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[Hock]

“If it doesn't work against a completely resisting opponent, we don't train it!”

I am getting a little sick of hearing this unsophisticated remark. This one is so often the new catch-phrase of the youth who have little-to-no understanding as to what it fully means. For most, it is supposed to suggest RBSD-and that is-for you great unwashed…reality based,self defense.


Impressions
Generally, it is supposed to mean that the person/school is the latest, greatest, toughest , no-nonsense place where-if you are man enough-we will have you cage fighting. That is the subliminal, marketing impression isn’t it? The other marketing impression you get, is that everyone else…. isn’t. This is as much as to say, “Finally, we are here to save you.” (Granted, some of the world needs saving from a few lame systems.)

Second, just listen to the very term itself-Reality-based, Self Defense. Is there non-reality based defense?  Is this like saying…”we play baseball-baseball?” How very sad it has come to this double-dribble.

But what is the “it?”
“If it doesn't work against a completely resisting opponent, we don't train it!” At its core are very slippery semantics that can cover a lot of things. For example?  What is “it?” What is the "it" they talk about that must work against completely resisting opponents? Is "it" a series of steps? Is it just one BJJ move-wrestling "it" for 3 minutes to see if you can do “it?” One Thai kick? Two steps OK? What exactly is this "it?"

Hello?
Mature adults know that if “it” is a series of steps, and one of the first steps is a stunning blow? Hello good Karate! Good Aiki-Jitsu. Good Hapkido and hello to all the other good systems in the world. Sorry, you are not special. It is all supposed to work against a completely resisting person, once he is softened up with a few shots.

No Reality, Reality Drill
BUT, is “it” standing before another person with the sole mission of doing an arm bar hammerlock against a resisting opponent? The two of you grunt and groan. He fights the one move for a full two minutes and you give up and declare, “HA! This does not work against a fully resisting person. Therefore I declare it is no good!” When training with a partner in this “one-on-one” test, you cannot hit him hard enough to make everything work. Therefore, the so-called RBSD drill has …no reality in it. 

I have arrested hundreds of people and some have resisted. Some fought. Some have tried to flat-out kill me. In trying to contain/stop them, if I met resistance, I would crack them a few times. Apply as needed. I have broken ribs, noses, hands and a leg. Seemingly impossible grappling techniques magically start working.

(and I must add this right here-practicing to snare grappling moves out of Hubad patterns have greatly improved my savvy and skill to do these things in real life)


RBSD? RBSD is situational. (Now, there is your reality ad line.) In the real world of small conflict, that arm bar is used daily to escort criminals and prisoners, used to detain your drunk brother-in-law at a party, on and on and on. Sometimes you need stunners to make it work, sometimes you don’t. This standard macho, one-on-one/full resistance test (done by many old and new RBSD fighters by the way) simply does not stand a common sense look.

Now, I have explained this to some of these people, and they dance around it, stutter and say, “ahhhh…yeah…the stunning blows…ahh yeah, that’s when it works …ahhh. Against full resistance…ahh, that’s what we meant. Yeah, 'it' is a series of things.”

But I knew damn well they had never thought out their own ad line out. They just ripped it off from some other knucklehead that had never thought his out either. Then there are the people who hear my explanation and deny what I say. They are just stubborn, stupid, or immature in the ways of real-world fighting.

RBSD is situational, requiring lethal and less-than lethal responses with and against hands, sticks, knives and guns. Here is your ad line, Mr. RBSD.

Boxer? Kick Boxer? Cage Fighter? Martial artist? RBSD? Know what you are. Be what you are. When you tell people otherwise you are ignorant if you don’t know, and a liar if you do.

Hock

[misshinryu]

Hock,
I feel your passion on this subject and this is why I am here.

[evansbunch4]

Hock,

I agree with you totally. I spent a good part of my life and of my training listening  to people like the ones you describe rattle on.

[ghostrider]

A definite plus to what Hock has said! It is an answer to this modern day "age old" thing that has been said over and over until you just can't stand it anymore! Too many "reality-based" programs out there and just where were they 30 years ago? Hock you telling the truth about all of it. Seeking the truth in combat is a saying that we all need to take to heart. Just what is all this reality stuff anyway? It sounds good at first but later it becomes a "catch-all" phase to sell to the public.
Hock there is too much of this stuff out there when simply all anyone has to do is listen to you, use some common sense, and work out the rest to its fullest. I've known and have been training with Mark lynn for a number of years, which is how I got introduced to you and your methods Hock, and ever since the mid-1980's I have been heavily interested in hand to hand combat. I'm not too interested in style because I believe we end up making that our own method. I'm just interested in whether it works because if it works then I will use it.

[ExJKD]

Well, Hock don't bite my head off for this but...I do see a lot of value when smart people like Thornton talk about "pressure testing" their techniques.

The other side of this coin is a lot of "rbsd" guys that always have a designated loser.I like knowing what I can do when someone is not cooperating with me.
I am not saying you don't have a point cause you do.Yeah, you beat a guy silly
enough you can do an otherwise "not functional" move, but I want to know
I can deal with it if he resists and things go wrong,,and I have a back up plan
that comes not from any techniques, but by ability to deal with pressure..ehh...

doesnt this sound like thrive in chaos?

[lakerssportsfan]

This concept goes beyond just applying a lot of atemi before applying a lock or submission hold.

How many times have we seen in a self defense school or martial arts school where someone throws a punch or stabs with a knife and leaves the limb extended for the defender to throw a dozen stikes while the attacker remains motionless like a statue? 

You cant do this when someone is attacks realisticly with a knife or punches and many of the defenses taught in various schools fall apart.

[Nick Hughes]

ExJKD,

If I might add my two cents worth here with regards to pressure testing.

The problem I have with it is they're saying don't do any co-operative stuff at all...just go in against a resisting opponent from day one.  When you do that, without proper preparation, you end up with the sort of rubbish you see at a tough man competition.

Now, I agree, many McDojos get stuck in the co-operative phase for too long...heck, some of them get in it forever.  But to take a raw beginner and throw them in with pressure testing is asinine.  What if I took someone who didnt' know how to swim and used the pressure testing method?  Throw them in the deep end and watch them flounder?  Nope.  First I give them the skills they need, on the side of the pool, then I put them in the shallow end hanging on the side, then I stick them in the deep end, then I drown proof them.  Trying to short cut this tried and true method of training is asking for trouble.

So, in essence I think both sides are partially right.  Yes, pressure test, but after the skills have been taught.

N

[Hock]

Well, Hock don't bite my head off for this but...I do see a lot of value when smart people like Thornton talk about "pressure testing" their techniques.

Hmmm..lets see, that sounds like The Resistance Continuum, just a little term I started using about, oh...say 1990. Learning a skill from scratch starting from solo work, through skill drills (such as...gulp...Hubad) on up to combat scenarios where the resistance is increased.

Did I invent the idea? Of course not. Did Thorton? Absolutely not. Probably started officially in Egypt or thereabouts a few centuries ago.

What I am referring too is the first thread is the misconception that some systems are tougher and more macho, or smarter than others because they throw this term around…

“If it doesn't work against a completely resisting opponent, we don't train it!”

...around. Well, just reread the original post.

Also, the term fails to recognize the "Myth of the First Event." That everything must succeed against the first event of a fight, against a suped-up freak.

If the first event is a chair across the head? If the second event is a lamp across the head? The third event like "bouncer-walkways," or grappling restraints and handcuffing techniques, really don’t have to always work against a fully resisting person. In fact there are lists if survival tricks worthy of knowing that will not work against a fully resisting person.

Remember this. The best takedowns are when the guy is already falling from a vicious series of strikes. Anything else is less than perfect.

Is Thorton smart to pressure test? Sure he is. The world is full of smart people that agree to that, well before and well after Matt Thorton and the rest of us.


.I like knowing what I can do when someone is not cooperating with me.

Can you hook punch your training partner ten times a night, or foot stomp his ankle once a week? Not really huh. You can wrestle to your heart's content though huh? When you have that attitude of always training against uncooperation, about all you can do is wrestle. You wake up one moring two years from now and all you are is wrestler.

At some point you will figure out, that to see if things have a best chance of working? There needs to be a dash of acting in the training mix because you cannot really break your partner's nose every week. A trainer who is a good actor and reacts to what appears to be real strikes, gives a basis to calculate what real people do. That is what Model Mugging offers, and suit training like Belzer and Gold offer. Belzer is a fantastic actor and when he is suited up you get to kick him and belt him around and it it feels right, he reacts to them.

All of these aspects of training formats together creates the best results.

I say Resistance Continuum.
Matt says Pressure test.
Somebody else calls it something else.
and so on and so on and so on....

I am not going to bit you head off, nahhh.
But, whew! Man! Just get a grasp on the big picture!

Hock

[ExJKD]

What you said + what I said = the big picture.As Nin put it "both sides are partially right".And I am not trying to point out where "I" am right (even though
I always am-and in time the world will come to see this..heh ehe)..I am saying..

...oh...this is a double-edged sword, a two sided coin, yin and yang..take you pick of cliches.

[Hock]

What you said + what I said = the big picture.
As Nin put it "both sides are partially right".

Actually, I am fully right and you are only half right.
Hock

[lakerssportsfan]

If the first event is a chair across the head? If the second event is a lamp across the head? The third event like "bouncer-walkways," or grappling restraints and handcuffing techniques, really don’t have to always work against a fully resisting person. In fact there are lists if survival tricks worthy of knowing that will not work against a fully resisting person.

You seem to be focussed on handcuffing and takedowns and comealongs.  But we are talking beyond handcuffing or a control hold. We are talking surviving the initial onslaught or attack and using striking skills and such and being able to make them work against someone who is attacking chaotically and not in the perscribed manner.  You need to be able to make your strikes work against him and survive his onslaught. Are you going to be able to do it if you dont train enough against someone attacking you like this?  You may find a lot of what you thought you could make work you cant.

Remember this. The best takedowns are when the guy is already falling from a vicious series of strikes. Anything else is less than perfect.

There may not always be a chair or lamp handy and in reach when trouble goes down.  You may not always have a stick or knife or gun in your hand and it may not be appropriate to use it.

[lakerssportsfan]

The problem I have with it is they're saying don't do any co-operative stuff at all...just go in against a resisting opponent from day one.  When you do that, without proper preparation, you end up with the sort of rubbish you see at a tough man competition.

And I have seen martial artists who belabor the idea that it takes years and years of training to be able to defend yourself and when when you find out the hard way that the methods are ineffective, their instrutors retort that they have not been training long enough or hard enough because the samurais of old were able to make it all work.

And no one is saying you must go against a 100% resisting person from day one.  But many people dont go against them at all.

Or the teacher teaches "white belt" techniques that dont hold up.

[lakerssportsfan]

The problem I have with it is they're saying don't do any co-operative stuff at all...just go in against a resisting opponent from day one.  When you do that, without proper preparation, you end up with the sort of rubbish you see at a tough man competition.

Then you have the other extreme the systema people--a supposed russian martial art.

Their videos are unrealistic.The attackers are moving at half speed in a cooperative manner and throwing themselves. Their defenses could never work in real life. but if you point it out to them they dismiss it all as "training exercises." It doesnt matter that nothing theiy are training in would work against a resisting opponent who was attacking realistically.

[Hock]

If the first event is a chair across the head? If the second event is a lamp across the head? The third event like "bouncer-walkways," or grappling restraints and handcuffing techniques, really don’t have to always work against a fully resisting person. In fact there are lists if survival tricks worthy of knowing that will not work against a fully resisting person.

You seem to be focussed on handcuffing and takedowns and comealongs.  But we are talking beyond handcuffing or a control hold."

You know, bubba, You just try to do it all. You don't just do half. I am not focusing on the handcuffing. I am being thorough and explainin the other half.
 
<>You cannot dismiss tactics just because they don't seem to work against a fully resisting person. You cannot practice live bare-knuckle, hook punches three times a week, to see if a follow-up throw really works.

<> Let me repeat this again. I am being thorough. I am not focusing in on handcuffing and such.

<> You have to do both kinds of training. Let me repeat this again. You have to be thorough. Do both. Do both.

Do I need to say it again?  You have to try to have do both kinds as best you can.

Doing both kinds,
Hock

[Scott]

"You seem to be focussed on handcuffing and takedowns and comealongs.  But we are talking beyond handcuffing or a control hold."

I trained under Hock weekly for (how many?) years and this statement couldn’t be further from the truth.

The goal is to learn how to restrain, hurt, maim, or kill. Whatever it takes using whatever means. The ethics of the situation and the opponent dictates which. If the opponent is a drunken in-law who can hardly stand and getting pushy with grandpa, the situation dictates restraint. But what if he’s only half drunk and has a known history of violent aggression when he is, and is coming at me swinging a cue stick? Situations can be messy and not so neat. If I need to I should use a chair, a lamp, a beer bottle, etc, etc. to increase my advantage and bust up an aggressor. I shouldn’t limit anything in my environment as a usable defense weapon. Certainly, the last thing I’d want to do is limit myself to choreographed dojo systems. Everything is a tool, a chair, a lamp, a knife, a cue.... a technique. They are all best practiced in training.

We trained equally from police come-a-longs to stabbing the bad guy in the neck with a knife.