most ground work in IMA begins with rolling out, reverse throws and breakfalls, before working on actual ground technique. Much of which is missed by those who don't take the time to learn the art they study, and then go on to "teach".

Nope. Not even close.

As I said on some other thread with a similar topic about a week back...it all comes down to that old saying, "position before submission". Same goes for getting up. If you can't get the position, you can't get up. It's kind of irrelevant to know where your going when you go down to tell who gets up first because, first, if the other guy is a groundfighter, he isn't getting up...and most likely, neither are you. There's no first or second if neither one of you gets up. Second, because regardless of where you go down, you need to know a few specifics to get up and again....for the most part, you need to get the position first. You can only get up if you are on top and even then you need to know how to not get swept on your way up. If you've got side control or mount, pretty easy but those are both extremely unlikely to happen at random. 90% of the time, the best you can hope for, and it happens a lot if you have a decent base, is you end up in guard and guard can be a sonofabitch to stand up from.

Rolling out and breakfalls are worthless if the guy wants to go down with you. Those things only protect you against getting thrown. For take downs, not so much.

[gzregorz]

Greg,

Well, of course throws and take downs were more common in the old days! BJJ came from judo. The sad thing is that *both* judo and bjj have departed so far from what they were (and for sport's sake). Judo (competition under the IJF) no longer allows leg touching, cross grips at all, leg locks of any sort, etc...BJJ experts are not necessarily great at takedowns.

Bjj, at least, has the excuse to be specializing on the ground. Judo, on the other hand, is being run into the ground (technically) for the sake of TV popularity (as an American, that baffles me). A real shame!

I hear you Ian. There are some schools of bjj that are trying to hang onto the self defense tradition like the Valente Brothers and others as well. Of course most of the top bjj players are also judo blackbelts or (as for many Americans) grew up wrestling. I also know Steve Scott started a freestyle judo tournament which is more like the old school judo rule set and he also invites bjj and of course sambo guys since he's probably most known for his sambo. Unfortunately in both cases these schools don't seem widespread across the country.

Yeah, I don't like the new rules either. But that's part of being an Olympic sport. Every 4 years the rules change and for now anyway the idea is to justify judo being in the Olympics by distancing it from wrestling. As you mentioned of course this is to appeal to people who have no idea what judo is when they see it on TV, which also baffles me. What I really don't get is why the BJJ world would want to jump into the fire too. You have to be careful what you wish for. Because if they go in they will also have a lot of rule changes and it could go the way of TKD. Besides BJJ is fine where it is.

Yet as Pete mentioned BJJ too has issues with the rules. For example part of why the 50/50 guard is out there is because you can't reap the knee which would give people more options if they were stuck in 50/50. Yet if you do that you're DQed. Also by not allowing the people to reap the knee they take a major weapon away from sambo guys (which some claim is the reason for the rule). Of course you also have the issue with people winning by advantages and wins by submission only too yet not everyone is happy with this either.

Personally, I miss being able to reap the knee and "tie the knot" in bjj so now I rarely even mess with leglocks, except for a last minute kneebar. Also in judo the ankle pick was one of my favorite follow up combinations starting with ouchi-gari but that's gone too. Yet I try not to get too caught up in it. I figure the idea is some people want to keep things looking more "classical." Sensei Nate who had a good run in judo years ago told me that even when they do change the rules the top judoka are still the same top judoka, they have to adapt but if you have good solid judo you have good solid judo. He told me about a top Russian who used to double leg everyone and when they threw out the double leg he just started to drop shoulder throwing everyone. Then again it's easy for me not to get too caught up in this since I don't compete anyway. I can imagine how frustrating it must be for competitors though, because if I could reap the knee in bjj I'd probably be slightly more inclined because I've used that move on higher level belts and was successful but I've since put it on the shelf after being reminded that it's illegal. Although I could probably do it where I train now, I figure I may as well work on something I can use "anywhere"; judo, bjj, gi, no gi, submission wrestling, sambo...so for now I mostly just focus on armbars.

[Bhassler]

Hi Omar,

I won't presume to speak for WD, but what you responded to is not what I read him to be writing at all, or a the very least is a narrow interpretation of it.

Orientation when going to the ground has as much to do with the opponent as with the environment. There's lots of nasty things one can do when being taken down with someone, including reversing positions, throwing them away from you, throwing yourself away from them, or even just giving them something really awkward to fall on (like the point of your elbow in their throat, knees in the ribs or groin, etc.). That sort of thing is no more implicitly practiced in sport ground fighting than it is in stand-up CMA. Personally, I haven't found someone with a small or moderate amount of BJJ or a high-school wresting background or whatever to be all that formidable in terms of keeping me on the ground, once I had about 5 minutes of teaching and 15 minutes of practice working with the basic concept of how to get someone off you. I did play with a former NCAA champion wrestler who outweighed me by 40 lbs. and was trying out to be a professional arena football player, and he crushed me much as you might crush an ant, but a couple of years of BJJ (or whatever) wouldn't have helped with that. So in my mind, as CMA guys who primarily do stand-up, there are options implicit in our arts to be trained and explored, and those options seem to be generally adequate for dealing with non-expert ground fighters. Expert ground fighters surely are a problem, but not necessarily more so than expert strikers, etc.

As an aside, Willem de Thouars' guys used to train visiting MMA competitors using stuff straight out of their kuntao-silat forms for ground fighting. Almost all of the prevalent sport techniques at the time were present in the basic drills and forms, some with extra nasty illegal stuff. I don't know if that was the Chinese or the Indonesian influence, or even just from Uncle Bill himself, but it was there and they trained it the same as everything else-- so it does exist.

[Wanderingdragon]

Thanks guys, The reason I ask is because the ground game in fighting is, IMO, predicated on your inability to get up not on your ability to go down, so again IMO, an emphasis should be placed on knowing where you're going when your going down would have a great impact on who gets up first, rather than play precursor to a wrestling match. It is why you see most ground work in IMA begins with rolling out, reverse throws and breakfalls, before working on actual ground technique. Much of which is missed by those who don't take the time to learn the art they study, and then go on to "teach".

Nope. Not even close.

As I said on some other thread with a similar topic about a week back...it all comes down to that old saying, "position before submission". Same goes for getting up. If you can't get the position, you can't get up. It's kind of irrelevant to know where your going when you go down to tell who gets up first because, first, if the other guy is a groundfighter, he isn't getting up...and most likely, neither are you. There's no first or second if neither one of you gets up. Second, because regardless of where you go down, you need to know a few specifics to get up and again....for the most part, you need to get the position first. You can only get up if you are on top and even then you need to know how to not get swept on your way up. If you've got side control or mount, pretty easy but those are both extremely unlikely to happen at
random. 90% of the time, the best you can hope for, and it happens a lot if you have a decent base, is you end up in
guard and guard can be a sonofabitch to stand up from.

Rolling out and breakfalls are worthless if the guy wants to go down with you. Those things only protect you against getting thrown. For take downs, not so much.

[Wanderingdragon]

Wellp,'there you have it, two different perspectives, knowing the center and controlling the center, when you see in those terms it's all pretty internal, recognizing gravity and maintaining your center.
I have to say though, it seems as though you missed a lot of what " Angry Johnnie " was doing in those clips.

[gzregorz]

Ian, Do you guys train at Solano college in Fairfield?

[Wanderingdragon]

I think Bhassler has a pretty good handle on what I meant by " spacial orientation on the way down ".

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

Vallejo center on Columbus Prkwy. It's a Jr. college class, so most are newbies, and the instruction is geared that way. But, there are also a handful of very successful competitors and usually three or so blackbelts (plus Dr. Tanaka, Hachidan). I usually take the competitors into the corner and work randori and drills.

I am now will be occasionally helping my buddy John teach at Fabio Prado's place in Vacaville. Nice space there, and usually a few dan ranks there too. That class is short, but very heavy on randori. Warm up is usually just newaza randori. Very fun!