Should People Who Don't Kung Fu Make Ignorant Assertions Regarding Kung fu Arts?

[Simon McNeil]

Yeah, Thaiboxerken is just trolling and I just like ripping on him... don't ask me why, I just do for some reason... I think it's because I actually dislike Muay Thai rituals (that music gives me a major headache and if not for Boxing MT people still wouldn't know how to punch) and he epitomizes the MT nutrider. :new_321:

[Cullion]

IIRC, Jason Delucia had already started learning some BJJ before the UFC, because after he did the Gracie challenge he said 'that stuff works, can I learn some ?'.

I also vaguely remember after his fight with Royce, Jason shaking hands and chatting with Helio with some commentator mentioning that he had already done some training with the Gracies. There was a brief clip on the DVD I saw of De Lucia in an earlier fight with some other striker with a lot of very fast flashy kicking (one of the fights he won).

[Thaiboxerken]

Who enters MMA events with training in a single style these days ?

Royce Gracie

[wer]

Hadn't Delucia already been beaten down in a Gracie in Action tape? I've always wondered what happened in the interim that made him think it would go any different.

Here's your answer about what happened after the Royce/Jason dojo challenge on the tape:

.that a friend of rickson's befriended me and taught me alot is true .he wanted me to make a good account of myself .

IIRC, Jason Delucia had already started learning some BJJ before the UFC, because after he did the Gracie challenge he said 'that stuff works, can I learn some ?'.

I also vaguely remember after his fight with Royce, Jason shaking hands and chatting with Helio with some commentator mentioning that he had already done some training with the Gracies. There was a brief clip on the DVD I saw of De Lucia in an earlier fight with some other striker with a lot of very fast flashy kicking (one of the fights he won).

Before the dojo challenge, Jason's only groundwork was from his Kung Fu training. Before the rematch in UFC, his groundwork was what RIckson's friend taught him after the dojo challenge. I hadn't heard the 'that stuff works, can I learn some ?' quote -- where's it from? Thanks.

As for Helio, Jason's got a huge amount of respect for him so I'm not surprised there's footage of them together.

[PointyShinyBurn]

wer, you're a student of Jason's? Other than incorporating serious striking and groundwork, how does it differ from normal Aikido? What's his take on the catch-hand-and-wristlock punch defence and similar? Is it all as profoundly awesome as I think it is?

[wer]

wer, you're a student of Jason's? Other than incorporating serious striking and groundwork, how does it differ from normal Aikido? What's his take on the catch-hand-and-wristlock punch defence and similar? Is it all as profoundly awesome as I think it is?

Yes, I'm a student of Jason's and have been for almost 3 years, so of course I think it's all profoundly awesome.

What he teaches depends on who you are and what you want to learn. So for instance, he teaches traditional Aikido to some people and MMA-style fighting to others and some concentrate on submission wrestling (no strikes). Most of us are getting a mix, but for some the mix doesn't have much real striking and kicking and for others the mix includes a lot of punching, etc. Being a small 45-year-old female, I don't do a lot of striking (no-one wants to hit me, anyway) or high kicks and on the ground I concentrate more on chokes; and the Aikido's the part I love the most, although sub wrestling's fun. I do some stand-up sparring (light contact only) along with my Aikido, but no slugfests for me, just no-strike randori so we can do everything else but I probably won't get my nose broken and have to explain it to my husband. Other people in the class are younger, much bigger, stronger, and are happy to whale on each other.

The main thing about his Aikido is that it's most like O'Sensei's pre-war Aikido, So that means atemi, and training against fully resisting people instead of purely waza with a cooperative partner. We do learn the various techniques with a cooperative partner, who steps up the resistance as the training continues; but we do randori (1 on 1) in every class, using techniques on each other competitively instead of cooperatively, each person trying to take the other person down or submit him.

When he's teaching the "pure" form of a technique (say, irimi nage), he'll show it the traditional Aikido way. But once we've got the basics down, he teaches us when we need to do the atemi to make it work "for real" since if the opponent is very good and fully resisting it's going to require the strike, same as O'Sensei said in the pre-war days. It's not brute force, though; he still stresses unbalancing your opponent and going with his movements and changing techniques if you feel too much resistance, all the usual Aikido ideas. When you see his Combat Aikido DVDs, you can see that it's pretty traditional stuff even though it incorporates groundwork and his uke is a good fighter who is resisting when they do randori. We don't have clips of it online yet because of "technical difficulties," but there's some terrific randori on the 5th DVD.

I don't know everything yet -- far from it -- and he's always got new stuff he hasn't shown us before. But so far, I haven't seen him do or teach much of any catch-hand-and-wristlock punch defense. The punch defense we use the most is not being there when the punch lands because you've tenkaned out of the way or just evaded. Redirecting the punch while you're moving, yes, or grabbing it when it's at full extension and overextending him as you move holding it. After you deflect a punch, you can be in a good position to grab the wrist or something else handy while you're already moving and your opponent's not expecting you to be aiming for his wrist.

If you've got specific questions for Jason, ask. He posts here sometimes and we try to keep an eye on the threads mentioning "DeLucia," so we'll probably see it before too long.