Martial Arts/MMA Thread
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There's this Islamic black coach from the ghetto, who used to be a college wrestler who said the same thing. MT is the 'most complete' for 'the streets. Of course you'd need enough wrestling to stay on your feet or get back up off the ground, and some bjj to get out some some bad positions. Ummah Fight camp is his youtube channel if you're into the history of fighting.
0:55 - 1:20 right here, this doesn't look like a real fight, seems like the big guy took a dive.
Anyways, after five months, how have you found your wrestling classes so far?
I’m a bloated Everyman. I turn 34 in a month. Am I too old to start studying a martial art? I’m not trying to become some sort of gram star or pro fighter. My goal, get in shape and self defense. Be HONEST haha.
Maybe give yourself 6-12 months to get into better shape to begin with? Some cardio (running, perhaps) and strength training (weights or calisthenics) before adding martial arts. That would reduce your chance of injury I think (100% non-professionnel opinion).
Also, self defense has a lot to do with mindset; I have done a bit of martial arts and I still consider my #1 strategy in a pinch to be running out of harm's way.
If you do it like a sport and avoid any risk of injury, it can be a way to get back in shape that is fun if you're with like-minded people and all the psychos have been filtered out of the dojo.
If you approach it like an actual fighting art and intend to learn how to really fight, there is no way to do that without getting injured. It depends on the person, but someone your age is past the point where you can recover easily from even small injuries, so most likely this approach is a bad idea.
Don't try to learn to fight, just use the sport-fighting environment to get into shape.
What are the qualities needed for self-defense?
(1) Confidence: It's similar to picking up girls that the most important thing is confidence, which comes from experience. So how do you get experience fighting without being injured? You can't, but you could approximate fighting experience and avoid injury you're too old from which to recover.
(2) Intensity or determination, aka courage: Beginners train discipline as an approach to developing intensity, which is just the ability to focus your mind on a task, but with fighting it becomes courage because you have to match your will against your opponent. You can get this by training with real fighters even if you don't actually spar (in order to avoid injury). They'll tell you when you have to act at the difficult times in training and if you hack it, you'll become more determined.
The requirements for prayer and fasting build discipline in a person and aid them in focusing their mind and minimizing distractions for specified periods of time, so you have a parallel practice to accompany your Karate Kid montage sequence, lol.
(3) Opsec / awareness: Once you have intensity, which some people substitute with rage—not a good idea—you need to think about fighting all the time and imagine scenarios wherever you are without getting too weird about it.
"That guy looks like a jerk who wants to sucker punch someone. Is that a bulge around his waistband? Glock or colostomy bag?"
Do it all the time.
(4) Offense: you have to have the strength and speed to hurt someone, and some kind of technique, even just one. This is the easiest part of training and where the vast majority of people mistakenly spend 99% of their time. You only need a couple of moves to deal with street crime and barroom sucker punchers.
(5) Defense: in addition to awareness of your enemy(s), you need to have a defensive mindset and some techniques for minimizing harm to yourself. Boxers are great examples in their footwork, head movement, and how they size up their opponent.
Luckily, your potential attackers only have a few moves and their main one is the element of surprise, so once you remove that with your awareness, you've created a deterrent that the bad guys will usually notice and avoid you. They are continually sizing up their victims wherever they are and will notice those who are aware.
(6) Concealed carry: Do all the above and also learn to carry reasonably well, which takes a few years of practice IMO.
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If self-defense is the main objective I think learning how to use a weapon would be a way more efficient use of your time as well as just more effective. It takes about 1-2 years of training about 3 times a week in BJJ (which gets you from white to blue belt) before you can be confident that you'll be able to get through an one on one unarmed altercation with the average person on the street. All those self-defense seminars are giving false confidence to people who think they are going to be ready to defend themselves after a one day 3 hour session; you need to be training regularly to be have any hope of being able to pull techniques off during an attack. Also note when I say "get through" an altercation I'm not talking about necessarily beating up the guy like you would beat a guy in a MMA or boxing match by either knocking the guy out or choking him unconscious. I'm talking about surviving without getting hurt.
Learning how to use a weapon on the other hand isn't going to require that level of commitment. A gun can defeat most people in the world including world class fighters and martial artists. There was a famous cause a few years ago where a top tier BJJ competitor named Leonardo Lo was shot dead at a nightclub without any chance to ever use his BJJ against the shooter. Another famous cause I can think of the top of my head was this good K-1 kickboxer named Andy Hug who was shot dead while trying to stop a guy from stealing his car.
Learning how to use a weapon on the other hand isn't going to require that level of commitment. A gun can defeat most people in the world including world class fighters and martial artists. There was a famous cause a few years ago where a top tier BJJ competitor named Leonardo Lo was shot dead at a nightclub without any chance to ever use his BJJ against the shooter. Another famous cause I can think of the top of my head was this good K-1 kickboxer named Andy Hug who was shot dead while trying to stop a guy from stealing his car.
I believe Andy Hug had Leukemia that got him around 25 years ago..
^ You are correct - I mixed kickboxers up. I was thinking of the incident I linked to below. Also it was a hit and run road rage incident rather then a car jacking that led to the fighter being shot dead so looks like my memory was hazy.
www.sfgate.com
Fender-bender hit-run turns fatal in S.F. / Kickbox champ chases down driver, winds up shot to death
Fender-bender hit-run turns fatal in S.F. / Kickbox champ chases down driver, winds up...
www.sfgate.com
Not a big fan of the "get in shape" goal. If you're 400 pounds or in your 50s with grandchildren, maybe. Otherwise, your goal should be to become an elite athlete or elite lifter.
I personally believe intimidation factor is going to do wonders for any man. Even if you have a goofy face, you want size and tone. That alone is going to prevent a lot of fights and disrespect. Therefore, bodybuilding is a main priority. Then if you want to take it up a notch you train boxing or a combat sport of your choice. That's to be able to punch, weave, etc. You can go in the wrestling/grappling direction if you fancy humiliating opponents. It's not rocket science.
As far as avoiding street fights, that really depends on the context. Just like the intimidation factor, you want confidence. You want to be able to engage in a confrontation with other men. This is a general beneficial skill. You're training to be able to do this. So no, you're not going to be "fleeing" all acts of male aggression.
What you're actually going to be avoiding is sketchy situations just like everyone else, like sketchy subhumans materializing when you have your guard down, loading up the groceries or something. If you're not sure, you flee or deescalate. This is worth mentioning because there's too much "avoidance" being promoted, just like "gun safety". When you're starting something there's a dopamine-deficit period. What that means is you'll be training, or doing whatever, but you won't be feeling all that great about it. Eventually you will get a little natural high from your activities. Starting out, last thing you need is these "pragmatics" telling you how you should never fight anyone ever and being a buzz kill. You need motivation to push through.
I personally believe intimidation factor is going to do wonders for any man. Even if you have a goofy face, you want size and tone. That alone is going to prevent a lot of fights and disrespect. Therefore, bodybuilding is a main priority. Then if you want to take it up a notch you train boxing or a combat sport of your choice. That's to be able to punch, weave, etc. You can go in the wrestling/grappling direction if you fancy humiliating opponents. It's not rocket science.
As far as avoiding street fights, that really depends on the context. Just like the intimidation factor, you want confidence. You want to be able to engage in a confrontation with other men. This is a general beneficial skill. You're training to be able to do this. So no, you're not going to be "fleeing" all acts of male aggression.
What you're actually going to be avoiding is sketchy situations just like everyone else, like sketchy subhumans materializing when you have your guard down, loading up the groceries or something. If you're not sure, you flee or deescalate. This is worth mentioning because there's too much "avoidance" being promoted, just like "gun safety". When you're starting something there's a dopamine-deficit period. What that means is you'll be training, or doing whatever, but you won't be feeling all that great about it. Eventually you will get a little natural high from your activities. Starting out, last thing you need is these "pragmatics" telling you how you should never fight anyone ever and being a buzz kill. You need motivation to push through.
I started doing BJJ well north of 40 and I really appreciated that it allowed me to give nearly 100% (depending on the partner) without fear of injury, and just left me feeling a bit stiff and sore the next day.
I don't have a ton of experience doing MMA, just some dabbling in this and that over the decades, but the commentators on Youtube channels seem to indicate that, actually, doing BJJ over time leads to more injuries than striking. Of course it all boils down to what kind of gym you're going to, how competitive people are, etc.
I'd think that with striking the main thing you have to watch out for is head trauma (which we learned in past decades is somewhat cumulative). With BJJ people are twisting and cranking your limbs all the time. And as people point out in comments, an injured dude is generally much less able to defend himself and stay in shape.
I watched a bunch of Hard 2 Hurt, Sensei Seth (fun sumo videos!), Armchair Violence, and Jesse Enkamp.
Those are some sobering stories about pro fighters taking the lead pill.