I'll put my money on Randy Couture over any street thug on any night in any ally.

I think people can shed their "bitchish" ways by training and learning that they can win fights, and they don't always have to be scared.

Fear is one of the few factors in a 'street fight', you are able to control, more experience including sparring, the better you are able to control it. No fear is a no brainer. A little bit of fear is a good thing, helps with over confidence and overt risk taking.

The reason you can't prepare properly for street fights is there are far too many things out of your own control, surviving has as much to do with luck as skill. That's why most people prefer 'sport fighting', where the risks are more manageable and payoffs are better, not because they are more inherently afraid.

BTW who are these great fighters, who turn into cowards when the lights are out in this dirty little alley.

"fighting is all mental, and even my Muay Thai coach used to say that"

Really?

So all you did in training was think about kicking the Thai pads?

I know people that dont train at all yet they are the most feared, because they have no fear. They will sucker punch and grab a brick and smash your sull in for looking at them wrong. They also have a killer look in their eyes and intimidate people just by looking at them. If you think you have no chance to win the fight you will lose, you will be frightened and will freeze up. If the other guy is more aggressive, bigger/stronger/has reach advantage, is not afraid to use a weapon than he will win with no training. You might be trained but if you are afraid to fight back, or continue hitting after the first punch mercessly than you have a big chance of losing. Only military trains how to over come adrenaline etc. SParring gives you only temporary confidence and you can still freeze up right after class in a given scenario with an exp[eriece street thug who will mentally break you down before the fight.

Take a kid whose been bullied, intimidated, and humiliated throughout his life and cant look people his age in the eyes for over a second without getting intimidated and becomes agitated and feels people are out to get him when he steps out of his house. Do you actually think training will make him into some sort of badass, he will lose before the fight even begins. ANd hell throw a half assed punch on the street because he will think hell fail even if he tries.

"It's the size of the fight in the dog, not the size of the dog in the fight" - Some wiser guy than me.

At the risk of being a bit off topic, perhaps. The quotable and wise Mark Twain:

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."

"If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way."

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

I think many of us had the kinds of experiences Maciej speaks of. One thing I realized when I started training in martial arts was having lost fights, it felt better not to lose. If you train to fight why not train in a contolled environment where you can simulate fight scenarios. The confidence to face violent people also comes from having a plan in the first place.

Just my 2 cents.

- "Formerly" bullied & intimidated

. If you train to fight why not train in a contolled environment where you can simulate fight scenarios. The confidence to face violent people also comes from having a plan in the first place"

The thing about sport styles like mt and bjj though is they are entirely geared toward the sport aspect and their styles aspect. Muay Thai for standup striking and dont teach headlocks, leverage, even much sweeps or any throws. Bjj no standup and not much throws. Also since they are geared toward sport fighting they dont teach much weapon use, adrenaline channeling, sucker punch offense/defense, being able to sense the first punch coming, being calm in a given situation. etc. Some jeet kune do guys sopposevly teach some of the stuff and there are some guys like geoff thompson and others who write books about it. Military is another place to learn some of it. You need to develope both mental and physical to fight so you dont break down. Bruce Lee even trained his mind in Yoga and other stuff that martial arts didnt have. Than there is also meditation.

Maciej- you have much to learn about Muay Thai and Bjj if you aren't familiar enough with the styles to not know they both are repleat with the things you said they lack.

BJJ stand up is great- although most schools teach students the ground work first. Muay Thai has plenty of throws and leverages.

You're so obviously a martial wantabe talking about adrenaline channeling and "Bruce Lee even training..." you have no business interjecting your half-thought-out and miseducated opinions about anything related to fighting.

Simply to illustrate your dorkiness, I ask you: Does the military training you speak of focus on Yoga, meditation or breath control?

the awnser to your questions is simple. scars. scars adresses all that and more. Although not fully understood, SCARS nevertheless has remained a dominating force in the hearts and minds of the elite combat professionals the world over.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/main.asp?webtag=testing12345703&nav=start&prett yurl=%2Ftesting12345703%2Fstart

Folks, if you're incapable of instructing your own students in the use of modern weaponry, there's a mighty large flaw in your system. Not to mention of course, the ability to negate the such weapons being employed against you. Incompetent stylists don't impress me.

"Excerpts pulled from various news accounts

February 16, 2004

LAND O' LAKES - For months, Todd George Novak had been sharpening his defenses through martial arts training and a punching bag set up outside his lakefront home in Pasco County.

The mechanical sound of the bag responding to the 43- year-old's punches recently caused neighbor Kevin Seidl to ask what was going on. That's when Novak told him that he was honing his skills. But neither the training nor a home security system shielded Novak from the intruder who waited inside late Saturday.

The body of Todd George Novak, 43, was found by employees of his hauling business early Sunday. Sheriff's officials said Novak was attacked in the living room of his home after arriving home late Saturday night. No one has been charged with the killing, sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said Monday. No details of the killing have been released, other than that Novak's death was a result of "homicidal violence."

Novak had a home security system and had been practicing martial arts, neighbors said."

When I read the following new articles that routinely pop up on the web, I’m never surprised by the predictable result of the martial artists efforts. While the individual stylist may not believe he is in fact wasting his time in the martial arts as Todd George Novak believed, but when their abilities are tested, stylists are often found wanting. I’ve documented this many times in the past, 4th and 5th degree martial arts masters being beaten up and murdered by common thugs and we all have witnessed it on the earlier NHB and UFC bouts.

The fact of the matter is, that in general, martial artists are bumbling amateurs, uneducated, and simply incompetent. I see examples of them every single day, even while my training partner and I workout. Nothing makes me roll my eyes more at the silly spectacle of seeing a stylist combating empty air as he goes through his moronic kata routine at the park. Naively believing he’s actually accomplishing something other than making a complete ass of himself.

If you're not intelligent, you'll end up doing what a martial artist does, sit there and copy techniques. Of course, the difference between the two is that SCARS really has no established techniques and that works to our advantage. The same cannot be said of martial arts techniques, which for a stylist, are a prerequisite and qualifier for their advancement. In fact, SICS requirements for IQS qualifications at one time stated that those seeking to become Level 1 SCARS instructors could not repeat themselves more than 3 times during a one hour period of SCARS application.

This is why the knowledge and sciences are so powerful within the SCARS and Dominate Process Systems. . In many ways, my training partner and my utilization of SCARS principles is much more aggressive, but we never deviate from the sciences and protocols of the system and certainly not by delving into the stylistic arts. That could get us killed. SCARS by nature is intelligent application of pertinent knowledge and there is literally nothing that cannot be addressed within the fighting parameters of the SCAR/HCS. Now, when you take arts such as sansoo whom admit they are incapable of addressing certain sciences and their only remedy is to search out other styles of fighting, you tell me who has the inferior system because it's certainly not ours.

The ignorance of doubters that consistently use the asinine argument that SCARS is the sole result of Mr. Peterson's sansoo background are badly misinformed. Here is the difference between sansoo and SCARS, while sansoo drones constantly iterate the mantra that sansoo is a "complete fighting system," how then can it be that the leaders within their community all advocate other styles from the filipino arts (Ron Van Browning) to brazilian grappling (Kathy Long, Dave Hopkins) to shore up the plentiful holes in sansoo? (Kathy Long's words not my own) This is why you have such individuals at the krav maga forum going around calling themselves 'kravsansoo.' These are clear contradictions to the sansoo lie, "We're a complete art."

On the other hand, why is SCARS superior? Simple, if you're an intelligent fighter, everything you need to know (that is correct and scientifically applicable as well as quantifiable) can be found within the matrix of SCARS, i.e., Dominate Process Systems. I don't need to waste my years learning how to grapple just to counterbalance the stupidity of brazilian jujitsu or take up a host of other arts as a sansoo stylist would to shore up deficiencies he perceives within his own abilities. Case in point, my workout partner in the years I've been instructing him, periodically brings up queries about how I would handle certain variables in our training, threats or martial arts training he has received and experienced in the past. I have never stated, "Gee, I don't know, let me go take up [pick your martial art] and I'll get back to you."

I have a good command of the SCARS sciences. This is a most important distinction to make gentlemen. While other lesser systems have intentionally structured their teaching to drag out forever, without any real benefit to the practitioner, SCARS is basically self-advancing, you just have to motivate yourself. What you put into the system is ultimately the benefit you receive. A mediocre effort, yields a mediocre fighter.

SCARS teaches you to fight regardless of whether you are vertical or horizontal. The idea is to strike your targets and take out your attacker. A knowledgeable fighter will view a Jui Jitsu match and see that each competitor misses many opportunities to end the conflict if they were not in a sport competition. The dangerous fact of practicing sport-fighting is that YOU FIGHT LIKE YOU TRAIN! If you train with rules, than you fight with rules, regardless of whether your attacker plays by the same rules. This is a serious disadvantage in a life threatening situation.

SCARS is 100% based totally on scientific principles and is 100% effective in practice. The best martial arts have approximately 15% scientific principles behind it, the balance is made up of stylistic and artistic movements. Therefore the best martial arts are merely 15% effective and 85% stylistic or artistic interpretations. The best fighters in the world are 35% accurate in targeting the system they study. Ask yourself do I want to be 35% effective in an art or style that is 15% accurate or 100% accurate?

Firstly, how many people didn't die of homicidal violence on that night; how many died of heart attacks, strokes, automobile accidents, lightning strikes, drownings, shark attacks, suicides... While i realise that some people have to face real physical violence and initimidation on a daily basis the reality for the vast majority is not so. When you weigh the chances up, it makes sense for a non-paranoid person to train with this in mind, when prioritising training aspects.

Secondly, while the military has an important and necessary function, it is subserviant to the civil authorities in a normal functioning society. Societies that are continually at war tend to break down, even just being on a continual war footing is very draining.

Personally i think that combat/street orientated and sport orientated martial arts that focus solely on fighting and neglect the civil aspect of training are undermining the individual and society as a whole. It doesn't have to be a strict code like Wu De, can be as simple as engendering respect for yourself, training partners and opponents.

SCARS is under control now. Only a couple of cases in China and a hand full of deaths world wide. Malaria is much more effective than SCARS.

GET THE FACTS!

http://murderdubbs.net/misc/student_HK_fight.wmv

When I was kid, the beatings were easy to deal with. That's why I took MA, not so I could fight back, but so I could take the physical part better. I wasn't really able to deal with the mental and emotional part until my early twenties.

There are many reasons to learn and practise the traditional martial arts in the same way that there are many reasons to read and post on an internet discussion board.

Oh, and reading many of these same posts will help the discerning to understand why there is little demand for any kind of quality in modern martial arts...

Tim, and a few others, are rare exceptions in a vast wasteland of arm-chair experts.

SCARS??? Are they still around?

I thought Petterson was a third rate sansoo guy?

Lets get something straight here.

1. You always train with rules.

The first rule is you don't break or kill your training partner. So, if you have a training partner and he is still alive, unbroken and still willing to train with you means that you train with rules.

2. Where do you get your statistics?

Statistics means that there empirical evidence to what you are claiming. Please cite those studies where it says SCARS is 100% effective and other MA are less effective. Of course these have to be independent studies that are verifiable. I bet you have no studies or real data just opinion. Your opinion doesn't count as fact.

3. If you are really intelligent you would've figured out that 1 and 2 are false. Since you didn't figure it out you must be a dumb ass.

If you're a dumb ass nobody should take you seriously and that makes you a big joke. That's exactly what you are a big joke, kungfools.

SCARS suck. My autokinematic response to any SCARS practioner is to slap them on the side of the head and give them a dunce hat.

I've been absent from the boards for some time. Reading this thread has rekindled 100% of my love of the internet, but only 43% of the time. What should I do? Does anyone know a Navy SEAL who can set me on the right martial path? Or maybe someone who trains Navy SEALS?

No Navy seals, I do know 3 ninja's and a Rabbi who can help.

I know guys in the Navy who might be interested in taking you into the right marital path. They will give it to you straight.