How Narrow Vision Can Hold You Back in the Arts

I was a student of the arts prior to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA coming on the scene. At that time you didn't have to worry about getting taken to ground and you weren't even worried by the possibility. I never even imagined a ground fighting system of any value. It is a pity in a way as it would have focused me more on things that would have improved my martial arts no end.

The system I studied didn't have takedown defences as such, at least there were no techniques. It did however have some good strategies for avoiding getting taken to ground, although I think these were modifications added in by my instructor because I don't see them anywhere now. A low, fast moving footwork that produced a significant mass effect, in combination with tenets of protecting the waist and non grab seemed to stop you from being dive tackled in group attack training. If I really had to worry about the current generation of fighters though, then I probably would have got closer to the Energy World solutions that my instructor had developed (but hadn't articulated at that time.)

I'd like to think that I would have avoided taking the obvious path of incorporating a few takedown techniques and learning a bit of ground fighting in the hope it would help me get to my feet again. When you look at MMA they seem to be using the cage a lot of the time to try and prevent takedowns but a lot of the matches I see still end up on the ground a large percentage of the time. I cannot see anything to indicate that an aggressive opponent can't take you to ground if they are serious about it, especially if you are relying on technical approaches to prevent it.

Part of the commentary I see in the ongoing drama of MMA verses TMA is the idea that because someone participates in and focuses on competition then they have a lack of orientation towards self defence. Having such a narrow vision of other fighters is not going to push TMA exponents in the direction they need to go. It is a fabulous delusion to think that an MMA exponent is forever constrained to operating by the competition rules of the ring. I'm pretty sure they are like everyone else and can fight dirty if they want to, but it obviously just gets you disqualified in an actual competition. Certainly if you are spruiking self defence then you shouldn't demean MMA in one breath and then demonstrate something likely to fail as a solution in the next.

Self defence is a poor driver in any case when you are facing multiple opponents. Some arts talk about survival but that is not a real driver, it's more a desired outcome. Freedom taken to an extreme is the best driver that I have come across for group attack. People who understand this basic philosophy know they cannot allow themselves to be grabbed, or go to ground, and it starts to broaden your thinking as to how you have to move. Accelerating your whole system and creating a mass effect seemed so obvious once I got my mind around freedom. After a while you look back at the technical solutions you used to rely upon and wonder how you could be so narrow of vision.