Funny RBSD Story

**JohnnyS** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 7:06pm

I mentioned this briefly in another thread with people asking who it was. I'm a bit reluctant to mention this because it always starts a lot of ****, but I'm in a mood where I don't care. This has been brought up before on the Mousel's forum in the mid-90's and on the Underground before Kirik deleted it:

In 1992 I attended a Tony Blauer seminar in Sydney Australia. At the time I'd been doing BJJ for just over a year and would have been a high level white belt I guess, but we were teaching it as part of Shootfighting. So we taught takedowns, standup and BJJ. I was invited to the seminar by a guy who was one of the promoters for Blauer, but who also was doing some training with me, Anthony Lange. Anthony Lange is now also a black belt in BJJ and had some Shooto fights in the mid-90's in Japan.

The first part of the seminar was about the psychology aspect of a fight. Tony talked about de-escalating the fight, learning to move out of your comfort zone etc This was the part I was interested in, and it was actually not too bad. I worked as a bouncer at the time and liked some of the things I heard.

The next part of the seminar was on fighting. I really wasn't interested in this part, but decided to hang around since I was there anyway. Tony started saying how one of the most common street attacks was a tackle. He asked if anyone trained to deal with this. I said yes, that we teach people to sprawl. He replied that that was no good, because "groundfighting is ****".

He then asked me to help him demonstrate since I knew takedowns. So he asked me to come in and slowly try to tackle him. I started to do a double-leg, and this is where he taught what I think he refers to as his "SPEAR". I could be wrong about the name though. It basically consisted of stepping back into nearly a horse-stance, then rake the eyes and palm strike the nose. It was clearly susceptible to a single-leg takedown if the double-leg didn't work, but it was his seminar so I said nothing.

Here's where it gets interesting. He asked me to try to tackle him again. So I did a double-leg and took him down. He wasn't happy and asked me to try again and to try to run him into the wall. So I did the double-leg again and took him down. Rather than dump him with me in side control, I gently put him on the ground with me in his guard. Then he started to eye-gouge me!
I was shocked and pulled my head back and he kept following me, trying to gouge my eyes. I had bruised and scratched eye-lids afterwards. I ended up pulling him into my guard and he asked me if I wanted to stop. I said "I'm fine" and then put him in a triangle choke. He had no idea what I was doing because he later mentioned to Anthony Lange about me putting him in "that head-scissors thing".

As this was going on, all 55 people at the seminar were standing around watching the fight. My friend Sean (also now a BJJ black belt) stepped closer to see what was happening when one of Tony's fans backhanded Sean in the stomach. Sean started to shape up to him. Anthony Lange saw that Tony was about to go out (his face was really red and veins were popping out on his head) as I was rolling to get mounted triangle and saw that Sean was about to hit this other guy so he came in and broke it all up.

Tony then got up claiming he could have blinded me six times. He was asked by someone in the crowd if he was in his comfort zone then and didn't reply but it got a good laugh from the crowd.

I'll state now that I really don't like Tony Blauer. He's arrogant and rude. He actually said to the wife of the other promoter of the seminar, Perry Gamsby, while sitting in Perry's kitchen: "What are you doing with this fat ****?"

He also has delusions of grandeur. I've heard from people that have spoken to him that he complains about other RBSD instructors, saying they are stealing his material. He has even claimed that Geoff Thompson steals his stuff! Geoff Thompson has been in over 400 fights, he doesn't need to steal material from someone who hasn't been in any. Geoff's stuff is also a hell of a lot more realistic and based on actual experience, rather than based on assumptions like Tony's.

The previous times this has been brought up (and not always by me), Tony has claimed I blind-sided him because I was pissed off that my takedown didn't work. The problem for Tony is, people that were there still post on the internet and have backed up my claims, not his.

Twelve years is a long time and Tony may have changed since then. I doubt it though which is why I don't care about posting this.

I hope it was worth the read.

**Crucified** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 7:13pm

Interesting read, sounds like a real wanker...

**Zing!** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 7:25pm

More proof of the superiority of training over guessing.

**Thaiboxerken** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 7:36pm

What's RBSD?

**Transcendent Sunchips** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 7:42pm

Reality Based Self Defense.....aka Really Bad Self Delusions

**Thaiboxerken** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 8:06pm

Oh, so it's just a marketing term. Like... Krav Maga.

**Red Elvis** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 8:14pm

LMAO.... he could have blinded you six times huh? Sounds like total b.s. to me. How many times could you have blinded him while he was in your triangle choke? I guess that's the rationale you come too when you fight people in big Darth Vader outfits. I like some of his stuff on adrenaline dump etc. but SPEARS? Still skeptical of that jargon.

**Wounded Ronin** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 8:31pm

What a great story.

**Te(V)plar** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 9:09pm

Awesome.

**Gumby** · Posted On: 10/12/2004 9:18pm

Originally posted by JohnnyS
I was shocked and pulled my head back and he kept following me, trying to gouge my eyes. I had bruised and scratched eye-lids afterwards. I ended up pulling him into my guard and he asked me if I wanted to stop. I said "I'm fine" and then put him in a triangle choke. He had no idea what I was doing because he later mentioned to Anthony Lange about me putting him in "that head-scissors thing".

Tony then got up claiming he could have blinded me six times. He was asked by someone in the crowd if he was in his comfort zone then and didn't reply but it got a good laugh from the crowd.

There in lies the beauty of a triangle choke- you're better off by just acknowledging him and saying "yep, you blinded me, but I just killed you by choking you unconcious and NOT letting go until you die, and I need only do it once"

People get too caught up in the whole "theres no tapping in real life" ****. After hes choked unconcious, who's to say you have to let go? Or after you break one of his arms (at which point hed be nearly combat ineffective) what makes them think you HAVE to stop?

Was a great read, thanks.