9 ms·

Fascinating history. It's strange to see what the various jujitsu-descended arts choose as their comfort level with injury. The traditional jujitsu ryu had lots

Fascinating history. It's strange to see what the various jujitsu-descended arts choose as their comfort level with injury. The traditional jujitsu ryu had lots of maming / killing techniques, which have been taken out and readded depending on the art: Judo focused on making a very safe art that could be applied full-intensity in a sporting context. Aikido focussed on making a purely defensive art. Then Gracie jujitsu decided to re-brutalize judo. And now we have MMA that is a sport that tolerates fairly severe injury of combatants. I can't say I like the direction MMA has gone here. Every time I see it, I kind of get a sick feeling like I'm watching some kind of Roman spectacle. I trained for a while in a style that taught techniques designed to kill. And, as a pacifist, I was okay with that because they were taught as forms, and the art is not practiced in competition. Clearly MMA had to decide on a tolerable level of violence between "no competition" and "fight to the death." I just wonder how that point of acceptable violence came to be what it is--from the article, broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight. I think I know the answer: maximum injury that won't result in death / legal problems. And I find that a bit troubling.

charlieglass 11y ago
Cagefighting came into existence as a way to test the efficacy of traditional martial arts. So much of what is taught is complete rubbish ("lethal techniques" that only ever practised against compliant opponents, etc.). All the beautiful movements and choreographed dancing of traditional martial arts fly out of the window when you face a skilled fighter that is trying to hurt you. The fighters know exactly what they sign up for, and probably would not want it any other way. They are consenting adults having fun. :) Regarding the brutalization of judo: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was born in the favelas, any martial art that was not brutal would be of no use there. Thinking that a martial art should not be brutal reveals a special kind of first-world thinking.
- Pxtl 11y ago
  > Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was born in the favelas The article paints a very different picture, an upper-class family dynasty developing the martial art.
  - vetler 11y ago
    Yes, he is mistaken. BJJ is certainly practiced in favelas, and there are people who use it to give youths something to do, as a way to keep them away from crime, drugs, etc. See the Tererê Kids Project, for instance: http://fightland.vice.com/blog/social-change-through-jiu-jitsu-the-terere-kids-project http://fightland.vice.com/blog/social-change-through-jiu-jit...
  - sanoli 11y ago
    No, it was not born in the favelas. The article is right. The Gracies were never poor and never lived in favelas. I'm a Brazilian with a pretty good knowledge of BJJ history (my father watched Helio's fights, etc).
- adamnemecek 11y ago
  > Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was born in the favelas, any martial art that was not brutal would be of no use there. Do you know the difference between martial arts and martial sports? Fundamentally if there is competition, it's a sport ergo they don't teach you the lethal techniques. Also differentiate between lethal and brutal.
  - qrendel 11y ago
    There's a lot of vitriol between people who practice different styles, with a lot of guys from traditional styles (karate, tae kwon do, kung fu, etc.) claiming combat sports are worthless in a Real Fight (TM) because it's just competition. Completely inaccurate in my experience - people who compete in full-contact combat sports will almost always beat the people who don't, other things being equal. The techniques don't have to be lethal to completely destroy your opponent, and BJJ was made for choking people out or breaking their limbs so badly they literally cannot continue the fight. Not to mention there's a plethora of illegal techniques ranging from neck cranks to spinal locks, removed from competition because they're far too dangerous and can kill or paralyze you. The best tournament practitioners are a lot more likely to know these and be able to apply them than people who sit around theorizing about them. But there's still a lot of big ego'd guys who can't fight and like to impress and intimidate people with statements like, "This technique is far too dangerous for me to actually demonstrate, but I could use it to destroy sport fighters any time I wanted! Don't make me hurt you to prove it." It's a lot of BS, and easier to perpetuate because grapplers can still beat you without hurting you that bad, whereas if you challenge a boxer and he caves your face in people don't get right up and say, "One more try, I can do better next time!" One of my best MA memories was getting my ass kicked in 5 seconds by a guy half my size who was only using one arm because the other was broken in a recent grappling tournament. Don't fall into the "combat sports aren't real" mentality. BJJ, judo, and wrestling guys will mess you up if you're not trained in how to defend against them.
    - kasey_junk 11y ago
      > BJJ, judo, and wrestling guys will mess you up if you're not trained in how to defend against them. This has been made painfully aware to me on enough occasions that it feels ingrained as instinct. That said, too many people assume that violence is an easily categorizable thing. Most people simply don't have a lot of exposure to the risk of a violent encounter between exactly 2, largely similarly sized, unarmed belligerents, that you can't talk your way out of or run away from. Quite contrarily if you are going to experience violence outside of a military or professional context in most parts of the Western world it is overwhelmingly going to be either domestic violence or a surprise attack with multiple attackers and/or weapons. In many of these cases the absolute worst case scenario is ending up on the ground. The point being that grappling/boxing/etc are fun activities and are great ways to win a fight, but honestly you aren't likely to get in a fight.
codewithcheese 11y ago
The rules of MMA have become fairly well defined in recent years. With the goal of minimizing the chance of life changing injury (remember injury and potential death is possible with many popular sports). Which make it quiet different from a Roman spectacle. A fight can be stopped by a referee if the fighter is deemed to be unable to protect themselves effectively in order to prevent excessive injury. A fighter can stop the fight at any time if he is not comfortable with the pain. I think the distinction between sports violence and criminal violence is that both parties are well informed, consenting and aware of what is happening and that its happening in a controlled environment where the risks are minimized with doctors on hand. Whether or not sanctioned informed violence is personally to your taste or good for society is a different question.
hoodoof 11y ago
Perhaps you should watch other sports then. I try to avoid watching things I don't like to watch.
RobertoG 11y ago
"Fascinating history. It's strange to see what the various jujitsu-descended arts choose as their comfort level with injury." I think is not strange. This oscillation is normal. There is a tension in all the martial arts that serious practicants are very aware of. If you practice only the form, where you can practice everything, you are not really practicing, because you are not used to what means a real fight. In the other hand is impossible to practice in a total realistic way because is dangerous and not healthy. The same tension translate to competition. When you start making rules it stop being a real combat, but without rules is impossible to have competition. In the Brazilian Jujitsu combats, for instance, there are a lot of things that are forbidden and you never train for (attack the eyes, break fingers..) but you would find in a "street fight" As the bio mechanics are the same for all the martial arts, we are all humans after all, I think that one of the more important things that determine a martial art "shape" is how it solve this tension between form and combat. The other more important being where your focus is (for instance stand up vs. floor, or grappling vs. punching). What you describe is the natural movement in those axis.
- mcv 11y ago
  I've done about one month of Pencak Silat many years ago, and in that month, I learned to attack the eyes (a whip with the fingers to cause pain or temporarily blind) and how to rip out a throat. It was obviously not done as sport. And yet this was also a fairly defensive style where every move started from a dodge and you never attacked with a fist. But it was a very aggressive defense.
  - V-2 11y ago
    The problem with "deadly" styles and moves is known as Kano paradox (after Jigoro Kano the judo founder, not the Mortal Kombat Kano ;) ), or alternatively a randori paradox. It boils down to that: you can learn eye-gouging, but you can't really practice it, so it ends up less effective than more "modest" and safer techniques. Learning to rip out throats without actually ever ripping it lacks lacks in the so-called aliveness aspect: https://youtu.be/imjmLWj5WCU https://youtu.be/imjmLWj5WCU
IndianAstronaut 11y ago
>broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight. That is just wrong. In any professional MMA organization, fights are called at this point to prevent permanent injury to the fighters so that they can sustain a long career.
- pokstad 11y ago
  Jon Jones was allowed to keep righting with a hyperextended elbow... and he won. He had to take a big chunk of time off to recover afterwards but he was fighting again.
- stergios 11y ago
  Josh Koscheck suffered a broken orbital bone at the hands of Georges St Pierre in the first round at UFC 124. The fight went the full five rounds.
roel_v 11y ago
Not interested in the discussion, but just to correct: "-from the article, broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight. " That's not true. When a referee sees a serious injury, they will stop the fight. Of course the web is full with clips of fights with lots of blood and stories of winning fights with broken bones, but that's selection bias - nobody talks about those hundreds of thousands of fights where neither participant has more than a few bruises, if that.
vetler 11y ago
> broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight There's MMA, and then there's no-holds-barred (or vale tudo, literally "anything goes"). MMA in the western world today is an organized sport, with rules to protect the fighters, and has little to do with how the Gracies used to fight in Brazil. Yes, you can still find nhb events, and you can still find MMA events that are freakshows, but events like UFC, Cage Warriors, Bellator, etc. are very well organized, and fighter safety is important.
sfjailbird 11y ago
I will be the sole responder who agrees with you that promotions like the UFC cross the line in terms of acceptable injury to fighters. Most professional MMA fighters with a few years in have severe debilitating injuries. I am not talking about a bad knee of slipped disc, I am talking about severe chronic pain and brain damage, something that is the inevitable result of the kind of punishment they deal with. Just look at someone like George Saint-Pierre who suddenly forgets what he has been doing for the last six hours. It doesn't matter if fighters participate of their own free will, I could probably go into the slums right now and get two people to fight to the death over a $50 bill. There's a reason we have laws to prevent exploitation and don't just leave it to people's "free will". I very much like MMA as a sport, but I wish there was a way to protect the fighters better. Headgear? Who can honestly say that they enjoy a fight where the fighters are bathed in each other's blood, not to mention the health implications (even the ref wears gloves).
- Retozi 11y ago
  One might argue that MMA crosses the line in terms of acceptable injury, but it would be quite unfair to single the sport out as "the sport that crosses the line". Boxing, Kickboxing and Football are arguably as bad as MMA in regards to brain damage, and many other sports in regards to chronic pain of some sort. Calling MMA out specifically on this issue is a convolution of the perceived violence and the degree of injury. (I don't care if fighters bathe in each other's blood, as long as the blood stems from a cut) The problem is that protecting the fighters is not simply a matter of adding Headgear (you can get knocked out easily with headgear as well btw) in fights, as a lot of fighters accrue their injuries in training. If it would be only the fight that could cause harm, I would argue MMA would be safe. But the lifestyle of a fighter as a whole is extremely unhealthy.
- codewithcheese 11y ago
  Can you link the info about GSP forgetting the last 6 months, didn't hear that one.
  - Retozi 11y ago
    http://fightland.vice.com/blog/joe-rogan-gsps-alien-abduction-and-forced-retirement http://fightland.vice.com/blog/joe-rogan-gsps-alien-abductio... he mentioned it here originally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmFsUV5ICKk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmFsUV5ICKk his theory is that he was abducted by aliens, but it sounds like brain damage...
Marazan 11y ago
Judo focused on making a very safe art that could be applied full-intensity in a sporting context. Just to be clear, Judo was created by taking only those parts of Jujitsu that could be actually practiced at full power and strength. It wasn't about creating a sporting variant.
kderbe 11y ago
A Gracie practitioner once told me that he felt MMA was safer than boxing for the competitors' long-term health. His explanation was that boxing matches typically run much longer and involve many more head strikes per match than MMA matches, which means the boxers are more at risk for brain damage.
- pokstad 11y ago
  This was also part of the UFC's argument to help regulate MMA. They kept a small number of rounds, a point system, and refs who could call a match when someone stopped protecting themselves. This, along with no strikes to the back of the head, made UFC on average more safe than boxing (unless you get head kicked, in which case you're definitely worse off).
mikekchar 11y ago
I'm not a aikido-ist, but I've had some friends who were very high level. They explained to me the origin of aikido was as a technique that policemen could use with plausible deniability. When people watch someone fight against an aikido-ist they see: "The guy charged at him and something happened and then the guy ran right into that lamp post and knocked himself out". Whether that is really true, or I misinterpreted what I was told, I'm not sure, but I always find it an amusing thought.
- Akkuma 11y ago
  I hope for your friend's sake that they just misinterpreted the origin. Aikido has a Paul Bunyan creator that I would say is analogous to Yoda. He was from the stories I heard, from a direct student of his Roy Suenaka of Wadokai Aikido, pretty much a modern Miyamoto Musashi and I'm sure no one will ever get completely true stories today. He started his life as a farmer, served in the Japanese Army during WW2, and had a spiritual awakening eventually leading to the creation of Aikido. He's an interesting person due to when he lived and the life he lived. Aikido has soft (spiritual) and hard (martial) techniques. A lot of sensei's only subscribe to one or the other and there are two major societies, Ki and Aikikai. When I practiced, we subscribed to both, so we even made use of things like choke holds and punches to initiate.
- ropman76 11y ago
  One of the things I enjoy about Aikido is that many of the techniques have "nice" and "not so nice" variations. The ikkyo technique can put an opponent on the ground with a minimal amount of pain. The nikyo technique is similar in some ways but can hurt a heck of a lot more because of the way the wrist is manipulated. I am guessing your friend(s) was illustrating that aikido has some nice ways of inducing compliance and some "not so nice" wrist breaking ways of inducing compliance.
bmelton 11y ago
"Then Gracie jujitsu decided to re-brutalize judo." Sincere question, but when did that happen? I suspect that you're conflating Gracie Jiu-Jitsu with MMA. The art of jiu-jitsu seems to me to be as passive as it ever has been. There've always been choke holds, and armbars, and while the techniques evolve over time, none of that has changed in BJJ. A punch is not a BJJ technique, for example, but a boxing, or Muay Thai, or whatever technique that gets incorporated into part of a competitor's MMA toolkit... but that doesn't make it BJJ. When I first read that sentence, I was reminded of having sparred with a BJJ practitioner way back in the mid-90s. He practiced a brutal form of BJJ that I had never encountered. To be fair, BJJ wasn't popular back then, and there certainly weren't gyms in every city, so it was a bit foreign. Long story short, even though it was just a competitive sparring competition, I lost, and I lost in embarrassing fashion because he used some kind of pinky lock that made me want to cry. So, reading about re-brutalization, my first thought was that they were teaching the small joint manipulation again, but I haven't heard of anybody doing that, which is kind of sad, because it's super effective as a defense. But they wouldn't, because the gaming commissions won't allow small joint manipulation techniques in the octagon, so there's not really any point in teaching it outside of shops specializing on self defense, and even those can't be trained effectively because you can't employ those techniques against other humans without a severe risk of injury.
- peatmoss 11y ago
  > Sincere question, but when did that happen? I suspect that you're conflating Gracie Jiu-Jitsu with MMA. The art of jiu-jitsu seems to me to be as passive as it ever has been. There've always been choke holds, and armbars, and while the techniques evolve over time, none of that has changed in BJJ. Fair question, and I'll readily admit I have limited experience with BJJ. However, at my first judo dojo, we shared space with a BJJ club, and I watched them perform locks on joints that are verboten in judo as practiced today--the reason being safety. Funny enough, aikido even has joint locks (wrist) that aren't done in competition judo due to the potential for injury when applied during shiai. As Wikipedia describes it, however, the presence of some of these techniques is due to BJJ forking early from Kodokan judo. So, I have my chronology a bit wrong. BJJ didn't (in this traditional form) re-brutalize judo; it forked from an earlier more brutal form of judo, and judo evolved toward less injury. In terms of small joint manipulation, I don't know about BJJ. However, I studied for a while in Danzan Ryu jujitsu in a blessedly not-testosterone-fueled environment. And that style very definitely had finger and toe locks. They were often combined with pins and were left in place as the final application of submission hold on someone you intended to extricate yourself from--mainly to make sure they weren't going to get up as you were trying to put distance between yourself. That escape aspect might have been my instructor's own flourish from aikido / Daito ryu training though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu-jitsu#Divergence_from_Kodokan_rules https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu-jitsu#Divergen...
joeletizia 11y ago
Classifying Gracie Jiu Jitsu as re-brutalizing Judo isn't the term I'd use. To be completely honest, it's simply wrong to describe BJJ as such. Brutal is the last word I would use to describe it. Jiu-jitsu lends itself much more to the preservation of the health of both combatants in a self-defense or sport scenario as compared to other martial arts. Certainly more so than striking based systems. I would argue that the main focus of any jiu-jitsu practitioner is to end the fight via choke. Look at sport jiu jitsu such as the ADCC or IBJJF. They aren't gladiatorial. The injuries suffered in these contests are as severe as those in any non-combat sport such as soccer or baseball. MMA on the other hand is by definition violent. The connection between MMA and BJJ is of course undeniable; the fathers of modern MMA are the children of the father of BJJ. However, they are VASTLY different things.
V-2 11y ago
They didn't "rebrutalize" judo, although admittedly bjj stayed closer to the requirements of real-life fights in compare to modern judo which neglected less spectacular aspects (such as ground fighting) for the sake of more flashy stuff (throws look way better on TV).
nhangen 11y ago
Watch the very first UFC tournaments...the ones where Royce Gracie won. You'll see something much different than what you see now. Modern UFC training is a blend of BJJ, Kickboxing, boxing, and other disciplines. Royce didn't use much of that, if any.
e40 11y ago
There are pure BJJ tournaments and they are the opposite of brutal. It's all technique and people don't get injured that often, unless Rousimar Palhares* is part of the tourney. He's famous for holding submissions far longer than he needs to, and causing damage. He's the exception, not the rule. * http://fightland.vice.com/blog/rousimar-palhares-is-a-leg-lock-savant http://fightland.vice.com/blog/rousimar-palhares-is-a-leg-lo...
- peatmoss 11y ago
  Two things: - the article you link has Rousimar doing (apparently legal, fight-winning) leg locks. These are not allowed in judo on safety grounds. - holy crap--the idea that there are people allowed to participate in multiple tournaments after not letting up on a tap strikes me as insanely irresponsible. Yeah, at that point, continuing to apply a technique after submission is bad bad bad. But, allowing a sociopath back into your dojo to potentially injure your other students is equally bad bad bad.
  - e40 11y ago
    Yeah, he seems to move from promotion to promotion. Seems like he should have been banned, for life, after the first promotion kicked him out (after multiple instances of holding the sub too long).

charlieglass 11y ago

Cagefighting came into existence as a way to test the efficacy of traditional martial arts. So much of what is taught is complete rubbish ("lethal techniques" that only ever practised against compliant opponents, etc.). All the beautiful movements and choreographed dancing of traditional martial arts fly out of the window when you face a skilled fighter that is trying to hurt you. The fighters know exactly what they sign up for, and probably would not want it any other way. They are consenting adults having fun. :) Regarding the brutalization of judo: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was born in the favelas, any martial art that was not brutal would be of no use there. Thinking that a martial art should not be brutal reveals a special kind of first-world thinking.

Pxtl 11y ago
> Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was born in the favelas The article paints a very different picture, an upper-class family dynasty developing the martial art.
- vetler 11y ago
  Yes, he is mistaken. BJJ is certainly practiced in favelas, and there are people who use it to give youths something to do, as a way to keep them away from crime, drugs, etc. See the Tererê Kids Project, for instance: http://fightland.vice.com/blog/social-change-through-jiu-jitsu-the-terere-kids-project http://fightland.vice.com/blog/social-change-through-jiu-jit...
- sanoli 11y ago
  No, it was not born in the favelas. The article is right. The Gracies were never poor and never lived in favelas. I'm a Brazilian with a pretty good knowledge of BJJ history (my father watched Helio's fights, etc).
adamnemecek 11y ago
> Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was born in the favelas, any martial art that was not brutal would be of no use there. Do you know the difference between martial arts and martial sports? Fundamentally if there is competition, it's a sport ergo they don't teach you the lethal techniques. Also differentiate between lethal and brutal.
- qrendel 11y ago
  There's a lot of vitriol between people who practice different styles, with a lot of guys from traditional styles (karate, tae kwon do, kung fu, etc.) claiming combat sports are worthless in a Real Fight (TM) because it's just competition. Completely inaccurate in my experience - people who compete in full-contact combat sports will almost always beat the people who don't, other things being equal. The techniques don't have to be lethal to completely destroy your opponent, and BJJ was made for choking people out or breaking their limbs so badly they literally cannot continue the fight. Not to mention there's a plethora of illegal techniques ranging from neck cranks to spinal locks, removed from competition because they're far too dangerous and can kill or paralyze you. The best tournament practitioners are a lot more likely to know these and be able to apply them than people who sit around theorizing about them. But there's still a lot of big ego'd guys who can't fight and like to impress and intimidate people with statements like, "This technique is far too dangerous for me to actually demonstrate, but I could use it to destroy sport fighters any time I wanted! Don't make me hurt you to prove it." It's a lot of BS, and easier to perpetuate because grapplers can still beat you without hurting you that bad, whereas if you challenge a boxer and he caves your face in people don't get right up and say, "One more try, I can do better next time!" One of my best MA memories was getting my ass kicked in 5 seconds by a guy half my size who was only using one arm because the other was broken in a recent grappling tournament. Don't fall into the "combat sports aren't real" mentality. BJJ, judo, and wrestling guys will mess you up if you're not trained in how to defend against them.
  - kasey_junk 11y ago
    > BJJ, judo, and wrestling guys will mess you up if you're not trained in how to defend against them. This has been made painfully aware to me on enough occasions that it feels ingrained as instinct. That said, too many people assume that violence is an easily categorizable thing. Most people simply don't have a lot of exposure to the risk of a violent encounter between exactly 2, largely similarly sized, unarmed belligerents, that you can't talk your way out of or run away from. Quite contrarily if you are going to experience violence outside of a military or professional context in most parts of the Western world it is overwhelmingly going to be either domestic violence or a surprise attack with multiple attackers and/or weapons. In many of these cases the absolute worst case scenario is ending up on the ground. The point being that grappling/boxing/etc are fun activities and are great ways to win a fight, but honestly you aren't likely to get in a fight.

codewithcheese 11y ago

The rules of MMA have become fairly well defined in recent years. With the goal of minimizing the chance of life changing injury (remember injury and potential death is possible with many popular sports). Which make it quiet different from a Roman spectacle. A fight can be stopped by a referee if the fighter is deemed to be unable to protect themselves effectively in order to prevent excessive injury. A fighter can stop the fight at any time if he is not comfortable with the pain. I think the distinction between sports violence and criminal violence is that both parties are well informed, consenting and aware of what is happening and that its happening in a controlled environment where the risks are minimized with doctors on hand. Whether or not sanctioned informed violence is personally to your taste or good for society is a different question.

hoodoof 11y ago

Perhaps you should watch other sports then. I try to avoid watching things I don't like to watch.

RobertoG 11y ago

"Fascinating history. It's strange to see what the various jujitsu-descended arts choose as their comfort level with injury." I think is not strange. This oscillation is normal. There is a tension in all the martial arts that serious practicants are very aware of. If you practice only the form, where you can practice everything, you are not really practicing, because you are not used to what means a real fight. In the other hand is impossible to practice in a total realistic way because is dangerous and not healthy. The same tension translate to competition. When you start making rules it stop being a real combat, but without rules is impossible to have competition. In the Brazilian Jujitsu combats, for instance, there are a lot of things that are forbidden and you never train for (attack the eyes, break fingers..) but you would find in a "street fight" As the bio mechanics are the same for all the martial arts, we are all humans after all, I think that one of the more important things that determine a martial art "shape" is how it solve this tension between form and combat. The other more important being where your focus is (for instance stand up vs. floor, or grappling vs. punching). What you describe is the natural movement in those axis.

mcv 11y ago
I've done about one month of Pencak Silat many years ago, and in that month, I learned to attack the eyes (a whip with the fingers to cause pain or temporarily blind) and how to rip out a throat. It was obviously not done as sport. And yet this was also a fairly defensive style where every move started from a dodge and you never attacked with a fist. But it was a very aggressive defense.
- V-2 11y ago
  The problem with "deadly" styles and moves is known as Kano paradox (after Jigoro Kano the judo founder, not the Mortal Kombat Kano ;) ), or alternatively a randori paradox. It boils down to that: you can learn eye-gouging, but you can't really practice it, so it ends up less effective than more "modest" and safer techniques. Learning to rip out throats without actually ever ripping it lacks lacks in the so-called aliveness aspect: https://youtu.be/imjmLWj5WCU https://youtu.be/imjmLWj5WCU

IndianAstronaut 11y ago

>broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight. That is just wrong. In any professional MMA organization, fights are called at this point to prevent permanent injury to the fighters so that they can sustain a long career.

pokstad 11y ago
Jon Jones was allowed to keep righting with a hyperextended elbow... and he won. He had to take a big chunk of time off to recover afterwards but he was fighting again.
stergios 11y ago
Josh Koscheck suffered a broken orbital bone at the hands of Georges St Pierre in the first round at UFC 124. The fight went the full five rounds.

roel_v 11y ago

Not interested in the discussion, but just to correct: "-from the article, broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight. " That's not true. When a referee sees a serious injury, they will stop the fight. Of course the web is full with clips of fights with lots of blood and stories of winning fights with broken bones, but that's selection bias - nobody talks about those hundreds of thousands of fights where neither participant has more than a few bruises, if that.

vetler 11y ago

> broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight There's MMA, and then there's no-holds-barred (or vale tudo, literally "anything goes"). MMA in the western world today is an organized sport, with rules to protect the fighters, and has little to do with how the Gracies used to fight in Brazil. Yes, you can still find nhb events, and you can still find MMA events that are freakshows, but events like UFC, Cage Warriors, Bellator, etc. are very well organized, and fighter safety is important.

sfjailbird 11y ago

I will be the sole responder who agrees with you that promotions like the UFC cross the line in terms of acceptable injury to fighters. Most professional MMA fighters with a few years in have severe debilitating injuries. I am not talking about a bad knee of slipped disc, I am talking about severe chronic pain and brain damage, something that is the inevitable result of the kind of punishment they deal with. Just look at someone like George Saint-Pierre who suddenly forgets what he has been doing for the last six hours. It doesn't matter if fighters participate of their own free will, I could probably go into the slums right now and get two people to fight to the death over a $50 bill. There's a reason we have laws to prevent exploitation and don't just leave it to people's "free will". I very much like MMA as a sport, but I wish there was a way to protect the fighters better. Headgear? Who can honestly say that they enjoy a fight where the fighters are bathed in each other's blood, not to mention the health implications (even the ref wears gloves).

Retozi 11y ago
One might argue that MMA crosses the line in terms of acceptable injury, but it would be quite unfair to single the sport out as "the sport that crosses the line". Boxing, Kickboxing and Football are arguably as bad as MMA in regards to brain damage, and many other sports in regards to chronic pain of some sort. Calling MMA out specifically on this issue is a convolution of the perceived violence and the degree of injury. (I don't care if fighters bathe in each other's blood, as long as the blood stems from a cut) The problem is that protecting the fighters is not simply a matter of adding Headgear (you can get knocked out easily with headgear as well btw) in fights, as a lot of fighters accrue their injuries in training. If it would be only the fight that could cause harm, I would argue MMA would be safe. But the lifestyle of a fighter as a whole is extremely unhealthy.
codewithcheese 11y ago
Can you link the info about GSP forgetting the last 6 months, didn't hear that one.
- Retozi 11y ago
  http://fightland.vice.com/blog/joe-rogan-gsps-alien-abduction-and-forced-retirement http://fightland.vice.com/blog/joe-rogan-gsps-alien-abductio... he mentioned it here originally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmFsUV5ICKk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmFsUV5ICKk his theory is that he was abducted by aliens, but it sounds like brain damage...

Marazan 11y ago

Judo focused on making a very safe art that could be applied full-intensity in a sporting context. Just to be clear, Judo was created by taking only those parts of Jujitsu that could be actually practiced at full power and strength. It wasn't about creating a sporting variant.

kderbe 11y ago

A Gracie practitioner once told me that he felt MMA was safer than boxing for the competitors' long-term health. His explanation was that boxing matches typically run much longer and involve many more head strikes per match than MMA matches, which means the boxers are more at risk for brain damage.

pokstad 11y ago
This was also part of the UFC's argument to help regulate MMA. They kept a small number of rounds, a point system, and refs who could call a match when someone stopped protecting themselves. This, along with no strikes to the back of the head, made UFC on average more safe than boxing (unless you get head kicked, in which case you're definitely worse off).

mikekchar 11y ago

I'm not a aikido-ist, but I've had some friends who were very high level. They explained to me the origin of aikido was as a technique that policemen could use with plausible deniability. When people watch someone fight against an aikido-ist they see: "The guy charged at him and something happened and then the guy ran right into that lamp post and knocked himself out". Whether that is really true, or I misinterpreted what I was told, I'm not sure, but I always find it an amusing thought.

Akkuma 11y ago
I hope for your friend's sake that they just misinterpreted the origin. Aikido has a Paul Bunyan creator that I would say is analogous to Yoda. He was from the stories I heard, from a direct student of his Roy Suenaka of Wadokai Aikido, pretty much a modern Miyamoto Musashi and I'm sure no one will ever get completely true stories today. He started his life as a farmer, served in the Japanese Army during WW2, and had a spiritual awakening eventually leading to the creation of Aikido. He's an interesting person due to when he lived and the life he lived. Aikido has soft (spiritual) and hard (martial) techniques. A lot of sensei's only subscribe to one or the other and there are two major societies, Ki and Aikikai. When I practiced, we subscribed to both, so we even made use of things like choke holds and punches to initiate.
ropman76 11y ago
One of the things I enjoy about Aikido is that many of the techniques have "nice" and "not so nice" variations. The ikkyo technique can put an opponent on the ground with a minimal amount of pain. The nikyo technique is similar in some ways but can hurt a heck of a lot more because of the way the wrist is manipulated. I am guessing your friend(s) was illustrating that aikido has some nice ways of inducing compliance and some "not so nice" wrist breaking ways of inducing compliance.

bmelton 11y ago

"Then Gracie jujitsu decided to re-brutalize judo." Sincere question, but when did that happen? I suspect that you're conflating Gracie Jiu-Jitsu with MMA. The art of jiu-jitsu seems to me to be as passive as it ever has been. There've always been choke holds, and armbars, and while the techniques evolve over time, none of that has changed in BJJ. A punch is not a BJJ technique, for example, but a boxing, or Muay Thai, or whatever technique that gets incorporated into part of a competitor's MMA toolkit... but that doesn't make it BJJ. When I first read that sentence, I was reminded of having sparred with a BJJ practitioner way back in the mid-90s. He practiced a brutal form of BJJ that I had never encountered. To be fair, BJJ wasn't popular back then, and there certainly weren't gyms in every city, so it was a bit foreign. Long story short, even though it was just a competitive sparring competition, I lost, and I lost in embarrassing fashion because he used some kind of pinky lock that made me want to cry. So, reading about re-brutalization, my first thought was that they were teaching the small joint manipulation again, but I haven't heard of anybody doing that, which is kind of sad, because it's super effective as a defense. But they wouldn't, because the gaming commissions won't allow small joint manipulation techniques in the octagon, so there's not really any point in teaching it outside of shops specializing on self defense, and even those can't be trained effectively because you can't employ those techniques against other humans without a severe risk of injury.

peatmoss 11y ago
> Sincere question, but when did that happen? I suspect that you're conflating Gracie Jiu-Jitsu with MMA. The art of jiu-jitsu seems to me to be as passive as it ever has been. There've always been choke holds, and armbars, and while the techniques evolve over time, none of that has changed in BJJ. Fair question, and I'll readily admit I have limited experience with BJJ. However, at my first judo dojo, we shared space with a BJJ club, and I watched them perform locks on joints that are verboten in judo as practiced today--the reason being safety. Funny enough, aikido even has joint locks (wrist) that aren't done in competition judo due to the potential for injury when applied during shiai. As Wikipedia describes it, however, the presence of some of these techniques is due to BJJ forking early from Kodokan judo. So, I have my chronology a bit wrong. BJJ didn't (in this traditional form) re-brutalize judo; it forked from an earlier more brutal form of judo, and judo evolved toward less injury. In terms of small joint manipulation, I don't know about BJJ. However, I studied for a while in Danzan Ryu jujitsu in a blessedly not-testosterone-fueled environment. And that style very definitely had finger and toe locks. They were often combined with pins and were left in place as the final application of submission hold on someone you intended to extricate yourself from--mainly to make sure they weren't going to get up as you were trying to put distance between yourself. That escape aspect might have been my instructor's own flourish from aikido / Daito ryu training though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu-jitsu#Divergence_from_Kodokan_rules https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu-jitsu#Divergen...

joeletizia 11y ago

Classifying Gracie Jiu Jitsu as re-brutalizing Judo isn't the term I'd use. To be completely honest, it's simply wrong to describe BJJ as such. Brutal is the last word I would use to describe it. Jiu-jitsu lends itself much more to the preservation of the health of both combatants in a self-defense or sport scenario as compared to other martial arts. Certainly more so than striking based systems. I would argue that the main focus of any jiu-jitsu practitioner is to end the fight via choke. Look at sport jiu jitsu such as the ADCC or IBJJF. They aren't gladiatorial. The injuries suffered in these contests are as severe as those in any non-combat sport such as soccer or baseball. MMA on the other hand is by definition violent. The connection between MMA and BJJ is of course undeniable; the fathers of modern MMA are the children of the father of BJJ. However, they are VASTLY different things.

V-2 11y ago

They didn't "rebrutalize" judo, although admittedly bjj stayed closer to the requirements of real-life fights in compare to modern judo which neglected less spectacular aspects (such as ground fighting) for the sake of more flashy stuff (throws look way better on TV).

nhangen 11y ago

Watch the very first UFC tournaments...the ones where Royce Gracie won. You'll see something much different than what you see now. Modern UFC training is a blend of BJJ, Kickboxing, boxing, and other disciplines. Royce didn't use much of that, if any.

e40 11y ago

There are pure BJJ tournaments and they are the opposite of brutal. It's all technique and people don't get injured that often, unless Rousimar Palhares* is part of the tourney. He's famous for holding submissions far longer than he needs to, and causing damage. He's the exception, not the rule. * http://fightland.vice.com/blog/rousimar-palhares-is-a-leg-lock-savant http://fightland.vice.com/blog/rousimar-palhares-is-a-leg-lo...

peatmoss 11y ago
Two things: - the article you link has Rousimar doing (apparently legal, fight-winning) leg locks. These are not allowed in judo on safety grounds. - holy crap--the idea that there are people allowed to participate in multiple tournaments after not letting up on a tap strikes me as insanely irresponsible. Yeah, at that point, continuing to apply a technique after submission is bad bad bad. But, allowing a sociopath back into your dojo to potentially injure your other students is equally bad bad bad.
- e40 11y ago
  Yeah, he seems to move from promotion to promotion. Seems like he should have been banned, for life, after the first promotion kicked him out (after multiple instances of holding the sub too long).