[47MartialMan]

Originally Posted by The End

I respect you, but I am not sure that the whole competition to weed out the fakes theory holds much water. At least not in the sense of a style being practical. Since you don't train for self defense I will give you two examples of why I believe this one as far as practical self defense and one example for those who are competition minded.

When i went to NAGA this past April, one of my fellow students who was also competed was talking about his strategy he planned to use. His strategy, since he claimed he wasn't good at take downs was, pull guard and then try and sweep and get top position and hold it. Even if he couldn't get a tap, he figured he would win by points. That is exactly what he did, pulled guard, wasted half the match just holding the opponent in guard and then finally managing to get a "bumping roll-over sweep" where he just stayed in mount for the other half of the match. he did this in almost all his matches. Problem is, this is not practical. In the street, if you jumped guard on me, you would be rewarded for that mistake by having the back of your head permanently becoming a part of the sidewalk and as a parting gift, a good headbutt to your face. As far as the competition went, he was fighting in novice division so chances were 50/50 that either he had a superior knack for maintaining mount, or that his opponent had lousy mount escape defense technique. Either way, he went on to win second place. IMHO, it didn't prove anything except he was good at jumping guard and maintaining mount against other novices.

For an example of competition being a poor judge of the good from the bad, take a division of 8 white belts. Two of the fighters have been at it for almost three years and are very good, the remaining 6 are relatively new and have anywhere from 3 months to a year in. It is a single elimination match, the 2 best fighter are up first, one of the best beats the other of course, now he has nobody left to even offer him much of a challenge. he destroys all the others whereas the other top of the line guy was eliminated right away and therefore, doesn't place. How do you say "hey, the one guy rose to the top and fought like a spartan and has achieved a great victory and the guy who didn't place was a fake."
Tournaments can indeed prove some fighters but not always. They can be manipulated. In my first example, it was something I saw with my own eyes and the guy who placed didn't convince me of anything.

Hey. Dont talk about grappling. All of that stuff that works in competition, works in the street.