Evan's MAS esta no mas.

[erezb]

You said you know "Anatomy well" but you obviously don't know even the difference between a vein and an artery. If you are obsessed about your safety you should train at least 3 times a week in some sport MA with good sparring partners that will challenge you. You should also invest at least (IMO) 3 lessons a week on one of the MA (if you do MMA) and focus most of your time and strength on that, especially if you are limited to 6 months. You want your reflexes during a fight to be technique oriented, If you spread yourself too thin you will end up with nothing much. So focus on either wrestling or MT, and supplement a class a week on the other just to get some idea.

[Diesel_tke]

1)Have you ever been seen by a mental health doctor?

2)Have the diagnosed you with anything?

If no to the first question, go see one. If yes to the first question, what is the answer to the second question?

[wetware]

Since this is newbietown, I'm going to be as gentle as possible.

Tell me if any of these ideas are false (acting under the assumption that I can't run away):

This is your first false assumption. If you're truly devoted to paranoia, you must increase your situational awareness. Two words you should never forget are the following: Exit Plan.

1.) To kill something, you must stop the function that allows it to live.

Yes, but why are you even worried about this? Unless you're being dumb, all you need to do is get your attacker off balance and beat feet.

2.) The human body survives on oxygen and nutrients that travel to the brain.

Among other things, but yeah. Sure.

3.) The eyes, solar plexus, and clavical can not be trained to be any stronger.

In the case of the eyes and clavicle this is true, but they can easily be protected effectively. Muscle can help protect the solar plexus.

4.) the only way for blood (and subsequently oxygen and nutrients) can get to the brain is through two veins or arteries in the neck.

Arteries, but OK. Again, why is this a concern?

5.)Without training, the body will react automatically when trauma is inflicted to specific areas such as eyes, broken bones, solar plexus, or the face. (I would say the groin or female breasts, but drug use could stop that.)

All this is silliness except for the broken bones and you've got to be able to break the bone first. Even then you could be fighting Tim Sylvia.

6.) There are two types of Knock out. The first is a sensory overload and the second is a concussion.

There are several others. Some you can manipulate, others you can't. The ones you can usually involve blood pressure spikes or interruption of blood flow to the brain.

Sensory overload? What does that even mean in this context?

7.) The spine is responsible for all movement.

Yes, but there's a reason that people ball up instinctively when they're hurt. The chances of you doing spinal injury are slim to none, the back is a well constructed area.

8.)F=MA force is equal to mass times acceleration.

Yes, but more applicable here are moment of rotation and momentum. But why does it matter?

9.)Force inflicts more damage if the same force is sent through a smaller contact point. (A punch and elbow with the same force would cause differing damage due to the surface area able to take the blow.)

Yeah, OK.

10.) Once a person starts going into shock, they have very little time to react.

Your Mileage May Vary.

11.)there are likely only 5 types of attacks somone can run into.

a.)bladed
b.)Ballistic
c.)Blunt
d.)electric (taser)
e.)chemical (pepper spray)

Ballistic is really blunt writ large, but if you want a new damage type consider piercing or stabbing. It acts very differently than anything you have listed.

12.) It is always better to assume that a person has a hidden weapon.

Fine.

13.)When a person enters fight or flight, Only simple motions can be remembered. Too many options will leave the brain to hesitate.

Subject to the principles of autonomization/muscle memory, sure.

14.) temporary disablement of a vital system will either cause a knockout or death.

Perhaps. Depends on how it was disabled. You've got a range here, from tunnel vision or a numb hand to death.

15.) if you are ever in a conflict where you are being attacked by multiple attackers with weapons, it is better to:

a.)stay out of the middle of the attackers.
b.)attack the biggest threat first.

Or the closest. Or the smallest, just to get the numbers down. Or the one who most directly impedes your escape.

Or give them your wallet.

16.) It is better to assume that you are at a disadvantage from the getgo.

"All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun."

17.) It is better to find a weakness, exploit it, and keep attacking it and other weaknesses until the threat is over.

Yeah, OK. Or buy time and run.

18.) I wouldn't fight unless it was completely neccessary.

Uh huh.

See, one of the problems with this whole thing is that you've built up this false dichotomy... you know what? It's not even a dichotomy. It's fantasizing. There's an entire continuum of potential actions. Why not knock the dude's jaw loose and bail? Why not shove the guy hard and bail? If you're really worried about being attacked overseas, spend time training track and field. The last thing you need to is successfully protect yourself in what you've convinced yourself is a life or death situation and end up in a foreign prison. Also, what Alex said about learning the area. There are places you simply do not need to be, don't go there. If you find yourself in a situation, odds are you have nothing they want other than your money. Give it up and get gone. Done.

In the martial arts side of it, stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Train hard. A sport form like muay thai, boxing, judo, BJJ or anything else that spars live will be fine and give you an advantage over magical thinking and theory.

As for the Spec Ops outfit, do some research on where they're trying to go with the whole Land Warrior/Future Warrior project. It's probably pretty much in line with what you're thinking.

[Evan_or_L]

Thanks for all the insight guys, I appreciate it. I know it seems a bit (not even a bit) over the edge. Some of you probably think me a sociopath right now. Recently one of my friends got beaten pretty badly on one of these trips. I also hear all these stories about Martial arts black belts getting killed when trying to defend themselves. I just want my bases loaded.

For all comments reguarding just punch the face and leave, good plan. That seems to be the general consensus anyway. I also just read the intro to newbies when it came to sparring and martial arts. Informative. I guess I'm just kind of freaking out because I have no idea where I'm going and what I'll be facing. I'm just a fearful kind of kid.

Now the comments reguarding to the vein/artery thing, I guess that was a slip up on my part. I use the names interchangably, though I suppose I shouldn't.

Now for the comment about the mental health thing, I chuckled about that quite a bit. To cease your worries, I am just a finicky nerd, not schizophrenic. No voices in my head or mood disorders.

Finally, the only reason that I'm trying to "re-invent the wheel" Per say is because I have so little time. I'm not sure whether the one and a half year training I had was legitimate or being fake. I figured if I had been learning fake stuff, then I might as well dedicate my self to the most simple form of self defense (gouge the eyes, punch the throat, and run). I can train my reaction time, true, and it's what I'm doing now at the mma gym, but you lose that stuff pretty quick.

[Diesel_tke]

This is a pretty good book that will help you. No need to do so much reasearch on your own. A lot has already been done. You just need to look in the right places. "The Little Black Book on Violence". I've read it and it has some pretty good stuff in it. I think it is exactly what you should be reading.

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Black-B...7343819&sr=8-6

[Evan_or_L]

Oh that's perfect! Thanks Diesel_tke.

As for everyone else, sorry about coming across so strangely. I got freaked out when I heard that one of my friends got mugged on one of these trips, and then I found this site that said most martial artists are fake. You guys have managed to calm me down. I'll just train at muy thai and wrestling. Thank you. The odds of me getting mugged are very slim anyway.

[Evan_or_L]

Now a couple of you were curious about the whole F=MA thing, and why it mattered.

Assuming that you are facing a kicker (which all my sparring partners are) the further you are away from them, the longer that kick has to accelerate, and the more force it will hit you with. I think kickers are better to clinch or wrestle with.

and the thing about reactions, the reason I put that is because you could set up combos the second you got a hit that caused a reaction. Hit the gut (solar plexus), the bend over and the head is more available.

The rest of the premises were more about an armed attacker.

[Permalost]

4.) the only way for blood (and subsequently oxygen and nutrients) can get to the brain is through two veins or arteries in the neck.

This is a common misconception. The blood vessels you're thinking of are the exterior carotid artery and exterior jugular vein. Those are the ones on the outside of your neck on either side of your trachea. There's also internal versions of those structures as well. They enter the skull through the spine; that's why the cervical vertebra have little holes in the sides like this:

While the vertebra below the neck look like this:

If what you're getting at is that targeting the exterior blood vessels of the neck via cutting, trauma or choking, then yes, damaging the ones in the front can be fatal.

I used to study criminology when I wanted to be a detective. I know criminal methodology, I know anatomy well

To be honest, I would've assumed anyone with a forensics background would know the above info. Any class with bone landmark identification and identifying based on fragments will usually use the cranial vertebra blood vessel holes to distinguish them from thoracic and lumbar vertebra.

5.)Without training, the body will react automatically when trauma is inflicted to specific areas such as eyes, broken bones, solar plexus, or the face. (I would say the groin or female breasts, but drug use could stop that.)

Spinal reactions are not as reliable as some RBSD folks would have you believe. It is not reliable enough to be your main game plan for fighting. For example, I've seen finger jabs to the eyes barely phase the receiver. Other posters have written about kicks to the groin going unnoticed. The problem is that the subject is studied on a human that's not under the same state as an adrenaline fueled attacker.

6.) There are two types of Knock out. The first is a sensory overload and the second is a concussion.

There's a whole lot of misinformation out there about knockouts, so do lots of research.

7.) The spine is responsible for all movement.

No. This is another thing that kinda jumps out from a criminology/anatomy expert.

9.)Force inflicts more damage if the same force is sent through a smaller contact point. (A punch and elbow with the same force would cause differing damage due to the surface area able to take the blow.)

I see where this is going, but there's a big caveat that you can't get the same force with all the striking surfaces of the body. For example, nearly everyone would be able to apply far more force with a punch than with the same motion ending in a spearhand or ipponken/phoenix eye.

11.)there are likely only 5 types of attacks somone can run into.

I don't see how dividing attacks into 5 types is helpful in any way. You don't have weapon defense: vol 1-5 to look at when a weapon attack is coming, so an index page won't help you either. Also: fire-based weapons. Also, ballistic weapons can be edged or blunt.

14.) temporary disablement of a vital system will either cause a knockout or death.

Temporary disablement will cause temporary disablement.

After that one, it seems like you're just collecting if/then truisms, which I don't think are very useful. Every situation is different.

[Diesel_tke]

Yeah, most of this stuff can be interesting to read or think about. But the best way to learn them is through live sparring with people. Matter of fact, you will probably find that a lot of good fighters have know idea what this stuff means, but that they still do them correctly. You don't necessarily have to know the "why" on some of these things.

All the knowledge in the world means nothing if you don't spar in an alive manner. The knowledge doesn't transfer to muscle memory without repetitions.

[Evan_or_L]

Huh.., I need toget rid of that anatomy book.. Obviously, i learned from the wrong one. So many people have noticed innacuracies that I didn't know. Right on. This is why I like being a newbie. I can admit that I don't know as much as I thought. Are any of you proficient with the seisan Kata, and Seiunchin Kata (While I learned anatomy from a book, I learned Kata and a variety of strikes from an actual dojo). Are they good to know at all? Or would it be more efficient to forget them and just hit the gym sparring (after sufficient instruction.)?