Taken from the NHB Gear Forum, posted by "Perfectsplit."

A very common marketing line used by martial arts schools is, “Other schools teach martial arts for sport; we teach martial arts for self-defense”. This mindset is rooted in the traditional method of classifying techniques into the two categories of sport moves and self-defense moves.

Sport moves are moves which are legal in class sparring matches and in tournaments, while self-defense moves are illegal in class sparring and tournaments because they cannot be safely applied in sparring matches. They can only be used in no-rules street fights. Some examples of sport moves include roundhouse kicks, shoulder throws, and triangle chokes. Self-defense moves include eye gouges, bites, and kicks to the groin. The equivalent concept in wrestling would be “illegal holds”. Perhaps the most mystic of all self-defense moves is the legendary “Death Touch” (Dim-Mak) of Kung-Fu. Each category of moves has a particular class curriculum associated with it.

When a school claims that they teach martial arts for self-defense instead of for sport, it means that they emphasize the so-called “self-defense” curriculum over the “sport” curriculum. Or at the extreme, a school may even teach the self-defense curriculum exclusively, without even having a sport curriculum at all. The theory behind this is that the so-called “self-defense” curriculum is superior to the sport curriculum because the former supposedly prepares a student for a real streetfight better than the latter. A tournament fight has rules, whereas a streetfight has no rules. Therefore, it is supposedly better to train for fighting with no rules. In fact, many criticisms of existing martial arts schools are that they spend too much time on the sport curriculum. They tend to associate the sport curriculum negatively, considering it invalid for training in unarmed combat.

The problem with this is that it is an inherently flawed theory. Here is why. The nature of the so-called “sport” moves is that they can be continually refined and perfected through the experience of sparring. Sparring is combat experience, and combat experience is the best teacher of unarmed combat. There is great merit in the old saying, “Experience is the best teacher”.

The so-called “self-defense” moves cannot be perfected through the experience of sparring. They can only be drilled in theory. Theoretical drilling is no substitute for combat experience. Therefore, the nature of the so-called “self defense” curriculum is that it is devoid of combat experience. Students who train exclusively in the self-defense curriculum are students who get no combat experience. Without combat experience, combat proficiency is never developed.

Furthermore, when an inexperienced fighter has his first few experiences in real combat, he goes into a state of stress, due to the element of danger. Under the stress of combat, a fighter may completely forget the theoretical moves he has supposedly “learned”. Only experienced fighters are able to overcome the stress of combat and perform their techniques competently.

Due to the invalid nature of the “self-defense training is better than sport training” theory, the whole classification scheme of “sport moves vs. self-defense moves” is outdated, because it is misleading. It suggests that that the so-called sport moves are ineffective in no-rules street fights, while only the self-defense moves would work. This suggestion is also nonsense. In reality, the opposite is true: the sport curriculum is actually superior to the self-defense curriculum, because the sport curriculum involves combat experience.

A better, more modern way of classifying the moves is with the categories of “experience-based moves” and “hypothetical moves”. Simply put, the experience based moves are analogous to the sport moves, while the hypothetical moves are analogous to the self-defense moves. This new classification scheme is more descriptive of the nature of the techniques.

The three dominant disciplines of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) are all disciplines with a large experience-based curriculum. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), Muay-Thai Kickboxing, and Wrestling place a high emphasis on perfecting the experience-based moves, and little or no emphasis on drilling the hypothetical moves. How many times on The Ultimate Fighter did you ever see the coach make people work on kicks to the groin, eye gouges, or bites? Every move they practiced was an experience-based move. Some might even argue there are actually 6 dominant disciplines of MMA: BJJ, Muay-Thai, Wrestling, Judo, Boxing, and Kickboxing. Once again, these 6 disciplines all emphasize the experience-based moves. In the early Ultimate Fighting Championships, (UFCs), there were many representatives of disciplines which relied heavily on hypothetical training. In fact, one can even see the hypothetical training that the early fighters practiced in the DVD footage of the early UFCs. But in the long run of MMA, those hypothetical disciplines washed out.

Judo was based on this theory. When Doctor Jigoro Kano created Judo from the older schools of Japanese Jujitsu, he removed most of the hypothetical moves and placed more emphasis on the experience-based moves. He improved the existing experienced-based moves and created new ones to complement those. Some people even criticized him on the grounds that he was “watering down” (Japanese) Jujitsu by de-emphasizing the self-defense moves. But with his new discipline, he was able to defeat the older masters of Japanese Jujitsu, who were more trained in the so-called “self-defense” moves.

Boxing is a unique discipline, in that all the moves in the curriculum are experience-based moves. The 4 fundamental attacks – jab, cross, hook, and uppercut – are all moves that a boxing student can refine and perfect through the repeated experience of sparring. There is never a boxing class where the coach says, “Today we’re going to learn a new boxing move which can only be used in a real fight, but cannot be used in sparring.” That does not happen. And in modern MMA, practically every fighter is required to have basic boxing skills - just to be competitive.

Teachers of unarmed combat should not think in terms of sport vs. self-defense training. It is better to think in terms of experience-based training vs. hypothetical training.

http://www.nhbgear.com/forum/index.php/topic,98080.0.html

One of the most clear and concise summations of the topic I have ever seen. Kudos to the writer and thanks to Tim for sharing.

Jake

Tim

I would say that this is mostly true, but there is a bugbear in there when you start pushing the stress to high end "survival stress" levels...

The HUGE advantage of antagonistic training (it does not have to be sport)is exactly that it can be practiced at "the speed of the fight" with the same levels of actual resistance. This literally does mean that the fighter trained in that manner is patterning the proper "programs" under the right kinds of physical and mental stimuli. Non-resistive training does not and cannot. The same is being discovered of range-based firearms training versus what we call "force on force" or simunitions/airsoft based scenario training.

The problem with sport training is not the dynamic manner of the training but rather "mission creep." The practice of training to sport rules.

*For instance, in the BJJ world this would be the "pull guard" default that many people use. Safe and all good on a competition mat, NOT a great idea in a real fight.

*That MMA guy on Ultimate Fighter who locked in a triangle during a real fight on the patio with a housemate, got lifted up and pounded into the concrete... then got pissed that he got dumped on concrete!!! He was in the "sport" mental frame, the other guy was in the "fight" frame...

*Belly out turning the back to the opponent to avoid a pin, and shooting with knee-to-the-ground doubles in wrestling-- fine on a mat, bad on concrete...

*Judo's multiple bad habits of silly grip rules, belly down to avoid the pin, and throwing oneself into a throw with an opponent on one's back for ippon..... nuff said.

Here's the problem: these become patterned under stress - that is how they are being trained!! When that is the primary program that is written, it can be a default when stress levels get so overwhelming that the body goes to what it knows, and goes on autopilot.

This can be bad in a serious street confrontation.

Thankfully, most street confrontations are nowhere near that serious, and most trained sport fighters are far better prepared than anyone else for those things - even if they do fight by their pure sport rules!!!

Remember, too, that Kano in fact KEPT the old school stuff - in the form of kata practice and koryu research that continued at the Kodokan. Kano lamented that Judo had strayed from this and become too much about shiai even in his own lifetime, and continued to speak to having more emphasis on kata and a self-defense oriented approach (upright stance, worked on adapting strikes and weapons into randori - it just never saw fruition.

The idea was not to abandon the "self defense moves" but rather layer them over a very strong foundation of antagonistic grappling.

I think that is the key. Self defense can and should be practiced as a matter of familiarity - it adds to the toolbox, or adds an alternative program on top of the conditioned resistive reflexes. This is very good.

Lastly - there very much are rules in a street fight. We call them "laws" and to some extent, people's personal expectations and morals. They do have an effect on people's decision making within a fight situation, hesitation, and actions that people are or are not willing to make.

This is particularly true of the average martial arts student that is not a hardened criminal, violent sociopath, or likely to be undergoing meth psychosis: there is an ingrained set of "rules" that the martial artist (all that honor and martial virtue stuff...) that the latter types of people won't be constrained by that may limit the response of the martial artist.

As well, there is the martial artist's understanding of articulating their legal right to use/escalate force. Very, very few martial artists -sport or combative - spend any time at all on these things in the course of their training, though they are the most important element of taking self defense action.

BTW, really looking forward to next weekend!

Well put Kit.

Thanks,

T

Hi Kit,

I don't agree with everything in the article either, but I do agree with the overall theme.

You make some very good points, I'll comment on a couple of them, primarily for the benefit of readers not familiar with the training in the arts you mentioned, and since I often hear these types of "examples" for why "traditional" martial arts that claim to use "deadly" techniques that are hypothetically trained are superior to arts like BJJ or even MMA training for survival in a street fight.

I can't speak for sport Judo training, but I can speak for all-round BJJ training.

I have never seen a legitimate BJJ instructor advocate pulling guard in a street fight. Ever. Quite in contrast, standard BJJ strategy in a street fight is to strike, close with and throw an opponent to the ground while staying on one's feet, from there, the fight can be continued from the top position or you are free to flee.

Unfortunately, many BJJ academies today devote full time exclusively to sport training, so it's conceivable students with no self-defense based training may pull guard in a real fight, but that's the fault of inadequate instruction, not the art. Having said that, and despite it being a bad idea in general, I would guess an average BJJ blue belt who pulled guard in a street fight would still win the fight, handily, BJJ fighters are customarily very good fighting off their backs.

Since slamming is allowed in sport MMA, an MMA fighter not expecting to get slammed when he has someone in a triangle points more to a bad MMA fighter than to lack of a realistic skill set.

I agree it all comes down mainly to strategies and perceived parameters in training. Spending time on "reality based scenario training," as long as there is randomness and resistance, on top of full contact sparring, will better prepare people for what is likely to happen in the street.

But, if you are limited to one type of training, having to choose between full contact, limited rules "sport" training or theoretically "deadly" hypothetical training devoid of any competitive sparring or practice against full resistance, then go for the "sport" training.

In my experience, people who train in "combat sports" exclusively almost always fare better in a street fight than people who train in what the author of the quoted post refers to as "hypothetical training."

"Lastly - there very much are rules in a street fight. We call them "laws" and to some extent, people's personal expectations and morals. They do have an effect on people's decision making within a fight situation, hesitation, and actions that people are or are not willing to make. "

Excellent point, I think all of us as martial artists need to remind ourselves of this often.

See you soon!

But, if you are limited to one type of training, having to choose between full contact, limited rules "sport" training or theoretically "deadly" hypothetical training devoid of any competitive sparring or practice against full resistance, then go for the "sport" training.

In my experience, people who train in "combat sports" exclusively almost always fare better in a street fight than people who train in what the author of the quoted post refers to as "hypothetical training."


Mine too, and I totally agree. And increasingly we are seeing groups like the Force Science institute show that this is true scientifically. You might get away with not doing sport, but you will never get away with not doing actual fighting.

I personally believe, and there is some evidence to suggest it, that in the times when the classical combat arts were current and not "traditional" this was also understood, and the training of the "deadly" techniques - was predicated on the fact that the people learning them (professional warriors) had a lot of full contact/sport experience with their culture's wrestling systems and in actual fighting.