Recently, I took the weekend to thumb (electronically) through some old issues of Black Belt magazine. It is amazing to see the changes in the world of martial arts from 20 years ago through today. It was very nostalgic. I remember the first time I heard the name "Royce Gracie" which was after the first UFC. I was not aware that the even had even happened until the fallout had begun.
Traditional martial artists were circling the wagons and criticizing the event and its participants. Bill Wallace and Kathy Long (I know, who are they?) were quite vocal in their condemnation of the event and each had pointed criticisms of the fighters and promoters. Then the letters to the editor began to flow in. Seems about half the readers supported the views of Wallace and Long and the other half condemned them as close minded and feaful of change - a change that could potentially show them and their whole paradigm to be obsolete.
I was torn down the middle. On the one hand I had yet to recieve a black belt in any martial art. I got my first when I was 40 and the first fighting tutelage I ever recieved was form HS wrestling. I knew that most stand up fighters, Karate and Kung Fu couldn't fight on the ground. They had no clue. This is of course speaking primarily of western martial artists not the ol boys of old who would often have to face wrestlers in fighting on a regular basis and therefore trained to deal with them. On the other hand, many of the criticisms of Wallace were right on, and would have had more merit had he not framed them in such a defensive and whiny manner.
First off, the UFC then and now is not representative of a real fight encounter. I spent my youth in rough and tumble schoolyard brawls many of which ended up going to the dirt or pavement. Later in HS we got tougher when we learned how to wrestle and tackle taking it up a notch. In all my 30 plus years of martial arts training and observing street fights involving every caliber of opponent imaginable, I have never seen a fight end well for a guy with his back on the ground. If all floor surfaces were shock resistant mats then Gracie Jiu Jitsu would reign supreme as the ultimate martial art on Earth. Dirt, concrete, wood have adverse effects on the person wedged against them and I learned early on that punching or slamming a body part against an opponent who is wedged against it is like taking a power pill. Now I'm sure Royce could manage ok against me if I had him on his back on a concrete slab, after all he's trained as long in his familys' style as I have in the various arts I've studied. The problem is with a potential convert thinking they could do the same with just acouple months training which sadly was the prevailing wisdom at the time.
In truth the UFC and any extreme fighting bout says volumes about the fighter but not much about the philposophy of the art in general.
I laughingly recall reading a contributing columnist who had observed a fight during a baseball game where one player had thrown a high kick at another player who then tackled him to the astroturf.
"That settles it," he quipped, "grappling defeats stand up fighting in an open forum. Grappling is better!"
The absurdity of the comment doesn't even bear mentioning other than the fact that the magazine actually published it. After all, what better way to judge the validity of any fighting tactics than to look at competitors of a non combat sport illustrating those techniques without knowledge of the individual skill levels of each man or their fighting experience? I once wittnessed a HS wrestler taken out of a fight by a kick to the face. I guess then that means stand up kicking is better than grappling eh?
The reality of fighting is this. Not to steal a line from Forest Gump but, fighting, like life can be like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get. I hate it when I read someone Monday morning quaterbacking a youtube video fight or an extreme fighting video. Generally, and respectively it goes like this: "I would have pulled back and went for an Amreicana", or, "Now this is as close to real as you can get!".
And each comment respectively is bullshit. First off, you never know what you will do in a fight until after it's already happening. I once had to break up two brawling 9th graders at a school where I worked. they were continuing to fight even after I broke them up. I finally grasped one's arms between my two and pinned him against a wall, then dropped to the floor putting my weight on him. This is while the other guy tried to punch around my head to hit him. Now I can say "Well, I could have put my arm up on the nearby table and crab clawed him in mid air......" but I didn't. I did what instinct told me would be the best option and it was nothing I had ever trained for and I'm sure to bystandiers it wasn't pretty. However it worked. Secondly, if you really want to see how a real fight will go down most of the time, I suggest you find some old youtube videos of Tank Abott flying into an opponent in the Octagon at 60 MPH throwing punches, elbows, kicks etc... Never have I seen two guys "square off" in the real world. It's almost always a blitz of agression after the climax of heated words.
The bottom line? Train what you think will work for you. In the beginning, you wont know what that is but in time you will. Take what lots of people will say with a grain of salt. I remember arguing with a guy once who said that traditional Judo ne waza would never work agaisnt BJJ. Well, I saw Fedor beat one of those guys with a kesa gatame once. Another time a grappling enthusiast piped up and informed me that the arm trapping manuever I was showing a guy was useless. Then I pulled out a thumb drive and showed him Rorion Gracie doing the same move on a BJJ street self defense tape.
