STAND UP STRIKERS (TKD, KARATE, MUAY THAI, ETC.): Do you fear GRAPPLERS?

[jon]

If you just study a fighting style that is just focused mostly on standup fighting like: Boxing, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, etc., does the idea of facing a skilled grappler in the street scare you?

Now, if you have some grappling knowledge with standup striking I understand it's not that big of a problem.

But, for all of those who's arts don't practice much groundgrappling or none at all, does that bother you?

Does the 90% of all real fights go to the ground make you afraid of the ground? Or do you think your standup striking skills only will result in the grappler KO'd?

 

[SeidhrofOrlog]

Martial artist train to fight in a safe gaurded environment with rules. Normally their training does not even spike their heart rate past 120 beats per minute.

In a real fight your heart rate can spike up to between 145 - 175 beats per minute. This is nearly paralyzing. It causes tunnel vission, lock up of minor muscle movements (something that most martial artists styles use for training) and severe confusion. It's like getting hit with a small weak tazer. The spike lasts about that long too (2-4 seconds), which is just long enough for the other guy to get the upper hand on you if you do not understand this concept and how to work with it. Fighters try to combat this by training with their heart rates between 115 to 145 beats per minute and learning a lot of major muscle defences and strikes.

Chances are your trying to think your way through the fight also since you never really fight. Once the spike goes away and your heart rate decreases to prime fighting state (115-145 beats per minute) the other guy is already on you beating you up. At that point the flight response usually kicks in and you try to figure out your way out of the situation. That is a no no.

In Ed Parker's system (designed by a street fighter for street fighting) he breaks down a fighters ability into 3 catigories
primitive - abrupt forced movements
mechanical - choppy movements that still require a lot of thought
Spontanious - movements that flow without thinking

And break down movements into three catigories
Angular, Circular and liniar

and breaks down power into three catagories
Torque, marriage of gravity and back up mass

and breaks down your opponent into three catagories
Hight, width and depth
And teaches you how to cancel out all three of these using leverage, rocking and technique

That being said much of the technique works even better on the ground because it adds leverage and strengthens everything else.

He also defines everything you do so that there is no "secret martial art mystery".

Thinking is the fighters enemy and can cost you the fight. Ninjistu teaches that focus will kill you in a fight. The break down of this is that the first thing you see is movement. The second thing you see is shape. The third thing you see is color. you should respond to movement and react to shape. If you see color then you have lost. This same concept applies to thinking in a fight. Thinking will cost you the fight and can even cause fear wich triggers the flight center of the brain and is anti-productive to fighting like trying to wear chains and weights in a fight. Just act and react is the only thing you can do in a real fight. We train to be able to fight without thinking. That is the whole point. Muscle memory ensures that we can perform the movements we need to perform by simply reacting in a fight.

This is where the street fighter has the advantage. He is not thinking because he doesn't train to have an arsonal of fight knowledge to try to choose from in a fight, he is just enraged acting and reacting. He is using mostly major muscle movements because he has not trained to use minor muscle movements. The drugs have shut down the part of his brain that tells him he is in danger and needs to get out of the situation so he is not fighting his fears and the hormonal response of the flight center of the brain. In a real fight these things can be the difference between life and death, not years of training in a style.

We train to fight like a brawler with the knowledge, skill and reflex of a trained fighter.

If a street fighter comes at you with blind rage you should respond with blind rage and your training should win out in the end.

"As is the attitude so should be the response" - Edmond Parker