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The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

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Re: The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

#111

Post by dagw »

adamnemecek wrote: post #106
dagw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are the neck cranks, but that's got a fairly low chance of actually killing someone. There's the curb stomp, but that's hardly martial arts "move". I suppose a piledriver onto a hard surface could kill someone. Other than that there really aren't any moves I can think of that can realistically be considered lethal with any sort of consistency, despite the claims some less reputable martial arts sometimes make.…

Here's a couple of locations where to strike: * temple of the head (and the head in general minus the forehead) * "Rabbit punch" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_punch * Adam's apple (and throat in general) * solar plexus * heart (if you punch strong enough you will confuse the heart in a way where the single muscle fibers won't be contracting at once and thereby stop the blood circulation) https://en.wikipedia.o…

You're moving the goal posts, from "lethal" to "painful with a small outside chance of death or permanent injury". For the throat and solar plexus I can't even find any serious indication of them causing deaths in healthy individuals, and a strike to the heart is only really deadly for children and young teenagers. Hell all of those except the rabbit punch are perfectly legal in most full contact martial arts competition and hardly have a history of causing death or even serious injury. A solid Muay Thai kick to the head as a greater chance of killing than a strike to the solar plexus, and thousands of those land in sporting events every day without incident.

Yeah, it's not 100%

It's almost certainly not even 1%. If your martial art teaches that a move is "deadly" and the move isn't a blood choke, then they are almost certainly at the very least greatly exaggerating.

Re: The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

#112

Post by adamnemecek »

dagw wrote: post #111
adamnemecek wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a couple of locations where to strike: * temple of the head (and the head in general minus the forehead) * "Rabbit punch" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_punch * Adam's apple (and throat in general) * solar plexus * heart (if you punch strong enough you will confuse the heart in a way where the single muscle fibers won't be contracting at once and thereby stop the blood circulation) https://en.wikipedia.o…

You're moving the goal posts, from "lethal" to "painful with a small outside chance of death or permanent injury". For the throat and solar plexus I can't even find any serious indication of them causing deaths in healthy individuals, and a strike to the heart is only really deadly for children and young teenagers. Hell all of those except the rabbit punch are perfectly legal in most full contact martial arts competi…

> You're moving the goal posts, from "lethal" to "painful with a small outside chance of death or permanent injury".

I never moved a goal post. I still maintain that the chance of death is pretty large ~80% for some (it's pretty low for the heart).

> For the throat and solar plexus I can't even find any serious indication of them causing deaths in healthy individuals

You most definitely can kill people by punching them in the throat. Google around, the consensus seems to be clear. E.g. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/865277-overview

> Hell all of those except the rabbit punch are perfectly legal in most full contact martial arts competition and hardly have a history of causing death or even serious injury.

E.g. throat punches are considered fouls in UFC and K-1.

> It's almost certainly not even 1%. If your martial art teaches that a move is "deadly" and the move isn't a blood choke, then they are almost certainly at the very least greatly exaggerating.

Google around first.

Re: The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

#113

Post by mcv »

V-2 wrote: post #44
mcv wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done about one month of Pencak Silat many years ago, and in that month, I learned to attack the eyes (a whip with the fingers to cause pain or temporarily blind) and how to rip out a throat. It was obviously not done as sport. And yet this was also a fairly defensive style where every move started from a dodge and you never attacked with a fist. But it was a very aggressive defense.

The problem with "deadly" styles and moves is known as Kano paradox (after Jigoro Kano the judo founder, not the Mortal Kombat Kano ;) ), or alternatively a randori paradox. It boils down to that: you can learn eye-gouging, but you can't really practice it, so it ends up less effective than more "modest" and safer techniques. Learning to rip out throats without actually ever ripping it lacks lacks in the so-called al…

We didn't practice the throat ripping at all, obviously (except maybe feeling the spot behind the throat where you need to put your fingers), but the whip technique was really the standard strike. Only we did it to the stomach rather than the eye. But it's hard to tell whether your technique is any good, and aim is completely irrelevant. Maybe you could combine this with aiming at an eye-sized target? But it's always going to be a very crude approximation of the real thing.

Same thing with medieval fencing: injury is a big part of sword fighting, but you don't want to do that in real life, so you use blunt swords and lots of protection, so you have no idea whether your strike to the wrist would have been ineffective or would have chopped off the hand. And because protection is never perfect, you also train not to hit too hard, which is the exact opposite of what you'd want to do in reality.

Re: The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

#114

Post by V-2 »

mcv wrote: post #113
V-2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "deadly" styles and moves is known as Kano paradox (after Jigoro Kano the judo founder, not the Mortal Kombat Kano ;) ), or alternatively a randori paradox. It boils down to that: you can learn eye-gouging, but you can't really practice it, so it ends up less effective than more "modest" and safer techniques. Learning to rip out throats without actually ever ripping it lacks lacks in the so-called al…

We didn't practice the throat ripping at all, obviously (except maybe feeling the spot behind the throat where you need to put your fingers), but the whip technique was really the standard strike. Only we did it to the stomach rather than the eye. But it's hard to tell whether your technique is any good, and aim is completely irrelevant. Maybe you could combine this with aiming at an eye-sized target? But it's always…

Yeah exactly, so practicing sword fighting doesn't prepare you for real sword fighting as good as boxing prepares you for a real-life fist fight.

Because you can practice boxing at full force, and you can find out if you're able to knock someone down. Of course noone goes 100% on every sparing, but once in a while, or in competitions - entirely possible.

Every practice is an approximation, sure, but some approximations are (inevitably) orders of magnitude more crude than others.

Re: The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

#115

Post by bkeroack »

V-2 wrote: post #110
bkeroack wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BJJ seems to be pretty popular among nerd/geek types actually. It's a highly intellectual martial art. (Purple belt here, currently training both BJJ [Gracie Academy] and Judo)

Is it? Well, out of my experience most practicioners aren't really nerdy or super-intellectual :) There could be local specifics though (I live and train in Poland)

Well I'm not saying it's like a University faculty lounge. :) But I've met my fair share of professionals, software engineers, math majors, etc at various BJJ academies. It's a big contrast with, say, a boxing gym.

In fairness, though, it could just be selection bias since at least in the US BJJ training tends to be fairly expensive, while community boxing gyms are cheap or free.

Re: The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

#116

Post by e40 »

peatmoss wrote: post #92
e40 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are pure BJJ tournaments and they are the opposite of brutal. It's all technique and people don't get injured that often, unless Rousimar Palhares* is part of the tourney. He's famous for holding submissions far longer than he needs to, and causing damage. He's the exception, not the rule. * http://fightland.vice.com/blog/rousimar-palhares-is-a-leg-lo...

Two things: - the article you link has Rousimar doing (apparently legal, fight-winning) leg locks. These are not allowed in judo on safety grounds. - holy crap--the idea that there are people allowed to participate in multiple tournaments after not letting up on a tap strikes me as insanely irresponsible. Yeah, at that point, continuing to apply a technique after submission is bad bad bad. But, allowing a sociopath b…

Yeah, he seems to move from promotion to promotion. Seems like he should have been banned, for life, after the first promotion kicked him out (after multiple instances of holding the sub too long).
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