Good Fighter or Good Self Defence?

[N.B]

Most traditional martial arts include forms and self defence techniques. People who study MMA's seem to (excuse me for steriotyping here) look down upon such practice since it doesn't seem to grant any benefits in terms of learning to fight.

I learn martial arts for fun and fitness but there is an element of me learning self defence for myself. My instructor always says "we're learning how to defend ourselves, not to fight".

Which is more important, being good at fighting or being good at self defence? Would martial artists be better off learning how to hit harder, better, faster and stronger, pummeling punch bags all day and kicking targets, or should we be concentrating on our one step sparring and our wrist escapes and combat avoidance. Do you consider fighting and self defence one in the same?

I suppose another way to view this question is: Who has a better approach to self defence TMA's or MMA's?

[SirokiFighter]

doesnt really matter. in most martial arts schools both are done. there is one step sparring, and forms. and hitting focus mitts,and heavy bags.

i consider fighting and self defense to be the same , but im a simple person.

both tma and mma have good approaches.

[john55]

Originally Posted by N.B

I suppose another way to view this question is: Who has a better approach to self defence TMA's or MMA's?

Well if you put the best TMA guys against the best MMA guys, do you think the TMA guys could defend themselves in the fight and win? Will one steps, wrist escapes and combat avoidance help the TMA guys against the MMA guys? Who do you think is better at self defense? Would you rather face an average TMA guy or an average MMA guy? I think the answer to your question is the answer to what you are asking.

Better yet, go to a TMA school and ask to spar a guy, attack them, and see what happens. Then go to an MMA, ask to spar, go to attack the guy and see what happens.

[SirokiFighter]

Originally Posted by john55

Would you rather face an average TMA guy or an average MMA guy?

interesting question. the only thing most mma guys really have on most tma guys is that they are familliar with grappling, and usually more muscular.

[Them's Fighting Words]

Wow, now that question is probably going to get all the MMA vs TNA guys out and gunning for each other :-)
Both MMA and TNA have strong points when it comes to real self-defence.
MMA tends to condition you mentally and physically to actually engage in a real physical confrontation. There is no place to hide in MMA. Unfortunately most MMA is sports oriented and if you have watched any recent UFC you'll realise that a lot of the rules (such as no elbows to the back of the head even when some guy is about to trackle your legs and is clearly presenting a valid target)are counter productive to real life self defence. Also many MMA fighters have been mentally conditioned to take a hit and then retaliate which is really unfortunate when someone knifes you.
TNA was originally designed for combat and a good style will train self defence as a key componant. However many TNA's have become highly commercialised, focusing on competitions and creating a "fun environment" which makes it hard to find a TNA with good self-defence.
Personally I prefer TNA's but then again my experience may differ from some. My first instructor was a WWII veteran who taught me traditional Kali knife fighting. I've also done traditional Muay Thai (where you could elbow people in the back of the head)and Silat (where we sparred with weapons and learnt to safety fall on concrete).
Now I'm just gonna sit here and wait for the MMA vs TNA crowd to show up.

[john55]

Originally Posted by Them's Fighting Words

Unfortunately most MMA is sports oriented and if you have watched any recent UFC you'll realise that a lot of the rules (such as no elbows to the back of the head even when some guy is about to trackle your legs and is clearly presenting a valid target)are counter productive to real life self defence.

FYI - its TMA. Not TNA.

Also, elbowing a guy in the head is very difficult to pull off on the takedown and is a bad defense because even if you land it, you are still getting taken down and have only probably made your attacker more angry and increased their adrenaline. Best defense against a takedown is to sprawl.

[Gambatte Karate]

Originally Posted by john55

Well if you put the best TMA guys against the best MMA guys, do you think the TMA guys could defend themselves in the fight and win?

This all depends on the individuals perspective. When I'm FORCED to fight, my goal is to ESCAPE the situation, not to kill the other person. The was something I learned when I first went to a grappling class at Gracie Tampa. (even though I don't train with them now) When my goal was to simply escape and get up, I could do so easily. When my goal was to try to make the other guy submit, I had issues.

Originally Posted by john55

Will one steps, wrist escapes and combat avoidance help the TMA guys against the MMA guys?

Possibly. You can'tdeny that wrist escapes work. They absolutely do work. Whats more, is they work against MOST people. But I guess a more appropriate question is, would an MMA person actually be grabbing someone's wrist while still standing? Not likely.

Originally Posted by john55

Who do you think is better at self defense?

This depends on the individual situation. Every fight demands something different. Are there more than one attacker or just one?

Originally Posted by john55

Would you rather face an average TMA guy or an average MMA guy?

Neither.

Originally Posted by john55

Better yet, go to a TMA school and ask to spar a guy, attack them, and see what happens. Then go to an MMA, ask to spar, go to attack the guy and see what happens.

This actually proves absolutely nothing. I've been in numerous fights. REAL fights, not just sparring. None of them were like a sparring match aside from the fact that they all had punches thrown. Further, none of my real fights ended up on the ground except for one. In that one, there were about 7-8 guys on me, and 3 guys and a girl fighting my wife. I still ended up "winning" this fight because of my goal. my goal was to survive and walk away unscathed. When it was all over, I did just that. The primary agressor couldn't say the same thing. His black eyes, bleeding nose and broken fingers kinda hurt him I think. His buddy's didn't want any more of the fight after thay heard him screaming in pain I guess. IDK....In the end, the reality is that I LOST this fight even though I attained my goal and prevented him from achieving his. It was a fight, and I allowed it to happen.

[WC_Lun]

NB, I don't think its an either/or thing. Training realistally for self defense means increasing your physical attributes as well as understanding of fighting. You cannot do that without some of the things you attribute to MMA training. On the other side of it, MMA is not training for street self defense. If you are training for MMA, you are training for a sport and that even though is very rough, does have a rule set and safety percautions in place. When you train for that rule set, you train your reactions to be within that rule set.

In the end, it depends upon what you want out of your training. Most schools do not train effective or effecient self-defense, but many have postives other than that. Most people train for those other reasons, even if they have trouble admitting that.

As for the training for self-defense, not to fight, I think maybe his words might be misconstrued by some people. In my opinion, what he means is he is not teaching his students to go out looking for trouble and figthing. He is teaching his students to avoid trouble and fight only to defend themselves and as a last resort.

Sparring and street self defense are not the same. You can spar peole and have a good 'fight' but then those same people will react a bit differently when in a self-defense situation. It is not the same game when the pads come off, the referee disapears, the respect for each other goes away, anything at all is fair play, and your health and possibly your life are on the line. People who have problems understanding that are just as guilty of living in a fantasy world as those that think the martial arts they learned watching anime on TV will be effective.

[Draven]

Originally Posted by john55

Well if you put the best TMA guys against the best MMA guys, do you think the TMA guys could defend themselves in the fight and win?

Depending on the situation the answer could go either way. Assuming a true anything goes all streetfight, I'll go with the MMA guy. Unless we are talking a truly traditional martial art, in which case I'll throw out a 50/50 chance either way.

Originally Posted by john55

Will one steps, wrist escapes and combat avoidance help the TMA guys against the MMA guys?

Well thats an unfair question; combat avoidance is there for the purposes of self-defence as a way of limiting the need to use force. I'll get into more on that later. Now would wrist escapes and one steps help in terms of having a resisting opponent, no. Do one steps work in terms of mentally simulating a situation where deadly force is applied and thus mentally prepare the student to that end; yes.

The question is are those one steps being taught as such? Since most karate schools cater to children no they do not. More so, since a great many instructors recieved "kid friendly" training they were not taught the whys only the hows and as such preform the actions as going through the motions.

Originally Posted by john55

Who do you think is better at self defense?

If we talking truly old school TMAs I'll give it to them, if we are talking truly traditional karate I'll give them the self defense medal. Bear in mind however that is based off the true tradition of the art. In that case fighting skill is only part of purpose, survival was the goal.

You have Budo (philosophically based systems, literally martial ways) these include Karate-do, judo and aikido. Then you have bujutsu (literally martial arts), of the more combat focused systems kata were few, 1 step where used to similate killing strikes (lethal strikes) and there where no randori or kumite but they had shinai tounaments which where actual combat. In that origional context only would I give a TMA the advantage,

Originally Posted by john55

Would you rather face an average TMA guy or an average MMA guy?

Depends the average TMA guy is practicing some kind of new age martial art and claiming a traditional heritage which frankly doesn't exist. Its much like neo-paganism claiming to go back 3,000 years and it having been invented by a hippy in the 60s who read about what some pagan did way back when.

Some taught fighting skills based on actual combat would of course dominate a fight. But, realistically speaking since most neo-TMA guys train limited to sport application of point sparring. I'll take the MMA guy, the average neo-TMA would taking candy from a baby lol...


All that said, when your talking TMA you need to clearify if your talking neo-TMA or true TMA. Otherwise, we may well be arguing of what TMA means for a few hundred postings lol...

[N.B]

The question kinda came along from a different Tang Soo Do schools I've recently trained with.

The first is my current school, the instructor puts us though a lot of exercises like having a partner straddle you while you're lying on your back (who's laughing at the back), and your opponent gives you a set number of punches (wearing focus mitts and not at full force, but enough to knock you around a bit) while you try and protect yourself as much as you can before responding in turn with the same number of punches, taking it it turns.
Also exercises where a number of people have to surround you and you have to try and get away from them as much as possible (which is tough in a little room), and exercises where you're trying to stop an attacker getting to someone behind you, trying to break out of people surrounding you. As well as a lot on emphasis on knife defence, bottle defence, pool cue defence etc. We don't do much sparring because while the instructor says it's a part of TSD he doesn't feel he's good enough at to teach us properly, and we do have access to another class which is very devoted to sparring.
Anyway, the other TSD class I visited recently was run by a different group (I was going there because I needed to find a class to continue learning at while I'm at home for the holidays), and this group did pretty much just sparring. For alomost the whole lesson every single lesson we'd either be punching pads or punching each other. When asked by another one of the students what my uni classes were like I told him and he said something along the lines of: "I don't understand why some classes put their students though all these senarios, all you've got to do every single time someone's in your face is keep punching them really hard until they fall down, that's what the sparring is for".

I just started wondering how much good all the senario training is actually doing (although it's also used as a fun way to end the lesson/get us tired), or whether I should just stick to hitting others in sparring.

Although, I have left that second group since then, since they just did sparring all the time, hardly any forms, self defence, kicking drills, one step or even much of a warm up and strech! I must have done a collective 30 minutes of all those things during the five or so lessons I went to. Also sparring was a bit odd to me. I've always ben taught not to go at full power at any time, but these guys had no problem in knocking me about at full force even though they were all much bigger than me. As well as the fact that punches to the head weren't allowed, which confused me a bit.
Maybe I've just had a grudge against sparring ever since?

[WC_Lun]

As I said earlier, sparring isn't self-defense. It IS a tool to help learn. Sparring without head contact isn't much of anything other than a way to train really bad habits. Personally, I feel you do have to have some full contact training or you will not be able to function if you get someone really trying to take off your head.

[Them's Fighting Words]

[quote=john55;87404]FYI - its TMA. Not TNA.

(Hangs head in shame. Yeah I was using my spell check and it made a typo. TNA is a wrestling site I used to go to.
Be assured I will now place TMA in my spell check.

[Them's Fighting Words]

Also, elbowing a guy in the head is very difficult to pull off on the takedown and is a bad defense because even if you land it, you are still getting taken down and have only probably made your attacker more angry and increased their adrenaline. Best defense against a takedown is to sprawl.[/quote]

Yes and no. Depends on what you've been trained to do and how good your opponant is. I've always found it easy to land elbows on the back of people's heads (or more correctly on the joints connecting head to neck). Also the only reason these rules are made is because someone has obviously been successfully employing them and harming their opponants.

[Draven]

Here is the thing, you need both sparring and realistic drills to learn self-defense. Applying a technique against a resistong opponent is important but so is knowing de-escelation techniques and applied psychology.

Allot of those drills have to do with a form of mental conditioning (i.e. using repetion to program the execution of a technique under pressure), but for the most part thats a rarely executed intention of such drills. I think you need a good mix of both, so I'd take both classes if possible for you.

[nykaratelvr23]

Both are good styles and both have their ups and downs. MMA is good for one on one fighting while TMA is good for both one on one and group fighting. MMA has it's downs because it is a grappling art and if you are grappling one guy to the ground that leaves you open for an attack from another. TMA has it's downs also as it is a art that has a lot of stances and while you are on your feet you can still be injured. Basically they both are good and bad and it's a choice one must make. MMa or TMA. I personally choose TMA because grappling isn't really my thing and I've been around more TMA.