Old Man Jiu Jitsu all the way!
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Massive thanks to Lucci Del-Gaudio for interviewing both Gary and Hilton and my good self the other day for his popular Kaizen Talks show; giving us both a chance to help promote Precision Self Protection, we look forward getting back teaching classes and running seminars once the restrictions ease up.
Until then, enjoy the interview!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2921725901417822&id=1882180385372384
This video is currently doing the rounds and fits in nicely to some comments I'd been making on Facebook about martial arts instructors teaching fancy techniques to use in a real fight. Fighting is a really messy affair and rarely in my years on the doors have I seen slick moves being pulled off Hollywood style; this video really busts the myth of flash moves, as she pummels her opponent mercilessly with pretty much one strike.
My question is...would you fight this woman???
Whilst we are stuck in lockdown, I thought I'd share some old technique videos here on the Blog and this video looks at the range of Nelsons from quarter, half, three quarter and full nelson. They are a great way of turning your opponent and the three quarter nelson flows into a nice submission and of course you can finish them with the full nelson.
They were taught to me by my Traditional Jiu Jitsu instructor Trevor Roberts way back in the nineties and I've been using them ever since.
It's not IBJFF legal, but it's allowed in my gym!
They all work with and without the Gi and can catch a lot of people out who purely train BJJ and have never crossed trained any other grappling styles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWQKbNkcEhk&t=4s
This video was made during the last lockdown after everyone was issuing KB challenges, so I did my bit for the over 40's and can thank my student George for using some uplifting music to make a rather mundane video a lot more fun!
Now we have lots of down time during lockdown, here's a link to my friend Matt Jardine's novel available on Amazon.
Reading is an absolute gift and now's the time for everyone to give themselves some positivity and make changes for the better with our lives!
Northern Monkey coasters arrived today, available to all my Northern and non Northern Monkey friends, whether you grapple or not!
£5 each plus posting, payment via Pay Pal or bank transfer...drop me a message at wimbledonbjj@yahoo.com to place an order :)
Trying to keep busy during lockdown, so I thought I'd upload the PSP highlight video onto my You Tube channel for everyone to enjoy.
PSP London WILL be launched as soon as restrictions are lifted, so keep your eyes peeled :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGKacvMtDUY&t=19s
Huge thanks to Kieran Devine for asking the time to interview me a few weeks ago; it's normally me doing the interviews and it was a lot of fun to do, recalling many fond memories of the early days :)
As we are back in lockdown, I have plenty of time on my hands, so I have opened up the Q&A forum with my students and boy have they come up with a question for me, that's bound to see me burn in hellfire from certain sections of the martial arts community!
The question came about after one of my students had watched an episode of Cobra Kai 3, which sees Danny Larusso fighting with his old nemesis Chozen in Okinawa. In the fight sequence, Chozen strikes Larusso several times, which renders him temporarily paralysed and unable to attack.
This led to the question about pressure point strikes - do they actually work?
If there's ever been a topic to divide the martial arts world this sure is one of them...this article is based on my experiences as a Self Protection and Combatives instructor and over twenty five years' frontline experience working in the security sector as a frontline Door Supervisor.
The answer to the question is simply no, pressure point fighting does not work, not in the sense that people exchange specific pressure point strikes in a fight. There are of course, pressure points all over the body, but to say striking a single specific point on the body will cause a knockout is just not true.
I've witnessed hundreds and hundreds of fights in pubs and clubs and not a single one has been finished with a specific strike to Small Intestine 1 pressure point for example. Many people don't understand what happens to the body in a real fight, physiologically and psychologically; this article will attempt to educate the reader about these processes.
I feel that many of the martial arts are steeped with the mystique of the one inch knock out or death punch, which was very prevalent in the Seventies and with the Bruce Lee movies at the time. The general public have a misconception that an instructor in a martial art style that promotes pressure point fighting systems as possessing super powers and are sucked into the belief that they too can possess the skills to end a live situation by striking certain parts of the body. This is a very dangerous state of mind to be in when out walking the streets, if all you have done is train pressure point striking on what are essentially willing and compliant partners, generally offering little resistance and are in a static position.
This leaves an uphill struggle for the reality based instructors out there, teaching their students the hard and soft skills that are needed to give you an advantage when a situation becomes live.
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| You only have to go on You Tube and see these knock out demonstrations by the likes of George Dillman and Systema instructors; they are generally with the instructor's own students who are standing there passively awaiting a strike to their body. Of course, a knock out is going to occur in this situation, there is no resistance being offered, the strike has not been performed by the striker under pressure. On most occasions, when outsiders offer themselves to be struck, nothing of any consequence happens. There is no knock out and the instructor says that their Chi wasn't flowing correctly or that their tongue was in their mouth incorrectly, thus stifling the knock out energy of the strike. There are also videos of Aikido instructors challenging MMA fighters, which never end well for the Aikido instructors; the MMA guy isn't attacking specific pressure points per se, but he IS applying pressure through the energy of his glove onto the head of his opponent and gets the job done.  What happens to the body in a live situation will impact immensely on your response to the threat; we all hear about the adrenaline dump, but how many people have really felt this happen to them? A person up in your face screaming obscenities at you; someone waving a broken bottle in your face; a knife pulled on you; an individual with a crowbar in their hand as you get out of your car at home; face to face with a shotgun; attacked with a locking knife in a front room; attacked on the Underground; being grabbed from the front; grabbed from behind; ambushed; a large group ten, twenty strong; knocking someone down with your biggest shot, only for them to stand up again; people high on stimulants AND adrenaline, oblivious to pain? Sadly, I've experienced all the above scenarios and I am not ashamed to say that on every occasion I was inwardly scared; the knees start to knock, you shake involuntarily, your mouth goes desert dry, the heart pounds, the vision narrows, you feel sick, you want to urinate. You're dealing with all of the above, all these conflicting reactions, so do you really think you're going to hit a pressure point or Chi point the size of a five pence piece on a very specific point on the body with a one knuckle strike? I think we all know the answer.  In my Self Protection classes, I teach easy to use strikes that can be put into your arsenal after just a few classes and comprise of palm strikes; elbows, hammer fists and knees. Keep the options available as low as possible. Hick's Law states the more choices you present your users with, the longer it will take them to reach a decision; the reaction time is the time interval between the presentation of the stimulus and the beginning of the response to it. Pressure testing helps to reduce the time interval as much a s possible; when some one grabs you by the throat and desmans your phone or wallet, you don't have the luxury of choosing from your fifty or more techniques to escape this position, you need something to use instantly! What is sadly lacking in a lot of martial arts training is the use of aliveness and stress testing of techniques; placing your body under pressure so you can feel an adrenaline dump will make you aware of how hard it is to effectively execute fancy multi-layered techniques. Your body reverts to gross motor movements, you become almost robotic like, you have tunnel vision and it feels like you are not in control of your own body. The only way to recognise the signs of an adrenaline dump, to become comfortable in this state, to apply your techniques in this altered body state is by repeated pressure testing across as many different scenarios as possible. It's all good training your techniques in a well lit dojo, so hit the lights and see how you react; do some outdoor training at night, running through common assault scenarios for example. Do your pressure testing at the end of class, when you are physically and mentally exhausted. Use your imagination! Is your technique effective enough to work under extreme pressure against a live and resisting opponent? It's very hard to simulate people high on drugs for example, so if you want that level of feedback to your training, then I suggest you get you SIA licence or join the Police.  So to recap, does pressure point fighting work? No it does not in the sense of striking a specific energy point for example but yes it does by applying certain strikes to a wide surface area, mainly the head and neck targets; working on the doors, you don't have the time to soften them up with a body shot, the aggressor will be high on adrenaline/alcohol/drugs and you have to get your body up there in a flash to begin to nullify the attack. This also applies to the individual out on the street, coming home from work for example, or out in pubs, clubs, takeaway shops, taxi ranks, etc. If any readers disagree with me, then feel free to go out and experience all the live situations I've listed above and see how well you do with a precision pressure point strike. Thanks for reading and stay safe. Website links:- |
Here's a new video for you all to enjoy during lockdown; as always, it's a high percentage old school sweep with a deadly finish, ideal for all the Mid Life Rollers out there :)
Please click the subscribe button in the bottom right of the screen and enjoy more videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svy4qs2D3r0
Here's a video recorded a while back at Wimbledon BJJ, showing one sweep option from the Lasso guard; please click the Subscribe the button in the bottom right of the screen to enjoy more videos and help build up the channel.
All these videos are Old Man Jiu Jitsu and Mid Life Rollers friendly :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fzUqo4Y-6Q
What a crappy start to 2021, as we enter a third national lockdown!
Nothing much to do now but sit tight and hope the vaccinations are rolled out as fast as possible and we'll be back on the mats in a few months.
Stay safe and do your bit!
Mid Life Rollers is an awesome group of like minded BJJ enthusiasts aged 40 and over...you can find them on Facebook and on Instagram.
I've been a member for a few weeks and I've made a lot of new friends and as this Blog is here to promote BJJ to the 40+ brigade, I gave it a huge thumbs up and if you fit the criteria, then join the group and join in the fun!
Happy New Year to you all, it was a difficult 2020 to say the least, let's hope the Government sort this mass vaccination programme out, so we can get back on the mats and stay fit and healthy, the best defence against this pesky virus!
In the downtime, I'll be posting technique videos and other things to help keep our spirits up on the Blog :)
Ooos!
