BTW, participating in one of these events is a personal goal for me; just need to spend a few years getting a ground game together…
People forget that the sport/combat argument predates Kano Jigaro by several centuries - pick up the book ‘secrets of the sword’ to read the same **** from the 1700’s as we hear today.
I can’t tell you how many martial sport people I have planted who doubted old training, and I can’t tell you how many so-called traditionalists really had no clue, or how many old-style guys CAN’T plant someone because they never played any sport.
My personal belief is that the DB guys have really hit on the best formula for trying both… Far more useful than the MMA model, but rife with the same flaws (and benefits)
I’ll just sit here on my fence post…
I didn’t see the post in question but I will say I haven’t been impressed with the stick fighting I have seen in the states or elsewhere for that matter. I understand the need for gear, and insist on at least La Cross gloves and a helmet, but what I have seen is very sloppy technique that would never cut it nor be as aggressive (freaks trading full swing blows) if all that gear wasn’t present.
Weapons fighting is very fast. One man swings… one man attacks the hand holding the incoming weapon… one man drops the weapon with an injured hand and that’s it.
What I have seen all too often is two Michelin Men standing toe to toe banging on each other like a Japanese gong. The fundamentals of positioning (weapon and body) appear to be thrown out the door. Guys leading their strikes with the hand (the target) while the weapon, stick, is pointing behind them. Guys choking so far up the stick… saying it’s for grappling and infighting. That says a lot about their thinking already. That is quite like a sword expert asking if its “legal” to knee you.
I have seen expert stick fighting. One stick against one stick and one stick against two. It didn’t matter. Same action and result. One swing, one man crouched in pain.
Proper weapons training for today can only be found in the armed forces. Or on a hockey team.
Dog brothers wants to develop something, and they do, but it doesn’t have much value ultimately in my opinion.
gun trumps stick in todays world. Taking antiquated stuff and dressing it up doesn’t make it more effective. It just lets off steam and gets you some bruises.
no offense to anyone out there who is seeking.
But, you can cut bait or you can fish.
Me, like 99.999 of every martial artist in the world am cutting bait. 
[QUOTE=Ray Pina;894638]I didn’t see the post in question but I will say I haven’t been impressed with the stick fighting I have seen in the states or elsewhere for that matter. I understand the need for gear, and insist on at least La Cross gloves and a helmet, but what I have seen is very sloppy technique that would never cut it nor be as aggressive (freaks trading full swing blows) if all that gear wasn’t present.
Weapons fighting is very fast. One man swings… one man attacks the hand holding the incoming weapon… one man drops the weapon with an injured hand and that’s it.
What I have seen all too often is two Michelin Men standing toe to toe banging on each other like a Japanese gong. The fundamentals of positioning (weapon and body) appear to be thrown out the door. Guys leading their strikes with the hand (the target) while the weapon, stick, is pointing behind them. Guys choking so far up the stick… saying it’s for grappling and infighting. That says a lot about their thinking already. That is quite like a sword expert asking if its “legal” to knee you.
I have seen expert stick fighting. One stick against one stick and one stick against two. It didn’t matter. Same action and result. One swing, one man crouched in pain.[/QUOTE]
Interesting view.
See, the head gear is a must, after all, its training and sport.
hand gear is optional, but most are smart enough to know to use it, but some are good enough not to need to.
Full contact stick fighting has dispelled some myths from the FMA, thinks like the “abaniko” SP? or “fan hits” and their (lack of) worth, myths like a hit on the knee is an easy thing to get in a fight, getting a wack across the arm or shoulder will take out that limb.
It also has shown that a grappling is crucial even in armed combat (something that was a given in the “old days” but was somehow forgotten.
A lot of things that seemed to work well in theory and in static training, fell apart on full contact training.
Remember, most of these guys ( dog brothers past and present) were/are not only highly trained in stick fightging ( under Inosanto, Lameco, PT and other systems) but also high ranked in BJJ, Judo, MT and much more.
Knifefighter can tell you by first hand and personal experience, he is after all, a Dog Brother himself.
[QUOTE=David Jamieson;894640]Proper weapons training for today can only be found in the armed forces. Or on a hockey team.
Dog brothers wants to develop something, and they do, but it doesn’t have much value ultimately in my opinion.
gun trumps stick in todays world. Taking antiquated stuff and dressing it up doesn’t make it more effective. It just lets off steam and gets you some bruises.
no offense to anyone out there who is seeking.
But, you can cut bait or you can fish.
Me, like 99.999% of every martial artist in the world am cutting bait. :)[/QUOTE]
Sticks are more accessibale than guns, they are everywhere.
DGMA is not just about stick work, it is about knife work, empty hand and improvised weapons also.
[QUOTE=David Jamieson;894640]
gun trumps stick in todays world. Taking antiquated stuff and dressing it up doesn’t make it more effective. It just lets off steam and gets you some bruises.
[/QUOTE]
Unless you walk around with a gun in your pocket that doesn’t help much.
Guns don’t grow on trees.
Sticks on the other hand…
And, as SR mentioned, sticks sub in for knives well while being less lethal.
David, I know you are in Toronto and things are a bit different there but sometime review Canadian ****cide stats. Betcha more people are stabbed to death than shot.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll baseball bat a baddy if need be.
I don’t think strick sparring has a lot of value outside of doing it once and realizing that you can hit or be hit with a stick/club/etc.
Once that’s done then that’s that. It’s like riding a bike and if you get too far down into the weeds of techniques, you lose sight of the beautiful simplicity of plain old attack.
the michelin man anaolgy is good.
training while suited up is nice and safe, but it also impedes the mind and travels away from the bitter reality.
so yeah, you can train it, train to keep it in your hand, train to control it, train to strike with it, train to strike at moving things and so on but ultimately, when it gets right down to it, unless you are willfully entering into an attack with sticks on another party, there is simply not much value to that over and above the socialization of like minded people. Kinda like any MA class.
You’re basically not doing combat, you’re training and you don’t even know what threat you’re training for.
But pick up a gun, take a week to learn how to handle it, how to fire it and how to properly maintain it and that’s that! You have about as much ease of access to you firearm as you will to finding a good hued branch or be able to retrieve a sturdy blade.
as for murder stats, it’s important to consider all the other mitigating factors when it comes to murder. The age factor, the drinking factor, the betrayal factor, the robbery factor and so on.
training by hitting each other really doesn’t improve your odds of survival. the fact that you can hit someone is enough and that’s about where the training ends in value.
I just don’t agree that dog brothers stick fighting stuff is worthwhile beyond getting your yayas out in a bunch of padding and fencing helmets/masks.
But to each their own.
On any given day though, my marksmanship trumps your sticks and knives. I’ll run if I see those things. I’ll run to get my gun that is. lol
My point is that regardless of the power of a firearm it isn’t the most likely threat of violent death a Canadian is going to face. Training for blade conflict is more likely to help you than training for a gunfight.
it is very difficult to find actual blade training anywhere.
most of the fma stuff is highly unrealistic and falls in the realm of larper stuff on a lot of levels
stab and hang onto your knife, slash and hang onto your knife, slash, then stab, move fast and go for the closest target.
lesson over.
Continually playing with rubber knives is a waste of time.
Going for complicated techniques is a waste of time.
learning to shoot is more profitable.
if someone pulls a knife, get away as quick as you can and keep distance. If you cannot, going for disarms is really really difficult and even if you train the crap out of it, you do not have it in the bag.
not saying it’s worthless, just saying a lot of the methods out there are a waste of time, unrealistic and you can’t really get realism in it because padding and safety breaks the required mindset before it has a chance to bubble to the top.
I’ve had it demonstrated over and over again, and I can demonstrate it myself on pretty much anyone, master or student that I can cut you and you can’t do nothing from your arsenal about it except pull a superior weapon before i am in range.
This is my view formed from experience.
None of the dog brothers stuff can get you past the fight or flight reaction and teh fight reaction cannot get you past getting cut or bludgeoned or shot.
you can have guts and still be dead. evasion, avoidance and superior firepower are the answer.
simple.
Than why do self-defense based martial arts at all?
[QUOTE=SimonM;894746]Than why do self-defense based martial arts at all?[/QUOTE]
Good question.
I don’t do self defense.
I train to build overall strength and cardio-vascular endurance as well as develop and maintain correct structure to ensure that i’m not getting inappropriate force feedback when I strike (try not to hurt myself when I am hitting someone else) 
The training I do all revolves around getting in and attacking and not so much on defending myself. More along the lines of quickest line to fuking up the other guy.
not too much in the way of sportive combative although i do enjoy a session to make sure that method are maintaining gloss.
I never bought into teh whole sport thing and I don’t really buy into rbsd stuff either.
just how to hit, where to hit, how to hit hard, test it, move on type stuff. Over the years I have narrowed down my training to reduce time wasting as much as possible and to develop those attributes that will assist me in kicking the living hell out of someone when I need to do that if the need should arise.
A fair enough answer, if not one of an opinion I would personally adhere to.
A few things:
DBMA is about MINIMAL padding, the only MUSt is the helmet, which is basically a fencing mask with very little “absorbing” or “padding” material.
Second, DBMA address firearms also, one of the better ones out there BTW.
One thing that DBMA did was indeed address the “fantasy” in FMA.
In regards to getting cut with a knife, and knife defense in general.
I will take anything the DBMA teach in that regard over anything else I have seen, more often than not.
Will I get cut in a fight if I HAVE to fight?
Yes, but I tell you this, the knife wielder BETTER know how to do more than just cut me…
Look, DBMA is NOT the answer too all situation, they would be the first to say so, their training, however, adress these things WAY better than 99% of the other stuff I have seen.
There is one other “minor” thing:
In all the DBMA DVD or in theri teachings, they do something that no one elses seems to do - " you see it taught, you see it fought"
And I don’t mean in a demo either, full contact VS someone trying to take your head off.
One wonders why other system don’t so this?
well in all fairness, there is a lot of reality based stuff out there available now.
Im not ragging on dog brothers, if nothing else they quickly introduce the concept of “wtf im getting hit” to the entrants. And yes, their practice is head and shoulders above the “do 28 moves, then stand on one leg while piercing the 5th chakra with your spirit mind” kind of sh!t. lol.
Just not my thing anymore, but I would recommend their stuff over what’s available in most weapons training type programs simply because it gets the person up and running quickly.
But in equal fairness, I don’t feel they have much to offer me as a practitioner. I’ve seen a lot of their stuff and it’s not my thing.
Even minimal armour impedes the mind. Unless you always wear armour, the training is rendered less than what it is when it comes to reality, which is all about fight/flight adrenaline dump/no adrenaline dump, knowing what to do/not knowing what to do.
Killing just can’t be fully “trained” and you can’t train how to 75% beat someone and leave the rest for arrest. lol Can’t be done. There will always be a chance that you die in a violent encounter and that is simply removed from the equation as soon as there is an atmosphere of training applied to the work.
well in all fairness, there is a lot of reality based stuff out there available now.
very few if any actually works in a full contact environment.
Just not my thing anymore, but I would recommend their stuff over what’s available in most weapons training type programs simply because it gets the person up and running quickly.
Very true, it isn’t for everyone.
But in equal fairness, I don’t feel they have much to offer me as a practitioner. I’ve seen a lot of their stuff and it’s not my thing.
Well…I don’t know you, so…
Even minimal armour impedes the mind. Unless you always wear armour, the training is rendered less than what it is when it comes to reality, which is all about fight/flight adrenaline dump/no adrenaline dump, knowing what to do/not knowing what to do.
Take my word for it, you get the adrenaline dump, sometimes even more so than on the street.
Killing just can’t be fully “trained” and you can’t train how to 75% beat someone and leave the rest for arrest. lol Can’t be done. There will always be a chance that you die in a violent encounter and that is simply removed from the equation as soon as there is an atmosphere of training applied to the work.
Not sure what your point is…
Personally, I think making any assumptions about what is useful is foolish. Anything in your environment is a weapon and needs to be understood as such. Things specifically designed to be weapons require special attention (i.e. firearms, etc.).
To ignore these things is to lose sight of real self defense. Out of all the sporting methodologies out there, the DBMA looks like the most useful for transition to reality.
It’s kind of like that old saying ‘you can describe water, but it will not make your mouth wet.’
Honestly, these discussions were old three hundred years ago. Yes, sport transforms into useless technique only good in sport. yes ‘self defense’ training loses reality and the development of the attributes needed to fight a skilled opponent.
This why there has ALWAYS been a way to ‘play’ with swords, to wrestle, or box in one form or another all around the world. It is also why there have ALWAYS been methods that can’t be used in play.
Crossing the bridge between the two hopefully prepares you for life.
Take my word for it, you get the adrenaline dump, sometimes even more so than on the street.
I agree. In real altercations my response has often been amusement. But when faced with my buddy who just knocked a f@cking tree down with his MT round kick, my adrenaline was a-pumping.
A ring fight can be much harder than a street fight, even though the street fight has higher stakes. You want to know why? It’s because most street toughs turn to cheese when you touch them. Skilled athletes don’t.
Different experiences, different for different people.
we’re not talking about facing an mma guy vs facing non ring fighter.
we’re talking about the value of weapons training and whether or not there is any value to it outside of the basic understanding of what the weapon is and what it does which is dictated by it’s form.
I’d gladly face off against a typical martial artists from a typical martial arts school more quickly than I’d step up to a professional fighter/athlete who does that all day, every day.
Naturally, the pro is gonna do way more damage and bring way more game that I may or may not be able to address. Amateurs who do 3 nights a week at teh local mma joint? maybe not so much, but I’m willing to bet that those who compete regularly and train in an environment of full contact are way ahead of the game on their counterparts who are all busy doing whatever it is that stops them from training their stuff in fully resisting/ full contact scenarios on a semi to regular basis.
and just because one person finds value in something doesn’t take away from another not finding value in that.
what value is alphabet lesson reiterations to a professor of literature? To a Grade 12 creative writing student? Grade 9? etc.
It has little of value to someone who has passed the elementary levels of understanding physical conflict.
Fighting is NOT a complicated thing. It’s one of the most natural things we do next to running away! lol
I was talking about both as they are interrelated.
Frankly, ignoring weapons is silly.