deadish said:
Your original post, talked about an alley fight. I'm saying alley fights don't have the same rules as MMA. Trying the same tactics might not be advisable. In fact, IMHO, the best thing to do is run. No matter how good you are, there is always a possibility you will lose - even to a "weaker" opponent.
This is completely true, especially the part about running away, even if you are using MMA techniques your tactics would be different (which I would have hoped I'd conveyed but apparently not) and in a streetfight you always assume their armed, so flight is your best option. If you HAVE to fight, pinning them to the ground and controlling their arms would be the best way to guarantee they don't stab you and you can also strike their face
From what I have seen of grappling arts like Brazilian Jutsu on TV, sometimes you end up at the bottom. There seem to be a lot of rolling on the ground involved and IMO you don't want that - rolling on to a piece of sharp rock = stab self in back.
Secondly, when people say you can' t see your opponent, I believe they are concerned with being able to see the opponent's hands at all times. If your opponent managed to grab a make-shift weapon (or simply pull a concealed knife) and you didn't notice ...
Its true you end up on the bottom if the other opponent knows grappling, but if they don't the odds of them being able to work the body mechanics are slim and as I tried to express, the goal is them not being able to grab a weapon, grappling isn't grappling if they can grab a weapon any more than striking is striking if you lower both hands to throw a punch, the end goal is that you are protected and they cannot attack you.
It all comes down to whether you should bother to grapple when you can just "sock it in" with strikes. The US military thinks "no" - or at least they used to 60 years back.
Most self defence agrees, so does MMA but it also believes grapples are useful if you're in that range and you are more skilled at it than your opponent. Saying you shouldn't bother to grapple is like saying you shouldn't bother to kick if you can punch; if it's there and it's more likely to work than your other options use it. If you aren't trained in grappling then don't attempt to learn it mid-combat.
As for attack to shins, you attack with your foot - with improved effectiveness if you are wearing hard combat boots. Why would you attack with your own shins and risk injuring them?
Because footwear not withstanding you have more chance of injuring your foot than you would your shin? I'm not sure where the belief the shin is a weakpoint comes from, it's the strongest weight-bearing bone in the body Citation is needed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinbone] but it's still pretty damn strong. If you're wearing great big boots you can hurt them but if you're going for that movement why not the knee which'd damage their joint and even their ability to stand? (and a retraction, the best way to attack a shin with a kick is a roundhouse that'd end with your shin hitting theirs, and counter-intuitively the best way to block a roundhouse is with your shin, if you wanted to use your heel or boot I... can't vouch for how effective it'd be, it might work hella well but I have no idea, I'm leaning towards it wouldn't because they'd likely move their leg but I can't prove it and haven't experienced it so don't want to speak with nothing to back it up)
I just telling you what I read. Going to the ground in "unregulated" situations, non-sport combat, seem like a very bad idea.
PS: BTW military CQC is designed to be easy to learn and execute. It has to be easy to learn because there are only so many hours in a day for training and soldiers got other shit to practice - also in times of war, you need to train them fast. Easy to execute, as instinctive as possible, because on the battlefield, your soldiers will be exhausted and will be very high strung, under such stressful conditions no one is going to be able to remember all the "do this, then do that". Speed of execution > being "clever".
This again comes down to training, I accept you can't see it being useful but grappling is a whole side of martial arts that is applicable and useful, going to ground being one part of that which contextually works in a given situation, but explicitly not just a sport's one. Obviously you don't just do it regardless of your surroundings, but that's true of all combat.
And for the PS, pretty much all self-defence martial arts follow that same pattern, the more instinctive a move the better, it's why they drill things over and over. There's a whole spiel I could write about the military and the martial arts like how Karate was originally a lot more like Kung Fu but got it's distinctive style because they simplified it down to work as a military exercise. The idea of MMA is you can perform the grapples under pressure in a given situation, like if he does X the next best move is Y, but if he anticipates it, move it into Z, that kind of thing, it isn't a calm observation like the way I wrote it it's the reflex of doing it over and over kicking in. It isn't meant to be clever, and CQC isn't intrinsically going to be all that different from any given martial art save in it's effectiveness and end goal (it'll be more effective than Karate, it's end goal isn't a KO but a KIA)
Trying not to get ranty, but I'm fairly sure the US Military's reasoning is justified but not universal. I still mostly agree but I'm holding my ground that there are scenarios in combat where taking it to the ground is worthwhile.
