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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 ran

by 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

qrendel 11y ago
Additionally to that, it's also not particularly useful in most situations even if it can be performed effectively. Unless you're truly in imminent danger for your life then killing someone will likely be a hugely disproportionate reaction, especially if done in such a brutal way as ripping out throats, and will lead to some serious consequences like long jail time, getting sued for medical bills, etc. There's a common (apocryphal?) story about an untrained guy who got into fight with an experienced grappler. The grappler got the takedown, got on top and was beating on him a little to show he'd won. Then right when he was about to stop and let him go, the guy tries to stick his fingers in his eyes. He ends up getting completely brutalized by his now really upset opponent who had already won and wants to punish the loser for trying to permanently blind him rather than just accept he'd lost. You basically stop being the victim and become the aggressor at that point, so it's good to be able to de-escalate a fight without having to severely maim the other person. Having a small repertoire of techniques that can only be used to kill or maim someone leaves you vulnerable in a huge number of self-defense scenarios.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  No. The part about "and was beating on him a little to show he'd won" tells me that the guy on top is now the aggressor. The guy getting beat on does not know when the other guy will stop, or even if he will ever stop. Given that he got "completely brutalized" for using a maiming technique in self-defense against an opponent that clearly outmatched him, my hindsight judgment is that it would have been justified for anyone present to threaten lethal force to stop the fight, simply to prevent further injury to the loser. This is why you avoid fights in civilized society, and disengage as quickly as possible if you cannot. The best fighter in the world is the one who can run away the fastest.
  - qrendel 11y ago
    I can certainly see why someone would find the entire story disgusting, and the point isn't to imply fights are fun tests of machoness. The point is not to escalate a fight if you're going to lose it anyway. To continue your example, if someone had chosen to threaten lethal force, they would have been escalating it yet again, and may have just as well ended up getting killed themselves. (For example, if the other person had an armed group of friends nearby.) The entire hypothetical thing is an example of how things can get out of hand really fast. The main reason I brought it up was that a lot of people think of eye gouges and groin shots as a "get out of jail free" card in a fight, and doing so has a good chance of getting them seriously hurt against someone who will not be stopped by it. That aside, I certainly agree with this part: >This is why you avoid fights in civilized society, and disengage as quickly as possible if you cannot.
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      You can't de-escalate a fight unilaterally. You can try to surrender. But if you tap out and the guy keeps hurting you, what do you do? Let him? Way to go, Gandhi, but you're still bound for the hospital. In certain fights, surrender may be equivalent to suicide. You would need to know something about the character of your opponent, when you are probably only acquainted with his fists. If you are in actual fear for your life, you should be trying to incapacitate your opponent by any means at your disposal, whether it is likely to piss him off [more] or not. What would he do? Beat you to death twice? Since escalation can be unilateral, and de-escalation is usually not, that produces a ratcheting effect that few people can afford to crank up. You never know if the other guy is going to be a grand-master fighter. Or a psycho. Or both. I stand by my opinion that beating on a guy who is already defenseless represents an escalation, and the loser is not able to meaningfully de-escalate from there.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  Your initial point makes sense, but: > There's a common (apocryphal?) story about an untrained guy who got into fight with an experienced grappler. The grappler got the takedown, got on top and was beating on him a little to show he'd won. Then right when he was about to stop and let him go, the guy tries to stick his fingers in his eyes. He ends up getting completely brutalized by his now really upset opponent who had already won and wants to punish the loser for trying to permanently blind him rather than just accept he'd lost. That sounds like the grappler making up a bunch of bullshit to excuse his own sadistic brutality. If someone has you pinned down and is beating on you "a little" (WTF?), a rational person does not assume that they're "about to stop and let him go". You assume they're going to keep on hitting you until their arm gets tired, and you take any measure necessary to save yourself from permanent injury or death. From the perspective of the guy on the ground, he was getting the shit beat out of him no matter what, so there's nothing to lose in trying for a gouge.
  - qrendel 11y ago
    Perhaps I should have left that part out, but as I replied below, the moral is supposed to be that eye gouges and groin shots won't help much if you can't control the fight already. The guy already winning hands down is in a lot better position to pull those dirty tricks, so there is definitely "something to lose" by escalating it. The saying is "position before submission." But a lot of people make money teaching unreliable self-defense stuff about how you can beat anyone with a quick eye gouge or groin shot, leaving people with a dangerous sense of self-confidence, imo. It's low percentage stuff, least likely to work on a truly dangerous opponent and mainly just good for hurting people who pose no threat to you anyway. Hence the story as a potential warning.
    - V-2 11y ago
      And don't forget the art of handgun disarming :)
scott_s 11y ago
Very much agreed; I tend to dismiss claims of "we study lethal moves, so we're more effective". You are good at what you train at. Training must be a close simulation of reality.
mcv 11y ago
We didn't practice the throat ripping at all, obviously (except maybe feeling the spot behind the throat where you need to put your fingers), but the whip technique was really the standard strike. Only we did it to the stomach rather than the eye. But it's hard to tell whether your technique is any good, and aim is completely irrelevant. Maybe you could combine this with aiming at an eye-sized target? But it's always going to be a very crude approximation of the real thing. Same thing with medieval fencing: injury is a big part of sword fighting, but you don't want to do that in real life, so you use blunt swords and lots of protection, so you have no idea whether your strike to the wrist would have been ineffective or would have chopped off the hand. And because protection is never perfect, you also train not to hit too hard, which is the exact opposite of what you'd want to do in reality.
- V-2 11y ago
  Yeah exactly, so practicing sword fighting doesn't prepare you for real sword fighting as good as boxing prepares you for a real-life fist fight. Because you can practice boxing at full force, and you can find out if you're able to knock someone down. Of course noone goes 100% on every sparing, but once in a while, or in competitions - entirely possible. Every practice is an approximation, sure, but some approximations are (inevitably) orders of magnitude more crude than others.

by V-2 11y ago

qrendel 11y ago

Additionally to that, it's also not particularly useful in most situations even if it can be performed effectively. Unless you're truly in imminent danger for your life then killing someone will likely be a hugely disproportionate reaction, especially if done in such a brutal way as ripping out throats, and will lead to some serious consequences like long jail time, getting sued for medical bills, etc. There's a common (apocryphal?) story about an untrained guy who got into fight with an experienced grappler. The grappler got the takedown, got on top and was beating on him a little to show he'd won. Then right when he was about to stop and let him go, the guy tries to stick his fingers in his eyes. He ends up getting completely brutalized by his now really upset opponent who had already won and wants to punish the loser for trying to permanently blind him rather than just accept he'd lost. You basically stop being the victim and become the aggressor at that point, so it's good to be able to de-escalate a fight without having to severely maim the other person. Having a small repertoire of techniques that can only be used to kill or maim someone leaves you vulnerable in a huge number of self-defense scenarios.

logfromblammo 11y ago
No. The part about "and was beating on him a little to show he'd won" tells me that the guy on top is now the aggressor. The guy getting beat on does not know when the other guy will stop, or even if he will ever stop. Given that he got "completely brutalized" for using a maiming technique in self-defense against an opponent that clearly outmatched him, my hindsight judgment is that it would have been justified for anyone present to threaten lethal force to stop the fight, simply to prevent further injury to the loser. This is why you avoid fights in civilized society, and disengage as quickly as possible if you cannot. The best fighter in the world is the one who can run away the fastest.
- qrendel 11y ago
  I can certainly see why someone would find the entire story disgusting, and the point isn't to imply fights are fun tests of machoness. The point is not to escalate a fight if you're going to lose it anyway. To continue your example, if someone had chosen to threaten lethal force, they would have been escalating it yet again, and may have just as well ended up getting killed themselves. (For example, if the other person had an armed group of friends nearby.) The entire hypothetical thing is an example of how things can get out of hand really fast. The main reason I brought it up was that a lot of people think of eye gouges and groin shots as a "get out of jail free" card in a fight, and doing so has a good chance of getting them seriously hurt against someone who will not be stopped by it. That aside, I certainly agree with this part: >This is why you avoid fights in civilized society, and disengage as quickly as possible if you cannot.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    You can't de-escalate a fight unilaterally. You can try to surrender. But if you tap out and the guy keeps hurting you, what do you do? Let him? Way to go, Gandhi, but you're still bound for the hospital. In certain fights, surrender may be equivalent to suicide. You would need to know something about the character of your opponent, when you are probably only acquainted with his fists. If you are in actual fear for your life, you should be trying to incapacitate your opponent by any means at your disposal, whether it is likely to piss him off [more] or not. What would he do? Beat you to death twice? Since escalation can be unilateral, and de-escalation is usually not, that produces a ratcheting effect that few people can afford to crank up. You never know if the other guy is going to be a grand-master fighter. Or a psycho. Or both. I stand by my opinion that beating on a guy who is already defenseless represents an escalation, and the loser is not able to meaningfully de-escalate from there.
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
Your initial point makes sense, but: > There's a common (apocryphal?) story about an untrained guy who got into fight with an experienced grappler. The grappler got the takedown, got on top and was beating on him a little to show he'd won. Then right when he was about to stop and let him go, the guy tries to stick his fingers in his eyes. He ends up getting completely brutalized by his now really upset opponent who had already won and wants to punish the loser for trying to permanently blind him rather than just accept he'd lost. That sounds like the grappler making up a bunch of bullshit to excuse his own sadistic brutality. If someone has you pinned down and is beating on you "a little" (WTF?), a rational person does not assume that they're "about to stop and let him go". You assume they're going to keep on hitting you until their arm gets tired, and you take any measure necessary to save yourself from permanent injury or death. From the perspective of the guy on the ground, he was getting the shit beat out of him no matter what, so there's nothing to lose in trying for a gouge.
- qrendel 11y ago
  Perhaps I should have left that part out, but as I replied below, the moral is supposed to be that eye gouges and groin shots won't help much if you can't control the fight already. The guy already winning hands down is in a lot better position to pull those dirty tricks, so there is definitely "something to lose" by escalating it. The saying is "position before submission." But a lot of people make money teaching unreliable self-defense stuff about how you can beat anyone with a quick eye gouge or groin shot, leaving people with a dangerous sense of self-confidence, imo. It's low percentage stuff, least likely to work on a truly dangerous opponent and mainly just good for hurting people who pose no threat to you anyway. Hence the story as a potential warning.
  - V-2 11y ago
    And don't forget the art of handgun disarming :)

scott_s 11y ago

Very much agreed; I tend to dismiss claims of "we study lethal moves, so we're more effective". You are good at what you train at. Training must be a close simulation of reality.

mcv 11y ago

We didn't practice the throat ripping at all, obviously (except maybe feeling the spot behind the throat where you need to put your fingers), but the whip technique was really the standard strike. Only we did it to the stomach rather than the eye. But it's hard to tell whether your technique is any good, and aim is completely irrelevant. Maybe you could combine this with aiming at an eye-sized target? But it's always going to be a very crude approximation of the real thing. Same thing with medieval fencing: injury is a big part of sword fighting, but you don't want to do that in real life, so you use blunt swords and lots of protection, so you have no idea whether your strike to the wrist would have been ineffective or would have chopped off the hand. And because protection is never perfect, you also train not to hit too hard, which is the exact opposite of what you'd want to do in reality.

V-2 11y ago
Yeah exactly, so practicing sword fighting doesn't prepare you for real sword fighting as good as boxing prepares you for a real-life fist fight. Because you can practice boxing at full force, and you can find out if you're able to knock someone down. Of course noone goes 100% on every sparing, but once in a while, or in competitions - entirely possible. Every practice is an approximation, sure, but some approximations are (inevitably) orders of magnitude more crude than others.