Another rant...

[Beatdown Richie]

> 100 % of all REAL fights, NOT scraps, not a drunken guy
> getting beat up, not two kids punching each other in the face,
> REAL fights, that is to say: Between 2 people that KNOW how to fight.
what you really want to say is, 100% of fights that involve both striking and grappling involve striking and grappling. No Real Scotsman fallacy, anyone?

Look at the Danzig fight: I hope you won't argue that the push was a grappling move. Danzig has trained MA for a good long time AFAIK, even if it doesn't show. "Real fight" or not?

[pst]

The Beaver hath spoken.

Good posting Ronin.

[Ronin]

Originally posted by Beatdown Richie
> 100 % of all REAL fights, NOT scraps, not a drunken guy
> getting beat up, not two kids punching each other in the face,
> REAL fights, that is to say: Between 2 people that KNOW how to fight.
what you really want to say is, 100% of fights that involve both striking and grappling involve striking and grappling. No Real Scotsman fallacy, anyone?

Look at the Danzig fight: I hope you won't argue that the push was a grappling move. Danzig has trained MA for a good long time AFAIK, even if it doesn't show. "Real fight" or not?

I would NOT call one guy pushing and the other guy knocking him out a fight.
If that were the case, I would have had dozens of fights under my belt...oh wait... I just figured out Rickson Gracies 400 victory record !!!

[j416to]

Most non-medical/scientific scales are not very accurate when it comes to measuring absolute values. But they're pretty good at predicting trends, or measuring relative quantities. Thus I suspect that your scale was calibrated to measure the difference between a couple of "set" points, the so-called typical values for an average non-athletic person, and an athlete. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if it was also based solely on the percentage of water verse body mass, and couldn't tell the difference between 100lbs of fat or 100lbs of muscle, and therefore used some "typical" values for athletes verses non-athletic people. And that their definition of an athlete, being someone who did 10 hrs of cardio a week, was just something dreamt up by their marketing dept, to connect with their targetted customers.

[Beatdown Richie]

> I would NOT call one guy pushing and the other guy knocking him out a fight.
fight : 3 a) A physical conflict between two or more individuals.
(From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fight )
physical? check
conflict? check
two individuals? check
Yup, that was a fight.

[SlimJim]

Ronin...good rant.

As far as the opening of your first post, here you go:

[Ronin]

Fight, scrap, altercation, love making, attitude adjusting, mating ritual.
You say tomayto, I say tomahto...

[Sun Wukong]

Well, the only part of the 'rant' i take issue with is the part about being good at both striking and grappling.

you don't have to know both. You don't even have to know how to fight if you are lucky and smart.

If you want to try and be the 'ultimate warrior' sure. I love judo; i like goshin jutsu; i like beer and pizza too. Most people don't know how to fight to save their arse at all; even most 'martial artists'. most of the rational people here know exactly why that is even if it's hard to directly articulate why and be completely comprehensive of the whole issue.

And that's what it comes down to right? being comprehensive of the whole issue. Well is it necessary to be completely comprehensive? Do you really need to or is it even possible to be completely comprehensive about 'the big picture'?

when i was growing up there was this kid, i couldn't fight with him at all for one reason or another. Ironically enough, the kid that would pick on him, i could had beaten senseless on a few occasions even though they were older and bigger than me. I know this is just a playground anecdote, but i believe that it makes a pretty good metaphore to explain a larger issue.

Their are too many possible variables to make it within most people's grasp to be any where near 100% comprehensive, let alone maintain it for a lenghty period of time. That's why all those guys from history talked about training 12 hours a day. That's one of the reasons why so many martial arts schools would specialize in history, in one way or another if only to beat the guy in the next village's school or to be so good at just a few techniques to give the the winning edge on a reliable basis.

Just make sure that what you know is reliable most of the time. If you are doing this because you are on some educational tour of the martial arts and you love this stuff because it makes you feel good and you have a hell of a time doing it, then learn whatever the hell you want. Even it's the martial applications of underwater ballet.