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EZipperelli posted:How about a write up on Krav Maga. I've seriously been considering trying to find a training facility here in Gainesville, FL but have been unlucky so far. Doing a write up for Krav Maga has some unique challenges. Because it became trendy, a lot of places set up like a McDonald's franchise and the quality of training is about what you would expect. If you want to just hop in and start learning, most decent (and some bad) gyms will focus on three things with a beginner: 1. Combat conditioning 2. Mindset 3. Basic technique Go to a place and observe what happens. You can get all three of these out of a sub par gym, but you may find that you outgrow that gym as soon as you start getting some of the fundamentals. I would highly recommend finding a gym that is affiliated with some kind of MMA training; mine is a Bas Rutten affiliate. It would also be helpful to see how much hands on time the instructor gives each student and talk to the instructor about his other experience. Krav Maga is relatively new (compared to a lot of traditional MA's) and it's pretty common to have someone with a BJJ/Judo/Karate background. My instructor trained in BJJ and Judo before starting Krav. I would go sit in on a class, participate, if the first class feels an awful lot like boxing spending almost the entire time of working with you on fundamentals and all of the above I mentioned is true; it's probably going to be a good place to train at least for a year or so when you can re-evaluate the quality once you know more. edit to add: The three things I listed above our sort of a mantra for early krav students, but I just realized an outsider; with no context may not recognize what is meant by that. Combat Conditioning - basically an intense cross-fit regiment. You will do very intense work outs. None of my previous MA experience even compares to what we do in Krav as a warm up. For reference, I'm referring mostly to the warm ups from Karate and TKD. Mindset - This will be cultivated in the form of providing distractions. Flipping the lights on and off, blasting music, multiple attackers, breaking the rhythm of the class. Basically, prepare yourself for the distraction of the real world and focus on identifying and eliminating threats with all of that distraction going on. Basic Technique - This is the most obvious when written; but not so obvious in practice. At it's core, Krav Maga was developed by taking a lot of other combat and sport MA's and keeping what worked and ditching the rest...with mixed success. At the early stages of learning you're going to do a lot of theory work. You'll be practicing your foot work, throwing jabs and a lot of shadow boxing. You'll throw punches repeatedly and rapidly until you never want to throw a punch again. You'll focus on one, maybe two kicks, two punches and defending against punches with a style that looks very similar to boxing. Krav Maga (while not free of criticism) prides itself in the separation of sport application from reality. This means that as a new level 1 student you will spend a lot of time learning to defend against untrained attacks. Hay makers, big wide hooks, and of course chokes from all over the place. It's important to defend against trained and untrained attacks, it's a considerable amount of foundation and it's the number one reason I see new students leave. They want to be a totally loving badass IDF guy after two months, but they don't want to put the time in on learning the basics. I also forgot to mention; Krav Maga's focus is not ground fighting. However, even in a level one class, alarm bells should go off if you see zero grappling or ground fighting. Almost all street fights go to the ground and to not train in it is to disregard the basic tenant of what Krav Maga claims to be. Others with experience in identifying what makes a good Krav Maga school versus a McDojo Krav franchise, please correct or add to what I've posted. Winkle-Daddy fucked around with this message at 20:29 on May 3, 2011 |
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May 3, 2011 20:07
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CaptainScraps posted:At the very least, you want a Fit to Fight class at the gym. That certification states the instructor is a krav instructor certified to teach MMA techniques. Usually this is your introduction to sparring. I don't know how it works at other gyms but one of the guys at my gym used to fight competitively in MMA, so he brings in low level pros to come fight with us. Oh yeah, the option should be there to take a class dedicated to being fit. I was speaking very specifically that regardless of what else is available, you get a lot more out of your training if you had your rear end kicked in warm ups already. Pushing through that pain can be a powerful teaching tool when done right. CaptainScraps posted:I've also seen some gyms try and cultivate ferocity in low levels-- just being able to channel all that nervous energy. Lots of unrestrained striking. For sure; I just want to make sure (and I should have state this to begin with) that mindset does not mean any kind of mystic bullshido crap. It's a very real and tangible thing that is being trained. CaptainScraps posted:Generally you want to know what system they're affiliated with. Krav Maga Worldwide's pretty reputable. So is Bas Ruten's system. This is truth and should also be added to any evolving section on KM in the OP.
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May 3, 2011 20:54
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EZipperelli posted:Thanks for the info guys, I've only found one gym around Gainesville that teaches KM and the 'reviews' of it were not positive. If you want to take Krav Maga and it's the only place near you; they should let you go take a trial class. The review could go either way, the techniques may very well have been taught incorrectly but there is another possibility... On the internet you get all kinds of "mental black belts." We all know the type; the guy (or girl) who spends hours reading the theory, the history, so forth and so on and when they go in it's not what they expect it to be. They expected that they would be doing the techniques they saw some world class practitioner do on youtube. They have no grasp of anything fundamental and then have an over inflated sense of ego about what they should be learning; that they know better then the instructor. I'm not saying that's the case, but it's just a fact of the culture. Level 1 Krav in every place I've observed classes has spent a lot of time on a lot of cardio and a lot of very basic techniques repeatedly (combat conditioning and basic technique). Level 2 ramps up the intensity when it comes to the complexity of a technique. Though, by contrast to say Aikido, the complexity pales in comparison for most techniques (remember, Krav Maga was developed to be taught very quickly in a battlefield situation, so it simply cannot train techniques that take years to learn. Years to master yes, not years to learn). Because of this, I can totally see where a perfectly fine gym could get a bad review from an arm chair mental black belt. Go take a trial class, talk to the instructor, make sure they're affiliated with Krav Maga Worldwide. If the guy was right and the class seems impractical, all you've lost is an hour and a half or so of your time and you've learned more about what you're looking for. Ideally, if you can go observe a higher level class, do that first, then take a trial class with the level 1 group. If you see that fundamentals are being trained and you can see how they're expanded on this guy was full of poo poo. But it's the internet, so who knows.
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May 4, 2011 16:16
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Jesus Christ. Last night we had an unusually large number of people in class so we didn't have a lot of room for our normal jogging style warm ups (usually jogging in a circle, then some foot shuffling, lunges, bear crawling, sprint the straights, etc). What did we do instead? Jumping jacks, not my favorite, but whatever. Then we stood in place and were doing lunges...get into the lunge and hold for 60 seconds, then switch legs. Repeat several times. I've had sore muscles before, but I've never felt them feel like they're on fire like that. I was almost late to work today as I had a difficult time walking. Never thought I'd say I missed the typical jogging/running warm up.
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May 6, 2011 19:42
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CaptainScraps posted:Have you seen the 3 minute warmup? I've not done that one. We do the Bas Rutten 3 minute round warm ups every so often. Those are pretty hellish. It's 3 minutes of Bas yelling out numbers that correlate to doing a certain number of punches/knees/sprawls/push-ups/etc... They're a great work out, but man, I'm really starting to hate the sound of that man's voice. I imagine that's somewhat comparable.
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May 6, 2011 22:12
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Aikido + board breaking stuff... I'm glad to see some Aikido schools try to focus more on striking. I was an Aikido student for a few years and when I started my instructor took on students a few at a time in a tiny little studio space. He had a regular day job and did his training at night. He wouldn't take on any student that had anything less then a brown belt or equivalent in a striking martial art as he sincerely believed that Aikido should be trained exclusively as a finishing art. He himself held a 6th dan in kempo karate and a 4th dan in Aikido. I left after a few years when he started taking on students that didn't have this prior skill set for whatever reason. The quality of training tanked the moment untrained attackers were introduced. The weirdest thing was that with his skill set I really expected him to train attacks for new students.  For quite a while before he started taking on new students, I assumed all Aikido schools worked this way and had a hard time understanding the hate for Aikido. In my mind it was an art to train you in additional control beyond what Karate/TKD/other MA had to offer to be used in a fight when you're able to and not as the most primary defense. Through blind dumb luck I've had good experiences with martial arts that others (especially in these threads) have not.
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May 6, 2011 23:56
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It really inspires confidence when I have a question and instead of making up some bullshit answer the instructor says "Hey man, let me talk to some people about it and get back to you next class!" In my old karate days the instructor had sort of a case of "I'm the instructor, I know what's best and I don't care what you were told at this seminar by this guy that outranks me by a whole bunch. It's probably because it's a different flavor of Karate, and not what I teach, so when you're here, you do it my way. Period." Some of the TMAs seem to have a complex around tradition over practicality and there is no way to get an honest answer beyond "because I said so." One of the many reasons I don't go there anymore!
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May 11, 2011 19:42
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Bohemian Nights posted:...those that didn't get thrown out for having violent assault on their records (cops called my instructor exactly one day after they'd been to their first training. I guess someone was under surveillance!... Okay, so kind of off topic but I have to ask...is it law or policy that people with assault on their record can't train? I mean, I think it's a loving great idea that if someone is the kind of guy who's always looking for a fight and is a violent individual, the last thing you want to do is improve their skill set...I've just never heard of this before.
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May 12, 2011 01:07
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So, last night we did something the instructor referred to as "stress inoculation." We broke up into groups of five. The person in the middle was standing in a neutral position blindfolded and music was blasting. The idea was to deprive you of two of the senses you rely on in a 'violent encounter' in order to understand how quickly technique can go out the window. The people around you would choke you from any direction (but only one at a time). I thought this was a great demonstration of what happens when your higher brain functions say "gently caress this!" and bail on you. When I started writing this post I was going to ask a question, but I watched a clip from the daily show in the middle and have now forgotten it. So uh...do you guys have any other fun/unique/clever ideas for training in situations where your executive brain functions are fleeting, at best?
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Jun 10, 2011 20:20
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Bohemian Nights posted:Invent a new type of sensory deprivation tank, where you're just relaxing and having a good time, and then out of nowhere a dude just comes out of nowhere and starts loving wailing on you. I can't decide if that would be badass or terrible. I've often thought it would be cool to have a martial art where one of the higher level tests would be something like you're getting into your car after work and a paneled van pulls up and a couple of people get out with masks on and attempt to kidnap you. I know this is an insanely stupid/dangerous thing to do, but that doesn't stop me from day dreaming. You would also have to swear anyone who's gone through this test to secrecy under penalty of a severe beating or something.
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Jun 10, 2011 20:59
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Senor P. posted:Terrible terrible idea. I tried to have sex in the back seat of a coup once; I can't imagine trying to make enough room to fight in one! 
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Jun 10, 2011 22:06
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CaptainScraps posted:Unfortunately this would have the problem of severely wrecking the people trying to kidnap you if you were successful. Well yeah, thinking something is awesome is not the same as thinking it's a good idea. 
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Jun 10, 2011 23:37
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edit: ^^^ Also see if they do any sparring or if their art is too "dangerous" to risk any sparring! I'm stoked, my brother is in town for a week so I'm pulling him out to Krav tonight. He's a boxer and trains with some MMA guys down in Eugene Oregon where he goes to school. Any suggestions on maximizing loving with him? By "gently caress with him" I mean do some things that are so far outside his realm of experience that he will be doing a  Some ideas I've had so far are: - Anything with several attackers. - Gun take-away. - Knife take-away. - Some ground fighting. Any other suggestions?
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Jun 14, 2011 15:32
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Ligur posted:A couple of drills I "love" is the one where you fight against two assailants, both of whom are directly to your left and right. They take random turns in charging you trying to get shots in, which you can't see at all really unless you drop your head and look down (which makes peripheral vision magic). Gonna do a lot of this. Right now. Thanks!
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Jun 15, 2011 02:47
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Alright! So, thanks for the suggestions for last night everyone! My brother was sufficiently As I said, he's an MMA/boxing guy. On our way in I let him know that the warm ups "may" be a bit brutal but push through it. He told me not to worry about it that his warm up for boxing is to jog for ten miles. After ten minutes of a cross-fit style regiment for warm ups he was on his knees gasping for air. It was loving beautiful! I let the instructor know I had some ideas for what we could do last night, and offered up a couple of suggestions based on feedback here. This is what we ended up doing for maximum awesome: - 3 strike combo. A jab, a cross, then a bursting right punch. Though what was loving with him was the fact that the instructor kept yelling at him to keep all ten toes forward; something you don't really do against a single opponent. When my brother tried to explain the merits of having his right foot back and angled about 45 degrees he was shown exactly how easy it was to collect his legs and throw him to the ground. My brother his 6'2", 210. My instructor is probably 5'6" and 155. It was hilarious. - Groin kicks. All I can say about this is a quote from my bro "Goddamn, why you gotta learn to fight so dirty?" - Choke from behind with the choker slamming you up against a wall. This one was sort of meh for a non-krav person as it was too hard for him to grasp the basic concepts for it to really gently caress with him. - Stress inoculation. There were probably 20 of us in class. Each person got a kick shield except the one guy in the middle on his back. Music blasting and a swarm of people descend on the guy in the middle and attempt to hold him down for as long as possible. This was the greatest amount of loving as possible. Long story short: It was a loving awesome work out and it was great seeing someone with 3+ years of boxing under their belt with a healthy amount of MMA sparring get their rear end totally beat to poo poo with what are some level 1 simple drills. Though, I fear next time I'm visiting him, I'll be forced to step into the ring, which I am quite honestly not very equipped for!
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Jun 15, 2011 16:06
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niethan posted:Can you elaborate on this please? A lot of tournament martial arts have you bladed off to your opponent because you know you will be facing a single opponent in a tournament style fight. Having one foot forward and another off to an angle is a very strong position to be when facing a single attacker in that kind of situation. However, once unorthodoxed attacks are brought into the mix (such as a boxer against a wrestler/bjj guy) you have to pay more attention to how your feet/legs can be collected. When you create that angle you can think of your two feet as the legs of a tripod with an invisible third leg that *should* basically be coming out of your rear end to be that third leg. In the absence of that leg, collecting someone and going in that direction will be a much easier take down then someone with feet forward that can more easily shuffle back and out of the way to reduce the purchase. It's sort of hard to explain in words. I'll see if I can't find a video explanation that demonstrates this better. Also, boxers don't need their feet forward ready to kick. But for a general martial artist your right leg is generally your strongest weapon. In a frantic situation you can lose a lot of power by having to rotate your hip to get a kick out. A lot of fighters are doing a more round-house kick which is fine if it's off to an angle but in my experience it's much easier to have all ten toes forward and switch to a round-house then it is to be at an angle and switch to a front. But from a defense standpoint that's more of a side tangent that is more a "general truth" and certainly not true of those who train to be strong kickers. niethan posted:Oh also another thing you're coming off as really smug and "krav is so badass", but truth is any sport will kick your rear end the first time you do it. He'd probably be pretty beat up after warmup drills for cricket. Heh, sorry about that, I don't mean to be a smug rear end in a top hat and certainly don't think that at all! My brother is a dick head that is under the impression that the fights that go on in a frat house because some dude hosed another dude's girl are the only kind of fights there are in the world; so why would anyone for any reason ever want to even think about fighting dirty? If there is any smug, it's directed exclusively at my brother for his inability to see beyond a contrived scenario. I know goddamn well that most martial arts have their place with different ideas and goals. And most people are capable of respecting that and entering into a new arena with a sense of humility about learning something new. I, myself have done enough martial arts that I would feel like a total loving jackass to even infer that one is objectively much better then another. I should have put in a little more back story so I didn't come off that way. So for that I do apologize!
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Jun 15, 2011 16:56
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Edit: Ligur - I suggested it to the instructor! But I liked some of his ideas too, and you know...he was running the class and all. Don't worry, next time he's up, I'll make sure we do it before/after class.niethan posted:That'd be cool, cause I can't really picture it. Finding a video for exactly what I'm trying to show has proven fruitless so far. But I'll take a crack at an attempt for better explanation. niethan posted:I assume you mean single/double leg takedowns when you talk about picking up legs? Correct. Picture a boxer standing in front of his opponent with his left foot pointed forward and his right foot off to an angle for those super strong right punches being driven by a rotation of the right foot. Now, picture a second opponent who is parallel to the angle of the boxers right foot. Imagine this second opponent drives in low and strong, collecting the legs (either picking them up as you said) or simply driving force at a downward angle. The angle of attack for this motion should be about a foot to a foot and a half behind where the angles of the boxers feet would converge. The situation gets much worse if the second attacker is behind the boxer (I don't mean to pick on boxing, but it's an easily pictured stance). If that second attacker is perpendicular to the angle of the right foot it becomes much easier to collect the legs and take the opponent to the ground. My god, I'm explaining this horribly! Also remember that the reason krav students are taught this way is because there is no sport application of krav maga. The moment class is over and the Bas Rutten fight club starts and you're fighting a single opponent again the stance is much more sensible and more what everyone is used to. Maybe this will help more. Stand with both of your feet about shoulder width apart on the balls of your feet. Imagine someone pushes you from behind and you step forward with your left foot to catch yourself. At this point you should be quite lose with both knees bent. Your right heel should be off the ground with all ten toes pointed forward. Movement is all shuffling from here with no crossing hemispheres with your feet. This simply puts you in an easier to grasp position to defend yourself from multiple attackers. As someone who did various flavors of karate, tae kwan do and aikido before krav, the stance has been the most difficult thing for me to grasp and I still find myself constantly correcting myself which is probably why I'm having such a difficult time explaining it. niethan posted:How do you get power into your punches and kicks without rotating your hips? Maybeprobably im misunderstanding krav maga stance. Punches: You rotate your right foot some, just not as exaggerated as you would in other martial arts, but most of the power in this will come from rotating your hip and shoulders. Kicks: There are a couple of basic kicks that all work from this position. There is the groin kick which will be your right foot starting back behind you, being cocked by bringing your knee up, then leaning back (moving your chest to be more parallel to the ceiling) and snapping your foot out and back. The same basic mechanics apply no matter where the target is straight on. But in krav there are really only a few targets. Groin, stomach and that big rear end nerve on your thigh. For the nerve on the thigh, this is an overly complicated kick because of the stance you're in! You will start it like a front kick but then rotate your hips over so the power is actually a downward motion. The strike is going down as opposed to what most would picture a more roundhouse kick being; the angle of attack being moving in parallel to the floor. That's a lot of words, but maybe it'll help some. After I wrote all that, let me suggest watching the episode of "Human Weapon" about krav maga. the full episode is on YouTube. While they don't talk about a lot of this, if you're looking for it, you can see some of what I'm talking about pretty clearly throughout the episode. That will probably show it a lot better then I can type it! Winkle-Daddy fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jun 15, 2011 |
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Jun 15, 2011 17:49
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CaptainScraps posted:Ehhhhh...I'll fight you on this one. I don't think we disagree at all! The point about being more difficult was in comparison to what a lot of karate/tae kwan do people are used to. Basically, it's more difficult (not impossible, or even that hard, just simply "more" difficult) to throw kicks that rely on pivoting your left foot while swinging your right foot around. It's not "hard" it's just different. After several months of krav; I haven't been doing it that long at this point, I'm starting to understand the method to the madness of standing with toes pointed forward. I agree with everything you said! I would just say that it feels more "natural" when throwing a roundhouse style kick to have your right foot angled is all. At this point in my krav experience the closest we've even come to a roundhouse kick was the more complicated downward thigh busting kick I described above. I am compelled to admit that my legs are slow as poo poo compared to other people. My hand speed is and always has been pretty good, but I've never been very good at kicking well. Though, since we're talking about it I'm gonna hand my wife a pad and throw some of my karate kicks at her from a krav stance and see how it feels. I'm pretty ashamed of my slow foot speed so this is a good opportunity for me to really start working on one of my bigger weaknesses. I think as I continue to solidify my fundamentals with my hands I need to be more mindful about letting my legs fall too far behind technique wise. My wife yells at me a lot about practicing my kicks on my steel framed (but nicely padded) couch.
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Jun 15, 2011 19:54
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Illegal Username posted:Train MMA for the first time in months due to a broken knuckle. Ouch. Only strike soft targets with hard surfaces. Otherwise you violate my personal (personally stolen) first rule of a fight; all of my weapons, none of his. I love passing off common sense as if it's advice. Sucks about your knuckles! I've only ever broken toes in sparring and that sucked horribly; can't imagine knuckles. e: VVV my toe breakage was something similar. I was doing Shorin Ryu Karate at the time and tried to do a front kick to someone's thigh. He lifted his leg so his shin was where my target was; and I was retarded and didn't get my toes pulled back far enough. Got my last two toes going full force right into the shin. This split them apart at an angle that bones aren't meant to go. What was worse is my instructor at the time thought I probably just dislocated my toes and I should stop being a pussy and just let him yank them back into place. The doctor later told me I had a small hairline fracture that was made much bigger and worse by this. gently caress him. Winkle-Daddy fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jun 21, 2011 |
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Jun 21, 2011 19:21
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Illegal Username posted:
HAHAHAHAHA, you're my loving hero!
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Jun 21, 2011 19:43
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Speaking of silk pajamas, I want to start a martial art where this is the uniform: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3700264704/tt1559710 There's something inherently badass about the clergy kicking rear end.
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Jun 22, 2011 16:01
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showbiz_liz posted:stuff As others have said, just go for it. Getting into shape first was what kept me from going back for years. Once I just jumped in I noticed how quickly I adjusted to so much stress. The beginner classes in a lot of MA's I've taken expect nothing but a willingness to participate. Do not let increasing your "base fitness" become an excuse for not doing something great for yourself. A good instructor will know how hard they can push you. If you feel like you start getting off too easy, push yourself harder. You will be given allowances to always be pushing and improving yourself. DO IT!
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Jul 5, 2011 21:29
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Okay, so yesterday I was posting about just going to a class somewhere and do something if you're in shape. I forgot an important caveat to that. Make sure you're willing to put in the work to get into shape! Your instructor/coache/sensei have worked with enough people with enough different body shapes to know exactly how long it should take you showing up X number of days a week to start improving both your technique and physical shape. I only bring this up because last night there was an instance of my instructor calling out one of the girls in class. She's not in very good shape, she has piss poor technique and has been showing up for a couple of months now. He basically said to her: "I'm trying to figure out what the deal is? You've been here for a couple of months and I've yet to see you push yourself. You half rear end the warm ups and you do the bare minimum of any technique. You haven't improved hardly at all since you walked through that door and I think it comes back to your unwillingness to push yourself during warm ups. Push yourself harder. Are you a smoker? Never mind, I don't want the answer to that but if you are, quit. It's not working for you. Understand?" For some perspective it takes a lot of slacking to earn this level of scorn. While a lot of martial arts (especially competitive ones) this talk may happen a bit more regularly. However, with Krav Maga and schools associated with Krav Maga Worldwide the instructors have a high tolerance for slacking in level 1. They wont advance the student or ever put them up for a test, but they also usually wont say this unsolicited as it risks a payment every month. Krav Maga Worldwide on the sign-up side of things has a tendency to be run a bit like a franchise as opposed to a martial arts school. (One of the only real complaints I've had so far). I don't want to discourage someone who thinks they're out of shape from showing up. It's expected you will be, but it's also expected you will improve. If you don't, you're slacking and you will get called on it. End of Winkle-Daddy's brief PSA. E: VVV If they're not lying about the qualifications of their instructors you should be okay. Krav Maga is fairly new outside of Israel so it's not uncommon to see instructors that became instructors in 2004-2006.. The fact that these guys have been instructors for more then ten years now (since 1996) this has the potential to be a good place to train (this is one way to weed out McDojos that set up shop and fly away quickly; the people who do that are usually new instructors in a new location that bring in a lot of students very fast). I would go to the trial class and ensure that the fundamentals are being worked on and drilled hard. If that's at least being done once you get better and start branching out a little bit more you'll at least have a good foundation in a year or two to judge whether or not you need to find a better school. So long as you're drilling fundamentals, it's not wasted time, maybe just not entirely getting what you've paid for. Winkle-Daddy fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Jul 6, 2011 |
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Jul 6, 2011 15:56
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CaptainScraps posted:Yeah, I found this out too. I was up in Dallas for a few days and went to the krav worldwide gym there. It was the week before their belt test and the instructor was "going hard" on them to make them ready for the tests. In my experience those students don't get put up for test. Holy poo poo that's disheartening.  Perhaps it has to do with a lack of dedicated students and to keep the doors open they have to do something to help the students feel like they're moving on? I can't speak to the atmosphere of the place as I've never been there; but I can't think of a single time our warm ups were only ten minutes or particularly easy.That being said, a lot of the warm ups are as hard as you want them to be. For example, when we run circles, pretty much everyone busts their rear end to run as fast as they can as hard as they can. The student I referenced above will do a light jog for a few laps, then walk a few. I have a feeling that Krav Maga Worldwide works on a quantity of student versus quality of student type of system. I guess that has the opportunity of increased cash in to keep the doors open, but where I go, there are quite a few level 1's that have never been tested and probably never will. Testing is how our school gets those that are willing to work hard into classes with others who are as well.
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Jul 6, 2011 16:10
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Man, I feel like a part of my childhood was raped. Bloodsport has been on a local channel the last few days (Channel 2-2 "this" if you live in the Portland area). Since this was supposedly based on the true story of Frank Dux competing in the Kumite and winning, I decided to look up some more info on it. Turns out the whole thing was likely a fabrication. Now to the reason I posted. While looking up Frank Dux it looks like he started some kind of MMA/Ninjitsu school in California. Anyone been to this or know anything about it? Is his super-awesome-secret Ninjitsu school available only to "Exceptional Law Enforcement" and Intelligence Agency personnel as loving retarded and full of poo poo as I assume it is? I need to stop looking up the actual events based on a "true story." A while ago my brother who attends U of O had a speaker come in who claimed to be ex-CIA and the inspiration behind the movie "Taken." Turns out he did nothing he claimed and was also a total piece of poo poo.
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Jul 8, 2011 20:50
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Office Sheep posted:I'm going to call BJJ "Knave Wrestling" from now on because of plate 207. The counter to this is apparently kneeing the opponent in the balls. Like my Krav instructor always says (not hyperbole, every goddamn time we do groin kicks) "What's better then a groin kick? Two groin kicks!"
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Jul 12, 2011 17:05
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I was a lot more excited about the upcoming "Car Jacking" seminar at my Krav Maga school before I realized it was about how to defend against a car jacking.
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Jul 15, 2011 16:35
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zalmoxes posted:How do you defend against a car jacking. Don't cars usually get stolen while you're not near the car in the first place? I dunno, I haven't been to it yet. I assume it has to do with if you're stopped at a light, in a parking lot and starting your car or whatever and someone walks up with a knife/gun and demands the keys to your car. It sounds like fun, but I would gladly give away my piece of poo poo car and collect the insurance money. I would just beg the car jacker to total the poo poo wagon. The above scenarios do happen. It's also not super uncommon for road rage cases to escalate into violence. We had one of those in the Portland area only a few weeks ago. A guy gets pissed at another drive, followed him to his destination then tried to climb into the car and beat the poo poo out of the driver. The driver stabbed the guy and called the cops. As far as I know he wasn't charged as it was pretty clear he was defending himself.
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Jul 15, 2011 16:48
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HATE MONDAYS posted:krav maga is so retarded lmao. anyone who thinks they can stop a guy with a gun from carjacking them by using groin kicks and eye gouges deserves the brutal gun slaying they will be on the receiving end of Yup, when someone walks up to you in a car and presents a gun the best defense is a groin kick. Idiot. e: Less dick response more serious question. Are you saying that thefts never turn violent? Are you saying that groin kicks are ineffective self defense techniques? Also, you are the problem with civil discussions in this thread. "LOL at [insert MA here] I hope they get killed, lol." Winkle-Daddy fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jul 17, 2011 |
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Jul 17, 2011 18:39
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Hey there thread, long time, no post. After a very long while in Krav Maga I finally took my first test. I had heard you must be in very good physical condition to take them (I was in terrible physical condition when I started with KM) hence my waiting so long to test. I had no idea how intense it would be! I have taken tons of martial art tests in the past. Aikido, Tae Kwan Do and Karate...all for multiple levels. But I have never done anything like this. For anyone interested in KM, or who is taking it but has yet to take a test, this is how it went for the place I go (and I assume it's similar for most Krav Maga Worldwide places). You start out with a two hour "refresher" class that is designed to test your endurance, level of physical fitness and give you a chance to ask any questions you may have before the actual testing begins. Once this brutal two hour beat down is finished the test starts. You're broken out into two person groups, each person being matched with someone about the same size and weight so as to put everyone on as even ground as possible. The groups of two are lined up and a technique is called out. You perform this to the best of your ability with as much effort as you can muster. Once one of the three to five instructors has walked up and down the lines evaluating everyone, you switch and it's the other persons turn to perform. If you're not working hard enough you get someone up in your face telling you to work harder, push through, and just "loving do it!" The testing phase continues for two and a half hours for a total of a four and a half hour test. I also just found out that for each level you test for, you have to complete the previous level. I tested on Wednesday night. The people doing their second level test came back for another four and a half hours on Thursday. I guess this ensures no loss of technique (or validation of masochism). The test is structured in such a way to put your body under a tremendous amount of stress to evaluate how many of the techniques you have committed to your "mid-brain." Basically, if you should be on autopilot doing these things, very little thinking should be involved, merely reacting to the situation. While you must perform every tested technique with 100% effort and competence, a good portion of the test is trying to make you quit. If you quit, you automatically fail. I did not quit. I still hurt quite a lot. I would love to read stories of what testing is like in other Martial Arts. I also know there is a lot of apprehension on here regarding Krav Maga and am curious to know if this lines up with other's experiences regarding any testing they took doing Krav Maga. By contrast, when I took Karate, the first two ranks were simply achieved after class. When the instructor thought you were ready, he would simply call you up after class and give you a stripe. For your third green stripe, it would be a formal test. It was about two hours, but was mostly down time. One person would go up at a time and demonstrate the kata forms necessary to know for that testing. When you're not up demonstrating your kata you simply sit quietly waiting for your turn or everyone to finish. In retrospect, this is a terrible way to determine how effectively you would react in a violent encounter. When you have the energy to still think about what you're doing, it's a lot easier! P.S. I did not ever end up going to that car-jacking seminar at my KM place. I pretty much quit posting in here because I posted a really dick comment in regards to someone being a dick about that. I apologize for my previous reaction, I'll try to keep posting in here as I'd like to provide some perspective into a self defense system that a lot of guys in here who are more into competition fighting don't have a lot of exposure to.
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Sep 16, 2011 16:55
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niethan posted:You say you were doing that poo poo at 100% effort. I thought Krav included poo poo like eye gouges and ball kicks. How does that work at 100% effort. Those were not tested techniques, so I'm not sure how they're done in tests. The only stop-gap techniques we've really done are pushes to the throat, and those are practiced soft to the throat, then practiced hard with someone holding a tombstone kick shield against the chest/neck so that you can hit the same target area hard once you've found it. I would assume gouges are practiced similarly. You can combine target acquisition with pad work to determine ability to hit a small target along with ability to strike with enough force. Soft targets like eyes/throat/groin don't have to be hit very hard to be extremely effective. CaptainScraps posted:The invite-only black belt test used to involve real knives. Yes, really, they were that dumb. I too have heard of this, and at least three of the instructors have gone through the live blade test. I look forward to observing this someday if the practice is not discontinued by then. I believe all of our level 5/black belt tests are done in California; I think KMW requires a certain number of black belts to observe the test in order to be able to hold one. I'm not 100% sure on this and I may just be thinking of the KMW instructor certification. On a personal aside, my old Aikido school was one of the only ones I had ever heard of that did their black belt tests with live blade tanto and katana.
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Sep 16, 2011 17:15
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Omglosser posted:There's no way they go live blade at 100% effort. Someone will ALWAYS get cut. Always. I meant the 100% effort being on the test I was doing, as I can't speak for what I have not observed. I have never observed the live blade test, so I don't know if it's a pre-specified technique that is done (which could be reasonably done with near full force) or if it's a more dynamic sparring set up (which would be a terrible thing to attempt). Perhaps someone who has observed one will chime in? One of the instructors just graduated his black belt test about a month ago, so I'll be sure to ask him about it next week!
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Sep 16, 2011 17:52
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Omglosser posted:I am actually curious about that...I mean, even if the defending person is HIGHLY skilled, if the attacker is anywhere near their level, the defender will most likely get cut every time. Maybe not severely, but still cut. Else the attacker will. I'm not trying to poo poo on your stuff or anything I was just pointing that out. Knives are loving scary. I am not dismissing that at all. I was just saying I can sort of see it working out alright if you know what attack is coming, you have two choices: do the technique to defend or get out of the way. Whereas a sparring type situation it suddenly becomes extremely dumb instead of something that would be more for "show" then anything else. You would think in this modern age of technology we live in they would maybe use a shock blade instead of a live knife edge. I promise I'll ask next week and see what one of the people who have gone through it/observed it have to say about it! The old adage I learned in this very thread "the loser of a knife fight dies on the street, the winner dies on the operating table."
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Sep 16, 2011 18:19
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e: Another post popped up while writing this. By "you're" I am referring to Mechafunkzilla. Yeah, I was just guessing as I had never seen it. Sounds like from what CaptainScraps was saying it's closer to what you're saying, except a dull blade as opposed to plastic/wood. I have a feeling since a lot of KM is about harnessing adrenaline, it's a way to induce a controlled amount of adrenaline into a violent encounter that more closely mirrors what you'd potentially face in a situation no rational person ever wants to find themselves in...ever. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in any MA discipline that would suggest that you should try to defend yourself from a knife attack. This doesn't mean that it's not fun as hell to train with them. One of my favorite warm ups is one person has a plastic knife and the other just tries to keep from getting "cut" for 2 minute rounds. Winkle-Daddy fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Sep 16, 2011 |
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Sep 16, 2011 20:17
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NovemberMike posted:I remember reading an article by a semi-legit self-defense guy (ie. not somebody who teaches rape classes, somebody who spent a lot of time teaching prison guards) and he said that all of the knife defense stuff that's taught is worthless. IIRC his point was that knife defense generally teaches you to fight a defensive knife style that was developed for use with a knife against another weapon. People who are actually attacking an unarmed person with a knife tend to just do this weird aggressive attack. It's actually really amazing the ways a real life violent encounter differs from one that's controlled. The knife is an obvious example. One of our instructors is the captain of the local SWAT team and he has spent some time going over security footage of what kinds of untrained attacks you see on the street. As he slows the footage down, what you see is the aggressor who is under a lot of stress and attacking will not send straight punches down the middle. The attacker will usually throw wild haymaker attacks. They are terrible and untrained, but he emphasized that if you are not prepared and you take a clean hit from one, it's absolutely devastating. The most surprising thing though was that the attacker will usually not look at their target, they instinctively want to protect their face and as the attack swings wildly toward the target they turn their head away. The good news is, I've never seen a martial art that doesn't train you to defend against these attacks from very early on. It was one of the few bright spots in Aikido.
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Sep 16, 2011 20:26
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niethan posted:That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I hope they all died. The worst I've ever seen was I had a karate instructor who had you do finger tip strikes into buckets filled with different things. You start with sand, then rocks then glass (as you build up the callouses (read: scars) on your finger tips). His reasoning? "Someone told me once that's how they do it in Japan!" As I have yet to personally witness any live blade play, this reigns the stupidest thing I've personally witnessed.
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Sep 16, 2011 23:14
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I tried to find out more about the Krav Maga level 5 live blade portion of the test this week, but the instructor that just recently passed his level 5 went on vacation. We had a level 4 standing in for class. I did ask him and he basically conferred with what Captain Scraps had already posted, it's a dulled blade practicing specific techniques and not just an absurd sparring match. My wife is going back to school so I am changing up my training regiment to the following: Mon - KM L2 Tue - CrossFit Wed - Bas Rutten Fight Club Thur - CrossFit Fri - BEER NIGHT (or something, just not gonna work out) Sat - KM L2 Sun - Day of rest, if it's good enough for the lord, then I guess it can be good enough for me. I'm a little worried about burn out with this kind of schedule, but I recently started a super high stress new job (responsible for on-call resolution of system outages across more then 5,000 servers which provide services to more then 3 million customers...some of them generating several million a year in revenue...they hate down time). So I think I will need to occupy my off time and wear myself out enough to sleep with how stressed I'll be during the day. Anyone in a high stress position able to comment on a suggested schedule? Also, for the Bas Rutten fight club I need to get shin guards and a chest protector (already have headgear, mouth guard, cup and boxing gloves). Is there a good place online to pick up the chest protector and shin guards for some full contact sparring? They sell them through our pro-shop but I have a feeling the pro shop is super over priced.
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Sep 23, 2011 16:05
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CaptainScraps posted:Get the leather shin guards, not the foam they sometimes sell in pro shops. Those will gently caress up your shins. They have the leather stuff in the pro shop, it's all top notch gear, but it seems like I could find it cheaper elsewhere. I haven't looked at the shin guard prices but the chest protector was like $155, which seems pretty steep. And yeah, I am also looking forward to fighting. Our KM gym places a huge emphasis on competition fighting and physical fitness, more then any Karate/Tae Kwan Do/Aikido place I've ever been before. After I passed my test and had the results e-mailed to me there was a paragraph in there suggesting that any student who wishes to really progress should go to the fight club. There is no faster way to get better at foot work, speed, power or learning how to take a hit then negative reinforcement!
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Sep 23, 2011 16:39
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Hey guys I asked yesterday but didn't see a reply...I'm looking for a place to get cheap-ish sparring gear (or at least cheaper then the pro-shop where I train) and was wondering if anyone knows of any good online vendors. This afternoon I'm going to go check out places like Dick's Sporting Goods, and some other large places around here. Those are only slightly better priced then my pro-shop, though.
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Sep 24, 2011 17:38
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 20:16 |
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First off - thanks for the online retailer advice for gear I'll be starting doing some fighting here soon. I've yet to meet the coach/trainer guy but I've seen some of his fights on youtube. The guy is on the local SWAT team (captain if I'm not mistaken!) and had a few questions about what I'm seeing. Here are the two clips of his fights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVuqshj1bPU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhXVVHv06kM WARNING: TURN OFF YOUR AUDIO OR TURN IT REAL LOW. These are videos from people in the crowd with lots of screaming and such. Basically, this isn't boxing (they're kicking too!) and it's not MMA style as they're not wearing grappling gloves, they're wearing boxing gloves...so...what search terms could I use on youtube to find some more things like this? Also, how would I find out more about local fights like these if I wanted to go see some in person? What kind of training regiment would be suggested to begin preparing? My plan right now is to spend the next two months training and start throwing myself into the ring late December/early January. Advice?
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Sep 26, 2011 18:26
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