Most of RBSD's idea of "Pressure testing" = Bullshido

**Fantasy Warrior** · Posted On: 8/14/2007 7:27pm

those clips still don't amount to pressure testing

**Hanniballistic** · Posted On: 8/14/2007 8:25pm

Originally Posted by Traceur

Ah I see.

As a cop, what would you recommend the average person learns for self protection and how should they train? Do you think unless you are doing full contact/NHB training then you can't expect to learn usable self protection skills?

That is a can of worms!

The stock answer is the any art can have merit if subjected to correct testing and training.

MMA/NHB lend themselves better to a SD situation by the fact that they have inherent contact and pragmatism in the training. But you do not need to do those arts, just adopt their methodology.

ahh **** it - do mok'bara!

**Traceur** · Posted On: 8/15/2007 2:49am

Originally Posted by Hanniballistic

That is a can of worms!

The stock answer is the any art can have merit if subjected to correct testing and training.

MMA/NHB lend themselves better to a SD situation by the fact that they have inherent contact and pragmatism in the training. But you do not need to do those arts, just adopt their methodology.

ahh **** it - do mok'bara!

Ha, yeah it's the million dollar question but I like the answer. I agree that if you are going to train for a potentially violent situation then you should know what it feels like to take a few whacks, get kicked while you are on the ground etc so if it happens for real it isn't something new to process.

I read a comment on a non-MA forum where some guys including an LEO or two were discussing martial arts and someone who did MMA said that for self protection for the average person you need something that allows you to turn on the aggression in the event of an ambush attack (mugging or whatever) do enough to hammer the bad guy without going too far that any witnesses would think you are the aggressor, and then go home. His comment was MMA training will make you strong, tough, fit and give you skills but it doesn't really cater for that kind of eventuality.

If I can dig out the original quote I'll paste it as the guy put it better than I did.

Food for thought though. At some point, self protection training has to be unpleasant and take you out of your comfort zone or it's no use.

**Sophist** · Posted On: 8/15/2007 6:09am

Don't forget the awareness, avoidance and de-escalation stages. They're the most important parts of self protection. Getting a Geoff Thompson book or two would likely be helpful. He is also big on the pre-emptive strike (in the UK at least it's quite legal if you can show that you had reasonable grounds to suspect a serious threat) and while what he does is basically MMA, there's a little more focus on stand-up tactics and boxing. You might want to read up on his "Animal Day" testing too.

The important thing is that you use the competitive training methodology that's been shown to bring results since judo cleaned house in Japan a hundred and twenty years ago. You need drills without a predetermined winner to get both sides trying to win and sharpening their skills against full resistance; you may want to adapt these to incorporate, say, multiple attackers or weapons (if you're interested in unarmed defence against weapons, Karl Tanswell's STAB program or anything the Dog Brothers have on it would be a good start) or whatever, but the training methodology is going to be the same. And yes, these drills will mean you're going to get punched in the face or slammed or choked - but from personal experience, I can say that the fear of being slammed and choked is worse than the reality.

Given the relatively low chances of being randomly assaulted if you're not in a high-risk profession, though, you might not want to get all that deeply into it; I suspect Geoff's advice in that case would probably be to start with a bit of boxing.

**Traceur** · Posted On: 8/15/2007 7:01am

I've read Dead or Alive by Geoff Thompson and can't disagree with any of that, especially the awareness part. For most people that's the thing that is missing. There is some shocking stuff out there being taught as women's self defence where the students would be better served with good awareness training as opposed to thinking that the wristy twisty thing they learned will stop someone with a knife. Some guy called Johnny Bravo (I think that's his name) and his blonde model wife are some of the worst offenders out there in youtube land.

I've had my nose broken in training before, had black eyes etc and the thought of them is definitely worse than the reality. It didn't go down too well at work though! :)

I think the hard thing is getting people who are new to training and contact sports used to the feeling of contact and then building it up to a more resistant form of training. There seem to be two kinds of training - those that don't spar at all or tag spar (like Choi Kwang Do) and those that go all out (like Geof Thompson, Senshido).

Did you ever go to an Animal Day? I've only seen footage. The other thing I've seen are these "bulletman" courses.

**Hanniballistic** · Posted On: 8/15/2007 7:07am

I have run "Animal Day" courses - great fun! I am/was a BCA instructor under Pete and Geoff too.

Self-Protection is largely common sense - the physical bit is only about 10% of the picture. Avoidance strategies and not putting yourself in the line of fire will always be the best method

**M-Tri** · Posted On: 8/15/2007 4:07pm

lol, they should have someone attack them when they stop for gas after they leave. that's RBSD testing ;)

**huncky** · Posted On: 8/18/2007 2:36pm

hmm , this is my first post in here
for the last 9 months i'v been training for self def. both martial arts and rbsd and let me tell u my final conclusion is ( i had 3 street problems in this period ) the best self def. tools is ur head and ur mouth in the last time one week ago i was almost killed if it wasn't for my uncle
who talked our way out of it , in the 1st 2 times self def. teq and training did well but really when i think now and look back with more knowledge i think that i could get out of it with or with out the training
------------------------------------------

back to the point of rbsd i think it's good in comparing with alot of the other things out there but stell it always train u to deal with 1 or 2 max in reallity if u don't look like a prey
they will not dare to attack u unless it's 3 : 1 or more and in this case no self def will be good for u , only ur brain ,mouth & maybe some sycolegy

thanx